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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/camwalker22 on 2024-09-27 17:05:36+00:00.

My stepdad, Carl, hates me. There’s just no other way to put it.

“Matt, if you don’t like it, go and live with your dad!” Carl would yell, squinting at me through his wire-rimmed glasses, arms folded.

“I don’t know where he is, though. I don’t know him. He left when I was seven!” I’d reply.

“That’s not my problem, is it? I’m the bread-winner in this household, so if you want to live here, you’ll do as I say!”

The chore schedule is strict. Sweeping. Doing the dishes. Washing the car. Dusting. Vacuuming. Invariably, Carl would find some fault with the quality of my work and call a ‘house meeting’ to make clear that the piece of gravel he found on the kitchen floor was not acceptable. Had I even done the chores at all? Or was I lying? My mom would sit there, eyes downcast, letting him get through his spiel. Evie, his daughter, my step-sister, would hover by the doorway, waiting to dash out of the room when he’d had his say.

I learned long ago that there is no way to win the argument, so I’m deferential and apologise, and say it’ll never happen again. But it will. When he’s out at his job as a mobile mechanic, I say as much to my mom, and she’s well aware. 

“He has his flaws, but he’s practical, and in his heart he’s good. He’s been the closest thing you’ve had to a father, Matt. He took that responsibility when he didn’t have to.” She’d say soothingly. 

“In your heart, you’re good. But you don’t treat Evie like he treats me.” I’d respond.

“Evie has a mother who shares the burden.”

“It isn’t my fault my dad ran away!”

That’s how the conversation goes. Around and around in circles. In fairness, my stepdad can be a dick to Evie too. He restricts our internet access. He doesn’t let us have sugary snacks. He makes us lock our phones away in a cupboard at nine-PM sharp and sends us to bed. He bangs on the bathroom door if he deems we’ve been in the shower too long. 

As a result, Evie and I have bonded. The austere rules push us together, and we’ve got a genuine friendship. She appreciates that I’m more hard done-by, so she’ll smuggle me biscuits and tell me the Wi-Fi password, if she’s managed to weasel the information out of Carl. Needless to say, the rules are subject to a degree of flexibility. He buys chocolate biscuits and Doritos for himself and can munch a whole bag in a night, spilling crumbs over the sofa he’s sprawled out on. I can hear the TV blaring til midnight sometimes, the drone being broken only by his guffaws. 

Strict and baleful as he is, he has never laid a finger on any of us. Instead, he smashes objects and writes notes in a capitalised font on the back of envelopes for me to discover in a morning. He screams and shouts in my face, sending the sour stench of his breath my way. I wonder if he’s trying to provoke me to hit him, which would be absurd. He’s pushing two metres tall and heavy-set, and I’m a skinny seventeen-year-old who’s far more interested in reading about battles than fighting them.

I’m used to his dramatic outbursts now, so that’s why yesterday was so weird. Carl was trying to fix the pipes under the kitchen sink, while Evie pressed him for extra pocket money. He was grumbling and largely ignoring her until she mentioned something about the chest in the basement. Carl stopped his tinkering and slid out from under the counter. He towered over Evie, ominously silent. I was studying at the kitchen table, but stopped to watch. Carl’s face, usually so snarling and pained when he was angry, was utterly blank.

“What did you say?” He whispered.

“I–I was just joking. I said I could sell that old chest in the basement to get some pocket money.”

“I’ll say this once, Evie. You leave my chest alone.”

His eyes, cold as frozen planets, bore into Evie’s for a moment longer. Then he went back to work. Evie left the room, sobbing. I followed her up to her bedroom, where she was crying into one of her old teddies. 

“I thought I’d be doing him a favour–it’s full of his army clothes. People buy that sort of stuff nowadays, don’t they? And it’d clear some space. I was trying to be nice!”

I put my arm around her. “I know, Evie.” I said. Two years younger than me, and less beaten down, Evie’s heart was more open to assault. Still, the coldness of Carl’s fury had shocked me.

“Fuck him! Fuck him! FUCK HIM!” She screamed into her teddy.

“Say, Evie, shall we see what’s in Carl’s chest tonight? Three-AM?”

She looked at me with vengeful, red-rimmed eyes and nodded. 

I played on her heightened emotions a little, I’ll admit. But the way Carl reacted had me genuinely worried about what he had in that chest. If it was anything that could endanger my mom or Evie, I had to know. 

The evening passed. Evie and I completed our chores, and I read for an hour before surrendering my mobile phone. I said goodnight to Carl and my mom, and only got one response. It’s not worth pointing out who ignored me and who replied. I climbed the stairs and closed my bedroom door. It was far too early to sleep, despite what Carl thought, so I read by lamplight every night until my eyes got tired. The only thing to be wary of were slow creaking noises that might indicate Carl was creeping up the stairs. Reading in bedrooms was also banned, and publicly, neither me nor Evie did it. However, Carl had his suspicions, so he’d climb with stealth to a certain point on the stairs to check for a glow beneath either of our bedroom doors. If he saw light, he’d burst into the room hoping to catch us. Therefore, I’d preemptively switch off the lamp and pretend to be asleep at the sound of any unusual noise. Once a military man, always a military man, I guess. 

Carl had spent a decade in the army as an engineer. He’d been deployed multiple times, but never to an active theatre of war. Bowing to his ex-wife’s demands, he’d returned to civilian life a year after Evie’s birth. Everything I’d been able to glean seemed to indicate Carl had enjoyed his time in the military. The problem is that he never talks about it. He smiles absently and his eyes go somewhere far away. What had he seen? What had he done?

I woke to a gentle tapping at the door. It was time.

“Follow my steps.” Evie whispered.

She’d charted the least creaky path down the stairs, it seemed. We reached the stone slabs of the kitchen floor and gently opened the basement door, careful of squealing hinges. I closed the door behind us and turned on the flickering light. Pressing against the dusty, cobweb-ridden walls, we descended. The basement itself was cramped and filled with tools, shelves, bicycles, shoes, boxes. Evie pulled a picnic blanket off of a bulky mass to reveal a mahogany chest that was curiously dust-free.

“He comes down here most nights, you know.” She said.

“Why?”

Evie shrugged and nudged a coded padlock.

“Shit. Do you know the code?” I said.

“Maybe.” Evie said, before twisting four numbers into the padlock. It clicked open.

“Ha! Dad’s army serial number. It’s full of army crap, so I assumed that’d be it.”

“How do you know it’s full of army crap?” I asked.

“He told me once, duh…or at least I think he did. Let’s open it and find out.”

The lid was heavier than we expected. It was four inches thick and must’ve been full of lead. I heaved at one side and Evie heaved at the other until we got it up. Inside, there were no combat fatigues. No dog-tags. No boots. It was empty, except for two objects: a long, black cushion and a human jawbone. 

Who’s there?

Evie and I stared at each other, then back at the jawbone.

Boy? Girl? Speak!

“Can you hear a voice?” I asked Evie.

“Yeah.”

“This isn’t army stuff. I don’t know what this is.”

I heard a hollow laugh before the voice continued.

He wouldn’t have told you about me: his charnel confidant. Such is his shame. For he slew me long ago, upon a field far from here.

“I don’t like it.” Evie said.

“Who killed you?” I asked the bone.

Her father.

“My dad wouldn’t kill anyone. That’s a lie!” Evie wailed.

“Shhh! You’ll wake them.” I whispered.

“I don’t like this.” 

He comes here every night to pray and beg and weep, just as his spawn does. He’s certain it was an accident. A firing range mishap, nothing more. Do you believe him? Might he do it again? 

“I hate this.” Evie said, and went to close the lid, but I held her back, chewing my lip.

“Are we in danger?” I asked, and that chilly laugh rattled through my head again. Evie broke my grip and lunged for the jawbone perched on the black cushion.

You dare to touch me! 

The chest lid slammed shut on Evie’s right arm, halfway along the bicep, shattering the bone. She let out half a scream before passing out and sliding down the side of the chest. A gristly grinding sound came from her trapped arm as it twisted further. A cold sweat burst out all over my body and I sprang into action, heaving Evie’s body back up from where she’d fallen.

“Let her out! Let her out!”

The voice had ceased to reply. Summoning all my strength, I squatted down and pressed the lid up. It didn’t budge. I adjusted my grip and pushed with everything I had. A dark centimetre grew into two, then three, then four. I glimpsed that grinning bone perched on black velvet before Evie’s mangled arm was free and she slid back onto the basement floor. I let the lid thud shut.

I helped her up the basement stairs, fully intending to wake my mom and Carl up because Evie needed to go to hospital. She was delirious and muttering. When we emerged, she looked at …

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