Tiny Horror

Mack "Muskie" Hibbs backed his heavy flatbed up to the loading dock, the engine growling in the damp air. His cousin, Roy, was already there sitting in his beat-up F-150. Roy was scrolling through a local "Buy, Sell, Trade" Facebook group on a cracked smartphone, checking the current demand for circus memorabilia.

Muskie hopped out of the big truck, spat a thick stream of brown juice onto the gravel, and looked at the warehouse.

"The guy I talked to wants everything cleared out," Muskie said. "We're doin' this smart. Anything that looks like straight trash goes in our flatbed for the dump. Anything we can flip for a buck goes in your pickup, Roy."

"Yep," Roy muttered. Muskie grunted in agreement. "I already got a lead on a guy in Milwaukee. He buys this old carnival junk. If we find any of them fancy wood boxes or weird posters, we'll make more off him than we will from the city check."

They entered the warehouse with the swagger of men who'd spent their lives reclaiming the world's discarded filth. To them, the warehouse wasn't a historical site. It was a loot box. They had a refined eye for the value hidden in decay. They knew the difference between junk that was truly dead and junk that was merely waiting for a new buyer.

They spent the afternoon hauling out crates of moth-eaten costumes and rusted cages. The volunteers had taken the easy stuff, the things that looked good in a glass case. Muskie thought they were fools. They wanted the history. He wanted the heavy scrap and the weird artifacts that collectors would fight over in a dark alley.

They found a collection of taxidermied chimeras that flourished in the gloom. There were birds with two heads and cats with webbed feet. These weren't the cheap fakes you saw at a county fair. They looked too real. They looked like something that'd been born wrong on purpose.

By 5:00 PM, the light was failing. The shadows in the warehouse stretched into long, jagged fingers. They'd reached the back wall. It was a section hidden behind a mountain of rotting pine pallets that leaned heavily against the brick.

"Help me load this crap onto the truck," Muskie said.

As they peeled back the pallets, they didn't find brick. They found a heavy oak door. It was secured by a large rusted iron padlock. The wood of the door was thick and dark, absorbing the light of their flashlights like it was soaked in oil.

The tale continues...