by David Haynes
Of Mice and Men didn’t count. Not when he was going through the text with Simmons, Portland and the rest of his eleventh-grade literature class.
He picked up The Exorcist. He’d read it when he was in his freshman year at high school. It was the same year he’d broken his arm, falling off his bike coming home from the bookstore. He’d been trying to read it while maneuvering the bike through the afternoon traffic. He’d ridden straight into a tree, busted his arm and got a concussion in the process. The back cover of the book was scratched, the white paper showing through beneath the print; a reminder of how his own history and that of the book were entwined.
He replaced it in the stack, tracing his fingers down the garish spines. In the Reading Room they had concentrated on the classics: Poe, Stoker, a little Lovecraft. But there was so much more on offer, so much that the kids might miss if they weren’t shown where to look.
At least half of these books were out of print now, relics of the golden period of horror fiction: the Eighties. Books like this would never see the light of day again, the writers pushed back into their coffins to sleep for another hundred years. It was a shame, a damned shame.
He pulled other books out and read a couple of pages from each, smiling as fleeting images from his past mingled with the horrors on the pages. He was transported through his adolescence, through his teens, his college years, spewed out into the reality of the present.
Had any of the kids even heard of Michael McDowell, or of Shirley Jackson? Did they even know what they were missing? Of course not, not unless they sought these things out for themselves, and how many would do that? Only a handful in an entire school. Probably the same ones who came to the Reading Room.
The thought irritated him. Half of the school would be down at the football field, drinking beer, making out and trying to look like they didn’t give a shit about anything.
Dan stood up, walked to the kitchen and drank another beer. It was his responsibility to make them understand, to make them see what he saw in those books. The Reading Room would be back. He was going to make sure of that.
The doorbell rang, the tune warping as the batteries died. He grabbed a couple more bottles from the refrigerator and walked to the door. First things first though, there were more beers to drink and a pepperoni pizza to eat.
3
At a little after nine the following morning Dan walked along Main Street, head pounding, mouth dry and sour-tasting. The stores were already open but the street was quiet. That was good. The bustle of Saturday morning hadn’t begun yet. He’d beaten it.
He ducked into the deli, bought a coffee and a pastry. The sweet sugar-rush of the Danish hit him, nearly blinding him for a moment. It had been a while since he’d eaten anything that hadn’t come straight from a box or a can.
“Morning, Mr. Law.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them as wide as his facial muscles would allow.
Three girls smiled up at him as they walked past. They were students, their names gone from his head. They giggled as they crossed over the road, heading toward the cinema.
A thin sheen of sweat coated his forehead. It wasn’t a warm day, and he’d got a sweat-top on without a coat. But the beer was working its way out of his body, through the pores on his skin. Pretty soon he’d smell like a brewery.
He paused at the junction of Eagle and Main. The town used to have three drugstores; quite why, nobody new. Even for a town twice the size of Silver Lake, three were too many. One of the stores had finally gone to the wall last year. The building had remained empty since then. The windows were fogged over, the signage eventually collapsed onto the sidewalk, and its presence forgotten by all but its most loyal customers. Until now.
Ladders were set up against the front of the store. A man – Dan recognized him as Chris Newsome – was on the top rung, painting a sign above the fogged window. He was whistling, the tune unrecognizable. Newsome had done some work at the school a couple of years ago; mostly odd jobs, clearing out the drains, painting the peeling paintwork. The kids didn’t like him, said he was weird and looked at them strangely. He wasn’t asked back when he finished.
Dan crossed the street, walking around the ladders, not under them. The blank rectangle where the sign for Lowe’s Drugstore had hung for more than fifty years was now painted a high gloss black. Newsome had so far written the letter C in fancy gold script.
“We getting a new store, Chris?”
“I guess,” he replied without turning.
“What is it?”
Newsome shrugged. “Damned if I know.” He sounded tense. “You must be the twentieth person to ask me this morning. I’m just painting the sign.”
Dan nodded. “What comes after the C?”
Newsome’s sigh was audible. “Want me to spell it out?” he asked. There was more than just a trace of sarcasm in his tone. “Castavet’s. That’s all I’m paid to write, just Castavet’s. No trade, no hints, no nothing, just Castavet’s.” He turned around on the ladder now. “That okay for you?”
Newsome looked ready to burst, so Dan nodded and walked on. When he’d gone a few more steps, he heard Newsome yelling at someone. He actually started coming down the ladder but the object of his ire, a middle-aged lady walking her dog, had hurried on by. The guy needed to chill out.
The library refit was finished. What exactly had been refitted wasn’t immediately clear. It looked the same as it had always done, as it had since he’d been a kid, coming down looking for the latest Stephen King. The horror section had been small then. It still was.
“Daniel Law, long time no see!”
He turned around, smiling. He recognized the voice. “Hey, Lori.”
Lori Hill had been librarian here for the last two years. Nobody knew exactly why she’d come back to town after ten years living in New York, but there were plenty of rumors. Dan had heard them all. He’d known her since high school and the speculation didn’t fit with how he remembered her.
“What brings you down here?” she asked.
“I came to take a look at the refit.” He frowned. “Can’t say I’m impressed.”
“Hey!” she replied. “We’re all twenty-first century in here now. We’ve gone computerized. Check it out.” She nodded toward Mrs. Phelps, the other librarian. Linda Phelps was as old as the building itself. She was muttering as she hammered away at the keyboard. Lori lowered her head toward him. “Some of us are taking to it better than others.”
Linda Phelps looked up at him when he laughed. She gave him a hard stare before returning to the computer. Her face was bright red.
“You might want to stay out of her way for a while,” Dan whispered. “She looks…frustrated.”
“In lots of ways, I imagine.”
Dan bit his lip to stop himself laughing.
“So, why are you here? We haven’t got any new books for you. You’ve read everything in the horror section at least once and you’ve probably got your own copies anyway. How about branching out?” She nodded toward the period romances. “You look like a shirt open to your navel, bodice-ripping kind of guy.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe ten years ago.” He patted his belly. He wasn’t fat but the recent diet was taking its toll. “I don’t have the body for it anymore. No, I’m here to ask a favor?”
“Shoot.”
“You speak to a kid called Joseph this week? Joseph Jones.”
“JJ? Sure. He came by on Tuesday, told me you wanted to set up the reading club again. Told me you were starting it over.”
“He did, did he?” He shook his head.
“Looks like that’s news to you?”
“Kinda,” he replied.
“He was pretty excited about it. Should have seen his face when I said it was okay.”
“I can imagine.”
“He’s a good kid. He’s in here all the time…kinda like…”
“Like I was, you mean?”
Lori smiled, shrugged. “I guess.” She pa
used. “When do you want it then?”
“Huh?”
“The room. When do you want to start?”
He exhaled loudly. “I still have to speak to the principal, but what about Thursdays? Seven till eight-thirty? Something like that?”
“That’s fine. I’ll book you in.”
“Why do I feel I’ve been railroaded into this?”
She laughed. “You want this as much as JJ does!”
“Maybe,” he replied.
Lori was quiet for a couple of seconds. They both were.
“Well, I better…”
“I heard about Amy,” Lori interrupted. “I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “It’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugged and looked down. “Guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
There was a string of bruises around Lori’s wrist. She pushed her hand into her pocket.
“How’s Paul? Haven’t seen him around much lately,” he asked, looking up at her.
“Oh, he’s busy with work. They got a big contract a couple of months ago. He’s pretty excited about it all.”
He nodded. Paul Weaver had been a year older than him at school. He’d been something of a hero on the track team, and on the football and swim teams. These days he ran his own construction company, though not particularly well by all accounts. And now he was dating Lori Hill. The guy had it all.
“Say hi to him from me.” He turned to leave. “See you later, Lori.”
“What book are you going to read with them?”
He stopped. “Not sure yet, haven’t decided. Maybe some Richard Laymon to start them off.”
She beamed. “The Travelling Vampire Show. You should read that! They’ll love it.”
He nodded and walked out of the library. Since when had Lori Hill known anything about Richard Laymon?
4
Ryan Simmons took a pull on the cold Budweiser. He put the bottle down and traced his finger over Megan’s flat stomach. She flinched at his cold touch.
“Come on, it’s the weekend, we’re at the lake, the sun’s shining and all’s good with the world. We should enjoy it while we can.”
Sam Portland and the rest of the boys were in the lake, showing off to the girls on the shore, whooping and hollering, their voices echoing along the valley. He should probably be in there with them, but he wanted to see how far he could push it with Megan.
“I’m not ready, Ryan,” she replied, adjusting her bikini top.
They had almost done it twice already. Once at Sam’s house and once down here last summer. She looked good all the time, but when she put on that little red bikini his brain felt like it was frying. He could barely keep his hands off her.
“Maybe I can get you ready?” He kissed her neck, the taste of sunblock sweet on his tongue. She sighed and shifted her position, allowing him to use his tongue to trace a line toward her collar bone.
“Hey, Ryan?” Sam shouted. The boys were laughing but he ignored them. He had better things on his mind. He rested his hand on Megan’s stomach, feeling the material on her bikini bottoms on his fingertips. He felt his cock stiffen beneath his shorts.
“You want to…” he started.
A football landed next to his head, bounced and then hit him in the ear. A huge cheer went up from the lake, the boys giving high-fives to each other.
Ryan was about to jump up but stopped himself. His shorts would reveal a little too much about how he was feeling right now.
“Fuck you!” he shouted, sitting up instead. He did his best to throw the ball into the trees but it fell short. “Dicks,” he hissed and lay back down.
Megan turned her head, smiling. “Maybe we should find somewhere a little more private?”
He nodded. “Sure.” He tried his best to look nonchalant, but as soon as he stood up his shorts gave him away.
“Just going for a walk!” she shouted to her girlfriends. They put their heads together and giggled.
He took her hand and led her away from the shore. The sun filtered through the trees, dappling everything in a warm glow. The pine, the scent of her sunblock, his own sweat, all of it heady and arousing.
“Emily said her and Sam are over.”
“Does Sam know?”
Megan shook her head. “No, and you’re not to say anything. She’s telling him later today.”
“Shit. He’ll be pissed.” He stopped. “I should go back and tell him, make…”
She pulled him over to a tree and leaned against it. “You’ll be too busy with me to worry about him.” She kissed him, opening her mouth and rolling her tongue over his lips.
He pulled away. “I really should…”
She ran her hand over the front of his shorts. “Are you sure about that?” she said, grinning.
He almost exploded there and then. Fuck Sam. He could look after himself. He pulled Megan closer, wrapping his hands around her, pulling her into him.
She jerked back. “Not here,” she whispered. “Let’s find somewhere quiet.”
“This is quiet, there’s nobody here except you and me.”
“I don’t want anyone disturbing us. I know somewhere.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the tree. He didn’t know where they were going but he didn’t care. He couldn’t think about anything except what was beneath Megan’s red bikini.
“There.” She pointed though the trees.
“It’s a shack,” he replied. “Really? You want to go fool around in there?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sure. Why not? It looks kinda romantic.”
He shrugged. It just looked like an old shack to him. “Works for me.”
Megan ran toward it, laughing. She reached behind her back and pulled the bikini cord. The top fell to the ground. She laughed even harder.
“Jesus,” he hissed.
“There’s a key under there.” She nodded toward a rock by the door. Her hands were crisscrossed over her breasts, squeezing them together like a Wonderbra.
He grabbed the rock, pushing it over. There was a small silver key beneath it. He didn’t know who the cabin belonged, didn’t care. Right now, he would have busted into the White House if it meant he could get inside and lay down with Megan.
He turned the key with trembling fingers, working it the wrong way, cursing before turning it back and feeling the click. He pushed the door inward.
The inside was not what he’d expected. This was obviously someone’s retreat. A collection of fishing rods stood in one corner, above them shelves of tackle and bait boxes. There was a small stove in the other corner and a cot along one of the walls. It smelled fusty and a little damp but it looked clean.
“How did you know about this place?” he asked.
“Belongs to my uncle,”
He turned to her. “Should we be in here? I mean…”
She grabbed his balls and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t we lie down?” Her breasts were fully exposed. He’d seen them before but mostly in the dark, at some party when they were both drunk. Seeing them in daylight made his heart want to smash its way out of his chest.
She pulled him over to the cot and lay on her side. “Take your shorts off, Ryan,” she said. “I want to see you now.” She wrapped a finger around the pull-string on the side of her bikini bottoms. She gave it a gentle tug.
“Now,” she whispered.
He dropped his shorts, suddenly self-conscious. Megan had held his cock before, even played with it, but she’d never got close enough to look at it. He stood there, in front of her, totally naked. She smiled and patted the bed. “That’s better,” she said.
A gloomy light filtered in through the grimy window above the bed, but it was more than enough for him to see Megan – all of her. She was beautiful, too beautiful for him, and he knew that if he wasn’t the starting quarterback he wouldn’t have stood a chance with her. But he was, and so here he was.
They kissed passionately until he didn’t think he could take it anymore. They touched
and explored each other as they had never done in those drunken party gropings.
He rolled on top of her, feeling her wriggle into a better position. She lifted her head and kissed him again before whispering into his ear.
“I want you,” she said.
And then it was over. His body spasmed before he could do anything more. There was no pleasure, just a horrifying knowledge that after all of this, he’d failed. He’d not been able to do what she wanted. What they both wanted. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down in his lip until the spasm ceased.
“Oh God,” he hissed. “Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit.” He opened his eyes and looked down at her. She looked confused, shook her head and opened her mouth to say something. The penny dropped, the realization hit her. She swallowed hard.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. But it wasn’t okay, not by a long stretch.
“I…I…I don’t know…” He couldn’t finish his sentence; he had no idea what to say. He couldn’t move either. He wished he was anywhere but here right now – down at the lake, in town, at the coffee shop. Even one of Mr. Law’s English lessons would have been preferable to being here, to being glued together like this.
“It’s okay,” she whispered again. Was that a trace of a grin at the corners of her mouth? “You better get off me. We can’t stay like this forever.” She was trying to make light of the situation, pretend it didn’t matter. But it did.
He slid off, sitting on the side of the bed and hooking his toes around his discarded shorts. No way did he want her seeing him now. No way. He pulled them up as far up as he could before standing.
“Would you mind fetching my top?” Megan asked. He could see her fumbling with her bikini, trying to tie the bottoms up again.
“Sure,” he replied, walking quickly to the door. He was glad to be out of there, to be away from her for a few seconds. Her bikini top was bright against the brown carpet of pine needles. He picked it up, the faint waft of sun cream pricking his nostrils.
What a cruel trick this was. Making him wait for so long and then this…this abject failure. Anger was coming forward now. Anger with himself, with his body for letting him down. Anger with Megan for teasing him for so long. Anger with the world, with everyone and everything. He clamped his jaws together until a knot of cramp bulged in his throat. He worked it loose with his fingers and went back inside.
