Dr. NoSleep

Instead, his attention was focused on the limp tentacle, or what was left of it.

as it was now rapidly dissolving into a bubbling mess of viscera and sludge before his eyes.

In the foaming, decaying mess, something glittered, a shiny metallic thing that twinkled like a diamond amidst the raw flesh.

A key, a small silver key, no smaller than his hand.

It felt warm and sticky in his fingers as he picked it up, and the metal shimmered like a scalpel.

At that moment, two contrasting thoughts entered his head.

Had the tentacle been trying to give him the key and he had merely murdered some cosmic messenger in an act of confused rage?

Or had he been warned by the man on the phone to kill the tentacle and secure his prize?

But the strangest thing of all was that he knew what to do with the key.

Instinctual, a sort of unspoken understanding of what was needed.

He hurried out of the bathroom, tracking blood, toilet water, and tentacle rot over the cigarette-stained floor and back over to the suitcase which waited on the bed.

The key slipped inside the padlock effortlessly, and with a gentle click, it fell open.

He considered the half-open suitcase for a second, as if afraid to even consider what horrors lie inside the proverbial Pandora's box before mustering up the courage to look inside.

It was a Springfield, a semi-automatic one at that, heavy and gray with no numbers or markings.

Picking it up, he could feel by weight alone that it was loaded.

He held it close, he held it out, inspecting it from all angles as if it were somehow a figment of his imagination come to life.

Returning to the phone, which still hung from its cord like a suicide victim, he grabbed the receiver.

What is this?

The voice, as if it had been expecting him, answered with the same cool emotionlessness.

What do you want me to do with this?