It is the season of waning winter, of St. Patrick’s Day and lent, of the coming of new life. But the curiosity of children is never out of style, nor the intrigue of forbidden things. This story examines both in short, fantastical form. Please welcome HJ to the Underside, and let him know what you think in the comments!
Medicine Cabinet
by HJ Dutton
The end of Dustin’s childhood came in the form of a book.
He and his sister Kylie found it in Dad’s study, the one room they weren’t allowed in. Dad almost always remembered to lock it, and even if he didn’t, he’d catch them in the act. Once on a particularly boring afternoon, the two decided to explore the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. When opened, the cabinet made a low creak, and in an instant Dad was on them, face red, shouting. They learned to wait till he left the house.
The more Dad forbade them from exploring the study, the more they wanted in. The reek of cigarette smoke hung in the air. Below Dad’s desk sat a mini fridge full of drinks that burned their throats. Drinks they sipped regardless, for no other reason than it wasn’t allowed.
Adjacent to the desk loomed a bookcase. They found the book on the fourth shelf. About the size of Dad’s Bible, it had a gold star on the cover, in the center of which glared an eye. They would have pored through the book then and there if not for the lock. The moment they saw that, they knew they had to get it open.
Kylie tried to pry it off.
“Stupid!” Dustin slapped her hands away. “Dad will know we were here for sure. We have to find the key.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look how worn it is. Doubt he remembers buying it.”
“Do you wanna test that?”
Kylie furrowed her brow for a moment, then shook her head.
Together they rummaged through the house while listening for the tell-tale rattle of the garage door. In the guest room, they jimmied open a desk drawer crammed full of keys. Each key failed, and after a half hour, a mechanical rattling echoed from the garage. Back already. Cursing, Dustin stuffed the keys back into the drawer just as Kylie picked out a bronze key that, when inserted, clicked into place. The door to the garage groaned open. Just a peek inside the book, then they’d put it back.
Its leather made a low creak as it opened. Downstairs, Dad called for them. Kylie flipped through the pages, coughing at the dust they spewed. Dustin glimpsed a few of the words inside, brow knotting. Total gibberish. Total, beautiful gibberish that made his head pulse. Dad called again, louder.
“Coming!” they said.
Reluctantly, Kylie closed the book and ran it back to the study. Why couldn’t Dad have stayed gone just a little longer? Dustin cringed as the drawer refused to close all the way. When Dad called a third time, Dustin left it as it was and prayed it wouldn’t be noticed.
It took two months for Dad to forget to lock the study again. All throughout that wait, the words and figures from the book clung to Dustin’s head like a stain on his brain. They colonized his daily thoughts, reconfiguring them into something old and hard and alien. They got to Kylie too, her days racked with headaches. The second Dad left the house, they slipped into the study and plucked the book off the shelf.
Back in their bedroom, they hid the book behind the headboard of Dustin’s bed, somewhere the cleaning ladies never checked. The whole time, Dustin strained his ear for the sound of Dad’s car in the garage or the thump of Dad’s feet on the floorboards. Neither came. The ease with which they pulled off the heist shocked them both. That night, at the dinner table, the two snuck little smirks at each other, reveling in the misdeed their father for once failed to catch.
They waited for a night when Dad got held up at the office. They had to wait again, almost longer than they could bear. Spring threw the world into a chaos of color. Acorns tapped at the skylights. The willows, their tendrils squirming in the wind, cast crazed shadows into the house. Swarms of pollen smothered the windows like alien spores, trying to break in. Spring break came and went.
Then the day arrived. Right around dinner, Dad sent a text telling them they’d have to fend for themselves tonight. They scurried upstairs and fished the book out of its hiding spot. As they opened it on their bedroom floor, it made a low creak. Kylie flipped to a random page. Squinting, Dustin tried to pronounce the words, and as he did, the gray matter in his skull quivered.
Frn’afl mglw’nafh abh’rnah, or’azath n’ghftephai
Rl’uhor ah n’gha nilgh’ri
Yog-Sothoth
Ah’legeth mgng hnahh vulgtmnahog syha’h
“Holy crap,” he breathed, clutching his head.
Kylie shushed him, then cleared her throat. She began. Just as before, she stuttered through it, trying to whisper words a human mouth didn’t seem made for. Shutters tapped at the window. Many attempts later, she got the hang of it, the words coming out more completely. The shutters drummed the glass, making it tremble. The night wind groaned as it crawled over the roof.
Inhaling, she recited the words faster. Her whispering grew to a hiss. Outside, the leaves hissed with her. An animal squealed and fled. The shutters banged. Across the street echoed the screams of children in the throes of nightmares. The growling wind beat at the house, testing for weak points.
When she spat the last word, the world outside stopped. The shutters lulled on their hinges. The wind stilled. The only sounds were the cries of children, awake from nightmares. As Dustin stared about the room, his eyes settled on the skylight, in which stars dusted the dark blue sky.
Between the stars, something opened.
He scrunched his eyes shut, heart thumping, and stared again. He had not imagined it. A part of the sky, a big part of it—and growing bigger—yawned open like sliced fabric. Behind it gaped a space blacker than anything he’d ever laid eyes on. And from that darkness, something descended.
He squinted at it. Kylie did the same. “What’s that?”
The sky, once a gaping wound, stitched closed, a doorway sealed shut. But the thing had made it through. Dustin’s jaw went taut, and his stomach turned. Scrambling to his feet, he gripped Kylie’s arm. “We have to get downstairs.” Not that they even had time to, but they had to do something.
He glanced back up. It wasn’t just one thing up there. It was a cluster. Orbs, over a dozen of them. All falling, falling, straight toward the house, like comets. Despite the speed at which they plummeted, they made no sound.
They’re going to hit the house. He dragged Kylie to the door. They’re going to hit us.
Swatting his hand away, Kylie pointed at the skylight. “Look. It’s fine.”
Shaking, he forced his eyes back up. By then, the things had arrived. But they did not hit the house. They floated down. Even if they did hit the house, they wouldn’t have done any damage. Too small. A dozen of them, they swirled about each other like red snowflakes. When the things reached the skylight, they bounced off. Over and over, they pecked at the glass.
His sister echoed his thoughts: “I think they wanna come in.”
Before she could make it to the window, Dustin got in her way.
“We don’t know what they are,” he hissed.
Scowling, Kylie pouted and planted herself by the door. Dustin turned his back to her. On his toes, he stretched a hand toward the skylight. The pecking turned to a volley of tiny thumps as they threw themselves at the glass. For a while, he watched them, their bodies bristling. Though they made no progress, Dustin couldn’t stop his hands from trembling. There had to be a way to send them back to wherever they came from, right? He turned back to the book. And froze.
Kylie was gone.
She must’ve tiptoed out. A dull ache lanced through his chest. His scalp prickled with sweat. From the next door room came the sandpaper hiss of a window sliding open. The things, ceasing their assault on the skylight, slipped out of view, swarming toward the new opening. That—as he explained to Dad, and later the police—was when Kylie started to scream.
Meet the author:
HJ Dutton is a Pennsylvania-based writer whose fiction has appeared in Horrific Scribes and Creepy: A Horror Podcast. More of his fiction is forthcoming in Quotidian Bagatelle, Schlock, Audience Askew, and Cryptic Frog Quarterly.
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Incredibly unsettling! Loved it.