Mystery Box

I'm typically an early riser. Mainly because I enjoy the pre-dawn hours before sunrise. There's typically a peace and serenity that I have a hard time achieving later in the day, mainly because of all the activity.

I sit back after having my shower and prepping my body for the day by stretching and a little exercise. I find the time and peace grounding for my soul.

Today had to be different, of course, just when I thought I had reached the appropriate level of zen before my wife awoke and before the dogs looked for food and play.

Just after sitting in my favorite observation chair, just a typical kitchen chair facing the big paned window that faced the road in front of the house, I hear this mechanical whirring just outside. Sounded almost like a small fan. I was having my morning coffee at the time. Cold ice coffee in a large mug, black and bitter as hell. Wakes me up and gives me something to look forward to before eating anything.

I heard that whirring getting closer and closer to the house, after a couple of minutes, it sounded like it was right outside the front door. I said to myself "OK, what's going on here?" I had to investigate. I got up and went to the front door, making sure to peep out the window first before opening the door. Can never be too cautious nowadays, might be a ploy of some kind for somebody to get into the house for some strange reason or worse yet, thinking they could get something valuable.

I see that it was a drone with a box, not a typical thing for me to see but I'd heard that they existed. I opened the door and the drone landed and released the cardboard box and then it took off. I couldn't help but to watch the ascent off into the sky, wondering where it was heading next. I looked at the box it dropped off and tried to remember if I was expecting any package from anyone or anywhere. I was sure there was nothing so this became more perplexing.

Just then I heard Rose stirring in the house behind me. She yelled down the stairs, "what was that?" I told her that we have a delivery. This was all before I could even pick the darn thing up. I heard her racing down the stairs and turned to see her rushing to the door. I backed up as she picked up the box from the porch. She said, "I reached out to the veteran's association to see if we could reconnect with some of your old Navy buddies." I told her that there was never a need to do that, "all my old buddies were dead, no one to reach out to." She said, "you never know unless you try."

Mystery solved, at least for the moment, I went to sit back down and finish my coffee. Rose hadn't yet left the front porch and just held the box in her hands as if reading the label on the packaging. She said, " I don't think it's them, this feels heavy." She brought the package to the table and opened it. She removed some bubble packing and saw a small circular object sitting on the bottom of the box. It had small intricate carvings on it, "you'll like this," she said. Looks just like that Myan calendar you have in our study but much smaller." I thought how strange, who knows that I even collect things like that. She said that the return address was odd and looked like it came from somewhere overseas. Stranger still.

I said to Rose, "better set it down on the table and don't touch it until I have a chance to give it a good "once over." She said, "my goodness, I see you're still as paranoid as ever, you can let all that military stuff go now. You're retired." "Never," I said.

Regardless of my minor warning, Rose kept digging away at it. She was now in the living room, on the opposite side of the kitchen, not far from me. Rose is still giving me a play-by-play account of her adventure with the package. She then says, "there's something sticky on the bottom of it and it's hard to pull away." I think something to myself that how somehow this reminds me of something. As she pulls at the object I hear a small pop and a slightly acrid smell emits from the living room that immediately sparks the memory and immediate danger. I yell out to Rose, "NO, STOP NOW!" In an instant, it was too late. I had sprung from my chair trying to reach her before the explosion. All I could see was Rose in her bathrobe with her face near the box. Then I saw nothing but a flash before seeing nothing else but darkness.

Upon regaining my sight and some sense of orientation, I could see that I was no longer standing, My face burned hot from the flash and I smelled smoke.

Once I regained partial sight I saw that I definitely was not at home. Confused, I yelled out, "ROSE!, ROSE!" I didn't hear any response. My mind was racing and I couldn't help but think that she had been killed by the explosion. How I got outside, I have no idea. Once the brightness of the flash faded I noticed that I was nowhere near the house. I was on a dismal-looking beach. The sounds and smells of the ocean slowly became clear after a little time. I wondered if I had some sort of mental breakdown. Where was Rose? Where the hell am I? How did I get here? I could remember my morning very clearly before that damn box arrived at my door.

Pushing forward and still recovering from the shock, I kept walking along the dismal-looking beach and thinking about my beloved Rose. As I was walking I could see some debris in the sand. At first, it just looked like the typical sea life garbage, old fish parts, and leftover chum. As I moved further, I see the parts being bigger and a lot more ominous. It began to look like some washed-out and sand-covered fleshy parts of some animal or animals at this point because there were so many scattered along the beach. It soon struck me that I'd been here before and I felt a feeling of dread. While serving, I had been deployed to an area that suffered a naval accident and we responded to assist in the rescue. "Nothing to rescue," I remember saying to the Chief. A large refugee boat had been caught up in the propulsion wake of a much larger ship. It pulled all 127 refugees and their single boat into the propellers of the larger vessel. Nothing but blood and body parts flooded the surf and spewed everything to the shoreline. The captain of the ship had been warned but refused to order an engine shutdown. Because of international law, the son-of-a-bitch walked away and everyone on the island blamed the Navy and us, who were there to handle the situation. The captain's home port in Asia didn't prosecute him for the crime.

Why was I here and was this a memory or did this shit happen again? I felt overwhelmed and confused, especially when I saw our old ship in port. The same ship was decommissioned three years after the accident. I looked around and saw a hooded figure near the dock entrance. He was holding up another one of those small Mayan calendars, like the one that had arrived at my home. My head was still shaky but I felt this person would know what was happening to me and maybe was even to blame for what was happening, especially about what happened to Rose.

I ran to him and yelled out in an angry voice, "HEY! What the hell is going on here?!" he stooped down and set something on the ground before disappearing behind the woodwork of the dock. By the time I reached where he stood, he was gone. On the ground was a cardboard box, just like the one I received earlier. There was a small note on this one.

"If you want to get back home, sit down and open the box." the note said. After feeling exasperated and feeling nauseous I sat down. I wondered if it were a trap or worse yet, another explosive. I still wondered if what was happening was even real. I came to the conclusion if I were really just stirring in my mind then what further harm could this do to me after Rose? Maybe I would get back to my Rose if this got me back.

I opened the box and after seeing another calendar, I immediately winced but grabbed it anyway. No explosion or pop this time. I just felt like I had fallen through the floor with no hope of holding onto anything solid.

I opened my eyes to darkness and what felt like the air that was a little too warm for my taste. I tried to move but felt something stopping me like a sheet was smothering me. It felt restrictive but I couldn't tolerate it any further and I grabbed and pulled away at it until I was free. It was indeed a sheet and blanket upon me. I was in what I thought was a strange bed, in a strange place. I soon recognized that I was in Rose's old house, the one she lived in before we were married. I was in an old pair of pajamas and figured that I better find out what was going on before something else transpired. I jumped up from the bed and got to the bathroom. Just as I thought, I was actually younger when I looked in the mirror. This is too much. I called out for Rose and she immediately answered to my relief. Although inside, I knew that this one wasn't real. This was easily fifteen years ago. Her voice sounded like a beautiful song. I missed her intently now.

Rose still hadn't arrived in the bedroom so I began to examine my surroundings. Unfortunately, obvious differences popped out in front of me. There were several of those little Mayan calendars nailed to every wall of the room. I tried to escape the room by opening the door to the hallway. Locked, I tried to pry it open but to no avail. The door to this room wasn't a big, fortified door, but now felt like the door to a bank vault. I became frantic and realized that I was now a prisoner. I heard a sound behind me. A sound of creaking, like an old door opening. Looked behind me and saw an old window, now opening with a wind blowing through it. A dark figure just outside, ominous and glaring though I couldn't see the face, the eyes under a hood were glowing yellow and getting closer. It came in the window and when I rushed it, the figure threw up a hand towards me and I was instantly on the floor with a hard thud. I couldn't move and the figure was standing over me. It was the same one that was evading me at the dock. I still couldn't see the face but I did see teeth, long and crooked, with a grin getting wider as it got closer to my face. I felt paralyzed and I could barely utter a sound but I managed to say, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" The creature stopped its descent upon my face and backed off a bit. "I just want you to remember what you've done." in a raspy, evil-sounding voice. I replied, "I haven't done anything to you! Who are you?"

"This is all about YOU, Doc. You've done plenty." A hand, big and overwhelming with the look of a crazy claw, grabbed my face and forced me to look towards the door that was closed previously. I could see Rose past the awful fingers of his claw and saw Rose's body being stripped of its flesh and blown apart by some unforeseen force. I teared up and tried to move but couldn't. The creature seemed to laugh at the sight of my horror. I was able to close my eyes and couldn't help but weep as Rose was killed again in front of me. In my sobbing, I didn't see that the creature had disappeared and the door was opened next to the dismantled corpse of my Rose.

After some time, not sure how much, I was able to crawl past Rose and into the hallway. Instead of the remainder of the house being outside the door, there was only another box. I gathered myself and tried to reconcile the situation. This creature knew my name and details about my life that I hadn't shared with anyone except Rose.

The fear in my heart grew with every passing second. Would this be the box that led me to a horrible death or dismemberment as I had seen with Rose or was this sick MF looking to make me suffer more than what I had already? What choice do I have? Just open the damn box.

I opened the box slowly and with shaking hands, inside, there was another calendar. I decided to finally pick it up but to study it, in case the answer was somewhere in the tiny encryptions on its face. Before I had a chance to study it, I was back in its grasp. I could no longer see anything but the bright, white light.

My sight returned much quicker than before, this time I was back in the desert, in a very familiar place. Just outside Kuwait. Just like I had remembered, I was now back in the medical tent where I had assessed the local folk for malnutrition and any injuries that they may have sustained during the incursion of the first Gulf war. I was greeted by a few of my old friends from the Marines as they joked and jeered with me. Was like old times, before the bad memories had occurred. The little boy they brought to my station was just as silent and smiley as I had remembered from back then. The only thing different, I made sure they gave the little boy a good search before I saw him. If memory served me right, the little bastard was planning on stabbing me in the leg with an old, rusty knife. They found the knife and for the first time, I thought I might be getting ahead of this game the creature was playing with me. I almost got cocky and started to lower my guard a bit.

Just then, one of the Marines, Chris, was a bit of a human tank but was one of the kindest men anyone could ever meet unless you were on his bad side. He brought me something that he thought would be interesting to me. Holy Shit! Another Mayan calendar. This one was different than the others though. I had seen this one before. It was larger and made out of jade. I quickly made the connection. I had actually seen this calendar first back then in the desert. Many of our soldiers and sailors had found rare trinkets out in the sand, many brought these back home with them after finishing their rotation. I remember this one because it was supposed to represent the so-called coming apocalypse. The other thing I remember it for was...

There was a sudden shudder right outside the tent where we sent some of the locals to stand and wait while we did our job inside. The place we corralled them was a place all the locals said was dangerous. We, in a slightly higher rank, had decision-making ability while the officers were doing their discussions somewhere off-site. Granted, many of us made mistakes in our decisions while awaiting the orders of officers but this one was by far one of the worst I had ever taken part in.

The disturbance outside caused a huge gust of air that blew one of the sides of the tent right off its supports. I ran outside with many of the others, only to see the worst of what was to come. I don't know how the locals knew this area outside the tent was dangerous but we should have listened to them. The same little boy I had sent to be outside after his knife incident was trying to get his mother's attention just as an IED exploded between them. The boy's mother caught the brunt of the explosion and like slow motion, disintegrated in front of us. the boy was obviously injured but thrown by the explosion a few yards away. His mother had just been holding one of those small calendars and trying to show it to her son.

It finally clicked, These calendars were a setup for the curious Americans. They knew we would be interested in such things so our enemies set up many of these trinkets to serve as IED's so they could kill us. Our arrogance kept us from fully protecting the locals from the same threats we faced. Many of the insurgents never bothered informing the locals of the dangers even though they were their own people and they thought that some would warn us and thwart their plan of passively killing us Americans. We should have protected the locals better and listened to them when they warned us of the danger.

Behind me, I heard someone calling my name. "Doc, you and your friends robbed me of my precious mother and I was sold into a damnable slavery after I finally recovered from that blast."

I could finally see the creature that had tormented me with that damn box and calendar. It was a man after all with a horribly disfigured face and hands as a result of bad restorative surgery and the effects of the chemical explosive they used in their booby traps. "While you and your friends went home as heroes, we were left to suffer with all this destruction and shit. Now you know a sliver of the pain you caused me."

"Wait," I said. "We made mistakes but couldn't have known what would happen after we left. " "That's the problem with you and your friends, You try not to look back after you do your damage, as if it will disappear without ramifications. Now you have seen the error of your ways." Go home Doc and try to make things right." I couldn't believe what I was learning and I had so many questions that rode alongside my rage at him for killing my beloved Rose. Before I could express myself in the only way I could at this moment, he dropped another box in front of me before he disappeared. I then heard his voice even though I couldn't see him. "Rose is right where she was before I sent you the package, the truth will be there also."

I heard nothing else and the environment began to fade away. I opened the box and was back in my house and at my table. No explosion and nothing looked out of place. A young lady emerged from the laundry room, she looked somewhat familiar but I wasn't sure. I asked her who she was and she said, "I'm Jessica, your nurse, don't you remember me Doc?" I said to her, "Where's Rose? I think she might be in trouble. Jessica said I know that you miss her but Rose has been gone for over four years, she passed just before you came to live with us here."

A brief moment of lucidity made me realize that Rose passed away some time ago and I had been placed in this home because of symptoms of dementia. Shortly after remembering that, I forgot it and thought I saw the glowing smile of my dear Rose before giving me a loving kiss on the forehead and fading away.