The Box

The sun was shining as Kasey ran into the kitchen tracking mud across the hardwood floor.

"Mom! Mom!" She called as she slid to a stop and deposited the large box on the counter. "Mother!" She bellowed. There was no answer.

The box was labeled To Kasey Miller Only and she shook with anxious glee at the thought of the Discman her father had promised her for her birthday.

True, she thought as she peeled off her jacket and slid out of her shoes, my birthday was five months ago but it's better late than never.

Her shoes and jacket piled by the cupboard in a heap of mud and melting snow from the snowball fight earlier, Kasey opened the box.

The scream reached her mother who was upstairs exercising. She hadn't heard her daughter come in and the loud screech caused her to halt in midstretch and run unheedingly down the stairs.

"Kasey?" She called as she entered the spotless kitchen. She glanced around the room and stepped into the living room. "Kasey?" There was no answer.

Two hours later police combed the neighborhood looking for twelve year old Kasey Miller. She vanished without a trace. Despite the talk of kids she had been playing with about a large box, Mrs. Miller never found such an item, and neither did the police. They dismissed it as fantasy. Kasey was never seen again.



"I said I don't care!" Sixteen year old Meghan screamed at her brother who waved her favorite book over the toilet. "Just get out of here." She crossed her arms and glared at her twin with fire in her hazel eyes.

"I said I don't care. Just get out of here." Michael mocked tossed his brown bangs out of his matching eyes. With a cold curling of his lips he dropped the book in the toilet.

"Arrgh!" Meghan growled angrily as Michael beat a hasty retreat. Grumbling, she pulled the book out of the water and placed it on the counter. "Thankfully there was nothing in there." She murmured as she closed and locked the bathroom door and stepped into the shower.



Michael grinned madly as he opened the front door and found the plain cardboard box sitting on the front step. For Michael and Meghan. Open Together it read in dark green ink.

"She thinks she's so clever. She thinks that I'm going to open this in front of her so she can laugh at me when the little prank happens. Her loss." Michael pulled the box inside and tore it open.

His scream was lost under the sound of the shower.



"Michael?" Meghan entered the entryway and glanced at the half open door in anger. "Were you raised in a barn?" She hollered but there was no answer. Angrily, she kicked the door shut but there was a box blocking it.

Cautiously, Meghan pulled the box forward and read the writing on top. To Meghan it said in bright red writing.

"Very funny, Michael. Come out, I'm not going to open it." Meghan said calmly.

There was still no answer so Meghan pulled the box all the way in and shut the door. She looked at the clock. Four fifteen. Father would be home in forty five minutes.

"Michael. Come out." She called again. Still no answer.



Meghan sat anxiously in the kitchen. Four fifty-three and Michael still had not resurfaced. She glanced at the box. The writing had faded to a brown which made Meghan think of dried blood.

Casually, Meghan touched the box. With painful anxiety though she knew not why, Meghan opened the box.

Her father heard the scream as he placed his key in the lock. Many miles away from Kasey Miller, across seven states, the disappearance of the Dustin twins had a similar ring.



Meghan lurched through the black haze that hung over her head. She could hear Michael calling for her, could hear the pain and fear in his voice, but she couldn't find him.

She felt things prodding at her, poking and tearing at her flesh. She cried out in pain and blacked out many times only to wake up in a pool of her own blood. Despite all this she could never just lay there. She never felt weak or never ran out of blood. She never ran out of tears, either, for she cried constantly.



Michael moved against the ties that held him to the sharp cold poker and drained his blood steadily from his body. He tried not to cry but the pain was intense. The pain and the fact that he couldn't seem to lose enough blood to die. He whimpered and called out for Meghan, who called back but never appeared. Why, he thought to himself, why did I open the box?



Kasey knew there were others with her but she couldn't see them. She had lost her eyes to a blinding hot poker. Everyday she lost them then they came back after hours of darkness. She would stand and stare at the twisted world of torture around her and suddenly she'd be seized again and her eyes would be gone once more. She didn't know what she did to deserve this but she apologized for everything and to everyone and still, everyday the poker came and every night she was blind.

Beware, the doorbell has rung,
Beware, the songs been sung,
Don't open the box, you can't hide,
There's a price you'll pay if you peek inside.