Candle Cove: The Leather Cape

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Early in the summer a few years ago, I started dating this girl whose mother worked at the local flea market

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Early in the summer a few years ago, I started dating this girl whose mother worked at the local flea market. The girl – let's call her Tiffany – and I had been dating for a few months when she asked me if I would like to come help her work with her mom. I certainly didn't want to sacrifice one of my precious Saturday mornings to go work all day at a dusty flea market, but I really liked this girl and, to be perfectly honest, wanted to get into her pants, so I decided to go.

That's how I found myself on my way to the craphole flea market at seven thirty in the morning on a Saturday morning that I really wish I had slept in on. We opened her mom's store at eight, waited around for customers for a while, but when it got close to ten and only one woman had shown a passing interest in the handmade ashtrays her mom was trying to sell, she told Tiffany and I we could go take a look around the rest of the place.

Tiffany and I walked around for a while, but we didn't find anything of interest. There was a movie store that had pretty much every movie you could think of, but so did I at home, so no help there. Both of the book stores were a bust, finding nothing interesting but some old Stephen King novels that I already owned and a crotchety old man who watched us like a hawk – probably because we were some "damn teenagers" who, of course, would go out of our way to steal an old dusty book barely held together with spit and glue. We had meandered our way through most of the building when we happened upon a small shop that was selling EXCLUSIVE! RARE! HARD-TO-FIND TV PROPS! according to the very loud banner stretched across the top. "Want to go in?" I asked Tiffany.

"Nah, I have to go use the bathroom. You can go in though."

"Oh, fine, make me go into the shady store by myself!" I joked.

"You'll be fine. Go!"

"Do I have to?"

"Yes. You have to go inside. I'll be right back." She gave me a playful slap and walked away.

As I walked into the dingy booth, the owner gave me a grim nod without a smile. I didn't really see anything of interest at first. They really did have some obscure stuff, such as old plush dolls from Rocko's Modern Life and Ren & Stimpy. There were also some old Pokémon playing cards – not sure if that counted as "rare TV props" but it was still cool – and even some of the old Nickelodeon themed board games. I had several nice hits of nostalgia, but nothing really stuck out at me enough to make me want to buy it. I was about to walk out when the owner said "got some more stuff here behind the counter."

He pulled out a box of assorted dolls and junk and dropped it carelessly on the counter. "Ain't had a chance to put them away yet, but you can look."

I half heartedly picked through the box out of politeness, but I really just wanted to get out of there. I pulled out a couple of old Rugrats dolls and a Squidward doll that had an odd red stain on its head, and was about to just say "no thanks" and put them back and get out of there when I saw something that hit me with such an intense blast of nostalgia that I almost fell over.

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