mystery

[WP] There is a portal to an endless ocean, filled with monstrous beings. After repelling the initial ‘leaks’, humans explore this endless, sunless, sea.

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The Russian’s Sierra-Class submarine Pskov was the only craft of the joint operation to survive the initial onslaught from the other world. The rotting corpse of an impossibly large sea beast floated onto the shore of Chile, drawing large crowds of horrified onlookers. World leaders were scrambling to organize a barrier of some sort, a sort of control zone to prevent further creatures from coming through. Captain Rohkscov had no patience for the bureaucracy, however. He had just taken the liberty of attaching cameras all over his vessel, to allow for better perception in an entire world of water draped in darkness.

“Ensign. Any contacts on sonar?” The question came from a steel-gray beard.

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My Late Uncle Clive (Final)

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Click here for Part 3

 

It was impossible to get any sleep.  Even though Trent left to go do some snooping around the college.  Even though Max was dog-snoring loudly next to me, normally a comforting sound.  I was restless, and wired.  I wasn’t sure if it was from the excitement of the impending investigation, or from my compulsion to try and look at the… stone.  When my eyes were shut, I imagined it’s curves and edges.  Tracing with imaginary fingers, I felt its cracks and grain.  My back ached, and my shoulders were so tense that I tossed and turned.  Tired as a 90-year old man, but wired like a child before Christmas.

Of course the whispers did not help.  As I put one leg out from underneath the blanket – the perfect temperature finally achieved – I noticed them.  Their syllables were guttural and foreign and yet… Familiar.  I paid attention as best as I could, they grew quieter as I paid attention.  They must sense I am listening.

“Ft’ngluii maglwf’nafh…”

It was all I could catch at the time.  Later, I would hear more.  But first, the dream that came while I could not sleep.

A darkness fell over the room as if the sun was suddenly covered by some great tapestry of storm clouds.  But what happened next was more of a prophecy, or something.  I don’t know.  I was awake in bed, and abruptly a great ocean stretched out, tumultuous and awe-inspiring.  Waves of titanic proportions crashed into each other, greater than any other waves this world had seen.  Their collisions shattered the song of the rain with thunder.  A city suddenly began to appear, with gargantuan stone blocks stacked irregularly to create strange structures that were nearly Escherian in geometry.  A strange tone blew from beneath the waves as the city rose higher, water falling from sinister stones covered in algae and rumbling into the sky.  The tone was a thousand screams blended into one voice, somehow.  The cacophony grew so loud and impossible to block out, and then just as suddenly as the vision came, I was back on the bed, sitting upright and sweating.  My legs shook from the fear that comes from a lack of understanding, and when my eyes finally focused, they found their own way to that bas-relief of the horrible being.  A chill tingled its way down my spine, and shivering, I left the hotel to meet up with the detective.

We returned to the college, and the secretary had left for the day early apparently, as she was not in her usual spot at her desk.  Trent brought a crowbar under his coat, and we awkwardly hid together in the leg space underneath the great desk that belonged to my late Uncle Clive.  I couldn’t imagine what awaited us behind the secret door, what terrible dark secrets must be behind it!  We sat in complete silence for hours, neither of us wanting to take the risk of being heard.  Luckily we both remembered to wear our deodorant. We had fasted in preparation for this, so that we wouldn’t get the urgent calls of nature at the worst possible time.  A granola bar each kept our stomachs from growling as darkness began to chase the light away from the day.  Shadows spread around us, the already dark room becoming so black that we could scarcely see each other.  Silence was pulsing into the room, waves and waves of it washing over the darkness.  We thought that no one would show up, and just as Trent became restless, a slow creaking shot into the room.  The heavy wooden door to Uncle Clive’s old office began to swing open, letting in a dim light from the hall and several long shadows that belonged to members of this strange cult.

The footsteps tentatively found their way into the office, so quiet and careful.  A small crowd had bustled in judging from the sound, and the last in shut the oaken door behind them.  Darkness again found its home.  If we were discovered, my mind shuddered at the thought of the horrible tortures that would await us.  Flayed skin, peeled back from each finger like a hangnail from hell, curling up my arm and my neck and finally to my eyes.  My damned imagination made my heart pound with such force that I feared I would be heard by the anonymous crowd less than 20 feet from where the detective and I hid.

After an eternity, we heard the large picture of the sea monster attacking the old vessel swing to the side, revealing the doorway.  The sound of brass on brass clanked and I knew that the keys were slid into their locks, tumblers turning and hinges creaking as the door swung open.

In silence, the group made their way into the doorway.  Finally the door swung shut behind them, and their echoing footsteps down a stone corridor disappeared.  A moment passed, and then another moment.  Trent and I looked at each other and silently agreed to finally stand and stretch and complete our mission.  It was nearly the appointed time.

Trent stood first, and I hesitated to stretch my own legs from the sitting position first.  He stood, stretched his arms up, and a great cane with a large stone at the top cracked him across the face.  Blood spurted from his nose and sprayed onto his shirt as he fell backward, tumbling over the chair.  I quickly pulled my legs back and continued to hide, a cowardly move that saved my own life.  From where I was, all I could see were his legs twitching with each repeated swing of the cane onto his skull.  Each thick thud gave a spasm to his body, which finally went limp.  Silence again, and then the hidden door creaked one last time, swinging open then closed.

My entire body felt weak as I pulled myself up.  Trent’s face was completely caved in.  The copper smell of fresh blood was blended with brain and marrow.  Barely able to contain my nausea, I took the crowbar he had smuggled in.  I would have closed his eyes if there were eyes to close.  I would make sure he got a proper burial… But first there was business.

The crowbar worked well on the hinges, and I pried the door open with a surprisingly quiet splintering.  The vestibule was a wooden frame of decent design, remarkably clean.  I took out a small flashlight that I had brought with me, and I carried the crowbar in my other hand.  A smell rode on a small wind out from the darkness in front of me, and it grew stronger with each step down the old stairs.  The wooden structure gave way to stone, and I did not notice when that change occurred because of the sounds I heard.  The damp, musty air blended with strange incantations, and trills.  Drums.  Almost human sounds.  Sounds no person should make.  Each step into the tunnel brought them deeper into my mind, the echoes giving the impression that the sounds came from all around me.  Finally, a flickering light could be seen around the corner and up ahead, where the tunnel curved suddenly to the right.  Turning my flashlight off, I crept up to the edge and peeked around into the heart of madness.  The light that flickered was from a great fire.

The earthen hall had opened into a great cavern, who knows how deep beneath the school grounds.  The ceiling was so high up it gave me vertigo to look, with strange Byzantine patterns carved into the wall all around escalating the sensation.  The center of the room drew my eye, as the dark chanting grew more frantic and hurried, words echoing with fanatical glee.  A monolith of black-green blended stone towered in the center of the room, fires burning around it in a shallow pit.  Countless skeletons hung upside-down above the pyre, just beyond the reach of the flames.  I focused on the cultists, silhouetted and nude.  They danced and swayed erratically, each moving to the strange rhythm of the incantation that I will try to write again.  It is so clear in my mind… and yet difficult to write:

“Ft’ngluii…. maglwf’nafh…. Kuthluun…. Reh’lyeh… wvagah-najl… phutadjnn!”

As I heard the words from the disgusting lips of the raving cultists, I knew that they were the words that I have been hearing in my mind.  It makes me shiver to try and think of how it was possible.  Some stones are best left un-turned.  The flames leaped and I caught one face: A man I recognized from the funeral.  A colleague of my late Uncle’s.  And another.  And another.  This was the secret for which he was ashamed.  A scream broke through the maddening tempos of beating drums and foul syllables.  The drums became more frantic as a woman was dragged out from the other side of the cavern, naked.  Feet and hands bound.  My heart pounded and I watched helplessly as they brought her to the center, before the swaying nude crowd and the monolith.  The chanting grew louder as one man stepped forward, and raised an object high into the air.  The gold glistened from the strange blade that I was so fond of — the tentacled blade.  It was a sacrificial knife.  They broke in and made a mess to hide that they took just that.  The woman looked frantically around, crying for help, and as the man grabbed her hair to pull her head back I saw it was the secretary from before.  Blood squirted out onto the stone floor as the blade cut into her throat, and almost immediately she was hoisted up over the monolith and the flames, and I watched the blood drip down onto the black-green stone and I saw the familiar being from the bas-relief carved into the top of the stone, staring at me.  The chanting was frantic as she twitched and hung above the monolith, dying and flames licking at her skin, and catching her on fire.  Must have been doused in gasoline.  I could not help but vomit, and I felt powerless and I weakly made my way back the way I came.

The police did not believe me.  They nearly arrested me when I tried to get them to follow me to the school.  They knew of no Detective Trent.  His body was gone when I went back up to the room.  No blood.  I have done the best I can to write this clearly, and I fear I have used all the strength I have had just to stay sane.  The whispers still come to me.  The dreams come as well, repeated over and over again exactly the same during the darkest hours of the night.  A horrible conspiracy at this university, going on for generations.  I went back to my burnt shell of a house to salvage anything, and there was nothing.  I took Max from the hotel, and upon checking out the manager gave me a note that had been left from someone, though he could not remember who.  The camera’s footage from the night it was left was just static.  I am moving on, and fear I will continue to have to move around.  The note was on very nice paper, in a thick envelope.  The typed words stood harshly in contrast with the white paper:

“We know that you know.  We are watching.  We are everywhere.”

As I read it, the whispers began again.  At first they could have been a soft wind through the trees.  But now they are constant.  I have found a good home for Max, a safe place.  I won’t be around much longer.  The whispers won’t stop, and I know of only one way to stop them.

 

 

 

tales of a travelling salesman final

My Late Uncle Clive (3)

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Click here for Part 2

 

 

I have to type quickly.  Time is of the essence.

The morning after the firebombing of my house, we went to the college again to try and find more clues.  I kept the hidden note my uncle mentioned a secret.  It was a hot day, and the AC in my truck doesn’t exactly work at 100 percent.  By the time we arrived, we both had rings of sweat under our arms and on our backs.  The heat was oppressive, and made me feel almost lethargic.  Max the dog was to stay at the hotel all day, and watch National Geographic.  Lucky dog.

We both arrived to see the smiling secretary again, who greeted us.  In a sing-song voice she told us that no one had gone into the office of my late Uncle Clive.  Relieved, we walked in silence down the large hallway, and opened the wooden door to see a ransacked room.  Papers thrown everywhere, priceless looking artifacts were tossed to the ground.  Someone was looking for something.  Luckily nothing seemed destroyed.  I noticed something that was mentioned in my uncle’s notes: a strange bas-relief of some inconceivable language, like the one from before, and a more detailed picture of the odd creature from before.  It was a queer caricature of an octopus / man with bat-like wings, towering over impossible architecture that my mind struggled to perceive.  The strange angles and geometry captivated me, and the color of it was an unknown, black-green blend of strange stone.  Trent had to shout to catch my attention, at which I whirled around.

“Hey ____, are you listening?  I said I found something odd.”

I walked over, carefully avoiding important looking papers and set the etching onto the table.

“What is it?”

“Well I noticed that nothing is missing, it is obviously not a robbery.  These artifacts were left alone.  But I also noticed that there is no forced entry.  Extremely odd.  I’m going to go review the cameras in the hallway.”  He quickly left me alone in the cluttered office, dust spiraling around me lazily in the scattered sun.

Perfect.  I could get a chance to look for the secret note, and it would be discrete.  I began to look around the room.

“Something that holds the whole world in it”, I muttered to myself over and over.  A globe?  Surprisingly there was no globe.  I looked in an atlas, and then another.  Time was passing quickly as each of my ideas went to no avail.  Not in the encyclopedia.  Not in the dictionary.  I was becoming frustrated and I bumped into the computer tower that stuck slightly out from under his desk, knocking it over.

The side panel came ajar, and a the corner of an envelope peeked out from within.  I laughed to myself because I never would have figured that out.  I was surprised that my uncle knew enough about computers and the internet to create that small mystery.

I propped the chair back up, sat in it, and reached for that really sweet letter opener — the golden tentacle.  To my dismay, only pencils and pens sat in the container.  I looked under the table, on the floor, frantically picking up papers and tossing them aside.  It was nowhere to be found.  Why would someone have stolen just that?  There were plenty of other (and more expensive) artifacts and tokens in the room.  Strange.

I sat down again in the chair and as it squeaked I opened the letter to read:

“Dear (Redacted),

I knew you would find this.  I have a terrible secret.  It’s simpler to show you rather than try to explain it.  Go to the painting opposite my desk, which is probably where you are sitting and reading this now.  Move it to the side.  They are overconfident, and won’t expect outsiders to find their way in.  

Make your way down on the first of September, at 11 PM.  Hide in an alcove, and keep your mouth shut and your ears open.  Bring a camera, no flash.  Night vision.  Detective Trent may have contacted you by now, and if not, he is the creepy guy who might be following you around.  He really is an odd one.  

Please forgive me.  I know what they… or what WE were doing was wrong.  But I want to help put an end to this.  Maybe then my soul can find respite.  

I’m sorry.  

Your Uncle Clive” 

Immediately I stood and went to the picture, an old timey work of an ancient sea monster attacking an old ship.  I went to move it, and it didn’t budge and I strained against it as Trent walked back into the room.

“What are you doing?” He asked quickly, and I asked in a strained voice for him to help.  Finally with his help, the painting suddenly flipped open, revealing a door raised from the ground, and a staircase that flipped down like the stairs of an attic.  A secret passage!  But, the door was locked.  Two sets of keyholes made it apparent that we could not get in without alerting whomever frequented it.

“Well, this explains the lack of forced entry.  I’ll bet it is other staff members who are using this…”

“I found what was stolen!” Blurting out and cutting him off, I quickly sketched the molluscan blade.  His face turned pale as a sheet as he pulled an old drawing from his wallet.  It was a scan of an old primary document, covered in wrinkles and tears of time.  The same tentacle knife was there, staring at me.  I felt strange again, somehow mesmerized by its shapes.  My eyes flicked over Trent’s shoulder to the bas-relief.  I swear then I heard whispers in my mind, and I must have lost track of time because Trent shook my shoulders.

“Hey!  I said this was found with that cult in Louisiana!  Could it be the same one here?”

I stared at the picture he gave me in silence.  The similarity was undeniable.  We decided that we would come back on the first of September, and hide somewhere in the room and wait for those who may use that tunnel to come back and use it, then somehow follow them in.  Maybe break in.  Trent and I gathered what important papers and documents we could find so that we could go back to the motel and see if anything important could be found.  What was interesting was what happened to me that night.

The whispers were definitely real.  Trent had passed out, and Max had too.  So I sat alone in my twin bed and I was going over some of the same documents again when I glanced at the wrapped up stone etching of the strange creature and the writing.  I felt like I was being drawn to it, like an obsession.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day, and now I couldn’t resist looking at it again!  It was really amazing and horrible at the same time.  The ancient, elder god of some forgotten tribe perhaps.  The artwork was fascinating, and before I knew it I was holding it, touching the curves and the lines.  Trying to understand the impossible architecture of the city the being towered over.  Before I realized it, I had been listening to whispers for the entire time, and as I became aware of their hushed syllables and clicking tongues they disappeared.  I looked around, but there was nothing but peaceful sleep and scattered papers.

I have to get some sleep, because last night I did not.  I must have stayed up for 7 hours just looking at the thing.  Before I knew it, as I traced the exquisite lines of the relief, the sun had risen and Max was ready to be fed.  So was I.  Time flies when you are having fun.

 

Click here for the final entry.

 

My Late Uncle Clive (2)

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Click here for Part 1

 

 

I’ve lived alone since the kids have grown up, and my wife left me soon after that. We stayed together to raise the family, but she never really loved me. I don’t resent her for anything at all, so lets move along as I correct myself. I don’t live alone, not really.

 

My dog Max was a big ol’ Golden Retriever, and in his prime he was rambunctious and would bark at everything. But as time went by, he became more reserved. Some people follow the same pattern. I’m just glad he didn’t follow the terrible pattern that is senility. Max was my best friend, and he always managed to find his way up to my lap no matter how tired he was.

 

I got home, and I was greeted by the familiar thumping of his tail on the hardwood floor of the hall. I flipped lights on and kicked my shoes off and scooped all the old boxes of take-out off of the kitchen table and into the trash. I threw down the old manuscripts and papers, and took some fresher take-out from the fridge to sate my growling stomach.

 

Max found his way in with me, and sat eagerly by his feeding frenzy area. His tail was uncontrollable as I poured fresh food into his bowl. We ate together in silence as I looked at these strange documents. The night was steadily growing darker, but I forgot to turn on the lights and my eyes adjusted without my knowing. They were too fascinating to peel myself away from. There was something about the strange, completely foreign symbols. They were unlike anything I had ever seen before. Pictographs and dashes and curls all blended together into some forgotten story.
Some of the scrolls were something similar to ancient Sumerian. But they were also not quite like what Google searches spat back to me. There were flourishes here and there, and odd pictures blended in between some of the lines. The text spiraled around some of these eldritch images. One in particular caught my eye. Some strange octopus, turned upside down but with angry eyes carved right ways up in the head of it. The tentacles held different items: A cross, a strange “Y” with two dashes in the botttom, and knives. I stared at the image for longer than I thought, because Max’s whine broke my concentration. He stared at me with keen interest and tilted his head. I took another bite of my food and it was already cold! Time was passing by with unusual expediency.
The night had fallen completely by this point, and to see I had my face pressed up all the way to the papers. I didn’t even notice! I stood and flipped some lights on to continue, but then I heard Max begin to bark at the front of the house. Extremely out of character for him, the barking was persistent and growing louder. He never barked at anything anymore, not even the mailman. But something had grabbed his attention with an eerie tenacity. A loud knocking broke the silence from the front door, and Max’s barks turned to growls. No one ever visited me, not even my kids. And at this hour?
I grabbed the bat that was by the front door and looked carefully into the peephole. On my front step was that strange man from before, his brown hair was carefully combed in a modest pompadour, and he was wearing a dark coat. He looked nervously over his shoulder and reached up again to knock when I popped the door open a crack. My eye was the only thing he could see when I asked:

 

“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I… Haven’t been honest with you, sir.”
“Well anyone could have figured that out, buddy. You’re not a good liar.” He chuckled and reached into his back pocket, at which I slammed the door shut thinking he was going for a gun.
“WAIT! I’m a detective! I was getting my badge!” he shouted with frustration. I carefully peeped out the peeper, and sure enough there was a gold shield there, held up next to his sheepish grin.
I opened the door again, this time unlatching the various locks all of the way so that I could let him in.
“Well, why didn’t you just start with that yesterday? Would have been much easier for both of us. Plus I thought you were some creepy and stuck up asshole.” He laughed at that as he stepped inside, hanging up his coat.
“I get that all the time. There’s a lot to tell you.”
I cleared the manuscripts off of the table hurriedly, putting a pot of water on to boil for a french-press brew. All the while trying to think about why a cop would be interested in my late uncle.
“I’m just going to dive right into it, sir. I’ve noticed a pattern in some recent cases, as well as some cold cases going back… quite some time.” He produced a file from thin air, it seemed.
“Oh, by the way. My name is Detective Jackson, call me Trent. I’m sorry for yesterday. I’ve had to be extremely cautious. I’ve been receiving death threats for my work, which is unusual, because I thought only I knew about it. Even my boss doesn’t know I’m here right now. I’ve kind of become obsessed. But hear me out.”
“Sure. I have nothing else to do, and I haven’t had company in years. Plus I like stories!” I smiled and he gave a thin smile back.
“Women have been disappearing from this town for hundreds of years. But people always assumed they were runaways, or something along those lines. Because there was no discernible pattern or similarity. Until I took the time to do all this work. Every 4 years, a young woman vanishes. She is always between 16 – 25, and according to the reports that are complete, they have no real close friends, and their family is broken. Fathers or mothers gone or addicted to drugs, you know. Very sad situations.” He spread the thick file out on the table this whole time, laying out photographs from recent years, and ending with one from a very long time ago. The type of photograph from when folks never smiled. Her hair and eyes were as black as the underside of the clouds outside that wandered through the night.
“People always assumed that because of their home situations, and their ages, that they simply ran away, or killed themselves. No one had ever been found, and so without a body they remain a missing-persons case. Never able to warrant a full on homicide investigation. There were never any witnesses to the disappearance, it was like they just walked out their homes one day and never returned. But this is where it gets weird. All of these disappearances began when the college was founded. I’ve even found old primary documents from colonial eras about some disappearances, but those were assumed to be Indian kidnappings or the like.”
The sound of my phone timer exploded into the kitchen, and scared us both. He actually stood completely upright and drew his gun, which he now awkwardly put back into his holster. The coffee was ready.
“But I have made a map of the disappearances, and they all are within 30 miles of the college. I had been researching strange disappearances like this, and apparently there was something similar going on in Louisiana a long time ago, and it had to do with some strange cult that required human sacrifice. Throats were cut, then burned, or simply just burned alive. Really horrific stuff. But your Uncle intrigued me because some of the records from that case had strange manuscripts remarkably similar to what he was working with when I went to canvass the staff at the college. He said that he wanted to meet me, that he had something to tell me that would blow a hole in this case but… He died within 48 hours of talking to me. That is how I know something is seriously amiss here. Of course there were the death threa — ”

 

 

Max began barking again, furiously. He had barked more this night than in the last few years all together. I stood and looked for him in the front, and saw he was foaming at the mouth and barking like a wild animal. His eyes were crazed and my heart was pounding as suddenly the window shattered inward, and the room burst into flames. The curtains caught fire and the fire spread over pictures on the wall and an old couch as Max bolted from the living room and into the kitchen, barking and barking and barking. Trent stood and had his gun drawn just as another Molotov cocktail burst into the opposite end of the house. The heat filled the air as flames began to cover everything.
“Save the manuscripts!” I shouted at him, as I grabbed an old family picture of mine. From a time when we were happy. With the picture in one hand, I scooped the massive retriever under my other arm, and followed Detective Jackson as he kicked down the back door and covered the flames there with a blanket he had found. We tumbled out into the dewy grass and stood in the night, watching the flickering flames spike up high into the sky. Tires squealed out front as the culprits got away. No time for even a glance.
“Well, I guess we should go to…. well my place isn’t safe either.” He looked at me, then the ground. Within an hour we awkwardly were checking into a hotel together. He passed out in one of the twin beds, and I sat in the other, typing this. I will update soon.

 

Something is afoot.

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My Late Uncle Clive (1)

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I was never close to my uncle, but then again, no one really was.  His work always came first.  He never came to any family gatherings, no matter how much anyone asked him.  Even physical letters went without reply.  He never even showed up for my dad’s funeral!

I resented him for that, until I saw his work.

He was an archaeologist who focused in ancient languages and cultures.  Clive Sterrenson was his name, and in his field he was widely respected.  Being in his old office was the nearest I ever came to visiting him, and he was dead now.  At his funeral, there was no family, only colleagues who seemed older than the manuscripts he pined over.  Funerals already make me sick, but the smell there was really terrible.  Something about the way old people smell really flips my stomach around inside me.  There was only one other middle aged person there, who seemed strangely out of place.  A blank face and a white suit he wore among downcast grimaces and black clothes.  I approached him, and asked him how he knew my Uncle Clive.  He stared back with that blank face and muttered:

“School.” Without another word he turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd of mingling mourners.  Odd.  I talked politely with some of my uncle’s old friends, and they were remarkably tight-lipped with me about his work.  Each question was answered without specifics and between quick glances between each other.  My uncle had died of some sort of flu that took him in his old age with his weakened immune system.  Natural causes.  But there was something about this funeral that made me curious.  I felt compelled to learn more about my uncle, a man his own family did not understand.  I always liked a challenge, and I used to read the Hardy Boys when I was a kid.  Maybe there was something beneath the surface of all of this.  Maybe I just wanted to understand what kind of man would ignore his family for some old tomes and ancient etchings.

So before I knew it, I was pulling up in front of an esteemed college with towering spires and glamorous architecture with the loud and old truck I had.  I found a spot between a Lexus and a Bentley.  I remember feeling glad that even if normal teachers did not get paid as much as they should, at least these college professors were taken care of by the university.

The secretary seemed to be expecting me because she was stoic as a wall until she heard my name, which brought a smile to her face and a flurry of motion to her hands.  Ruffling through some papers and dust, she found a letter that my uncle had written and addressed to me!

“Why wasn’t this just mailed to me?” I asked, annoyed.

“He left specific instructions with me to only deliver it in person, and if you came in ‘of your own volition'”. She said with a forced smile, the smile of someone trying to assuage a problem customer.  With a sigh I took the letter, and she led me to his old office.  Dark wood everywhere, giant bookshelves on the walls that were behind and flanking his massive walnut desk.  This place took fantastic care of their professors.  The woman closed the door behind me without a word, and left me alone in the dusty darkness.  Thick curtains blocked out most of the light, only a sliver of sunshine found its way in.  Dust danced in the thinness of it.

I sat at his desk and a massive creaking shot out from underneath me.  All of this money can’t stop chairs from squeaking.  Looking at his desk, I saw it completely covered in papers and rolled up manuscripts, and in a large jar for pencils I saw an awesome letter opener — probably the coolest I have ever seen.  The child in me lit up as I saw the light reflect off of its gold.  It was shaped like a tentacle, the handle thick and there were suckers that fit my fingertips perfectly.  The opener was more like a knife I saw, the tentacle part curving down then flitting out toward the tip, the blade surprisingly sharp for a normal letter opener.  Probably some gift from the college.  A model ship in the room hinted, perhaps, at an affinity for the nautical.

Perhaps.

I opened the letter with ease, the blade doing the entirety of the work.  Surprisingly sharp.  The letter was covered in beautiful penmanship.

 

“Dear (Redacted),

I’m sorry for never being around.  I wish I could have apologized to my brother before he left us.  But it is my own fault.  This damned work I have been involved in for 40 years now has finally killed me, if you’re reading this.  And Miss (Redacted), if you are reading this, mind your own goddamned business.

Sorry (Redacted), but she is a bit of a snoop.  She’s probably still reading this.  So I’m going to hide another note somewhere in this room for you.  It’s in something… that holds the whole world in it.  Even you should be able to figure that out, no offense.  Burn this note so no one can — “

 

The door swung open with a clatter, and I was so startled that I quickly stuffed the note into my crotch for some reason.  Why not a pocket? I have no idea.  The strange man from the funeral was there, dressed in pressed khakis and a blue shirt.  A student?  He looked extremely irritated.

“What are you doing in here?” He spat words laced with venom.  I sat back in the chair and leveled my eyes toward him like I do with my son when he has an attitude.

“Perusing my late uncle’s work.  What are you doing barging into a dead man’s office?”  His face became even more irritated, narrowed eyes became the slits of a snake’s nose.

“I’m here to protect your late uncle’s work, all due respect.”

“Oh, were you a student of his?” He looked like he had been stung, and he shuffled slightly and became visibly uncomfortable.

“That is no concern of yours.  We were colleagues.  We were working together when he became ill.  I’m here to collect his things.”  Not if I could help it.

“You will do no such thing, not until I say so.  He made me his executor.  What was your name?” The man turned on his heel and said as he walked down the hall:

“Good day, sir.” Extremely strange.  Naturally I had to find out more.  So I collected as many papers as I could carry, loaded up my truck, and instructed the secretary to ensure the door remained locked and no one got into that room.

I’m home now, and about to go through some of his works.  Hopefully my boss is alright with me cashing in more vacation hours.  I will update as soon as I can.

 

Click here for Part 2