Relic

= 24 =

Thursday

At eleven-fifteen Thursday morning, a man claiming to be the living incarnation of the Egyptian pharaoh Toth ran amok in the Antiquities wing, knocking over two displays in the Temple of Azar-Nar, breaking a case and pulling a mummy out of its tomb. Three policemen were necessary to restrain him, and several curators worked the rest of the day replacing bandages and collecting ancient dust.

Less than an hour later, a woman ran screaming from the Hall of Great Apes, babbling about something she’d seen crouched in a dark bathroom corner. A television team, waiting on the south steps for a glimpse of Wright, got her entire hysterical exit on film.

Around lunchtime, a group calling itself the Alliance Against Racism had begun picketing outside the Museum, calling for a boycott of the Superstition exhibition.

Early that afternoon, Anthony McFarlane, a world-renowned philanthropist and big-game hunter, offered a reward of $500,000 for the capture and safe delivery of [161] the Museum Beast. The Museum immediately disclaimed any connection with McFarlane.

All of these events were duly reported in the press. The following incidents, however, went undisclosed to the world outside the Museum.

By noon, four employees had quit without notice. Thirty-five others had taken unscheduled vacations, nearly three hundred had called in sick.

Shortly after lunch, a junior preparator in the vertebrate paleontology department collapsed at her laboratory table. She was taken to Medical, where she demanded extended leave and worker’s compensation, citing severe emotional and physical stress.

By three P.M., security had responded to seven requests for investigations of suspicious noises in various remote sections of the museum. By curfew, police from the Museum command post had responded to four suspected sightings, all of which remained unverified.

Later, the Museum switchboard would tabulate the number of creature-related calls it received that day: 107, including crank messages, bomb threats, and offers of assistance from exterminators to spiritualists.