Gwendy's Button Box
Stephen King & Richard Chizmar

(4/3/23-4/3/23)

JN:     

        In the little town of Castle Rock in 1974, a twelve-year-old girl named Gwendy Peterson ran up a set of stairs called the Suicide Stairs to the top of the hill. When she reached it, she exhaustedly looked around and saw that she was successfully losing weight. She also saw a man whom she’d seen for several days now. The man talked to her and gained her trust enough to get her to come over. He spoke about her weight issues, and sure enough, Gwendy had had problems with her weight since kids made fun of her at school. Before middle school started, she was determined to lose weight. The man handed her a small wooden box with several levers and buttons and beckoned her to pull one of the levers. Doing so, a small chocolate rabbit came out. She ate it, found it to be the best thing she’s ever eaten, and also discovered that she didn’t want another one, just as the man said would happen. Pulling another lever, a silver coin worth hundreds of dollars came out of the box. Still perplexed, Gwendy listened as the man explained that there were eight buttons, six of which corresponded to the main continents, one black, and one red. The red one would grant her what she wanted and was the only one Gwendy could use repeatedly. Before Gwendy could ask her questions, the man left down the stairs, leaving Gwendy alone with the box. 
        Going home, Gwendy found a place within a tree to hide the box and was reluctant to use it again. The following day after her run, though, she ate another chocolate, this time a turtle. She tried the coin lever again but it did not dispense another coin for several days. 
        Before she knew it, middle school arrived and Gwendy found friends, played sports, and did well in school. The chocolate animals continued to dispense as did the silver coins every once in a while. As much as she wanted to, she never pressed any of the buttons, fearing the consequences. 
        A year later with the box, Gwendy's eyesight improved to the point where she no longer needed glasses, her memory sharpened, and she became a skilled runner. Her parents' marriage, which she noticed had been on a downhill slope for years, even began to improve. She still worried about the box being discovered, especially since she believed the buttons blew up whatever continent they corresponded to, but figured the responsibility of hiding it was worth the gifts that came out of it. She also dreaded wondering if her good fortune in life truly only came from the box and none of the work she put in (luck vs. hard work). 
        One day in her sophomore year of high school, she finally decided to press the red button. Preparing for the worst, she picked a place in South America where she imagined no one would be injured. While it took some effort, she managed to push it down. The following morning, she looked at the news. Jim Jones and the over 900 members of his cult had committed mass suicide, and Gwendy knew she caused it (this event did occur in real life too. Parents forced the poisoned punch down the throats of their children before taking it themselves) (this button alludes to nuclear warheads, in which a single button can unleash terrible consequences upon the world). Preparing for junior prom with a jock and rocking high school life, Gwendy started thinking about selling the coins that she accumulated over the years. Their values had only increased since she got the box, and she wanted to go to an expensive college. Testing the waters, she attended a coin shop and managed to sell two of them for $1600 (a lot more in the 1970s), although the pristine condition of the coins raised some suspicion on the coin dealer's part. 
        As the junior year continued to go on, Gwendy's excellence continued. Her grades were perfect without having to put in much effort, her running was some of the best in the state, and she rarely lost games with her friends (she should try her hand in the stock market). From her success came jealousy from others, and she wished to tell someone about it, to share the responsibility of keeping the box with someone else. 
        One day near the end of the school year, Gwendy came to school one day to find out that a girl she used to be best friends with several years back killed herself jumping off the Suicide Stairs. Blaming herself, Gwendy went home and used the box to destroy the staircase to ensure no one could use them again. Grief confined herself to her bedroom for much of the summer, but she ended up finding a job and meeting a boy named Harry. Happily, she forgot about the box and stopped taking the chocolates. Unsurprisingly, the box fought back from negligence. That track season, Gwendy didn’t make states, her grades slipped, and she put on some weight. Unrelenting, she resisted the temptations of the box, refusing to believe she couldn’t be successful without it, and she managed to both qualify for states in the Spring season and keep her grades up. Furthermore, she was extremely happy with Harry. 
        By the Spring semester, everything was set for Gwendy to go to college with Harry staying nearby. One night, while they were together in Gwendy's room, Gwendy opened her closet and was attacked by a boy named Frankie, who patronized her over the years and who initially called her fat. Harry moved to tackle Frankie, but the box and the coins were in the mix, so Frankie used the usually-light-but-now-heavy box to bash Harry over the head, killing him (the box was not playing). Frankie looked at the murder weapon and began pressing some buttons, and Gwendy, to keep him away, told him he could have her instead. When he was distracted, she went to the box and pressed the red button. In front of her, Frankie’s face melted. She pressed it again and he disappeared. When the police arrived, she claimed that Frankie killed Harry before leaving.
        Four years later, Gwendy graduated from Brown University and was on her way to begin writing a novel. The box sat in a safety deposit box in a bank and she only went to it occasionally for chocolates. One day, she came home to find Mr. Ferris in her living room. He congratulated her on her ownership of the box, assuring her that the deaths she think she caused (Jonestown mass suicide and Olivia’s death) were not her fault. Instead, she actually saved many lives by not using the box greedily. He then asked for the box, to take it off her hands and give it to the next lucky victim. With mixed feelings, Gwendy told him where to find the box and she continued her life, where she was a successful writer and lived a life full of love and happiness (or so Mr. Ferris predicted. And that’s the end of the first book! Thanks for reading. Sometimes being kind to strangers can lead to mysterious adventures.).