Stuff

There was an assortment of odd-looking people at his grandfather’s funeral.

Although the old man had worked for a major pharmaceutical company in the city, none of these looked like company people. However, he was not surprised, because he didn’t really know much about him, except that he had some funny ways. When he was a kid, he would go to his big old house with his parents. Living so far away, they’d not visited him very often. When they did, it was obvious that he was into some really weird stuff. He was a follower of some spooky occult group, he knew that much, but the old man didn’t talk about it; not to him, anyway. The truth of it was that he didn’t like him much. His sense of humour was often a bit off!

Anyway, his parents had been out to the house, on the understanding that they could take anything they wanted before arranging for the place to be sold. They suggested that he do the same, just in case there was something he was interested in.

He remembered, as a kid, how he had seen a black metal box, way up on the top of a cupboard in the cellar. When he asked about it, the old man got really grumpy and told him never to touch it, saying that it contained secret stuff. He’d said that if he ever interfered with it, he would regret it. At the time, it all seemed a bit overdramatic, but he had agreed back then that he would leave it alone.

All these years later, he saw his opportunity to see whether the box was still there. On the day, it was only his curiosity that had him take the long drive to the place. Other than this, He couldn’t imagine finding anything there that he would want.

When he arrived, he made his way directly to the cellar door. The house had always been a dim building. Now, with the electricity off, opening the door he could hardly see the steps that led down. He tried the light switch just in case, but no joy. Using the torch on his mobile phone, he descended slowly.

When he reached the basement floor, he looked back and saw that very little light was entering the room from the door above. His torch was the only thing that allowed him to look around. Moving to where he had seen the high cupboard, he held his phone as high as he could and made out the dark shape of the box, still sitting there. With more searching, he found a wooden chair that seemed strong enough to take his weight. Pulling it to the base of the cupboard, he climbed on. Phone in one hand he picked the thing up and very carefully climbed down.

Putting the metal container on the chair, he stood looking down at it, taking a breath. It was just as he remembered, it had a lid, but no visible lock. Propping the phone on the back of the chair, he needed to use both hands to prise it open. The shadow of the lid prevented him from properly seeing the rows of small glass phials that sat inside. Then, by opening the box further it caused some sort of spring mechanism to bring a heavy metal plate down, crushing the tiny bottles with a loud bang!

His phone clattered to the floor and the torch went out.

Instantly, a great waft of stinking odour hit him in the face. Grabbing a hanky to cover his face, he staggered back. With eyes watering, he could hardly breathe. The stench was overwhelming, yet reminiscent of his schooldays, when stink bombs had been all the rage.

He slammed the box shut and began searching for his phone. Eventually he found it and managed to switch the torch back on. Feeling sick, he began squinting around, trying to locate the foot of the steps.

It was when he was moving slowly to where he thought the stairs were, that he could have sworn he heard a faint giggling…