The Teeth Box

Dark and sinister was the night of the New Year’s Eve. The streets were deserted after midnight, and only flying papers were rustling like autumn leaves. Silent and haunting. From the window of the Bailey’s house was a shadow—a shadow of a boy standing in the dark. His piercing eyes twinkled under the street lamp, like of the cat’s. With his hot breath, he fogged the window and drew on a smiling face, big rounded eyes and a malicious grin. He smiled back, looking at it with an unshakable confidence.

His door creaked and was opened slowly. “Go to sleep, Max. It’s late, ” said his step-mother. He glanced quickly and nodded with consent, remembering that he had no mother. Few years ago, when he was six years old, his mother was found dead in the garage. The detectives said it was just an accident, but he knew it was more than that.

On his bed he lied like a mommy, trying to have some sleep. He rolled his eyes towards the dim light that penetrated from the door crack. “Charlotte!” he shouted, hallucinating about his sister, a year younger than him. Last month, she was reported missing, and no one had found her yet.

It was four in the morning, and he was still awake. The wind blew the window savagely. The ghost, he thought, glowering at the paper that was struck on the glass. Out of his bed he tiptoed. The wooden floor creaked under his feet, and he carefully looked at the paper. A smirk was drawn on his face. Dead, he told himself.

The same woman who was chasing him in his dreams was chasing him that night. Under the street lamp she stared at him, waving her amputated hand. He glared back from his window, challenging her looks. Moments of suspense intervened between them, as if one would confess a murder to another. Seconds later, the woman vanished.

From nowhere, the white-dressed woman reappeared, standing on the corner of his bedroom. Like a three-D picture, she held her body as though of a coat holder, just motionless. Her dress was torn like by lion’s claws, and her face was shadowy behind her dishevelled hair. He fell on his knees, not expecting her to be in his room.

“Kill, Kill, Kill...” he heard her saying under her breath. With a lopsided grin on his face, he stepped forward, collecting his courage. “Kill you first,” he said with a rattling voice. “Then I’ll kill them all.” His eagle-like eyes flushed in the dark, as if there was an evil spirit inside them.

The night was so long that he thought the morning would not come. His hallucination he often named “Luciana “vanished after one hour as usual. Under the blanket he covered his face, afraid that another phantom would come over.

Gentle knocks on the door got him think if they were real. “Max, are you okay?” his father said with a motherly voice. He waited behind the door for a response, but there was none. He must be asleep, he thought, leading his way to the living room.

Mr. Williams was a middle-aged man, very handsome and charming. Although he had lost both of his wives, he was still a loving father for his son. Max’s mother, Mary, had worked as a nurse for seven years before she died. The second wife, Clara, had spent three months with them. After preparing for a celebration for her new job, that evening she was found dead, face-down on the bathroom floor. All evidence showed that she hit her head on the floor by accident.

Seven in the morning, the clock went off, and Max woke up, as though he was really asleep. He grabbed his school bag lazily and went down stairs. On the sofa was his father, asleep because of the last night’s heavy drink. The living room smelled like a dead rotten rat. Empty bottles of wine were scattered on the table. Near the sofa was a broken glass, shattered into tiny pieces. Max glanced at the mess, shrugged his shoulders, and then walked away, remembering that his father had always been that way.

Stephanie, Max’s step-mother, appeared from her bedroom, wearing a short, nearly transparent nightgown. She approached him, and with her sweet and soft lips she kissed his cheeks, saying very gently the everyday-goodbye word.

She was young—very young, in fact, to marry such a man twenty years older than her. After graduating from the law school, she met her husband, Mr. Williams. Their love for each other was so pure that the age difference wouldn’t matter anymore. Although she knew his past relationships and his twenty-year-old son, she strongly believed that he was the one.

Walking steadily toward her husband, she threw him with a pity look. He was smelling like a dead corpse. On the edge of the sofa, she sat, playing with his disarrayed hair. She shook him gently and scratched his back with her witch-like nails. No response. “Adam, baby, wake up!” she said while she was trying to turn his head upwards. A shriek of horror escaped her mouth; she shouted, “Dead!”

Who killed him? What for they would kill him? Face-down, mouth open, Dan’s two central incisors teeth were pulled out. No blood and no evidence of any crime. Horror escalated on her spine like a frozen cube, and with an almost paralyzed hand, she grabbed her phone and dialed the police.

Sitting alone in the school backyard bench, Max stared in the void, listening to the voice of knuckle-cracking. From far away it came, but it was just in his head. He verged his eyes to the other side. A man with a scythe in hand stood few miles away from him. His shoulders, awkwardly broad, moved up and down every step he took.

Suddenly he vanished and then appeared beside Max, sitting on his left and his legs both amputated, and blood was pouring on the ground. He swung his tights and leaned, whispering to Max’s ear, “Kill,” The voice was like of a serpent, unevenly hissing.

A minute passed. Humming interrupted. At what he’s looking? Thought Aaron, Max’s friend since childhood. They had studied together and flunked the same years. He hummed, pushing his head forward. “Hey! Is everything okay with you?” he said, sitting on Max’s left side.

Gone, the man was no longer there. Max sighed, perplexed. His pupils were shaking as he was looking at Aaron, and he kept shut, unable to say a word. “The same person?” Aaron said calmly, knowing that his friend had been suffering from this delusion for the past two years. Max nodded and verged his glance to that void again.

They were the same symptoms he had read about. Max knew that he was schizophrenic, but the fact wasn’t that easy to tell it to everyone. Since it first started, he was hallucinating about a six-year old girl whose face was completely burned. She had been following his shadow for about a month, saying maliciously “You’re dead” over and over again.

Every year, his hallucinations were getting worse, and Aaron was the only person who knew that.

Back home, the police had already started investigating before Max arrived. It was three in the afternoon. The sky was coated with snowy clouds. Near the window, Stephanie starred vacantly as the detectives were collecting evidence. “Mrs. Williams, may I ask you some questions?” said the detective who was holding a red-covered copy book. She nodded with consent.

Max looked over his shoulder to overhear what she was saying. Nothing. He moved toward the window and put his hands on its sill, remembering what happened the last night.

She is beautiful, he thought as Stephanie opened the door to check on him. But she is not mine, he said to himself regretfully. No one could have imagined that she, too, had feeling for him, too. Secretly sneaking into his bedroom, she couldn’t help it not to give up to his tender touches. That night, she loved him even more.

The time he first saw her dancing on a children song like a still-not-grown-up girl, he promised that no one would ever hurt her. He loved her despite the fact that she was married to his father.

After the interview, she stood near Max’s side, silent. Love wasn’t just words; they felt it till the bones without a single word. She glanced at her husband’s dead body, and she felt nothing—even the slightest. Her feelings were all for Max.

She thought once she had married Dan that she would have a happy marriage, but she was very wrong. Dan had no feelings for her; he had deceived her by fake promises. Her mother was right. She told her that something in his eyes was of a hidden devil. Stephanie just nodded at that time in order not to argue with her mother, but now her nod was of a great regret.

Few days ago, and while she was cleaning up the wardrobe, she found a small wooden box sealed with a rotary combination lock. Out of curiosity, she tried to unlock it, but her husband saw her. He grabbed the box from her hands and pushed her on the floor, as if it was some kind of a treasure.

In the crime scene and after hours of research, the detectives did not find any clue, no blood or fingerprint. Everything was done so cleanly.

After Max being interviewed, he sat on the opposite side of the victim’s body, starring. His father was dead, but no feelings seemed to float upon his heart. He knew he would not regret it—regret won’t be an option because he knew who killed him, He.

YESTERDAY, THREE THIRTY IN THE MORNING, MAX RECALLED:

Roaring outside like a raged dog, the wind blew the only bedroom window. It was unusually cold, but there was some warmth. In his bed, she hugged him and slept, like a child hugging his mother. His arms under his head, he flashed back to the days when his father promised that he would not be the same. Dan killed his first wife and then his second without showing the slightest grief. When he innocently asked him why he did that, he said dismissively that all women deserved death, but for him it was not the same. Max loved his mother very dearly.

FOUR YEARS EARLIER:

His father was a psychopath, he knew that from the very beginning, but he didn’t dare to tell anyone. He saw him kneeling down his mother’s dead body, pulling out her two central incisors teeth and hiding them in a wooden box.

Why would he do that? Were all psychopaths like this, kill and take some organs from their victim’s body to treasure them, as though it was a thing to feel proud of?

When Dan was a ten-year-old boy, he fell off the stairs. His mother, an alcohol addict, was said to be the one who pushed him down, causing him to lose his two central incisors. His life was ruined because of her. At school and everywhere, he was the center of bully.

Although his mother consoled him, he blamed her for everything that was happening. The days that had passed were very tough on him, but he knew deep inside that his blood was craving for something else, murder. Few months later, his mother was found dead like a rotten rat, covered on her bed.

He tasted blood for the first time, and he liked it. He liked how it trickled from his mother’s mouth like a torrent of red wine. After he had put a mixture of oleander in her water, he took the chance, when she fainted, to pull her teeth. Who would figure out that he did it if the house was as deserted, no one. His father was at work, and the body was found clean from any evidence.

STEPHANIE, WALKING AROUND, REMEBERED WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT:

It was quarter past five, the door was knocked gently, and she knew it was Dan. In Max’s bed, she pretended to be asleep, but she feared they would be caught red-handed. Nothing seemed to be so terrifying to her than these few seconds he stood behind the door. Relief. He walked away as he realized that nothing was strange.

MAX, LOOKING AT HER FROM THE WINDOWSILL, HE GRINNED, REMEMBERING HIS WELL-KNITTED CRIME:

I knew he would kill her if I didn’t kill him first, he thought after taking some deep breaths out of satisfaction. As Stephanie sneaked out of his room, he walked downstairs, heading to the kitchen. From his pocket, he sorted out some oleander, the poisonous flower that could kill anyone without mere evidence. He tossed few in the vodka’s bottle, knowing that his father will want some that night, too.

Long ago, he saw Dan opening the teeth box, and he knew that his mother’s teeth were there as well as Clara’s. He was sure that his father would take Stephanie’s, but not anymore.

It was a bitter revenge, but it was more than that. He enjoyed it; it felt really good seeing his father’s body hopeless and lifeless. Blood smelt heavenly inside his nostrils, and he want more of it, as if it was a rush of adrenaline climbing up on his back. It felt like a dose of drug, addictive always.

TWO MONTHS EARLIER, AT HOME:

Charlotte, Max’s sister, had left the house secretly, afraid that she would be her father’s next victim. She witnessed Clara’s being brutally killed. Dan, thinking no one was home that evening, he walked into the bathroom, and, without hesitation, he hit her on the head. She collapsed like a bag of cement on the floor, and he, using his dental forceps, pulled out her two central incisors. Blood gushed out of her mouth, staining his hands and dirtying his evil soul.

His years he had spent working as a police officer came with an advantage_ the advantage of leaving his crime scenes as spotless. Forcing his son to clean up after him, that’s what made Max’s murder look unsolvable.

ONE WEEK EARLIER, STEPHANIE’S DAIRY:

I started hating Dan, but I think I’m falling in love with his son. Max is the type I crave to love, not an old, alcohol-addict man. My mother was right when she said there was something wrong about him. I didn’t believe her because I thought she was being super-protective. After he pushed me on the floor for a stupid box, I regretted every damn thought of being happy with him. Now, Max is my only hope.

A DAY AFTER DAN’S DEATH, INSIDE MAX’S THOUGHTS:

My father’s artificial teeth are safe, and I can rest in peace. No one will ever know what happened only Stephanie. That night when I asked her if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, she nodded, but does she know that I’m a psychopath like my father?