Plight at the Museum

The car’s tyres skidded over the rain-wet road, squealing in the night.

Edward Rakee gritted his teeth. He didn’t like driving this fast, but the situation called for it. This had been the first night after changing the museum’s exhibits, his first actual decision on the job. At midnight, he’d gotten a call. The motion sensor alarms had detected someone inside the building. Someone had broken in – what a disaster. He gripped the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip and fought to keep control of his 2-tonne beast.

Burnhelm Museum’s windows glinted in his headlights like a cat’s eyes in the dark. No lights were on; the place lay in shadow. The multistory building sat still. The alarm’s bleat rose over the roar of the rain and the car’s rumble.

Seeing the place with black eyes whilst the alarm squealed made Edward’s stomach shrivel. He wished he had someone else with him now; he had goosebumps. Hell, he’d even take the previous curator, Stanley Grahames. Stanley had lost a few of his marbles as he’d aged. He’d covered the museum walls with paintings of cute puppies and kittens. Puppies and kittens only had a place in a museum if they were the early pets of cave people. Stanley had also left him a note. ‘Dear Edward, there is something you should know about the Burnhelm Museum. You see, there is life in the pain—’ Stanley had not managed to write beyond that. The word ended in a ragged scratch as the pen flew off the page. The heart attack had ended Stanley’s capacity to use words, breathe, or pump blood. Edward assumed the guy was trying to tell him something about getting old, but he’d been unable to figure it out yet. It might not even mean anything. The man was a few sandwiches shy of a picnic.

Edward killed the engine and dashed through the rain to the museum’s open mouth. He held the collar of his jacket over his head as he ran to try to keep the torrent at bay. Edward tested the front door.

It didn’t budge.

Whoever it was, they had not broken in through here or through any of the front windows. Edward fished the key out of his pocket, shivering as his shoes filled with water, and opened the door.

Inside, the rain quieted down to a steady hiss. The alarm’s bleat was much louder in here. A potent, earthy smell permeated the air.

Edward rumpled his nose and raised his hands to his ears. Where was the damn thing? He knew it was around here somewhere. He fumbled in the dark, slapping the fob of his keys against the wall. This task was so much easier in daylight. At last, he found the alarm box, and some magic from the fob silenced the screech. He sighed, his ears thanking him for ending their torment.

The darkened halls of the museum waited for him in silence. A low rumble of thunder vibrated through the floor beneath his feet for a very long time. A resounding thump, like that of a gun, echoed down the corridors.

The blood turned to ice in his veins. Yes, there was somebody else here with him. Here, in his home away from home, inside his dream. How dare they? It hurt his soul.

When he was a boy, his grandfather had taken him to a natural history museum. The cave dwellers and their early tools had ignited wonder. The fossils and dinosaur bones had cast a magic. The Tyrannosaurus rex, mammoths, and megalodons had inspired terror and admiration. Edward wanted only to share the same awe he’d felt the first time. It was an honourable goal. There was an obvious way to achieve this: he had to be the best museum curator ever. But one thing had stood in his way, at least until now. He always started afresh. He came in, did away with the old, and swept in with the new. Edward couldn’t stand to leave something standing that wasn’t his. It didn’t matter whether it worked. He discarded functional systems and inadequate systems. Unfortunately, such an attitude did not make him many friends. And so, he’d bounced around from museum to museum, never quite reaching the desired position. But now, he was Burnhelm Museum’s curator. He’d realised his lifelong ambition. At last, after so much struggle.

And now this? Youngsters and drug-addled maniacs breaking in? With their spray paints and their broken bottles of beer and their – good God – used condoms? This place was his, and he wasn’t about to hand it over to some hooligans or street urchins pulling a prank. Edward scowled and closed the door behind him, and locked it. He hit the lights and called out to the intruders. ‘It’s too late to escape,’ he said. ‘The police are already on their way.’ A lie. ‘You never should have come here.’

A high-pitched coughing sound bounced around the building. It came from many places at once, back and forth.

Edward’s eyes widened. There were many criminals in here. And they were laughing at him. Shaking, he clenched his fists – nails digging into his palms – and marched into the museum. It took him longer than it should have to notice what was wrong with his exhibits.

The paintings were empty.

Jaw hanging down to his chest, Edward stumbled to a halt. He squinted at a painting that had, until tonight, held a picture of a T. rex roaring before a Cretaceous backdrop. His fury fell away to dumbfoundedness. He tried to articulate his confusion, but all that came out was, ‘Unh?’

Next to him, flies were buzzing about something brown. It was about 2 feet long and approximately 6 inches in diameter: excrement.

Edward blinked. It wasn’t unheard of for vagrants to soil the places they entered with their waste. But no human on the planet could produce this much. Had these lunatics squished their leavings together to fool him into thinking that—

The deep rumble vibrated through the earth once more.

Edward jumped and squealed and spun around.

Nothing was behind him.

His heart hammered, high up in his chest. It seemed to lodge at the base of his throat, making breathing hard. If he didn’t get his pulse under control, he’d end up the same way as Stanley Grahames. Dead of a heart attack. Some distant part of Edward’s mind was piecing bits together, little by little. ‘You see, there is life in the pain—’ Had he meant to write ‘there is life in the paintings’? Was that why he’d covered the walls with pictures of cute baby animals? So that, when they came to life, he—

Something was moving at the periphery of his vision on both sides.

At last, Edward understood. It’s not always a good idea to change everything and start afresh when you take over someone else’s role. They might have had a good reason for doing the things they did. You should at least acquaint yourself with the position before scrapping their work. Ah, but it was a bit late now. Yet, for one split-second before his agonising death, he felt once more that awe he’d experienced as a child.

And then the raptors had him.