The storefront windows of the shop on the dock were half boarded up by old posters proclaiming the freak show oddities typical of that grand time called the Age of Spiritualism. The posters proclaimed in faded reds and yellows of 'The Amazing Gretchen Goliath Woman, Stronger Than Two Armies!' and 'Billy Little the Spider Boy, Born With Eight Legs!" 

   What the posters didn't cover was boarded up by splintering planchettes and fuzzy postcards of post-mortem photos. Thick cobwebs criss-crossed over the planchettes and in the space between the glass and wall, sometimes the light caught them so they glittered in sepia tones. Over the doorframe was a small sun-faded plaque reading: The Olde Curiosity Shoppe, Open 24/7.

   The door- a sturdy thing of oak set upon rusting iron hinges- let out a terrible screech when touched even slightly by a trace of wind or phantom fingers. Adamina Margaret Fox knew all about the old shop's curiosities- inside and out. Every squeak in the floor, every frayed bit of carpet, every nail in the floorboard that poked out even the slightest bit; she had them all catalogued in a thick leather bound book. So she knew when the creaking of the floors was the shop settling into its slumber and when there was someone (or something) wandering about the store floor.

   Behind a counter, Adamina sat with her nose crinkled up as if smelling something rotten, which she did suspect was what that terrible smell was. But it was no business of hers, so she settled back down into her large desk chair and pushed aside copied pages of the Voynich Manuscript, to open up a thick leather-bound tome. Her arthritic hands brushed specks of fine soot from the pages, a coffin shaped nail finding the words she left off on.

   "The importance of the Romani peoples in the Age-" a creak stopped her reading. It wasn't the setting of the shop, it came from the third aisle. What was on the third aisle? She thought for a moment before closing the book. Was the third aisle cursed objects or alien specimens? She couldn't remember. The creaking resumed.

   Adamina stood, her dress swooshed around her legs with sudden movement, the loose brown fabric fell tightly around her bodice and hips. She adjusted the spectacles that sat on the bridge of her nose, smudging the thick glass with small loops and ridges her thumbprints.

   Her heels clacked against the oak floorboards, the hem of her dress catching on the nails that pushed their rusted heads through the boards. The creaking stopped as she took another step forward, tearing the fabric of her dress. The creaking resumed as she took a step, this time coming from the floor beneath her own feet and the floor on the third aisle. She prayed it wasn't the cursed objects section again.

   Her feet clacked and creaked over the old floor, her fingers running down the spines of ancient tomes, some written in languages that no longer existed, some were written in languages that had never existed. She passed the first aisle, strange beady glass eyes of taxidermy stared at her. A stuffed jackalope peered at her with pleading glass eyes as its fur cracked and peeled with age. 

    The taxidermy of the first aisle turned into the artifacts of the second aisle. Ancient Zulu war masks with their empty eyes and screaming mouths, a Chinese dragon head with fangs stitched into a friendly smile, an Inuit carving of a hunting scene on off-white whale bone. She paused to rip her dress from a nail once again, kicking past an ancient bicycle that collapsed onto the floor.

   Adamina stepped into the third aisle with her eyes closed. She reached out a hand to steady herself on a shelf, her finger brushed against a cold vial. The moment she gathered up enough strength to open her eyes, she sighed with relief. Around her were vials and jars of creatures the world could barely- or not at all- explain. Creatures faded of color and life lying suspended in hazy formaldehyde.

   She gazed down the aisle, spotting one of the vials sitting against the ground, its lid lying beside it. She knelt against the floor, listening to creaking steps retreat away from her. The specimen was a seven legged salamander and the stench of the uncapped formaldehyde burned her nose. She quickly screwed the lid back on and placed the seven legged salamander back on the third shelf with the other reptilian oddities.

   The door screeched open as Adamina jerked to attention. Wind? Visitors? The IRS? Something else? It could be anything or anyone. Adamina leaned against the shelves, careful to avoid knocking over anything.

    Her heels clacked as the door screamed again, this time she knew it was shut. There was a creaking against the floor, a slight stirring in the almost stagnant air. The slight smell of rose perfume waved through the aisles and interrupted the smell of rot.

   "You're alive," the old woman jumped with surprise as a face met hers. The girl stared back with equal shock. "I am correct with that presumption? You are indeed alive?"

   The girl stared at this oddity of a woman with her fish-eyed glasses, brown floor length dress, and hair pulled into a tight chignon at the base of her skull. The woman's face cast strange shadows that made her seem almost skeletal.

    The girl took a hesitant step back. "I am alive, at least I think so." She looked down at her own body, taking an involuntary step back. Her heel stepped down on a rusty nail, she looked back in surprise. "My name is Ida."

   "Good, I thought you might've been the IRS." The older woman stared the girl down, taking in her patched denim jacket and black combat boots. She was pretty, young too, probably wandered in from the nearby docks. She smelled of roses and faint grease from a fish fry.

   The girl- Ida nodded as her eyes scanned the five aisles of strange things. A part of her was terrified, all those glass eyes and the empty masks and the fake porcelain faces of the dolls- it was only human to feel unnerved. But there was always the underlying interest, the spirit of adventure. The faint smell of earth attracted her attention and she soon found herself wondering if the smell emanated from the store or the old woman.

   "Such a strange place," Ida whispered to herself.

   The floor creaked a little, the footsteps going towards the fifth aisle. Adamina remembered what the fifth aisle contained now. That was the cursed objects. "Why don't I show you around a little? What curios are you interested in? Literature? Creatures? Medical? Sideshow attractions?"

   Why had she stopped into the Olde Curiosity Shoppe? One minute she was on the docks enjoying a fish fry and the next she felt herself walk through the door of the cruddy building as if under a spell. "I'm here," she finally decided. "I'm here and uh curious."

   "Alright my dear," Adamina gestured towards the aisles lit by dim amber bulbs. "Welcome to the line where fiction and fact grows dim, to what one could call the twilight zone." Adamina put on her best smile, one that erased her frown lines and pulled back the wrinkles along her once beautiful cheeks. She rarely received visitors, so when the hand of fate plopped one right down in front of her, she was sure to throw out the red carpet. That included giving tours of the oddities, everything from automaton fortune tellers to taxidermy mermaids. 

   The Ida girl was terrified of everything. There were too many things that weren't supposed to exist, or only in the nightmares of children. Her heart beat in her chest faster, racing to the imaginary beats of one of the Apache war drums beside her. Why did anyone come in this shop? When was the last time someone had been in this shop? Everything was coated in thick dust and then there was that smell. Mold? Just the elements eating away at the old shop? Who knew? Who wanted to know?

   Adamina sensed the girls trepidation and stopped in front of a wall of various doors in various colors. "Are you all right dear? You seem rather pale all of a sudden."

   "Oh I'm just fine," Ida lied, staring at the doors. "So many doors, where do they all go?"

   "Nowhere," Adamina muttered back. Opening a Byzantine style door painted in flaking green to reveal the peeling floral wallpaper of the store's wall. Adamina scratched at a bit of the flaking lead paint with her yellowing nails. "I will leave you here, dear. If you are interested in anything at all, just call. And be careful with the specimens, I wouldn't wander too far." Her knotted fingers touched Ida's shoulder, the denim rough against the pad of her hand.

   "Alright," Ida muttered, turning her back to the strange old woman. When she turned back, the aisle was empty of life. Only a doll sat in the aisle, a blue sailor's hat perched on it's rugged blond curls. Ida shivered, turning back to the door.

   What exactly was the customer base for a curiosity shop? Strangers? Goths? Wiccans? People who didn't fit in- just like the curios' themselves- that was the customer base. But nobody had entered the shop in a while. How did they make a profit when nobody ever entered the shop? The air was stagnant, like a bucket that had collected rain for too long and became its own ecosystem all by being still.

   She ran her hand along the doors, her black painted nails starkly contrasting the chipped festival red of a barn door. She opened the barn door without hesitation to reveal the lackluster curtains that once divided sideshow attractions at traveling circuses. Ida gripped the crumbling fabric and frowned. Behind the curtains was a void of darkness. Another room. One the old woman had forgotten or purposely forgotten to tell her about? She listened hard, leaning towards the curtain. Her feet creaked against the oak floor. Her head touched the curtain, the creaking stopped. What was that noise?

    She held her breath, listening. Inhale... Exhale... Inhale..... Yes someone was back there, breathing heavily. But who?

    The old woman's warning echoed in her mind. "I wouldn't wander too far." What did that mean? Was that a tacit warning to run? The old woman knew something- something she hadn't said. Fear gripped Ida's body, freezing the blood in her veins, turning muscle into stone, her bones into lead. 

   The breathing was louder, raspy. Cheyenne-stokes breathing, the death rattle, and it was getting louder. No, not louder. Closer. A hand reached from the curtain, wrapping around her neck.  

    A stifled scream, the creaking floor, and a slammed door was all Adamina heard from the front counter. She shook her head, such a pity, she was so young. Adamina settled back into her reading.

   She knew better than anyone else the dangers of exploring the Olde Curiosity Shoppe.