The Crank in the Attic

The first time I saw the thing in the attic, I was seven, and it was the summer we moved into the old farmhouse on Gable Road. My parents thought the wide porch and the apple orchard would be perfect for a kid, but the house had a smell, like damp soil and rust, and a way of humming at night, low and constant, as if the walls were alive. My room was at the top of the stairs, and directly above it, a narrow pull-down ladder led to the attic. I was forbidden to go up there, which, of course, meant I was obsessed with it.

It started with the sounds. A slow, rhythmic creak, like someone turning a handle, coming from the attic at precisely three in the morning. I would lie in bed, counting the seconds between each turn. One… two… three… creak. One… two… three… creak. It went on for hours, and I told my parents it was the house settling, but they had never heard it. My father joked about raccoons. My mother gave me a nightlight, as if that would help.

One night, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I tugged the dusty cord, and the ladder creaked down. I climbed, the wood splintering under my bare feet, and pushed the hatch open. The attic was not barren as I expected. It was filled with trunks and racks of clothes, and in the center, under a single bare bulb, stood a wooden organ, its keys yellowed, its pipes choked with cobwebs. But the sound was not coming from the organ. It was coming from a jack-in-the-box, a battered thing with peeling paint, sitting on a stool, its crank slowly turning by itself. I watched, frozen, as the handle revolved with a mechanical relentlessness. The lid creaked open a crack, and I saw a pale face inside, its grin painted too wide, its eyes too large and dark. It was not a toy. It was watching me.

I slammed the hatch shut and ran back to bed, but the sound followed me. The next night, it was louder. The crank turned in my dreams, and I saw the box open fully, the head inside it not a clown but a girl, her skin white as ash, her hair the color of dead straw. She stared at me, her grin full of needle teeth, and said, ‘You came. Now we can play.’ I woke up screaming, and my parents found me clawing at my own arms, trying to rip off a sensation of cold fingers that weren’t there.

After that, she was everywhere. I would see her in the corner of my vision, standing in doorways, her head tilted, one finger tracing circles in the air as if winding an invisible crank. My parents took me to doctors, but I couldn’t explain. She only appeared when I was alone. And always, she would whisper, ‘Bring me the box. Bring me the box, and I’ll wind you a song.’ I knew she meant the jack-in-the-box, but I was too terrified to go back up there.

Then my father started hearing the sounds too. He said it was the wind, but I saw him one night, standing at the foot of my bed, staring at the ceiling, his face pale. He asked me, ‘What is that music?’ I told him there was no music, but he insisted there was a lullaby, a twisted, off-key version of ‘Rock-a-bye Baby.’ I realized then that she was spreading, feeding on his fear. The next night, my mother woke up screaming, saying something cold had touched her back. Our home was becoming a hunting ground.

I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t run away, because she would follow. So, two nights ago, I crept into the attic with a flashlight and a hammer. The jack-in-the-box was still there, but now the lid was open, and the girl’s face was visible, her gray skin stretched over a skull, her eyes milky. She smiled as I approached, and the crank began turning on its own, a ghostly hand turning it. ‘You’ve come to play,’ she said, her voice like dry leaves. ‘I’ve waited so long for a friend.’

I raised the hammer, but my arm froze. The crank turned faster, and the music started, a grinding, lurching melody that made my teeth ache. The girl’s head began to rise from the box, inch by inch, her neck stretching impossibly long, her mouth opening wider than any human mouth. ‘You can’t break me,’ she hissed, ‘for I am the song that never ends.’ I threw the hammer and it passed through her as if she were smoke, clattering onto the floor. She laughed, and the crank turned, and her head completed its rise, floating in the air above the box.

I don’t remember running out. I remember locking my door, and then her voice through the wood: ‘I’ll play with you forever.’

Now, I am writing this in my room, and I feel the house humming. The attic hatch is open, and I hear the crank, slow and steady. She is coming down the ladder. I know I can’t stop her. But maybe, if I leave this written note, someone will understand. The box is still up there, but its crank turns by itself. And it is always, always playing. My name is Leo. If you find this, do not come to the farmhouse. Do not listen to the music. And never, ever open the box.