The Taxidermy Man

Part One

The small group of people made their way around the great hall, looking at all of the stuffed creatures in the taxidermy exhibit.  It was a week day and so, not many people were around. Besides, not many people visited the small town and those that lived there had already seen it many times. Why people would enjoy looking at different animals that had been killed and stuffed for display was beyond some people. It had caused many problems with the animal supporters and had led to a few protests. However, the exhibit remained. A group of visitors came everyday to see the unfortunate animals. Their face twisted in the looks they wore last. A look of pure terror and of death engraved on their lifeless faces.  

A small child lingered around a particular display and looked at it sadly. It was a girl about ten years old, wearing dirty ragged clothes and greasy, long, unkempt hair. The other people in the hall looked at her disapprovingly. This was no place for messy children. But they had come to accept these sort of people in society by avoiding them and not ignoring them. Therefore, after a few coarse glances, they just got on with their own business and didn’t spare her a second glance. The display was fairly new and contained an ink black cat who had raven black bat wings sewn on from either side at the top. It’s once soft fur now stiff and dull. Its warm eyes now cold and glassy. The child’s eyes flashed red for a moment before returning back to normal. The girl muttered something under her breath and left the building.

These particular animals were in the style of Walter Potter’s work. They had been put into silly poses that you would normally see people being in and dressed up. One of the displays showed a family of rabbits at school, another of cats at a wedding and so on. People had been spending a lot of money for these bizarre decoration pieces and they were becoming quite common.

Another day ended and it was time for the hall to be locked once more. But this night was different. Before the guard left, the curator placed a new display in to the already crowded hall. It was an old clock. The clock was made from a dark wood. The face of the clock had Roman Numerals going around the edge and hands made from stygian metal. It was quite a plain clock but the feeling it brought was nothing like you would have ever experienced. The curator carefully placed it in its display, placed the glass back in position and went out of the main hall, followed by the guard. As the door was locked behind him the room was plunged in to darkness once more.

As it began to get closer to the dead of the night, the antique clock began to do something out of the ordinary. A faint glow started to appear on the face of the clock. It wouldn’t have been visible to anyone present at the time but as the minutes dragged on in the silence of the room, the illumination began to get more notice able and soon, the whole clock was ablaze with the lights that seemed to dance around the room, illuminating the eyes of the dead and casting eerie shadows in to every corner. In comparison to the clock, the room rest of the room was as black as soot. As the town clock chimed to signify that it was now midnight, the light from the clock turned a crimson red and it overwhelmed the entire room. The light only disappeared once it was thirteen minutes past the twelfth hour but even then, there was small red glow. However, this glow wasn’t coming from the clock, it was coming from the creatures of the dead…

The next day went by in a blur. The hall was the same as usual, just filled with a handful of people. However, the atmosphere was different. The people there felt as though they were being watched. As though someone, or something, was waiting for the right moment to strike them dead. Another person thought they saw one of the displays move but it could have just been a trick played by their eyes.

As the day came to a close and all was returned to quiet, the taxidermy animal’s eyes began to glow a faint red. Nothing happened to the clock this time. When the clock struck twelve, it was the animal’s eyes that were emitting the scarlet light. At thirteen minutes past twelve, the animals began to move. Years of being kept still had made them forget how to move so it took them a little while to get used to it all again. They began swishing their tails, moving their heads and pawing at the glass encasing them. Keeping them separate from the normal world. Their eyes glowing red like burning coal the whole time. The taxidermy animals looked down at themselves, dressed in uncomfortable clothing, some with another animal stitched on to them. In these circumstances, both of the animals had come alive. Some of the animals shook of their garments, others clawed at them, reducing them t strips of cloth while others gnawed at them. It was the new display, the one containing the midnight black cat with the wings who broke the glass and came out. Seeing that someone had got out, others began to do the same. It only took them a matter of minutes before most of them were free. Now that they had come through the broken glass, some of their parts had got caught on to them, leaving deep gashes in their bristly fur, exposing their insides made of wood, wool and wire. The memories of all of the torture that they had undergone and how they had been treated all came back to them. They were all enraged, claws out, mouths snarling and eyes reduced to slits. How they were able to move and think was beyond any explanation. That is, until the small street girl appeared in the room.