The Library of the Dead

by Brian Keene

  They searched until it was dark. From the boat as they motored back to the lodge, a glow on the horizon, the faint red stain of fire in the distance …

  “I can’t see it anymore.” Brent spoke to his therapist, his voice slow, slurring, like he was hypnotized.

  They waited in the lodge for instructions from the Vancouver RCMP. Jeremy sat on the deck, his Walkman earphones in, but the tape had ended and he didn’t turn it over. Brent’s voice seeped through the dining room window.

  “I go through the steps you taught me. I’m in the theater, watching myself play. And I’m great. I’m on fire. Then I climb up to the screen and open the door and I’m in the game. But it’s different. The stick feels slippery, the ice is wet, you know, and it sucks at my skates, slowing me down. But it’s not really me anymore. It’s him. #22. And then it’s there. It’s so fast. Coming at #22 and he can’t get away.”

  “What is it? Can you see it clearly now?”

  “It’s in a Sharks uniform. I can’t see the number. I don’t think it has one.”

  “And the face? Does it have a face?”

  “Yes. I can see it. It lowers its head, charges towards me, but at the last second, before the check, it looks up. It’s faceless … then for a moment it looks like me … just a moment … then nothing. A phantom. It doesn’t have a face. Nothing.”

  The Twin Otter idled, tethered to the dock. They had delayed their departure until the fog burnt off the lake. The RCMP would be waiting for them when they landed in Vancouver. There’d be questions before Brent and Doctor Hannan could go back to California. And someone would be dispatched to make a proper search of the area once the fire threat had passed.

  Brent sat on the lodge stairs, his bag packed, and Tamara’s set beside. He held the hockey photo, but looked instead at the mountains, at the black plumes of smoke that erupted in the distance. He curled and uncurled the photo, his huge hands awkward handling something so delicate. Those hands Jeremy had seen squeezed in a fist, gripping a knife and streaked with blood, hanging limp and helpless when they called off their search for his fiancée.

  “I think something happened. By the river. Tamara was with me. Said fishing was boring. Suggested we go to the hot spring. Then—” Brent dropped his head to his hands.

  “You can’t remember?”

  “You know what I said the other day. It’s true, isn’t it?” Brent’s voice sounded muffled, rusty. “You gotta stick with what you love.”

  Jeremy nodded, a sick feeling churned in his guts. There was nothing he could say, so he said nothing.

  His dad waved to them from the plane. They stood and walked down the path to the dock. Brent Sharp looked different, softer, his t-shirt hung like loose skin from his shoulders. The lake beyond them so still it vanished, like you could walk down into the reversed horizon, down into a mirror of the world, maybe one where there was only silence, only peace.

  They walked along the dock, boards creaking, shifting with each step. The hockey player’s feet fell heavy on the wood, hollow, slow.

  Jeremy started loading their bags. His dad waved from the cockpit, mouth wide in a shout he couldn’t hear over the engines. He turned to look. Brent had walked past the passenger door, around the wing and the propeller, to the end of the dock.

  The hockey player stood a moment, took a deep breath of mountain air that seemed to fill him, bring him back to size. He started back to the plane, eyes glassed over with a wash of too many tears shed. He walked straight, then wavered and looked left as though something was there, coming at him over the water. He went sideways—fell, jumped, it was hard to tell. But he hit the plane’s propeller hard. The blades sliced through him like an ax, sending chunks in all directions, splashing into the water, thudding onto the dock, against the plane.

  Something hit Jeremy and he fell back under its stony weight. He grabbed on reflexively as a hot curtain of blood slid down his face, filling his eyes and his mouth, choking his scream. Blood covering everything.

  He blinked his eyes clear and looked down at what he held. Brent Sharp’s arm, muscles still bulging, still in motion, lay across his chest. Fingers clutched at his shirt in desperate convulsions, shuddered, then were still.

  THE LIBRARIAN

  5

  Down, down, down you go, returning to the ground floor, or what you imagine is the ground floor, through a maze of never-ending hallways and rooms, past smaller yet more delicate rooms that serve as chapels with names labeled next to each arched entrance: names such as Chapel of Forgiveness, or Chapel of Hope, or Chapel of Redemption; through gardens that could be either indoors or out for the light shining through the ever-changing ceilings—flat, high-vaulted, peaked, domed, stained-glass—is bright and misleading; through off-level rooms that cascade one into the other that are full of greenery and trickling fountains, some with spires twice the size of man, some with angel figures adorning the walls, some covered in broken-tile mosaics.

  Some of the rooms you pass appear entirely golden because of the light—every book, ornament, hand-carved molding, even the floor, looks as if dipped in pure gold—and it is in one of these golden rooms the librarian takes you to find the next three golden books on their glowing shelves.

  The entire room warms you, yet you feel an impending finality as you somehow understand these will be the last three books of the dead your guide—this current librarian—will show you.

  “You will be able to do the same,” the voice haunts.

  NIGHT

  SOLILOQUY

  SYDNEY LEIGH

  Freddy “Flowers” Forsythe could not have loved Fern more. That’s why the tragedy that laid his wife to rest in Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes was so strange.

  For a time, all of San Francisco talked about her death. Many still do, and rightfully so. Had you been there, standing under the neon glow of a sign on those dark city streets, or perhaps watching from a window, or passing by in a car, you might still be talking about it, too. If you made it out alive, that is.

  I wasn’t so lucky myself.

  Freddy was a fixture on the floors of the San Francisco Flower Mart, and on the industry itself. He’d seen the grand opening of the Terminal in 1956, and thirty years prior, helped his old man wrap bouquets on Fifth and Howard. Freddy knew his flowers like no one else … but there was no blossom, no petal, no fragrance that he loved more than Fern.

  Fern was a leggy brunette with a heart-shaped ass and a side smile that made men weak in the knees and firm in the rise. But she belonged to Freddy, and we respected that. Not because he was the jealous type; Flowers didn’t have a mean bone in his body. At fifty-one, he had kind eyes that matched both his voice and his nature. As a straight man, even I can admit Flowers was as handsome as he was gentlemanly. He worked hard, played hard, and deserved a woman like Fern. He was, quite simply, just a hell of a guy … and, to be honest, I’d like to think I was, too.

  Fern sang at Griff’s, a place named after my brother which we co-owned and I ran while he raised his family and tried to get a vineyard off the ground up in Calistoga. I never married, and suppose it’s because someone who spends all his time behind a bar pouring drinks, sweeping cigarette butts, and wiping down countertops might not be a dream come true for a girl. But my name was Kingston Cole, and they called me “King” for short. And for a while, I felt as though that’s exactly what I was.

  Several nights a week, Fern enchanted Griff’s crowds with a voice as rich and romantic as a dozen red roses. She really was something—a rare and elegant arrangement hand-picked by the gods themselves.

  Not that there weren’t other women, mind you. The clubs in those days were hopping with girls who loved the West Coast at night and were game to fly wherever the bay breeze took them. Some were single, some weren’t, and none held a candle to Fern; but that still didn’t deter me and the other boys on Nob Hill from trying to sweep them off their feet.

  And boy, does that phrase carry a whole new meaning now.

  The y
ear things went wrong had started off right for a lot of us, but then again, San Francisco was dynamic in the seventies. What remained of the city’s denizens had survived the Zodiac and Zebra killings, saw the rise of gay pride, and the backlash against it.

  Flowers and Fern were so happy it was almost contagious, and come September, Flowers made a big to-do about her fortieth birthday. Fern was eleven years his junior, an only child, and her parents never left their East Coast hometown. We were all she had, and didn’t mind one bit. Fern was our mascot, if you will. But one you wanted to give more than a high-five.

  She was a siren and a songbird; a prodigy, of sorts. That girl could play any instrument you put in her hands: guitar, saxophone, piano … she was even known to get behind a set of drums like she was Buddy Rich or Max Roach in high heels and a sequin dress. She moved here from New York to attend the conservatory right out of high school, and whatever she didn’t learn there she already knew inherently, like a gift.

  So when Flowers bought her an old Artley flute from the antique shop on Fillmore, we were all eager to see her put that long, magic silver whistle to her pretty little lips. Problem was, we were expecting the wrong kind of magic.

  San Francisco was just coming off the heels of another tragedy that shook our city to the core and gave us all one more reason to look over our shoulders and expect the unexpected. The Golden Dragon Massacre had riled a lot of people up earlier that month and left a handful of innocents dead and, granted, none of the boys from either side ever spent any time at Griff’s. But it made eating or working in restaurants a dangerous thing to do, much like the Zodiac made us feel unsafe sitting in parked cars, going to a library, driving a taxi.

  It was a dynamic world.

  And change can’t always be for the better.

  The first night Fern picked up that flute, we were hypnotized. She played a dreamy piece called “Danse de la Chèvre,” and not a soul in the joint was talking after the sixth note.

  It was a different sound and mood to which we were accustomed. No one got up to dance, or sang along, or tapped their feet. We all just … listened.

  After that, things really changed. And so did Fern.

  Fridays and Saturdays were big for regulars, but also for honeymooners and tourists dropping by for a night to wet their whistles or break in a new pair of dancing shoes. I like to think Griff’s was a place you could go for a good time: decent food, strong drinks, live music, hip crowd. We had something no other bar, lounge, or club in all of Nob Hill had—or beyond, for that matter. We had Fern.

  So you can understand that a lonely, haunting melody on an unusual instrument like a flute might be captivating for a spell, but for a room full of young, sweaty people drunk on life, love, and lust, something a little jauntier than “Nature Boy” was in order.

  “Get up there, Fern,” I remember my waitress Gina yelling.

  Fern tossed back the last of her martini before heading for the small stage. Rollo, our piano player, lent her a hand before sitting down at the Steinway.

  “What’ll it be, young lady?”

  Fern reached for her flute case.

  “Oh, girl!” Rollo pled. “Let’s do something with a little more pizzazz.” He tore into an intro of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On ” and the crowd whistled and howled.

  Fern leaned in close to Rollo while he played. Her long, silky hair fell in front of her face, and she tucked the auburn slip behind an ear. “I thought I would play something a little quieter.”

  But when Fern took the flute out of its bone and saddle-colored case, one of the boys near the stage quoted Ferlinghetti and yelled, “Fuck art, let’s dance!”

  Fern set down the flute, nodded to Rollo, and smiled.

  Saul Beckman was the first to die. According to the others, he was no drunker than usual, but raising hell on the roof deck patio when he went backwards over a railing. It was late night, or early morning—however you want to look at it—and witnessed by the same crew that gathered topside most nights to howl at the moon and revel in the buzzy glow of a growing industrial skyline. The novelty of the Pyramid had yet to wear off, and some nights you could see it through the smog draped over the city.

  The only thing different about this night was Fern, sitting in Freddy’s lap playing Bach’s “Little Fugue ” while the gang knocked back their last drinks. I was behind the bar, and as a result caught a glimpse of Saul through the front window on his way down … though at the time I had no idea what I was seeing. It’s hard to wrap your head around a dark shadow rushing past the glass being one of your customers kissing the sidewalk at thirty miles per hour.

  Through tears and a spell of retching, Gina told me everything once the police cleaned up and cleared everyone to leave.

  According to Gina, Fern was sitting in Freddy’s lap playing her flute while everyone smoked, drank, and did all the same things they did late night on the roof of the bar. At one point, Freddy came downstairs to hit the head, and when he did, Saul slid into Freddy’s chair and pulled Fern onto his lap. Normally, any one of the guys could have done such a thing and earned a playful slap. But Fern wasn’t amused, and stood up. Saul patted her ass, and Fern whirled around with a glare.

  “Fern, baby … what’s with you?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “What?” Saul laughed. “But that’s your name, baby!”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Gina said Fern’s eyes were glazed over, angry.

  Saul grabbed the flute out of her hands and held it to his mouth like a microphone. “Baby come back,” he sang, words and judgment equally slurred. Fern ripped the flute out of his grip, and in the process gave his mouth a good jab with the lip plate.

  “What the fuck, Fern?” Saul jumped up and brought a hand to his mouth. A bit of blood pooled in one corner. “Jesus! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Gina put an arm around Fern and led her to another corner of the roof.

  “What are you doing with that thing, anyway?” Saul yelled after her. “This isn’t the fucking Philharmonic, you know. It’s a fucking bar, Fern. Put that thing away, for Christ’s sake. We’re sick of it.”

  Freddy returned and tried to calm things down rather than explode and belt the guy mouthing off to his wife.

  Gina asked Fern to play another song to keep her occupied. Fern said she’d like to show Gina a special piece with a name Gina couldn’t pronounce, some kind of Romanian funeral song.

  What happened next is unclear.

  Still pissed, Saul lit a cigarette by the edge of the roof deck as Freddy walked back toward the others. He waved his hand, said, “Just give him a minute.”

  Within that minute, Saul cried out and was gone. How he fell or managed to go over that railing is anyone’s guess. I had theories, of course, but those came later. At the time, it was a shock and just bewildered the hell out of us all.

  Either way, Saul ended up in a puddle of his own blood, piss, and shit, and looked just like the bodies you see in movies after falls—arms and legs sprawled out and facing all the wrong directions. That’s not something you forget.

  We closed down for a few days to honor Saul. After that, it felt better to be together, and in all honesty, a few drinks seemed to help put it out of our minds. There were moments and tears, don’t get me wrong, but we tried to get back to normal and find some laughter. You know what they say—that’s usually the best medicine. Usually.

  The night we reopened, Rollo was working his side job playing progressive jazz at the hungry i in North Beach, and Fern was playing Debussy on her flute. Standing alone in the middle of the stage with a soft yellow light around her, she went into a trance that was both strange and beautiful at the same time. With her eyes closed, hips and shoulders swaying in an alternating rhythm, she appeared almost serpentine. I’ll be damned, that hourglass figure was something to behold—her breasts heaved as she drew in air and pursed her lips—but I swear, the music sounded as if it played itself.
/>   It was a quiet night, and while Fern played, Freddy sat at a small table chatting with Kitty McLean, a young nursing student at UCSF who went steady with Johnny Blackwell.

  I had hit on her myself before she and Johnny hooked up, but I didn’t begrudge the guy. There were plenty of skirts I chased before Kitty’s, and plenty I’d chase after hers.

  Flowers was as funny as he was kind, and could have you in stitches once he got on a roll. I slung a rag over my shoulder as he delivered his punchline; watched him use the same hands he wrapped roses and delicate greens with every day to measure an imaginary dick in the air. Nearly in tears, Kitty leaned in and put a hand on Freddy’s knee, whipped her head back, and laughed so hard that I did too, despite not hearing the joke.

  Kitty grabbed her throat, and at first, we thought she was putting us on. When she turned purple and her eyes got real wide, Freddy launched out of his seat like a rocket—but Kitty fell backward in her chair before he could reach her, and the sound of her head hitting the floor was so loud I could hear it over Fern’s music. I jumped over the bar, but none of us dared to touch her in the event she had broken her neck. Before we could get through to the emergency line, she had turned an even uglier shade of blue and stopped breathing. When the paramedics arrived, they cleared the way and kneeled over her body before confirming she had choked to death on her gum.

  The cops were back at my bar with more questions less than a week after Saul fell to his death from my roof.

  “What can you tell us about what happened, Mr. Cole? That’s the second death here recently. Are you concerned about your business?”