Chapter 1: The Collector

The tinkle of the bell above Vendredi’s Antiques heralded the arrival of an elderly gentleman, beating a rhythm on the worn wooden floorboards with his cane. A tweed suit boasted elbow patches, and over silver hair sat a deerstalker cap jauntily on his head. Half-moon glasses precariously perched on his nose as he surveyed the cluttered store.

Ryan and Micki looked up from behind the counter, where they were both busy inventorying the stock in the store. The old man was a classic kind of antique collector. He seemed experienced, selective, and certainly very particular about what he would and wouldn’t buy.

“Hello,” beamed Ryan, cracking a warm smile that set alight on his face. “Looking for something?”

He walked with uncertain strides, his eyes scanning over racks of rubbish from other eras. He retrieved the antique pocket watch, examined it closely, and then put it back on the shelf, his face scrunched up as if in distaste.

“Something special,” he said roughly, his aristocracy showing in every word. “Something really striking.”

Micki slipped around the counter and stood beside him while he scrolled through the list. “Well, we have everything kinda weird stuff in here. What are you looking for?”

The old man shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I’ll know it when I see it.” He hunched over peering into a glass case full of all manner of jewelry and trinkets.

A few minutes passed, during which time the man silently perused a display that, to Ryan, was completely uninspired and untouched by any of them, until finally, Ryan summoned up enough courage.

“What about this?” he proposed, drawing out a rusty silver dagger whose handle and scabbard were overlaid with latticework engraving. It was old and ugly, even just lying there on a sheet of glass.

The collector accepted it in his arthritic hands, turning it over with caressing reverence as he examined every inch. “Hmm. An interesting piece,” he murmured. He drew the blade back a little distance, and a flash of bright edge leaped up at the light, then without any warning pushed it back into the leather with a soft click.

Suddenly, he declared after a moment’s thought, slamming the dagger down beside his cane on the counter, “I’ll have it.”

Ryan and Micki looked at each other with skeptical eyes. The tension inside them was almost palpable. The blade had an ominous heavy air that seemed to get their nerves amped up. Nonetheless, they had set upon their minds to sell whatever they could. They wanted to hasten clearing out the shop so they could finally move on with their lives.

“Of course,” Micki said reluctantly as she figured out the cost of the sale, putting the dagger in a paper bag. “It’s yours now.”

The old man grunted, pulled out money without even requesting a receipt, and shuffled off toward the door with the tapping rhythm of his cane on the floor.

Ryan let out an exasperated sigh when the old man was gone. “I have a bad feeling about this sale,” he said awkwardly. “That dagger seemed trouble to me.”

Micki bit down a little on her lip as she felt the rather unsettling atmosphere coming from that blade. As if it was calling for blood. “We can only hope for the best,” she said with an air of affected cheer, looking out toward the deserted street along which the eerie collector had vanished.

They were yet to know that most of the items in the shop carried some kind of curse on them. Soon they will be chasing every buyer to claim all the sold items back.