Night in a Museum(James Calton) “I’m going to be staying late tonight” called the curator of the Swiss National Museum as the security guard clocked on. All he got in reply was half a shrug and a grunt. Smiling to him self the curator wondered if any of the security guards family was in the prehistoric wing, they had a nice selection of Cave people.

He worked silently for a couple of hours until the call of the caffeine could be resisted no more. This was the only part of his job that annoyed him, if he wanted a coffee he had to walk right across to the other end of the building to the kitchenette. He had to walk through the exhibits which he always liked, the problem was that it took so long to get back that by the time he did, he had either drunk it or it had gone cold. As he took his usual route through the classical wing he thought to him self how much simpler it would be to buy himself a coffee maker and leave it in his office.

A few minutes later he was stood in the kitchenette waiting for the kettle to come to the boil. Standing among the startling white units and grimy grey worktop he pondered the fact that every kitchen he had ever been in always had the same smell, detergent and stale tea leaves. When he was there at night he always kept the door to the kitchen open, it looked straight down a long hall, being able to see all the way down made him feel a little easier. Usually he would have made the security guard a drink but tonight he hadn’t come across him. They had worked in the same building for eight years but he still didn’t know his name. His mug in hand he flicked off the light and headed back to his office as quickly as possible so his drink didn’t loose too much heat. He finally got back, managing to retain at least some of the heat of his coffee and was just about to go in to his office but for some reason he stopped and looked back down the hall. Deep in the darkness he could see someone moving. He tensed and his pulse hastened a little. “Oh, you gave me a start” he sighed to the security guard. He closed the door to his office, a little too hard causing the glass to rattle in its frame.

He sat down and flipped open the top of his laptop so he could finish off a report he needed for his conference the next morning. He sat typing for a few minutes, oblivious to the emptiness around him. Finally he paused to take a sip of his now luke warm coffee. With the cup to his mouth he looked up and saw the security guard just feet from his door. Ignoring him he placed the mug back on his coaster and began typing again.

The glass from the door exploded out towards the curator, amazingly missing him. The security guard had collapsed and had almost dived head first through the office door. The curator, who was cowering under his desk, emerged shaking the debris out of his hair and the confusion off his brain. Back on his feet he looked down at the security guard and violently vomited. The security guard was laying face down in an increasing pool of blood and the handle of a medieval dagger he recognised as belonging in a display case just down the hall sticking out of the base of his skull. The curators mind was a chaos of confusion and terror. He was completely cut off in his office; he picked it because there was no phone. He loved the fact that no one could interrupt him with out walking all the way down to his end of the building. Cautiously he looked out of the hole in the door, initially he couldn’t see anything, and then all of a sudden out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement. He panicked and tried to run but slipped on the security guards blood that had gradually made its way across the floor. He fell with the force of a falling tree, cracking his head on the handle of the door. He didn’t pass out and was actually so scared he barely felt the pain throbbing through his head.

Running, something he hadn’t done since he was young, something he had enjoyed as a teenager. Now he was in his fifties and extremely out of shape he was struggling. Not even the adrenaline surging through his veins was enough to keep him going. So after only a few hundred yards his chest constricted and he couldn’t breath. He stood bent double, desperately trying to catch his breath but unable to get it under control. Fighting a losing battle he carried on moving, not sure whether he was aiming for a telephone or an exit. Exhibits, paintings and locked doors flashed past as he struggled to keep moving. He could now hear footsteps ominously close behind him. In a moment of clarity he realised he wasn’t far from the fire escape, he could sneak out of the building and head round to the front and to safety. This realisation seemed to spur him on and he gained a second wind. At his new speed he reached the fire door in less than thirty seconds. His hands were a millimetre away from the push bar handle when something else occurred to him. Something he had once seen in a movie. He stepped away from the door, and headed back out in to the corridor. Checking both ways like a child does on a busy road, he made his way to the window on the other side of the corridor. He was on the first floor and it was only about fifteen feet to the ground. “If only I was twenty years younger” he thought as he watched the cars go past. Then the footsteps arrived back in to his hearing range. Slow and steady echoed the ever nearing footsteps. Now he stood still and when the loud thud of his heart wasn’t reverberating through his skull, he listened carefully to the noise his would be killer was making, and was sure that the steps sounded like whoever was after him was wearing high heels.

Quickly he looked round for something small enough to throw. With a saddened heart he saw that the only thing small enough was a miniature statue of the Egyptian god Horus sitting contently on its pedestal. He picked it up, judging if it was heavy enough. “It will have to do” he thought as he launched the small figurine of the hawk headed naked man through the glass. The noise was instant; the alarms screamed their message piercing the curator’s brain like a drill through butter. The noise was so intense he had trouble concentrating on the rest of his plan. He attempted to remove his jacket while at the same time keeping his ears covered. Wrapping the jacket round his hand he punched the glass to create a big enough hole for him to climb out of. Once he had achieved this he threw the jacket out and watched it flutter to the floor. With that done he turned and ran back to the fire exit.

His pursuer arrived at the window literally seconds after he disappeared. The curators plan was taken straight out of the movies. He figured that if the broken window set the alarm off, his unseen companion would assume he had gone through it, leaving him to escape through the fire exit. Unfortunately the killer must have seen the same movie because instead of following the statue and jacket out of the window, she turned away from it and headed towards the curators escape route. The sound of the glass crunching under the assassin’s heels echoed through the museum and out in to the fire escape. The curator stopped and listened, he knew the plan hadn’t worked.

The assassin found herself in a bleak concrete stairwell with a window at the bottom looking out over the car park at the back of the building. She waited, looking out into the darkness. When she saw the curator appear she slowly raised a gun, screwed on a silencer, took aim and fired. Something hard, hot and sharp ripped through his ankle and he fell. First his knee collided with the tarmac of the car park, shattering as it hit. He was in so much pain his brain didn’t have time to tell his arms to block his fall. His forehead collided with the ground and he actually heard his skull crack. His brain was doing somersaults, spots, stripes all sorts of shapes and colours were swimming across his eyes. He didn’t know which way was up and which was down. He didn’t know how long he had been lying there when in amongst the darkness and the carnival of shapes and colours parading in his head, he saw two distinctive shapes. Two piercing purple eyes coldly stared at him. A third shape appeared, a metallic circle glistened in front of him, and then there was nothing. His last thought was still trying to figure out what was going on.

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