Nick Cutter - The Deep

The trunk had a huge silver latch. If you got trapped inside the trunk—if that were to happen somehow, accidentally or not—that latch would keep you locked in. Its interior smelled like the white balls Luke’s neighbor Mr. Rosewell scattered under his crabapple tree to keep mice away… that, plus another smell, impossible to name. The trunk was lined with cracked brown skin; Luke imagined it’d been stripped off an alligator, or a Komodo dragon. The skin was tacked inside the box with dull brass rivets.

Luke didn’t like the box. No, his feelings were stronger than that—he hated it on sight. He wondered if whoever had sold it to his mother had given her a steep discount just to get it off his hands.

Luke hadn’t wanted it in his room, which was of course where it ended up. His mother insisted.

Now you’ve got a spot for all your stuff, she said mock-brightly. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

He grudgingly threw his toys into it—all but his most precious ones, which he couldn’t imagine leaving inside. His foolish prepubescent self had been scared that when he closed the lid, the trunk would release an acid that would melt them into runny goo like beaten eggs; its lid would open and close, a pair of greedy lips, gummy strings of what had been his Matchbox cars and army men stretched between them.

Feed us, Lucas , he’d imagine it whispering in a guttural voice after all the houselights had been switched off. We’re so hungry. So hungry. Feed us any old thing; we don’t mind. It’s all meat. Come closer, why don’t you, so we can tell you what we really want…

He hated sleeping with it in his room. Clayton had been spending most nights down in his lab by then, so it was just Luke and the trunk and the shadows cast by the backyard maple bending over the walls.

Sometimes he’d awaken with a shudder and swear he’d heard the trunk moving on its casters: the sound of marbles rolling across a pane of glass.

He decided one night to mark the trunk’s edge with a piece of sidewalk chalk; the next morning, Luke discovered with fright that it had moved an inch over the line. Slowly but surely it was advancing toward his bed.

When he told Clayton, his brother smirked.

The floor is warped. The trunk is on wheels. Of course it rolls a little, dummy .

The next day, he dragged the Tickle Trunk down to the basement. His parents were both out. Clayton was supposed to watch Luke, but he’d left the house on a specimen hunt. It was Luke’s best chance to rid himself of it once and for all.

He hated touching the wormy grain of its wood, festooned with those capering clowns. As he’d backed down the staircase with it, the trunk sat heavily against his chest; its weight was dreadful, a slab of pulsating stone.

He dragged it across the kitchen linoleum and bumped it down the basement stairs. He dropped it, breathing heavily, and opened the crawl space door. A three-foot-tall storage room sprawled over half the basement. Inside were old boxes cowled in spider’s webs, full of stuff Luke’s parents had no use for but were loath to throw away.

He snapped on the lightbulb, which swayed on a knotted cord, and pushed the trunk past the crawl space door. He got on his hands and knees and pushed it farther inside. Dust motes swam in the air. His heart thumped; his mouth could’ve been packed with sawdust. He wanted to abandon the trunk at the very back of the crawl space. It seemed to have gained fifty pounds since he’d lugged it out of his bedroom.

Suddenly he pictured the crawl space lightbulb burning out, the door slamming shut, and the trunk lid popping open.

Alone at last . That guttural whisper—but real this time, not just in Luke’s mind. Come here, Lucas, and let us whisper in your ear. No? Okay, we’ll come to you…

Anxiety coated Luke’s brain in a suffocating glaze as he pushed it to the very back of the crawl space. It was early afternoon; sunlight streaked through a dirty casement window. If it weren’t for that fragile link to the outside world, Luke might not have gotten it that far.

He let go of its handle—for an instant his hands wouldn’t come unglued—and started back toward the door. The trunk sat in the fall of weak sunlight, bloated and sullen.

“There,” Luke said with a triumphant little smile. “You stay where you belong.”

That night, his mother forced him to go fetch it again. In the dark.

She’d immediately noticed it was missing. Luke was positive she had been waiting for Luke to try something sneaky. She crossed her enormous fat-girdled arms at the dinner table, eyeing him down.

“The trunk, Lucas. You’ve moved it.”

Luke didn’t look up from his plate. He pushed peas around with his fork. “I put it downstairs. It’s just, there’s not enough room. The trunk’s big and our bedroom, with me and Clay both in it, it’s really too—”

“What do you suggest? Move into a mansion?” Harsh, barking laughter. “Do you think your father could afford that ?”

Luke swallowed, forced his head up.

“I don’t like it, Mom. I’m sorry. Thank you for buying it, but…”

Her mouth set in a hard line—it was the only part of her body that hadn’t gone permanently soft.

“You’ve hardly given it a chance. You will go downstairs, Lucas Adelaide Nelson. You will bring it up.”

The dread etched on his son’s face forced Luke’s father, Lonnie, to intervene.

“Beth, honey, do we really have to—?”

Lonnie’s objection died with a glance from his wife. He gathered his menthols and his cup of tea and slipped into the family room.

“What are you waiting for?” His mother’s arms remained crossed. “An engraved invitation?”

Luke sat rooted to his chair. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to move—he physically couldn’t . His mother gripped his wrist fiercely and marched him to the basement door.

“Go,” his mother said. “ Now .”

Luke didn’t argue. He had a vague but dire notion that given reason, his mother could conjure torments worse than whatever the trunk held in store.

He trooped down the squeaky, swaybacked stairs. He waved his hand around until his fingers brushed the light cord. The bulb illuminated his father’s workbench, the water heater, and the door to Clayton’s unoccupied lab.

His mother shut the door. Luke’s heart made a donkey kick in his chest.

It’s just a stupid trunk , he told himself. It’s ugly and gross but it’s not alive , okay? It can’t hurt you .

Then why did you try to get rid of it? asked a second, traitorous voice. And why did it inch across your bedroom floor?

The crawl space’s cheap plywood door swung open to reveal a darkness that raised the downy hairs on his arms. The trunk lay inside, waiting.

You’re back, Lucas! So soon, so soon. Lovely. Do come in.

The crawl space’s light cord dangled to the left of the door, a flimsy string with a bell-shaped bob of plastic on the end. It took a few adrenaline-pinching seconds to find it—had it been moved? He overbalanced, nearly toppling face-first onto the floor.

His fingers brushed the cord. He’d reached too far at first.

The trunk sat where he’d left it, at the very back of the crawl space. Boxes were stacked on either side, forming a rough corridor. He hadn’t noticed the alignment that afternoon. Had someone—some thing —moved the boxes?

He crawled toward it. Silky rustling noises emanated from behind the boxes. Mice? But they didn’t have a mouse problem. Clayton had trapped them all. Every last squeaker.

Luke’s nose filled with the smells of wood rot and mildew. Our house is diseased , Luke thought weirdly. But only right here, in the crawl space . And Luke was in the heart of the disease now, crawling toward its decaying tumor.