The Night Library

by T L Barrett

  “Well, I’m just saying we have all had a long day at the beach, end of story.” Now you sound like mom, Uncle Silas noted, always ending the stories.

  “Well, I’m having a fire!”

  “Go ahead,” she said, leaving the room, “have your fire.”

  “I will. You go ahead and watch me!”

  ***

  Uncle Silas sat beside his fire and looked up. His sister was watching from her bedroom window.

  “Well, you’re an obedient one, I’ll give you that,” he muttered. Karl’s masterwork. Just to spite her, he pulled out an American Spirit and lit it with flair. Her face wrinkled with disgust and disapproval.

  He flipped her the bird.

  He scanned the other windows. None of them held little faces mournfully watching the flames holding back the shadows for their old Uncle Silas. Who was he kidding? Blue light flashed from every window pane; every child plugged into the collective. He could hear the damned beeping and pseudo motocross engine sounds.

  I can’t compete with that, he thought sadly. He looked across the backfield and to the New Hampshire woods beyond.

  That’s when the sky lit up like the Fourth of July on crack. Uncle Silas’s mouth fell open, dropping the lit cigarette in his lap.

  “Jesus!” he screamed, and then yelped and cuffed the butt into the fire. A whirlpool of light brightened and coalesced, then the sky opened.

  It kind of looks like a vagina, Uncle Silas thought absently. Just like one of those Georgia O’Keefe paintings. The great vagina in the sky gave birth to a circle of lights. They spun and descended. It was a genuine flying saucer! Uncle Silas fingered his goatee in astonishment.

  “Holy… Guys!” he yelled at the house waving. He could see the back of a child’s head playing a video game. The dancing news updates from 24 hour cable news channels flashed from Karl and Jesse‘s window. “Guys!” The saucer descended. It probed the grassy field with a livid blue searchlight.

  “Aw, fuck it!” he said, and walked down the slope into the field. His hair was standing up in the back, and his stomach felt light and fluttery, but he just kept thinking the same thought over and over again: This is it. It will never happen again. Not like this. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, to find out if all that crap Donnie over at Home Depot has been feeding me for weeks is true.

  Just as the blue beam found Uncle Silas and bathed him in pure light, he let out one nervous blast of flatulence. The children would have cheered if they were outside, but they weren’t.

  A half an hour later, Jesse looked outside and saw only the fire dwindling in the night. They figured Uncle Silas had gotten bored and gone home. Karl used the opportunity to teach all of the children the vital importance of fire safety.

  Not until the next morning did Chandler, over cereal and toaster pastries, point out the fact that Uncle Silas’s truck remained parked in the driveway.

  Three Months during the Lycanthropy Epidemic

  Month 1:

  I told Marcy, my fiancée, that because we were living in Vermont we would be free and clear of any danger of encountering a werewolf and contracting the lycanthropy virus that had caused so much damage to other places in the country. When I went out for an early morning jog on the snow machine trails in the back woods I learned how wrong I was.

  Do I go jogging in the early morning regularly? No. Am I a nature lover? Not really. Am I a health nut, or one of those running maniacs that can’t exist without shin splints? Hell, no.

  Did Marcy show signs of entering the dark time of her menstrual cycle? Yes. Had we been arguing with each other the night before? Sort of, in that half-assed way when you’re both too tired to put too much effort into the whole thing, but apparently you’re too bored with each other to know what else to do. After surviving a multitude of Marcy’s menstrual cycles, did I know that the best thing to do was to give her a little space, without her being conscious that I was doing so? Hell, yes.

  I have to admit, I did have ulterior motives, not serious ones, mind you. You see, I knew that our neighbor, Gracie Wilkins, often walked or jogged those trails in the morning. I had often seen her walking from her house to the trails and vice versa. Now before you go thinking I’m a stalker or some total perverted jerk, I want to be clear on a few things.

  One: Although I found Gracie attractive, in a wholesome, granola, John Denver probably wrote a song about you once, kind of way, I am not a philanderer, a cheat or a promiscuous jerk. I was engaged, and I understood that completely meant that other women were hands, and mostly, eyes off. In any case, she was ten years older, well into her mid to late thirties, not the subject of the exotic fantasies I still found time and the privacy to occasionally entertain.

  Two: Marcy had shown in her annoying way many times that she did not care for Gracie’s company. She made little comments about the Subaru Forester Gracie drove. She found fault with just about every little thing she could think of. I’m not sure why. Maybe Marcy is just enough insecure that she had to put down any single women that were around. I don’t know. All I know is that one time I had mentioned that I had talked to Gracie and found out that she had been engaged a number of years before, but something had happened. I speculated on what that was. Marcy told me it was because Gracie was a lesbian. Only Marcy said: “She’s a total lesbo!” I have to admit, the fact struck me as mildly disappointing. I was confused, then, if that were true, why Marcy seemed to be so irked about the idea that I had spoken to our next door neighbor.

  Three: Needless to say, the opportunity to shoot the breeze with Gracie hardly ever presented itself. And that, I thought, was too bad. I liked Gracie, liked her a lot. She was very positive, even when you could tell that life was dragging her down. She had cool ideas about alternative energy and living styles. Heck, I had heard that she went into the town school and got them to start composting and organized a community garden. But, mostly, to tell you the truth, she laughed, easy and free at my humor. I know it’s selfish, but it exactly the thing that Marcy had stopped doing for the past half a year.

  So, I was sneaking out to pretend to get back into shape in order to have a conversation with an older woman in the woods. I realize that it wasn’t a good sign for where Marcy's and my relationship was headed. I knew that I should address some of my peeves about living with Marcy before we got married, but I’m not good at confrontation, and Marcy was. Also, I guess all of us had hunkered down into a bunker mentality in America after the Lycanthropy virus hit. The world community had stopped allowing American citizens to visit abroad. With such an interruption in trade, the value of the dollar plummeted. Whatever extra money people could make went into getting your hands on silver and having it smelted down. Whatever community spirit was enjoyed occurred at the shooting range. We didn’t question what we had, we held on to the little normalcy we could get, especially after they quarantined the greater Denver area and declared martial law in five other American cities.

  We all knew what the virus did. The virus had carried wolf DNA over with it, and for a period of time each month the victim transformed into a wolf-human hybrid and became aggressive and dangerous during those times. It was spread though bodily fluids, such as in a bite or during sex. No one knew exactly how the virus got started. The ranchers blamed it on the re-proliferation of the wolf species to the American wilderness. Commentators on Fox News claimed that the virus had been brought here by illegal immigrant workers. The fundamentalists claimed it was the fault of homosexuality and the licentious nature of our society. I didn’t even want to speculate on how something like this had started, I just knew that I was not going to allow any stupid epidemic to stop me from pretending to get into shape and enjoy a solitary jog in God’s green wilderness.

  That’s why I saw what I did; I still wonder why I never told Marcy about it. I’m not sure, but I’ve known myself for long enough to know that it had something to do with not wanting to be wrong. I had told her that Lycanthropy would never make it to Vermont, and I was
not about to eat crow.

  ***

  I had blundered and gasped my way over roughly fifty meters when I decided a nice walk would suffice. Hey, it was quite a heat spell we were having for May. I came over a little rise and turned a bend, when I heard weeping up ahead.

  I crept forward and hid behind an old Maple. About a hundred feet ahead of me in a little clearing, Gracie was leaning on a shovel and sobbing. Her left forearm was bandaged, and even from this distance, I could see the red that had bled through. Beside her was a mound of freshly dug soil. The overgrowth did not allow me to see the pit that was dug, nor what was in it, but judging from the soil mound beside her, it was pretty big.

  Big enough, I thought, for a grave. I knew Gracie’s old dog, Boomer, had died six months before and been cremated from what she had told me when I had bumped into her at the post office in town.

  Suddenly, Gracie stopped crying and looked around. Her head swept across my way. I ducked back behind the tree, and held my breath. I’m not sure why, but my heart was racing. I waited ten solid minutes and then when I heard her rhythmically shoveling over whatever lay in the pit, I crept away and went back to the house.

  When I got back, Marcy was in the shower. I went to my bureau and got out the pistol that Marcy had insisted that I purchase after Denver ate itself. Beside the pistol, under my long johns was a case of silver bullets, the purchase of which had prevented me taking Marcy on that trip to Ireland that we had always dreamed about when we had first dated. Marcy had also insisted that I purchase some regular bullets and go out to the local firing range and target practice. I told her that it wouldn’t be a bad idea if she did that, too.

  “Don’t be a ninny, Ian,” she had said. “It’s your job. You’re the man; you should know how to protect your family.” That was her way, of course, she got all up in arms if I ever delineated gender-based roles to anyone, but Marcy knew I didn’t like guns. My father had been a hunter, but I had never liked the permanence that gun’s represented. It was too easy to make a final mistake. I understood that this was Marcy’s way of being practical, of ‘getting the job done’. It had originally thrilled me to see this in action as we had dated, but that was before I increasingly became the recipient of her harsh tongue.

  I tried to think of shooting the woman who lived next door. What kind of a messed up world were we living in when I had to even consider the prospect? I was able to get the gun back into place before my darling fiancée returned from the shower.

  ***

  Marcy returned from work on a Tuesday very excited. She told me to order some take out, and she would even ride into town and pick it up with me.

  “Wow,” I said, “what’s the big news?” I couldn’t help grinning; I’d always found her smile contagious.

  “They found a cure! Well, not a cure actually, but an inoculation. Isn’t that great? We don’t have to worry about it anymore. Just think, last week I was wondering if I ever wanted to bring a child into the world where he or she could just get turned into some awful beast, but now…” Marcy actually squealed and did a little peanut’s dance. Then she grabbed my head and kissed me six times on the face (never on the lips though).

  On the ride to get take out, I explained how the inoculation was really pretty small potatoes. If you actually encountered a werewolf, your chances of surviving to become one of the infected were pretty slim. I could see Marcy’s mood beginning to darken. I guess I should have stopped there, but that’s just the thing, with Marcy I never have been able to.

  “In fact some say that the lycanthropy epidemic might have already peaked numbers-wise. I suppose the easiest way you could contract it would be like most other viruses: have unprotected sex. I know I’m not going to have to worry about that. How about you? You plan on having a burst of unprotected sex anytime soon?”

  “Don’t be silly!” Marcy said, but you could see now her eyes told me that the smile was no longer genuine. We drove in silence.

  She didn’t need to get so angry with me so easily. I can’t help it if I wasn’t as excited about an inoculation. I remembered reading about how a bunch of people had died from a flu inoculation back in the seventies. Well, at least I didn’t bring up the fact that the inoculation wouldn’t save her potential children from being eaten alive by a pack of the infected.

  As we rode, Marcy’s pretty face turned sullen and then hardened into thin-lipped resolution. That look would have frightened a werewolf.

  ***

  Month 2:

  Marcy went ahead and got the inoculation, the Kripke Miracle, the media coined it, named after the egghead that had pushed this through to keep his countrymen safe from the disease that would re-define our era. You have to love the idiots who say and print this stuff, you know? When, Marcy fully understood that there was no way in hell that I was going to subject myself to this experimental drug, and her vision of a romantic afternoon of inoculation and then a picnic somewhere with me would not come to fruition, then she and her two best friends, Deb and Audrey, had made a girls’ outing of the whole affair.

  They got inoculated, went shopping, had dinner and came home to sit in my living room and gab away all evening.

  “You know, Ian, you should get the inoculation yourself,” Deb said as I went to the fridge for some iced tea. “Insurance covers it.”

  “Oh, Ian is afraid of needles. You know,” Marcy said, starting a stage whisper, “they make him nervous.” I realized that the three of them had been drinking. Great, completely reckless behavior all around!

  “No, that’s not why I’m not taking the damned shot!” I snapped. “I don’t trust that it’s safe.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you girls,” Audrey piped in, “but I feel great!” she gave a little drunken giggle and flopped back against the couch cushions. The girls laughed at this. Marcy threw back her head, and managed to flash one cold eye at me that told me to leave instantly. I never knew how she could manage that.

  “You know, that Kripke guy killed himself,” I said. “That isn’t very reassuring.”

  “No, I read about that,” Deb said. “He had injected himself with his special mixture or whatever and his body made the antibodies for the virus. He was able to strip the virus of the wolf genes in it. He was dying anyway. I don’t blame him for shooting himself. I would.”

  “Seriously, Ian,” Audrey asked waving her hand around. “Do you really want to take the risk and become one of those things?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe, it might not be so bad. Didn’t that Senator from Ohio say that lycanthropy was manageable with the right mood stabilizers and a nurturing environment?”

  “Oh, him. Well, haven’t you heard the latest?” Deb asked. “Senator Schoenberg’s son was found out to secretly be a werewolf. I’ve heard that he’s going to be asked to step down.”

  “Ridiculous!” I said, and I was mad. Marcy no longer smiled. I didn’t care.

  “There’s talk that they might make inoculation mandatory. The police might come and force you to get one, Ian. What are you going to do then?” Deb said. She was no longer smiling either.

  “Well, I guess I’ve got a gun. Marcy insisted on it.” I walked out of the room. I went to bed and listened to their whispers slowly grow again to giggles and then to outrageous laughter once again.

  When I woke up and Marcy came to bed, I startled. In the dark hours of the morning it felt like a stranger lay beside me.

  ***

  Our cat Gregor began to hiss at Marcy. When Marcy tried to soothe the ruffled feline, she got a couple of ragged scratches for her effort. Soon, they hissed at each other. The sound of it, sent shivers up my spine.

  Marcy, always an animal lover, started to have allergic reactions to the cat. She swore and sneezed. She suggested that we should have thought long and hard before we decided to saddle ourselves with the useless animal.

  “You used to love cats. You used to love Gregor. What happened?” I asked her one night.

  “Pe
ople change,” she said and rolled over.

  “I guess they do,” I said. She grunted and started to snore. That was a new development, too. A while later I put my arm around her naked back. She had gained a lot of clumsy weight the past few weeks. Her body felt like that of a stranger.

  I got up and let the cat out. Gregor did not come back in the morning.

  ***

  Animals were found in our part of town, deer, raccoon, dogs, and cats. I should say parts of animals were found. Something, a large animal, had torn them to pieces and ate them. People started to whisper suspicions. At the post office or in the grocery store people studied each other intently.

  ***

  The cute girl cashier at the grocery store gained a lot weight. I had always tried to say a little something to get the girl laughing; she had a nice laugh, an honest one. Not now. Now, she snorted like a pig. My boss snorted, too. Mrs. Henderson down the road looked like a chemo patient, her scalp showing though her thinning hair. I noticed her first. Soon, I began to wonder if there had been some kind of radiation accident nearby. Fifteen year old girls, as far as I could remember, never had male pattern baldness.