by Amy Cross
Journey to the Library
by Amy Cross
Kindle Edition
Copyright Amy Cross, All Rights Reserved
Published by Dark Season Books
Originally published in serial form
between October 2013 and January 2014
This omnibus edition first published: January 2014
With thanks to Linda Hare
http://amycrossbooks.wordpress.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. If you enjoy it and wish to share it with others, please consider buying them their own copy. Feedback is always welcome. The author reserves all rights in respect of this work.
ALSO BY AMY CROSS
Horror
Asylum
Ward Z
American Coven
The Night Girl
Devil's Briar
The Vampire's Grave
Darper Danver series 1
Fantasy / Horror
Dark Season series 1, 2 & 3
The Hollow Church (Abby Hart)
Lupine Howl series 1, 2 & 3
Grave Girl
Ghosts
The Library
Thriller
The Girl Who Never Came Back
The Dead and the Dying: A Joanna Mason Novel
Other People's Bodies
Dystopia
The Shades
Mass Extinction Event series 1 & 2
Erotica
Broken Blue
Broken White
Table of Contents
Part One
The Gate
Part Two
Tables and Chairs
Part Three
The River
Part Four
The Tomb
Part Five
Souls
Part Six
Meat
Part Seven
The Angel
Part Eight
The Horizon
Bonus
Extract from Lupine Howl
Journey to the Library
Part One
The Gate
Prologue
June 1943
Clipping the low moonlit clouds, a lone Lancaster bomber struggles to maintain altitude as its engine splutters. Smoke billows from the bodywork just behind the propeller, and after a moment the plane suddenly drops a few meters as its pilot valiantly attempts to remain in the air.
"Come in, Lancaster," says a tense but calm female voice, crackling over the radio. "Repeat, come in, Lancaster. Request your position. Repeat, request your position."
Struggling with the plane's controls, the pilot ignores the radio message and instead looks out the window, hoping to see some kind of landmark. He has no idea of his position, and he sees no point in speaking to base until he has something to tell them. For now, all he can see below is darkness.
"Repeat, come in, Lancaster," says the female voice again. "Are you receiving me? Request your position."
"I don't know my goddamn position!" he shouts into the radio. "Stop hassling me for my position!" Sighing, he pauses for a moment. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to snap."
"I'm having difficulty reading you," the female voice replies. "Are you able to make out our signals, Lancaster?"
"Not a damn one of them," the pilot mutters, still staring at the darkness below. "My engine's shot, though. Doesn't matter if you light the sky up from here to Christendom, I've got no real control over where this bucket goes. It's pot luck where I land. I'd bail, but my sparks, Jimmy, is hurt and I can't abandon him. At least this way, we've got a gnat's chance."
"What is the status of your crew?" the female voice asks. "Repeat, what is the -"
"I heard you!" the pilot shouts. "They all bailed on my orders. All except Jimmy, but he's unconscious in the back. We took some damage, you see, and there were flames. There's nothing left of my parachute but ribbons, so I doubt they'd help me much if I ducked out right now. The thing is, I don't even know my altitude." He stares straight ahead for a moment, at the vast wall of darkness facing his plane. "Any second now," he says, with a momentary sense of wonder, "I could go right into something. There's no -"
Before he can finish, he spots a flash of light to the starboard side. Looking over, he realizes that there's a structure down below, barely visible beyond the clouds. After a moment, he realizes that it looks like some kind of vast maze, filled with a huge number of open-air corridors or aisles. Some of the aisles seem to be lit up by small fires, and as the bomber lurches downward, the pilot is able to make out a few figures down below, wandering between what appear to be tall bookshelves. It's almost like a huge, sprawling, open-air library.
"Come in, Lancaster," the female voice says over the radio,barely audible over the crackling distortion. "Request -"
"I'm low," the pilot replies. "I'm low and..." His voice trails off as, for a moment, he's transfixed by the sight of the library. He notices a few of the inhabitants looking up at him, pointing in his direction as if he's a thing of wonder. "I'll be damned," the pilot mutters. "I never saw such a queer place in all my life. I thought I was over Devon, but now I'm not so sure. Where the blazes am I?"
"Come in, Lancaster," the voice continues. "You must bail. Repeat, you must bail. There's no point risking your life if your sparks is badly hurt."
Ignoring the voice, the pilot stares out at the vast library. As the bomber gets closer and closer to the ground, it's becoming increasingly clear that the library is filled with people, some of whom are huddled around small campfires between the shelves.
"Come in, Lancaster," the female voice says again, only this time filled with so much static, it's almost impossible to hear her. It's as if the radio signal is becoming lost in the night haze, and although there are a few more blasts of communication, the system eventually dies altogether.
Rather than attempting to reset the radio, the pilot continues to stare out the window as his engine finally cuts out altogether. As the propeller splutters, the bomber merely drifts through the air, getting lower and lower in the night sky as the pilot watches the shelves below getting closer and closer. People on the ground are now running in panic, clearly stunned by the sight of a Lancaster bomber coming down. In the moonlight, much of the vast library is shrouded in darkness, but occasionally the pilot gets a glimpse of a panicked face here and there.
Finally, he turns and looks straight ahead. Just a few more seconds now. With all the fuel onboard, he knows this is likely to be a rather fiery way to go. Still, as he wrestles with the controls, he reminds himself that if he bailed out, he'd be leaving the plane and Jimmy to certain death. Feeling honor-bound to do what he can to save his friend's life, he knows he has to try land properly, even if his chances are slim.
"Oh well," he says out loud, taking one final, deep breath as he pulls on the controls and prepares for impact. "Damn shame. I was so looking forward to the cricket next week. Buckle up, Jimmy. We're in for a bumpy landing. I don't think the old girl's going to get us home this time."
Today
Alice Never
For a moment, the world seems so calm and quiet. I stare out the window, unable to stop marveling at the beauty of the snow-covered scene; it's hard to believe that anything could ever be wrong again, but at the same time I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there might be a problem. It takes a moment for me to get my thoughts together, but finally I realize that everything seems to be upside down. Also, I think I was wrong about the world being calm and quiet: it's not at all. In fact, my breathing is getting faster and faster, and I think there might be someone behind me, tugging on my arm, and it's even possible that they're screamin
g at me.
So I turn and take a look.
"Help!" Tom screams, trying to unfasten my seat-belt. "Alice, we have to get out of here!"
I stare at him, still slightly dazed.
"Alice, please!" he shouts, finally getting the belt loose before turning and trying to open the door. Something seems to be stuck, however, and he eventually resorts to a series of kicks, none of which seems to be helping much.
"Tom..." I whisper, trying to get my thoughts straight. There's a pain on the side of my forehead, and I feel as if I'm waking up from some kind of daze. The last thing I remember is being in the back of the car as we were being driven to our grandparents' house. It was snowing outside, but my father insisted he could drive just fine, even though the roads seemed to be becoming increasingly treacherous. And then...
And then...
Something seemed to swipe us off the road.
"Help me!" Tom shouts, still kicking at the door as hard as possible.
Looking up, I see the car seats hanging over my head. We're really upside down. We've crashed, and I must have passed out for a moment.
"Alice!" Tom shouts. "Help me!"
"Where are we?" I ask, looking at the seats in the front of the car and seeing that they're empty. "Where are Mum and Dad?"
"Help me!" Tom screams again, kicking and kicking and kicking until, finally, his foot slips and hits the corner of the window, which shatters instantly, causing him to let out a gasp of pain as the lower part of his leg shoots past the jagged edge.
"Are you okay?" I ask, leaning over and grabbing his leg. There's a small amount of blood, and a slight tear on the surface of the skin, but it's not nearly as bad as it could have been; just a gash, really. Looking over at the window, I'm blasted by a gust of cold air that blows snow into the car, and it's as if suddenly my dazed bubble has been burst. "We have to get out of here," I mutter, feeling a slow and steady sensation of panic starting to grow in my chest. I guess the crash left me in a daze, but now my survival instincts are starting to kick in. "Thomas, we have to get out! There might be a fire!"
"My leg hurts!" he shouts.
"Let me see," I reply, pulling his trouser leg up and seeing that there's a small but bloody tear in the flesh. "It doesn't look too bad," I continue, hoping to calm him down. "You're gonna have to walk on it."
"It hurts!" he says, his voice tense with pain.
"Tough! I can't carry you!"
"Alice, please -"
"Come on!" I say, grabbing his arm and pulling him across the ceiling of the upturned car. I use my old backpack to smash the remaining glass out of the window frame, and finally I tumble out through the broken window, landing in the cold, wet snow. Turning, I help Tom out and we slip and slide as we try to make our way to safety. The snow, several feet deep in places, threatens to swallow us up at any moment, and finally I reach out and grab a tree branch that's protruding from its snowy grave; I turn back and grab Tom's hand, pulling him to safety before looking over at the car, which is resting on its roof down here in the bottom of a deep valley.
"Where are Mum and Dad?" Tom asks. "Alice, where are they?"
"I don't know," I say, looking down at his leg and seeing a hint of blood on the snow. "Are you hurt?"
He shakes his head. "Where are Mum and Dad?" he asks again, on the verge of tears. "They have to be here somewhere!"
"I don't know where they are!" I reply, trying not to let him hear that I'm scared. "I think I must have blacked out. I hit my head."
"Me too," he says, his voice trembling. "When I woke up, they were gone and you were unconscious. But where are they? They wouldn't just leave us here! They must be around somewhere!"
"Of course they are," I reply, as snow starts to seep through my clothes. "They have to be. There's no way they'd leave us alone. They're definitely around here, we just have to find them." Getting to my feet, and almost falling over in the process, I push through the snow for a couple of steps, trying desperately to work out where we are. Looking up the hill, I can just about make out the broken fence that runs along the side of the road, and there's a clear trail of destruction down from the spot where the crash began. Of our parents, however, there's no sign at all.
"Do you see them?" Tom asks.
Ignoring him, I look around for some sign of movement or life. The truth, though, is that we seem to have landed at the bottom of a snow-filled valley, miles from anywhere. I'm terrified that at any moment I might spot our parents, bloodied or worse, slumped in the snow, but so far there's no sign of them at all.
"Alice, do you see them?" he asks again.
I turn to him. Tom's only fifteen years old, three years younger than me, and there are tears in his eyes. "They're around here somewhere," I say, figuring I need to stay strong for his sake. "They probably went to get help." Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my mobile phone, but there's no signal.
"Why did they leave us?" Tom asks with a tearful whine.
"They probably climbed up to see if they could flag down a passing car," I reply.
"But why haven't they called down to let us know they're okay?"
"They're probably busy," I say, starting to feel annoyed by his incessant questions.
"But why haven't they come back?" he asks, with tears in his eyes.
"They're probably up there now," I reply firmly, "trying to -"
"But why -"
"I don't know!" I shout, although I immediately regret losing my temper. Tears are starting to flow down Tom's cheeks, and I take a moment to regather my composure before reaching out and giving him a firm hug. "I don't know," I say quietly, "but they have to be okay. If they're not okay, how did they get out of the car?"
Tom sniffs. "This can't be happening," he says after a moment, his voice reduced to a whine.
"Of course it's happening," I mutter, trying to stay calm.
He shakes his head. "I'm dreaming. It's a nightmare."
"Do you know one of the things I learned at the clinic?" I ask, before holding my hand up toward his face. "If something's right in front of you, and if you can see and touch it, then it's real. There's no point pretending otherwise, okay? Don't try retreating into a cocoon, Thomas. This is real."
"But where are Mum and Dad?" he asks.
"I'm just going to go and take a look, okay?" I continue, pulling back from the hug. "Hold on. It's going to be okay."
"Then where are they?" he asks.
"They didn't leave us," I say, turning and trudging toward the car. "They can't have left us."
"Don't go near it!" Tom shouts. "It might explode!"
"It's not going to explode," I reply as I reach the car and peer back inside. It's definitely empty, although it looks like the driver's side door is hanging open. Wiping snow from the passenger-side window, I peer inside and see to my surprise that the safety belts on both the front seats appear to have been broken; not just broken, in fact, but almost ripped apart, by something that has left them hanging by threads. The weirdest thing is, the actual buckles themselves look to be undamaged, so why would my parents rip the safety belts to shreds rather than just pressing the release button?
"Do you see anything?" Tom shouts.
"Nothing so far," I reply, wading through the meter-deep snow as I slowly make my way around the front of the car. Every step is exhausting, but pure adrenalin is pushing me onward until, finally, I get to the other side and see that while the car has landed deep in the snow, someone seems to have dug out a small trench on this side and ripped the door open, causing the metal to buckle in the process. Stepping closer, I look down and spot a sprinkling of blood, which can only have come from either my mother or my father. Or both. I don't know whether to be scared that they might be hurt, or relieved that there's not too much blood and that they must be around here somewhere.
"Alice!" Tom shouts. "Have you found them?"
"No!" I call back to him, my heart racing as I glance over at some nearby rocks and notice some more patches of blood. It's as i
f someone has been dragged, bleeding, away from the car, but that doesn't make any sense. Why would one of my parents drag the other away, and then just leave my brother and me in the car? The only possible explanation is that something's preventing them from coming back for us, which means that maybe they're too badly hurt. I take a deep breath of cold air as I try to decide what to do next. What would a responsible adult do? What would a reliable big sister do? What would a smart person do?
"Alice!" Tom shouts. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" I shout back, figuring I should try not to scare him just yet. I bring up the flashlight tool on my mobile phone and switch it on, figuring that it might be useful. My heart's pounding in my chest, but I know I have to go and take a look at the other side of those rocks. In all likelihood, our injured parents are somewhere over there, and I'm terrified to go and see if I can find them. What if they're... Pausing, I take another deep breath and remind myself that being scared isn't an option: I have to go and look. "I'm just gonna go and check over here!" I call back to my brother. "I'll be two minutes, tops!"
"Don't leave me!" he shouts.
"I'll be two minutes!" I shout again. "I'll keep talking, so you can hear me! I just need to go and look behind the rocks. They might be hurt!"
"Can't you see them?" he yells.
"Not yet," I say quietly, feeling a strange kind of calmness start to descend upon my shoulders, as if it's falling down with the snow and counteracting the panic that has been rising through my body. I guess this is the adrenalin again, giving me the strength to do something that would normally terrify me. "Just wait there!" I call back to Tom, before pushing my way through the snow and finally climbing up onto the first of the rocks. It doesn't make sense that our parents would come all the way up here, but then again, maybe they were dazed or confused. After all, even if they were wearing safety belts, they could still have been hurt.
