Elias, drowning in debt and currently sleeping in his Honda Civic, didn't ask questions. He didn't even mind the taxidermy. He just wanted a door that locked.
Arthur pointed to the corner of the living room. A six-foot-tall grizzly bear stood on its hind legs, its glass eyes gleaming with an unnerving, lifelike malice. It was wearing a tiny sailor’s hat. "He’s sensitive," Arthur added.
He met Arthur at a dilapidated Victorian on the edge of town. Arthur was thin, wore a moth-eaten cardigan in eighty-degree weather, and smelled faintly of formaldehyde and old library books.
Should Elias for the rest of the "previous tenant," or try to sneak out with his security deposit?
"The room is upstairs," Arthur whispered, his eyes never quite meeting Elias’s. "Rules are simple: No guests. No loud music. And never, under any circumstances, touch 'The Captain.'" "The Captain?" Elias asked.
"Arthur," Elias started, his voice trembling. "Where did you get those?"