Jacob's Chair

When I got home from work, a delivery truck was just leaving. My wife, due to give birth in a few weeks, waddled to the door, “Your dad sent some things from Virginia. Your Aunt Marjorie passed away last week. He cleaned out her house and sent some things.” My young son burst through the door, wrapping me in a big hug around my knees, “Dad! Dad! Grampa sent some goodies!!!”

We picked through the treasure trove, my wife and my young son oohing over the trinkets sent from my father. My son found the care package sent by my mom and, opening up the goodies, munched away content. My wife told me she had a surprise, “Look what I’ve got in the baby’s room”. I stopped dead in my tracks at the door; it was an old rocking chair. It was made entirely of wood, the varnish cracked in a few places. In any other circumstance, it would be a beautiful piece of work, but I looked upon it with a growing dread.

I told my wife, “That is Jacob’s chair.”
“Who’s Jacob?” my wife asked. I sighed, “No one you’d ever want to meet. A mean old man that was mad at the world-and took it out on everyone around him.”

As I tossed and turned that night in bed, the nightmare returned…

         I was eight years old and staying at my Aunt Marjorie’s house for the summer. It was an old country house that my aunt shared with her husband and his family. Buster’s mother, Miss Martha, was a saintly woman, always smiling and cooking treats that I loved to munch on while I played during those summer days. My aunt was a strong country woman, able to do a full day’s work and still have time to play cards with me on rainy days. Buster, her husband, was a mean spirited man, always playing cruel jokes on me. He would laugh at me about my going to school, since he’d dropped out when he was eight years old.

It was Jacob, Buster’s dad that terrified me from the moment I saw him. He had suffered a stroke and was confined to sitting in his rocking chair all day, looking out of the window. His speech was affected, so he didn’t talk-he grunted. When he laughed that horrible laugh, his mouth would twist horribly into a toothless evil grin. His body was bent into a shriveled frame; his hands were crone-like; gnarled and twisted with arthritis. He suffered from coughing fits and would constantly hawk and spit into a coffee can beside his chair. According to my dad, Jacob was meaner than Buster. He would torment my dad’s sisters until my dad was big enough to stare him down.

As I ran in the house one day, I tripped over Jacob’s chair, knocking over the coffee can. Jacob glared at me and, lifting his cane, grunted that ‘he was going to teach me a lesson’. At that moment my grandfather walked in, having stopped by to pick me up. He shouted, “JACOB!! You touch that boy it’ll be the last thing you do on God’s green Earth!” Jacob glared at my grandfather, but backed down. I spent the rest of the summer at my grandfather’s house, never to set foot back at my aunt’s until Jacob died in his sleep, choking on his own phlegm.

I woke up in a cold sweat, the dream still echoing in my head. I went downstairs for something to drink, but I stopped outside the baby’s room. I felt my blood start to chill as I heard the creak of that rocking chair. I pushed the door open, knowing that I would scream at whatever I saw in that chair. But it was my son, rocking back and forth, staring out of the window. I called him softly with no response. When I spoke sternly, he came to a sudden stop, turning to me and glaring. I felt my bowels turn to water; it was the same stare that Jacob would give me when I was a child. My son got up and brushed past me as he went back into his room.

The chair seemed to have a hold over my son. He started getting in trouble at school, picking fights with kids in the neighborhood, even tormenting stray animals that wandered in our yard. I told my wife that the chair had to go.

I woke up to thunder crashing outside the windows. Even with the thunder, I could hear the creaking of that damned chair. Reaching in the darkness, I found something to swing in case I needed it. I went to the nursery; there was my son rocking back and forth in Jacob’s chair, his eyes seeming to glow with an evil glare. As I willed myself to move forward, the lightning flashed and I could swear I could see Jacob’s shadow on the wall. A voice grunted from my son’s mouth, “Gonna teach you a lesson boy!” My son slunk across the room, murderous intent in his eyes. I tripped and fell backwards, but still held on to whatever I’d brought with me for protection.

As my son started to wrap his hands around my throat, I swung my makeshift club. There was a blinding flash and my son fell back. I heard a scream, “NOOOOOooooooo!”, then only the thunder.

I turned on the light to check on my son, who was no worse for wear. It was then I look at what had protected me; it was my grandfather’s walking stick. I had no idea how it had gotten in my bedroom. I picked up my son and carried him back to his own bed.

The next day, I took an ax to that cursed chair and burned the pieces until there was nothing left but ash. And the cane? It now sits in the nursery, watching out for my brand new baby daughter.