In the serpentine backstreets of a city that doesn’t need to be mentioned by name, where the gaslights flickered dimly as though hesitant to illuminate what lurked in the shadows, there stood a shop without a name. Its facade, weathered and indistinct, seemed almost to shift in the corner of one’s eye. Only the most peculiar souls ever ventured through its door, and Romeo Outdrew counted himself among them.
An avid collector of everything special and rare, Romeo had amassed a private museum of grotesqueries: preserved chimera-like animals, cursed antiques, and a preserved mummy hand said to twitch under the full moon. Yet still, his craving for something unique had not been sated. So, one damp winter evening, he wandered into the nameless shop in search of something truly singular.
Inside, the air was heavy with the mingled scents of age and rot. Shelves strained beneath the weight of objects that defied explanation: masks with too many eyeholes, clocks that ticked backward, and a gilded cage housing a bird whose feathers seemed woven from cobweb. Behind the counter stood the shopkeeper, a thin and sallow man whose pale eyes gleamed like distant stars. He regarded Romeo with a slow, almost reluctant nod.
“What is it you seek?” the shopkeeper rasped, his voice dry and brittle as dead leaves.
Romeo hesitated, then spoke, his words falling like stones into a dark well. “Something unusual… something authentic.”
The shopkeeper’s expression darkened, the gleam in his eyes dimming. “That is a most vague request,” he said quietly. For a moment, it seemed he might leave it at that, but then he added, almost grudgingly, “We do pride ourselves on meeting our customers’ desires.”
“Do you have something?” Romeo asked.
The man’s lips twitched, though whether in a smile or a grimace, it was impossible to say. “Not… presently. … Return tomorrow.”
The shopkeeper turned away then, signaling that the conversation was over. Romeo left the shop, a bit uneasy but intrigued. As he walked back to his lodgings, he wondered what the man would have in store for him.
The next evening, Romeo returned. The shop seemed darker than before, the objects within somehow more distorted. The shopkeeper awaited him at the counter, a wooden box resting before him. His expression was as unreadable as ever.
“It is done,” the man intoned, pushing the box forward.
Romeo’s pulse quickened as he approached. He lifted the lid with trembling hands. What he saw within filled him with revulsion. The severed head of a man stared up at him, its expression frozen in a rictus of terror. The skin was still warm, the blood still glistening.
Romeo staggered back. “Where… how did you…?”
The shopkeeper tilted his head, his eyes gleaming with malevolent glee. “We go to great lengths to ensure our customers’ satisfaction,” he said, his tone unnervingly polite. “This piece was acquired locally, mere hours ago.”
The horror of what that meant gnawed at Romeo’s mind. He felt the weight of unseen eyes pressing upon him, the walls of the shop seeming to close in. “I can’t take this,” he stammered, his voice trembling.
As Romeo examined the head, a flickering glow drew his attention to the corner of the shop, where a television screen he had not noticed before displayed the nightly news. On the screen, a well-known celebrity beamed at the camera, his face unmistakably recognisable.
Romeo turned back to the head in the box, and the gnawing unease that had crept up his spine slowly gave way to a resilient sense of solace.
The television flickered, and for the briefest moment, the celebrity’s face twisted into an expression of abject horror before returning to its polished smile.
The shop’s door swung shut behind him as Romeo left, and somewhere across the city, a celebrity paused mid-sentence, a sudden chill gripping him as the television flickered once more before going dark.
Above the door, the faded lettering of the shop’s sign glimmered faintly: “We always deliver.”
