Behind the Sealed Door

by Jeff Baker

We were filling up at the Pic-Mart on the West side of town when Joey glanced across the street and saw the old building on the corner. Last time we’d been in the area the windows had been boarded up but now somebody was putting in new glass.

“Hey Bryant!” Joey said. “Didn’t you say you used to work over there?”

“Yeah, when I was in High School,” I said as I punched in our ZIP code at the gas pump. “That was about twenty years ago back in the Nineties.”

“More like Thirty,” Joey said with a grin.

Joey had been born the year after I graduated High School. Despite a twenty-year age difference we’d hit it off when we were fixed up on a blind date and had been together almost ten years.

“Yeah, I worked for Old Man Higgins selling candy and whatnot before Pic-Mart came in and he sold the place and retired.” I said, watching the price zoom up on the pump.

“Hey, what was that you were telling me about when they knocked down a wall or something?” Josh asked.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “One of the shelves started to fall apart and Mr. Higgins had someone come out to replace it. They pulled out the whole case, shelves and all and found a door behind it what nobody had opened in years.”

“Wow!” Joey said.

“The knob was busted, so they pried it open. I didn’t know what to expect; maybe a dead body or Narnia.”

Joey laughed at that.

“Well, what we found was a little storeroom, about the size of our bathroom at home.”

“Not that big, huh?” Joey said.

I laughed. I had regularly stood in front of the bathroom mirror while Joey stood in the empty bathtub shaving.

“Yeah.” I said. “It was dusty and dark with cobwebs and a lightbulb in the ceiling that still worked, amazingly. And on the floor was one of those old wooden boxes they used to ship stuff in, not too big but it was full of old magazines.”

“Magazines?” Joey asked.

“Yeah.” I said, watching the pump. “Old science-fiction and adventure magazines and a bunch of old comic books. Dating back to 1946!”

“Wow!” Joey said. “What happened to them?”

“Ricky, the other kid I worked with, he said he wanted them and Mr. Higgins sold them to Ricky for ten bucks, and told him he wanted that box back.” I topped off the gas and put the hose back in the pump.

“Ten bucks?” Joey said laughing.

“Yeah.” I said. “Mr. Higgins said they were trash and nobody would be dumb enough to buy them.”

“Oh my gosh!” Joey said.

“Ricky sold them for about two hundred bucks,” I said. “The local paper did an article on him and Mr. Higgins was so mad he fired him!”

“I’ll bet he didn’t care!” Joey said laughing.

“Well, anyway a year or so later Pic-Mart opened this store and Mr. Higgins decided to retire.” I said. “That was after he’d scoured his store for more old magazines!”

—end—