I’m what’s called a ”set collector”; I find and restore sets of vintage auctionables and sell them as complete sets for high-end clients.
I originally came out to Lewisburg to put a bid on a near-complete set of original The Phantom-comics. The collection was about a dozen short, but none of the missing issues were that rare. It was a slam-dunk. It might take some time to get them graded, but if I could find a serious buyer that wouldn’t be a problem.
I won the bid and was ready to call it a day when they announced a surprise item.
These are always good.
A complete 1923 Chimeric Challenger 3000-piece puzzle.
Holy shit.
For those not in the know, the Chimeric Challenger is famously misprinted. They were discontinued because the cutting machine had some kind of malfunction. Some pieces were stuck together and had to be cut with scissors to be assembled. Others were just plain wood, completely missing the print. Some had entire segments missing from the box. It was a commercial failure specifically because there were seemingly no complete sets. So to have a complete 3000-piece Chimeric Challenger, their largest and final creation?
That’s big money.
I got it for $2,600. I’ve seen incomplete sets go for about $8,000, so I could probably get past 15k if I could find the right collector. The only problem was that, while the previous owner insisted that it was complete, there was no certificate. So I would have to put it together, just to verify.
Honestly, I was way more excited about the Chimeric Challenger than my Phantom-set. It was good money, but this? This was unique. Rare. An actual challenge to put together and put into the hands of the right person.
I got back home. I was greeted by my wall of collectables, amassed from years of digging through countless yard sales and storage units. My crowning achievement was a vintage Mickey Mouse pocket watch placed under a little glass dome, lit with a mild yellow RGB light. The thing wasn’t that rare, or expensive, but it was special to me. It was the exact watch my mom hadn’t been able to afford me for my sixth birthday. It represented everything I’d grown into; someone who found things. Someone with the confidence and means to get what I want.
I pulled a half-nighter finding the missing Phantom issues. By 4 am I’d found all but two, and those were just standard issues from the 80’s. A bit tricky to find a seller, but dirt cheap. I just had to find the right shop.
And yet, I could barely get any sleep. I was so excited to get started with the Chimeric Challenger. I put out my white cotton gloves, set my alarm for 8, and put a timer on my coffee maker. As soon as that bell rang, I’d shoot out of bed like a boxer ready for round one.
As I closed my eyes that night, a single thought itched the back of my mind;
I didn’t have the slightest idea what was printed on the puzzle.
After a few hours of twisting and turning I was finally standing next to the box with a steaming cup of coffee, ready to go. I put on my headset and gave my west coast guy, Lenny, a call. He was usually up at night, chatting with some of his east Asian clients.
He picked up on the first signal.
“What’cha got?” he answered.
“You know any puzzle people, Lenny?” I asked. “High-end?”
“Are we talking Rachel Page stuff? Collector shit? Curios?”
“I sent you a picture.”
The Chimeric Challenger came in a plain wooden box with a simple company logo on the side. The logo, a sunflower print, had faded to a shade of grey; a far cry from the original azure blue.
“Challenger?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“How many missing?”
“None.”
“Shut up.”
“Complete set.”
“No.”
“Yeah. And check this out.”
I sent him another picture. This time of the side of the box, where you could kind of tell the number “3000” from the remaining print. Again, faded to a grey.
“You’re telling me you got a full set. 3000 pieces.”
“Full set.”
“You got it verified?”
“Gonna put it together,” I sighed. “But yeah, it’s a complete set.”
“You haven’t checked it?”
“No, but-“
“Look, you can’t throw around ‘complete set’ before you get it verified. These things are notorious.”
“I’m asking you to keep your beady weasel eyes open. Make some calls.”
“I’ll call you a dumbass for not verifying it, if that’s what you want.”
“I’m serious. This is big league collector stuff. Minnesota original print.”
“And if you get it verified, I’ll shower you with roses.”
Lenny hung up, and I got to work. I took pictures of the box in every angle, noting the company address on the bottom right. Tomskog, Minnesota. Original print.
I put on my cotton gloves and carefully opened the box.
There were 30 identical plastic bags inside, each numbered to contain 100 pieces. Unfortunately, the seal was already broken. That probably set me back a couple of thousands.
I photographed everything and opened the first bag.
I went through all the pieces, slowly, and carefully. I double-checked them for bad prints and weak tabs. Putting it together would be the last thing I did.
It took me roughly 4 hours to get to the 1000-piece mark. So far so good.
I hadn’t put the pieces together yet, but I saw some rough shades of blue, black, white skin, and a hammer. I got the impression that it was a portrait, possibly of a worker. Maybe a factory worker? I could see something rough and metallic, possibly a printing press. I saw some kind of denim texture.
I spent all day checking the rest of the pieces, sending updates to Lenny along the way. The thing was pristine, not a single wobbly tab or weak print. These pieces had probably never been properly assembled.
By 9 pm, I was completely done. Every piece checked, verified, and returned to their plastic bags. They were all perfect. Well, as perfect as a 100-year-old puzzle could be. Now I just had to put it together, to make sure there were no misprints in context. There could be some kind of mix-up that I’d missed.
By the end of the night, Lenny told me he had a potential buyer. They were only interested in a complete set, so I had to put it together to make sure. But if it was legit, we were looking at an 18-19k payout, plus commission fees.
The next day, I ordered the final issues of the Phantom and got ready to put the puzzle together. I put on an audio book, uploaded all my pictures from the previous day, and got to work.
Now, putting together a 3000-piece puzzle takes time. If I spent all day working on it, about 12 hours, it’d still take me several days to finish. Probably another day since I had to be careful about the pieces.
So I cracked my knuckles, turned off all notifications, and zoned out.
Around lunchtime I had put together a few edge pieces and a dozen pieces showing a hand holding a hammer. A dirty, labor-roughened hand with black nails and deep blue bruises around the knuckles. I took a short break. I covered the pieces with a cotton cloth and made myself a sandwich.
The Phantom collection was basically complete, so I put some feelers out looking for a buyer. I found the final issues and placed an order.
Most of the time, my collections don’t come to me complete. The Chimeric Challenger was a bit different that way; usually I had to track down missing pieces or incomplete sets. That was part of the job. Having it served to me like this felt like cheating.
As I got back to the puzzle, I got the sense that something was different. I removed the flowery cotton cover, taking in the smell of the old wood.
I could’ve sworn I’d only put 12 pieces together for the arm.
And yet, there were 13 connected pieces.
Strange.
When you solve puzzles, you start with the edges. That was my strategy too, but I couldn’t keep myself from assembling whatever random pieces I found along the way. Mostly background pieces showing parts of shelves and metal flooring.
Long after the sun had set, I tore myself away from the puzzle. I put the cotton cover back, chugged a Red Bull, and double-checked my socials. I had a lot of missed calls. Missed calls are often missed opportunities. I couldn’t afford those, but this had to get done.
I spent another few hours rifling through offers, tips, and various rumors. Apparently, there’d been some talk about the Chimeric Challenger. Maybe Lenny asking around stirred something up.
I went through every post about it. The consensus was clear; there were no complete Chimeric Challenger sets. A few of them had managed to put together complete sets by combining boxes, but that only worked for the 100- and 500-piece sets.
“The 3000-piece sets were all unique,” one poster said. “That’s why they didn’t spoil the picture on the box. It was a collector’s item.”
I was just about to click on a link when I heard a sound. It sounded like a click, but it didn’t come from my mouse. Instead I looked over at the covered puzzle.
I walked over to it, scratching my eyes. I just stood there, looking at the flowery print of the cotton cover. Had I really heard something, or was it just sleep deprivation?
Even if I’d heard something, what made me think it came from the puzzle?
But no. I wasn’t that person anymore. I was confident. I got what I wanted.
I removed the cover and counted the assembled pieces.
Edges looked fine. No problem there. But the hand with the hammer?
14 pieces. Not 13.
I counted, recounted, and recounted again. Had it been 14 all along? I hadn’t written ‘13’ anywhere, and I was starting to doubt myself. Puzzles don’t assemble themselves.
I counted the pieces so many times that the image of that hand holding the hammer burned into my eyes. I wiped the sweat from my brow, reminding myself to put on clean cotton gloves the next day.
“It’s 14,” I said out loud, putting it down on a post-it. “It is 14 pieces. Not 13, it was 14.”
I covered it back up.
That night I slept like a rock. I dreamt about laborers. People with shovels, hammers, saws, and chisels. I dreamt about a hazy workshop full of acidic compounds. People yelling back and forth. A large man with an anchor tattooed on his forearm. A 12-year-old with a bucket handing out cups of water poured from a hand-carved wooden ladle. The smell of oil, tar, and something sweet. A flower press, making a potent dye.
The workers all had blue hands. All of them. All except the foreman.
He wielded a hammer.
Something clicked.
I woke up.
I’d only been asleep for an hour, but I was shaking and wide awake. I tried going back to sleep, but there was a struggle in the back of my head. Part of me was telling me to stop being an idiot. Part of me wanted to go back to count. It had been 12 pieces. Then it was 13. Then 14.
It had been 13. I had to stop doubting myself.
I cursed out loud and got up. This was the final time. I stomped up to the table, removed the cover, and counted. I didn’t even bother to check the edge pieces.
I leaned back in my chair, looking at the post-it note. It clearly said 14. There was no doubt anymore; there were more pieces assembled now than earlier that night.
But what the hell did that mean?
I put the cloth back over the puzzle and just watched it. I must’ve sat there over an hour, nodding in and out of a restless sleep. At one point I didn’t know if I was awake or not. My eyes were open, but I didn’t really register anything I was seeing.
And there, in that dreamlike moment, I saw something move under the cotton cover.
Followed by another wooden click.
I must’ve fallen asleep, as I woke up hours later; still sitting in my chair.
I had some missed calls, a few items that had to be sent, and a few Phantom issues to pick up at the post office.
And yet, I felt uneasy leaving the Chimeric Challenger. I tried telling myself I’d imagined it, but I couldn’t fool myself. Instead, I put my hand on the cotton cloth and took a deep breath.
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to count them. I didn’t want there to be more.
Just as I steeled myself, my phone rang. Lenny. I breathed a sigh of relief. Saved by the bell.
“Lenny, my guy,” I answered. “Got any good news?”
“If this is legit, we’re looking at a paycheck. Not table scraps, a fat double-quarter pounder paycheck. I can’t find a single person with a complete 3000-piece set.”
“You telling me we’re in the money, Lenny? That what you’re telling me?”
“Imagine big brown sacks with dollar signs on ‘em, and the satisfaction of proving me wrong. But you gotta verify it.”
“Working on it. I’ll send you a progress pic.”
“Get on it.”
“Will do.”
“Big dollar signs, like… like you’re a cartoon villain robbing a bank.”
“That’s a very clear picture, Lenny, thank you.”
“Get to work.”
I looked up at my Mickey Mouse pocket watch.
I’d earned it. I’d been sure of myself, and I made it work.
This would be no different.
It took me about two hours to finish up my chores. Sent out a couple of surplus items, picked up a few of the Phantom comics, downed a box of gas station sushi, and got back home.
I substituted my audio book for rock n’ roll and got into the vibe. I didn’t even count the pieces, I just started putting them together. Sorting them by color. Mouthing the words to ‘Detroit Rock City’ while looking for matching boot pieces. This was work; that’s all that mattered. The guy in the picture had his labor, I had mine.
I kept taking progress pics to send to Lenny later. This’d be another full day.
I stopped for a dinner break at about 6pm. I heated up some canned ravioli and reviewed the pictures. It was fun just to see how far I’d come. I’d finished the entire frame and started working my way in. I’d gotten a large chunk of metal flooring in, connected to a large segment of background wall. At least 600 pieces, all in all.
Then, I noticed something.
I went back and forth between my pictures. I tried arranging them, putting one over the other, making sure they were the same size.
I couldn’t get the arm to overlay. All the other pieces were fine, but not the arm with the hammer.
It was as if it wasn’t in the same angle from one picture to the next.
As if it’d moved.
I looked over at the flowery cloth, feeling that icy block of doubt sink back into my stomach. Without all the music, without the bravado, it was just me and this… mystery.
One by one, I sent the progress pics to Lenny. And as I hit send on the last one, he called me up.
“Lenny,” I started. “You gotta-“
“I got the guy.”
“What?”
“The guy. A client. He’s interested.”
“Okay, sure, but-“
“No, you don’t understand. He’s on the other line. He wants to talk.”
“Now?”
“You need a second?”
“Lenny, there’s an issue.”
“Is this gonna keep us from making bank?”
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t be.
“No, I… I don’t think so.”
“Then you’re on in five.”
There was an electronic tone, followed by two signals. All of a sudden Lenny was off the line. There was a stranger on the other end. A stranger with an old, wheezing, voice. I sat there listening to him breathe for a few seconds. Clearly a smoker.
“You… you got the full set?” he asked.
“I think so, yeah. Putting it together as we speak.”
“Don’t do that.”
There was an urgency. Like he’d waited for just the right time to say it; preparing himself. It was the clearest thing he’d said so far.
“Don’t do it,” he repeated. “Tear it apart.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Can’t… can’t you feel it?”
I looked back at the flowery cloth. Had it really moved the other night? Had the picture changed?
12 pieces. 13. 14. 16. I hadn’t even counted them since. Two dozen? Three?
“They are incomplete by design. By… necessity. It shouldn’t be complete.”
“Maybe it isn’t.”
“Make sure of it. Disassemble it, separate the pieces, and never look at it again.”
“I-I… I can’t just…”
I got up from my chair, seeing the setting sun bounce off the glass dome protecting the Mickey Mouse pocket watch.
I wanted this. I wanted this, and I was going to get it.
“If you want to take it off my hands, I’m sure Lenny will get you a fair price,” I sighed. “But if you excuse me, I got work to do.”
“Don’t do this.”
I hung up. And for the rest of the night, I didn’t bother counting.
I called it a day just past midnight. I faceplanted into bed, leaving the playlist rolling. I’d just catch a few hours of sleep, then get back to it. I wasn’t going to drag this out. This was business, and I was going to handle it.
But I couldn’t help myself from dreaming. Maybe the fumes from the box got to me. Maybe it was just a different, intrusive, headspace. Either way, I imagined myself back in that hazy workshop.
I imagined myself waking up. A man with blue hands shaking my shoulder. Our lunch break was over, and I was slacking off. I had this mind-numbing task of putting the same varnish on wooden boxes, over and over and over. The smell was so strong that I couldn’t even feel it anymore.
There was a noise further down the hall. A hammer coming down, again and again.
Screams. Pleading.
Flesh.
We knew better than to stop. You didn’t quit this job.
No one did.
I woke up to a sudden clatter. Something falling onto the floor.
My eyes shot open. There were puzzle pieces scattered across the carpet.
And a bloody hammer.
Specks of blood covered the flowery cotton cover. The hammer just lay there on the floor, clear as day. A few puzzle pieces had fallen off the table.
I picked up the hammer, feeling the weight of it in my hand. A sticky handle covered in loose strands of hair.
I pulled the cotton cover aside.
The Chimeric Challenger was almost complete.
The puzzle revealed a man in denim overalls. Covered in cuts, bruises, and scars. The only thing missing was his head, that hadn’t been put together yet.
He didn’t have a hammer in his hand anymore. He did, however, have colored hands. But they weren’t blue, like the workers I’d dreamt of.
They were blood red.
I’d forgotten to turn notifications back on. I had hundreds. Row after row of texts from the same number, over and over. All of them telling me to please, destroy the puzzle. Burn it. Throw it away. Tear the pieces apart and just walk away.
Missed calls. Offers to pay me to get rid of it. Calls from Lenny. Calls from unknown numbers.
Pleading, desperate messages. The last message was sent just minutes before I woke up, asking me to please ‘save his life’. For his children’s sake. For his grandchildren.
And finally, an e-mail from Lenny.
“No wonder he wants it that bad,” Lenny wrote. “He’s a Tomskog native. His dad probably helped make the thing.”
My pulse raced. I held the bloody hammer in my hand. This was real. This wasn’t a trick of the mind. There were only about 40 pieces left to assemble.
No one quits the job.
Enough.
I picked it all up and showed it into the box, abandoning all care and common sense. I showed it all in there, bending the tabs and snapping the corners. I saw the pieces bend and break, hearing the wood snap. I forced the lid shut, put it under my arm, and left.
I was going to burn it in the yard, but it was snowing outside. I decided to throw it off a bridge instead.
There’s this bridge not too far from where I live where the water never really freezes. I drove up there, parked, and got out. I brought the hammer.
I put the puzzle down and just started smashing it with the hammer. I watched a flock of red birds take flight, frightened by the sudden noise. Finally I heaved it all over the edge; watching the broken wooden pieces plop into the river. As the pieces sailed into the rushing water, I felt this immense sense of relief. And with that, I dropped the hammer into the river as well.
The color from the broken puzzle pieces had given my hands a faint sheen of blue. I used some snow to scrub it off.
I texted Lenny, telling him the puzzle was incomplete. I didn’t even bother to check his response. I’d wasted so much time and money on this, but I still felt like I’d dodged a bullet. Like I’d been on the cusp of something terrible.
I headed home.
I spent the rest of the day trying to find a buyer for the Phantom collection. I’d gained the attention of a few big names. Apparently, the rumor of me having a Chimeric Challenger had also gotten out; there were quite a few messages about it. I made up a copy-paste response to get rid of them.
I tried my best just to get back to work, ignoring the puzzle and everything about it. I didn’t want to know what’d happened. I didn’t want to think about it. And yet, I could still see some blue powder under my fingernails.
That night, just before bed, I scrubbed myself clean. But no matter how hard I scrubbed my hands I could still see little blue stains on my skin.
Maybe it wasn’t really there.
That night I could barely sleep at all. I fell in and out of consciousness, as if my body was keeping me awake. And still, I caught some snippets of another life. A life that also had blue powder on its hands at one point.
I imagined people putting down their tools. Someone getting beaten to death for insubordination. The 12-year-old boy putting down his bucket of water. Finally, a hammer raised even at him.
Then, a gunshot.
My eyes were wide open. I sat up, letting my legs fall off the edge of the bed. I dug my toes into the carpet. I tried to calm down, to let myself rest.
Then I felt something brush against my toe. Something at the edge of the carpet.
A puzzle piece. It must’ve bounced off when the pieces fell off the table.
It depicted the top of a bald man’s head, with a gunshot wound in the forehead.
The eyes in the puzzle piece turned to me, meeting my gaze.
Glass shattered.
Footsteps.
I hurried into my closet, hiding behind my collection of robes. I heard uneven footsteps fumble their way inside. Water dripping onto the hardwood floor in the hallway. Something metallic brushing against the wall.
It was dark, but I could see the outline of it as it stepped into my bedroom.
A body, broken. A man with every bone twisted by hammer blows. A wheezing, rattling breath from a vibrating tongue. The top of his head was missing.
The man from the puzzle. The Chimeric Challenger.
I held his puzzle piece in my hand.
He used his hammer as a cane for the blind, feeling his way forward, brushing it against the walls. As soon as he found the bed where I’d slept he lost his composure. He made this unearthly sound, ripping the covers and pillows into pieces, waving the hammer around with his broken limbs.
He could barely stand on his ruined legs. Every step, every swing, was agony. I could hear the rage and frustration bubbling up from his exposed throat. The hammer bringing down paintings, pictures, shelves, and my priceless collectables.
All of a sudden, the doors to the closet were ripped from the hinges.
Broken fingers wrapped around my throat. I held up the final puzzle piece like a shield, hoping it would all just go away.
“Take it!” I screamed. “Just fucking take it!”
But there was no discussion. No thought. He just started beating me to death with that goddamn hammer.
That first blow connected with my jaw, breaking it. The second hit fractured my right upper arm. It was so fast that I didn’t even understand what was happening. The third hit connected with my shoulder. I didn’t even realize I’d dropped the puzzle piece.
The dark turned red, and for a moment I could feel the texture of metal flooring against my cheek. I could see the haze of the workshop.
I’d tried to quit.
The foreman wasn’t having it.
Fingers grabbing the roots of my hair. More hammer blows. My forehead burning. My head ringing. My world started spinning as my inner ear gave up.
Another blow. Another. I tried pleading for help, but I couldn’t form words through my broken jaw.
Instead I just lay there, wheezing, just like the foreman.
All of a sudden, it stopped.
A hammer clattered to the ground.
I saw the glass dome with my Mickey Mouse pocket watch; it was still intact, resting on my bed.
I wanted this. I wanted to live.
I grabbed the hammer, flipped it, and used it to drag myself across the floor. I kept losing my grip from the bleeding.
But I made it.
Months of physical therapy. Dozens of surgeries, and I still can’t lift my arm over my head. When I stretch one way, I can feel this deep ache still lingering in my jaw.
Turns out he accidentally smashed the final puzzle piece when he tried to beat me to death.
I guess, in a strange way, he destroyed himself.
Now, I still see people looking to complete sets of the Chimeric Challenge puzzles. There are 8 auctions for various pieces going on right now. Some for 300-pieces, one looking to complete a set for a 1000-piece puzzle.
And that’s why I’m asking that we please, as a community, never talk of these again.