The Cabinet of Curiosities

The flickering light revealed a passage leading into another large room, also crammed with wooden cabinets. He took a few steps forward until the matchlight died away. Then he went on as far as he dared into the blackness, felt around with his hand, found the doorframe of the room, drew himself forward again. Once he was inside, he lit another match.

Here was a different kind of collection: rows and rows of specimens in jars of formaldehyde. He caught a quick glimpse of rows of gigantic, staring eyeballs in jars—whale eyeballs? Trying not to waste the light, he hurried forward, stumbling over a large glass jeroboam on a marble pedestal, filled with what looked like a huge floating bag. As he got back on his feet and lit another match, he caught a glimpse of the label: Mammoth stomach, containing its last meal, from the icefields of Siberia . . .

He went quickly on, passing as fast as he could between the rows of cabinets, until he arrived at a single wooden door, battered and scarred. There was a sudden sharp pain as the match burned his fingers. Cursing, he dropped it, then lit another. In the renewed flare of light, he opened the door. It led into a huge kitchen, tiled in white and black. There was a deep stone fireplace set into one wall. The rest of the room was dominated by a huge iron stove, a row of ovens, and several long tables set with soapstone sinks. Dozens of pots of greenish copper were suspended from ceiling hooks. Everything looked decayed, covered with a thick layer of dust, cobwebs, and mouse droppings. It was a dead end.

The house was huge. The matches wouldn’t last forever. What would he do when they ran out?

Get a grip, Smithback, he told himself. Clearly, no one had cooked in this kitchen in a hundred years. Nobody lived in the house. What was he worrying about?

Relying on memory, without lighting any more matches, he backtracked into the large room, feeling his way along the glass-fronted cases. At one point he felt his shoulder brush against something. A second later, there was a tremendous crash at his feet, and the sudden biting stench of formaldehyde. He waited, nerves taut, for the echoes to abate. He prepared to light a match, thought better of it—was formaldehyde flammable? Better not experiment now. He took a step, and his stockinged foot grazed something large, wet, and yielding. The specimen in the jar. He gingerly stepped around it.

There had been other doors set into the passageway beyond. He would try them one at a time. But first, he paused to remove his socks, which were sodden with formaldehyde. Then, stepping into the passageway, he ventured another match. He could see four doors, two on the left wall, two on the right.

He opened the closest, found an ancient, zinc-lined bathroom. Sitting in the middle of the tiled floor was the grinning skull of an allosaurus. The second door fronted a large closet full of stuffed birds; the third, yet another closet, this one full of stuffed lizards. The fourth opened into a scullery, its walls pocked and scarred, ravaged by traceries of mildew.

The match went out and Smithback stood in the enfolding darkness. He could hear the sound of his own stertorous breathing. He felt in the matchbook, counted with his fingers: six left. He fought back—less successfully this time—the scrabbling panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d been in tough situations before, tougher than this. It’s an empty house. Just find your way out.

He made his way back to the reception hall and its shrouded collections. Being able to see again, no matter how faintly, calmed him a little—there was something utterly terrifying about absolute darkness. He looked around again at the astounding collections, but all he could feel now was a rising dread. The foul smell was stronger here: the sickly-sweet odor of decay, of something that by all rights belonged under several feet of earth . . .

Smithback took a series of deep, calming breaths. The thick layers of undisturbed dust on the floor proved the place was deserted; that even the caretaker, if there was one, hardly ever came.