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Impending Doom
The grey van drove by, braked, then manoeuvred to pull into the garden driveway in reverse. It came to a stop in front of the garage, and the motor died. A beefy guy eased himself down from the driver’s seat, smashed the van’s door closed behind him and strode to the entrance. He rang the bell.
The door opened, revealing a tall, lean, middle-aged man. “Hello. May I help you?” he asked.
The driver fetched a sheet of paper out of one of his pockets and unfolded it. “Mr…errr… Thomson? Steve Thomson?”
“Yes, that’s me. Well, up to that point that is,” the house occupant answered.
The driver extended his right hand. “Please to meet you, M. Thomson. My name’s Gary and I work for Pastrana Removal and Storage. I’ve got furniture to be delivered to you in my van.”
“Oh yes! I’d almost forgotten!” Steve exclaimed, shaking the other’s hand. “My wife warned me this morning you’d come today.”
“She did well. But please let’s get cracking. I’d like to move in the furniture as fast as possible, if you don’t mind.” Gary turned around and took a step back towards the van.
“Sure!” Steve followed suit.
“Please sign here and… here too,” Gary said, pointing at the sheet. Steve grabbed a pen and scrawled rough squiggles in the apposite boxes. Unloading the van had been a quick task, since most of the furniture was small and light: a bedside table, a couple of lamps, some flatware stored in cardboard boxes. The only item for which the burly employee had had to recourse to a skate was a big and ancient cupboard, made up of a dense, dark wood, probably walnut. That large piece had made its way to the kitchen, where it now towered over the table, in stark contrast to the white, cubical and shoddy elements from the local IKEA store.
“Thanks!” Gary said, shoving the sheet into his pocket. He scraped his chair backwards, stood up and turned around to face the cupboard. Looking at it, “Quite an impressive cupboard you’ve got there mister Thomson,” he said. “Must be pretty old.”
"Yeah,” Steve replied. “As far as I know it has always been in the family, passing from generation to generation as an heirloom since…” he hesitated. “Before the US’ foundation probably.”
Gary whistled. “And you inherited it in turn. But that means…” he broke off in realisation, then carried on in a softer, almost self-conscious, tone, “well I don’t mean to be nosy but has any of your relatives died recently?”
Steve sighed. “Do you remember the Glenwood drive disaster three months ago?”
Gary scratched his head, then his face brightened. “Oh yes! That gruesome fire that razed a whole block in less than one hour, killing eight adults and six children?”
“Uh-huh,” Steve nodded. “My sister, her husband and their son were among the victims. The furniture you moved in was all that was left of their home.”
Gary’s face crumbled. “Jesus almighty! I’m sorry,” he half-muttered. “If I’d known—”
“That’s fine,” Steve cut in. “They’re gone now. There’s nothing we can do about it anyway. We’ve got to move on.”
Gary did not answer and an uneasy hush fell. “Well…” he finally resumed after that overstretched pause, “thank you mister Thomson, it was a pleasure meeting you. Have a nice day.” He extended his hand again. Steve, who remained seated, reached out to shake it with a feeble smile.
“I’m not sure why you want to put all the flatware into that massive and cumbersome cupboard,” Kim said as she stowed a heap of round plates on to the upper shelf. “To say the truth, I’m not sure why you decided to put that thing in the kitchen in the first place. It’s so dark it almost gives me the creeps.”
“Come on!” Steve replied. “You know it’s a sorta family treasure. Besides I don’t trust those IKEA wall cabinets. They look neat from the outside, but each time you put something a bit heavy in them, it’s like they’ll break. This” — he kicked the cupboard side panel, which let out a dull, muffled sound — “is sturdy as hell. Handmade with true, thick wooden planks, not that shitty plywood like most low-cost furniture. I much prefer storing heavy flatware in here and light groceries in the cabinets. And we can put Kate’s stuff in the lower section so that she won’t have to clamber on to her stool any more to reach it.” He looked around. “Where’s she by the way? KATE!” he called, but no answer came.
“Must be watching the TV, it’s roundabout her preferred show time.” Kim stuffed a couple of forks inside a drawer.
Steve walked to the living room. He stopped at the doorjamb. Lounging in the couch, headphones over her ears, his eight year old daughter, ginger and green eyed, was clinging on to her purple unicorn plushy, fascinated by the images of fantasy ponies which flickered on the TV screen. So fascinated she had not noticed her father’s presence. Smiling, Steve silently turned around and walked back to the kitchen.
“You were right. The little brat has the headphones put on,” he said. “She doesn’t hear diddly-squat.”
“Done!” Kim smashed the drawer back into place and exhaled noisily.
“Fantastic! Great job! Time for a good cup of tea now, right?”
Kim nodded silently and beamed.
“Honey!?” Steve was working at his desk, grading papers, when Kim’s voice called him. Usually, he would have simply dismissed her wife’s request with a grunt, but this time he picked up on something uncanny, almost alarming, in her voice. He took his glasses off, which he carefully laid on top of the stack, and walked down the stairs to the kitchen from where the call seemed to come.
Kim was standing in front of the cupboard. One of the doors was opened, and her gaze was locked on something inside it, which Steve couldn’t see from his current position. She looked pale, as if in shock.
“What is it darling?” he asked.
The sound of Steve’s voice roused his wife from her reverie. “Steve, do you remember the plate Kate broke last week? The green one with a unicorn painted on it, that your grandfather made years ago?” she said in a shaky voice.
“Well, of course. It was a unique piece and Kate was so sad to have let it fall. She sulked all day over it. But what of it?”
“It is back,” Kim whispered. She pointed with her forefinger.
“What?” Steve blurted. He walked to his wife, gently nudged her aside and looked inside.
The plate was here, at its usual place, as if it had never been gone. Steve reached out, took it carefully, and brought it to light. He swung it around. It was the same, unmistakably. Same weight. Same colours. Same painting, up to the little mistakes that characterised hand drawing.
“That can’t be,” he said. “It was broken in dozens of shards. This one is perfectly intact. Not even pieced back together. Like brand new.” He put the plate on the table, dragged a chair to himself and flumped on to it. His wife did the same.
“You’re not pulling a fast one on me I hope,” Kim asked. “It’s a very bad joke.”
“Are you kidding?” Steve protested. “How could I? I swept the shards into the dustpan and chucked them into the bin. Crickey, I did it myself!”
“Then what happened?”
“I dunno. I’m lost. This makes no sense at all. Broken objects don’t pop up back just at a finger snap.”
They both looked at each other wordlessly.
“What’s up?!” Kate chirped, barging into the kitchen. She stopped and gazed at her parents. “Wow! You’ve seen a ghost or what?”
Kim turned to her and forced a smile that came off more like a grimace. “Nothing sweetie. Just grown-up business. And… Oh! By the way, Dad mended your unicorn plate. Look.” She reached for the plate and handed it to her daughter.
Kate’s eyes bulged. “What? Wow! This is brilliant!” She took the plate for her mother’s hand and examined it. “It looks great, as if I never broke it! How did you do that? I thought you’d chucked the splinters…”
“Unicorn magic!” Steve replied.
Kate tossed the plate on to the table and rushed to her father. She hugged him tight and gave him a huge kiss on the cheek. “Thanks so much Dad!” she said. “You’re the best dad ever!”
Steve beamed and shrugged. “It wasn’t such a big deal, you know.” Turning back his eyes to his wife, he met her puzzled look.
Time went on without further incident. Autumn froze into Winter, and Winter thawed into Spring. By the beginning of June an unexpected heat wave assaulted the city. Temperatures rose roundabout 100F. Days tuned into vivid nightmares: it was like living in an oven. The slightest mundane effort, such as carrying groceries from the store, was enough to transform everyone into a drenched sponge. Only the ice-cream vendors were on cloud nine.
If days were tough, nights were worse. The air felt like lead, and no matter how wide the windows were opened, not a waft would blow in. Although the outside temperatures fell somewhat down, all the heat accumulated during the day inside the houses could not get away. In those conditions, sleeping had become a challenge.
That didn’t seem to disturb Kim, however. To Steve’s greatest amazement, she was still able to enjoy seven to eight straight solid hours of rest, while himself could not tally more than a couple of hours of slumber. Most of his shambolic nights he spent tapping on his smartphone, leaping randomly from one website to the other in a desperate attempt to kill time and tune out his wife’s regular breathing, until Morpheus finally decided to pay him a short visit.
It was about 2 AM. Steve was watching a stupid video about a crazy giraffe somewhere in a zoo when a rumpus, like crashing plates, erupted down on the ground floor. Kim sat up in the bed. “What the hell is that?” she said.
“I’ve no idea,” Steve replied. Naked, he climbed out of the bed and walked across the bedroom to the corridor. Switching the light on, he tiptoed down the stairs. He glanced briefly into the living room, but all seemed normal. Grunting, he proceeded into the kitchen.
He froze. A feeble whine filtered through the lower section of the cupboard. Every so often, it stopped and a scratching sound took over. Steve came closer, kneeled. He grabbed the handle and cracked the door open.
Something shot from inside through the chink, shoving the door and nearly throwing Steve off-balance. The intruder smashed into a chair, meowed, jinked and darted across the kitchen. Steve spun around, but he still barely had the time to see the critter cross the corridor and disappear in the darkness of the living room.
He exhaled, then stood up. Kicking the cupboard lower door closed, he flicked the light off and climbed the stairs back up. “What was it?” asked Kim, as he slipped back under the bed sheets.
“I’m not 100% positive, but I think it was the neighbour’s moggie. Or maybe some alley cat that looks like it. It should’ve sneaked in through the picture window we left open.”
“Where was it?”
“Inside the cupboard. It should’ve bumped into a heap of plates scrabbling its way out. But the door was closed, so it was trapped inside. As soon as I opened, it hightailed out.”
“How did it get inside?”
Steven shrugged. “I don’t know. Prolly I simply left the door ajar. It must’ve tracked the scent of a shrew or something.”
“Unlikely. I checked myself before going to bed, and all doors were closed.”
“Then it must’ve opened it with its paws. Come on, what are you getting at?” Steve grasped his smartphone on the bedside table, punched his passcode on it. He rolled on his side, his back toward his wife.
“Nothing,” said Kim. “Just wondering. Good night.”
Steve grumbled.
Two days later, the weather swung to rain. Early in the afternoon, a marching army of portent clouds coming from the West blotted the hitherto unmarred cerulean sky. Sudden darkness fell, and soon after lightning spiked all across the heavens, accompanied by a downpour of water.
Bang in the midst of that storm Kim came back home, drenched, arms full of half-torn, soaked grocery bags. She tossed them on the floor of the vestibule, hastily took off her raincoat, then got rid of her shoes – what was left of them anyway. Barefooted, she squelched to the kitchen and put the bags on the table. “Sweetie?!” she called. “I’m home. Where are you?”
“Over here in my room,” Kim's voice replied from the first floor.
Kim walked up the stairs and to her daughter’s room. “Oh!” she said with a smile. “You sheltered a refugee? Isn’t that Themis?”
Kate, seated on her bed, looked tenderly down at the purring cat she was fondling. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Did you warn the Wallaces? They may be looking for her.”
“Oops!” Kate replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t.”
“No worries. I’m gonna do it right away,” Kim said. She turned back to the kitchen, fished her mobile phone out of her handbag and dialled the number of her neighbours.
“Yes?” responded a female voice.
“Jennifer? It’s Kim. I’m just ringing you up to tell you your cat’s here, so don’t panic if you don’t find her around.”
“That’s impossible,” Jennifer replied in a blank tone. “Themis was run over by a car yesterday evening. I had no time to break it to you.”
“What?” Kim almost dropped her phone. “You can’t—” She trailed off.
“Yeah, nasty,” Jennifer carried on. “Dany’s in tears ever since. We bought Themis when he was born, after all. They both grew together. It was quite a shock to him.”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Kim sputtered. “This must be some sort of mistake. I apologise. Take heart.”
“Thanks! We’re going to get over it. It just takes a little while.”
“I’m sure you will. If you want to send Dany over to play with Kate, don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t. Thanks!” Jennifer replied. “Have a great day. Stay safe inside!”
“I will! Bye!” Kim concluded, and she hang up.
She shoved her phone back in her handbag, and sprinted up the stairs back to Kate’s room. Her daughter had not moved in the slightest since she had left a few moments before.
“Kate, sweetie,” she asked, “where did you find that cat?”
Kate squinted at her mother. “Why do you ask?”
“Where the hell did you find that cat?” Kim almost yelled.
Kate recoiled under the violence of her’s mother voice. “She… She was in the cupboard.”
“WHAT?”
“Two hours ago, I went downstairs to get something to eat, and I heard meowing from the cupboard. So I opened it and the cat was inside. What’s the big deal?… Mum!? You feeling all right?”
Kim stumbled backwards, leaning against the doorjamb. ”It’s… nothing,” she finally managed to say. “I climbed up the stairs a bit too quickly I think. I felt a bit woozy, but it’s already passed.” She smiled faintly, and walked off.
“That cupboard is hexed,” Kim said. “First the plate, now the cat…”
“Come on!” Steve replied, plonking his smartphone on the bedside table. “There’s no such thing as ‘hexed’. We’re not living in a horror movie nor in a world where garish unicorns frolic around casting spells on objects.”
“Quit poking fun at me. Do you have any other sensible explanation to offer? I’m listening.”
“Because you call your explanation sensible? That’s coincidences, full stop. Maybe strange coincidences, but otherwise you wouldn’t’ve even noticed them. It happens every so often.”
”I couldn’t care less about your so-called ‘coincidences’. I want you to get rid of that cupboard. Now.”
“For fuck’s sake, Kim, you can’t be serious. This piece of furniture is older than—”
“I don’t give a fuck how old it is or whoever owned it,” Kim interrupted. ”I just want it to get the fuck away from our house forever.”
“Look, darling. Seriously, I can’t do that. At least not because you’ve got a cow about it.”
“Okay, lemme get this straight. It’s either me or your precious cupboard. Your call.”
Steve sighed. “Wow! Okay, but come down. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can rent a box in a self-storage facility somewhere downtown? Meanwhile… I’ll put locks on it tomorrow and keep the keys in a safe place. Deal?”
“Yeah, I guess that’ll be fine. But shove it off as soon as you can. Promise?”
Steve’s hand reached out for her face and gently stroked her bangs aside, before kissing her on her forehead. “Promise,” he whispered, as his lips moved towards hers.
The next day, driving back from the university, Steve stopped at the local hardware store, bought a couple of locks that would not stand out against the wood of the old cupboard, and a handful of screws. Back home, he spent a full hour tinkering with various tools to secure them into place. Satisfied with his work, he gave the locks a try, twirled the keys in the holes until he the bolts moved smoothly. Then he locked both doors up, and stowed the keys away in his wife’s jewel box.
After dinner, Kate went into her room to study and play, while her parents remained in the living room. Kim plunged into the book she had bought yesterday and not begun yet, while Steve chose to riffle through the latest issue of The Economist he had found in the mailbox earlier. After a while, he stood up, went to the cabinet where he stored his huge collection of CDs, picked up Chopin’s first piano concerto, and turned the HiFi on.
It was well into the second movement when they heard a “MUM! DAD!” barely audible over the music coming from the loudspeakers. They leaped from the couch and ran over to the kitchen. Undoubtedly their daughter had been trapped inside the cupboard. Steve kneeled down, grasped the handle and pulled it with all his strength, but the door was stubbornly locked. He turned his head towards his wife, whose face was aghast. “Go get me the key, quick.”
Kim whirled around and rushed to the stairs.
“Don’t panic,” Steven said to his daughter. “Mum’s gone to get the key. You’ll be free in a minute.”
Kim turned back with the key, which she handed over to Steve. He fumbled it into the hole, and turned it. The door clicked open, and Kate, on all fours, crawled out of the cupboard. “Thanks,” she said, once she was fully outside.
“What happened?” asked Steve in a quavering voice.
“I… I went in the kitchen to drink and the door of the cupboard was opened and—”
“The door was opened?” Kim cut in. “Are you sure?”
Kate looked up at her mother with watery eyes. “Of course! How could I have got inside if not?” She began to cry.
“Did you open the door?” Kim asked Steve.
Steve shook his head. “Me? Are you kidding? I just installed the locks, it’s not to let them loose. They’re screwed tight and I can guarantee they were locked.” He turned back to his daughter and put both hands on her shoulders. “Why did you get inside?”
“I don’t know…,” Kate blubbered. “I… I figured out I saw something shining inside and… It was like something in my head wanted me to get inside. And then when I got in, the door closed behind me and I was in the dark and I got scared and—”
“It’s all right,” Steve said in a reassuring tone. “No harm done. Hush…” He embraced Kate tight in his arms.
“Are you going to move this fucking thing out?!” Kim exploded. She cupped her face in her hands and started to sob in turn.
Steve released his daughter and stood up. “Okay,” he said. “I call your sister to pick you up. I think you both shouldn’t sleep here tonight. And tomorrow I swear I chop this thing into small pieces and burn it to ashes.”
Kim nodded.
It was roundabout 1 AM and Steve was rolling in his bed, his eyes lost in darkness. Images swirled round and round in his head: his daughter trapped in the cupboard, his wife freaking out, the cat springing out of the cupboard like a jack-in-the-box, the other cat Kate had found, his grandparents telling him how proud they were to own this master—
“Mum?! Dad?!” Steve twitched as if he had been stuck by lightning. It was Kate’s voice he had heard. Distant, deadened as if… But no, that didn’t make sense. Kate and her mother were sleeping four blocks away from here.
“Mum?! Please! Dad? Help! I’m trapped!” There was no mistaking this time. It was definitely his daughter’s supplicant voice, now accompanied by loud knocks.
He sat up in his bed, slipped into his T-Shirt and jeans, then silently tiptoed along the corridor and down the stairs. Once he reached the ground floor, he carried on to the kitchen.
“MUM?! DAD?! OH PLEASE COME! COME PLEASE! I’M SCARED!” yelled Kate’s voice from inside the cupboard. Steve then heard her snivelling. He bit his lips and stayed put in the doorframe.
“MUM? DAD? PLEASE PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE IT’S DARK AND CRAMPED AND THERE’S A MONSTER LAUGHING AT ME! PLEASE PLEASE I WANT TO GO OUT!” The knocking resumed, louder than ever.
As if suddenly prodded into action, Steve flicked the kitchen light on. “Calm down sweetie,” he said, “I’m here. Gimme just the time to go fetch the key and I’ll be back in a sec.” He turned round, walked to the vestibule and went out. Barefooted, he rounded the house and crossed the lawn to the garden’s shed, opened its door, switched the light on and proceeded in beeline to the gasoline jerrycan he had left next to the lawnmower. He grasped it, then put a lighter that lay on a shelf nearby into his pocket, before striding back to his house. Back in the corridor, he put the jerrycan down and unscrewed the tap. He seized it again and headed for the kitchen, where he endeavoured to splash gasoline all over the cupboard.
“Dad? Is that you? What are you doing? Why do you splash—” asked Kate’s voice. “What’s that smell?” She paused to sniff. ”Gasoline? Jesus, Dad, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she yelled in a panicked voice. Knocks on the door turned to bangs.
Steve didn’t answer. Ignoring the pounding, he continued emptying the jerrycan on to the cupboard until nothing was left inside. He then retreated to the living room, tore a page out of his magazine, and fished the lighter out. He walked back to the kitchen entrance and stopped.
The smothering, heady gasoline smell almost overwhelmed him. The yelling had ceased; all that could be heard now were loud sobs. Steve looked alternately at the lighter, then at the crumpled ball of paper. That lasted but a couple of seconds. He flicked the lighter on, and brought the flame under the paper, a corner of which immediately caught fire. He waited a couple of seconds, then hurled the burning ball to the damned piece of furniture.
A loud clap resounded as flames sprang from the ground and skittered up high along the cupboard, licking the ceiling. “NO DAD! PLEASE DAD NOOOOOOOOOO!” Kate’s voice rose to a hysterical note over the crackle of the wood. Steve didn’t move. He stood at the threshold, his eyes locked on the fire, until a vibration in his pocket roused him from his paralysis. He blinked, shook his head, took one step back into the corridor and fished his smartphone inside his pocket. He gazed at the screen, wondering who could call him so late.
It was Kim.
He ran to the front door and through it, and only when he was outside did he pick up. ”Yes, darling. I was about to call—”
“STEVE!” his wife’s voice screamed through the speaker. “It’s Kate. She’s not in her bed anymore. SHE’S GONE!”
Steve’s legs gave out and he collapsed on the gravel, while from the door came a sinister sound, not unlike a deep, mocking laughter.
The door opened, revealing a tall, lean, middle-aged man. “Hello. May I help you?” he asked.
The driver fetched a sheet of paper out of one of his pockets and unfolded it. “Mr…errr… Thomson? Steve Thomson?”
“Yes, that’s me. Well, up to that point that is,” the house occupant answered.
The driver extended his right hand. “Please to meet you, M. Thomson. My name’s Gary and I work for Pastrana Removal and Storage. I’ve got furniture to be delivered to you in my van.”
“Oh yes! I’d almost forgotten!” Steve exclaimed, shaking the other’s hand. “My wife warned me this morning you’d come today.”
“She did well. But please let’s get cracking. I’d like to move in the furniture as fast as possible, if you don’t mind.” Gary turned around and took a step back towards the van.
“Sure!” Steve followed suit.
*
“Please sign here and… here too,” Gary said, pointing at the sheet. Steve grabbed a pen and scrawled rough squiggles in the apposite boxes. Unloading the van had been a quick task, since most of the furniture was small and light: a bedside table, a couple of lamps, some flatware stored in cardboard boxes. The only item for which the burly employee had had to recourse to a skate was a big and ancient cupboard, made up of a dense, dark wood, probably walnut. That large piece had made its way to the kitchen, where it now towered over the table, in stark contrast to the white, cubical and shoddy elements from the local IKEA store.
“Thanks!” Gary said, shoving the sheet into his pocket. He scraped his chair backwards, stood up and turned around to face the cupboard. Looking at it, “Quite an impressive cupboard you’ve got there mister Thomson,” he said. “Must be pretty old.”
"Yeah,” Steve replied. “As far as I know it has always been in the family, passing from generation to generation as an heirloom since…” he hesitated. “Before the US’ foundation probably.”
Gary whistled. “And you inherited it in turn. But that means…” he broke off in realisation, then carried on in a softer, almost self-conscious, tone, “well I don’t mean to be nosy but has any of your relatives died recently?”
Steve sighed. “Do you remember the Glenwood drive disaster three months ago?”
Gary scratched his head, then his face brightened. “Oh yes! That gruesome fire that razed a whole block in less than one hour, killing eight adults and six children?”
“Uh-huh,” Steve nodded. “My sister, her husband and their son were among the victims. The furniture you moved in was all that was left of their home.”
Gary’s face crumbled. “Jesus almighty! I’m sorry,” he half-muttered. “If I’d known—”
“That’s fine,” Steve cut in. “They’re gone now. There’s nothing we can do about it anyway. We’ve got to move on.”
Gary did not answer and an uneasy hush fell. “Well…” he finally resumed after that overstretched pause, “thank you mister Thomson, it was a pleasure meeting you. Have a nice day.” He extended his hand again. Steve, who remained seated, reached out to shake it with a feeble smile.
“I’m not sure why you want to put all the flatware into that massive and cumbersome cupboard,” Kim said as she stowed a heap of round plates on to the upper shelf. “To say the truth, I’m not sure why you decided to put that thing in the kitchen in the first place. It’s so dark it almost gives me the creeps.”
“Come on!” Steve replied. “You know it’s a sorta family treasure. Besides I don’t trust those IKEA wall cabinets. They look neat from the outside, but each time you put something a bit heavy in them, it’s like they’ll break. This” — he kicked the cupboard side panel, which let out a dull, muffled sound — “is sturdy as hell. Handmade with true, thick wooden planks, not that shitty plywood like most low-cost furniture. I much prefer storing heavy flatware in here and light groceries in the cabinets. And we can put Kate’s stuff in the lower section so that she won’t have to clamber on to her stool any more to reach it.” He looked around. “Where’s she by the way? KATE!” he called, but no answer came.
“Must be watching the TV, it’s roundabout her preferred show time.” Kim stuffed a couple of forks inside a drawer.
Steve walked to the living room. He stopped at the doorjamb. Lounging in the couch, headphones over her ears, his eight year old daughter, ginger and green eyed, was clinging on to her purple unicorn plushy, fascinated by the images of fantasy ponies which flickered on the TV screen. So fascinated she had not noticed her father’s presence. Smiling, Steve silently turned around and walked back to the kitchen.
“You were right. The little brat has the headphones put on,” he said. “She doesn’t hear diddly-squat.”
“Done!” Kim smashed the drawer back into place and exhaled noisily.
“Fantastic! Great job! Time for a good cup of tea now, right?”
Kim nodded silently and beamed.
“Honey!?” Steve was working at his desk, grading papers, when Kim’s voice called him. Usually, he would have simply dismissed her wife’s request with a grunt, but this time he picked up on something uncanny, almost alarming, in her voice. He took his glasses off, which he carefully laid on top of the stack, and walked down the stairs to the kitchen from where the call seemed to come.
Kim was standing in front of the cupboard. One of the doors was opened, and her gaze was locked on something inside it, which Steve couldn’t see from his current position. She looked pale, as if in shock.
“What is it darling?” he asked.
The sound of Steve’s voice roused his wife from her reverie. “Steve, do you remember the plate Kate broke last week? The green one with a unicorn painted on it, that your grandfather made years ago?” she said in a shaky voice.
“Well, of course. It was a unique piece and Kate was so sad to have let it fall. She sulked all day over it. But what of it?”
“It is back,” Kim whispered. She pointed with her forefinger.
“What?” Steve blurted. He walked to his wife, gently nudged her aside and looked inside.
The plate was here, at its usual place, as if it had never been gone. Steve reached out, took it carefully, and brought it to light. He swung it around. It was the same, unmistakably. Same weight. Same colours. Same painting, up to the little mistakes that characterised hand drawing.
“That can’t be,” he said. “It was broken in dozens of shards. This one is perfectly intact. Not even pieced back together. Like brand new.” He put the plate on the table, dragged a chair to himself and flumped on to it. His wife did the same.
“You’re not pulling a fast one on me I hope,” Kim asked. “It’s a very bad joke.”
“Are you kidding?” Steve protested. “How could I? I swept the shards into the dustpan and chucked them into the bin. Crickey, I did it myself!”
“Then what happened?”
“I dunno. I’m lost. This makes no sense at all. Broken objects don’t pop up back just at a finger snap.”
They both looked at each other wordlessly.
“What’s up?!” Kate chirped, barging into the kitchen. She stopped and gazed at her parents. “Wow! You’ve seen a ghost or what?”
Kim turned to her and forced a smile that came off more like a grimace. “Nothing sweetie. Just grown-up business. And… Oh! By the way, Dad mended your unicorn plate. Look.” She reached for the plate and handed it to her daughter.
Kate’s eyes bulged. “What? Wow! This is brilliant!” She took the plate for her mother’s hand and examined it. “It looks great, as if I never broke it! How did you do that? I thought you’d chucked the splinters…”
“Unicorn magic!” Steve replied.
Kate tossed the plate on to the table and rushed to her father. She hugged him tight and gave him a huge kiss on the cheek. “Thanks so much Dad!” she said. “You’re the best dad ever!”
Steve beamed and shrugged. “It wasn’t such a big deal, you know.” Turning back his eyes to his wife, he met her puzzled look.
Time went on without further incident. Autumn froze into Winter, and Winter thawed into Spring. By the beginning of June an unexpected heat wave assaulted the city. Temperatures rose roundabout 100F. Days tuned into vivid nightmares: it was like living in an oven. The slightest mundane effort, such as carrying groceries from the store, was enough to transform everyone into a drenched sponge. Only the ice-cream vendors were on cloud nine.
If days were tough, nights were worse. The air felt like lead, and no matter how wide the windows were opened, not a waft would blow in. Although the outside temperatures fell somewhat down, all the heat accumulated during the day inside the houses could not get away. In those conditions, sleeping had become a challenge.
That didn’t seem to disturb Kim, however. To Steve’s greatest amazement, she was still able to enjoy seven to eight straight solid hours of rest, while himself could not tally more than a couple of hours of slumber. Most of his shambolic nights he spent tapping on his smartphone, leaping randomly from one website to the other in a desperate attempt to kill time and tune out his wife’s regular breathing, until Morpheus finally decided to pay him a short visit.
It was about 2 AM. Steve was watching a stupid video about a crazy giraffe somewhere in a zoo when a rumpus, like crashing plates, erupted down on the ground floor. Kim sat up in the bed. “What the hell is that?” she said.
“I’ve no idea,” Steve replied. Naked, he climbed out of the bed and walked across the bedroom to the corridor. Switching the light on, he tiptoed down the stairs. He glanced briefly into the living room, but all seemed normal. Grunting, he proceeded into the kitchen.
He froze. A feeble whine filtered through the lower section of the cupboard. Every so often, it stopped and a scratching sound took over. Steve came closer, kneeled. He grabbed the handle and cracked the door open.
Something shot from inside through the chink, shoving the door and nearly throwing Steve off-balance. The intruder smashed into a chair, meowed, jinked and darted across the kitchen. Steve spun around, but he still barely had the time to see the critter cross the corridor and disappear in the darkness of the living room.
He exhaled, then stood up. Kicking the cupboard lower door closed, he flicked the light off and climbed the stairs back up. “What was it?” asked Kim, as he slipped back under the bed sheets.
“I’m not 100% positive, but I think it was the neighbour’s moggie. Or maybe some alley cat that looks like it. It should’ve sneaked in through the picture window we left open.”
“Where was it?”
“Inside the cupboard. It should’ve bumped into a heap of plates scrabbling its way out. But the door was closed, so it was trapped inside. As soon as I opened, it hightailed out.”
“How did it get inside?”
Steven shrugged. “I don’t know. Prolly I simply left the door ajar. It must’ve tracked the scent of a shrew or something.”
“Unlikely. I checked myself before going to bed, and all doors were closed.”
“Then it must’ve opened it with its paws. Come on, what are you getting at?” Steve grasped his smartphone on the bedside table, punched his passcode on it. He rolled on his side, his back toward his wife.
“Nothing,” said Kim. “Just wondering. Good night.”
Steve grumbled.
Two days later, the weather swung to rain. Early in the afternoon, a marching army of portent clouds coming from the West blotted the hitherto unmarred cerulean sky. Sudden darkness fell, and soon after lightning spiked all across the heavens, accompanied by a downpour of water.
Bang in the midst of that storm Kim came back home, drenched, arms full of half-torn, soaked grocery bags. She tossed them on the floor of the vestibule, hastily took off her raincoat, then got rid of her shoes – what was left of them anyway. Barefooted, she squelched to the kitchen and put the bags on the table. “Sweetie?!” she called. “I’m home. Where are you?”
“Over here in my room,” Kim's voice replied from the first floor.
Kim walked up the stairs and to her daughter’s room. “Oh!” she said with a smile. “You sheltered a refugee? Isn’t that Themis?”
Kate, seated on her bed, looked tenderly down at the purring cat she was fondling. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Did you warn the Wallaces? They may be looking for her.”
“Oops!” Kate replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t.”
“No worries. I’m gonna do it right away,” Kim said. She turned back to the kitchen, fished her mobile phone out of her handbag and dialled the number of her neighbours.
“Yes?” responded a female voice.
“Jennifer? It’s Kim. I’m just ringing you up to tell you your cat’s here, so don’t panic if you don’t find her around.”
“That’s impossible,” Jennifer replied in a blank tone. “Themis was run over by a car yesterday evening. I had no time to break it to you.”
“What?” Kim almost dropped her phone. “You can’t—” She trailed off.
“Yeah, nasty,” Jennifer carried on. “Dany’s in tears ever since. We bought Themis when he was born, after all. They both grew together. It was quite a shock to him.”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Kim sputtered. “This must be some sort of mistake. I apologise. Take heart.”
“Thanks! We’re going to get over it. It just takes a little while.”
“I’m sure you will. If you want to send Dany over to play with Kate, don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t. Thanks!” Jennifer replied. “Have a great day. Stay safe inside!”
“I will! Bye!” Kim concluded, and she hang up.
She shoved her phone back in her handbag, and sprinted up the stairs back to Kate’s room. Her daughter had not moved in the slightest since she had left a few moments before.
“Kate, sweetie,” she asked, “where did you find that cat?”
Kate squinted at her mother. “Why do you ask?”
“Where the hell did you find that cat?” Kim almost yelled.
Kate recoiled under the violence of her’s mother voice. “She… She was in the cupboard.”
“WHAT?”
“Two hours ago, I went downstairs to get something to eat, and I heard meowing from the cupboard. So I opened it and the cat was inside. What’s the big deal?… Mum!? You feeling all right?”
Kim stumbled backwards, leaning against the doorjamb. ”It’s… nothing,” she finally managed to say. “I climbed up the stairs a bit too quickly I think. I felt a bit woozy, but it’s already passed.” She smiled faintly, and walked off.
“That cupboard is hexed,” Kim said. “First the plate, now the cat…”
“Come on!” Steve replied, plonking his smartphone on the bedside table. “There’s no such thing as ‘hexed’. We’re not living in a horror movie nor in a world where garish unicorns frolic around casting spells on objects.”
“Quit poking fun at me. Do you have any other sensible explanation to offer? I’m listening.”
“Because you call your explanation sensible? That’s coincidences, full stop. Maybe strange coincidences, but otherwise you wouldn’t’ve even noticed them. It happens every so often.”
”I couldn’t care less about your so-called ‘coincidences’. I want you to get rid of that cupboard. Now.”
“For fuck’s sake, Kim, you can’t be serious. This piece of furniture is older than—”
“I don’t give a fuck how old it is or whoever owned it,” Kim interrupted. ”I just want it to get the fuck away from our house forever.”
“Look, darling. Seriously, I can’t do that. At least not because you’ve got a cow about it.”
“Okay, lemme get this straight. It’s either me or your precious cupboard. Your call.”
Steve sighed. “Wow! Okay, but come down. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can rent a box in a self-storage facility somewhere downtown? Meanwhile… I’ll put locks on it tomorrow and keep the keys in a safe place. Deal?”
“Yeah, I guess that’ll be fine. But shove it off as soon as you can. Promise?”
Steve’s hand reached out for her face and gently stroked her bangs aside, before kissing her on her forehead. “Promise,” he whispered, as his lips moved towards hers.
The next day, driving back from the university, Steve stopped at the local hardware store, bought a couple of locks that would not stand out against the wood of the old cupboard, and a handful of screws. Back home, he spent a full hour tinkering with various tools to secure them into place. Satisfied with his work, he gave the locks a try, twirled the keys in the holes until he the bolts moved smoothly. Then he locked both doors up, and stowed the keys away in his wife’s jewel box.
After dinner, Kate went into her room to study and play, while her parents remained in the living room. Kim plunged into the book she had bought yesterday and not begun yet, while Steve chose to riffle through the latest issue of The Economist he had found in the mailbox earlier. After a while, he stood up, went to the cabinet where he stored his huge collection of CDs, picked up Chopin’s first piano concerto, and turned the HiFi on.
It was well into the second movement when they heard a “MUM! DAD!” barely audible over the music coming from the loudspeakers. They leaped from the couch and ran over to the kitchen. Undoubtedly their daughter had been trapped inside the cupboard. Steve kneeled down, grasped the handle and pulled it with all his strength, but the door was stubbornly locked. He turned his head towards his wife, whose face was aghast. “Go get me the key, quick.”
Kim whirled around and rushed to the stairs.
“Don’t panic,” Steven said to his daughter. “Mum’s gone to get the key. You’ll be free in a minute.”
Kim turned back with the key, which she handed over to Steve. He fumbled it into the hole, and turned it. The door clicked open, and Kate, on all fours, crawled out of the cupboard. “Thanks,” she said, once she was fully outside.
“What happened?” asked Steve in a quavering voice.
“I… I went in the kitchen to drink and the door of the cupboard was opened and—”
“The door was opened?” Kim cut in. “Are you sure?”
Kate looked up at her mother with watery eyes. “Of course! How could I have got inside if not?” She began to cry.
“Did you open the door?” Kim asked Steve.
Steve shook his head. “Me? Are you kidding? I just installed the locks, it’s not to let them loose. They’re screwed tight and I can guarantee they were locked.” He turned back to his daughter and put both hands on her shoulders. “Why did you get inside?”
“I don’t know…,” Kate blubbered. “I… I figured out I saw something shining inside and… It was like something in my head wanted me to get inside. And then when I got in, the door closed behind me and I was in the dark and I got scared and—”
“It’s all right,” Steve said in a reassuring tone. “No harm done. Hush…” He embraced Kate tight in his arms.
“Are you going to move this fucking thing out?!” Kim exploded. She cupped her face in her hands and started to sob in turn.
Steve released his daughter and stood up. “Okay,” he said. “I call your sister to pick you up. I think you both shouldn’t sleep here tonight. And tomorrow I swear I chop this thing into small pieces and burn it to ashes.”
Kim nodded.
It was roundabout 1 AM and Steve was rolling in his bed, his eyes lost in darkness. Images swirled round and round in his head: his daughter trapped in the cupboard, his wife freaking out, the cat springing out of the cupboard like a jack-in-the-box, the other cat Kate had found, his grandparents telling him how proud they were to own this master—
“Mum?! Dad?!” Steve twitched as if he had been stuck by lightning. It was Kate’s voice he had heard. Distant, deadened as if… But no, that didn’t make sense. Kate and her mother were sleeping four blocks away from here.
“Mum?! Please! Dad? Help! I’m trapped!” There was no mistaking this time. It was definitely his daughter’s supplicant voice, now accompanied by loud knocks.
He sat up in his bed, slipped into his T-Shirt and jeans, then silently tiptoed along the corridor and down the stairs. Once he reached the ground floor, he carried on to the kitchen.
“MUM?! DAD?! OH PLEASE COME! COME PLEASE! I’M SCARED!” yelled Kate’s voice from inside the cupboard. Steve then heard her snivelling. He bit his lips and stayed put in the doorframe.
“MUM? DAD? PLEASE PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE IT’S DARK AND CRAMPED AND THERE’S A MONSTER LAUGHING AT ME! PLEASE PLEASE I WANT TO GO OUT!” The knocking resumed, louder than ever.
As if suddenly prodded into action, Steve flicked the kitchen light on. “Calm down sweetie,” he said, “I’m here. Gimme just the time to go fetch the key and I’ll be back in a sec.” He turned round, walked to the vestibule and went out. Barefooted, he rounded the house and crossed the lawn to the garden’s shed, opened its door, switched the light on and proceeded in beeline to the gasoline jerrycan he had left next to the lawnmower. He grasped it, then put a lighter that lay on a shelf nearby into his pocket, before striding back to his house. Back in the corridor, he put the jerrycan down and unscrewed the tap. He seized it again and headed for the kitchen, where he endeavoured to splash gasoline all over the cupboard.
“Dad? Is that you? What are you doing? Why do you splash—” asked Kate’s voice. “What’s that smell?” She paused to sniff. ”Gasoline? Jesus, Dad, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she yelled in a panicked voice. Knocks on the door turned to bangs.
Steve didn’t answer. Ignoring the pounding, he continued emptying the jerrycan on to the cupboard until nothing was left inside. He then retreated to the living room, tore a page out of his magazine, and fished the lighter out. He walked back to the kitchen entrance and stopped.
The smothering, heady gasoline smell almost overwhelmed him. The yelling had ceased; all that could be heard now were loud sobs. Steve looked alternately at the lighter, then at the crumpled ball of paper. That lasted but a couple of seconds. He flicked the lighter on, and brought the flame under the paper, a corner of which immediately caught fire. He waited a couple of seconds, then hurled the burning ball to the damned piece of furniture.
A loud clap resounded as flames sprang from the ground and skittered up high along the cupboard, licking the ceiling. “NO DAD! PLEASE DAD NOOOOOOOOOO!” Kate’s voice rose to a hysterical note over the crackle of the wood. Steve didn’t move. He stood at the threshold, his eyes locked on the fire, until a vibration in his pocket roused him from his paralysis. He blinked, shook his head, took one step back into the corridor and fished his smartphone inside his pocket. He gazed at the screen, wondering who could call him so late.
It was Kim.
He ran to the front door and through it, and only when he was outside did he pick up. ”Yes, darling. I was about to call—”
“STEVE!” his wife’s voice screamed through the speaker. “It’s Kate. She’s not in her bed anymore. SHE’S GONE!”
Steve’s legs gave out and he collapsed on the gravel, while from the door came a sinister sound, not unlike a deep, mocking laughter.
Steve sighed. “Do you remember the Glenwood drive disaster three months ago?”
Gary scratched his head, then his face brightened. “Oh yes! That gruesome fire that razed a whole block in less than one hour, killing eight adults and six children?”
That is definitely not the sort of exposition I want to hear from a man whose face just brightened.
One thing I strongly suggest you consider as you edit this is how you're going to hook readers into the story. I'm two full scenes in and the only thing I've read which has stirred my interest even slightly is a brief mention of dead family (although Steve's so blase about their passing that I'm getting signals they're not particularly relevant either). Not every story has to promise something outrageous — you can tell millions of super compelling stories without world-saving quests or special-snowflake protagonists or pitched duels to the death — but, within the context of the world you present, what you show us has to be important. If you're spending two scenes showing us a dude meeting a moving van driver and signing for furniture, that encounter had better be a life-altering moment for one or both of them, and you should give enough hints as to how that we can look forward to reading the rest. Right now, two paragraphs in, I feel like the story is like watching freeway traffic when I should be watching NASCAR — where are the crashes? Where are the swerves and passes and the frantic scrambles in the pits? Where's the tension? It's a dude signing for furniture. Is the furniture going to end up haunted by the ghosts of the dead family or something? (Have Gary keep glancing nervously in the van, or give him a sleepless, shaken look. Have Steve staring forlornly at a faded family photo when Gary comes up to the porch to ring the bell. Whatever.) Give me something. Something!
… Er, sorry, rant off, continuing reading.
Scene 3 is much better. There's some weird cognitive dissonance here in the implied relationships and the shown behavior which begs for explanation. Now I want to find out what's going on with that. But, at the same time, it reinforces how flat the first two scenes are. Aside from the single paragraph of exposition about the cupboard's history, those scenes seem pure dead weight; little details like Steve having a wife aren't necessary because we meet Kim in scene 3, there's no real emotion, and half of your characterization time appears to have gone into a character we'll never see again (Gary).
This story is teaching me several new words. "Shambolic" I have never heard before (though, having looked it up, I question whether it's the right word to describe a sleepless night). "Moggy" is a Britishism that has previously escaped my American ears. (Though "Crikey" is very strongly Australian, so there's some cultural mismatch going on in the vocabulary here.)
“Kate, sweetie,” she asked, “where did you find that cat?”
Kate squinted at her mother. “Why do you ask?”
“Where the hell did you find that cat?” Kim almost yelled.
*looks up the number for Fictionland's Child Protective Services department*
Seriously, this story has some very strong characterization of Kate's parents as uncaring and resentful of their child (see also: third scene's "brat", dropping F-bombs in front of their kid, all her alone play time). Strong characterization is good! But in this case it's also uncomfortable, since Steve and Kim are the protagonists, and their behavior is making me empathize less with them, which robs the ending of its emotional punch.
I don't understand what's going on with the cabinet — all of the scenes except the last one have things which are dead or broken being restored within it, but Kate's interaction with the cabinet apparently just involves her being teleported twice, because the last we hear of her before her first appearance inside the cabinet is her quietly playing upstairs, and there's no clue to indicate how she vanished from her room or any reason she might be dead. What happens in the story should happen for a consistent reason, to give the reader a chance to see the story's patterns and pull meaning out of them. I suspect this might have been crippled by the deadline, since the rest of the cabinet stuff seems to be aligned in the same direction.
I really, really wonder if the final person in the cabinet was originally meant to be one of the family members that died in the last fire. Because that would really tie everything together, and make Steve's actions in the last scene make a lot more sense.
There's more I could say, but I hope that's useful for future editing.
Tier: Needs Work
This desperately needs a hook of some sort.
More than that, I feel like the initial attitude towards the cupboard is a bit... odd? As far as I can tell, up until the end, the only things it does are pretty benign. It fixes a plate and resurrects a cat. I think that sort of thing would be pretty cool to have around, honestly; I'd be breaking all sorts of stuff to figure out what I could get away with. However, the characters take this weird 'How awful!' stance to it, which doesn't really seem to fit with what circumstances they've been presented.
I dunno. I liked some of the phrases and what in here; "transform everyone into a drenched sponges" made me smile. However, plot-wise, this comes across as pretty weak, even though all of the elements for a good story are here?
Overall, there's some good stuff in this. But it's held back too much by its flaws for me to really enjoy it a lot.
More than that, I feel like the initial attitude towards the cupboard is a bit... odd? As far as I can tell, up until the end, the only things it does are pretty benign. It fixes a plate and resurrects a cat. I think that sort of thing would be pretty cool to have around, honestly; I'd be breaking all sorts of stuff to figure out what I could get away with. However, the characters take this weird 'How awful!' stance to it, which doesn't really seem to fit with what circumstances they've been presented.
I dunno. I liked some of the phrases and what in here; "transform everyone into a drenched sponges" made me smile. However, plot-wise, this comes across as pretty weak, even though all of the elements for a good story are here?
Overall, there's some good stuff in this. But it's held back too much by its flaws for me to really enjoy it a lot.
This story reads similar to a foreign 80s horror B-movie , with a classic sort of horror set-up that borrows heavily from well-known horror set-ups of a creepy object or place that has mysterious powers, like Stephen King's Pet Semetary or The Monkey's Paw that is consistently eroded by inexperience of the author in portraying this type of story and the limitations of his own linguistic abilities (once again similar to a foreign B-move) . This is a prime example of the type of story where the author has an approximate idea of the beats and rhythm of how the story should be plotted to progress, but no clear idea on how those beats should be executed. Hence the characterization, dialogue, and general "feel" of the story often veer in conflicting and often confusing directions. Very messy, but not un-salvageable. Underneath its very coarse exterior lay all the core components necessary for creating a neat little horror story, which is more than I can say for most stories, even those written at a higher level of technical competence.
I don't like referencing other reviews, because I don't feel it necessary to parrot what other people have already told you, but False_Fedora and Skyline bring an excellent point about this story's introduction. Which is to say that it fails to accomplish what a good introduction should, i.e. to catch the reader's attention with its premise and invite them to read further. Needless to say but I'm telling you anyways roughly 600 words of a furniture delivery with unabashedly blatant exposition dump near the end of the second scene is not particularly compelling material. Additionally, it is framed in such a way where we are not sure which character is the subject of the perspective (either Gary or Steve) until at least third scene, where our POV finally rests on Steve. It is odd to have such a jarring perspective ping-pong at the beginning of the story and it unnecessarily bogs down the story.
What this introduction should do is three things, and it should probably take less than 200 words to do so:
-Steve is our protagonist
-He is going to acquire a creepy cabinet
-This cabinet belonged to his sister, who is dead
An introduction is something that should hook the reader in, provide them with some immediate substance. Ideally, this should be a punchy, usually piecemeal line further substantiated by the rest of the opening paragraph. Of those three things that I just mentioned, certainly the death of the sister (and it being the only thing left of her) is worthy of mention. A good introduction would like focus on Steve anticipating the arrival of his dead sister's creepy things with some very minor exposition about its spooky past maybe slipped to the delivery guy in a very brief dialogue, and that would be it.
To further cement my point about a pithy opening line, let's look at the opening line of this story and why it doesn't work.
First, the opening sentence is a list of actions. It has no punch to its formatting and is generally unwieldy to read. Introductory sentences that draw out the opening action like this are rarely effective. Second, the action is not given any reason to be interesting, and action in that of itself is aggressively mundane. Imagine someone is telling you a story and they open up there story with "There was a car and it parked in a driveway." That would not be particularly interesting to you. And third, this detail is completely unnecessary. Who cares if the delivery man had to back in the driveway to deliver his damn cabinet? This isn't a story on how to park a moving truck.That's not important to the story you're telling at all. In fact, it's not even important for the cabinet's delivery to be shown. All that's important are those three factors I've listed above in order to comprehend this story.
Basically what I'm trying to tell you is that you need to rewrite this introduction, and you can frame the opening scene anyway you like, really, but for the love of god don't bog it down with unnecessary details like whether or not Steve signed for his packages, how sturdy the cupboard is, or whether Kate can hear Steve over pony show WHAT IS THIS DOING IN HERE?!
The real kiss of death on this story however is the dialogue and characterization of the cast based on this dialogue. Everything is a bit "uncanny valley" so to speak where the characters do and say things that are not befit of people in their situation, or just phrased in a unnecessarily obtuse manner. Several examples of this include:
-Gary brightening at the mention of the death of 14 people
-Gary asking in a huge invasion of privacy whether or not Steve's relatives died recently
-Steve calling Kate a brat
-"Unicorn Magic!"
-numerous conspicuous mentions of unicorns
-"dismissing his wife's request with a grunt"
Basically, the dialogue and narrative undercut the tone by being oddly worded, contextually inappropriate, and give us a strange, alien-like characterization of our ensemble cast that is removed from their humanity. The biggest offender of this is Steve, who I am not sure was intended to be written as a callous uncaring dick, but certainly came across as one, which is unfortunate, because for this sort of story to succeed, we have to at least sort of care about our main character. He doesn't seem to care much that his sister and her entire family is dead, calls his kid a brat, is dismissive of his wife, and ultimately burns his own kid alive without much serious hesitation and checks his smartphone immediately thereafter, completely unshaken.
Additionally, the story tries to sell me that it is set in the States, but uses almost entirely British vernacular, and in one case, Australian. Nice try.
In the narrative in particular, there is a lot of repetition and use of odd phrases that serve to distract from the piece as a whole. Examples of this include:
-roundabout
-vestibule
-"on cloud nine"
-squelched
-doorjamb
-diddly-squat
The end is not quite clear because the mechanics of the cabinet are not quite concretely explained. I believe if I am reading the story correctly that the Kate that entered the cabinet (i.e. the real Kate) was the Kate that was violently burned alive by her father in the story's conclusion, a detail which I think you should expand a bit for maximum horror points, and the Kate that emerged after entering the cabinet was some sort of duplicate that disappeared when Kim took her away. That however is a guess where I should be certain, so those details need to be ironed out a bit more.
Ultimately what this story needs is polish, which, good for you author. You really won't have to dismantle this story to get it up and running, just shine up what you have, make repairs, and fix it. It's perfectly acceptable from a narrative arc perspective, however, pretty much everything in-between needs to be improved for it to pass muster. Good luck!
Things to Consider:
-rewriting the entire introduction and drastically cutting the dialogue and direct exposition
-tightening most of the dialogue
-establishing a firmer and more positive characterization of Steve and Kim
-eliminating problematic phrasings and tightening the narrative
-establishing how the cabinet works further in regards to the final scene
-setting it in the UK
-include maybe one more spooky scene for Kim to have more motivation to be spooked
-have Steve actually care about his sister, wife, daughter anything
-eliminate unnecessarily pandering references to unicorns
I don't like referencing other reviews, because I don't feel it necessary to parrot what other people have already told you, but False_Fedora and Skyline bring an excellent point about this story's introduction. Which is to say that it fails to accomplish what a good introduction should, i.e. to catch the reader's attention with its premise and invite them to read further. Needless to say but I'm telling you anyways roughly 600 words of a furniture delivery with unabashedly blatant exposition dump near the end of the second scene is not particularly compelling material. Additionally, it is framed in such a way where we are not sure which character is the subject of the perspective (either Gary or Steve) until at least third scene, where our POV finally rests on Steve. It is odd to have such a jarring perspective ping-pong at the beginning of the story and it unnecessarily bogs down the story.
What this introduction should do is three things, and it should probably take less than 200 words to do so:
-Steve is our protagonist
-He is going to acquire a creepy cabinet
-This cabinet belonged to his sister, who is dead
An introduction is something that should hook the reader in, provide them with some immediate substance. Ideally, this should be a punchy, usually piecemeal line further substantiated by the rest of the opening paragraph. Of those three things that I just mentioned, certainly the death of the sister (and it being the only thing left of her) is worthy of mention. A good introduction would like focus on Steve anticipating the arrival of his dead sister's creepy things with some very minor exposition about its spooky past maybe slipped to the delivery guy in a very brief dialogue, and that would be it.
To further cement my point about a pithy opening line, let's look at the opening line of this story and why it doesn't work.
The grey van drove by, braked, then manoeuvred to pull into the garden driveway in reverse.
First, the opening sentence is a list of actions. It has no punch to its formatting and is generally unwieldy to read. Introductory sentences that draw out the opening action like this are rarely effective. Second, the action is not given any reason to be interesting, and action in that of itself is aggressively mundane. Imagine someone is telling you a story and they open up there story with "There was a car and it parked in a driveway." That would not be particularly interesting to you. And third, this detail is completely unnecessary. Who cares if the delivery man had to back in the driveway to deliver his damn cabinet? This isn't a story on how to park a moving truck.That's not important to the story you're telling at all. In fact, it's not even important for the cabinet's delivery to be shown. All that's important are those three factors I've listed above in order to comprehend this story.
Basically what I'm trying to tell you is that you need to rewrite this introduction, and you can frame the opening scene anyway you like, really, but for the love of god don't bog it down with unnecessary details like whether or not Steve signed for his packages, how sturdy the cupboard is, or whether Kate can hear Steve over pony show WHAT IS THIS DOING IN HERE?!
The real kiss of death on this story however is the dialogue and characterization of the cast based on this dialogue. Everything is a bit "uncanny valley" so to speak where the characters do and say things that are not befit of people in their situation, or just phrased in a unnecessarily obtuse manner. Several examples of this include:
-Gary brightening at the mention of the death of 14 people
-Gary asking in a huge invasion of privacy whether or not Steve's relatives died recently
-Steve calling Kate a brat
-"Unicorn Magic!"
-numerous conspicuous mentions of unicorns
-"dismissing his wife's request with a grunt"
Basically, the dialogue and narrative undercut the tone by being oddly worded, contextually inappropriate, and give us a strange, alien-like characterization of our ensemble cast that is removed from their humanity. The biggest offender of this is Steve, who I am not sure was intended to be written as a callous uncaring dick, but certainly came across as one, which is unfortunate, because for this sort of story to succeed, we have to at least sort of care about our main character. He doesn't seem to care much that his sister and her entire family is dead, calls his kid a brat, is dismissive of his wife, and ultimately burns his own kid alive without much serious hesitation and checks his smartphone immediately thereafter, completely unshaken.
Additionally, the story tries to sell me that it is set in the States, but uses almost entirely British vernacular, and in one case, Australian. Nice try.
In the narrative in particular, there is a lot of repetition and use of odd phrases that serve to distract from the piece as a whole. Examples of this include:
-roundabout
-vestibule
-"on cloud nine"
-squelched
-doorjamb
-diddly-squat
The end is not quite clear because the mechanics of the cabinet are not quite concretely explained. I believe if I am reading the story correctly that the Kate that entered the cabinet (i.e. the real Kate) was the Kate that was violently burned alive by her father in the story's conclusion, a detail which I think you should expand a bit for maximum horror points, and the Kate that emerged after entering the cabinet was some sort of duplicate that disappeared when Kim took her away. That however is a guess where I should be certain, so those details need to be ironed out a bit more.
Ultimately what this story needs is polish, which, good for you author. You really won't have to dismantle this story to get it up and running, just shine up what you have, make repairs, and fix it. It's perfectly acceptable from a narrative arc perspective, however, pretty much everything in-between needs to be improved for it to pass muster. Good luck!
Things to Consider:
-rewriting the entire introduction and drastically cutting the dialogue and direct exposition
-tightening most of the dialogue
-establishing a firmer and more positive characterization of Steve and Kim
-eliminating problematic phrasings and tightening the narrative
-establishing how the cabinet works further in regards to the final scene
-setting it in the UK
-include maybe one more spooky scene for Kim to have more motivation to be spooked
-have Steve actually care about his sister, wife, daughter anything
-eliminate unnecessarily pandering references to unicorns
The story had a good structure, but the individual elements didn't quite hit the beats they needed to for me. Others have generally covered most of the points I'd make.
I'll agree that the moving guy scenes didn't add much. If you'd cut to an argument about them keeping the thing, it would've been a lot punchier. I would have loved some foreshadowing, like if you had mentioned how his family has a 'history of dying in fires' or how the cabinet had 'miraculously survived' the fire or a little detail like how it "still smelled like smoke". Stuff to set us on edge.
The dialog seemed a little clunky in places:
"that massive and cumbersome cupboard"
"roundabout her preferred show time"
It might help if you read it aloud?
Also, it may just be my knowledge of this being a horror story, but It feels a little bit like he was holding the idiot ball by not checking on his daughter before setting the fire. And even if she was a duplicate, what kind of decision is it to set fire to a duplicate of your own daughter? The matter of the cat feels like a loose end, but from all we saw, it seemed to be a perfectly alive and normal cat. Now, if you'd set up something about the cloned cat not being a real cat, or if it came back 'wrong', it'd be a little better justified.
Overall, had good outline, but the fine details didn't all come together for me.
I'll agree that the moving guy scenes didn't add much. If you'd cut to an argument about them keeping the thing, it would've been a lot punchier. I would have loved some foreshadowing, like if you had mentioned how his family has a 'history of dying in fires' or how the cabinet had 'miraculously survived' the fire or a little detail like how it "still smelled like smoke". Stuff to set us on edge.
The dialog seemed a little clunky in places:
"that massive and cumbersome cupboard"
"roundabout her preferred show time"
It might help if you read it aloud?
Also, it may just be my knowledge of this being a horror story, but It feels a little bit like he was holding the idiot ball by not checking on his daughter before setting the fire. And even if she was a duplicate, what kind of decision is it to set fire to a duplicate of your own daughter? The matter of the cat feels like a loose end, but from all we saw, it seemed to be a perfectly alive and normal cat. Now, if you'd set up something about the cloned cat not being a real cat, or if it came back 'wrong', it'd be a little better justified.
Overall, had good outline, but the fine details didn't all come together for me.
Good luck to the finalists!
Impending Doom
That story was named ‘The cupboard’ at first, but I found it rather a silly title so decided to change it just before the deadline.
Turns out this was a good leaning exercise, but definitely not a story worth enduring. Will be unpublished as soon as rules permit. Thanks to all reviewers for reading it, and for your awesome reviews.
This is loosely inspired by stories like Shining or Poltergeist or Pet Cemetery as Cassius pointed out (don’t forget I grew up during the ‘80s). It was more conceived as a horror movie than a true story, and this explains the weak hook at the beginning: IMHO, horror movies often begin with a first scene simply showing how lackadaisical the life of the protagonists is (think about Shining for example), before the factor that will wreak havoc arrives. Cassius said the first sentence was ‘cinematic’ and that’s spot on, but I also need to be able to pull out such sentences: describing a vehicle stopping and backing into a driveway is not that easy to me. Nevertheless, I thought about cutting it and starting at scene 3, but finally reckoned it would be more info-dumpy with a lot of elements to stuff in a very short space (the cupboard, the prior fire, the guy, his wife, his child…).
As I noted above, there was an element of linguistic experimentation throughout the story: as a non-native, I often insert words simply to gauge the response they arise. It’s more or less the only way for me to sound out if their use is correct or not in a given context, and that of course leads to a jarring experience to most of you. Most of the linguistic discordance derives from this and I apologise: the dialogue was clunky or off. I’m pleased that most of the dialogues passed muster, though, to use Cassius turn of phrase. “Crikey” was used by Present Perfect more than once (even Oro used it in one of the reviews of this round), I found the word funny and reused it, ignoring it had Australian overtones (my dictionary tags it as “British informal”).
What about ice-creams vendors being “on cloud nine”?
On “brat” and uncaring: I admit that “brat” was a bit tiny overboard, but the use of the term (or its French equivalent) is common, at least over here. I use it quite a lot myself to qualify my own daughter, because she can really be a brat every now and then: spoiled, flighty even fractious. Able to mess up your evening just because you denied her installing an app on her phone, or the latest issue of the $10 magazine she practically reads two pages thereof before throwing it away. And it’s not an isolated case, as most of her friends seem to be made out of the same mould.
Use “the hell” before a 8-year old child? Asking your child to go and play and bit on their own in their room? Come on, Horizon! :P That’s something you do every day, especially when you freak out, like it’s been one hour you’ve asked your child to wash her hair, and she still hasn’t set foot in the bathroom.
But yeah, the major beef was about the plot. All of you got it right, I had no precise and definitive idea about the plot. The cupboard is meant:
1. To randomly doom some objects that enter inside;
2. Duplicate them once the original is broken/dead.
Except that at the end, we’re not sure whether the kid in the cupboard is or isn’t the copy (that’s why I had to send mother and child not so far away, to cast a shadow whether the tyke inside wasn’t the true child having returned in a fit of sleepwalking.
My first idea was to have the cupboard resist fire, and the house to burn out with the guy, replicating what had happened to the last proprietor. Somehow that seemed to me contrived, and I scraped it, but the new ending just came across as weak. In any case, Cassius you were right I had no really firm decision on the plot direction, and that trickled into the writing.
Thanks again to all!
Impending Doom
That story was named ‘The cupboard’ at first, but I found it rather a silly title so decided to change it just before the deadline.
Turns out this was a good leaning exercise, but definitely not a story worth enduring. Will be unpublished as soon as rules permit. Thanks to all reviewers for reading it, and for your awesome reviews.
This is loosely inspired by stories like Shining or Poltergeist or Pet Cemetery as Cassius pointed out (don’t forget I grew up during the ‘80s). It was more conceived as a horror movie than a true story, and this explains the weak hook at the beginning: IMHO, horror movies often begin with a first scene simply showing how lackadaisical the life of the protagonists is (think about Shining for example), before the factor that will wreak havoc arrives. Cassius said the first sentence was ‘cinematic’ and that’s spot on, but I also need to be able to pull out such sentences: describing a vehicle stopping and backing into a driveway is not that easy to me. Nevertheless, I thought about cutting it and starting at scene 3, but finally reckoned it would be more info-dumpy with a lot of elements to stuff in a very short space (the cupboard, the prior fire, the guy, his wife, his child…).
As I noted above, there was an element of linguistic experimentation throughout the story: as a non-native, I often insert words simply to gauge the response they arise. It’s more or less the only way for me to sound out if their use is correct or not in a given context, and that of course leads to a jarring experience to most of you. Most of the linguistic discordance derives from this and I apologise: the dialogue was clunky or off. I’m pleased that most of the dialogues passed muster, though, to use Cassius turn of phrase. “Crikey” was used by Present Perfect more than once (even Oro used it in one of the reviews of this round), I found the word funny and reused it, ignoring it had Australian overtones (my dictionary tags it as “British informal”).
What about ice-creams vendors being “on cloud nine”?
On “brat” and uncaring: I admit that “brat” was a bit tiny overboard, but the use of the term (or its French equivalent) is common, at least over here. I use it quite a lot myself to qualify my own daughter, because she can really be a brat every now and then: spoiled, flighty even fractious. Able to mess up your evening just because you denied her installing an app on her phone, or the latest issue of the $10 magazine she practically reads two pages thereof before throwing it away. And it’s not an isolated case, as most of her friends seem to be made out of the same mould.
Use “the hell” before a 8-year old child? Asking your child to go and play and bit on their own in their room? Come on, Horizon! :P That’s something you do every day, especially when you freak out, like it’s been one hour you’ve asked your child to wash her hair, and she still hasn’t set foot in the bathroom.
But yeah, the major beef was about the plot. All of you got it right, I had no precise and definitive idea about the plot. The cupboard is meant:
1. To randomly doom some objects that enter inside;
2. Duplicate them once the original is broken/dead.
Except that at the end, we’re not sure whether the kid in the cupboard is or isn’t the copy (that’s why I had to send mother and child not so far away, to cast a shadow whether the tyke inside wasn’t the true child having returned in a fit of sleepwalking.
My first idea was to have the cupboard resist fire, and the house to burn out with the guy, replicating what had happened to the last proprietor. Somehow that seemed to me contrived, and I scraped it, but the new ending just came across as weak. In any case, Cassius you were right I had no really firm decision on the plot direction, and that trickled into the writing.
Thanks again to all!