15

Breaking And Entering

Jack spent half the next day in an old coffee house across the street from the little curiosity shop, sipping coffee and leisurely reading various newspapers. He'd positioned himself on a worn leather armchair. he had a perfect view of the curiosity shop across the street. He had arrived at six o'clock in the morning and like half the patrons in the coffee house stayed nearly all day, nursing coffee and pastry. All day he watched the shop. No one had come or gone from it at all. Not even the owner. Jack recalled his first encounter with the man. he was friendly enough. Talked on and on about his shop. Jack hadn't detected any red aura about him but something was off. He just couldn't put his finger on it. Something had to be here. Something hidden.
Angela had gotten that strange gift for Frankie from here. The red boxes had come from here. Things the aliens used to lure and trap humans. From the brief info Frankie had decided to tell him about his ex-girlfriend, it seemed Frankie himself was struggling with not being compromised.
Frankie was scared. Jack had never seen his old friend like this. He knew for a certainty that he had to investigate the place again. Jack had a long and colorful history of theft and breaking and entering when he was a teenager. But this time it was for a good cause.
When the coffee shop closed he went to his rental car parked across the street about a block down from the shop. He hated spending the money for it but it wouldn't do to perform a stakeout on a motorbike. Jack got in the car with a last cup of coffee in a paper cup, setting it on the dash, with a small panini, and settled down for a long night. As the sun went down and the color of the neighborhood quieted down and faint street lamps came on he remained focused on the curio shop. Just like in the morning and afternoon, it seemed dead. He saw no one come into or leave the shop at all. How does the man stay in business? He wondered, eating his sandwich. Nevermind, dude. There's more than meets the eye going on in there. He recalled the store owner. Strange little man.
The perfect time finally came around eight o'clock in the evening.came. Jack had fallen asleep sometime at dusk. He woke with a start, it was dark. A few streetlamps and porch lights down the street were on but it wasn't so bright that he felt uncomfortable. He froze. There was the movement of a shadow in the window of the old Victorian house. As luck would have it, someone was finally coming out of the house. Jack tossed the empty coffee cup on the floor and lay down on the passenger seat, then peered over the dashboard again. The man looked around quickly, then he turned and locked the door. He was carrying a large bag strapped on his arm as he walked down the steps and disappeared into the garage. A few minutes later a car backed out of the driveway, its headlights briefly illuminating Jack's car. Jack bowed down low so as not to be seen as the car drove past and down the street. He watched in his left side-door mirror until the tail lights had disappeared into the nightscape. Time to rock and roll. Watched the house with hungry curiosity. What are you hiding in there? He watched for any other movement near the front of the shabby Victorian house. No shifting shadows or shapes to suggest that there was anyone else left.
Jack walked up the stairs and slipped a tension wrench into the lock, turned and worked it until he felt a little give by turning it counter-clockwise. he slipped the pick inside the upper part of the keyhole.
He heard voices of people walking home from dinner from a restaurant around the corner. He ducked down and moved to the left of the porch to hide himself until they passed. A car rumbled down the street. When things quieted down he tried again After a few seconds he was in. It was an old and rather easy lock. There was no gate and Jack was relieved for that.  He quickly slipped inside and closed the door.
It was dim inside, the back of the main store room  in shadow. The windows were wide open. but as most of the other houses and businesses on the block were empty this didn't trouble him. Jack took his time listening out for anyone and anything,  his eyes slowly sweeping the entire room. There were the usual curiosities and knick-knack items he saw the first time. Some quite glorious in their strangeness. Some rather macabre. But what was he looking for? The smell of incense was intoxicating and it was a different scent from what he picked up the last time he came. A very heavy scent. Almost. . .drug-like in its sensuous, rich overtones. Jack hoped it wasn't really a drug. He couldn't afford to lose his sense of urgency. He didn't feel his senses becoming fatigued or dull but certain drugs could work insidiously.
He wandered through the store looking for anything that might suggest something alien. This would be difficult. Curiosity shops by nature had many alien-like things in them. He passed by the old cast iron cages full of stuffed taxidermy creatures or terrariums full of odd looking plants and other odd things Jack wasn't sure of. The wind-up antique dolls were in their display case,except tonight they were still and silent, staring out at him with those creepy innocent looking faces. He remembered the flowers and plants of the colors he couldn't describe. These had fascinated him to no end. What if these things are like material from another place in the universe. Who ever heard of colors they couldn't describe? But he forced himself away from these. That woman Angela seemed to have a connection to this place. She was either one of The Others or working for them. He thought he heard something from the back of the display and shop room. He followed where he thought he'd heard it. At the back of the front room was a door. Jack slowly turned the knob. It was locked though with an old fashioned lock and keyhole. A sudden blast of car headlights sped through the room making him turn around and freeze. It was a large truck rumbling by down the street. He  listened out for any other noises. Hanging on the wall beside the door was a golden chain were two keys. He took up the chain and tried both keys. The second key, a long skeleton key unlocked he door. it let out a creaky sigh. Jack looked around. This room felt very warm and something about it disturbed him greatly. Which meant there was something in here that he needed to see. There were bookcases with glass cases filled with all sorts of liquids, even the requisite fetuses, animal and human. There were other objects too, strange looking metal boxes, armor, swords and many wooden boxes.
He heard the sound again. It was coming from behind. It was like a slight gurgling sound. He turned to see one of the fetuses moving around. Horrified and fascinated he edged over to the creature. The fetus was inside a hermetically sealed glass case filled with a reddish fluid. The case itself was lodged inside a wrought iron carrier.  It opened its eyes, or what passed for eyes. It spoke.
"Who are you?" Jack was taken aback but he'd seen enough strange things that he would find a way to take it in stride. After all, what had he come here for anyway?
"What are you?" Jack retorted..
"A prisoner," it lamented. Jack carefully stepped forward carefully to examine it. Inside its case was some kind of contraption that looked like a large glass tube by its mouth that served as a mouth piece. At the top of the case this tube flared out like a horn. it spoke through its little horn contraption again.
"Please, help me escape!" 
"But who are you? What are you? Really?" jack was wondering if someone had entered the house again while he was busy having a conversation with a fetus.
"I exist halfway between time and space. I must remain inside this glass case or I will no longer exist nor can I hang onto this world or dimension. I do not actually look like a human fetus in real life. This body only a shell or a place-holder I use to exist here."
"But I don't understand. Why a fetus?"
"I was punished for suspected crimes against my people."
"Crimes? And you think I'll help you?"
"Suspected crimes," it emphasized. "The suspected crime of helping humans captured by my people and killed. They have no true proof against me so this is how they punish me - they put me in the form of a completely helpless human being. a fetus."
"Your people have a real macabre sense of humor," said Jack.
"This is my punishment. To see but not to act or interfere with The Expansion. Not to sense, taste, touch or truly live, here or anywhere. My prison."
"How long have you been in there?"
"We've been here a very long time. Many, many years. Longer than you know. I don't need help out of the case, you can't do that anyway but take me with you. even if i die, I don;t want to stay here anymore," wailed the fetus.
"Look, calm down! I'll take you but quiet down. I'm not supposed to be in here. But first I want to know more about this place."
"What do you want to know?"
"What is this place hiding? What's here? i can't believe I'm talking to a fetus-"
"You're not talking to a fetus."
"Right. Are there any red boxes sold here in this shop? The owner told me no, but I think he was lying. Little red boxes that hold a way for aliens to get into here? if you are what you say you are, you'll know what I'm talking about." Jack demanded. The creature was silent for a moment.
"red boxes," it said. The fetus then twirled in its fluid for a bit then turned to look at him, its monstrous little body crawling up the glass wall of its prison.
"I've seen the little red boxes. He keeps them in the shop under the floorboards under a dingy, threadbare Persian rug. It's in the corner there by that totem." Sure enough, in a dark corner there as a tall wooden totem pole of a turtle ,a whale and a crow.
"Over there?"
"Yes. Why? Those things are deadly."
"I know. And how much do they cost?" The little thing gurgled. It sounded like laughter.
"You don't want one, do you? Oh, no-"
"Tell me! I don't have much time, kid, er, whatever!"
"Those aren't sold. Those are given to people who wish for some kind of suffering to end, some kind of problem they can't handle to go away. The price is their life. They are taken over by the Quantumin once they do open that box ad use it."
"Quantumin?"
"The best word I can use to describe my people."
"Is the owner of this place an alien?"
"No. He's a servant. A worker for them. There are different levels of these humans who willingly or unwillingly work for the Expansion. He's a willing one as far as I've seen." Okay, so he's a minion.
"I need more information before he comes back.-" the house shook and all the lights blinked on and off for a split second.
"That's happened before here," said Jack more to himself. "What else is here? Something's hidden here, isn't it? A wormhole? Tell me!" he demanded.
"I know many things. If you want more information Please, get me out of here. I can tell you all you want to know. I promise!" It pleaded. Jack grabbed the case by its top iron handle.
"This house is a conduit for entrances for my people where they can travel through and see into this world. Albeit a small one. I've seen things. Glimpses of where other conduits are." Jack could see the soft red halo pulsing off of the creature even in its fluid. And he was tempted to take it and chuck it down a dumpster or against the wall here. But for a brief second its halo changed from red to a violet color to blue, and then red again. It gulped and gurgled, looking up at him through reddish fluid.  Jack's heart started to race. Would this be a good idea or the worse idea in the history of the world? Suddenly, he heard the front door opening.
"He's come again! You don't know the awful things he allows here! Get me out of here!" The thing whispered frantically. Jack no longer had time to think. He hid behind one of the large bookcases waiting for some one to walk in. But the owner didn't come into this room. Jack waited for what seemed forever, the room hot and stuffy to the point of suffocation. He heard the shop owner whistling and pacing slowly to the back of the house and then he heard a door open and shut and he heard footsteps going downstairs. Jack then tip-toed from the room, the floor creaking more than he was comfortable with. Closing the door as quietly as he could, he then raced from the house and into his car. Throwing the case into the passenger's seat he started the car and sped away just in time to see the owner of the shop struggling with his cane to come out on to the porch with a distraught and aghast look on his face as he watched Jack speed  away into the night.