The Trinket Box Read online

  THE TRINKET BOX

  John Kaden

  Milton Brooks hasn’t been the same since his wife, June, passed away five years ago. His memory has been slipping, and he worries that soon he won’t remember her at all.

  When he finds a vintage cigar box hidden in June’s old dresser, he begins to obsess over the odd collection of knick-knacks contained inside it — but his journey to remember the past will take a horrifying turn for the worse.

  THE TRINKET BOX

  Copyright © 2014 John Kaden

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, electronic or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.

  Cover Design by Timmy Lunsford

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  JohnKaden.com

  Also by John Kaden

  BLOOD SEANCE

  A Haunted House Novel

  ALEXANDRIA

  An Apocalyptic Adventure

  CONTENTS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I

  Milton Brooks sat with the vintage cigar box on his lap, looking out his tenth floor window at the street below — which is what he liked to do most days, whether he knew it or not. He was just shy of seventy, and decades spent carousing in the bright Florida sunshine had leathered his skin and creased it with a roadmap of deep wrinkles. His pale blue eyes gazed out at a skyline populated by palm trees and power lines. He sat like this for hours sometimes, always with the cigar box held in his frail hands like a gift he was waiting to give someone, if only they would show up to receive it.

  It was a cheap old box made of heavy cardboard. Nothing special. There were baroque designs around the sides, and on the cover, in ornate, curly-cue lettering, the words “Sweet Life” were printed. Beneath that, a picture of a stout-looking fisherman, standing in a rowboat with a stogie hanging out the corner of his mouth, the straw hat on his head tipped back at a sporty angle.

  Milton thumbed open the lid and let it fall softly shut. Over and over he did this.

  Sometimes he would raise the lid all the way and let it fall open on his bony knees, and one-by-one he would take out the items and study them in a quiet and unhurried manner. A gold and ruby brooch shaped like a treble clef. A metal lighter. A souvenir ball-point pen. More things, all jumbled together. He couldn’t for the life of him remember where a single one of them had come from. Each odd trinket was its own little mystery — a menagerie of lost memories that lingered just beyond his mind’s grasp.

  He had found the box about six months ago, tucked back in the bottom drawer of his late wife’s old antique dresser. It was pure happenstance that he even stumbled across it at all. If that bottom drawer hadn’t been cracked open an inch, he might never have gotten curious enough to look inside — but there it was, hidden back beneath a pile of support stockings and out-of-date blouses. He took it into the kitchen and cleaned it with the delicacy of an archaeologist restoring a priceless relic, carefully wiping off the dust and revealing the rustic, Norman Rockwell-style picture of the cigar-chomping fisherman on the cover — the Sweet Life man.

  Since that night, he had spent countless hours pouring over the box and its treasures — whether he was of sound mind or not, it made no difference; the compulsion was the same either way. It gave him something to think about, something to puzzle over during the lonely hours. It wasn’t much of a hobby, but it passed the time. He’d given up crosswords years ago (the clues had gotten too tough), and he only watched the television while he ate his supper. That was one of the few rituals he had preserved from his married days: the nightly news with the nightly meal.

  It had been five tough years since June had passed away — taken in her sleep in the still of night. Milton woke up the next morning to find her cold and stiff, still nestled against his side. Her family had a long history of heart disease, so it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, but that first moment, that first touch of her cold silky skin, had been so full of shock and sadness that Milton could barely eat for weeks afterward.

  It was after June died that his mind had first started to sour. In the early stages it was just little things — Where did I put my wallet? Missed what appointment? Today? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I must’ve written it down wrong. He chalked it up to old age for most of that first year.

  But it worsened, as it often does, and a dreadful voice in the back of his mind warned him against false optimism. When he was younger he had watched his own father turn from a well-spoken man into a confused shell of his former self in less than five years time, and that same dreadful voice told him the blight was coming for him next, and nothing would stop it.

  He started leaving notes for himself around the apartment during his better spells, reminding him to call so-and-so and do such-and-such. He made out a checklist and placed it on the nightstand next to the bed:

  Turn off burners

  Lock doors

  Check taps

  Take medicine

  Lights out

  It helped him manage the daily affairs, at least.

  For a little while.

  Two events shook him out of that cold complacency (or maybe it was flat-out denial), and forced him to finally accept what was happening to him.

  The first came on a blameless Florida morning. He had dressed in his usual brown slacks and a short-sleeved button up, and then headed down the block to the Corner Café to take his morning dose of black coffee. There were three booths along the front window of the little greasy spoon, and Milton was relieved to see that his favorite one was open and waiting for him. He slid in with a groan and fumbled with the rolled-up silverware tube while he waited for the woman to come take his order.

  “Hiya, Mr. Brooks,” said a bubbly voice, approaching him from behind. “Cuppa black?”

  Milton creaked his neck around and stared dumbly at the college-aged girl standing there with a green pad held at her side. He looked her up and down, then flicked his eyes behind the counter, toward the kitchen. “Where’s Agnes?” he said.

  “Agnes?”

  “She playin’ hooky?” He laughed at his own half-joke, then cocked his elbow up and rested it on the back of the booth. “Didn’t think they gave her any days off around here.”

  The young waitress, BECKY her nametag said, bit her lip and glanced at him cockeyed. “We haven’t got anybody named Agnes, Mr. Brooks. You haven’t been two-timing me at some other coffee shop, have you?”

  “No dear, listen: Agnes. She’s been waiting tables here more years than you’ve been alive. She’s like a piece of furniture in this place. Agnes, dear. Where’s Agnes?”

  “I’m sorry,” Becky said, swallowing a bit nervously. “I’m pretty sure I would’ve met her by now.”

  “Didja just start yesterday or something?”

  Becky put her hands on her hips and said, “Yeah, right. I been here two years. C’mon, you know that.”

  “Puh.”

  She looked at him, confused but with a kindness and patience that made her seem like a much older woman for a moment, and said, “Hey, are you feeling okay, Mr. Brooks? Because you seem…” She stopped herself — or rather, the look on Milton’s face stopped her.

  Just then, a male voice piped up from the side of the lunch counter: “Problem, Becky?”

  Becky turned a
nd saw the line cook standing there, and said, “He’s looking for Agnes?”

  The cook clunked the spatula on the edge of the counter and stepped toward the table, stopping just behind Becky’s shoulder. “We used to have a lady named Agnes. Blond hair. Older lady. Is that who you’re looking for?”

  Milton gave a small nod. He held his eyes rigid, but his lower lip trembled, oh so slightly. The first thin cracks in a proud man’s fragile facade.

  “Oh, man, sir… I’m sorry, but she, uh… she retired a few years back. I think she moved to Boca Raton or something.”

  Milton stopped breathing for a few seconds as the cook’s words reverberated through his mind. He swallowed hard, chancing a look back at the girl with BECKY written on her nametag. Of course it was her. It was Becky. Becky from the University of Miami. Becky who waited tables while she studied to become a nurse practitioner. Becky who had served him coffee and chatted with him cordially three mornings a week for the past two years. A hot flush of embarrassment spread across his sun-weathered face and he said, “Sorry. Sorry. I… I’m sorry.”

  “S’all right. Don’t worry about it.” Becky held up her pad. “How about I bring you your cup of black, huh?”

  At this point Milton’s heart felt like it had been replaced by a sixteen pound bowling ball. He waved her off without even speaking and gripped the edge of the table. Becky stepped back, giving him a wide radius of space, and watched nervously as he scooted to the end of the booth. More than a few eyes were turned in his direction and he could feel every one of their stares burning right through him. With shaky hands he hoisted himself to his feet and lurched down the narrow aisle of the café and exited through the stickered glass door — a door which he would never walk through again for the rest of his days. There was an old coffee maker in the cupboard at home that would do just fine from here on out, he reasoned. No use chancing it.

  The second event — the second omen — came just a few weeks later. This incident was altogether less embarrassing, yet somehow far more terrifying in its implications.

  It was the day he met Ralph, a fresh retiree who had just moved in down the hall. Milton went down to the lobby that morning to retrieve his mail from the wall of brass-plated mailboxes, and he saw a fellow about his age standing outside the glass double doors, struggling with the building’s entrance code. Milton shut his mailbox and locked it, then went over and cracked open the door. “Who’re you here to see?” he asked.

  “Nobody,” Ralph said. “I live here, apartment ten-fourteen, I just can’t remember the goddamn pin number.”

  Milton appraised him for a moment, then held the door open wide. “All right. I think I saw you the other day, taking out your trash.”

  “I’m a trashy guy,” Ralph said.

  Milton laughed pretty hard at this, and boy, it sure felt great to laugh again. He hadn’t done much of that lately. “Code’s three-eight-two-seven.” He rattled off the number effortlessly, without a hitch.

  “Thanks, partner.” Ralph stepped through and offered out his hand. He had a kind face and a full head of stark white hair — hair so brilliant and bone white it looked glowing and unnatural. Televangelist hair. “Ralph Winston,” he said.

  Milton grabbed his hand and pumped it vigorously; he was so excited to meet someone new that he almost forgot to introduce himself in return. “Oh, uh… Milton. Milton Brooks.”

  They struck up a quick conversation right there in the lobby, and within fifteen minutes they were getting along like old friends reuniting after years apart. Ralph delved into his life story, explaining that he’d been a long haul trucker before he decided to call it quits and move to Miami. It was something they both had in common — a life on the road. Milton talked at length about his years as a restaurant supply salesman, trekking up and down Florida and through the South, peddling industrial kitchen equipment, and about how things had dried up pretty quickly once the Internet took over and made guys like him obsolete.

  “It’s a killer,” Ralph said. “Me? I sold my rig six months ago.” He shook his head and gave a resigned shrug. “After forty years of driving fourteen hours a day, my ass felt like a block of cement. It was still tough, though, letting her go. Selling her off like that was like divorcing a woman you still loved — and I should know, because I’ve done that, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I suppose she divorced me. And I suppose I deserved it. How ‘bout you, Milty? You been married?”

  “Nope.”

  “Smart man,” Ralph said. “Play the field. Hell, that’s why I moved to Florida. I heard the women down here were pickled by the salty air so they stay pretty longer.”

  “Pickled!” Milton laughed. “That’s a good one.”

  “Well, they’re well-preserved, at any rate.”

  “I suppose they are.”

  “We oughtta head out on the town some night, you and me, and see if we can scare us up some tail.” Ralph flashed a grin and winked. “Never too old to tango, eh, bud?”

  Milton’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, I don’t… I don’t now if I’m up for… scaring any tail.”

  “A brewski then, at least. You a drinking man?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “There you have it. A beer, then. On me.”

  Milton gave a resolute nod. “That sounds just fine.”

  They rode the elevator up together and parted ways in the tenth floor corridor, with one more handshake to seal the deal. Milton walked away from the encounter with a big smile on his face, and he didn’t realize the grave error he had made until he was safely back inside his apartment with the door shut and locked. He stood still for a moment, gazing around his living room with the awful feeling that something was amiss, then a single word rose up from the depths of his memory and crossed his lips with painful clarity: “June.”

  He collapsed on the sofa and burst into tears.

  How ‘bout you, Milty? You ever been married?

  And what had Milty said?

  Nope.

  The word clanged through his head like a warning siren. Nope. Nope. Nope. His wife of thirty-nine years. His sweet June. She had flown out of his mind like she had never been there at all. He grabbed a throw pillow from the arm of the sofa — the one June had stitched with her own two hands — and hugged it against his chest like a drowning man would a life preserver. He buried his face in the lacy ruffles and drew in a long breath, trying to smell even a trace of the perfume she once wore, but it only smelled dusty and old. Sorrow gave way to anger and Milton gritted his teeth and cursed himself for remembering that stupid entrance code but not his wife’s name, her face, or the fact that she even existed as a part of his life.

  It was just a blip, a little bobble, but it was huge. It wasn’t his first episode, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last. There would be a lot of strange days after that one. A never-ending circus of them.

  II

  Milton thumbed the lid of the box one more time and finally set it aside with a weary sigh. He supposed he had better clean himself up a bit before Jason arrived. Jason was his caregiver, but Milton always thought of him as more of a parole officer. His good word was the only thing keeping Milton out of the Big House — or, in other words, the assisted living building where they kept a thermometer up your ass 24/7 and fed you baby food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  Milton stood up out of his chair and glanced at the clock. 10:46 AM. Jason was usually over around 11:30 or so — that gave him forty-five minutes to get the show on the road. He trudged through the bedroom and into the master bath. His eyes looked drawn and tired in the mirror, and he tried to avoid making eye contact with himself.

  His shaving necessities were scattered across the counter, and Milton set himself dimly to the task of removing the whiskers from his face with a straight blade. When that was finished, he leaned over the counter and splashed water through his coarse, salt and pepper hair, then slicked it back with a comb. A dash of Aqua Velva and it was back to the bedro
om to get dressed — brown slacks and a button up. The standard attire. Why fix it if it ain’t broke, right?

  A sudden clattering from the living room startled him and he sucked in a quick breath. “Jason?” he said, finishing up the last couple of buttons. Jason had a key, but he rarely used it — he usually knocked, same as everybody else did. Milton padded across the carpet and poked his head into the living room. “Jason, is that y—”

  There was a knock at the door, a sharp double-tap.

  Then, a muffled voice from the hallway outside: “Morning, Milton. It’s me, Jason. Your caregiver.”

  Jason always announced himself like that, with a not-so-subtle reminder of who he was and why he was here. On his good days, Milton found it condescending and irritating. On his bad days, it was like a lighthouse on a dark shore. Some days, he needed the reminder. Today, being of fairly good mind, he simply grumbled under his breath and went over to open the door. Jason stood there with a wide smile, fresh-faced and looking more like a Future Business Leader of America than an errand boy for lonely old men.

  “You’re early,” Milton said. “You got a race you’re trying to win?”

  Jason laughed. “No. I finished up early at my last job. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Oh, I’m very busy,” Milton said, holding the door open and ushering him inside. “Busy doing nothing,” he added. He eyed the paper bag in Jason’s arms and said, “What is this? He comes bearing gifts?”

  “Groceries. Good stuff, this week.”

  “It’s grocery day already? Cripes.”

  “Time flies,” Jason said, and showed himself to the kitchen, where he began unpacking the bag and stowing things away in the cupboards. “How’re you getting along?”