Antiquity

Antiquity


Chapter 1--Inheritance

His passing had affected the entire family like a hurricane. No one had expected him to pass away in his sleep and be discovered three days later being licked by his pet Persian cat, Sophie.

The funeral had been long and sweet with paragraphs upon paragraphs being said about Grandpa Auburn Grendel.

The will had been an interesting read though. Harley Auburn Grendel himself inherited the old antique shop that his Grandfather owned…while everyone else got money, some sweet remembrance items and shit...

The place looked like it should have gone to the grave with him. Harley stood at the front door, a load of boxes on a dolly in his hands. What to do with them, he didn't know what. Though, he only knew that there was an apartment space up above the shop that he could use and it was better than paying nearly a grand a month to pay for a place to live.

And it was his inheritance right?

By far the place was layered in dust that was inches thick yet it had been placed upon him, followed by the letter of chores from his grandfather if he ever passed, to take care of it.

All his personal belongings, including his own, were not crammed into the two bedroom apartment above the shop waiting to be packed and unpacked while he went to go seek out something to dust everything in the store.

"Grandpa should have just sold the place if he couldn't take care of it…Old coot."Harley huffed.

A cold chill ran up his spine however and he shivered. Okay, so maybe he shouldn't have made fun of the old man or messed with his cleaning habits but it was true! Harley spent the next month and a half cleaning, scraping and getting things back into place around the old shop.

It wasn't until the late summer that he actually opened the shop after Grandpa Auburn had passed that it was finally suitable for inhabitance and paying customers.

The day before the opening, Harley sat in his bedroom, now clean and with a carpet in it, petting Sophie who had managed to say well fed by the neighbors who vouched to take care of her before someone came to claim her.

"Well…at least you know how he went. Nice and quiet…Probably tasted like wrinkly old ham."Harley smirked, Sophie looking up at him with a purr. Lifting the ball of white fluff off of his lap, he went to the window to look out.

There was nothing really to see but the downtown skyline, the faint shimmer of grander buildings being miles off. "Well…Least it's not a brick wall…or some hobo sleeping on the fire-escape."He grumbled.

Harley worked a nine-to-five job and lived in the city after his parents got divorced. He chose to live with his mother since his father traveled far too much to be healthy for a kid.

Slowly his eyes tarted to drift downwards to the street where his beat-up old chevy sat waiting for a good carwash and a single person standing on the sidewalk, staring up at the shop. Harley frowned, heading down and out to them.

What he saw made him gawk a little. The person looked to have come out of Arabian Nights…and by person, he meant that he couldn't figure out if they were male or female. They were striking however, even though they didn't look back at him.

"Can I help you? The store's closed until tomorrow."Harley said, moving forward to wave his hand in front the person's face. They did move, slowly and almost in a wispy way as a slight breeze passed through the street.

"Come find me."They spoke.

"Find you? You're right here."Harley answered bluntly.

"I'm waiting…"They added. Another breeze came through, the person in front of Harley's very eyes disappearing like little grains of sand down the street. It send an even colder chill down his spine.

"Wh-what…the fuck was that? God, I think the old man's actually haunting me! That wasn't him though, just who the hell was THAT?!"Harley spazzed out, looking around more. They just disappeared like that! There were no freaking mirrors or anything in the street so how the hell did someone just dissolve into SAND?

Heading inside, he shut and locked the front door. "Okay old man, I don't know what the hell your doing up from your grave, but get the hell out!"He shouted into the building, slamming his fist into the wood counter that served as the checkout. A heavy, wooden thunk from behind the counter startled him, causing him to jump back.

Crap, was the counter falling apart too? Exploring the back of the counter, he knelt down and saw that small wooden door had popped open from the back of the shelf. Reaching his hand in, he patted around and found that there was a box or something inside of it, pulling it out.

The box was just a plain painted chest with some gold lettering painted onto it in the initials "A.G."

"Auburn Grendal…Go figure…"Harley smirked, sliding the little pin that kept it closed out and flipping the lid open. Inside was a letter, a small dagger that couldn't even be called a letter-opener and a photograph.

In the photograph was a…person…that resembled neither a man or a woman sitting on a camel and an obviously cheerful looking one standing on the sands in front of a pyramid. Flipping the photograph over, there was a little information.

"Auburn Grendal and Menefer, Egypt, 1953."Henry read, flipping the photograph over. Peering just a little closer, he rose up and saw that in the better light up past the counter, the one on top of the camel was the same person who had been standing in front of the shop not even fifteen minutes before.

Yet, they still looked so young…but the photograph was fifty-seven years old…and just who was Menefer? Henry could only smirk a little in imagination. What if his grandfather had an affair in his Egyptian travels and this 'Menefer' was his lover?

That would have made for an interesting Thanksgiving conversation.

Shaking his head, he moved onto the letter, squatting down and sitting to read. Pried open the envelope, pulling the letter out. Something fell out of it, though he continued to look at the cursive lettering.

"Dear Harley,

Good job sunny-boy, you found my secret stash! I've been waiting for you to come by and clean this place up for ages now just to find out my little secret under the counter. You were so close as a kid but I figured waiting a little while longer wouldn't hurt you. Your mom would have strung me up good if I ever sent you away to some foreign country at only ten years old.

And now that the little secretive bits are done, time to get down to business. Inside this letter is a plane ticket to Cairo, Egypt dated the weekend before your twenty-fifth birthday. A fortune teller as that I would probably die three months before I could give this to you but I think now that you've found this, you can piece things together. In the photo with this letter is the man that you need to look for. His name is Menefer and he's the key to something great. I met him fifty-seven years ago on an exhibition to Egypt to do some studying up on a legend of a treasure that could contain the truth about the very existence of a higher power that could shake the foundations of the earth.

In a separate plane there is a god creature that if resurrected, could bring the end of existence itself. In the ashes, life would start again. However, there are people who want to abuse this sort of power.

Here's the important bit, Harley…I need you to bring Menefer to America and keep him safe. I have a feeling that I'm not the only one who's been digging around for these legends and here you could protect him. In the little chest, there's a hairpin dagger. That's your key to finding him. With it contains a homing spell so that if Menefer needed to be found, it would find him.

Do this for me Harley…Menefer means a lot to me and this world.


Love Grandpa Auburn." Harley read, his lower eyebrow twitching.

Egypt! Why Egypt? Couldn't this Menefer get here on his own? The man was just at his front door! Then he disintegrated into sand but other than that, if he could do that, he could very well bring his old as hell ass to the states!

Fuming on the floor, he looked at the little dagger and then to the plane ticket on the floor. He picked it up and read the date, grumbling. It was just two days away that he had to go to the airport…but that was his choice if he wanted to go didn't he? Putting everything back in the little chest, he set it on the counter and stared at it.

It could be a once in a life-time chance…Go to Egypt, see the pyramids…hell the shop could wait to be opened right? Yet then again, there was that fine little detail that he may or may not be shot in the head.

And die.

Shaking his head, he picked it up and headed back upstairs to his room. Flopping down on his bed, he stared up at the ceiling. Sophie hopped up and sat down on his chest, her sea-blue eyes staring down at him. Something in the back of his head was telling him that the cat was trying to provoke him into going overseas.

It worked.

In the next two days, Harley spend his time researching and learning what he could about his Grandfather's research. Books called him a nut job, the artifacts sat in boxes in museums. Yet, there was some truth to everything that he read, including what to pack when he went over there. Calling up his mom, she came by to pick up Sophie and care for her while he was gone.

He didn't answer any questions directly that she asked. If she knew, he'd probably be locked up in a padded room inside her apartment with a straightjacket.

The drive to the airport seemed to be the most agonizing thing ever to wait for. When the port loomed in the distance, he shrunk down in the back of the taxi.

Lines and security were hell but in these times, it was no surprise. Sitting in the airplane, he pulled out the hair piece that had been in the little chest. Turning it over, he admired the gems and the gold scrolling along the blade of it. When it was time for take-off, he tucked it into his jacket and leaned back for the long flight.