The Black Box

There was only one rule: don’t open the door. You could scream, weep, wet your pants, as long as you didn’t open the door.

“How can it be that hard?” Matthew had asked.

Jaime had laughed, eyes wide with imagined horrors, and bitten into her candyfloss. “Well nobody knows what happens in there, but nobody’s won the prize yet!”

“Dad, you freaked out when you got locked in the toilet.” Ella loved bringing that up. “I don’t reckon it’s for you.”

Which was why he was now stood in the middle of a black curtained cube, shivering in his boxer shorts. He had taken the blindfold off after the prescribed twenty seconds, and now he wasn’t even sure where the door WAS.

Outside, he could hear the hubbub of the fair, and nearer, Ella’s voice. “….bet he wimps out…”, then Jaime’s “…home for dinner….”, then nearer still, a hiss. Matthew looked towards the sound and saw a sallow vapour seeping from beneath the curtain, creeping across the wet concrete floor. Was that a stain? He bent to look closer, and the lights went out.

It took a second to realise the sound had gone too. Matthew stood for a moment listening to his heartbeat, the scuff of something nearby, a flutter at the curtains, and… a second heartbeat? And then the screaming started. From every side, beyond his walls, the screams tore across the air, cut off in guttural gasps.

Then Ella’s voice, almost beside him. “Let me in! Dad, let me in.” Jaime’s too, and a hammering. Matthew lunged for a curtain, groping his way towards the noise, touching softness, wetness, unaccountable warmth and finally, a handle. “Dad! Please!”, “Ella, RUN!”, and a scream, two screams, and again, was that a second heartbeat, beneath his, in the sudden silence?