Marcus Woolley is an independent author from Wales in the United Kingdom. He is currently living in Taiwan, teaching English to children and teenagers. Marcus has always enjoyed the weird and scary, which is the reason why he went into telling tales within the horror genre. His first book that he publish was a romantic dystopian novel called ‘Love in Dystopia’. Later he published a novella called ‘The Vampire Upstairs: A Welsh Horror as well as many other horror related short stories. He started noticing his passion for writing when he was in school, he remembered writing a war story that he showed to his English teacher at the time, it was never supposed to be graded by the examiner but the teacher sent it through and got a good grade. Later on he started writing travel blogs of his adventures around Wales, Morocco and Bangladesh. Marcus got into reading through tales of other people’s adventures, but with no time and money in his younger years to go on an epic adventure, he settled for the horror genre. He will continue to write more stories in the future. He is currently writing a horror novel called ‘The Secrets of Room 13.’
You can read more from Marcus right HERE.
THE BOX
by
Marcus Wooley
"Happy birthday to me,” Joseph sings to himself as he holds onto a small blue cupcake he bought on his way home. In the center was a single candle. Joseph had fallen out with his family stealing money from his grandparents. A gambling addiction doesn’t come cheap. His friends have also abandoned him, he owed his best friend Paul a hefty sum of 500 pounds.
Joseph sits alone in his shabby one-room flat in an insignificant town. A flat that even his landlord has threatened to kick him out of if he does not start paying rent soon. Joseph took a bite out of the cupcake, the slow chewing of its mushiness, a welcoming change of flavors in his boring life.
Soon there was a knock at the front door. Joseph did not expect visitors. Joseph called out, “Who is it?” He received no answer. He heard footsteps moving away from his door to the stairs. Joseph opened the door and looked down the hallway, but could see no one. "They must have gotten the wrong flat," Joseph thought. As he was about to close the door, he looked down at the doormat. There was a medium-sized box with the inscription ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSEPH’. The box itself was nothing special, it was made of cardboard. He placed the box on his kitchen table. He looked around to see who it was from, but he could not find a label.
Brown duct tape was stuck over the opening of the box, he tried to open it, but his chewed nails could not grip the end of the tape. He got a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer, stabbed it into the tape, pulled it toward him, and slowly opened the box. When he looked inside, he was surprised. He could see absolutely nothing. Not even the bottom of the box. It was complete blackness. Joseph put his hand into the box to feel the bottom, but his hand went further, beyond the physical box. He pulled his hand out and took a step back. “What the -?” Joseph didn’t finish his sentence but reached for the pizza crust that was on a plate from last night’s dinner. He dropped the crust into the box and watched it. The crust dissolved into nothingness, not a single sound of impact to be heard. Joseph, obviously confused about the box in front of him, decided to slowly put his hands back inside, but there was still nothing to touch.
Joseph picked up the box, held it above his head, and shook it, expecting the crust to fall right back from wherever it had gone. But it did not. An idea occurred to him, he didn’t know if it was a good idea, but curiosity had gotten the better of him. He lifted the box higher, above his head, and slowly lowered it over him. The box continued to travel down to his waist, past the actual size of the box. He looked around but could see nothing, only a black silence that did not move. Joseph lost his grip on the box, and it fell to the floor. It engulfed his body completely, not even the sound of the box hitting the floor could be heard. He was now standing in the darkness. He tried to reach for the edges of the box to lift it back over him, but the edges were gone. He could not feel them anywhere. In his panic, Joseph rushed to the floor to feel, but his hands just slid along.
He had his cell phone in his pocket, he pressed the button of the flashlight, but it did not help. The light disappeared into the nothingness because there was nothing to reflect the light. Desperately, he turned around and looked for something. But there was nothing. The only thing he could make out was a rectangular shape on the floor, it was the flooring of his kitchen tiles. He didn’t want to get off his rectangle, but he knew he had to try to get somewhere. When he did, his foot tumbled into the nothingness, just a sudden drop into the bottomless abyss. When he regained his balance, he took a step back. He shined the light downward, but just as before, there was nothing to reflect the light. Joseph sat down on the only piece of ground available to him. “What am I going to do?” He asked himself, trying to figure out what to do next. But he could not think of any answers.
He sat alone in silence. He opened his phone and tried to ask someone for help, but who could he call, he had long since burned his bridges with friends and family. Besides, there was no reception in this place. He checked the charge level of his phone, it had dropped to 14%. He regretted not charging it. He watched the numbers slowly sink, he knew that soon he would be part of the darkness, with nowhere to go, trapped in a place that did not exist.
At some point, the light goes out. Joseph sits in the dark. His mind is slowly going mad as his imagination plays tricks on him. He shouts, but there is no echo. It just fades away. Joseph is alone in the void. The minutes turn into what felt like hours, but time means nothing here. Joseph, who is insanely afraid, stands up, screaming at the top of his lungs against the nothingness. He loses his footing, slips, and falls from the only flooring in the place. He falls, but the fall doesn’t stop, it goes on and on, getting faster and faster. He waits a long time for an impact, but the impact never comes. Only the fall into an abyss.