The Night Library

by T L Barrett

  “Hey Fatso!” I yelled. “Is that how monsters like you get their kicks, spying on old ladies?” Larue looked up and he scanned the tree, hissing with spite.

  “Let’s go Fatso!” I managed to yell, before I leapt from my branch and landed on the ground. Larue leapt from the roof, but I did not wait to see him land, I took off running full tilt back toward the center of town.

  As I did so a great explosion rocked the night air. I whirled and looked about me. In the sky great petals of fiery light rippled and fell in a cascade toward the earth: fireworks. Could this be the Fourth of July? Had I been dead for two months?

  I ran for Rogers Park beside the river in the middle of town. I could feel Larue behind me and knew that he was gaining on me. Without planning I ran into the crowd of people that sat on lawn chairs or on blankets watching the holiday spectacle above them. As I ran through people they shivered and shook themselves, looking around with wonder. Finally, I found a particularly fat man who sat with his family in the park and hunkered down behind his back, scanning the trees at the edge of the clearing.

  I couldn’t see Larue, but I knew he was there, hiding among the dark ferns and tree shadow. I brought my bow up and sighted the thing just beside the fat man’s left ear.

  Suddenly, the fireworks erupted with a brilliant display above us. The people let out one collective sigh of wonder. The woods were lit with a brilliant ghostly light. I saw Larue standing there between two maple trees.

  I fired into the memory of the flash.

  After a breath, a scream tore from the trees beside the park. People looked around them in fright. I stood up, as did those near where Larue had hid himself. The fat ghost stumbled down out of the woods, and the people he passed through screamed and scrambled to be away from him.

  My arrow had buried itself in the dark monster’s heart. He howled and thrashed. I could see that a hot cinder from the fireworks had misfired and had fallen among the crowd there. He howled through the smoke, and the people rushed their children away.

  Larue’s scream went higher and higher, like the whistling screech of a Screaming Mimi. His head fell back and his fanged mouth opened wide. The ghosts that the creature had consumed for the past six years burst from his mouth and flew into the sky. At that moment another firework exploded above, and the crowd cheered with joy. I saw Clem’s grandmother, Jason and many others that I had known as a young boy take to the sky and dance with the firelight above.

  Some of the spirits took hold of Larue and carried him like an obscene balloon over the crowd. Then taking flight in opposite directions, the ghosts tore Larue to pieces. The tiny spirits of babies, like cherubs on the wing, whipped out and soared away into the sky.

  So, that’s what happened after the party. Some of the spirits thanked me and left for higher places, others decided to stay for a while and watch over those they loved. I decided to stay. The prospect of getting sucked into those eternal fireworks in the sky is appealing. I imagine it’s like some kind of wonderful amusement ride, and then I wonder, what happens to you when the great Milky Way swings round again? Do I get deposited back in the flesh, to try again?

  It sounds right. It sounds fine. But, I just can’t leave just yet. I don’t want anyone doing to my town what Larue did. I feel like I can finally make a difference. I have the bow and I’ll use it if I have to. There’s a new sheriff in town, you see, and until I find that special someone who needs to feel the way I do now, I’ll keep the bow and keep the spiritual peace.

  England, the Bad Dream

  Most of the time, Alan wondered if his semester abroad was merely teaching him alcohol tolerance. On that night in Stratford it appeared to be teaching him the finer points of heart break.

  Liz hadn’t seen him see her kissing the guy who had played one of the lovers in As You Like It. Alan had been glad of that, it would have been too easy for her, too awkwardly painful for him. He stumbled away from the pub. Before he knew it, he was out in the cool air, his feet taking him further down the cobbled walk. His mind reeled with violent thoughts. Hateful mutterings escaped his lips. He fell up against a lamp post and cursed himself bitterly for being such a drunken half-wit.

  No, he thought, I can’t hate myself, I need to hate her. While she sits there and quietly whispers how ‘American’ the other girls are and rolls her eyes, while she claims they’re all cheap sluts out to spend their daddies’ money, she will pucker up and thrust those pointy tits at any dick with an accent and the ability to memorize lines.

  Just forget about her. The words entered his mind as if they were blown in there by a little breeze. Yes, he would forget about her. He would go for a walk, because he was in fucking England, England! She might be able to diddle a two-penny actor, but this here, fellow, could make love to the night, to the very land itself!

  Alan took in a deep breath and looked up into the sky. It was clear, but he wouldn’t be able to see the stars very clearly from here. He would have to walk a bit out of town to really soak up the beauty of the night. That thought made him think of Byron, and he made a decision that he was through with long term relationships, he would be like a romantic poet and dally with whomever he pleases.

  There must have been some part of him that realized the irony of this. If he never got close and never felt love, he would never be able to wallow in the pain of which all those poets seemed so overly fond. There must have also been some part of him that realized that wandering drunk out of a strange town in a foreign country might not be such a good idea. But, the sharp ache in his heart chased him; so with as much dignity he could muster, he sauntered stolidly down a bike path and soon left the town of Shakespeare’s birth.

  The path led through some open meadows with trees and bushes sporadically growing on either side. In the moonlight it all looked rather planned, so aesthetically pleasing did the chalky light fall upon the rowan leaves and the gorse. At some point the path became a dirt path and Alan paused before slipping under the shadow of a tree (was it a yew?) that arched its branches over his way.

  It was one thing to be a cuckolded fool on one’s own, but it was a whole other thing to be a chicken-shit, cuckolded fool that runs back like an infant to hide in the little room at the bed and breakfast. He took a deep breath and walked through.

  He heard something in the tree above him and swung his head up. He caught sight of large eyes staring down at him. He stumbled and fell against the tree.

  An owl, it was just an owl. He grinned. That is something special; he was sure. He walked out with the renewed confidence of a true explorer ready to soak up the sights, smells and sounds of this wondrous landscape. Shapes moved among the bushes and taller grass of the meadows. Rabbits? If so, they were the biggest rabbits he had ever seen. He stopped still to admire them. They too, seemed to freeze into shadowy statues, until he wondered if they were really alive at all.

  “Don’t worry Hazel and Bigwig and Fiver. I’m no Elmer Fudd, you see. You may wander and scamper anon, for you will find no enemy in me.” It returned to him just how very drunk he was. The thought made him giddy. He thought he might raise his arms up to the stars and do a little jig upon the path.

  Then one of the rabbits turned its head toward him. Its huge black slanted eyes caught the moonlight. They speared Alan still with their bottomless gaze. From his periphery he noted the others now, standing taller, turning their black gazes upon him. From beyond the sluggish beat of his heart somewhere up in his throat, Alan recognized that these were not, in fact, rabbits.

  Alan would have run and screamed or protested as the one who had first turned its head approached, but he could not. He could only stand there fixed in the gaze of that creature, as its pale, mottled skin came into the light of the moon. Bald with a long hooked nose that twitched this way and that, the creature waddled and appeared preternaturally graceful at the same moment. The other creatures gathered closer, as well. Some were without noses and others had large appendages that drooped from their skulls. Some had thin fac
es, while others were squat and had enormous mouths like toads with teeth. All of them had the black bottomless eyes.

  They gathered very close and the smell of rot and worms filled Alan’s nose. His mouth tasted brackish and metallic. The creatures took his hands and their touch was dead cold and slimy, like the feel of refrigerated night crawlers. They led him at a strange hectic pace down paths where the very trees and bush seemed to shift to allow them passage. Then they were out in the moonlight again, on the side of a strange steep hill. Standing beside it, Alan felt very small and smothered.

  The hillside seemed to swallow him. The creatures dragged him pell-mell through grass and dirt and then roots. They chattered on the edge of precipices where hot winds blew.

  They delivered him upon some kind of dais in an enormous cavern. He could feel the weight of the earth above him and all around him. Below and before him, a swarming multitude of the things chattered and shifted. They bore in on his thoughts with their black eyes.

  As he was placed in a chair, a great choral sound like insects laughing arose. The slimy cold hands probed him here and there. Something wet plunged into his ear. Clamps held his hands to the chair. Tears fell from his eyes, but still no sound did he make. A thin creature with the face of a withered ancient leaned forward and slid a long black tongue up the side of his face. It shuddered from the taste. This caused a great movement from the multitude below. Then another movement happened as all of the creatures looked up and screamed ululations of fear and adoration.

  Alan tried to look up, but his neck felt stiff. He managed to see a great pale shape descending down from the darkness. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see it. The sense of its immensity filled him. He sucked in his breath as the thing drew close. Strange feelers ran over his neck and shoulders, and down his side. On each side of him, two little creatures wrestled with something and then brought it against his temples. A great searing pain erupted in his head.

  His eyes flew open, his body went rigid. A bloated thing with many black slanted eyes hung before him. Segmented limbs like those of a spider ran over him and filled the entire periphery of his vision. Whispered messages filled his head. A strong central voice swallowed the others, the voice of a terrible mother. She swallowed his voice, the one that screamed in his head.

  Something slid into his pants and fastened itself between his legs. A great electric current throbbed through him. He jerked and the mother/Alan thing cried out.

  ***

  At some point, in the mist of morning, Alan found himself walking the long path back into Stratford-upon-Avon. He came into his consciousness slowly, so that he took no shock to find himself there. He stopped and looked around, once, blinking his eyes like a child. Seeing buildings ahead, he decided to continue on his way.

  Upon setting foot on the cobbled walk once more, Alan passed an old woman smoking a pipe in front of a house. Alan stopped and studied her with an impassive expression. Alan felt burdened with news, but could not remember what it was he was supposed to say.

  “You’ve been touched by the little people, you have,” the woman said, narrowing her eyes at him. Alan took a step toward her.

  “You stay the hell away from me, you!” she yelled. “Shoo!” She cast him back with the back of her hand, wrapped in a shawl, as she would an unwanted dog. Alan backed away and kept walking. He found his way back to the bed and breakfast where the others in his abroad program were sleeping off the night’s revelry.

  Later in the morning they took a bus back to London. Alan slept most of the time. He noticed that Liz was avoiding him, chatting with feigned collegiality with the tri-delta girls about a Greek that one of them had met the night before. Liz kept eyeing him, wondering if Alan knew what had happened. The others eyed both of them and wondered what would happen now. This all made Alan very uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable was the fact that so much of the night he could not remember, all save witnessing the first girl he had ever had sex with making out with some big-chinned thespian. Some defeatist part of him just wished the booze could have taken that part as well. He kept seeing images of an owl and lots of rabbits in his mind’s eye.

  They stopped at a country pub for lunch. In the dark interior the few blokes in attendance eyed the co-eds with a mixture of appraisal and distrust. Alan picked at his ploughman’s lunch and then reached over and took Liz by the arm. She jumped a little at that, and it hurt Alan to feel her pull away from him. When he looked into her eyes, and saw the fear there; his hurt turned to anger.

  “I don’t feel very well.”

  “Well, you drank quite a bit last night…We all did,” she said, trying to smile.

  “Maybe it is something I ate. I feel awful,” he said. Liz suddenly brightened. She understood now that Alan’s sullen withdrawal from conversation that day had to do with this physical malaise. He didn’t know about her indiscretion. Alan could read the series of thoughts as they passed across her face.

  “It’s the fish. You insisted on having the fish for dinner. I warned you, silly man,” she said and put a warm palm against his forehead. He managed a smile, and Liz drew in a little closer. They held hands under the table. The rest of the group seemed to note this, and the talk grew louder in the pub, the dialogue more raucous.

  They held hands the rest of the way home. For a moment, nearly drifting off to sleep, Alan was sure her hand felt cold and gritty like worms. He shuddered, and she made the little love murmurs that one does to a cat and pressed her chest against him.

  The program’s theater class mandated attendance at a number of theater performances, one of which was the night’s performance of a restoration comedy in the West End. Nobody was very enthusiastic about it. Alan left Liz then at High Hoburn and returned to the room in the flat the university had procured for him. He watched an old comedy with the sound down and ate ravioli out of a can for dinner. After showering, he dressed and took the tube to the show.

  “You look nice,” he told Liz when she arrived with a few others. She did. She wore a low cut blouse with some harem pants and heels.

  “I wanted to impress the sweetest boy in the world,” she said and gave him a kiss. They went in and watched corsets and periwigs and fans flutter across the stage for the first act. During the intermission they shared a cigarette and imagined together what their friends back home must be up to.

  During the second half, Alan felt a great restlessness. The laughter of the crowd around him lulled him to a stupor, but he felt he must not nod off during the performance. Eventually, he got up and excused himself. He went outside and paced. He bummed a cigarette off a guy waiting for a cab. Alan never carried cigarettes with him. Liz was the big smoker. He had successfully avoided a serious addiction thus far by adhering to this practice.

  While he smoked his eyes fell on an advertisement for a night club: three dancers silhouetted against a black back ground. The Night Dance was written in gothic lettering above. The hours, prices, and location were printed in small letter below. Alan studied it with great attention.

  Sometime later the exodus from the theater began. Liz found Alan, hands in pockets on the sidewalk.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, some of the fear creeping back in her voice. She still wasn’t sure that he did not know.

  “I just needed some air. The thing was pretty predictable, anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, come with me and have a drink.”

  “Oh, Alan, I’m kind of tired, and it’s starting to rain,” she said with a smile to soften the blow. Alan hadn’t noticed the rain falling all around him.

  “I know this special place I’ve wanted to check out,” Alan said.

  “Why don’t we take a rain check, okay?”

  At this moment, Alan knew that he would be going to The Night Dance, whether Liz accompanied him or not. He also felt that he shouldn’t try too hard to push for her to come. For some reason, it felt wrong to do so. He almost smiled her off, but the memory of the night before
returned with the pain and insecurity.

  “Liz…do you love me?” Alan asked. Liz looked around in embarrassment to see if anyone was within earshot.

  “You know I love you, silly head. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Then come with me, for a drink. That’s all I ask. I’ll have you back for the final train. I promise.”

  Liz agreed and they walked to the train station hand in hand. Alan whisked her onto one train and then they boarded another. Normally, Alan was atrocious at figuring out which train he needed to take, but an intuition guided him toward The Night Dance.

  The club stood on a rise near Hampstead Heath. A lot of posh folks stood in line.

  “Why do you want to go in here so badly?” Liz said and wrinkled her nose.

  “I just do, okay?”

  “Well, at least it stopped raining,” she said optimistically with a yawn.

  Inside, the music boomed out an eclectic mix of dark rave beats and remixed disco hits. Alan bought them each a drink, and they stood watching people dance.