I had this shrink one time. I didn’t see her very long . . . well, only as long as I had to because of the probation deal. Anyway, she was the one who suggested that I get into library work. She said I led a highly compartmentalized life.
I thought everybody did, but the shrink disabused me of that notion. Her name was Rebecca. Of course, I could never call her that out loud. In our sessions she always insisted that I address her as Dr. Nakamura. But in my head it was always Rebecca Rebecca Rebecca. I guess you could say that I thought about her a lot.
Rebecca was tall. She liked to wear boots and long skirts and cowl-necked sweaters. Her hair was curly and a shade of blond that made you wonder what color it really was. And she wasn’t Japanese, so I have no idea where the Nakamura came from. Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe that name was all that remained of an ex-husband or a misplaced father. I never did figure it out, even with all the internet stalking I did.
(And, yes, I know none of this really matters when it comes to the story I’m telling you—unless it’s to say that there are just some questions you never can answer—but bear with me. I have an eye for detail, and I admit that I can be more than a little garrulous at times. It’s just me.)
Anyway, Rebecca had firm viewpoints on compartmentalization. I didn’t argue with her. Only an idiot argues with a court-appointed shrink. Besides, it’s true that I like things neat and orderly. And, sure, as Rebecca pointed out you can get carried away with that approach to life . . . but then again, you can get carried away with almost anything, can’t you?
Of course you can. That’s only human.
But let’s get back to keeping things neat and orderly. General topic: compartmentalized devices. Specific frame of reference: boxes. If you approach life the way I do, you probably use a wide variety of same without even thinking about it. There’s a toolbox for your work behavior, and a toy box for behavior at home. There’s an easy-to-open box that holds the public you, and a Japanese puzzle box that holds the unvarnished real deal. Maybe there’s even a little glass dollhouse for your spouse, and a gone-to-seed Barbie playhouse where you can fool around with your lover while Trailer Park Ken’s out back cooking meth. And last but not least: a big metal safe full of secrets you’ll never ever face, and a nailed-down coffin where you keep dreams so dark you wouldn’t want to see them even if you dared to yank nails and open the creaking lid.
That last kind of box . . . well, I guess the contents would look something like Dorian Gray’s portrait, wouldn’t they? Meaning: You don’t go traipsing up to the attic and pull the curtain on that one unless you absolutely have to. If you dare bring along a light, it’s just a flickering candle so you won’t have to eyeball the entire Goyaesque mess in a hundred-plus-watt glow. And to be honest, it’s probably a better idea to expose the naked guts of that thing in complete darkness. That way, the only sensory input you’ll receive is auditory—like grave worms wriggling around on slick, oily canvas.
Just imagine that sound inches away in the darkness. Those little worms churning in a face that’s as much rot as paint, burrowing into bloodstained canvas . . . digging and devouring, writhing and twisting . . .
Pretty creepy, right? I mean, you wouldn’t go tactile, reach out blindly, and bury your fingers like five little corpses in those wriggling worms, would you? Uh-uh. No way. But that’s exactly the way it is with the dark things we file away, in life and in libraries. If you want knowledge, you have to reach out and touch it. You have to take a chance, perhaps even suffer the consequences. Information—and secrets—aren’t always pretty or pleasant. Sometimes they can be dangerous, like hungry worms crawling through the winding tunnels of your mind. That’s why information management is so important . . . believe me, I know.
Think three Cs: codify, consign, and care. This is especially important with managing dangerous information. Libraries deal with lots of things like that. Often they’re consigned to Special Collections. Such materials demand careful oversight and limited access—sometimes so limited that the items are almost forgotten . . . except by a select few, or (sometimes) only one.
And really, to close the circle, you might say that’s the way things ended up with Dr. Nakamura, my court-appointed shrink.
She was consigned to Special Collections.
In other words: I put her in a box.
Actually, I put Rebecca in several of them.
All it took was a little foresight, and a few very sharp knives.
I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I really made an effort to listen to Rebecca . . . at first, anyway. And I took her advice about libraries to heart. I’d actually worked in one when I was in college. So I started submitting applications, hoping they wouldn’t be checked too carefully. This was the late nineties, and you could still manage that. In those days there was barely an internet, and the term “computer literacy” was cutting edge.
I had a few interviews. Nothing surprising about any of them. Sit through enough interviews and you’ll realize that search committees end up settling way more than anyone would ever admit. Basically, they see who walks through the door and pick the best of the lot. In the end it’s mostly about personalities.
I knew I wasn’t much of a personality, so I developed a basic game plan to become one . . . at least long enough to get what I wanted. I built a box from good old-fashioned aromatic cedar and filled it with photocopied stories. I found them in library trade journals, and most of them were pretty funny. Then I looked up some articles about the basic interview questions, and I matched the stories to the questions. The whole exercise was easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.
In most library interviews—at least for public desk jobs—there’s always a question about handling problem patrons. Which, of course, demands quick thinking and good people skills. I found a great answer for that one. It was about a homeless guy who sat in a library children’s room, clucking just like a chicken. Different staffers talked to him, but no one could shut him up. He’d quiet down for a few minutes then start up again: “Bawk bawk bawk!” Finally one staffer tried a different approach. You know, very understanding: “Sir, I’m really sorry to bother you, but could I ask you to keep your pet chicken quiet in the library? It’s disturbing the other patrons.”
The way the story went, the homeless guy didn’t make a peep after that. He just sat there pretending to pet his (equally quiet) chicken, every now and then telling it to shush. End result of this patron interaction: You could have heard crickets.
Anyway, you should have heard the search committee howl when I dropped in that last line. It set up the clincher, and that was this: “Working in libraries isn’t just about reading books. It’s about reading people, too . . . and I’m very good at that.”
Boy, you should have seen their collective eyeballs light up when I said that.
If only it had been true.
I got the job. It was a night supervisor gig at a little college library. The campus had a reputation for social justice advocacy, and maybe that’s why they overlooked the minimal stuff I included on my application concerning my criminal record. Or maybe it was because the dot-com boom was still going strong. With a good portion of the emerging workforce making big bucks moving jillions of pixels around millions of screens, pickings were slim in the non-virtual playground of real-world Joe jobs.
Anyway, the library was open late—you know how college students like to procrastinate. I didn’t have much to do . . . not at first, anyway. Just make sure students didn’t bring a six-pack into one of the group study rooms, keep the student workers busy at the desk, and lock things up at the end of the night.
My boss worked with me the first few weeks, then turned over the keys and the alarm system passcodes. After that, I could pretty much do things my own way. I liked hanging out in the old bindery in the basement. Part of my job was managing book repair, so spending time downstairs was expected. Besides, the student workers at the front desk could buzz the bindery if they needed me . . . but that never happened much.
Anyway, I built a big plywood box—long but not too deep, and not very high. One of the bindery work tables had a piece of base trim at the bottom, and it wasn’t much of a problem to install a hinge in the trim plate so I could hide the box beneath the table. I kept my woodworking tools inside, and I decided I’d make a present for Rebecca during my downtime. My probation was almost over, and after landing the library job I was her star pupil. I figured a gift was the least she deserved for giving me such good advice.
That’s what I told myself, anyway.
Rebecca was usually tight-lipped, but she let slip that she was attending a conference in a few months. She planned to present a paper that referenced my case as a positive example of her rehabilitation methods. I wasn’t sure I liked that, because it was information I couldn’t control. But I had a kind of unspoken attraction to it, too—because, in the end, Rebecca was the one in control.
For some reason that excited me. So did the present I built for Rebecca. It was a himtsu-bako, or Japanese puzzle box. I made it from Hinoki wood, decorating it with a classic Koyosegi pattern. Fifty moves were required to open it. Up to that point the box was probably the finest piece of woodworking I’d ever produced, and I was especially proud of the combination of dowel pegs and sliders which I installed. A few of those sliders were actually lead, should anyone ever decide to x-ray the box. Back then I thought that was pretty clever.
Put me to the test, and I’d have to admit that opening Rebecca’s himtsu-bako was a challenge for me—and remember, I’d designed the thing. But make those fifty moves, and you’d find a real treasure inside—a duplicate key for one of my storage units. Talk about dangerous stuff, giving something like that to a person who could put me away with a single phone call. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I took such a risk. Not that I thought Rebecca was the kind of person who’d figure out how to open such a complicated puzzle box, let alone turn detective and search out my storage unit. In truth, I figured she’d probably just put the box up on a shelf in her office and let it collect dust. Certainly, that would have ensured a smug and tasty victory for me. And if I’m honest with myself, that’s probably why I took a chance by giving Rebecca the box in the first place . . . after all, it was a pretty sizable thrill to put one over on the oh-so-brilliant Dr. Nakamura.
But you can’t ever predict what people will do. Not really. The way things turned out I spent a lot of time worrying about the puzzle box, even after I decided to murder Rebecca. I suppose that added some spice to the whole exercise. All those worries were locked up in different places in my skull, in boxes large and small, and sometimes they’d get opened before I even realized it. That was scary. It was like some stranger breaking into your house and rummaging through your most personal possessions when you’re not even there.
Or to put it another way: It was information that was way out of control.
I hate to admit it, but that kind of excited me, too.
It’s crazy the way your mind works, isn’t it?
You bet it is.
A few months into the library job, I found out the place was haunted. Everyone thought so, anyway. The Public Safety officers said they got weird vibes in the building after closing, and the motion detectors for the alarm system would indicate movement when the building was empty. There was even a story about a custodian quitting the job cold after she saw one of the second-floor statues move . . . just its head, as if its stone eyes were tracking the young woman as she worked above the dimly lit atrium. She claimed she heard laughter bubbling up from the old fountain on the first floor below, and the sound was like something that belonged down in a cave.
Weird, right? Of course, I didn’t worry about those stories . . . not at first, anyway. When it comes to the supernatural, I rely on my own sensory input. And that usually means that in the end everything adds up to a big fat zero . . . . except this time.
The incidents that bothered me most happened when I was alone in the building. I could write off several of them pretty easily—like, the elevator running by itself. The cab would come down to the first floor, and the doors would open. I’d be sitting at the Circulation Desk after closing, and I’d stare across the darkened lobby into that empty box bathed in its internal halogen glow. It was like a king-sized himtsu-bako waiting just for me, and you can probably guess that the very idea gave me a pretty sizable shiver.
The elevator doors always seemed to remain open just a little too long before closing automatically, but I figured that was just my imagination. Even so, I could write off the elevator antics as some kind of electrical glitch. But I couldn’t explain away other phenomena so easily. Like the elevator, these incidents only occurred when I was alone in the building. For instance, I’d hear doors slam upstairs when I knew no doors were open. Or I’d be shifting books on the second floor, and I’d hear footsteps coming from the Periodical stacks on the third.
One night I even heard drawers sliding open and slamming closed in some old microfilm cabinets stored on one of the third floor breezeways. When I went upstairs to check things out, I found a spool loaded on the oldest microfilm reader and the machine humming away. I knew that no one had been using that equipment before closing . . . but there it was. Of course, I looked at the screen. Someone had been reading an old Life magazine article about Jack the Ripper. That was a little too creepy for me. I put away the microfilm and turned off the equipment, then set the building alarm and called it a night.
When I came to work the next afternoon, I ran into one of my closers in the quad. Stephen worked a lot of late-night shifts, and he’d go for a run around the campus after we closed the library at midnight.
“Hey,” he said, “were you in the building last night around one a.m.?
“No. I cut out about ten minutes after you did. I was already home by then.”
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
Stephen paused, as if he was hesitant to say more. “That’s weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Well, I was running past the library around one o’clock. You know. Along the access road. And I had this weird feeling someone was watching me. I glanced up at those big windows overlooking the parking lot, and I could see that breezeway on the third floor where the old microfilm readers are. The lights were off, but someone was up there. I only saw his silhouette, but I got the feeling he was staring right at me.”
“Spooky,” I said. “Unless you’re just yanking my chain to get out of working more night shifts.”
“Not at all. You know I like nights the best. I just thought I should tell you.”
“Thanks.”
Stephen hesitated.
“Something else?” I asked.
“Yeah . . . but you’ll think I’m crazy.”
I laughed. “I’ll let you know.”
“Well . . . don’t judge, but the guy I saw up there on the third floor?”
“Yeah?”
“He was wearing a top hat.”
Ghost or man, I kind of forgot about the wearer of the top hat . . . at least for a while. There was a lot going on in my head, and some of it wouldn’t shake loose no matter how hard I tried. Mostly I was hung up on Rebecca, the puzzle box, and the hidden key to that storage unit. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. And the worst thing was that no matter how much I thought, I couldn’t decide what I should do about the whole mess . . . so I didn’t do anything.
I hate inertia. Don’t you?
Anyway, I knew I’d go crazy if I kept spinning on a (metaphorical) hamster wheel, so I went looking for distraction. The college archivist suggested that I ought to move up the food chain and get a masters in Library Science. It sounded like a good idea, and maybe an answer to the Rebecca problem, too—school would keep my mind occupied during the day, and work would keep me busy at night. At the time I figured it was best to think less and do more.
So that was the way I played it. I was accepted to a program at a state college just before the semester started. Remember, this was the nineties. There weren’t a lot of online classes yet. So I spent a good chunk of time driving to the campus, which was about sixty miles south of my apartment. Three hours of class, and then I’d make the drive back to work and put in my eight hours. For the first semester, I barely spent any time in my apartment at all . . . and when I was there I was (almost invariably) sleeping.
Some classes were dull, some interesting. It was the same with the people in them. There was one girl in a couple of my classes. Her name was Daphne, which is one of those names that conjures two very disparate sources—either the seductive naiad from Greek mythology, or the hot chick from Scooby-Doo.
And maybe in the end Daphne was a little bit of both. In those days most people would have (mistakenly) called her a Goth, but she was really more of a fifties throwback with a rockabilly twist. She wore a lot of black, and had these tortoise-shell glasses and a Betty Page hairstyle. Residing on her left arm was a tattoo of Elvis with a raven perched on his shoulder. Just those three sentences were enough to tell me that she really didn’t see life the way I did at all. Meaning: Forget secreting things away in compartmentalized boxes; Daphne seemed to wear her boxes on the outside.
That was a strange enough concept for a fellow like me, but it wasn’t what—dare I say it?—sparked my attraction. Not really. What I liked most about Daphne was that she’d say whatever she felt like saying without worrying about stepping on someone else’s blue suede shoes.
Ha ha. Just a little Elvis humor there.
What I mean to say is that Daphne didn’t care what other people thought of her. Plus, she was really funny . . . if you got her jokes and references, anyway. Most people in the class didn’t have a clue, but I did. Sometimes I’d laugh out loud at something she said. More often I’d just arch an eyebrow, or grin. Daphne didn’t let on that she noticed, but she did . . . and pretty soon I’d catch her checking me out after she said something just to gauge my reaction.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I knew it I was thinking about Daphne a lot, especially during those drives between school and work. I even bought some CDs with artists I knew she liked—Elvis (of course), but also Wanda Jackson, Robert Gordon, and The Collins Kids. Sometimes I’d get lost in those songs while driving, just thinking of Daphne. I even ran over a dog on the way home one Friday night, so wrapped up in Gordon’s version of “Only Make Believe” that I barely even noticed.
Bow-wow.
Clunk clunk.
Daphne Daphne Daphne.
Pathetic, right? I know. But that’s the way my world turned . . . for a while, anyway. Of course, I still thought about Rebecca, too. It wasn’t the same. Not at all. And then one night while driving home from work, I realized that I’d finally decided what to do about the oh-so-troubling Dr. Nakamura, and the puzzle box, and the whole horrible mess.
The solution was simple, once I realized what had really changed between me and Rebecca. My brain had already moved on, along with the small little knot of muscle that passed for my heart. It was time for the rest of me to follow, and (metaphorically speaking, anyway) put Dr. Nakamura in the rear-view mirror.
There was only one way to do that.
I’d have to kill Rebecca.
And close her box for good.
I’m like most people. There are some things I’m proud of, and (if I’m honest with myself) more than a few that I’m not. Take my criminal record, for instance. It’s embarrassing. I can’t even bring myself to tell you some of the things I’ve been convicted for. Stupid stuff, and more than a little compulsive . . . which is even more embarrassing, because it’s hard to admit that a compulsion can overcome your natural intelligence.
But that’s the way it was with me. The only good thing about my rap sheet was that it didn’t match the profile for the type of perp who committed the crimes that were actually my forte. In other words, I was very successful at not getting caught for anything that mattered. In a way, I imagine that was why things went as smoothly as they did for such a long time. My record created a kind of blind alley sure to send inquisitive cops on equally blind detours . . . until that last thing with Daphne, anyway.
But there I go again, getting ahead of myself. I warned you I’d do that occasionally. Back to the upside—the things I’m proud of. One of them is my woodworking, and the true shame of that is that very few people ever saw the things I made. Like the boxes I built for Rebecca. Not the Japanese puzzle box. The other ones—the custom-made caskets I built to put her in after she was dead. They were beautiful, especially the box I made for her head. It was made of Zelkova wood seasoned for twenty years, and it was as lustrously blonde as the highlights in Rebecca’s hair. I worked with the Zelkova to bring out its glow and inlaid a dark forest of stained hemlock fir against it—the latter wood harvested from Aokiaghara, the Japanese forest at the base of Mount Fuji which was infamous for its suicides.
Of course, Aokiaghara was famous for its ghosts, too, but I didn’t think about that then.
I think about it now, though . . . and often.
To this day I wish I’d never touched that wood.
It was a night in May, just before the Memorial Day weekend. I’d closed the library, and (now that Rebecca’s boxes were finished) I’d been sitting in my office for hours planning her murder. From out of nowhere, a door slammed upstairs. A moment later, that sound was followed by a short burst of down in the bottom of a cave laughter.
That laughter didn’t scare me. It made me mad. After all, I already had more than enough on my plate to keep me busy. The last thing I needed was a supernatural side-order of ghostly laughter crowding out the main entrée. I was just about to grab a mallet from my woodworking tools and head upstairs to see if I could pound ectoplasm into cobwebs when the office phone rang. I grabbed the handset, said my name and the name of the library, so off my game that I didn’t even bother with “How can I help you?”
“Riddle me this, Batman.”
“Huh?”
“Where do you find narrow houses that last until doomsday?”
“The graveyard, of course. Now who is this, and—”
“Well, my name isn’t Ophelia.”
“What?”
“C’mon, slowpoke. You must have guessed by now. It’s Daphne, from cataloging class.”
“How’d you figure out where I work? I never mentioned the name of the library in class.”
Daphne only laughed. “I’m a librarian, Sherlock . . . or I’m going to be, anyway. Have you tried this new search engine called Google? It’s pretty amazing what you can find.”
“I’m more of an AlltheWeb guy,” I said.
“That’s a good one, too. I like the way you can search by specific dates.”
“So what’s up?”
“Well, you answered my riddle, so you’re still in the game. And Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner, which means a certain destination is de rigueur.”
“So we’re back to graveyards?”
“Dig it. We should excavate and investigate. You can be Mr. Burke, and I’ll be Ms. Hare.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Certainly, silly. After all, we’re a couple of purely straight-up individuals, embarking on careers as library professionals. So no shovels, no holes in the ground . . . just a nice little picnic lunch among the tombstones.”
“That sounds kind of morbid.”
“Indeed it does, but I’m kind of a morbid girl. And you’re not too far off the mark . . . if I read you right, anyway. Besides, the cemetery I’m thinking of has something special.”
“What’s that?”
“A library. You need to see it, and so do I.”
A library in a cemetery—now I was curious. Really curious. We exchanged a few more words, and somehow they seemed heavier now, as if everything we said had some kind of double meaning. I couldn’t even tell you what it was, only that it carried a particular edge . . . and a certain weight not unlike secrets or truth.
Whatever it was, it was unsettling. I was relieved to hang up the phone. But I’ll be honest—any trepidation I’d had turned to (more than rabid) curiosity . . . and something much stronger. Something I’ll have to let you name. I’ll simply say that I didn’t have to be in Daphne’s presence to realize the power she had over me. It was there, even over the phone. Those lips of hers, painted black, smiling just a little bit. A simple arch of an eyebrow, and a gleaming pupil (nearly) dilated past the color of its iris. All of that a vision in my head, so strong that I had to close my eyes and hold my breath.
“Daphne Daphne Daphne,” I whispered.
Speaking her name to myself.
And no one else at all.
I don’t like dreams. I’ve never trusted them. They don’t fit well into compartments, and you can’t control them. That means they’re dangerous . . . and the one I had that night after talking to Daphne was the most dangerous dream I ever had in my life.
It began in the library, and things were just the way they had been a few hours before. Only Daphne didn’t call me, and I wasn’t sitting in my office. No. I was sitting at the Circulation Desk. The library was closed and the building was dark except for that particular square of workplace illumination, which was surrounded by three counters and several metal shelves.
A door slammed somewhere upstairs, and that sound was followed by a short chorus of (by now familiar) bottom of a cave laughter. The dual sounds spurred my anger, just as they had in real life. And just the same way, I was ready to grab one of my hammers and make a trip upstairs to see if it was possible to pound a hole in a ghost.
So I stood up, and quickly. The rolling chair shot out behind me as if launched from a cannon, banging into the Reserves shelves. But that didn’t matter, because I didn’t move an inch. Instead, I just stood there, my feet suddenly buried in cement, frozen in place by a man standing on the staircase landing on the other side of the lobby. He wore a top hat, and (from a distance) his face seemed as narrow as it was pale. The rest of him was black—frock coat with a strange twice-buckled collar, riding boots, trousers, leather gloves.
That the man had not been there on the landing a moment before was a certainty . . . I was sure of that. But he was here now, and that was just as certain. Only five stairs separated the landing from the main floor. The man glided down them the way a marionette does, as if he were an apparition pretending to descend a staircase to create an expected impression.
Soon he was halfway across the lobby. As he came closer to the desk, into the light, the pale face beneath his black top hat came clearly into view. Only it wasn’t a face. It was a translucent mask, imprinted with a slight smile that didn’t seem like a smile at all. And the voice that came from behind it betrayed nothing more than did the expression—it was neutral, and little more than a whisper, with just the slightest hint of a British accent.
The man said, “I’d like to place an item on Reserve.”
“You’re a faculty member?”
“No, but I am a teacher, and I do have pupils. And I would like to—”
“If you’re not a faculty member at this institution, I can’t help you.”
“Oh, but I’m certain that you can. You might say I have specific knowledge of an item housed in Special Collections here, and that knowledge is accompanied by certain privileges. I wish to share those privileges . . . with you, to begin.”
“Well, I’m not a student, so I don’t quite understand your request. What’s the item, anyway?”
“As I said, it’s housed in Special Collections. It’s an autopsy kit from the Victorian era, an item of some particular import. I’d like to make it available for your inspection . . . and use.”
Now I laughed. The idea of an autopsy kit in the library was completely ridiculous. “We don’t have anything like that here.”
“You most certainly do have. If you doubt me, look on the prep shelf behind you.”
I did, and there it was, on the shelf with the other items waiting to be added to the Reserves Collection—a long case with leather straps, similar to ones I’d seen in medical histories of the Victorian era.
“Who are you?” It was the only question I could ask, but the man in the top hat didn’t reply. He simply stood there, not moving at all . . . as if waiting. And then, he did move. Or at least his lips did. Not the pair on that mask, but the lips barely visible beneath that translucent plastic seemed to writhe, and curve, and—
Quite suddenly, the man reached up with one black-gloved hand and removed the mask from his face. Beneath, there wasn’t a face at all. Just a mass of wriggling grave worms—pink, and gray, and blood red—balanced in a large horrible knot atop the twice-buckled collar of his heavy coat. The mass bulged and wobbled, and for a moment I was afraid it would topple and spill those horrid creatures across the desk. But it didn’t topple at all. Instead it seemed to grow tighter, like a clenched fist. And then several bloated specimens twisted across the space where a mouth should have been, approximating lips . . . approximating a smile.
“You really want to know who I am?” the thing asked, its voice holding a horrible tenor of amusement.
I managed a nod.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes . . . I am.”
My words seemed to hang in the air. Those worms writhed and twisted, as if trying to snare them. The thing’s smile became larger, the lips becoming a thick woven hole that widened over a patch of blackness. Soon enough, other words came from within that hole.
“Then you must do as I say—slip your fingers into my mouth like a good lad, and I’ll tell you my name.”
If I’d had any control, it was gone now. I closed my eyes and reached out as if hypnotized. My fingers slid inside that hole rimmed with worms, and the thing’s mouth closed around them. Suddenly everything around me, and everything I heard, was a whisper. I was inside it, in a very small space no larger than the himtsu-bako box I’d built for Dr. Nakamura.
And, then, for a moment, I was nowhere at all.
The next thing I knew, I woke up in my apartment.
Screaming.
For a smart lady, Rebecca did some really stupid things. Like most people, she was a creature of habit. That was lucky for me. It was also lucky that the conference where she was presenting her paper took place on Memorial Day Weekend, just far enough north so it’d be a tough drive to make in a single day. Which (of course) meant I’d have to do just that, kill Dr. Nakamura, then make it back home in time to set up a solid alibi.
So pedal to the metal all the way up Highway 5 and across the Oregon border, cutting over to the coast and hitting the little resort town just as twilight fell. A long spike of beach jutted into the Pacific just south of the place, and I didn’t park anywhere near it. No. I parked a mile away at a rocky beach unpopular with tourists, and I grabbed the backpack that contained my murder kit and humped it double-time down a state park trail that connected the two.
You wouldn’t have recognized me. I was wearing an army-surplus jacket and had greased my hair so it looked a lot darker than it was. If you didn’t look twice—and why would you?—you’d take me for a grad student who’d just finished finals and was hitting the Pacific Northwest trail for a summer adventure. And that was the story (exactly) I would have told had I run into a park ranger.
But I didn’t run into a ranger. I didn’t encounter anyone at all, except the person I was looking for. The one who liked to go for a run every night after dinner, no matter where she happened to be.
“Hi Rebecca,” I said as I stepped out of the trees.
Rebecca’s Nikes were new and expensive—electric blue with coral stripes, probably fresh out of the box. Her back was to me, but her little Nike stutter-step told me she recognized my voice. Just that fast her toes dug firmly into the sand, and she stopped cold.
“Don’t turn around,” I said. “It’ll be easier that way.”
Even as I spoke, I knew Rebecca wouldn’t heed my warning. Her sharp inhalation cut the silence, and then a big wave broke across the beach and slapped the sound away. The sea wind caught Rebecca’s blond hair, masking her face as she turned. She just couldn’t help herself—I’m certain she already had a few persuasive paragraphs worked up to lob my way.
“I warned you,” I said, and I fired the Taser before she could say a single word.
That was that. Dr. Nakamura hit the sand face-first. I dragged her into the forest. An hour later I was back on the road. Several hours beyond that, I was home. Rebecca’s corpse was tucked away in one of my storage units, wrapped up nice and neat in a GE freezer. I’d finish with her later. After all, I had a date with Daphne the next day at noon, and it was already long past midnight.
I needed to get my rest.
If I shared it, you’d recognize the name of the cemetery where Daphne and I had our first date. It’s famous. But I think I’ll keep that information to myself. I suppose I’m a little sensitive about the place after the way things turned out. You’ll have a better understanding of why later.
Anyway, as prominent as the place was, I’ll bet no one had ever picnicked there. That’s exactly what Daphne and I did on an afternoon that was as still as it was sunny—May light filtering through the trees, chill patches of shadow not quite ready to warm despite the change of seasons, the scent of pine and cut grass, the cool appraisal in Daphne’s guarded glances.
Daphne (of course) had done her research. She said that cemeteries had been akin to city parks in Victorian times, when families would spread tablecloths on the grass and share memories of their dear departed along with roast squab and pickled eggs on sunny Sunday afternoons.
I can’t speak for Daphne, but I certainly had no one to mourn with that level of sincerity. What I did have was Daphne’s company and the picnic lunch she prepared. A pleasant Pinot gris, nicely chilled. Fried chicken, a loaf of sourdough with wedges of Irish butter, and an apple and grape salad with sour cream dressing. Cherries and chocolate cake.
Unfortunately, the conversation didn’t match the food. The words that passed between us were simple chit-chat, with none of the electricity of our phone call. Just some mundane gossip about classmates and instructors, with a few conversational detours concerning the cemetery’s more infamous residents. All that was entertaining enough as far as it went, but it wasn’t the kind of conversation I’d hoped for . . . and I’m sure Daphne felt the same way.
All that changed as soon as we emptied the bottle of wine and packed the picnic basket.
“Ready to check out the library, Mr. Burke?”
“Definitely, Ms. Hare.”
“I should warn you—it’s a library with spirits.”
“As in: distilled?”
The exchange passed so quickly it seemed we had rehearsed it, as chipper and quippy as dialogue in an old William Powell/Myrna Loy movie that was about to get much more twisted than Warner Brothers would have ever allowed. But neither of us laughed when it was over. For the truth was that we had simply progressed to the next point on the agenda, as in: I followed Daphne down a path that led to the edge of the cemetery grounds.
A cathedral stood at the end of the path . . . or at least a building I took for a cathedral. Inside was something else entirely. Instead of a large room with a vaulted ceiling, the building was a tangle of twisting corridors and oddly shaped rooms. The walls of each were lined with golden books that weren’t books at all, but instead boxes bearing the cremains of the deceased with their names etched on the spines. The correct term for the place (I knew) was columbarium, but indeed it was a library, and it felt like one. For just as books do, each of these boxes held a particular story.
Of course, I never would have believed those stories could be shared. Daphne, I soon discovered, thought otherwise. Even her walk through the place was a lesson in that, for she brought with her the percussion of coffin nails. Her heels clicked along the empty corridor, each step a seeming precursor for a small ending, and as she walked she ran one black-nailed finger along those golden spines, as if searching for the beginning of a tale that struck her particular fancy.
I followed her down the corridor, listening to the scrape of that nail. Without turning to face me, Daphne asked: “So . . . do you believe in spooky stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know—001.64.”
“We’re talking paranormal phenomenon?”
“You can close down the parameters a little: spectral manifestations . . . shades and revenants . . . your basic things that go bump in the night.”
“Well, I suppose I’m the kind of person who believes what he can see.”
“You mean, you’re a proof is in the pudding kind of guy?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then let’s see what we can see, Stagger Lee . . . or maybe what we can feel.”
Daphne turned and smiled at me, and that same finger she’d run across a hundred etched spines brushed my lips and crossed my chin. Only for a moment. Then she turned away, advancing down a narrow hallway. Her hips swayed beneath her skirt, and her fingers arched into claws, a fistful of nails scrapping over spines now.
The briefest moment later her fingers stopped, very quickly, index finger poised on one particular spine. “Ohhhh,” she said, and it was the kind of sound I’d never heard from Daphne before. It echoed through the columbarium hallway like a sound from a cave.
“They say some people are mediums,” Daphne said. “They stir shadows, raise the past and the dead, hold them in their grasp. For a while, for a time . . . and then that time is gone. In that regard they’re like imperfect vessels, I suppose. But they’re something more, too.”
“People say all kinds of things.”
“So—no verdict on that particular form of perception?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Let’s conduct a little experiment then. For example, it’s my perception that this particular box is filled with firecrackers, psychically speaking. I’d like you to touch it and see what happens.”
“I don’t know.”
“C’mon. Take a chance.” Daphne smiled. “Do it and I’ll guarantee a reward . . . later.”
“Not my thing, really.”
“Well there’s a surprise.”
“Uh.” I stammered. “Well . . . maybe it is. Sometimes.”
“Okay. You’re the boss, applesauce . . . but just one other thing—our date’s over.”
Daphne turned away. From me. From the columbarium book. She started walking and didn’t look back, heels clicking down the hallway, those little nail-driving steps marking percussion to my thoughts. Quite literally, she was disappearing into the shadows, and before my very eyes.
My hand reached out before I even knew it, fingers touching that yellow spine. But it wasn’t a spine at all . . . at least not one you’d find on a book, or a box. No, it was too cold and slick, its ridges mimicking movement like those grave-worms knotted across that horrible face in my dreams. And then there were words, and they weren’t Daphne’s. “You see, my friend. We meet again.”
And now that face hung before me, above a buckled collar cinched from dead whore’s nightmares. The thing wore a top hat, and it leered with that knotted-worm smile. One whiff of its breath and a wave of dizziness hit me so hard that for a moment I imagined I was back on that beach with Rebecca, cold Pacific tides pounding me to the ground as she escaped down the beach in her blue-and-coral Nikes. And even in the moment I realized that was only a fantasy, one shorn of every notion of personal power possible. I tried to focus, managed just for a moment to read the name on the spine of the box, and then the letters were lost in a wet, smeared sheen.
So was everything else. My knees buckled. I was about to pass out.
I started to fall. Daphne didn’t allow that. Suddenly she was very close, holding me up. “I’ve been coming here for a few years,” she said. “Touching a spine here, a spine there—collecting impressions. I still remember the first time I touched that book, and he told me who he was. I couldn’t believe it, not at first. Later, I couldn’t deny it. And now he’s my special friend, one of a kind, no one like him anywhere. At least, I always thought so . . . until I met you.”
Daphne’s wine-dark lips drew closer, close to my ear. But her voice was far away, as if deep inside a seashell . . . or a memory boxed away. “Remember that day in class? When you loaned me a pencil? It started then. I got my first little tingle of you. And now there’s nothing I don’t know about you. I’ve been inside your storage units. Those are nice boxes you built for Dr. Nakamura . . . they should be a good fit. I’ve even held your knives. In fact, I borrowed one a few weeks ago, the night we took our final for AARC2. Remember that little dweeb who always sat in the front row? The one who asked the same question three different ways in every class? Well, his questioning days are over.”
“I need to sit down,” I said. “I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Don’t get fried, Mr. Hyde,” Daphne said. “Not during our very first dance. He wouldn’t like that.”
I said something, but I can’t imagine what it was. Moments had passed . . . perhaps minutes. The next thing I knew, Daphne was already moving away. I toppled sideways, leaning against the wall, trying to steady myself. Daphne’s heels clicked over the tile floor. I tried to measure time by her footfalls. I still couldn’t move. I was buried in a dream—her dream or mine, I couldn’t be sure—and those coffin-nail footfalls were driving deeply . . . over and over and over again.
Daphne was further away now . . . very far. And then she was gone.
A door swung open, and a breath of wind washed over my back.
Outside the door Daphne voice rose over the marble forest ahead, and lingered behind.
“Come along now,” she said. “After all, I keep my promises.”
I don’t know how I managed it, but I began to follow.
The darkness followed behind me.
No doubt Daphne had made promises to it, as well.
No one had ever been in my apartment before. Except the landlord, and a plumber when I had to have the toilet replaced. But now that we were there the rooms seemed too small and the things they contained even smaller. And the bed, well . . . it was only a single bed, but Daphne said it wouldn’t matter because our real bed was darkness itself, and without borders. That was fine with me. I welcomed darkness wherever I found it.
That night, I hoped the shadows would deliver my mind to other places . . . alone. But you can’t be alone with lovers, even in the dark. And so it was with us and the thing from the columbarium. Daphne and I, alive on a hideous canvas, our little hearts pounding, the two of us writhing in the night as worms that twist and couple in a ripe grave. That thing an oozing mess around and under and over and in, free of its buckles and clothes, ripe and corrupt.
Whether it was climax or prelude was a matter of perspective. As act or ceremony, the grave was the grit of it, and blood was its heart. Still Daphne burrowed in and so did I, like hungry little grave worms seeking the choicest morsel. There was no other choice, but any pleasure found was quickly lost between lips and belly in the manner of a ghoul’s meal.
Or, to put it more succinctly:
“A nightmare?” you ask.
“Of course,” I reply.
What else could I call it? For in truth or imaginings, nightmares must be endured. And as I drifted off to sleep, I thought it would have been better if we were all past enduring. If (on this night) we’d all worn knives for fingers instead of flesh and shadow. Make that simple adjustment, and the three of us would have slashed the darkness to ribbons and left nothing for the coming dawn but a puddle of gore fit only for the coroner’s pail.
It would have been better that way, I think.
For in the end, the worms indeed had their way.
When I awoke in the morning, Daphne was already gone. She had a waitress job not far from the college where we attended library school, so she’d probably put my apartment in her rear-view mirror long before the sun came up. The only thing she left behind was a lipstick message on the bathroom mirror:
Stay loose, Dr. Mabuse.
We’ll see you soon.
Xoxoxo,
364.15233
Of course, I knew that Dewey Decimal number by heart long before I ever picked up a knife.
Amping it up to the third power was a nice touch, though.
Then again, I’ve never been much of a joiner.
I left my apartment not long after that, grabbing coffee, then waiting for the cemetery gates to open. Once inside, I made my way to the library . . . or the building that passed for one.
No one was there, of course. At least, no one living . . . not at this early hour. That was fine with me. There was only one thing I was after—I wanted another look at the name on the columbarium box I’d touched the day before, and I wanted to write down the dates of birth and death. That seemed as good a place as any to begin my research.
I hurried down the hallway, retracing my steps. Of course, I remembered the spot, and for a moment it was as if I walked in my own shadow, and the echo of my footsteps was an echo of Daphne’s from the day before.
I shook those impressions away. All I wanted was that book, and the information on the spine.
My hand traveled upward, fingers spreading.
The nail of my index finger traveled spines, as Daphne’s had the day before.
And then it came to a gap.
To the place a book had been.
In its place was another box—the Japanese puzzle box I’d built for Rebecca. It sat on the shelf, as open as open could be and just as empty. There was no storage-unit key inside.
I grabbed the box and hurried away from the chapel and the cemetery.
Feeling, with good reason, like an exorcised spirit.
It would have been a relief to go to work the next day, except for the eight a.m. phone call from the library director requesting that I come in early for a meeting. A few hours of uncomfortable tension passed before the appointed time arrived and I dropped my backpack on a chair in his outer office. His administrative assistant led me inside.
“I know you’re a creature of the night, working the shift you do,” the director said. “Thanks for coming out in the light of day.”
“I wore my six-six-six sunblock,” I said, “just to be safe.”
“Good one.” He laughed. “Now let’s get to it. Looks like you really knocked out all the repair work we’ve been throwing at you. I think it’s time you put the scrapper and glue away for a while. Now that you’re getting your masters, we’ll give you something really interesting to work on.”
“Such as?”
“Let’s take a walk, and I’ll show you.”
I followed the director, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We took the three flights to the Archives office, my suspicions mounting with every step, just waiting for him to say something about my hidden toolbox or some other troubling evidence. But the only things the director talked about were his doctor and his cholesterol numbers. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy with either.
By the time we reached the third floor, I’d begun to relax. Obviously, this wasn’t about me. The Archives itself was empty at this time of day. The main office adjoined several workrooms, and the director used his master key to make the trip down a narrow hallway leading to the very last one.
“You really won’t believe this stuff,” he said. “It’s been in a warehouse over in Oakland for close to a hundred years. The place is changing hands, so the college had to relocate a ton of material that’s been stored there since Moses was a baby. Mostly papers that belonged to a doctor who left his entire estate to the college years ago. He was a Brit expat who did pretty well for himself after immigrating in the 1890s, and he didn’t have any relations . . . at least on this side of the pond. After his death, the college got his money and the library was stuck with rest of it—you know, the usual story. Who knows what the collection amounts to, but I think you’re the man to give it a look and decide what’s what. There’s a ton of books on esoteric religions and cults—but I have a feeling a lot of that’s just landfill waiting to happen. Seems the silverfish got to it long ago . . . or something that was hungry, anyway.”
“And the rest of the collection?” I asked.
“Well, who knows? Turn-of-the-century scuttlebutt was that our doctor friend might have been the abortionist of choice for the privileged class of his day, so there might be something interesting. Buddy up with someone in the Women’s Studies department, you might even get a juicy paper out of it.”
The director unlocked the door. Even before it swung open, I had an idea what I’d see . . . and my gut told me it was something I knew I’d recognize.
“First off, here’s your full box of morbid,” the director said, pointing at an object on a table in the center of the room. “That’s a Victorian autopsy kit. Saws and knives and the whole nine yards. Can you believe it?”
“Yes,” I said. “I certainly can.” It was a true statement, because (of course) I’d seen the box before, in a dream, and I recognized it down to every strap and buckle, ones that matched the buckles on a certain walking nightmare’s collar.
Next to the autopsy kit was another box. This one was wooden. I’d never seen it before, but it was definitely a style with which I was familiar.
The director picked it up. “Judging from what I’ve found on the internet, this is a Japanese puzzle box—well-crafted, practically a museum piece. I believe it’s in the Koyosegi style. No idea what’s inside it, however. Who knows . . . maybe it’s a diary or something. They say our friend the doctor spent a few years in Japan before immigrating to the States. Could be a find. Maybe he hung out with Lafcadio Hearn and took notes.” He sighed. “Anyway, want to give it a look and see if you have any luck opening it? From what the students tell me, puzzles are your thing. Stephen told me you can knock out a Rubik’s cube in less than thirty seconds.”
“Actually, I’m not very good at puzzles,” I said, realizing quite suddenly that I spoke the absolute truth. “Not at all.”
There were a million things I should have done that night, but I suppose the only one that matters is the one I did. I paid a visit to my main storage unit, where I butchered Rebecca’s frozen corpse and placed the parts in individual caskets. This itself was an exhausting process, and afterwards I embarked upon my usual ceremonies for secreting the caskets that held my victims. But in truth that was little better than indulging an avoidance mechanism. There were far more pressing matters at hand, most of them involving Mr. 364.1523 and/or Daphne.
I should have called Daphne . . . or perhaps kidnapped her. I should have found out if the game we were playing was of her design, or Mr. 364.1523’s, or perhaps both. I should have found out if she opened Dr. Nakamura’s puzzle box, or if it was opened by ghostly hands. And then we should have had a frank discussion about statistical improbabilities of certain coincidences involving serial killers both dead and alive, and the dangerous course (and absolute, incontrovertible outcomes) of certain obsessions. Namely those that fell within the parameters of 364.1523.
Or I could have done research about the infamous killer who dominated that particular number, and plugged the dead doctor’s name into any number of search engines along with “Jack the Ripper.” A little history lesson, if you please. And perhaps a lesson in connect-the-dates, because I was more than familiar with the timetable of Jack the Ripper’s crimes. If the doctor were indeed a suspect, dates and places would not be hard to match.
Perhaps I could have even gone to the college and opened the doctor’s puzzle box, still waiting for me in the Archives on the third floor. Perhaps there really was a diary inside. If that were true, it no doubt held answers.
In short, there were many things I could have done.
Many questions I might have answered with just a little effort.
But none of that was to be. As a result, many of those questions still haunt me today. Perhaps I could never have answered them, but I would have liked to say that I tried. I didn’t. For one night, at least, I had hit my limit. So I washed Rebecca’s blood off my hands, and I locked the caskets in my storage unit and drove home.
Then (in the manner of Mr. Poe) I quaffed Nepenthe and slept the sleep of the dead.
But not the dreamless.
This time the dream didn’t take place in the library. Instead it was in the graveyard, outside the columbarium. Mr. 364.1523 stood there among the tombstones, his double-buckled collar cinched tight, his top hat perched above the little mountain of worms that masqueraded as his head.
“So, you’re beginning to understand now?” he asked.
“I’m beginning to see a larger picture,” I said. “I’ll admit that. But I’m not sure I understand much at all.”
“Come, come. You’re a bright lad, and it’s all very simple. I won’t have to draw you a diagram, will I?”
“No. I’m perfectly capable of adding to three.”
“Bravo. So nice to hear.”
“Then you’ll like this even better: I make my own choices, and I always have.”
He laughed, as if highly amused by my audacity. The sound shook him from within. The worms ringing that familiar black hole in his face circled it the way gore-flecked water circles an autopsy table drain.
“It’s funny, is it?” I said.
“Oh, yes. Dreadfully, so.”
“I’m not so sure I see the humor in the situation.”
“Perhaps not. But you must realize there’s much I can teach you. And we obviously share common ground—a very nice patch of it. On that subject: Did you like it? The three of us? I suppose that is the primary question, simply put.”
“I can’t say as I did.”
“Oh, now you’re lying, sir. Shame, shame. Or perhaps you’re simply not the kind to admit the particulars of your pleasures. Perhaps, in the end, that evening’s work put you exactly where you belong. You’re simply not accustomed to tucking your tail between your legs as of yet, but this too will come. You’ll learn your place in the new order quickly enough . . . just as a well-used knife finds a new home in the barnyard when a sharp new blade arrives for the china cabinet.”
“The fact is I’ve always seen myself as a lone wolf.”
“You’re not a wolf, my friend. That is my particular purview. But perhaps you’re a dog. Yes, I think that’s the role that would suit you best. An obedient and loyal servant. After all, you learned all the tricks, just as a good dog does. You learned from books, from histories of true wolves like myself. Not a lot of originality in your methods, but you’re quite the talented imitator. In that role, I can use you.”
“You’re asking me to fetch and carry?”
“No. I’m saying you already are.” Again, those worms were twisting where his lips should have been. “Would you like me to show you?”
“I wish you would.”
The dream-wind was higher now, scoring my skin, brushing the worms across Mr. 364.1523’s brow. He removed his top hat and held it aloft . . . just for a moment. And then his fingers set it free and it tumbled on the wind.
“There’s a good dog,” he said. “Fetch and carry.”
I stood there for a moment, not believing the words he’d spoken. The top hat tumbled through the air, traveling between wind-twisted boughs, and then it touched down between the tombstones. Before I knew it I was chasing after it, running through the graveyard. For a moment, I even dropped to all fours, charging ahead without a care for whatever came afterward . . . without a care, forevermore.
And then I stopped, quite suddenly. I knew what had happened . . . what was happening. Mr. 364.1523’s laughter whipped me like the wind and rang in my head. That sound chilled me as nothing ever had. And suddenly I understood just how it would be if things stayed that way . . . just how it would be, forevermore.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. So I fought the dream. I started to awaken. I know I did. I tried to swim up from deep black water, the way you do when you rouse yourself from a nightmare.
But something held me back. Or someone. At first I thought it was Daphne. She stood at the edge of the graveyard, in shadows that hung from the trees. Her pale face was flushed with excitement. “Can you imagine what it will be like?” she asked. “Using that kit? Carving up a victim with his knives? It’s time to get started. Hurry and join me . . . I’m ready. Let’s go to the library. Let’s get that case—”
I wanted to warn her. I wanted to tell Daphne what Mr. 364.1523 had asked. I wanted to tell her what life would be like as a hunting hound, and say that I’d never spend my life in a dead man’s kennel. I opened my mouth, ready to tell her everything. I ran my tongue over my lips, for that graveyard wind had dried them. But all I tasted on my lips were the slick excretions of carrion worms, and the words that came from my mouth were not my own.
“It’s time to make a new start,” he said, his voice coming from a hollow place inside me. “A red parade—that’s what it will be. Meet me at the library. We don’t need him at all. Tonight it will be just the two of us. That’s all we really need. . . . ”
When I awoke, I found myself standing in the kitchen of my apartment. The handset of the wall phone was wrapped in my fingers, and my mouth was open. But the words he’d spoken were gone and it was too late to replace them with others.
A dial tone buzzed from the receiver.
Daphne was gone.
I dropped the phone, grabbed my keys, and left my apartment in a rush. I was barely awake when I started the car and headed for the library. But soon my mind was ticking away, running different scenarios the way it always did, searching for a way to come out on top in the confrontation that lay ahead.
Of course, in truth I was still running like a dog in a dream.
I just didn’t know it yet.
I have wondered if I was the one responsible for everything that happened that night. I mean, if I was the real murderer. Certainly, I might have been. Certainly, my brain didn’t function the way other brains function, and I was clearly capable of the acts which occurred. So I won’t blame you if you read this and think: “That’s it, exactly. He was crazy. He imagined half the coincidences that led up to that night. He probably imagined half of everything. Hell, he was probably alone when he ate that picnic lunch in the graveyard. And I’ll bet he barely spoke to that Daphne chick at all, just stalked her like a creepy little mouse. Just listen to what he says, do the math, and it all adds up to beyond batshit. Even if you go best-case scenario, that Ripper stuff was already hard-wired in his head . . . and if Daphne really was tuned in to all that supernatural jazz the way he said she was then she was probably a couple cans short of a six pack, too. And when they bumped up against each other it was dead-on destiny that it’d end up badly . . . in no uncertain terms.”
And who knows? If that’s the way you read the cards, maybe you’re right. I can’t convince you otherwise. After all, they say that perception is everything. But so is honesty. And while I understand there’s no real reason that you would accept the latter quality as part of my makeup, I can assure you that it is.
Or was.
I can also assure you of a few other facts of which I’m absolutely certain.
First: When I arrived at the library that night, the front doors were already open.
Two: Daphne was already on the second floor, screaming bloody murder.
I wish this were another kind of story. If it were, I could provide you with a more satisfying ending. One that involved pulp heroics, or noirish anti-heroics, or perhaps a Hitchcockian twist or two. One with full measures of shadow and darkness and a triple-play of bad business and murderous intent. Or, to put it simply for those who appreciate the classics, I’d love to be able to provide you with a twisted version of “The Most Dangerous Game” times three.
But doing that with the facts at hand would be just as impossible as making a butcher shop display case seem exciting. No matter how hard you try, you can’t do it. In the end, it’s just dead meat. And that’s the kind of ending I found at the library. I didn’t have to see what the man in the top hat left upstairs to know that was true, for I’d studied his methods for years. I could imagine well enough what remained of Daphne after he finished with his knives and assorted autopsy instruments. To paraphrase a comment from my dream: I didn’t need him to draw me a diagram.
Not that he would have. Not that he needed to. Not anymore. If I’d been useful to him at all, the time had passed. At that moment we’d circled back to the beginning. Meaning I was frozen in place when he descended the library staircase—I had been for several minutes as Daphne screamed her last—frozen just the way I had been that first night he appeared on the landing after the library was closed. He wore no leather apron, just the black clothes he’d worn that very first night. And for a ghost he seemed to handle material objects just fine. In one hand he held the old puzzle box that might have contained a diary, and with the other he carried the autopsy kit. It was buckled and secure the same way his collar was buckled, and it swung in his gloved hand the way a pendulum swings in a funeral home, marking time that no longer matters.
He spoke as he approached me, his head writhing and alive now, no longer approximating anything human at all. “You don’t realize what I offered you. The secrets I know, the things I was willing to teach. The nightmares we might have shared, the three of us. The boxes we might have opened, together. But now they’re shut, forevermore. For you, for her . . . for eternity. I will always walk alone.”
The words washed over me. I stood there like a statue as the Ripper’s smile writhed across those lips one last time. It was almost wistful. I couldn’t say a single word. Not as he patted my cheek with a bloody hand. Not as he crossed the lobby to the Circulation Desk. Not as he picked up the phone and dialed the extension for Public Safety. Not as he reported a murder using my voice.
In a moment, he was gone.
The darkness closed in—for seconds, for minutes—and then sirens rose in the distance. And soon I was running. Just as I had in my dream, like a starving dog in a cemetery, charging over bones that lay buried much too deep to be noticed.
I ran farther than you’d expect, and finally the sirens and lights closed in on me.
The light was followed by bullets.
In some measure, that was another ending.
And a beginning, as well.
Of course, you can probably guess how the remainder of my journey progressed. Autopsy table, crime lab, a long blast of crematorium fire. All of it leading to a final destination that is a given: the cemetery where I picnicked with Daphne, and a box in that very same columbarium chapel where hallways led one to another, and the rooms did the same . . . all of them (given the circumstances) ultimately leading nowhere at all.
Who knows about Daphne. Perhaps she’s here, too. If she is, I haven’t found her yet. I’ve checked the shelves at least a hundred times, scoured every room searching for a golden box which bears her name. But perhaps that isn’t the kind of box I should be looking for. Perhaps I should look for a puzzle box made of laurel. In a perfect world (or a perfect myth), I’m sure that’s exactly where Daphne would be.
As for my own box, it’s really no different than all the others here. That may surprise you, but it really doesn’t matter to me. There have always been boxes hidden away, in my life and in my mind. But I have never really inhabited a single one of them. I have never shut myself in. I won’t change by doing that now.
Instead, I think of the boxes here as books. Each one holds a story, and I’ve come to know many of them. I am their curator. Of course, if you asked anyone on staff, they’ll tell you there is no librarian here. But there is. It’s me. I walk the halls, and I know the stories.
And I listen carefully, searching for another story that will inform my own. One that will tell me more about Daphne, or answer the questions that remain in the Ripper’s wake. Was he ghost or demon or something stranger, I don’t know. Maybe I never will. But you can never tell where an answer might be hidden, just as you can never know the unexpected places a tale might lead. In life and in stories there’s always another panel to slide, another puzzle box to open.
Perhaps it’s that way in death, too.
For here, in this place, there are always more boxes, always more stories.
They arrive every day.
Maybe someday I’ll find the one I need to finish my own.