July 10, 2024

​Don’t You Cry
by Jennifer Peaslee

Photo by Everyday basics on Unsplash

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.


​Jack slouches on a sunken bed shoved up against a corner of the studio apartment. His mattress is strewn with empty whiskey bottles and cigarette butts, complementing the nicotine stains that decorate the walls. A news report plays on the grainy screen of his CRT television.

Sweat and stale tobacco cling to Jack and his three-day-old stubble. He sweeps his tongue over his teeth, feels the grit coating his enamel, and sighs—a wet, wheezy half cough—focusing his attention on the reporter.

“This is one of the worst crashes we've seen on this road," says the glossy-haired brunette. “Six cars were involved, and there are reports of two fatalities. We have received no confirmation from Highway Patrol that any of the drivers were under the influence, but the investigation remains ongoing." 

Jack reaches for another cigarette from one of the packs scattered on the bed. 

He freezes when he notices the brass keyring on top of the cigarettes. It holds one elongated and slender key, the shine of which has long since faded, and which bears no teeth.

The threat of tears stings his eyes.

"Don't fucking think about it," he mutters and tosses the key aside. Shakily lights up a cigarette and takes a shuddering breath.

He knows that Charlie Anders is one of the two deaths. Charlie in his damned Firebird. Jack can’t know for sure that his childhood friend had been on anything, but he can guess. Charlie has—had—been under one influence or another these past six months.

Jack finishes his cigarette, left knee bouncing all the while. He stubs the butt out on the wall and reaches for another. 

On top of the pack of cigarettes is the key.

He looks back at the TV; the key is on the box, dangling in front of the screen, taunting him, asking what he would like to unlock next.

Time was, he and Charlie would insert the key into damn near anything, to see what would happen. Unlock a chest and you might find a fistful of cash. Unlock a room, and the latest IBM could be waiting for you, or maybe a plush, king-size bed would have replaced your worn-out double mattress.

Unlock anything and everything that had a hole, and if a string of bad luck had followed them, well, how were they to realize its cause? A small fire in a dorm room—Charlie being careless with his pot. A string of girlfriends turning out to be faithless—what woman isn't? Twenty dollars gone missing from Jack’s wallet—shit happens. Use the key to unlock some small treasure, and the payback could be brushed aside as acts of God, if you will. 

                                                                     ###

It was Suzy, Jack’s first and only serious girlfriend, who first unlocked something a little too large. He swallowed a laugh when she told him that she wanted to use the key to reunite her folks, who were four months separated. The distraught look on her face convinced him it was not a time for levity. 

"Suzy," he soothed. "The key doesn’t work like that. It can’t make people do something they don’t want to do.”

"You don’t know what it can and can’t do," she said, her face tight. "I have a plan. I’m doing this." 

Jack let her take the key, figuring all that would happen was Suzy would learn a hard lesson. When Charlie showed up shortly after, asking for the key for his own reasons, he was pissed that Jack had lent it to his girlfriend. Even so, he agreed that her idea sounded naive.

“No way it works, man.” Charlie shrugged at him before going to grab a beer. “Even a skeleton key’s got limits.”

When Suzy showed up the next morning, Jack figured the troubled look on her face was disappointment that her plan hadn’t worked. But no: Suzy invited her father over, asked her parents to go into her bedroom on the pretense of needing to tell them something, then shut the door on them. She inserted the key, turned it, and opened the door to find her parents in an embrace. They had no recollection of Suzy asking them to step into her room.

In fact, Suzy admitted, they had no recollection of having been separated at all. That was troubling.

Suzy insisted she was happy to have her family back, whatever state they were in. Jack felt relieved that Suzy was satisfied. He and Charlie went back to using the key for smaller unlockings. All was well—for about a month. Then, bad things started happening to Suzy. First, a mugger held her up at gunpoint; a week later, her university expelled her after accusing her of cheating. 

After one night of drinking and smoking, Suzy confessed to Jack and Charlie that she felt like there was something out to get her. 

“That’s crazy,” Charlie scoffed. Suzy ignored him, looking into Jack’s eyes. 

“I’m serious, Jack. I feel like I’m being watched, even now.” 

The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck rose. “Maybe we stop using the key—only for a few months, is all!” 

Charlie shut that shit down fast with nothing more than a hard look.

Days later, Suzy's mother—forty-six and in excellent health—dropped dead from a heart attack. 

"It's the key," Suzy wept into Jack's coat at the funeral. "That goddamn cursed key. It's not worth all this. I threw it away, I buried it, I tried everything—it kept coming back to me!" Her voice rose an octave, gaining a hysterical tinge. "Take it, but don't ever use it! Don't ever!"

Shortly after the funeral, Suzy moved several states away, and the remaining duo agreed never to use the key again.

                                                                        ###

Within a few months, Charlie and Jack were telling each other, "It can’t hurt to try," as they unlocked random doors, drawers, and chests with the old brass key. In return, neither could hold down a job, a girlfriend, or any sense of happiness for long.

Jack understood that anyone else would have stopped using the key. He couldn't exactly explain why he kept returning to that which kept making him miserable—except who else could say they had a life so interesting? They had magic. Real goddamn magic. Charlie would get trashed on forties and rant about how they had a responsibility, a duty, to use the magic. Not using it would be wasteful—a bigger sin. Jack wasn’t sure he agreed, but felt unwilling to let his friend take on the key’s burden alone. 

Then Charlie came to Jack with an idea of unlocking his car. Charlie confided that he hoped for his beloved Firebird to turn into KITT from Knight Rider. Jack knew that Charlie had visions of Patricia McPherson showing up, Hasselhoff’s leather jacket in hand. 

“What about what happened with…y’know?” Jack asked, struggling to look his friend in the eye. 

Charlie scoffed. “Shit, dude, that’s hardly on the same plane of existence. I just wanna hear my baby talk.” 

Despite harboring reservations, Jack conceded to Charlie’s scheme. Although hoping to see more of an Autobot situation, Jack figured the key was as likely to gift them something small, like a full tank of gas, then let them deal with whatever petty consequences came their way. 

Jack was surprised when the car anthropomorphized as Charlie hoped. Charlie, despite his assurances it would work, seemed stunned, though ecstatic. He never wanted to take the key out of the car, and Jack had no problem with that, since it meant they couldn’t use the key on anything else. As a compromise, it worked well. 
Until tonight. Payment had been seized, abruptly and severely. 

                                                                     ###
The key has collected its fee from Suzy, from Charlie—now it comes for him. It demands to be used. It demands to be paid.

Jack stands up to turn off the TV, staring down at the key that is once more on top of the set. There is nothing he wants to use it on. Nothing that can distract him from the pain. 

He weeps, curses, tries prying open a window and throwing out the damned object. Like Suzy once warned, it will not leave him be.

He feels a wave of nausea, and grabs an already full trash can from the side of the bed, spews vomit into it. The puke rolls down the teetering pile of trash, and when Jack drops the can, it tips over. Yellow bile pools on the grungy carpet, coming to a rest at the mangled corpse that snaps into appearance by Jack’s feet.

"Ahh!" Jack screams, and screams, but Charlie—what’s left of Charlie—doesn’t disappear. He lies in a huddled mass. One eye has popped out of its socket. Limbs mangled, covered in blood and bruises, bones poking out of flesh. The scent of blood mixes with fresh vomit.

Jack runs to the bathroom, opens the door, and falls to his knees, for the broken body has moved. That dislocated eye stares right at him. 

The key fits too easily in his sweaty palm. Jack knows what final gift it has in mind. There is only one thing he could want at this moment.

With trembling fingers, Jack shuts the bathroom door. Inserts the key. Turns it. 
Opens the door.

                                                               💀💀💀


Jennifer Peaslee (she/her) is a dark fiction writer with an affinity for fairy tales and folklore. She lives in Atlanta with her cat, Trouble, and runs bleedingtypewriter.page, a community for new and emerging writers.

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