The Bookshop From Hell

by David Haynes

  “I’m so glad we found each other again,” she said. “Sometimes it takes a while to find the person you’re meant to be with but when you do, you should never let go.”

  He nodded but said nothing. His grin was too wide to risk talking.

  “I’m never going to let go of you again,” she said. “You found me when nobody else would even talk to me. You’re my only real friend.” She nuzzled into his neck. “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For not abandoning me like all the others.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he replied. “I never stopped loving you.”

  She giggled. “Isn’t it funny how things work out? In all this…this crap that the town’s going through, we found love.” She laughed again. This time he joined in.

  They sat in silence for a while. Dew was already forming on the grass. It was getting cold.

  “You know that time up at the cabin,” she started. “My uncle’s place.”

  Ryan grimaced. He didn’t want to talk about that. Not ever again. He’d endured the physical pain of that moment for weeks. He was still suffering from its barbed memory. He was apt to lose his good spirits if she continued.

  “I don’t want to…” he started.

  She moved away from him, put a finger on his lips. “I’d like to make it right,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Make that a faded memory and create something real, something better. Much better.” She smiled and then giggled again.

  He was taken by surprise. With the other three girls he’d had to make all the running, use all the charm he had left. His position in the school had still carried some weight with the less popular girls. They made it easy for him. But Megan was on a different level. He’d been prepared to wait a while longer before suggesting they take things to the next stage. Yet here she was, actually suggesting it to him. This wasn’t in his story. He was the instigator in that. He always was. Ryan thought for a moment. Did it matter? The end result would be the same. He considered taking the book out of his jacket pocket and going through the final few chapters, then dismissed the idea. It would be too weird. Megan might lose interest and then he’d have to work at convincing her again. No, this way was much better, and by the end of the chapter Megan would be dead and she would feel every moment of that death for eternity.

  “Are you sure?” he said. “I don’t want to rush you, especially with everything that’s…”

  She interrupted his charade of concern and kissed him on the mouth. It was long and wet, arousing in the extreme, especially when he knew what he was going to do to her.

  “Is your dad home?” she asked, breaking away.

  He’d never taken Megan back there when they were dating. He’d been too ashamed of how his dad lived. The house was dirty and a mess. Nobody had cleaned it for years, and there was a permanent smell in the bathroom that he’d never got used to.

  “Err…I’m not sure it’s…”

  He paused. This was better than taking her up to the lake. His dad would be out all night, as he usually was now. There was the garage with all the tools, rusty or otherwise, hanging up in there. It was perfect. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not? He’ll be out all night. We won’t be disturbed.”

  She beamed up at him. “You want to go? My parents aren’t expecting me home for a couple of hours yet.”

  Ryan jumped to his feet and pulled her with him. “I don’t need asking twice!”

  *

  Ryan’s place was on the edge of town. His dad had once tried to run an auto salvage yard on the few acres of land he had, which were no use for anything else, but the business sank without trace. Brad Simmons was no business man and he gave most of the parts away to his drinking buddies. All that was left now was an overgrown field with a few rusted old hulks poking out of it.

  There was a house, such as it was. It had started life as a trailer but his dad had hammered lengths of wood to it, extended it haphazardly until what was left was a ramshackle zigzag of a property that never felt quite right.

  Ryan drove his dad’s truck up the dusty drive, turning off the headlights before they settled on the house. Despite the circumstances and what was about to happen, he retained his sense of embarrassment as keenly as the humiliation he’d felt at Gary Palmer’s cabin with Megan.

  He pulled up outside and climbed out. Before Megan could open her door, he rushed around and opened it for her. He took her hand and led her inside. His cock stiffened in his pants.

  “You want anything to drink?” he said, guiding her through the kitchen.

  “No, but you go right ahead.”

  There was a bottle of cheap whiskey in the cupboard. He’d drunk half of it in the cabin before dealing with his first, Melody Adams. He shook his head. He wanted to be sober for this chapter.

  Ryan walked her quickly past the bathroom toward his room at the back of the house. If she noticed the smell, she didn’t mention it. He opened his bedroom door and ushered her inside. She was still smiling, even when he put the lamp on and she saw the mess. She didn’t lose the smile, not even for a second.

  What would happen when he reached the end of the chapter? Killing Megan was the last few pages. Would there be another story? He would have to go and see the old man at the bookstore and get another one. He couldn’t live without it now.

  Megan kissed him again. This time it was soft and gentle. He returned her kiss and ran his hands up and down her back. Not too fast, he didn’t want to scare her away. The scaring part would come later. After he’d settled this little scene.

  She took his hand and moved it around her front, placing it on her breast. He gulped. Had she ever been like this before? He didn’t remember. That whole other life had fallen away, slid into the distance.

  He barely had time to register the feel of her breast before her hands were working at his pants, undoing the belt and sliding them down past his knees. It was moving too fast, he couldn’t concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing. Her hands were all over him.

  “Why don’t you lie on the bed?” she said, nuzzling and kissing his neck.

  He fell backward, or rather was pushed backward onto the bed. His pants were around his ankles but his top half was fully clothed. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to take off his jacket.

  She stood above him, looking up and down his body. He felt exposed, and for the first time in several weeks, out of control. He needed his book. He wanted it badly, more than he wanted Megan.

  He tried to scramble up the bed a little, to give himself room to reach inside his jacket. He didn’t want her to see the rising panic, to think he was scared. But she climbed onto the bed and straddled him.

  “Where you going, Ryan? Not trying to get away from me, are you?”

  He shook his head, trying his best to smile. “Of course not, I just wanted…I just wanted to look at something…” He eased himself back a little, and reached into his pocket for the reassuring texture of the book’s cover under in his fingers.

  Megan shuffled above him, almost crawling up his body. What the hell was going on here? She was like a wild animal. He glanced up, saw her reaching into her purse.

  “You have one, too?” she said.

  He froze. In her hand was a book. The cover looked identical to his.

  “What?” he stuttered. “You have a story?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her smile wasn’t friendly anymore. It was more of a grimace. “My story is in here.” She tapped the cover with a painted fingernail. “And you feature as one of the main characters. Particularly toward the end.”

  He shook his head, trying to open his book, wanting desperately to read a page or two, but she batted it away. It had been too fast, her moves totally unexpected. He wasn’t prepared.

  “No need to resist me,” she said, reaching above his head and taking hold of the lamp from the nightstand. “You’re not going to like this very much I’m afraid, Ryan. About as much as those girls you kil
led up at my uncle’s cabin did.”

  She smashed the lamp across his head. He saw a bright pinprick of light and then her face swam out of sight.

  45

  It was after midnight when the sound of banging on the front door woke Dan. It felt like he’d only been asleep for a matter of seconds. He hadn’t been able to get comfortable. No matter which position he lay, his head felt like it wanted to pound its way right through the pillows, through the bed and down into the earth.

  He lay still, unsure of whether it was his head banging or the door. The loud knocking sounded again. He groaned and eased himself out of bed. He was still half-asleep as he padded down the hall to the lounge. The thought that it might be Paul Weaver didn’t cross his mind until he was right beside the door. There was no spyhole, so he couldn’t even see out to check.

  His heart rate went up a notch. If it was Paul come to make trouble, he’d have Brad Simmons with him. He’d have his hands full dealing with both of them. Dan looked at the phone on the wall. He could, and probably should, call the cops but even if they had anyone available, they were half an hour away. He looked about the room, lit orange by the streetlights, searching for something to defend himself with. There was nothing except an old dish filled with coins.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “JJ, sir.”

  He felt a wave of relief, releasing a long exhalation of breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding in. It was quickly replaced by concern. He unlocked the door.

  “JJ? What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t wait to be invited in but slid past Dan, walking straight into the lounge. “You have that book?”

  “What’s going on?” Lori came out of her room, looking bleary-eyed. “JJ?” She looked from JJ to Dan. “Is everything okay?”

  He shrugged. “Couldn’t this have waited until the morning?”

  JJ shook his head. “No. I don’t think it can. I don’t think we should wait another minute.”

  “For what?” he asked. JJ’s hand was bandaged where Alex had cut him.

  “For me to read the book Castavet gave me. I need to know what’s in there.”

  Dan frowned. “Blank pages. That’s all.” He’d flicked through it on the way back from the hospital.

  “To you, that might be true,” he replied. “But I know I’ll see something different. Just like Alex did.”

  “I don’t know, it’s…” Dan touched his cheek, felt the tight skin around his cheekbone.

  “I know,” JJ interrupted. He sat down on the couch. “It sounds crazy but think about it. Who do we know who had one of those books? Alex, for one.”

  He slid his rucksack onto his lap, brought out one of the books. It was in an evidence bag. “Mrs. Phelps.” He held it up. “I saw the broken spine of one near where they hung Dave Pope. I bet someone on the football team or someone close to it has one. And if Gary Palmer didn’t have one, it’s only because he didn’t kill those girls. The real killer has one. I guarantee it. You think it’s a coincidence? I don’t.”

  “Paul has one,” said Lori, walking over to JJ. “I tore a page out.”

  “Then if he has one, I don’t want to think about what he’s capable of,” said JJ. “He’s riding around pretending to be a cop. I saw him take some stuff from the police station.”

  “What the hell were you doing in there?” Dan asked.

  He held up Lynda’s book. “Finding this.” He looked down, shuffled his feet. “And Alex’s book. I wish I hadn’t.”

  Lori put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you can’t blame yourself for that. He was troubled. The book isn’t to blame and neither are you.”

  “But that’s just it. The book is to blame.” He looked agitated, standing up again. “I took it to him, told him it was filled with blank pages. He said it wasn’t. I saw his lips moving when he turned the pages. I asked him to read it to me. You know what he did?”

  Dan shrugged.

  “He read it. Out loud.”

  “What did he say?” Dan asked.

  JJ shook his head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t English. It was…it sounded old. It wasn’t any language I’ve ever heard. It was weird.” He paused. “Like…like he was speaking in tongues or something, I don’t know. The point is, he could see something on the page. He could see things I couldn’t. He kept saying it was his book. His story. So maybe that’s it.”

  Dan was still waking up. The effects of the pain medication he’d taken before bed were still active in his brain. He couldn’t think as quickly as JJ was talking. “Hold on,” he said. “Give me a moment to catch up.”

  But JJ didn’t stop. “Each book is only legible to the person it’s intended for. Nobody else can read it.” It was obvious he was thinking as he was talking. Fitting it together, piece by piece. Page by page. “And the words fit their personalities or maybe dig into something in their brain…something hidden away.” He scratched his head. “I don’t know exactly. But that old guy, Castavet, is giving these books away. To kids, to adults, to anyone who goes by the store.”

  “Not me,” Lori said.

  “Or me,” Dan agreed.

  JJ held up his hands. “I don’t know, I haven’t got all the answers.”

  Dan flopped down on the couch. The books were a commonality, he knew that, but what JJ was saying was too out there, too weird. It was like…

  “It’s like something out of one of your horror books, sir,” JJ interrupted. “Some kind of alien takeover, or demon curse, something like that.”

  Dan shook his head. They were books, fictional pieces of entertainment. They weren’t real, nobody actually believed in any of that stuff. And yet…and yet, something was going on. Something that centered on those books. On the bookstore. On Castavet. He’d never met the guy. His shop was always closed whenever he went by. Deliberate?

  “You have to give me my book,” JJ said. “I need to read it.”

  “If you believe what you’re saying, then doing that would be sheer stupidity,” Dan said.

  “And dangerous,” Lori joined in. She looked at Dan. “But we all know Silver Lake isn’t right, something’s going on here. It can’t go on, Dan. There won’t be anyone left alive. The whole town’s going insane.”

  She was right. But books? Blaming books was like something from medieval England or a perverse political regime. He took a deep breath. “But if you read the book and something happens, I… And what about your parents? They wouldn’t be happy about any of this. You turning up in the middle of the night like this…”

  “I haven’t seen my dad for nearly a year now, sir. And my mom is so drunk right now that she doesn’t know what time it is.”

  Dan frowned. He’d never suspected a thing about JJ’s home life. To him, the boy had always been a good student, from a solid background. He was never late, always wearing clean clothes and looked like any middle-class American teen.

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “Why didn’t you say something to me, to anyone at school? We could help. We could…”

  “Soon as I graduate, I’m out of here. I don’t want anything getting in the way of that. I can take care of myself, sir. You know that.”

  “But…”

  “Dan,” Lori interrupted. “Not now.” She turned to JJ. “If you take a look in that book and something happens…”

  “You stay with me.” He looked up at Lori. “Both of you and if it starts to look bad, you just take it away from me. Okay?” He looked at both of them. “Please, you have to let me do this. I need to do this.”

  Dan exchanged looks with Lori.

  “Look, I took the book to Alex, he killed himself in front of me because of something I put in his hands. If I don’t at least try to understand what happened back there, I won’t make it. It’ll eat me up and eventually…”

  “Just stop that,” Dan said. “I’ll make some coffee. I can’t think straight.”

  “You haven’t got to think straight, sir, that’s it. You have to think different
ly. Like someone from one of those books.”

  “I’ll make the coffee,” Lori said. “You fetch the book. I want to look at it first.”

  Dan heaved himself off the couch and walked to the bedroom where he’d left it. He didn’t like this, not one bit. The idea that a book was responsible for what was happening…

  His fingers curled around the spine and he was hit by a feeling of repulsion again. He dropped the book and the feeling went away, until he picked it up again. He had been hit by the same sensations earlier. It was almost like the book didn’t want him to touch it, or open it up. He shivered and took it out of the room.

  Lori met him in the hallway; the smell of coffee was rich and comforting.

  “Here,” he said, passing the book to her. He watched her face as she took it from him. She wrinkled her nose, almost leaning away from it, putting distance between her and it.

  “Eww,” she said. “Is this leather?” She kept hold of it but looked far from comfortable. As they reached the lounge, she flipped through the pages. “Blank. It’s empty.” She handed it to Dan. “And it feels…it feels…bad…wrong, somehow.”

  He was glad it wasn’t just him. He passed it to JJ. “Don’t open it, just tell me how it feels. To you?”

  JJ took the book from his hand. He shrugged. “Okay. It feels just like any book.” He paused. “But when I touched Alex’s and Mrs. Phelps’s books, they made me want to vomit.”

  “You sure you want to do this?”

  “I have to,” JJ replied.

  “One page,” Dan said. “That’s all you get. One page and then we shut it down. You got that?”

  JJ nodded.

  It still didn’t feel right, but he was there to keep things on the right track to make sure nothing happened. Nothing like what happened to Alex.

  “You want to read it out loud?” he asked. “If you see anything.” He glanced at Lori. She looked as confused as he felt.

  “If it’s anything like what happened with Alex, you won’t understand me.” He looked down at the book. “But yes, I want you to hear it.”

  “Okay, lets get on with it, shall we?”