by Al K. Line
"Why not?" I hissed.
"What if he's waiting for us and jumps us? I could get killed."
"So could I."
"You're better at that kind of thing than me." I wasn't sure if she meant dealing with guys jumping us, or dying. She was right on both counts though.
I turned the handle and the door opened. He really was an utter idiot.
We stood at the entrance and watched Jake stare around the room like he'd never seen his home before. It was empty of Kim, her bags were gone, so she'd left, which was good.
Jake sensed our presence and turned. He backed up to a wall and fumbled out his blade. He held it out and waved it around like we'd decide not to bother and go home or something.
"Stay back, I'm warning you."
"Just give me the bag and we'll go. I don't want any trouble, I just want the bag."
"What's so important about this book anyway?" he asked, smirking.
"So you looked?"
"Course. It's just a big book. I was gonna open it and see if I could find out what it was, but I, er—"
"You went and scored? Wanted to get high?"
"What's it to you?" he snapped.
"Nothing at all. I don't care what you do. Give me the book." I stepped into the room and Jake slid along the wall. He removed the backpack and pulled out the book. Then he took a cheap plastic lighter from his pocket and held it underneath.
"Stay away or I'll burn the bloody thing. You're going to hurt me, I know you are."
"I'm not, I swear. Not if you hand it over." I had one eye on him, one on the book, and it didn't look happy. I saw it squirm and fatten, and knew it was getting heavier, trying to escape back to where it belonged to protect itself. But how could it with nobody there to receive it, or to use it? Could it? I had no idea.
"I don't believe you."
"Suit yourself, but I wouldn't try to burn it. The book won't be happy about that," I warned.
"What the hell are you talking about? It's just a stupid bloody book. Ugh, I don't feel well, it feels like it's moving. And so damn heavy." Jake crumpled under the weight, sank to the floor cradling the Death Book and looking sicker by the second.
"Arthur won't hurt you. He promised Kim," blurted Vicky before putting a hand to her mouth. "Oops."
"Kim? You spoke to her? Where is she? What have you done to her?" he wailed.
"Nothing. She's gone, had her bags packed when we arrived," I said.
"You have her. She would never leave me. She loves me, and I love her."
"You have a funny way of showing it. You came home, knowing I was after you. What if she was here?"
"She'd have helped. Hidden me."
I shook my head. "Man, you really are utterly idiotic."
And with that, Jake puked up, the book burst from his hands, slid across the floor, and began to expand in size.
Could This Be It?
The Death Book was an impossible artifact. It contained the name of every person who had ever lived and who ever would. Whether that meant the names got written as people were born and named, or whether it went beyond that and had them all there already, I didn't know. From experience, and it was extensive, you couldn't get a good look at any page apart from the one containing the name of whoever was dealing with Death, and I got the sneaking suspicion that even the big guy himself never understood how it worked.
What I did know was that a helluva lot of people had died already, so it was impossibly large and held a truly staggering number of entries. Did it go back to before people even had names, when they were called Ugg, or Grunt? How were people entered who had never been given a name? Guess such esoteric, unfathomable questions were way above my pay grade.
All of this is to say that such a book contains many millions of pages, and however thin they were, they still had size and thickness. Yes, they were maybe microns thick, but they were pages and they had ink on them, and it was covered in something dark brown and thick, embossed heavily with intertwining vines and flowers one moment, skulls and bones the next. It was as close to a living artifact as you could get without it being truly sentient, but that may have merely been my inability to understand exactly what it was trying to say. Being as it was from another dimension, another realm, a thing of the spirit, of the soul. Of death and life and what came next all rolled up into one extensive package.
And it could choose, make decisions, and right now it had decided it had had enough of Jake and would like to go home, thank you very much.
The Death Book slid further across the floor and as it did so it grew thicker and even more menacing. The leather it was bound in darkened as it reconfigured a thousand times, making my head spin, Jake puke up again, and Vicky clutch at her temples and moan quietly to herself as she backed away into a corner and sank until she was squatting.
The energy it contained seemed to multiply a thousandfold until it was this massive, thick tome bouncing about on the floor like it was ready to fledge and take expertly to the wing. Then it slammed open to the first page, and there, written large and clear in spidery handwriting that made my brain squirm were the words, "Death Book." Underneath the title were two words that gave me palpitations.
"Arthur Salzman."
What? No way! I didn't write it, I didn't own it, I hadn't written my name. But as I crawled forward on hands and knees across the cheap rugs I knew, knew with absolute certainty that my name had been written by me. It was my handwriting.
This was my book and however much I tried to deny it there was no escaping the fact it belonged to me, or maybe a more accurate way of describing it is that I belonged to it.
We were linked. This was my duty, my destiny, and even after all the fun and games, me ripping out my fiftieth entry, escaping back here, and bringing it with me, there was no avoiding my fate. At least, nothing I could think of anyway.
Then it went kind of mad.
It flipped through the pages rapidly, the sound like the whisper of a particularly nasty demonic entity from the Nolands, insinuating itself into your mind and gnawing away at the juicy bits. Faster and faster the pages flipped back and forth, like something from a horror movie. But this was no movie, this was real, and this was a book possessed with the power of the only thing that's certain in this world apart from taxes—yes, there were wizard taxes, and yes I paid. Death.
The book held the power, held a tiny part of every life force it had ever dealt with, had ever helped pass, and it was not at home and was seething about the whole sorry affair. For millennia it had been the symbol of our passing, and before that it would have been something else, maybe a stone tablet, maybe a tree with each fruit or branch or leaf symbolizing the passing on to greater things. Whatever the mind had conjured up to deal with the afterlife, the book had taken on that mantle, become what we expected it to be. Symbolic, a figment of the collective imagination that encompassed all our hopes and dreams, our aspirations, our many and varied disappointments, it was all contained within not only the pages but the very idea of the thing itself.
This wasn't real yet it was the most real thing there was. It allowed us to put a line through the past as Death put a line through our names. A switch flicked in the head and closure was granted. I had stolen that from the book, but more importantly from the many people waiting in limbo for this debacle to be rectified to everyone's satisfaction.
What about my satisfaction?
I did not want to die, to deal with dead children and sad old people, with suicides and the morbidly depressed. With happy people who still had a lust for life, or with those who just didn't give a shit either way.
I wanted to carry on getting into trouble, have dinner with my family, and go on adventures with Vicky.
"No, you hear me. Absolutely no fucking way. I don't care what you do, I am not going back there. It will break me, I can feel it. I'm not as tough as I make out and this will ruin me, and I will never be the same man again. I refuse. You hear me?" I shouted, rising to my feet and shaking my fist
alternately at the book then at the world in general. "I refuse."
Unfortunately, my words fell on deaf ears and the Death Book slammed shut with a horrendous thud, bounced once like it was in a huff, then launched itself right at me.
You know that thing you do when something comes at you and you try to catch it out of pure instinct? Yeah, I did that, even as my brain screamed at me, "No, you dick, this is exactly what you don't want to do."
I caught the book, it weighed a thousand pounds, and I sank to my knees with it clutched tight in my hands like it was covered in glue.
Getting Crowded
Something snapped in my head, like my skull had clicked into a new configuration, bone melding, clacking like marbles knocking together. The book and I were linked, part of the same whole. We belonged.
Even through the pain of opening up to a whole universe of knowledge, death, and despair, of joy and innocence, I felt comforted by this. How could I have been so foolish as to consider denying myself this? This was who I was, what I was. The person I was meant to be.
Destiny.
A strange calm fought through the fear and won out, and I cradled the book in my arms like a newborn baby, staring down as I waited for it to open its eyes for the first time and greet the world. Pure love, maybe, or something else?
Something else, definitely. This wasn't me, this wasn't how I truly felt. I was being manipulated, forced into strange emotions so I would do its bidding and take up residence in the nothingness and slowly have my soul devoured by misery, sadness, and utter, overwhelming boredom.
I screamed an almighty "No!" in my head, words impossible. The sound reverberated around the universe, echoing back repeatedly as I broke free of its mental grip.
Yet even as I sat there panting, my muscles taut, screaming for release that wasn't forthcoming, the book refused to give in. It held fast, made me grip tighter, and it would not release its hold on me for we were meant to be. I sweated profusely as I tried to prise my fingers loose with my teeth, biting deep into bony flesh contorted like late-stage arthritis, my fingers talons. Blood flowed freely but I couldn't let go, and part of me didn't want to. Part of me wanted to accept the inevitable and get this damn thing over with.
Then I thought of Penelope and our future, and of George and Vicky and her girls. There was too much at stake and I may have been late to realize I had been foolish for so many years wasting these lives, but how was I to know this was what it was all leading toward?
I slammed down hard onto the rug, thinking broken fingers were preferable to a broken future, and my fingers relaxed for a split-second. I straightened them and the book slid from my grasp to lay there, fat and angry, on a cheap orange rug.
Vicky's breath made me turn my attention from the floor and I found her crouched beside me, peering at the book with distrust. Jake groaned from the corner then he got shakily to his feet and crept forward, cautious and looking sick with drug sweats mixed with what for him must have seemed like one seriously bad trip.
"What is that thing?" he asked.
"Something you really do not want to mess about with," I answered, not wanting to take my eyes off it in case it did something stupid, more stupid than I could do on my own.
"It's magic, isn't it?" he asked, eyes darting from the book to me and back again.
"What do you think? Does it look like a book you'd get from the library?"
"No, of course not!" Anger flared but he controlled himself, got a grip. "This is so messed up."
"You're telling me. You stole it, you had no right. I helped you out, saved you, your cousin was worried, and this is how you repay us? You could have got yourself killed, you put everyone at risk."
"I didn't know what it was. How was I supposed to know?" Jake paused to think. "Um, what is it again?"
"I didn't say, and trust me, it's best you don't know."
"He's right," said an unusually, and disconcertingly, quiet Vicky.
I turned to her; she looked rough. Sweaty, shaking. I was the same.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Fine, just shaken up a little. What do we do now?"
"First we get the hell out of here before Jake tries to nick it again, and then we figure out what to do."
"Hey, I was messed up, still am. I didn't know what I was doing."
I got to my feet carefully and keeping one eye on the book, the other fixed firmly on Jake, I said, "Don't give me that bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing. You thought I had something valuable so you took it and didn't care what that would mean for me and Penelope. You thought just of yourself and getting high again."
"Maybe," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, I can't seem to do anything right. I'm a mess, and I need help, but I can't get it, won't let anyone. I need to get high, I have to."
"That's your choice, buddy. You either want to straighten out or you don't. Look at you. Your girl has gone, the only other person who loved you was Penelope, and you screwed her over. If it wasn't for her you'd be toast after playing this crap on me. I've killed people for a lot less, and trust me, they were nicer than you."
"You.... You wouldn't kill me. People don't do that kind of thing. Not straight people, not people like Penelope or anyone she would hang with. You aren't like those dudes that nabbed me, they're scum. You seem different."
"I am. Very. Doesn't mean you can walk all over me. You disrespected me, Penelope, and you laughed in our faces after I gave five grand of my own money to bail you out. What kind of man are you? I'm serious. You need to decide. Being an addict is no excuse for dragging everyone else down with you. You can dig your own grave, doesn't mean you have to ruin everyone else's lives, especially when they want to help."
"I know, I know. I'm a loser." Jake began to cry.
I'd seen it all before, the junkie comedown, the wallowing in pity for themselves, like the world owed them when all they wanted to do was rip you off. And they would, so they could carry on destroying themselves.
"Arthur, do something," whispered Vicky.
"Like what?"
"Help him."
"Why should I? He's trouble, I want nothing to do with him."
"Look at him. Really look."
I took a good long look at Jake; he was in a terrible way. With unprejudiced eyes I truly saw this man and found him to be a human in need of assistance. He was hurting bad, close to the end unless he turned it around quick, and yet I couldn't bring myself to truly care because underneath it all I found it impossible to see a man who was in any way nice. Yet Kim had seemed genuine, smart, and caring, so maybe there was something in Jake that was worth saving. Maybe.
"I can't be dealing with you," I told Jake. "We have stuff to do and you need to get your act together. Don't contact Penelope, don't try to rip us off, and don't nick my stuff."
I nodded to Vicky who shook her head at my coldness then I bent and grabbed the book.
"Let's go."
Jake's door burst open and there, looking all kinds of annoyed, was Gavin.
"Great, just great," I sighed, knowing this time I wouldn't escape as easily.
The book vibrated in my hands like it was pleased to see him. Or maybe it knew my time was nigh, and it was squirming with anticipation.
Angry Men
"Will you please just leave me alone?" I shouted, trying to throw the damn book at Gavin but it was stuck fast again, my fingers gripped around it like tree roots growing over a rock.
"I will when you take up your role as Death and I'm free to go about my business without fear of getting dragged back there. It's coming, it's close. Can't you feel it?"
"Of course I can feel it, I'm not an idiot. I know the book is calling me back there, and I know it wants me to do the job. And I know you do too, but I won't. That's the end of it."
"No, it isn't. I've had a hundred years to think about this, to dread this, knowing my life would be taken from me once again. Have you any idea what that's like? How it affected me?"
"Made you save your mon
ey even harder? Invest in property?"
"Shut up!" Gavin stepped into the room and glanced at Jake and Vicky then ignored them completely, focused on me and what I held. "I held that book so many times, opened the pages, crossed out countless names. I will not do it ever again. You are back, I am here, it is time for this to be settled."
"No bloody way. I'm not agreeing to be Death and I'm sorry you don't want to do it but it's every man for himself."
"You can be Death?" asked Jake, coming close. He stank of puke and sweat.
"What?" I snapped. "Stay out of this, Jake, you won't understand."
"Who is this malodorous man?" asked Gavin.
"Nobody."
"I'm Jake."
Gavin ignored him. "Time to go. Just accept your fate and you will be gone. Put the torn piece back and the circle of life and death can resume. All those poor souls are waiting for you, Arthur, you cannot let them continue as they are."
"Then why don't you do it? You've got the experience, you've been doing a great job. Go back and maybe in a while I'll take a turn."
"No, never. I only just escaped with my sanity, I will not last again in the cold afterlife where eternity stretches out and there is nothing to do, nothing but the end of all things."
"This book has got used to you crossing out the names of the dead, are you sure you don't want to go back and have another go?" I was clutching at straws but at least I tried.
"This is what happens when you die? Someone has to be Death and cross out names? And it's empty, and boring, and nothing happens there apart from you helping people?" Jake was right up beside me now, in my face and reaching for the book. Gavin slapped his hand away and Jake jumped back like he'd been electrocuted.
"Who is this man? What is he doing?"
"He lives here, it's his home," said Vicky.
"Tell him not to interfere," warned Gavin.
"I'll do it," said Jake. "I will do this. I can help people, I won't be able to get high, and I can try to make up for all the crap I've done."
We all turned to stare at him. Was he serious? No, of course he wasn't. He didn't know what he was talking about, what he would be letting himself in for.