by Amy Cross
"Yes," Duncan says, suddenly stopping. "But where?"
I sigh. "Sorry," I say, "I was kind of assuming you'd have that worked out. I mean... you're the expert."
"Me?" he says. "Hell no. I've got a map and I came here once, years ago, briefly, but I didn't get very far. I walked maybe five, ten meters and then I turned and ran." He takes a deep breath. "Well, maybe a little more than ten meters. I poked around, met some people, but I didn't interfere with anything. I just came, and saw, and didn't conquer anything." He pauses. "No, definitely I'm no expert when it comes to the library." He points at a spot on the ground, between two shelves. "There!" he says.
"That doesn't look very safe," I say.
"Nowhere in here is safe," he replies, sounding strangely confident. "It's very hard to convincingly run away from anything in a place like this. Everything's arranged in large grids, there's nowhere to hide. Fortunately, none of the really nasty things come this close to the main door. Not usually, anyway. They loiter around the back of the library. I've heard it's horrible there. It's where they started running out of space, so the shelves get closer and closer together, like in most libraries."
We walk a little way down a side-aisle and finally we sit down. I pull off my shoes and examine the blisters on my feet. "Great," I say.
"Isn't this nice?" Duncan says. "Sleeping under the stars, surrounded by books."
"What happens if it rains?" I ask.
"No idea," Duncan says. "The books are protected by plastic covers, but I guess we'll just get wet. Don't worry, though. It almost never rains in here. It's quiet and calm and beautiful. Don't you think this is nice?"
"It's lovely," I say, not really 'getting' it. "So how many people are in the library?"
"Who knows?" Duncan says, shrugging. He produces a couple of sandwiches from his pockets and hands one to me. "Egg," he says. "There are at least a hundred million people here, maybe more."
"A hundred million?" I ask, shocked.
"This is the library of the Underworld," Duncan replies as he starts to eat. "A lot of people come here for information. Some of them get lost. Some of them decide they don't want to love. Some of them -"
"Where do we pee?" I ask, suddenly realizing that this could be a really big practical problem.
"I don't know," Duncan says. "Just pop around the corner into another aisle."
"That's gross," I say.
"I can't think of another option," he replies. "I never said this place was -" He suddenly stops speaking.
"What?" I ask.
He looks along the aisle. "I heard something," he says. "Didn't you hear something?"
"No," I say.
"Your senses aren't as well-developed as mine," he continues, clearly worried. "I definitely heard something. Something nasty. Something with teeth."
"You said the really nasty things don't come to this part of the library," I remind him.
"I said they don't usually come to this part of the library," he says, standing up. "Get on your feet. We might need to run." As I stand up, he keeps sniffing the air. "Besides, even if the really nasty things aren't around, there could still be other things."
We stand in silence for a moment, both of us listening for any sign of something approaching. The library sounds quiet to me, although I know that my hearing - though better than a human's - isn't fully developed yet. As Duncan likes to remind me constantly, I've only been a werewolf for a short period of time and my skills will take time to reach their fullest potential. It's frustrating, but there's not much I can do about it.
"I don't hear anything," I whisper eventually.
"Neither do I," Duncan replies, "but there's definitely something."
I look along the aisle and see nothing coming, and then I look the other way and - again - there's nothing. Frankly, although Duncan has told me over and over again that this place is crawling with creatures, I'm finding it hard to believe that there's anything here apart from us; at least not in this part of the library.
I pause, and then suddenly I get a hint of whatever Duncan's talking about. I can't describe it, but it's as if I can just tell somehow that something nasty is nearby. It's a feeling of total dread that is overcoming my body. Slowly, and with a mounting sense of realization, I look up and see a large thing climbing along the bookshelf directly above us. I have no idea what it is, but it's as big as a fucking car, it has lots of long spider-like legs, and it's making a noise like it's sharpening lots of sharp blades somewhere deep inside its body.
"Could that be it?" I ask.
Duncan looks up. "That's one of them," he says, as two more of them appear above us. "And there are the rest."
"What are they?" I say.
"They're..." Duncan pauses. "They're big spidery things with long legs and lots of teeth."
"They look like spiders."
"Maybe," he replies, "or more like big ticks."
"So you don't know?" I reply.
He shrugs. "But we should definitely run," he says.
"Now?" I ask.
"Now," he says.
I turn and start running along the aisle just as the first of the large creatures comes crashing down towards us. It's so heavy, the whole ground shakes beneath us, almost causing me to lose my footing.
"Not that way!" Duncan shouts. "This way!"
I turn and see that Duncan ran in the opposite direction, but now the three creatures are down in the aisle between us and more are crawling over the tops of the bookshelves.
"Around!" Duncan shouts. "Run around! I'll be right behind you!"
As two of the creatures hurry towards me, moving much faster than I expected, I turn and switch into my wolf form, running as fast as I can. I don't even dare to look back, but I can feel from the way the ground is rumbling that they're not far behind. Reaching a break in the aisle, I turn left and run along another aisle, and finally I dare to look back only to see two of the creatures are almost keeping pace with me.
Looking ahead, I suddenly see another of the creatures ahead. I take a sharp right into another aisle and I keep running and running and running, darting into another aisle eventually in an attempt to escape from them. After running for almost an hour, I look back and find that the creatures are gone. It takes me a few more minutes to feel completely safe, as I check adjacent aisles and keep looking up. Finally, I relax and switch back to my human form, and I start looking around for Duncan.
"Duncan!" I call out, trying not to call any unwanted attention to myself. I wait, but there's no sign of him. "Duncan!" I call again. I check another aisle, and then another, but there's no sign of him. Getting a little worried, I start climbing up one of the bookshelves and finally I reach the top. The view in the early morning sunlight is stunning: thousands - if not millions - of bookshelves, spreading to the horizon in every direction, running over hills and down into valleys.
And there's nothing moving. Nothing alive. No sign of anyone.
"Duncan!" I shout as loud as I can, my voice echoing between the shelves. "Duncan!"
Jess
One week later...
In my wolf form, I walk along the top of the bookshelf. When I get to the end of an aisle, I leap over the gap and starting walking along the next. This is what I've been doing for days and days and days: just walking and hoping that somewhere, somehow, I'll see something that helps me find Duncan and find a way out of the library. But everything has kind of blurred together, and now I don't even know where I'm going. The library has become this huge abstract maze, but a maze made of nothing but straight lines intersecting with one another in a huge grid.
All around, as far as I can see, there's nothing but bookshelves stretching to the horizon. I've no idea how many books there must be here, but it must be well over a billion. All the knowledge of the world, gathered here in such an ordinary way. How can something so amazing and powerful look so... boring! Duncan said there were creatures in the library, but the place seems utterly dead: apart from those spider-like creatures
that attacked us, all I've seen have been a few skeletons. There aren't even any birds in the sky.
Off towards the east, there's smoke rising in the distance, which I guess must be that 'war' that Duncan mentioned was raging in part of the library. Occasionally I think I hear the sound of roars coming from that direction, but apart from that the whole place is spookily quiet.
So here I am, wandering across the library forlornly, hoping against hope that fate will somehow step in and save me. I've kind of given up thinking I can use my mind to find a way out. Everything I do is just guesswork. I'm still finding it impossible to find my way around this place. It's been a week since I was separated from Duncan, and I don't seem to be any closer to finding him. If anything, I feel like I'm getting further and further away.
I stop and sit down, looking out across the view. I've spent most of the past week in my wolf form, drinking water from occasional puddles that I find down between the shelves. Other than that, I stay up on top so that I can get a better view of the area around me. The last thing I want is for more of those spider-like things to sneak up on me. I'm getting baked in the heat of the day, but at night it's cold. There were a couple of brief rain showers, but so far I haven't been able to find any food. There aren't any mirrors, but I'm pretty sure I must be getting dangerously thin, and I'm going to need food soon. The problem is, I haven't seen a single living creature since I ran from the spider-like things that chased me.
I'm lost.
I'm totally fucking lost.
I don't even know if I'm walking towards the entrance, or away from it.
All I know is that I'm walking in a straight line and I don't seem to be heading towards anything other than the horizon.
"Hey!" shouts a voice from somewhere nearby. "Look up there!"
At first, I don't even notice the voice. I guess I've pretty much given up thinking that there might be anyone around.
"Fucking hell," says the voice, and finally I realize they're close to me. Shocked to hear people, I look down and see two male humans walking between the aisles. They're wearing what seem to be business suits, and they're looking up at me. Each of them is carrying what seems to be a spear. There's something about the way they're looking at me that makes me feel a little uneasy.
"What the fuck is a wolf doing in here?" the other guy says, smiling. He turns to his friend. "You ever eaten dog?"
"You think you can hit it from here?" the first guy asks him.
"I can try," his friend replies, raising his spear. I leap down into the next aisle before he has a chance to attack, and I quickly switch to my human form. I'm immediately shocked when I see how thin my arms are. I listen as the two men walk along the next aisle, discussing whether they can catch up to me.
"Hi," I say, stepping out in front of them.
They stop in their tracks, clearly shocked to see me.
"Who the fuck are you?" the first guy asks.
"Jess," I say. "Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm Thomas," the first guy replies, "and this is my friend Lewis. We were..." He pauses. "Did you happen to see a wolf around here?"
I point back down the aisle. "She went that way," I say, lying, "but she was running real fast. I doubt you'd be able to catch her."
"Fuck it," says Lewis, clearly annoyed.
"Ignore my friend," Thomas says. "He's just hungry." Of the two of them, Thomas is by far the more handsome. He has rugged good looks, whereas Lewis is thin and wiry with pinkish round eyes and a beak-like nose.
"No kidding," I say. "I'm starving. There's not a burger place in here, is there?"
"No such luck," Thomas says. He pauses, clearly eying me up. "Where'd you come from?" he asks, suddenly seeming a little suspicious. "What kind of book are you looking for?"
"I'm here with a friend," I say, "though I can't find him. I haven't seen him for a while. Have you seen a tall, good-looking guy who acts a bit strange? He often mumbles incoherently and talks about things that don't make sense." I sigh, realizing that the odds of them having seen Duncan are tiny. "I guess that's a 'No', then."
"Just us," Thomas says, smiling. "We're on a hunting trip. We're supposed to find food and take it back to our tribe."
"Tribe?" I ask.
"We got lost in here," he says. "We came in a large group, to find books so that we could learn from them and take the knowledge back to our civilization. Unfortunately our maps were destroyed, and after a few years we just gave up trying to find a way out. We were woefully under-prepared. A lot of us died. Now there are about fifty of us left, living over in the Cultural Studies section. We're pretty comfortable. Life could be worse. The only problem is the lack of food. That's why we wanted to find that wolf."
"Could've fed us for a week," Lewis adds, sounding bitter. "We've learned to be pretty frugal with what we find. There's not much that we'd leave behind on a carcass like that. Even the bones could've been used for stock."
"Yeah," I say, "well..." It's pretty weird standing here talking to two guys who're practically salivating about the prospect of cutting me up and feeding me to their 'tribe'. "So what do you guys usually eat?"
"There are things," Thomas says. "Things that live in the library. Creatures that don't taste too bad after a while." He pauses. "You get used to it." He stares at me again, still seeming a little suspicious. "The problem is that we can't afford to take on a free-loader. No offense. If you want to eat with us, you need to contribute, otherwise you're just another mouth to feed."
"Who said I want to eat with you?" I ask, annoyed at his assumption.
"Well... look at you," he replies. "You're like a skeleton. You clearly haven't eaten anything for a while. Another couple of days, you'll be just another pile of bones between the shelves."
"And then something'll eat you," Lewis adds helpfully.
"I'll be fine," I say. "You really don't need to worry about me, but thanks anyway. I appreciate the concern." Realizing that these two guys don't have anything much to offer me, I turn to walk away. I guess it was too much to hope that I'd stumble into some helpful guys who'd feed me and point me in the right direction.
"Wait!" Thomas calls out. "Maybe we can help each other!"
I stop in my tracks. Although I desperately don't want to have anything to do with these guys, I can't help thinking that maybe they could at least be useful for a day or two. If I'm going to find Duncan, I need some food to keep me going, and I need to have some idea of which direction I'm going. "Fine," I say, turning back to face them. "What do you really think we can do?"
"We don't always eat meat," Thomas says. "We tend gardens between the shelves. We grow vegetables, and we eat pretty well. Meat's a rare luxury when we find something we can handle. It doesn't happen often. If you're interested in coming to join out tribe, we could probably find something for you to do. I know you're a little weak, but believe me when I say that you're in better shape than most of us."
"I'm not looking for something permanent," I say. "I just want some help finding my friend and working out which way to go."
"We don't have maps," Lewis says. "And we're not just going to give you food so you can turn around and walk away. If you want anything from us, you're going to have to give us something in return."
"Like what?" I ask.
"We'll think of something," Lewis says bluntly, eying me with a kind of cold steel.
I shrug, feeling pretty annoyed at Lewis. He seems so arrogant, as if he thinks they'd be doing me a huge favor just by letting me hang out with their miserable little 'tribe'. "Don't worry about it," I say. "I'm not gonna stay in this place anyway. I'm not from around here."
"Then we can't help you," Lewis continues. "If you're just passing through, that's great, but our lifestyle is all about permanence these days. If you want to keep trying to get out, good luck to you, but we can't do anything for you. We've given up on trying to find a way out, but life can be good in the library."
"Sounds great," I say sarcastically. "You're out hunting wolv
es for dinner, and it doesn't look like you're doing very well at it."
"Your choice," Lewis says, turning and walking away.
"You should come with us," Thomas says, smiling. "At least for tonight. Maybe we can work something out, and you'll be safer if you're in our settlement rather than wandering around out here. If we hadn't found you, that wolf might have had you for dinner."
"I'll come," I say, "but I'm not gonna change my mind. I have to find my friend."
"You should accept that he might be dead," Thomas says as we start walking, with Lewis a little way ahead. "Even if he's alive, the odds of you simply stumbling upon him in a place this big are astronomical. At some point, you're going to have to stop clinging to the past."
"It's only been a week," I say, "so I think there's at least a chance that maybe I can still find him and then we can get out of here."
Thomas sighs. "I've seen this a thousand times," he says. "People get lost in the library, but they're always convinced that somehow they'll be the one who manages to find a way out. Then they start looking. And looking. And looking. The lucky ones give up, realize they're hopelessly lost, and start adapting to life here."
"And the unlucky ones?" I ask, kind of already knowing what he's going to say.
"They keep looking for a way out. Eventually they get to the point where they can't go on, and they collapse between the shelves. It's sad, but it's how the ecosystem works in the library. The smart ones get to feed off the bodies of the dumb ones."
"Mites!" Lewis shouts suddenly, and I see one of the large spider-like creatures climbing down from the top of a bookshelf.
"Get back!" Thomas says, pushing me behind him as he raises his spear.
"I've seen them before," I say. "I ran. That's how I got lost in the first place."
"They're fast," Thomas continues. "There's no way you could outrun them."
"Well I -" I start to say, and then I realize I can't explain because I can't tell him that I'm actually a werewolf.
"I can get this one!" Lewis shouts as the Mite approaches him. After aiming carefully, he throws his spear at the Mite, but it lashes out with one of its legs and knocks the weapon to the ground. Before Lewis can react, the Mite thrusts another leg straight at him; it impales him through the chest and comes out the other side, covered in blood.