The Fiction Room Read online

  The fiction room

  by H. Duke

  *Author’s Note: This is the short story from which my Pagewalker series was inspired. This is not a story in the Pagewalker universe, rather it is an alternate version of it. If you’ve read Pagewalker, you’ll recognize some scenes and aspects, while others are completely different. For instance, the names of certain characters have been changed, and some characters weren’t present at all. Enjoy!

  “This is where you’ll be working.” Mae waved one wrinkled hand toward a set of mammoth double doors. The sign above them read Fiction Room.

  Mae had given Shannon a tour of the library, introducing her to some of her new coworkers as they passed by. The old librarian had started at a steady if languid pace, but after mounting the stairs her breathing had become ragged and labored like she had run a marathon. Shannon was glad when a large man in a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants appeared, giving Mae an excuse to stop and catch her breath.

  “This is Andre, the night guard,” she said.

  “It’s a pleasure,” Andre said, taking her hand. It felt small and fragile in his grip. He was a foot taller than she was, and three times as wide.

  “Likewise.”

  The walkie-talkie on his hip crackled. “Excuse me,” he said, and unhooked the device from his belt before walking away.

  “He’s an awful guard—calls in half the time,” Mae said, her breath still labored. “But he keeps his nose in his own business, and follows direction when he does show up.” She turned back to the fiction room, untucking a chain from inside her cardigan. An old brass key the size of Shannon’s pinkie dangled from the end. “There are only two keys to the fiction room. The morning janitorial staff have the other one. The room must be cleared and locked every night by nine. Every night. That’s rule number one.”

  “So what’s rule number two?” Shannon asked.

  “Rule number two is never, under any circumstance, leave a book open overnight.”

  Shannon laughed, but Mae’s face remained stern and serious, and the laughter choked in her throat. “Why not?”

  Mae smiled, once again looking like a suburban grandmother. “It’s bad for the spines. Many of the books are irreplaceable.” She nodded toward a shelf that was the same as all the others in the room, except that it was protected by a sliding glass door. “That is what’s left of the Werner collection—donated in the 1800s. First editions, signed classics. Used to have twice as many, but the public treats them like dime store paperbacks.”

  After a quick introduction to the library’s computer system, Mae directed Shannon to take a break. The break room was a small enclave in the offices on the second floor. A microwave and toaster oven crowded a small counter. The lone table was occupied by a stout woman picking at a Tupperware container filled with greens. She looked to be almost thirty, a year or two older than Shannon.

  “Mind if I sit here?” Shannon asked.

  “Go ahead.” the woman moved her lunch tote to make room. “You’re Mae’s replacement, right?”

  Shannon nodded. “I’m Shannon Polinsky.”

  “Becky.” She smiled. “Everyone’s been talking about you, ever since the news filtered down that Mae finally picked a replacement.”

  “Finally?”

  Becky nodded. “Everyone’s been speculating about your experience. She’s very, uh, picky about the care of the fiction room. She even turned down a university librarian who wanted to catalogue the Werner books. Said he had no imagination.”

  She looked at Shannon eagerly, obviously expecting an explanation.

  “Well, I’ve never worked in a library before.” She tried to smile nonchalantly, but it felt tight on her face, like a grimace.

  “Museum?” Becky asked, her eyebrows knitting together.

  “Um, no.”

  “Did you go to one of the big library science schools?”

  Shannon shook her head. “I studied English at State.”

  Becky’s lips pushed out into a little O.

  “Well, my break’s over,” Shannon said, even though she still had ten minutes left. As she left, two women entered the room, glancing at her sidelong. She could practically hear Becky whispering the news to them.

  She was in such a rush to escape that she nearly collided with a bearded black man at the foot of the staircase. He looked to be in his late thirties.

  “Watch it,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, wondering at his harsh tone. It had been an accident.

  He focused on her badge. “Hey, you’re the new third floor librarian, aren’t you? Ms. Jackson’s replacement?”

  She nodded. Did everyone know about her? “The name’s Shannon,” she said, wanting to nip any utterances of “Ms. Polinsky” in the bud.

  He sized her up. “You’re okay with working in the fiction room? Weird things go on in there, you know.”

  She screwed up half her face skeptically. “You mean all those ghost stories?” Everyone in town had a story about the original part of the library, all of them happening “to a friend,” of course, and all contradictory. Shannon didn’t believe in ghosts.

  The man waved his hand dismissively. “Not ghosts, and not stories. Disappearances. More than one. You can look it up.”

  Shannon caught sight of Andre walking down the staircase towards them, and shot him a pleading look.

  “What’s up, Shannon?” he said, eyeing the man.

  “Nothing, just heading back to work,” she said, and started up the stairs.

  “You should ask Mae why she doesn’t have an assistant anymore,” the man called after her. She didn’t turn back. Andre followed.

  “Don’t listen to Randall. Homeless guys like to mess with the staff all the time. They’re bored, and it gives them something to do.”

  “He’s homeless?” He hadn’t looked homeless; his clothes had been neat, and he smelled like Ivory soap.

  “There’s a shelter a few blocks away. A lot of them sleep and shower there, and come here during the day.”

  Andre left her at the fiction room to continue his rounds. She walked into the office. Mae breathed heavily behind the desk, as though she had only just made it to the chair. She held a hand against the side of her face. Her fingers were clubbed and purplish at the tips, the color of a bruise just forming under the skin.

  “Mae? Are you okay?”

  Mae’s head jerked up. “Miss Polinsky,” she said, the words coming out in a rasp. “I’m fine. Walking just takes it out of me. Why don’t you head home early? We’ll go over the closing procedures tomorrow.”

  • • •

  The next afternoon, Shannon found Becky and Andre together in the break room. Becky’s eyes were red and swollen, and even Andre looked ashen.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Becky opened her mouth to speak, but instead erupted into a series of sobs. She pulled a tissue from a box sitting on the table in front of her. There was already a small sodden mound on the table in front of her.

  “It’s Mae,” Andre explained. “The morning guard found her near her desk, unconscious. She’s in a coma.”

  It took Shannon a moment to process this information. “That’s… awful. Was she sick?”

  Becky nodded. “She has lung cancer—stage four. She was diagnosed months ago, but never told anyone. I only know because I saw some paperwork from the doctor’s office that she left on her desk a few weeks ago. I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

  “I wonder why she never said anything,” Shannon said to fill the silence, thinking of the way Mae had gasped for breath after walking less than ten paces.

  Andre shook his head. “She was a tough woman—wouldn’t want anyone’s pity,” he
said gruffly. “And she wouldn’t want to leave the fiction room. It was her whole life. Never once took a vacation.”

  “It’s almost like she was holding on until—”

  Becky trailed off, and both she and Andre stared at Shannon. Were they thinking the same thing she was, that Mae hired her because she knew she was out of time and had no better options? Nothing else made sense.

  Soon, both Becky and Andre went back to work. Not knowing what else to do, Shannon walked up to Mae’s—her?—office. A window next to the door overlooked the fiction room. Students hunched over textbooks, already studying for finals. The homeless man she’d met the previous day, Randall, sat in one of the easy chairs reading a book. Everyone looked so normal. Would they be sad if they knew what had happened, or would they shrug and continue on with their lives?

  She turned to the desk, cluttered with the same haphazard piles of books and folders as yesterday. Would someone come and take these things away, or would she have to do it?

  She stumbled. She looked down to see what had tripped her up—a book, old, but not bound in leather. The title read A Country Romance. It looked like it belonged in the Werner collection. She bent to grab it and noticed a small slip of paper sticking out of it. She pulled it out.

  Shannon-

  11, 1, 225

  In the cellar

  The words were shaky and written in blue ink. What did it mean? Why had Mae written her name there? It read like a creepy premonition. Shannon shivered at the words “in the cellar.” What had Randall said about people disappearing in the library?

  “Knock Knock.”

  She jumped. It was Andre, holding something at arm’s length like a used diaper. “They took this from around her neck,” he said. The object glinted dully—the key to the fiction room. “It’s the only one except for the janitor’s, right?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Well, I guess it’s yours, now.” He stretched the key toward her.

  Shannon took a step backwards. “It feels weird, you know? I mean, she’s not…” she trailed off.

  Andre nodded. “I understand, but Mae would have wanted it this way. She was very insistent that she be the one to lock the fiction room every night. That’s your job, now.”

  Shannon did not want to take the key. Mae had worn it around her neck for fifty years—how long would she have it? But Andre didn’t retract his hand, and she saw no option other than to take it. Its lightness surprised her. She slipped the chain into her pocket.

  After he left, she reread the scrawled note again. The senseless conjurings of an oxygen-starved brain, she thought. She replaced the scrap of paper in the book, and dropped it in a desk drawer.

  At the end of the night she walked the shelves, making sure the books were closed. It felt silly, but Mae had seemed so adamant. What was wrong with tidying up, anyway?

  • • •

  Two weeks had passed since Mae was discovered in the fiction room. The first snowstorm of the season whistled against the windows; the library was deserted. Becky had called in—her car wouldn’t start—and the administrative offices on the second floor had closed at five. It was just her and Andre.

  He stuck his head through the double doors. He looked nervous, as though being in the fiction room this late was hazardous, an attitude that the other staff mirrored.

  “The place is dead,” he said. “You should be set. I’m taking off—you know, with the roads and all.”

  Shannon nodded. He’d left early three times in the last two weeks, giving one excuse or another.

  “Okay,” she said, though she knew he was cutting out early without reporting it. “See you tomorrow.”

  She watched his car—the last in the lot except hers—slip and slide out onto the road before starting her rounds. She lapped the rest of the library to make sure no one had wandered in, then locked the main entrance. She would set the alarm from the staff door on her way out. She was almost out the door when she realized she’d left her coat in her office. With a sigh, she headed upstairs to get it.

  The library was truly creepy at night; the daytime serenity morphed into a heavy foreboding that thickened the air and made it difficult to breathe. How easy it would be, she thought, for someone to watch through the stacks undetected. She shivered, though the heat was still at full-blast.

  She jogged up the stairs, giggling at the absurdity of her unease. She was too old to be afraid of spooks. She paused at the fiction room doors to catch her breath. As she stood with her hands on her knees, a low growl came from the other side, followed by scratching. The hair stood up on the back of her neck, but she shook her head. Something’s wrong with the heating system. She’d leave a note for the maintenance crew. She pulled the brass key from her pocket and inserted it into the door. It creaked open, and she flicked the lights on.

  She gasped. Chairs and tables were overturned, and the shelf nearest the restrooms leaned against the wall, half its contents on the floor.

  “What the—”

  A hand clamped over her mouth, muting her surprised squeal. Another hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her roughly into the office. The click of the door sounded like a death toll.

  She tried to scream, but the hand only pressed harder. Still, she pushed air out of her lungs until black static formed at the edges of her vision. It wasn’t until lack of oxygen made her stop that she realized her captor was speaking.

  “Shh!” It was a male voice, deep and baritone and familiar. “I’m going to remove my hand, but you need to be quiet. Understand?”

  She nodded, and his grip loosened. He stepped away, and she whirled around.

  “Randall?” she asked, incredulously. His mouth set into a grim line, and he held his hands up to show they were empty. “How did you get in here?”

  “I fell asleep reading in the men’s bathroom.” He turned toward the window. “It’s cold outside, so the shelter is full. And no one checks the bathrooms.”

  She sputtered indignantly, but Randall acted neither shamed nor interested. He continued to peer through the window. “There’s a tiger out there,” he said, spreading the blinds open with his fingers.

  “What?”

  “A tiger.”

  “A tiger-tiger?” She asked, and then, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she said, “like, a roar-”—she curled her fingers into a claw and swiped the air—“tiger?”

  He nodded.

  “Umm, that’s…” she trailed off. He was obviously on some illicit substance or having a psychotic episode. Many of the homeless who frequented the library suffered from delusions, talking to empty chairs or watching the other patrons like they were spies. Andre told her they were more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. That was easy for him to say—he wasn’t locked up alone with one of them.

  Randall read her expression, and his jaw grew hard. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “just another bum seeing things. Well, lady, I’m not crazy and I’m not a user, and I know what a tiger looks like.” He seemed lucid, but what he was saying just couldn’t be true.

  “Well,” she said, hoping to placate him, “Where did the, uh, tiger come from?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe it escaped from the zoo or something. All I know is that I fell asleep reading in the restroom, and the next thing I know, the lights are out and there’s this orange blur coming at me. The only reason I made it in here is because I pushed a shelf on it.”

  Ugh, Shannon thought. How would she explain the mess? There was no way she could clean it up all by herself. Maybe she could blackmail Andre into helping. Of course, that was assuming Randall let her go. Maybe—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a monstrous, throaty roar, so loud it drowned out the sounds of the storm outside.

  “No way,” she said, and flew to the window next to Randall.

  “I told you!”

  “Shh!” She peered out into the stacks, holdi
ng her breath. Movement near the restroom caught her eye. A giant orange form swayed from under the toppled shelf, like a mirage materializing over hot pavement, a flame through smoke.

  She gasped. It really was a tiger; from nose to tail, nearly as long as one of the shelves. The fluorescent lights did little to diminish its fiery beauty. It yawned, revealing teeth as long and thick as her thumb.

  “That’s not possible,” she said in the tiger’s direction, as though it might see the error of its ways and dissipate into the air in the same shimmering way it had come.

  The tiger turned its head toward her, and her breath caught in her throat. It heard me, she thought. As though in confirmation, the tiger’s eyes locked on her own. They were large and yellow, like marbles, and… intelligent. A shiver ran up her spine.

  “We have to call for help,” Randall said, causing her to jump. She’d forgotten he was there. “Do you have a cell phone?”

  She shook her head, thinking bitterly of her purse, useless down by the staff door. “There’s a desk phone, though.” She didn’t add that she wasn’t sure it worked, at least she had never heard it ring.

  She picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. There was no dial tone, only a clicking sound. What number had Andre said she needed to press to get a line? She began to hit buttons, one by one; after each there was a harsh tone, like the buzzer on a game show noting an incorrect answer.

  “What’s the holdup?” Randall asked, and she fought the urge to throw something at him.

  “I’m working on it.”

  Then even the clicking stopped, and they were plunged into blackness. Before, the darkened office had been illuminated by the glowing green of the power button on the computer. Now only the gleam of the crescent moon glinting off the snow outside remained.

  Randall cursed. “Power outage,” he said. “A tree must have fallen on the lines. We’ll have to wait until the power kicks on again. Does this place have a generator?”

  Shannon shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “It should have kicked on by now.”

  Remembering something Mae had said during their tour, Shannon opened the bottom desk drawer, pulling out what looked like a plastic tool box. She could barely read the words printed on the top: Emergency kit.