The Warehouse

My name is Lillian Vlanski. I am a reporter for the Des Moines Register, an Iowa newspaper. I have been doing this gig for almost four years now. I am five feet five inches tall, with shoulder length brown hair with green eyes. I left Russia with my family when I was still a young girl. I was more than happy to put my past behind me there. I am twenty-five years old with no significant other.

A tip from an unnamed source, lead me to a warehouse on the south side of town where it has been reported that some homeless people have been disappearing.

My boss, Jim Harris had also told me that there were some strange things that had been seen in the area. There were reports of strange animals being seen by truck drivers who parked there on weekends. So here I sit on a Saturday evening in my van outside the warehouse waiting for the guard to go around the building again. If I timed this right, I should be able to get in before he comes back around.

The guard turned right and disappeared around the side of the building. Quickly I got out of my van and shut the door quietly, hurried to the door and picked the lock on the door. It was an old-fashioned lock, which is the easiest to pick. This skill was something I picked up in a previous life, slipped in the door, and shut it quietly. The guard wasn't going to be around to this side of the building for another four minutes. I had timed how long it took him to make a complete circuit around the building.

I took out my flashlight and shone it around, looking for something, not quite knowing what. I knew that some homeless people had disappeared around here but so far the place looked far too clean to be a hot spot for homeless people. Usually they would go to places that were somewhat dirtier. The warehouse was long and for the most part, empty. On the far end, a stack of boxes sat in the corner. I walked quietly towards them seeing how there was nothing else in the building to look at. The first set of boxes that were three foot by three foot and stacked three boxes high and in a row twelve boxes long.

There were three rows of boxes in this corner. I shone the light down the first row and saw nothing. Not even a door along the wall or a carpet on the floor that a homeless person might use to sleep on. Puzzled, I walked over to the next row and again saw nothing down that row. Again there was no door or even a window here. I walked past the last row of boxes and found down the end of the row a door. "Finally," I thought. Maybe I would find something. But this door only led out, or so I thought.

I picked this lock also and opened the door into what I thought was the outside. It was a stairway. I quickly slipped through, went down the stairs two flights, and stopped right in front of an elevator. The elevator was on this level as if waiting.

It was one of those freight elevators. "Well, you might as well see this through." I thought to myself. I stepped in, pulled down the gate, and pushed the heavy lever down. Slowly it descended into the depths of the unknown.

When it finally stopped, I was looking into a lab. A lab filled with cages and aquariums with strange and unusual creatures. A dog, or at least it looked like a dog, was in the first cage closest to me. The dog looked at me and with deep sadness in his eyes as if saying, "Help me." The animal was shaped like a dog but had webbed feet on his front legs and hooves on his hind legs. When the dog's tongue lolled out it was over teeth that looked as if they belonged in a shark's mouth instead of a dog's.

I had almost forgotten that the camera hanging around my neck was there for more than just decoration. I snapped picture after picture of animal after animal, cage after heart wrenching cage, all strange and more bizarre than the last. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. None of them looked dangerous or angry. They all just looked sad, hurt and lonely. Along one wall were three vials with liquid in each. One vial color was white, the second gold, and the third black. A name placard sat on a desk that read Dr. Stillwater. Suddenly I heard the elevator returning to the upper level.