"Just... refreshing the stuffing!" Arthur chirped, sensing the gaze.
Arthur finally looked him in the eye. A slow, jagged grin spread across his face. "The previous tenant left them. He didn’t need them where he was going."
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.
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.
The ad was simple, tucked between a listing for a "vintage" beanbag and a used lawnmower: