On Friday I told Matt he was going to have to store the steak knives in his room if he wanted to keep them. Saturday morning I found him sleeping on the couch in the living room under a bunch of towels.

He said he woke up to find the box next to his bed "chirping". He ran out of his room and was too scared to go back in for his blanket, so he ended up grabbing towels out of the bathroom for warmth.

We both decided the best thing to do was to get rid of the box, and brought it out to the curb.

That night Gerald and I went to Reynaldo and Marcia's party. We didn't really want to go, but we figured we'd head there a bit late so a crowd would have already gathered, say hi, then take off unnoticed.

Gerald said there was a bar down the street that had $5 pitchers and free hot dogs, so we could go there after.

We got there a little after 10, and the party consisted of Marcia and five people from the prison she works at. She said Reynaldo had just left to drive her cousin home and would be back in awhile.

They were all in the middle of a game of poker, so Gerald and I grabbed a beer and sat on the sofa next to the table. One of the guys was telling a story about how he paid someone $50 to take a shot of pepper spray to the face.

No one really acknowledged our presence. It was sort of like we were watching the whole party through a two way mirror.

Gerald got up after finishing his first beer. Around 30 seconds later he called me on my cell phone and said he was waiting outside. He told me to make up some excuse to get up so I could meet him out there and we could leave.

I asked Marcia where the bathroom was. She pointed in the exact opposite direction of the front door. I went into the bathroom, washed my hands, and walked back through the living room and right out of the apartment.

When I got out, Gerald said he didn't want our exit to be all awkward. I failed to see the grace in making me look like an asshole.

We went to the bar with the free hot dogs afterwards and went home to find the door to our apartment was left open. Matt wasn't home and the place smelled of old leaves.

I was taking my shoe off in the hallway when Gerald walked into the living room and asked what the box of steak knives was doing in there. I walked in to see it standing right in the middle of the room.

I wondered how in hell it got the door open.

I stood there staring for a bit while Gerald looked at me and asked again. I told him Matt and I had put it out on the curb.

He asked how it got back in the apartment then, and I said I thought it got itself back in the apartment. He laughed and asked how the thing got the door open.

I had been a bit reluctant to let Gerald in on what had gone on around the box, mostly because I didn't believe a lot of it myself. I wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't just me until Matt got spooked by the thing, too.

I explained to Gerald what happened, and told him I thought we should leave the box back out on the curb. He wanted to crack the thing open, and went looking for tools.

He ended up trying to pry it open with a hammer and a screwdriver, but ended up breaking the screwdriver in half. He said he'd keep the box in his room if it scared me that bad.

Later that night, I woke up with Gerald in my bed. He said he woke up to a thump and turned on the light to see the box move.

As he was telling the story, we heard a thump again. Then another one.

It sounded like the thing was making its way down the hall.

The rest of the night Gerald and I sat awake listening to this box thump its way around the apartment. It stopped at some point, and both of us managed to fall asleep.

When I woke up Gerald was spooning me, and Matt was standing above us asking why we brought the box back in the apartment. He didn't seem to want to cover why we were in bed together.

We walked out of my room to find the box lying diagonally in Gerald's bedroom doorway.

Matt said he had someone coming by with a truck to drop off a few TVs. The guy had is own waste disposal company, so he'd ask if he could take the crate with him.

The guy came by and asked Matt why we were getting rid of it. Matt said no one wanted to buy a crate of fragile steak knives.