A LITTLE LIGHT READING, by Robert Reginald

Originally published in The San Bernardino County Sun, October 31, 1985.

Jack Colwin picked up the phone. “University Library,” he said, stifling a yawn.

It’d been a slow Sunday evening on the reference desk, and he was looking forward to nine o’clock.

“My daughter never came home,” came the tinny voice. “She’s got a cubicle on the fourth floor near the psych books. Can you check it for me?”

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Jack. “We don’t have a paging system, and haven’t got the staff to search the library. If this is an emergency, please call the campus police.” Gad, he could recite the mantra in his sleep—probably did on occasion.

“Please, she should have been home over an hour ago. Last night she told me someone’d been snooping around her cubicle, and I’m worried. She’s twenty, with dark hair, red top, and a short red skirt.”

God save us from earnest mothers, thought Jack, and their equally flaky daughters. She’s probably up there studying the occult books in BF with her boyfriend. Be nice, Jack, be nice: maybe she’s pretty.

“Tell ya what, ma’am,” he said. “The campus police’ll be here in a few minutes to help us close, and I’ll mention it to them. OK?”

The lights were already being dimmed to warn patrons of closing time when Jack headed towards the Circulation Desk. Officer Barrin was just coming through the main entrance.

“’Lo, Noel,” Jack said, and then mentioned the girl. Barrin promised to watch out for her, and headed up the elevator.

The usual gaggle of bleary-eyed students straggled out in ones and twos, and at nine P.M. sharp the doors were locked and Jack sent the Circ staff home. Five minutes later he began to get restless. Ten minutes later he was worried. At fifteen after, when Barrin still hadn’t shown, he dialed 5-911.

“Campus Police.”

“Jack Colwin in the Library. Officer Barrin went upstairs half an hour ago to clear the floors, and hasn’t returned. Can you page him?”

A pause. “Sorry, there’s no answer.” The dispatcher tried again. “That’s funny, his signal doesn’t even register. Maybe I’d better send Jameson over.”

A few minutes later Werner Jameson came rushing in. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Barrin hasn’t come down, and he’s usually pretty prompt. Why don’t we search the floors together?” Jameson agreed.

The third floor was empty of everything except books and trash, and the strange, mechanical breathing of the ventilators going whoosh, whoosh, whoosh over the stacks. They met at the elevators.

“Not a sign of anyone,” Jameson said. “Let’s try Four.”

The fourth floor was dark and quiet, the lights out, the air conditioners silent. Every fifteen feet the dim glow of an emergency bulb provided enough contrast to scatter heavy shadows randomly among the shelves.

“Who’s playing games here?” asked Jameson. He pulled his revolver.

Jack hesitated, and said: “Do you want me to turn the lights on again?”

“No, stay here. You take the right side of the floor. I’ll take the left.”

Jameson moved through the maze of literature stacks, taking the main aisle between “P” and “B,” while Colwin started through the art books, looking both ways down each cross aisle. Suddenly he saw Jameson pause.

“What’s that?” the officer asked, as he pivoted, moving quickly towards the cubicles on the east side. Jack started to follow him.

Jameson was just reaching down to pick a small object off the floor when Colwin—an aisle away—noticed something very odd. Spotlighted in the glow of an emergency light was a large leather volume with bright metal clasps; it was stuffed onto the top shelf of the occult section, just above the policeman, and rocking back and forth, as if unbalanced.

Jack was about to say something when it suddenly sprang into the aisle, opened wide, and grabbed the officer by his head, tipping him over on his side. Then, ever so methodically, ever so precisely, with obvious pleasure and great relish, it calmly proceeded to eat Werner Jameson inch by glorious inch, crunching and crackling and crooning over the somewhat pudgy, now prematurely retired cop, leaving only the leather shoes to stand side by side with the other two pair already lining the aisle.

Jack watched these proceedings as a mouse watches a snake, bewitched, bewildered, and between. His terror gave way to flight, however, when the tome swiveled on its base, grew a pair of stilt eyes and a set of millipede legs, and headed down the aisle toward him. In a reflected flash of light he could read the title, The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, and suddenly realized that the book had grown perceptively larger. The lights came on, the whoosh-whoosh of the air conditioner began chugging in time to his panic-driven breath, as he ran down the seemingly endless aisles, and headed for the elevators, desperately jabbing his finger at the down button. The doors slid open, he fell against the back of the cage, then watched in horror as the gigantic volume ran lightly toward him. His vision was cut short by the doors shutting in front of him.

Gad, he couldn’t help but think, as he pushed the first-floor button, what I wouldn’t give now for a little light reading!

He was actually chuckling at his own witticism when the doors sprang wide, and the massive tome gaped open, revealing a wicked set of teeth lining each side of the hand-tooled binding, and a creamy gullet filled with myriad incantational scribblings.

This is not one of those stories with a happy ending.