Jack in the Box Read online

  foreword

  If you’re reading this, to use a cliché, you are making a dream come true. In this case, though, the cliché must be used, because it’s true. I am so excited to see this book being read by other people, and I am excited that you yourself are reading it.

  I’ve always been fascinated with story, more specifically, with creating story. I have memories of myself even as far back as first grade making small stories, sharing them with my friends, and even trying to write a book or two before I finally wrote the book you now hold in your hands. Originally I made little fan-fiction comics about the super hero or movie character I was into, and later I started to make comics with stories of my own. Back then I perceived that maybe I would become a talented artist out of it, but I realize now that the drawing wasn’t what impassioned me the most. It was the story. I love stories, and I love telling stories. I hope you love reading this one as much as I loved writing it.

  So once again I’ll say it: you’re making a dream come true. This is the first book I’ve ever written, and I am blessed to have it completed and published.

  Maybe this book will challenge you. Maybe it will convict you. If anything, it will make you think. So get ready to grind your gears, and enter the Box.

  Michael Shaw

  one

  Black.

  It was the first thing that came into my mind. I didn’t really understand what it meant. But I assumed it must’ve been what I was seeing, which now I know was in fact, black. I moved my eyes all around. Saw nothing except nothing. My emotions were going crazy, but with no words behind them. My mind felt like a blank slate, and I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered those things that keep me from being able to see. Eyelids. I opened them, and my surroundings began to come into focus. This was the first time I remember waking up, but apparently it wasn’t.

  “Good morning!” a voice said in front of me.

  Morning. What is that? I struggled to remember its meaning.

  Beginning of the day. Before noon.

  “Well, technically not morning. In fact I just had lunch; it's a little bit after noon,” the man patted his stomach. "But morning as far as you're concerned, sleepy head! I bet you’re hungry, but lunchtime’s already over, so you’ll have to wait until dinner.”

  Lunch. A meal during midday. Dinner. A meal during evening. And hunger? My stomach made some sort of vibration. I remembered hunger.

  I looked back at the man in front of me. He had a sincere smile on his face, and a clipboard in his hand.

  Clipboard. Holds papers.

  Paper. Comes from trees. Made for writing. Wait. What is a tree?

  Common knowledge came rushing back into my brain.

  I’m wearing clothes. A black tee shirt and jeans.

  I’m on a bed. A bed in the center of the room.

  I’m in a room. Four walls.

  The room has doors. One door at each wall.

  It's a simple room. Walls painted white. White floor. Wooden doors. Brass handles.

  My name is:

  …

  My name?

  I couldn’t remember.

  It’s that thing I’m supposed to be called, isn’t it?

  I sat there. Tried so hard to get the answer. Tried to remember who I was.

  The man in front of me stopped talking when he saw the confused look on my face. His demeanor slightly changed. He was no longer just happy and careless; now he had the look of a caring father. Almost as if he had been in my shoes.

  I looked down at my feet to see if I was even wearing shoes. Yes.

  “What is your name?” he asked me with that concerned look on his face. It was as if he knew that I was asking myself the same thing.

  I didn't answer. I couldn't answer.

  “Good.” He looked down. “And how . . . how old are you?”

  “I . . . ” I didn’t know.

  “I can answer that one for you, you’re twenty-nine. Your birthday was two minutes ago. Happy birthday!” He changed back to his happy self again.

  Didn’t I wake up two minutes ago?

  “So you don’t know who you are. Everything’s going correctly so far.” The man looked at the next page of his clip board.

  For some reason I had to ask him, “What’s your name?”

  Happy face gone again. Oops.

  “Sorry.”An expression of apology.

  He disregarded what had just happened. “Where were you born?”

  I gave the first answer that came to mind. “Here?”

  “Well, you’re not entirely incorrect.” He scanned the page on his clipboard. “Just one more question to test your memory. What year is it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He lifted his head and looked straight at me. “I was hoping you would know. That question’s not on the clipboard. I don’t know either.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know much at that point anyway.

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten those out of the way,” the man ripped the pages off the clipboard and crumpled them up. He tossed them into something in the corner. A trash bin. “Let’s get onto your intellect.”

  Great, I’m 0 for 5, and he wants to ask me more questions.

  The man looked at his clipboard with that happy expression on his face again.

  “What is two plus two?”

  “Four.” I answered without thinking. Okay. So what?

  “How many letters are in the alphabet?”

  “Twenty six.”

  “Say them backwards.”

  I did the task effortlessly.

  “This is too easy for you.” His eyes raced down the page looking for a harder question. “Okay! This is a good one.” He took the page off of the clip board and turned it over. He proceeded to copy down a short algebraic equation onto the page. Then he held the pencil out to me.

  The solution was already going through my head before I even took the pencil. The work for it was done in five seconds, but the answer was taking a while to write down. So many digits. I kept writing; my hand flew across the page.

  He grasped my wrist to stop me. “It’s pi . . . You’d be writing that answer down for a while.” He picked the paper back up and looked at it once again. “Let’s do some more.”

  Many questions followed. One, two, three hours passed. We went through math, grammar, and science. I answered them all correctly. So, If I understood what was going on here, I knew everything, but remembered nothing.

  “Well, aren’t you the smart one?” said the man in his happy mood. “I’m sure you’re glad that’s over. You must be really hungry by now."

  I nodded.

  "But it’s not dinner time yet. And unfortunately, I won’t be able to have dinner with you tonight.”

  “Why not?” I inquired.

  He put the clipboard down on the floor next to his feet. “Oh, you'll find out.”

  “So, what is my name?”

  “Well, apparently you’re. . ." he eyeballed the clipboard, "J-100. But it seems so cliché to name people with numbers and letters, doesn’t it?”

  I stared at him.

  “Yes, well, we need a name for you." He closed one eye and looked me up and down. "How about . . . Jack?”

  “Jack . . . ” I repeated.

  “Yes, generic name, but you look like a Jack to me. Generic Jack. How about that? You know what that is? It’s-”

  “Alliteration.”

  “Of course you know what it is. Anyway, Jack, let’s get down to business." He reached underneath my bed and took out a briefcase.

  “What’s in there?”

  He ignored my question. His happy face was gone again. He ran his hand across the top of the case. Paused.

  I waited.

  He put his h
ands on the locks, but stopped. His hands shook slightly. He seemed hesitant to open it. But he shook his head and continued. “Basically, Jack, there are two parts to this thing.” He opened the briefcase. I still couldn’t see inside it though. “All you have to worry about right now, is part one.” He took something out of the briefcase; it was dark and shaped like an L. A gun. He held it out to me. “Now, I’m not allowed to kill you,” he said. “But you’re allowed to kill me.”

  I took the gun. It was cold, but the feeling was familiar. I felt as though I'd held a gun before. I felt comfortable with it, which led to me feeling uncomfortable. All that was missing was the magazine. I looked up at him. “Why would I kill you?”

  “Well,Idon’t want you to,” he said with a fake laugh. “But you’re allowed to.” He took something else out of the briefcase and gave it to me. It was the magazine. He pointed at it and said, "Five bullets, Jack. That's what you get. That'sall you get."

  “I still don’t understand. What’s going on here?”

  He looked up at me. “You don’t get out of this place unless you can catch me.”

  Why he said this so seriously, I had no idea. This sounded like some childish game.Tag was the word. “But why would I want to leave?”

  Yet again he neglected to answer me. “I’ll let you keep these, too.” He gave me a small notebook and a pen.

  “What are these for?”

  “You’ll figure that out.”

  “So, when does this start?”

  “Hang on.” He walked over to one wall of the room. He pointed to the door. “Listen carefully. Like I said, the test is to catch me. You may not attempt this during meal times. Each door leads to a different room. You may not mark a door, you may not break a door, and you must close a door after opening it.”

  I made sure I could remember all the rules. Then I considered the rules themselves. Many about things I couldn't do to doors. “Why?”

  “You really like to ask questions for someone so smart.”

  “You’re not answering them.”

  “Not allowed to.”

  I shut up.

  “Dinner is served here in your room. You must be back in time or you will not eat. The next chance you will get at eating is tomorrow for breakfast at 8 am.

  “How will I know what time it is?”

  No response; go figure.

  “So, are we going to start?” I asked him.

  “Yes, yes we are.” He opened the door.

  This shouldn’t be hard,I thought. I looked at him confidently. “Let’s do this.”

  The man walked into the next room and closed the door.

  I got out of bed and walked over to the door. I opened it and closed it behind me. The man wasn’t there. I was standing in a room, identical to the one I was just in, minus the bed and trash bin. An empty room. Four walls, a door at each wall. I didn't know which door he had gone through. I walked into the next room. An empty room. A door at each wall. It looked exactly the same. I ran into another room. The same. I rushed through door after door, turning left and right. Every time I ran into a room, I became more and more scared. No matter where I went, every room was the same.

  I didn’t have dinner that night.

  two

  Every door.

  Every room.

  Everything.

  The same.

  Each door was at the center of each wall.

  The knots in the wooden doors were identical.

  Each door had a brass handle with a keyhole. And a small dent on the right side.

  A single light bulb was in the center of every ceiling in every room.

  Nothing distinguished one room from another. As I wandered through them, I became very tired. For some reason I felt like I had never gotten any sleep, even though I had just woken up from sleeping a few hours ago. Or had I even been sleeping? My brain was continually working, trying to figure out a solution, while my body was ready to collapse. My body won. I remember losing consciousness in a room with a door at each wall. In other words, I had no idea where on earth I was. If I was even on earth. No dinner, no bed. . . but at least I had my sanity. The latter was questionable.

  I woke up, so desperate for food, so desperate for a bed. My body ached from sleeping on the cold, hard floor. But as I woke up, I felt what I was lying on. Not the floor. It was soft. I was in my room. In my bed. A great feeling of contentment overwhelmed me.

  Now all I need is. . .

  The sweet smell filled my nostrils.

  Food.

  I sat up to see a table a few feet past the foot of my bed. I remembered seeing it the day before; I just hadn’t taken notice of it then. On top of the table was a plate. I got out of bed and seemed to float over to the scent. I sat down in one of the two chairs at the table. On the plate were hash browns, an omelet, and five strips of bacon. Next to the plate was a glass full of orange juice.

  "Better not have pulp," I said before taking a sip. It didn't. Awesome.

  I began to eat. Such a great feeling. My mind escaped from reality, escaped from the fact that I was completely lost in this place, that I didn't know who I was, that I didn't know why I was here. The sense of peace from such a simple necessity as food was great.

  But reality didn't go away.

  I still didn't know where I was. Well, I knew that I was in a room with four doors, next to a room with four doors, next to a room with four doors, next to. . .

  I still didn't know where I was.

  "Welcome back," said happy man as he entered the room. He handed me the gun, notebook, and pen. "You left these here. Try not to do that."

  "Thanks." I took the items and placed them under my chair.

  "Did you enjoy your breakfast?" He asked me.

  "Yeah, a lot. . . How did I get back in here?"

  I figured out that this guy frowned whenever I asked questions. “There’s certain questions that I just can’t answer, Jack.”

  "So, if I'm supposed to catch you, why are you in here?"

  "You are not allowed to attempt the task during meal hours. We all need to eat, Jack."

  "Okay." I examined his face. "Okay. . . Brian."

  He looked at me with a confused look. "What?"

  "That's my name for you. You made a name for me, so I've made a name for you. Brian."

  He looked down for a second. He looked back up again and said casually, "Okay, that's fine, Jack."

  "Did you already have your breakfast?"

  "Yeah," Brian replied. "You were out cold. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I had mine an hour ago.

  I drank the last of my orange juice. "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Just did. Will that be all?"

  "I’m serious. Why won't you tell me what's going on here?"

  "You're not allowed to know. Well, that’s technically not true. You are. But I'm not the one allowed to tell you. Once - that is, if - you find out, some answers will come."

  "Then how do I find out?"

  "It's all part of the test."

  The test. He said it with seriousness. As if it were some official title.

  "And the test is to catch you." I looked up at him for confirmation.

  "Right you are, Jacky. Speaking of which, it's about time for me to head on out." He walked over to a door, the same door he went through the day before. It was to the right of my bed. "See you back here at lunch."

  "And when is that?" I asked, already anticipating that he would not answer.

  "Noon." He walked through the door and closed it behind him.

  He answered? Sweet! Wait.I looked around the room. No clock.How do I know when noon is?"Great, thanks." I put the pen in the left pocket of my jeans and the notebook in my back pocket on the right side. I left the gun on the bed. I didnot want to use that thing. I opened the door, walked into the next room, and closed the door. He wasn't there. Of course. I wondered how I would be able to even find him, much less catch him. I thought about what he had told me the day before.

  Ea
ch door leads to a different room. You may not mark a door, you may not break a door, you may not leave a door open after entering.

  Was he lying? Were they really all different? Because every room pretty much looked the same to me. The only one that was different was my bedroom, but that was just because of what the room contained. What about marking a door? Would I get in trouble for breaking his “rules”?

  I looked at the door in front of me, across from the door I had just entered through. I took out the notebook and pen. I drew several squares on the first paper. In the center square, I put an H for “Home.” That marked my bedroom. Now what? I couldn’t make any room distinguish itself from another. I sat down. I don’t know why, but I felt as though life was being pulled out of me. I shouldn’t have already been feeling tired. I had just gotten up a few minutes before then. I got back up. Willed myself to move. I looked back at the pad. There was no way of figuring out what else to put on the paper. This was hopeless. I put the pad away. “All I can do now is guess.”

  I walked for a little while. No matter which door I went through, the next room was always the same. I changed directions every now and then. Sometimes I went back through a door I had just closed to see if anything had changed. Everything that happened was the same as the day before, except this time I didn’t freak out about it. I knew that the rooms were like this. I might as well have been in a box. Nowhere to go. No one to talk to. Except Brian. But I never saw him, which bothered me. Not because the game of tag was intriguing to me, but because I wanted to escape the place. As I went from door to door, I wondered if Brian were always one room away from me. Leaving a room right as I entered it. Dodging me just by a little bit every time I opened a door. The thought irritated me, and made me go through each room more quickly. But I didn’t go for very long. The feeling hit me again. The feeling of imminent collapse. I was losing consciousness. With no idea why. I tried to push myself. Tried to keep going. The last thing I remember seeing was the floor.

  →

  “Good morning!”

  I opened my eyes. I was in bed again. And there was Brian, with his happy face, which was already starting to irritate me.

  “Better get eatin’. You slept longer than usual.”