Title:
The Key to Everything
Author:
Alex M. Kimmell
Genre:
Fantasy Horror
Cracked and weathered binding, hiding mysteries on
pages tied closed by a bloodstained string. A happy young family enchanted by
dreams and possibilities. A barren, empty room. A boy with no friends
obsessively drawing angles, edges and diagrams. In his debut novel, Alex
Kimmell captures a vivid and startling tale of fear. Auden's journey begins
when he discovers a curious leather-bound book whose contents will soon
endanger his entire family. The pages of this book draw him into a prison that
cannot be breached, a place that can only be unlocked with a very special key.
In The Key to Everything, fear is explored and heightened through jarring
imagery and a terrifying, unique menace, ratcheting up the tension until the
novel's gripping climax.
Book
Excerpt:
You toss and turn for what seems like forever.
Finally all the noise and static in your head silences down and you fade into
sleep. Everything is black. No sound, sight or scent. Floating. Full complete nothing… a pregnant
emptiness. The deepest relaxation ever. You know you are flying, but there is
no wind or sense of gravity’s pull to let you know direction. Not up or down.
Not front or back. Slowly and gently there are brief caresses. First one
brushes across your cheek. Another one moves softly along the nape of your
neck. Your palms feel as if they are being kissed. A wetness slides across the
backs of your knees. Hours later you feel a pressure right between your eyes. Sharp
and unfriendly. Pushing harder, you struggle against the pressure holding you
down. Skin cracks and the lock breaks open between your eyes. You realize now
that what crushes into your head is the key. It stabs in like a drill bit, not
spinning. It doesn’t stop. It will not stop. You scream and struggle but
nothing moves when you tell it to. Your body is not responding to your
commands. Trapped, a prisoner to the pain. There is nothing you can do but endure.
The key rams further in, all the way to the wave-engraved hilt and stops. It turns counterclockwise spinning around
slowly. One revolution…two revolutions…three revolutions…you feel your brain
being twisted and mulched…four revolutions…you can’t scream anymore, the agony
is so sharp…five revolutions…everything goes dark…six revolutions…you try to
think of your family…
“Seven, Daddy, seven.” Jason’s voice jolts you
awake. You leap out of bed fighting to slow your heart and catch your breath.
The sheets and your nightclothes are completely soaked with sweat. “Seven,
Daddy, seven.” Jason’s voice sounds far away. He stands in the doorway holding
his hand out in the dark.
“Jason? Hey buddy, are you ok?” You shake your head
to get out of the dream and start walking to your son. The clock on the night
table reads 12:07.
“Seven, Daddy, seven.” Still reaching out in the
darkness, he begins to back up into the hallway.
Emily stirs and sits up, “Auden? What’s going on?”
You keep walking towards Jason as he backs further
away. “I don’t know. Jason’s sleepwalking, I think.”
“Seven, Daddy, seven.” Arm stretched out to nothing,
he moves strangely backwards, floating. The image of the boy blurs in the light
shining up from the bottom of the stairs.
“Hey Jason.” You clap your hands. “Wake up, pal.”
Following him down the hallway, you notice he is getting closer to the stairs.
“What did he say?” Emily follows you into the hall.
“I think he’s saying ‘seven.’”
“What?”
“I have no idea. But he won’t wake up.”
“Seven, Daddy, seven.” Jason turns just before the
stairs and begins backing into his room. Your heartbeat slows down a little in
relief.
“At least he won’t fall down the stairs,” you say as
Emily runs past you into Jason’s room.
“Jason.” She grabs his arms and shakes him hard.
“Wake up, honey.”
“Seven, Daddy, seven.” His eyes stare blankly with
black unfocused pupils completely dilated.
Jason sits down on his bed with his eyes stretched
open. Stiff as a board he lays back and pulls the covers up to his chin. Emily
stands above him crying. Putting your arms around her from behind you can feel
her shaking. You can’t blame her. You’re scared out of your shit too. You don’t
even bother trying to comfort her.
“I’m going to throw up.” Emily pulls away and runs
to the bathroom.
You head down the hall to help her and glance back
at Jason. His head snaps hard to the right and he stares directly into your
eyes.
“Seven, Daddy, seven. SEVEN DADDY SEVEN.SEVEN SEVEN
SEVNSEVENSEVENSEVENSEVEN…”
You launch yourself at him, cradling him in your arms. “Jason. Wake up
please. I’m right here.” You rock him back and forth. He feels cold. A stone.
“SEVENSEVENSEVENSEVENSEVENSEVEN…”
You don’t want to.
The very idea of doing it brings a stabbing pain in your stomach. Your hand reaches out, swings through the air
and slaps him hard across the cheek. Immediate silence. Jason looks at you,
stunned. He starts to sob, tears pouring down his face.
“Why did you hit me, Daddy?” He pushes you and
recoils into the headboard. “Why did you hit me?”
Emily runs in the doorway and jumps over you to get
to her child. “Shhhh, baby.” She reaches back to you with one hand and grabs
your wrist. “You were having a really bad nightmare and Daddy was trying to
help you.” She puts her hands on his face and looks right into his eyes. “Daddy
and Mommy would never hurt you. You know that, right?”
“But he hit me in the face. I was asleep and he hit
me in the face.” Bursting into uncontrollable sobs, Jason buries his face into his
mother’s embrace. Feeling fear and shame beyond words, you get up from the bed.
Rubbing your hands on the top of your head, you pace around the room.
“Fuck!” You slam your hand down on the top of the
bookshelf, knocking the soccer-ball lamp and all of the books on the top shelf
to the floor. “Just great.” You kneel down and start picking up the mess.
Jason’s words are muffled by Emily’s arms. “That’s
another quarter for the swear jar, Daddy.” First a moment of quiet and then the
three of you start laughing. It starts quietly and Jason looks from you to
Emily and back again. When it lets loose, it’s breath-stealing, foot-stomping,
rolling-around-on-the-bed, tension-relieving hysterics.
You sit on the floor as tears roll from your eyes. Eventually
you catch enough breath to say, “How about a dollar for this one, big guy?” Which
just starts Jason and Emily laughing all over again. You stand up and resume
putting the books back on the shelf. You leave “1,001 Fairy Tales” for last
just like Jason would.
When you finally put it on the shelf, it doesn’t hit
the back and stop. It keeps going into the wall. Through the wall like it wasn’t there
anymore. You pull the book back out and grab the soccer-ball lamp. Aiming it
down closer, you try to take a better look. You see a dark crack where the back
of the bookshelf should be. You turn to make sure Emily and Jason aren’t
watching, and slowly reach your hand into the darkness. It feels moist and
scratches your fingers like brittle branches on a dead tree after a cold snow
thaw. It opens slightly, welcoming you inside. You feel it pulling you in
deeper. Confused and frightened you’re screaming inside to stop and back away. Roaring
to pull your hand back from the dark. Still, your hand slides deeper into the
black. Farther than it should be able to. Your shoulder is pressed against the
spines of the children’s books lining the top shelf. How can your hand still be
moving further in? The branches dig deeper into your skin. Warm blood begins to
flow down your forearm. Your panic finally takes hold and you are about to
retract your hand when you feel it.
It’s cold and soft. It must be old, very old. You
can feel the dust and something squishy like mold. You move your fingers a
little to the side to get a good hold. There are no more brittle branches stabbing
and scratching. You pull what looks like an ancient, dust-covered book off the
shelf as if it were resting there next to “Goodnight Moon” the entire time. The
blackened cover was probably expensive leather at one time. The faded string is
still tied around the book keeping secrets locked inside. If you were to pull
the knot out, the entire thing would disintegrate. You reach down for “1,001
Fairy Tales” to put it back on the shelf but it’s not on the floor. You look
around for it and it’s already tucked away on the shelf exactly where Jason
likes it.
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Author
Bio
Alex kimmell (the squirrel
whisperer/twodoggarage/daddy not-so-much-bucks)
is an accidental novelist, anti-rhyme-ologist, oxygen inhaler, carbon dioxide
exhaler who often generates harmonious sounds with various instruments of
different historical importance. his work has appeared on cool places around
the 1’s and 0’s like Black Lantern Press, Front Row Lit, Dumb White Husband and
The Wordcount Podcast. His novel “the Key to everything” and collection of
short, horrific tales “A Chorus of Wolves” were released by Booktrope
Publishing. come and join the neurosis at alexkimmell.com.
Links
Website: http://alexkimmell.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alex.kimmell
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexkimmellauth
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