Tiny Horror

"Them museum folks missed a spot," Roy said. His eyes gleamed in the beam of his flashlight. He wiped a streak of grease across his forehead with a dirty sleeve. "They were so busy with their little jars they didn't even look back here. This door looks like it's been shut since the place was built."

"They're were lookin' for stuff for the kids to see," Muskie replied. "We're lookin' for the stuff they didn't want nobody to see. This is the real money right here." He went to grab a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters from the back of his truck.

The padlock didn't snap with a clean ring. It groaned because the metal was fatigued by decades of moisture and neglect. It held on, like the iron was stubborn. Then it finally gave way with a dry, metallic pop that sounded like a bone snapping. Muskie pushed the heavy door open.

The air that rushed out didn't smell like dust. It smelled like ozone and old meat. It was a sharp, nasty tang that made the hair on Muskie’s neck stand up. It was the smell of a closed room that'd been fermenting for a hundred years.

The room was small, barely ten by ten, but it was crowded. Rough-hewn timber shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, laden with dozens of glass jars. These weren't the simple chimeras from the main floor. The specimens inside were more abstract, more violent in their construction. There were clusters of organs that looked like they belonged to deep-sea predators, hearts with multiple valves that resembled budding flowers, and things with too many joints that twitched in the yellowing fluid when the flashlights hit them.

"Man, look at all this," Roy whispered, mouth-watering as his light moved along the rows. "The Milwaukee guy is gonna go nuts. These look... realer than the ones out there."

"Start sortin'," Muskie said, his voice low. "The small ones, the really weird ones: put 'em in your truck. Wrap 'em in the old costumes so they don't clink. The rest of these big heavy ones, just toss 'em on the flatbed. They're goin' to the dump with the rest of the trash."

In the center of the room sat a single wooden crate. It was about the size of a dog kennel. But it was not just nailed shut. It was wrapped in heavy chains that'd been welded together at the links. Three separate padlocks, all different, held the chains tight.

Muskie walked around it. The wood was dark. It looked like teak or maybe something even harder. There weren't any markings on the box except for a small brass plate on the top. It was etched in symbols Muskie didn't know. They looked like lines on a circuit board, all connected and pointing nowhere.

"Let’s get it on your truck," Muskie said. "Whatever's in there, it's packed tight and it's heavy as hell. Could be somethin' special in there."

The tale continues...