Guardian of the universe’s knowledge

Jack Manning sits after the sad and somber funeral of his precious grandmother Ellen. She was a quirky eccentric woman who lived in a home straight out of the year 1900. It had only been five years ago when they finally convinced her to remodel and put in indoor plumbing and a bathroom. She always wore tailored suit dresses with a slight bell shape to the skirts and always in drab colors. Her hats were where she expressed herself, they were always bold and colorful, with feathers and puffs of lace and bows, lots of bows. The only jewelry she wore was a gold marriage band, otherwise, she would have been gaudy, as she often said about others. She frequently wore white gloves to hide her hands and her dresses were long enough to cover her entire body, the only skin she ever showed was her face. The home was like stepping into a museum, doilies adorned every table or shelf, and the interior was lit by oil lamps, so every room had just enough light to see but not reveal much detail. A tall thin man in a suit startles Jack from thought and takes him to an adjoining room where he is told that he has inherited the entirety of her estate, which is much more lucrative than he had thought it would be. He knew ahead of time that he would be inheriting her home. He was the only visitor she received most weeks and liked the old things she had, so he visited every Saturday.

“Holy crap! This place is old,” Patty, Jack’s fiancé says smacking her gum and displaying her Jersey accent.

“Not really, it was built in the fifties, but it was built like the houses at the turn of the century,” Jack explains.

“My mom’s house was built in two thousand and it looks nothing like this,” Patty states.

“No babe, it was built like the houses built in the year 1900,” Jack calmly explains to her.

“Oh! Okay, oooh look doilies. Your Granny was so refined, I can’t believe we get to live in such a nice place. It is so much better than your old roach-infested apartment,” she says as she admires the antiques and trinkets lining the walls.

“Don’t get too attached to anything babe, I plan to sell most of that crap on eBay. I won’t have to hustle any more to get by I can live on the stuff from this place for a couple years,” Jack reveals his true intentions.

“Oh look! Little spoons from all the states, and even a couple from other countries!” She excitedly declares.

“Let’s get settled in before you begin naming things,” Jack orders taking her by the arm and dragging her away.

As he intended Jack set about bringing the house into the twenty-first century, he had an electrician install lighting, internet, and cable television. After only a few weeks the house was a stark contrast to its former self, and Jack had begun to catalog each room for his ambitions to sell off the antiques on e-bay. He worked harder than ever before going room to room, finding treasures this house held, photographing them, inputting them, and boxing them up. After living in the home for a month he has gone through the top floor, and attic, and is now working on the ground floor. He first works in an office where his grandmother wrote her articles for the local paper, and as he is cataloging her antique typewriter he notices some old-looking books on the shelves on the opposite wall. Jack leaves his work momentarily to check out the small library of books on the opposite wall. A respectable collection of first editions and books from antiquity. He is flipping through a copy of The Great Gatsby when he sees a book that was probably his grandmother’s standard.

“Woman’s guide to health, beauty, and happiness. What every woman should know. I should give this to Patty!” he laughs at what he perceives her reaction would be.

Jack sets down his book and reaches for the woman’s guide, it tilts halfway down, and the shelf twists open releasing a gust of stagnant air. He takes a step back to recover to think about what this discovery means. Through the three-inch-wide gap, he can see another room on the other side, a secret room. He had been in this house a thousand times over his young life, and never knew about this. He's never heard anyone speak about a secret room, the reason it has stayed a secret until now.

“Babe?” he calls.

“Yeah!”

“Come here, I need you!”

“Ahh! That’s sweet,” she exclaims as she clicks and clacks her way down the hall in high heels.

“Check it out!” Jack says showing her the secret room.

“Looks scary in there,” she says leaning in and peering through the gap.

“I’m going in, stay here in case I need help,” he orders.

“But I was doing my nails,” she complains.

“Do them in here,” he replies solving her problem.

She runs off happily to retrieve her nail kit and Jack spins open the shelf. The chamber behind the shelf is brick but it trails off to the right and turns into stone, then bedrock. There is light at the bottom of the tunnel, it looks like a room dug out of the bedrock, and the sound of Dean Martin singing ‘Amore’ plays. Jack steps as gently and silently as he can with the great unknown only a few steps ahead, anything could be down there. Scenarios play in his mind born from every horror movie he has ever seen turning his legs into anchors and his will into putty, then he sees a shadow walk past the light.

“Oh shit!” he quietly exclaims.

“Is someone there?” Calls a graveled voice from the shadows.

Jack remains silent, stilled by fear, and paralyzed to do anything. When he thought he couldn’t get any more scared he could see the shadow moving closer, the shadow growing large, then that horrible face peered around the corner.

“Grandpa?” Jack recognized the man.

“Jacky?”

Jack jumped excitedly into the arms of the man who has been missing for over twenty years.

“Don’t! Stay in the tunnel!” the old man screamed at the exuberant young man leaping into his arms.

Jack hugged his grandpa tight but the sounds of mechanisms churning in the background drew both of their attention. They watched as the bookshelf at the top of the tunnel turned back and locked shut.

“What happened?” Jack asked.

“When the weight comes off the tunnel floor the mechanism locks.”

“Just step back on it!” Jack suggests stepping into the tunnel.

“It can only be opened from the top, it is a secret room, only the guardian is supposed to stay here to protect the ancient knowledge,” The old man explains.

“Huh?” Jack asks confused.

His grandpa reaches out takes his hand and guides him to an ornate carved wooden door with gold inlays. He pulls a strange key from his pocket and inserts it in the lock within a wolf's mouth. The lock clicks over and the door pops releasing air and dust, the old man pulls open the door and reveals a spectacular brilliantly lit room with ancient books lining every wall, nook, and cranny. Books are stacked on tables in the middle, to the side, and in crates on the floor. Some of the crates are labeled Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Indus Valley, Kingdom of Aksum, and plenty more from places I have never heard of like Anunnaki archives.

“Anunnaki? Isn’t that…”

“Aliens... In that crate is a very interesting Codex, it's especially interesting how they built the pyramids,” the old man reveals.

“Grandpa?’

“Yeah.”

“How do you look so young?” Jack asks.

“Time moves differently down here.”

“But you disappeared so long ago,” Jack wonders.

“By the looks of you about thirty years.”

“More like Twenty, I’ve had a hard life so far,” Jack explains.

“From the smell of the pot on you, you’ve probably made it hard on yourself.”

Jack takes offense to his directness but knows in his heart that his Grandpa Is right. He walks around and looks at the books, he flips them open and reads a couple of them and something strikes him as strange. 

“How is it that they are all in English, why can I read texts from ancient civilizations English wasn’t even a language then?” Jack asks.

“The jewel of Dug is a Sumerian amulet that allows anyone to read any text regardless of the language it was written in.”

“That’s cool, but Grandpa there is something I have to tell you,” Jack says turning to him with a tear in his eye.

“I know, she’s gone. I have grieved but also an ancient duty to protect this knowledge.”

“What duty?”

“The men in our family have a secret duty passed on from father to son for a millennium. The knights of the Thistle we are called, it is the greatest order of Chivalry in Scotland, and we were tasked with protecting this knowledge by an even greater order of protectors who were going extinct.”

“Extinct?” Jack asks.

“They were a race of Nordic aliens, who were like humans, but were very advanced. They understood that this knowledge is powerful and in the wrong hands could be dangerous. Many civilizations have fallen because they attempted to use this power for personal gain, so we are tasked with keeping it safe and secure.

“How have you survived down here for so long without food or water?” Jack wonders.

“The wishing stone.”

“Seriously!” Jack exclaims.

“You can’t wish for anything, only for the things for survival.”

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Jack says disappointed.

“If I could wish for anything I would wish to be out of here.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jack whimpers.

“But the stone makes a good T-bone steak.”

“It was created for a Lycan King who was banished in a pit for a hundred years, the punishment was supposed to kill him but a sorcerer friendly to the king created the stone so that instead of dying in the pit, one day he could return and retake his throne.”

“Did he? Did he get his throne back?” Jack asked excitedly like when his grandpa told stories to him as a boy.

“He reemerged a hundred years later and saw that his people were better off without him, so he walked into the wilderness alone to find adventure and live out his natural life.”

“Sounds like a wise king,” Jack replies.

As Jack picks up a handful of gold coins from a large chest a sound from the other room catches their attention and they both drop what they are holding to the table and run for the tunnel. Jack is first through and instead of taking chances, he calls out to Patty who is the only other person it could be.

“Patty! Stay in the tunnel, don’t move!” Jack yells.

“O-O-Okay…”

Jack turns the corner as his grandpa catches up bumping into him, they stare up at her cowering on the floor of the tunnel holding her hand as if she is hurt.

“Are you hurt, baby?”

“I broke a nail, and I just bought these things,” she complains crying in the tunnel.

“Oh baby, I’m sorry But I have a surprise for you,” Jack says as he and his grandpa walk into the tunnel, pick her up, and go through the bookcase into the office.

“It’s just as I remember,” the old man laments.

Jack and Patty stand in the office as the old man walks around and sits at the desk admiring and searching for something in the drawers.

“Who is he?” Patty asks Jack.

“That’s my grandpa, his name is uhm, ugh… I can’t remember your name, Grandpa, what is it?” Jack asks.

The old man looks up at Jack and stalls at the question asked of him.

“Grandpa,” the old man says returning to his search.

“No, what is your actual name, I can’t remember?” Jack insists beginning to wonder if something is wrong.

The old man stares at Jack while he rifles through the desk with his hands until he finds what he is looking for and smiles an evil smile. Suddenly he pulls a gun from the desk and shoots and kills Patty sending her reeling back to the floor, Jack grabs the table lamp and throws it at the old man knocking the gun from his hand. Jack jumps on top of the old man and a fight ensues. Punch after the punch is exchanged and they fight to exhaustion, blood drips from swollen lips and battered faces.

“Who are you?” Jack demands to know.

“I’m your grandpa.”

“Bullshit! You don’t even know your name!” Jack yells.

“You don’t know it either, but you got me. I’m not your grandpa, but he tasted good,” the being says licking his lips as his appearance changes revealing his true self.

“You bastard!” Jack yells and throws the only thing near him, a statue of the Virgin Mary lying on the floor from the scuffle.

The statue flies at the head of the being sitting at the open bookcase. He snaps back avoiding the collision as it crashes into the bookcase, lying there he laughs maniacally.

“I am the Nordic alien! Your grandfather trapped me in that prison, but I got my revenge when I killed him.”

Desperate Jack throws a paperweight at him smashing into the bookcase, but this time the ‘Woman’s Guide to health, beauty, and happiness’ pivoted all the way out and the bookcase slammed shut cutting off the head of the Nordic Alien, killing him. As Jack lies there trying to regain his composure he hears the whimper of Patty on the floor on the other side of the room. He grabs his cell phone to call 911 but hesitates, it will look like he shot her! Desperate he gets an idea, he jumps up, runs to the bookcase, and tilts the book ‘Woman’s Guide to Health, Beauty, and Happiness back to the halfway position and the bookcase opens. The head of the Nordic alien sits there oozing green blood, he steps over the head and drags the body down the tunnel so he can retrieve something. He runs into the library and returns with something wrapped in a cloth, because the body weighed down the tunnel mechanism he can re-enter the office and shut the bookcase behind him. He rushes to Patty’s side placing the wrapped bundle next to her. He unwraps the cloth revealing the wishing stone, and he quickly prays.

“Whatever god commands the magic in this stone please save her life, she may be ditzy and materialistic, but I love her with every ounce of my soul. I cannot survive without her!” He yells as he leans in and kisses her bloody cheek.

Jack lies his head on her chest listening to her heartbeat growing ever slower. A new trail of blood runs from her side and drips onto the stone and the magic of the stone glows bright and heals her wounds instantly. She sits upright and stares back at Jack sitting next to her and they kiss and embrace.

“I love you too Jacky!” she says wiping the blood from her face.

“You, okay?”

“Now I am, I watched you kill that Alien, you’re so brave!” she swoons over him.

“Thanks.”

“Oh shit!” she exclaims.

“What now?”

“I broke another nail…” she smiles out of frustration.

“One good thing came from all this,” Jack says.

“Yeah, Jacky what’s that?”

“I have a new job.”

“Oh, really sweetie, doing what?”

“I am the Guardian of the universe’s knowledge,” he boasts.

“That’s nice, I’m hungry can we go to Applebee’s?”

“Sure baby, anything for you.”