Derek peeled a thin slice of skin from his
lip as he rifled through the banker-box on the cash desk that crushed
his current guilty pleasure, the last story in Byron Priess’s Weird
Heroes, Vol. 1.
“The library said I couldn’t give them all of his junk, can you believe that?” said the worm lipped old woman. “Is
that trash worth anything?”
Five minutes to closing, but he didn’t care. Derek smiled, said “We’ll see,” then
breathed in the scent. The
loneliest smell in the world is a dusty book. He’d thought so the first shift he’d taken at Edelweiss Books. The heavy, depressing aroma had only grown in time until it deadened his sense of smell permanently. The scent of melancholy dust from every unwanted book was unique as it was sad. He’d
miss it.
Itches prickled his nose. He tossed aside the Zane Greys, covers
as ragged as the lawmen dashing across them, another deep breath
and the itch eased. “Huh. The Shadow. Neat.”
“Goodness!” she said, covering her mouth. “I hated that radio show. I’ll tell you what evil lurks in the heart of men.” Her tone jabbed a memory out of its hiding space. A Salvation Army truck pulling out of the driveway; an empty closet; his comics gone; he’d
run, but they caught him.
Stop
wiggling, Derek! We don’t need fascist power fantasies sitting
in my home.
Too late, Mommy! He’s already retarded.
Emily! Don’t say that!
She’s right, Mother. Did you see his report card? Jane Morrison says he’ll
have to take the fifth grade again. Ow! Mom! He hit me! You
saw it!
Let me go! Just let me go!
“How much?” she said.
Derek sniffed. “Pulp novels aren’t rare, yet…Wow! Walter Gibson
signed it.”
“Who?”
Derek traced the signature, enjoying the rough, acidic texture. Gibson, a friend of Houdini, a pulp writing machine, whose life was known and treasured by the fringe world of collectors and hobbyist. A rare treasure. Fitting for a last day.
“Look, I don’t care if Moses wrote it on a napkin. Just tell
me is it worth something?”
Mr. Fletcher had one rule with customers: fleece them dry. But
it was his last day. “How does five hundred bucks sound?”
She wouldn’t stop chatting as he got all the money from the reserve box under the cash. “How
about the others? More gems?”
One minute to closing. He shrugged. “Let’s see.”
“Here, let me help you.”
The box dropped, and a worn issue of Hustler magazine spread
itself out on the floor, giving them a vivid close up of some
young girl’s face in mock ecstasy, naked body contorted on a
picnic table, waist apparently made of tanned taffy.
“Henry,” she said, pink jowls shaking. “You bloody pervert!”
Derek blinked.
If
I catch you with this degenerate smut again——
I don’t want to live with a pervert, Mom. Throw him out now!
Emily, calm down.
God, Janice, what do you expect? Just be glad he isn’t building
bombs in the basement or joining a cult. What, Derek? No
funny comeback?
What did I say about calling me by my first name, Charlotte?
Get out. Just get out of my room. Now.
The door-chime jangled as the hag scuttled out. Derek walked around the magazine, locked the door, and flipped the open sign to close. February slush had turned the outside world cold, wet, and grey. Cars cut through the filthy snow with a drizzling roar. Grit seemed to cover everything.
He finished the book then ran through the closing routine, then picked up the porn mag and laid it beside the pulp novel. A warm smell, flowery, familiar, rose then vanished and he felt hungry. With lights out, he prepared to leave one last time.
“Derek?” Itches flared as he dropped the bag. He pinched his
nose against the deep, sad smell, then turned.
Light flickered at the back of the store. A small teenaged girl stood between two giant piles of unsorted books that rose to her shoulders, fiction on the left, non-fiction on the right. Her grey shirt and blue dress were worn but not ragged.
Fear gnawed his spine. He coughed, still holding his nose, and
picked up his bag. “We’re closed.”
“We know.” A tinny voice echoed as if it had traveled from the far end of a long pipe. “And we know you’re not coming back. That’s why… everyone
is helping me be seen.”
Goosebumps burst on his skin. “Look, you can’t stay. I have
to set the alarm.”
In her shadowy space, figments of her features and straight
black hair flickered in and out of existence with the light. “I know, Jesse, be quiet!” Her face tightened. “There’s no alarm, Derek. You use that line when customers won’t
leave.”
His sucked his sore lip. “How did you—never mind. You have to go. I’m
late.”
“For what? The bus you never take? The long way home you always
walk?”
Emily. She sounded as snooty as Emily did when they were kids.
He crinkled the bag in his hand and walked to the phone behind
the desk. She didn’t move. “Either get out, or I’ll call the police.” He
grabbed the receiver.
“I can’t,” she said, voice just a hint above a whisper. “I want to, but I can’t.
None of us can. Not alone.”
Us? Lights flickered a little brighter then held steady. Pain
engulfed her face. “Hey, are you ok? You need help?”
She nodded, opening her eyes. “We all do, Derek. We need your
help.”
He released the receiver. “Who are you?”
“Lucy Markson. We’ve never met. Not really.” Her strained face eased and the light flickered again. “But
you saved me, from the garbage heap and fire.”
“What? I’ve never seen you before.”
She nodded and the lights shook, then steadied. “I can’t do
this for long. So, please, help us.”
“Help who? What are you talking about?”
“The books. The ones you…sensed. You know, when your nose gets all scrunchy. We’re…we’re tied to them.” She bit her quivering lip and he released his. “We
died with them.”
Derek blinked and blinked as if to clear the questions storming
his mind. She lifted her pale hand. “Let me finish. We all died, lost in these books. I don’t know why, but we did. Marcus says it’s because our hearts just stopped. That we died because we were…”
“Lonely.”
The light steadied. An ounce of relief caressed Lucy’s face. “I think so. We couldn’t live on books alone. No one can. Not really. But we tried.” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t
believe me.”
Derek inhaled long and hard and shook his head. “I don’t know. I used to think…” He sucked his lip. “I
used to think I could sense something. From books. But none of
them had value. Not to the store. Except the last one.”
“Henry says it was his favorite book,” she said, looking into the dark stacks. “And she’d told him to pack them all up…and get rid of them. The smell was driving her nuts. He did…Then he died, right Henry?” She seemed to be talking to the books on her right. “Then
she just shoved it in with a bunch of others. Packing him away.”
Shivers danced on Derek’s nerves. “Oh.”
The lights dimmed and her eyes went black as tar. “Derek, please. The owner? He’s not just letting you go. He’s closing the store. We’re headed for the fire.” Her face wavered in and out the light. “It won’t free us. But, there’s
a way.”
“How?” Even as he said it, he couldn’t believe he was having
his conversation. But he stayed still.
“You have to find us. Read us. Then we can…go.”
“How do you know?”
Her face tensed. “Because Marcus vanished as soon as you finished that book.” She
pointed at the yellow cover of Weird
Heroes. “I think it’s because we connect with you. You’re almost like us.” He clamped his jaw. “But when you read the books with us, we’re no longer really…”
The word came out dry and pasty between his teeth. “Alone.”
She flickered. “This hurts. We’ve saved up all the strength we’ve
got. We need you to help us, get us out. Find us.”
“How the hell can I do that?”
She tapped her nose as the lights dimmed. She faded.
He stood still, rubbing his nose against the itch. But it wouldn’t go. He looked at the grey world of cold flurries. He’d
breath free if he left. Sinuses clear. Empty. Gone.
Another bus passed by the window. His mind followed it home.
You’re
wasting your life, Derek. All your potential. And you have
no right to.
Why do you always focus on him? I aced my finals last term,
I’m volunteering at Mount Sinai, I’m
doing everything right!
Not now, Emily.
Oh dear, he looks like he’s about to throw us the silent
treatment. Not really a challenge when you have no friends
outside that junk shop.
Charlotte!
He grinned, then roamed the stacks, breathing deep, until the books pinched his nose: Alice
in Wonderland, The Gulag Archipelago, The Princess Bride, The
Bell Jar, Vincent Price’s Monsters, Life and Loves of a She
Devil, Dracula, Lord Jim, The Sound and the Fury, Lord of the
Rings, The White Hotel, The Left Hand of Darkness…
He ran through the stacks until the sweat swam through his shirt.
His nose was calm. “Whew.”
Then he glanced at the dark space of Porn City in the back.
His nostrils flared. “Oh, fuck no.” The voices rose as he clenched his eyes shut. “Shut
up, shut the hell up!”
Arms full, he ran through and grabbed the one that made his nose itch. In the dim light he saw a Playboy from the 1980s with some Jessica Hahn wannabe pouting on the cover. Scolding voices fluttered in his mind before jangles filled the air. Books dropped from his arms as he shook.
Mr. Fletcher’s nicotine stained voice peeled the skin off his soul. “Sullivan? Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you still doing here, running around in the dark?” He hit the lights and Derek shut his eyes. “What the hell are you doing with those?” His
cigarette bounced on his thin lip.
Whispers rose from the books. He grabbed them, slowly. “I bought
them. Last time to get the store discount.”
Mr. Fletcher walked down the steps with a heavy gait, wiping
the February wetness from his five o’clock shadow and pulling at his loose tie. “Better not be trophy hunting.” He
went behind the cash desk.
“I don’t know how.”
“Got that right. Just wanted to get the sales to the bank machine. You buy anything for the store today?” Fletcher
bent behind the desk to the safe.
Derek crept to the door. “Just that Shadow book.” He got to the cash desk, reaching for it. “Which
I also bought.”
Mr. Fletcher’s rumpled head rose from behind the desk. “Not so fast, ass clown. Put that shit on the desk. Don’t
want you walking away with a few million in eBay sales.”
What blood remained in his head turned white as Fletcher’s sausage
fingers ran through the books, searching, hunting for anything
out of the ordinary.
Fletcher snorted. “This is garbage with ISBNs.”
The itch was deep and shivering in Derek’s nose. His hands flexed in spasms as he tried to hold still. “I want to…”
“What?”
His hands turned to fists. “Annoy my family. They hate this
junk. Especially the fantasy stuff.”
Fletcher held up the Playboy and the Hustler. “And the skin
mags?”
He shrugged, breathing through his mouth. “What better way to
piss off a house full of feminists?”
Fletcher’s wheezy laugh pushed past his yellow teeth. “Shit, Sullivan, that’s
a good one. I could have sworn you were an ass bandit.”
The itch eased as Derek inhaled deep. “Well, boss, now I’ve
got proof to the contrary.”
Mr. Fletcher shoved the cash in a large white plastic bag. “Well,
so long, kid. Hope you find work somewhere soon.”
Derek smiled. He left the store, chimes jangling behind him as the wind bit. The vroom of a distant bus pricked his ears so he ran and caught it. He sat down, wheezing, nose inflamed, and picked out a book at random.
‘Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister by the bank…’ A
tinny whisper thanked him as the pages crept on, the light of
the bus flickering, the sweet smell of an unknown flower blooming
inside him.
