I’m a furniture mover. My buddy convinced me to flip a storage unit, but the items inside shouldn’t exist. [Part 5]

[\[Part 1\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1ws441g/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 2\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1wtweb8/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 3\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1wx3gjg/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 4\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1wzw55w/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 6\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1x6gqc5/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 7\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1xaca6b/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 8\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1xfwrqb/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

[\[Part 9\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1xnf89o/im_a_furniture_mover_my_buddy_convinced_me_to/)

They arrived a few days later, just after ten in the morning. I know the scene most of you were picturing after my last post, but there were no sleek grey sedans or men in dark suits. It was just a standard four-door with a dented rear bumper. Two people stepped out onto my gravel driveway dressed in casual clothing.

The man looked to be the older one of the two, wearing a quilted jacket and carrying a thermos in one hand. The woman beside him looked to be in her mid-twenties, her hair tied back, a canvas bag over her shoulder that clinked faintly when she moved. She looked like a nurse on her first week of night shifts.

I was standing in the doorway with a coffee I hadn’t touched. I’d been awake since four, waiting for them to arrive.

For all I knew, they could have been anybody. I’d spent the previous week posting details of my life online to strangers, and now two more strangers had my address and were walking up my driveway.

The man held up a flat leather holder. Inside was a card with a small black-and-white drawing in the center: a file folder, and inside the folder, a doorway, slightly ajar. Under it, in spaced capitals, were the words C A T A L O G U E. Below that was a line of tiny print, a name, and a number.

“Dr. Marshall,” he said. “This is Investigator Priest. Reference CT-0417-22. You submitted a recording on the sixth.” The reference number matched the one in the email I’d received.

“May we come in, Mr. ...?”

“Ian. Just Ian.”

I didn’t move immediately.

Marshall seemed to understand why.

“Before you ask, we’re not law enforcement,” he said. “We’re not federal, either. CATALOGUE is privately funded. We document, investigate, and, where possible, recover anomalous physical material. We also maintain an archive and work with several laboratories and medical providers. You’re not under investigation, and we aren’t here to remove anything without your consent.”

I looked from the card to the bag at Priest’s feet. Gloves, camera, evidence tags. Either they were exactly what they claimed to be, or they’d put far too much effort into pretending.

“And what do you actually want from me?”

“Your account first. Then we’d like to verify the original recording, inspect the reported site, and catalogue the objects. If there are items we can safely transport today, we’ll ask your permission to take them. Anything larger gets handled separately.”

I stepped aside.

I thought I’d feel relieved once they were inside, but mostly I was exhausted. You spend a week drowning by yourself, and by the time somebody finally reaches out a hand, you’re too numb to react.

Before we went anywhere near the garage, Marshall asked to inspect the front entrance. He looked over the doorframe, porch light, and the wall beside the mailbox, then wrote something in a small black notebook.

He explained that it was a baseline procedure to determine whether anything unusual had appeared in or on the house itself. Priest set her bag down in the hallway and took out what looked like a hardcover accounting notebook and two pens. Then she unzipped a long case that held nitrile gloves, a stack of numbered evidence tags, a folding scale ruler, and an expensive-looking camera.

They took one look inside the garage before we sat down. Dr. Marshall stopped just inside and turned slowly in place, taking it all in. His mouth went thin.

“Priest.”

“I see it.” She’d stopped writing. “Sir, this is the largest single recovery I’ve seen. Maybe the largest we currently have on file.”

“Largest what?” I said.

“Single-site recovery,” Marshall said. “Usually people call us over a strange radio or a bad pair of scissors. You’ve managed to collect a whole hardware store.”

Priest didn’t smile. She was still staring into the garage.

“Have you tried destroying any of it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Most of it.”

Marshall rubbed his jaw. “Of course you have.”

Five minutes later, the three of us were sitting at my kitchen table. Dr. Marshall unscrewed the top of his thermos and poured a splash into the cap before offering it to me.

“It’s Earl Grey,” he said, noticing my face. “If we were a top-secret government outfit, I’d probably offer you whiskey.”

Priest opened her notebook, wrote the date and case reference across the top, then placed a small black recorder between us.

“Do you mind?”

I shook my head, and she turned it on.

I told them everything.

I started with the auction and Unit 114, how I had discovered the cassette with no seam, and the dresser with its pentagon knot. Then that same night, when I had unboxed the mirror and the football on the high shelf. Afterward, I told them about the failed garage sale, Henry’s injury, and how I’d tried destroying the objects just to come back to find everything sitting neatly on its shelf as though I’d never touched it. I heard my voice tremble a little when I got to that part, and I watched Priest’s hand speed up, as though the words were trying to get away from her.

Marshall hardly touched his tea while I talked. Every so often he wrote a single word in the margin of his notebook, then went back to listening. He asked clarifying questions only twice: whether the football had moved on its own, and how long the wardrobe had been unattended. Each time, he waited until I’d finished before writing anything down.

When I got to Toby, I slowed down.

I told them about the weekend. The wardrobe, the voice that came from behind the back panel, and the door that slammed and then opened by itself. How he’d claimed that I had left the door unlocked despite a deadbolt I’d turned myself. I told them about the Saturday visits, how Toby had been acting strange and more subdued than usual after the incident.

When I mentioned the missing scar, Priest’s pen stopped.

“I looked it up. What it’s called when you think someone you love has been replaced. It’s called a Capgras delusion. I kept hoping that was the case, because it would be so much easier to explain if it was.”

Her eyes stayed on me a second longer than I liked.

“What?”

“How long was he in the wardrobe?”