Breaking and Entering

I checked to make sure there were no lights on at Stroeker's bungalow as I passed it on the way to mine, then set about preparing for my mission. Some dark clothes, a pair of gloves, my knife, a flashlight with a red low-light filter and my lockpicks, and I was as ready as I could be for this little foray. A pair of night-vision goggles would have been nice, but sadly they weren't exactly standard issue. I'd have to make do with what I had.

I waited until it was dark enough, then slipped quietly through the shadows to the rear of Stroeker's bungalow. Unfortunately, much like my own place, the only windows were on the front side of the structure, whereas the cover was to the rear. Even that wasn't much - mostly some palm trees, no dense underbrush or large rocks. The shadows were deepest there, though, so I could watch for a good opportunity.

I crouched in the darkness for a bit, listening carefully to make sure that the place was as empty as it appeared to be on first glance. From time to time, a resort patron would walk down the beach, but there were large chunks of time in which I believed I could approach the front of the bungalow in reasonable seclusion. The problem was, once I went into the bungalow, the only way out was through the front door or windows. So if Stroeker showed up while I was there, I was trapped. I didn't much like the idea of that. On the other hand, I didn't have much choice.

When there was another lull in the traffic in front of the bungalow, I emerged from my cover and examined the lock on the door. In addition to the aged lock that was on all of the cabins, someone had placed a brand new padlock on this door. Not anything I couldn't get past, but it was going to take more time. About two minutes, as it turned out, mostly for the padlock. It felt like much longer. As I worked, I could hear laughter and festive music from down the beach, but thankfully, no one bothered me.

Once the lock was taken care of, I opened the door and quickly slipped inside, locking it again behind me. At first glance, I found myself in a dark room filled with large, dark shapes. Clicking on my flashlight, the shapes were revealed to be wooden packing crates of many sizes, some of them quite large. They appeared to be new and were unmarked, leading me to think they were waiting to be shipped out. Unfortunately, all of them were nailed shut, which meant I was going to need a crowbar if I wanted to learn what Stroeker was smuggling.

I decided to check the rest of the place out first before tackling the crates, a process that didn't take long at all. It quickly became obvious that Stroeker used the cabana for storage and nothing else. None of the other rooms had been touched or entered in several days, at least, and were completely unremarkable, while the main room appeared to have been visited with some frequency. Obviously, if there was anything useful to be learned, it would be there.

I did a cursory check of the lids on the crates, to see if any of them were looser than the others, but they were all quite secure. Naturally. I began looking around the room to see if there was anything suitable to use in prying the lids off. Stroeker had to have closed the crates up somehow, after all, and walking back and forth between his hotel room and the bungalow carrying tools would have drawn too much attention. Sure enough, I quickly came across a toolbox containing a hammer, nails and a crowbar. Jackpot! Crowbar in hand, I picked a crate that was towards the back of the group, and therefore less likely to be noticed, and carefully pried the top off. Since I wanted to be able to replace it when I was finished, I didn't want to do too much damage to it if I could avoid it. The hard part was doing this quietly, and it was only after much exertion that I eased the crate lid off and shined my light inside...

And leapt back at the monster within.

A long moment later, I realized that the hideous thing was not moving. It was, in fact, a statue, nearly four feet tall, of some grotesque tentacled bipedal Thing that stood with clawed arms outstretched and stubby bat-like wings fully spread. It was easily the most disgusting thing I had ever beheld and I felt slightly ill. This was what Stroeker was smuggling? What kind of person would want such a thing? I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Much as it roiled my stomach to do so, I attempted to study the thing more closely, at least enough that I could identify it if I saw it again. I quickly concluded that this was unnecessary. There was no chance that I would ever fail to recognize this thing. In fact, I had a feeling I'd be lucky if I managed to avoid seeing it in my dreams tonight. Yuck. Moving beyond the statue's hideous appearance, or trying to, I determined that it appeared to be made of stone, and was definitely not hollow, which ruled out the possibility that something was being smuggled inside of it. Aside from some foam packing peanuts, the rest of the crate was empty.

I carefully put the lid back on the crate, feeling no small amount of relief as I covered over that terrible thing. The question before me now was, did I want to push my luck and open another crate? I estimated it had been only ten minutes or so since I'd entered the cottage, but ever present in the back of my mind was the fact that if Stroeker returned, I was trapped. That, and if the other crates contained more statues like this one, I wasn't sure I really wanted to see what was in them.

Doing my best to put my unusual jumpiness aside, I decided to take a quick peek out one of the windows to see if anyone seemed to be heading towards the bungalow. If not, I'd try another crate. Unfortunately, I discovered that I could only see straight forward out of the window. Which meant that someone approaching from down the beach could get quite close before being seen. My nerves were screaming for me to flee, but... I had to check at least one more crate. Maybe the one I'd opened had been unusual. Maybe the others contained something normal like guns or drugs. I sighed and looked at the crates again. They varied a bit in size, with the one I'd already opened being one of the larger ones. Which is why I'd picked it, of course. I decided to try a smaller one, this time. One that wasn't big enough to have a statue like that. Or so I hoped.

In that much, I was correct. The crate did not contain a statue. Instead, it held a stone tablet inscribed with weird hieroglyphs. A carving on the tablet depicted a monster of some sort rising out of the sea, with the monster's eyes forming part of a constellation seen in the night sky behind it. Ick. Definitely a trend going here, and a disturbing one at that. I examined the tablet as I had the statue, and found the same answers: it was stone, not hollow, and alone in the crate. Since the monster on the tablet wasn't noticeably bipedal or winged, it didn't resemble the statue I'd found earlier. Still, I found it to be as disturbing, in its own way. The statue was large, lifelike and three-dimensional, giving it a powerful presence. The second creature was merely a carving on a tablet. However, the carving managed to convey a sense of vastness that I found very disturbing. More anxious than ever to be gone from this place, I closed up the crate, did my best to make sure everything looked undisturbed, and got the heck out of there.

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Last modified on May 19, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.