Baltimore, Maryland - April, 23 1889

Chester Dolin watched from the safety of his shop window as Anthony Tilford emerged from the evening fog like a monstrous apparition. Standing a commanding six foot five, the former boxer turned bodyguard strode with the confidence his heft and reputation afforded him. Chester felt a tightness in his ribs, the anxiety and fear building inside him. Even though Anthony's visits to the humble junk shop were frequent, they were never pleasant.

Chester scurried to open the door for Anthony, then just as quickly locked it behind him. While Chester turned the sign over to discourage any other patrons for the night, Anthony wandered about the crowded shop. The old brick shop was a catastrophic tangle of shelves stacked high with strange objects. A collection of porcelain figures displayed on a dusty curio glimmered in the lamplight, drawing Anthony near.

"Hope you're not wasting my time tonight. Emanuel may have forgiven you," he muttered, grasping a delicate mermaid figurine in his giant paw, "but I haven't."

Chester's eyes watched as Anthony rolled the figurine back and forth in his massive hand before closing his fingers around it. With a gap-toothed smile, Anthony squeezed his fist.

When he opened his hand, he turned it aside to allow the pieces to tumble to the ground.

That tight, painful feeling was back in his lungs but Chester smiled his crooked smile. "I have a very special item tonight. That's why I called for Emmanuel first! I wanted him to be the very first one this time."

"That's smart. I'm not sure if you could survive another disappointment." 

Chester knew precisely the aforementioned "disappointment" to which Anthony alluded, though the accident wasn't truly his fault. Emmanuel was always on the search for unique and exotic stage props, so the previous month Chester sold the magician a pair of ornate baskets. Chester lied and said they were from Egypt in order to command a higher price, but they were fetching enough for the lie to be believed without question. The baskets themselves were massive, easily four feet tall, and featured polished shells that flickered when the stage lights caught them. They were the perfect prop for the magician's first solo production. But alas, something went wrong.

At Emmanuel's third show, one basket caught on fire with the poor assistant still concealed inside. The gruesome spectacle of the girl's rescue and ensuing outrage from the audience left a less than a favorable reputation for Admiratio the Great. Chester heard about the entire affair the following morning when Anthony arrived to demand Emmanuel's' money back. The thug left with all of Chester's money and two teeth.

"I think you will find this object is most intriguing," Chester said, a slight tremor of fear in his voice. "This item is so special that I haven't shown it to another soul since I bought it a month ago."

Anthony nodded. "Well go on then, I don't want to be here all damned night."

With a sweep of his arm, Chester invited Anthony deeper into the store.

Chester only granted access beyond the confines of the cramped showroom to the most elite customers. Featuring over-priced wares and antiques, only a select level of customers gained access to the back storage room where Chester led Anthony. As the largest space in the building, it was where Chester stored his most exotic and less-than-legal wares.

The tangle of shelves surrounding them stretched almost to the twelve-foot ceiling. Anthony craned his neck to view all the strange and macabre objects that surrounded them as they receded into the depths of the store. Crowded with every manner of book, bottle, statue, flora, and fauna imaginable, there didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to items Chester collected.

The claustrophobic path eventually ended at a brick wall featuring two small windows. Dim light filtered down from eight feet up. It gave the space a dungeon-like atmosphere. Here in the only open area in the entire building there was just enough space to accommodate a meager unmade bed and a few personal effects; the humble space where Chester slept each night.

Anthony surveyed the sad area with a sneer, parking impatient hands on his hips.

"Is it in there?" Anthony asked, giving the trunk beside Chester's bed a swift kick. Made of some kind of darkly painted hardwood, though well-crafted and sturdy, it was clear after Anthony's blow that it was empty. Chester's face shuttered in a slight blip of panic as if he expected something to happen, but when nothing did, he quickly composed himself once more.

"Don't be so small-minded — why, it's the trunk itself!" Chester announced, sitting atop the bed and patting the top of the trunk for good measure. He forced a broad smile on his leathery, worn face, trying to hide the revulsion he felt from touching the wretched thing. Anthony eyed him warily.

"You can't be serious? What is Master Emanuel going to do with a beat-up old trunk, pray tell?" he asked. "Full of your dirty laundry or something, is it?"

"You misunderstand me, sir," Chester replied, standing up once more, ready to convince both Anthony and himself in his pitch. "This is more than just an ordinary chest... here! Let me provide you with a brief demonstration... a little magic of my own, shall we say!"

Chester darted off to the nearby shelf, scanning the crowded objects for an appropriate item for his demonstration; something that was disposable. He flashed a big smile at Anthony as he plucked a worthless porcelain figurine. Nothing more than a trinket that no one would miss. Chester held it aloft to ensure that Anthony could see it clearly.

"Now, we take this ordinary object: just a thing of little value, nothing special really," he proclaimed as he walked back over to the chest. Fishing the key from his pocket, Chester carefully unlocked the latch and heaved the heavy lid open. Taking a cautious step away, he gestured for Anthony to explore the empty cavity. "Put your hands inside! Search to confirm that there are no holes, hidden panels or the like in there... go on, don't be shy!"

Anthony reluctantly crouched down and thoroughly inspected the interior and exterior of the chest. Years of service as a magician's personal assistant gave him all the tools he needed to expose any trickery or defect, none of which he could find.

"Are you satisfied that the chest is intact and has no perceivable traps or compartments?" Chester asked. Anthony shot him an annoyed look and stood back up, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, I'm satisfied."

"Then we shall just place the figurine here inside like this, and then I will secure the lid!"

Promptly pulling a small silver pocket watch out from inside his tattered vest, he snapped it open to note the time. Glancing over, Chester was pleased to see he did indeed have Anthony's rapt attention.

"This part takes a few moments... only about thirty seconds.... and... there!"

With a flourish, Chester pulled back the lid to reveal the now empty compartment. Despite Chester's attempts to astonish, Anthony looked less than impressed.

"Is that all? A disappearing trick, eh? You know, you almost had me excited for a minute there, old man. I was hoping you'd change it into a dove or something grad."

"It's not a trick!" Chester snapped. "Look, I just made that fancy little figurine disappear from our world, never to return! And you don't think that is something Emmanuel would be genuinely interested in?"

Anthony digested Chester's claim with a suspicious tilt of his head. 

"Master Emmanuel can already make things many times bigger than that puny figurine disappear. Besides, that trunk is such an ugly old thing. Look, even the lid is all scratched up! Would be better for the audience if it were new and shiny — catch the lights better on stage."

Chester closed his eyes and shook his head.

"You are not listening to me--there is no trick!" he repeated, frustration oozing through his strained smile. "The thing is exactly what it appears to be; you put an object in here and it disappears, FOREVER! No trick, no fooling the eyes, just gone!"

Chester's face and neck went bright red with frustration.

"You're serious?" Anthony smirked. "You're saying this ugly hunk of wood basically gobbles up whatever you put inside of it?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. I can't explain it, but that is exactly what it does: whatever you can fit inside of it will be gone forever in a matter of seconds," the old man replied, the tone of resignation and fear creeping into his voice. "Everything that I have placed inside of that thing with the door closed has vanished without a trace!"

"Interesting," Anthony said in a hushed tone, crouching down to further inspect the trunk. Though he was not entirely convinced, he had to admit that there was a strange sort of energy that seemed to radiate from the thing as he ran his hand along the lid. "What kind of things?"

Chester nervously shifted on his feet, returning a small shrug.

"Just regular things, you know. Some of my blankets were the first things to disappear. You see, that's how I figured out what it was! I acquired the trunk as part of a larger parcel. Being too big to fit on the shelves, I figured it would do nicely to store some of my personal items here in the back of the shop. When I went back to fetch the blankets, I discovered they were gone! At first, I thought maybe they were stolen, but to have only some tattered old blankets stolen out of all the things in the shop? It didn't make sense! No... that's when I suspected something else must be happening," Chester sighed deeply as he sat on the edge of his bed, the coils creaking loudly under his weight, trying his best to keep an eye on both the trunk and his guest. "Didn't really think much of it right away, but a few days later I found myself back here with my cat, Marvy."

Anthony nodded, remembering the flea-bitten critter from previous visits; he hadn't noted its absence until then.

"For whatever reason, I left that damned trunk wide open! And well, you know how much cats love getting into things— my Marvy was no different!" A sad sort of smile formed on Chester's face as he thought back on the terrible day. "Without more than a thought, the dumb critter leapt up into the chest, and then, like a bear trap, the lid snapped shut! The noise was enough to shave a year off your life, I swear it! I had a good laugh about it, stupid, scared thing, but after a few moments I figured I would do what was right and rescue poor wretch, but the thing of it is, Marvy wasn't there when I opened the lid!"

He paused, then pulled out a small booklet from a pocket in his vest. Licking his thumb, he spread the tiny book wide and then turned it toward Anthony to view the detailed notes written in surprisingly neat block letters.

"That was three weeks ago, Tuesday! Since Marvy, there have been many others. No other animals, mind you, but as you can see, the chest has eaten heartily these past weeks..."

Curious, Anthony took the small book from Chester's trembling hand. The little booklet appeared to detail all the curious items Chester "fed" to the chest; everything from a copy of the King James Bible, two bottles of ale, an ostrich feather, and half dozen marbles to a pound of raw lamb meat, a dull pair of scissors, and a burning candle. Per his notes, all of which vanished without a trace once placed inside the chest.

"What is it?" Anthony finally asked. Chester snatched the booklet out from Anthony's astonished hands. 

"I don't know, and I don't care to find out. Whatever it is, I believe it uses real magic, and I think that is why your employer will be most interested in acquiring it for his stage production... and why I will be most relieved to have it gone."

Anthony crossed his arms as he carefully considered Chester's words.

"Given the special abilities of your trunk, I think Master Emmanuel may be interested, though you know as well as I that he will require a personal demonstration," he shrewdly remarked. 

"Of course. Bring in by in the morning, and I'll be happy to show him the same thing."

"I don't think I have to tell you not to share this item with any other clients of yours. Master Emmanuel would be very disappointed if you were to contact a rival magician, for example."

"I wouldn't dream of it!" Chester said with a gentle smile, though he'd considered it.

Something of this intriguing nature would be of value to anyone working in the entertainment industry, not to mention perhaps the more nefarious purposes a darker mind could conjure up; Chester himself even considered some possibilities of using the cursed object to turn some coins, but in truth, after what he'd seen, he was terrified of the hideous thing. Ever since Marvy disappeared, he kept it locked tightly, the key always safe in his pocket.

"Alright then, I shall bring Master Emmanuel around to the shop tomorrow," Anthony grunted as he glanced up at the waning light in the tall windows; night was approaching and his presence would be needed at the evening rehearsal.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" Chester replied with an excited clasping of his hands. 

Back on his feet, he even went so far as to pat Anthony on the shoulder, congratulating him on his sound decision. Giving him a disapproving look, Anthony turned his back and made his way to the front of the shop to leave. Meaning to follow, Chester paused and pivoted his attention back to the trunk. He closed it once more, fastened the latch, and as he turned to spy Anthony's bewildered face, flashed a smile of reassurance.

"You must think me a superstitious old man, but it's just a precaution, as I'm sure you can understand." He was a little surprised Anthony didn't use the opportunity to poke fun at him, instead delivering a curt nod and silently proceeding to the front of the shop.

With the fog clearing outside, the familiar purple of dusk as evening settled in. Anthony returned his hat to his head and gave the junk shop one last look around before locking eyes with Chester.

"Tomorrow morning then?" he asked, though Chester knew it wasn't really a question.

"I shall look forward to it!" he replied, holding open the door. 

Not even a second glance was given as Anthony strode past. With a sigh of relief Chester closed the door and locked it; there would be no more appointments for the day. He could feel the crushing dread of the wretched trunk's very existence melt away as he watched Anthony's hefty figure descended the street: this time tomorrow, he would be rid of that cursed object once and for all! And hopefully for a handsome profit.

Now in his sixty-fifth year and feeling every bit of them in his bones, Chester decided it was time to wind-down for the evening. Living alone in the shop that consumed his life, he often found the most peace in the solitude of being surrounded by his collection of wares, enjoying his hoard like a greedy dragon. There was never wife nor children, nor kin to speak of for Chester, just the narrow brick building stockpiled with shelves of trinkets and curiosities. There had been Marvy, but replacing him was not a thought he could bear. At least, not while that hideous trunk remained.

Rarely one to eat an evening meal, Chester reached for his usual nighttime companion. Cheap whiskey didn't always calm his stomach, but it did wonders to help him sleep through the night; a far more elusive task he found in his twilight years. He began in earnest with the bottle, finishing up some notes that he kept in his sizable ledger book under the amber glow of his lantern between hearty sips.

Though an orphan at a young age and raised mostly on the streets, Chester grew into a very adept accountant, taking great, meticulous pleasure in cataloging the day's sales and other transactions. Every bit as detail-oriented as he was paranoid, Chester kept all the notes of his clients and transactions in a massive leather-bound book, using a cryptic code of his own making. He reasoned that a business' clientele was its greatest asset, and with so many clients purchasing many less-than-legal products, it would be wise to insulate himself from any legal action if the day of reckoning were ever to come. Surely the police had bigger thieves to catch than a lowly junk shop man, but Chester saw no reason to push his luck.

Completing the day's paperwork took a solid two hours and at least three-quarters of his whiskey bottle: as good a sign as any that Chester was ready to take his piss in the alleyway and prepare for bed. Having relieved himself and locked-up properly for the evening, he finally found himself at the end of his bottle of whisky and ready at last for his humble bed. It was now fully dark out, his lantern casting a wide pool of yellow in a radiant halo around him as he staggered past the tall shelves. Nearly drunk, he pulled back his covers when he noticed to his horror that, like some wide open mouth, the trunk was open.

Shock coursed through the old man's veins; though he was old and been drinking, Chester would have bet the deed to his shop that he secured the lid to the trunk the last time he was in the room, but there was no deceiving his eyes in that moment: the trunk was indeed wide open. Terrified, he slammed the thing shut and fastened the clasp once again, his breathing as hurried as if he ran a mile as he turned the key in the lock.

Then he heard the crash; there was someone in the shop.

Holding the lantern aloft, he tried to peer down the long corridor toward the front of the shop from where the noise emulated. He was certain that it sounded like breaking glass, something falling from the shelves onto the floor.

"Hello? Who's there?" he asked, his voice shrunk by his fear. 

The silent response hung in the air while Chester held his breath. He felt frozen to the edge of his bed, too frightened to move.

"Anthony, is that you?" he cried out again, trying to sound more assertive this time. Perhaps the goon came back to the shop, maybe figured the trunk was too valuable? Or maybe he came back to kill him in his sleep, just take the trunk for his own devices? His terrified mind rattled with possibilities. His voice quivered as he lost his nerve.

"If you've come back for the trunk, you can have it... I, I don't want it anymore!"

Chester held his breath and tried to listen: were those footsteps? Could he hear a man breathing? Someone had to be there. He could sense it in that strange animal way, like when you know you are being watched. He could feel his heart racing out of control in his chest. Another crash came, this time closer. The tail of a mermaid figurine came skittering into the lamp's pool of light, perhaps less than twenty paces away.

"Look, whoever this is, you have to stop, you hear me? You can't be coming into my shop and just break things!" he cried out, trying to muster up whatever anger he could, but there came no reply to his bluff.

A few moments passed in silence. Feeling emboldened, he shakily rose to his feet and, holding the lantern out in front of himself like a shield, slowly crept toward the front of the shop. The old man never felt more terrified in his life, and it reminded him of when he was a young lad living on the streets. He'd been so afraid of the dark back then; afraid of squaring off blindly against the unknown. Each step was painful and small.

"Look, you got no right to be here! You just, take what you want and leave, you hear? There ain't no pride in hurting an old man or doing harm to this stuff, so you just get on out now, you hear?"

Chester continued to inch forward, nearing the front row of shelves and roughly ten paces from the shattered remains of the figurine upon the ground. He knew that there were three revolvers, up just a couple of shelves away, not loaded mind you, but the criminal wouldn't know that! He thought if he could just get to those revolvers, he could scare him or whomever it was away. It was a long shot, but without knowing much more, it was the only chance he felt he had left.

Another crashing sound punctuated the silence and Chester felt himself wince with terror like he'd been slapped.

"Show yourself!" he bellowed. "Only a coward hides in the dark!"

Chester could hear it then; the unmistakable sound of raspy, labored breathing. He continued walking slowly toward it, careful to avoid stepping on the broken figurine near his bare feet. He held his own breath to hear better. Whomever was in the shop sounded as though they were just a shelf or two away now. 

Gradually, the round pool of light from the lantern illuminated the front of the shop. Expecting an intruder, he was not prepared for the strange optical illusion that awaited him.

Sprawled on the floor, there appeared to be the shadow of a man, though the lantern's light could not possibly be strong enough to cast any shadow with its diffused light. No, less than a shadow, Chester thought it was more like an ink blot because it was shaped like a man: dark enough to look like a hole in the ground from which light could not escape. He peered around the room to locate the source of the shadow and finding none was unsure how the sight he was seeing could exist at all. To his horror, the blackness moved. The area that would have been the chest of a man heaving up and down, breathing in a terrible, rasping manner.

The manless shadow turned then, slowly toward Chester, standing on its spindly legs, too small to support its proportions. Strangely, the dark surface quivered in the light, acting like liquid more than a skin or covering. Chester froze in place, mouth agape in terrified curiosity.

Now fully upright, the thing was no taller than Chester himself. Roughly human shape, the thing processed no discernible facial features or detail. In fact, so strange and disorienting were the creature's proportions that Chester could not determine if it was standing square and looking directly at him, or had its back turned. Curiously, the thing did not reflect any light nor appear to be affected by the lantern shining upon it.

'Tis like darkness itself, Chester thought as he beheld its other-worldly form.

The creature tilted its head as it stared at Chester, the surface of it wrinkling like waves in a puddle. Suddenly, two green eyes blinked open and stared at the old man, who stared back in astonishment. The green eyes with the narrow pupils, not human eyes but the same as his little Marvy. A sharp gasp escaped from the old man.

"Who are you?" 

It did not speak though, merely content it seemed to observe with curiosity the man before it. Lifting its right arm out in front to look at its own hand, Chester swore he saw it change from a shapeless mass of darkness into five distinct and slender fingers. The creature flexed and moved them about, satisfied with the transformation before turning its attention to the other hand, which then branched out into equally long and slender fingers to match.

The old man could feel a chill climb up his back and, though the conscious part of his brain did not fully register the situation, the deeper, animal part was already telling him that this was a danger beyond comprehension, perhaps even beyond this world. Without giving it another pause for consideration, Chester ran. Though his hip often gave him trouble, there was nothing slowing him down as his adrenaline fueled him. He dashed back over the broken bits of glass in his path toward the very back of the shop, not daring to look behind.

He pushed the shelves by his bed hard and watched, with a sickness in his heart, as the ten-foot rack of treasures crashed down to the ground to block the thing's progress. Scrambling, the old man pushed his bed up against the brick wall. But hard as he tried, even standing on the shaky metal headboard, he was still too short to reach the tall windows overhead. Thinking fast, Chester grabbed the only thing he could to gain access to the windows: the damned trunk.

Even empty, the solid wooden trunk was too heavy for him to heft up onto the bed, but with his adrenaline pumping, he was able after his third labored try. Climbing up onto the bed and then the teetering trunk, Chester could just get his fingertips to the window's ledge; pulling himself up would have been an easy feat in his youth, but was now laughably impossible at his age.

As he struggled, the unmistakable tiny sound of feet crunching debris was coming closer. The creature had figured out how to move its legs and was presently using them, although from the sounds of it not quickly. Frantic, Chester's fingers tried to feel for a latch or anything to open the window. Though the area by the shop was a rough neighborhood, there was at least the hope that a shout for the police could save him yet? But the edge of the window was shallow and dusty, offering no place for him to grasp or pull. Unable to think of much else, he resolved to give a mighty jump and perhaps gain enough advantage to grasp and finally pull himself up to possible safety. It was a fool's gamble, but he knew he was foolish to wait much longer and exhaust all options.

He crouched down and then leapt as high as he could, both hands outstretched and grasping for the windowsill. He felt the cold kiss of the window's metal latch and grasped it with both hands, suspended in the air for a few moments, feeling the dreaded trunk no longer underfoot as it clattered thunderously to the ground. Hanging there, the old man was suspended for only a few seconds until he could feel his grip on the cold metal latch falter.

Chester came down hard on the edge of the chest, sending rockets of pain shooting down his left shoulder. He came to rest on the ground beside the bed, howling in pain as the rest of his body awakened to the damage from the fall. Unfazed, the creature continued to close in on Chester. Now only a few paces away, it stopped and stared at the terrified old man crumpled on the ground before it.

"Leave me alone," he croaked, his eyes staring into where the face of the creature should have been, but all that was there was a pool of darkness and those horrible, piercing green eyes.

Chester could smell the thing, thick in his nostrils and mouth; a dank smell like mud or cool earth, a pungent odor that made his mind think of a freshly dug grave. The creature turned its head from side to side, as if perhaps it could understand and process the feeble pleas emanating from its prey.

"Please.... Just leave me alone..." His stuttering pleads were nothing more than a whisper.

The creature crouched down to meet Chester eye to eye, its green, glassy eyes staring into him and somehow knowing his fear and caring not. Slowly, silently, the creature leaned into Chester's shaking, sweaty face. It pressed its face into his like it was going to kiss him. 

Chester's body went rigid and his eyes bulged as the creature plunged itself down his throat in a cold, viscous liquid. If he could have screamed for help, he would have, but his lungs and gullet filled to nearly bursting with the creature's liquid form. His body flailed and then slowed until succumbing to the darkness inside.