9 March 2012
Alex wound up working later than expected that day, and it was heading into evening when he turned home, his newly-acquired ebony box and its strange contents tucked under his arm. He boarded the subway, descending into the dark, subterranean world of the tubes. Three young men shared his car, which jerked and bumped its way through the black tunnels, its lights flickering momentarily off and on.
The three young men conversed among themselves, one of them thumbing in Alex's direction. He arose to his feet and shambled over to Alex's seat, sizing him up before asking what was in the box.
"It's nothing," replied Alex dismissively. "Just some kind of taxidermy animal."
"Is that so?," replied the younger man, whose companions had since gathered behind him. "Why don't you show us, man?," he insisted, reaching towards the box.
A brief struggle ensued between Alex and the younger man, who was aided by his two compatriots. Overpowered, the box was wrenched from his grip and its lid dislodged, dumping the contents onto the floor.
"What the hell is that?," questioned one of the three younger men as they regarded the small mummified body on the floor. The subway car then lurched as it hit a bend in the track and the overhead lights sputtered out, plunging the interior of the car into blackness.
When the lights flickered back on again, a black cowled figure seemed to be floating in the gap between Alex and his three assailants. In a dark face which seemed to absorb all light floated two silvery orbs of eyes, bottomless and unfathomable. The lead figure with whom Alex had wrestled whipped a wicked looking knife from his pocket and slashed at the specter, but his blade passed through something non-corporeal. The ectoplasmic tentacles which snaked from the sides of the cowled figure seemed quite substantial, however, assuming solid presence as they wrapped themselves around the knife wielder. Once they had enveloped the man the tentacles pulled apart, ripping the man asunder in a bloody spray.
The two surviving assailants backpedaled, one pulling a pistol from his pocket and pegging a shot at the dark figure, who cocked his head in a questioning fashion and then extended a draped arm at the shooter. From the ends of clawed digits blue bolts of energy arced, striking the shooter, racing over his body, and dropping him twitching to the steel floor of the car.
The lone surviving member of the trio had by then reached the exit door of the car, and he frantically pounded on the unyielding steel with all of his might, seeking escape. The cowled figure raised both of his arms as if in benediction, his silvery eyes seeming to brighten. A ring of fire appeared encircling the third assailant, rising up around him. The man screamed briefly but horribly before also dropping to the floor a smoking ruin.
Seeing three men dispatched by a supernatural entity, Alex dropped to his knees in trembling anticipation of a similar fate. As the cowled figure floated closer to Alex, however, it telepathically communicated a thought clearly to him:
"Fear not, Master, for I will never harm him under whose bed I sleep..."
(end of second installment)
The Curiosity Shop II • Opuss № I