The Trap

Thick snow flakes fell gently down upon Jon's shoulders as he walked across the empty parking lot, a singular lamp post ahead of him lit the small area directly around it.

The fresh blanket of snow undisturbed, save for his own tracks as he made his way home in the muffled silence of the evening.

While he trudged along he looked up at the darkening sky and watched the flakes as they seemed to appear from the nothingness above and fall quietly down to earth.

When he looked back down, he noticed a solid black box sitting on the ground underneath the lamp's circle of amber light.

Had it been there before?

No snow covered it at all; in fact, as he drew nearer, the snow seemed to fall all about it, yet somehow did not land on its smooth, lacquered surface.

Jon came to a stop in front of the box and looked down at it with curiosity.

Was there a humming coming from within it?

Perhaps there was some motor or other machinery inside creating enough heat to cause the snow to melt before it could settle on the top.

Though, he could see the snow falling around it, never landing directly onto its lid; its lid. This close to it, he now noticed the tiny seam where the top separated from the bottom.

Tentatively, Jon reached down with his gloved hand and the humming he thought he heard grew louder in his ears.

No, not in his ears, the humming was in his head, as if it was some forgotten melody; a warm, inviting hum that filled him with a sense of delight and wonder.

However, underneath, there was a tinge of something else, almost a warning of something slightly askew.

But curiosity overwhelmed his underlying unease and he slipped his thumb under the lip of the lid and lifted it open easily on its hinges.

Inside he found no machinery or electronics; in fact there was nothing inside the rectangle box at all, just darkness.

Trying to adjust his eyes to see to the bottom of the box, he found he could only see darkness within.

Peering into the void of the box, Jon was not aware of the looming figure that has silently arrived behind him; a shadow-robed figure that towered over Jon like a hulking mass of malice.

What could only be described as the creature's feet, peeked out from the bottom of its shroud; scaly and claw-toed, they suggested a monstrous apparition hidden underneath.

As the creature stood above the tiny figure of Jon, chest raising and lowering steadily, its nightmarishly clawed hands clenched and unclenched with anticipation; an unnoticed dread in the peacefully falling snow.

Silently, it observed Jon as he knelt, entranced by the coffin-shaped box that would soon be his tomb.