Beware the Dybbuk
By Robin Renee Ray
Part
Four
Harold
Gray had been working for Lady Bernstein for many years tending to her every
need as if she was his mother, not a mere employer. He had heard her whisper of
the box that should stay locked in the depths of the estate, but put the
occasions to the side as one of her many, mentally, manic states. Several times
she would grab his wrist and make him swear to never release the beast. Harold
would simply pat her hand and give her another sleeping pill.
“You must never let it out, Harold.
Beware, the Dybbuk will come for you and it will be a living hell on your
earth.”
“Yes, my lady…now drink your warm milk.”
“Keep it hidden.” Lady Bernstein
placed her fingers to her mouth and spit three times. “Never remove the lock
and never release the beast.”
Harold had watched on many nights, as his
employer drifted off into her insane dreams, muttering about the beast. Now he
had heard the four siblings upstairs, talking about a treasure chest they had
found in the basement. He couldn’t help
but to smile at the thoughts running through his head. The old bag was right. She had something hidden all along. Backing
into the darkness of the hall, Harold hit a small switch at the side of a
raised panel under the staircase and the wooden piece slid to the side and
revealed a passageway.
~ῲ~
“Did any of you hear that?” Cindy asked, holding one hand
in the air.
“Just get your bags and hurry. It’s late and I’m ready to
crash,” Mike complained.
“It sounded like a patio door sliding open,” Sam
interjected. “I heard it too.”
“That’s it, I heard the same thing, Mike.”
“You kids are too much.” Gabby rolled her eyes as she
walked by Mike and out into the hall. “This house is huge and will make loads
of sounds, night or day.”
“Kids?” Sam laughed. “You are so much older, that I bet you
have to hide the grey in your dried out hair.”
“That’s it! I’m going to bed.” Mike left the three to argue
and went to the boy’s bedroom.
Cindy grabbed her things and rushed out of the room. The
three joined their older brother and began making themselves comfortable for
the rest of the night.
Meanwhile,
Harold Grey was making his way through a dark, wooden passageway that led down
and under the staircase and then back around to another passageway that was
just below the main living room. He pushed on the wall at the end of the
passage and it opened up close to the stairs that went down into the basement.
The small wooden box was sitting right in the middle of the floor.
“Where
did they find you?” he spoke out loud. Harold began searching the area where he
thought the siblings had found the gardening tools that the two boys were
holding and came across more like them under the steps that came down from the
kitchen. He pulled on the brass handle and the door to where the chest had once
been hidden, and it swung open. Immediately he placed his hand over his mouth
and nose. The stench filled the compartment that was four foot deep and even
smaller from side to side.
He
took a flashlight out of his back pocket and aimed it at the opening. Clicking
the switch twice, three times, and shaking it vigorously before the light
finally brought the chamber to life. The walls were packed dirt, but gave off a
wet shine due to the coating of webs that clung from the ceiling to the floor.
All but where the box must have been sitting. The beam of the light slowly made
its way to where the mysterious ‘treasure chest’ sat as if just waiting for its
finder to see the treasures hidden inside.
After
setting the box up on the bottom step, he began exploring the antique padlock.
He turned it over and yanked several times before he stopped and took out his
pocket knife. Harold’s hand was shaking as he placed the tip of his blade to
the opening on the front of the metal lock that held the two brass clasps
together. The tones of the grandfather clocks upstairs rang out and Harold
jumped, sliding the blade off of the lock and right into the flesh on the side
of his left hand.
“Damn,”
he hissed, wrapping the handkerchief from the inner pocket on his jacket, over
the palm of his hand and gripping it tight enough to control the dripping of
the blood. He grabbed the lock again covering it with his blood then began
trying to pick the lock open. His hand slipped again and he cursed out loud,
then froze to see if he had been heard. Placing an old cloth over the lock,
Harold started hitting it with end of his flashlight, hoping the cloth was
dulling the sound. In one hard hit the lock broke free with the clasp still intact.
The hinge however, was no longer attached to the box, leaving tiny splinters of
wood where it had once been.
~ῲ~
Gabby was up off her pallet in front of the
fireplace and over by Mike’s side of the bed in seconds after she heard a noise.
“Mike, Mike wake up,” she whispered, shaking him by the arm. “Mike!” She spoke
a little louder, then lightly slapped him across the face. “Wake up.”
“Come
on, Gabby. Not you too,” he moaned and rolled to his side.
“I
heard someone or something cry out and then there was this tapping sound. Come
on, Mike, wake up. Go see what it was.”
He
growled out a gruff sound and sat up on the side of the bed, running his fingers
through his hair. “I’m never going to get any sleep, and every single one of
you will need help tomorrow…” he put his t-shirt back on. “The next day…”
“All
right, I get it. But I’m not getting any sleep either. Not with that moaning
and stomping on the stairs.”
“So
now it’s gone from crying out, to moaning and from tapping to stomping…and on
the stairs. You know what you can just come with me.”
To
be continued…..
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