The Office

THE OFFICE

John Pinkerton knelt before the bookshelf in the rear of his office. He searched the bottom shelf for something to read while toying with his old Magic Eight Ball, the quirky fortune-telling toy recognized by any child of the eighties.

He’d been searching for what felt like hours. This happened often (more so these days), and he couldn’t honestly say it displeased him. Browsing his overflowing bookshelves presented him with an infinite selection of journeys waiting to be taken. Every book he’d read represented old friends he loved revisiting. The ones he hadn’t, new friends in waiting. Choosing which to read was a pleasing difficulty.

He shook the eight ball with one hand, smiling. “What’s it going to be?” he whispered, running his other hand along the spines of books on his tightly packed shelf. “Some ghost stories, today?”

The white polyhedron, suspended in liquid turned murky with age, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.

John chuckled as he returned his attention to the books before him. “Story of my life,” he whispered. “Story of my . . . ”

Something whisked along the floor outside his office.

He slowly stood.

Turned and gazed at his office doorway.

Saw nothing but darkness beyond.

Which was strange.

Because he’d left the light in the hall on. His office was in the basement, which consisted of the washroom, furnace, and the playroom. By nature it was dark. A subterranean space with no windows. He always left the lights on outside his office because he didn’t like the dark. Never had. Beth fussed about his little quirk (saying it wasted electricity) but she’d long ago resigned herself to his habit, and now offered her half-hearted complaints mostly for show.

He’d turned the hall lights on when he came downstairs. He was sure of it. But he saw only darkness beyond the office doorway.

“Beth? Hey . . . Beth? I’m down here, honey. In my office? Could you switch on the stairs light?”

Maybe Beth hadn’t realized he was down here. Frugal as she was, she’d shut off the lights. But that didn’t make sense. There were two sets of lights on the way to his office. The stairwell lights and the lights in the hall. Beth would’ve had to descend the stairs, at least, to turn the hallway lights off. He’d heard a noise, of course, which maybe had been her . . .

But it had sounded different. More like a swishing sound. The hem of a dress whispering against the floor. Beth wasn’t prone to wearing dresses, even for formal occasions.

“Beth?”

Not a sound. He stood in the middle of his office and listened for a moment, directing his senses upward, searching for sounds of life. The floor, creaking as someone walked from the den to the kitchen. The more distant creaks of either Marty or Melissa ascending the stairs to their bedrooms on the second floor. The distant murmur of the television in the living room or the radio in the dining room, or water running in the kitchen or bathroom sinks, down through the pipes . . .

Nothing.

Nothing but dead silence. Which was odd, because he’d heard sounds only moments before. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t Beth called to him, saying they were heading out for a bit? Hadn’t he nodded unconsciously as he searched for something to read?

It wouldn’t have been the first time. Over the past few years (especially since the kids had turned into teenagers and therefore strange aliens from distant planets who wanted little to do with him) his office had become his refuge. He’d spent increasing hours there channeling his youth building car models, or relaxing in his old recliner, reading.

He’d always been an avid reader, showing little discrimination in his diet. He loved all genres. He’d majored in Business Communications at Webb Community College and now worked as a Customer Service manager at Dine-a-Mate—a small company which published a yearly coupon book—but he was rarely without a novel. Whenever he had a spare moment, he was always reading. A novel during breakfast. A different one before bed. Another sat propped open on the exercise bike in the kids’ old playroom (long unused, as they now preferred to hole up in their rooms with their WiFi tablets, watching God Knew What on Youtube). In fact, it was hard to think of a time when he wasn’t building models or reading.

Something whisked down the hall.

John stepped toward his office door. A mild chill rippled across his skin. He was certain he’d heard something.

Sudden inspiration struck him, and he chuckled aloud. Of course. It was probably the family cats—a calico named Pebbles and a tomcat named Peanut—batting something across the basement’s concrete floor. They were notorious for waking everyone at night with similar shenanigans. Most likely they were batting around a piece of cardboard or something.

In fact, an entire scenario formed. Beth had probably yelled down her plans to run an errand and he (as always these days) had called back “Sure, see you later!” without realizing it. He’d done it several times before, after all. Beth had probably sent one of the kids to turn the hall light off in addition to the stairwell light. This had happened to him on several occasions, too. They’d gone their merry way while he’d browsed through his voluminous book collection, lost in a bibliophile’s paradise.

It had to be the cats making the swishing sound along the floor in the hall outside his office. He’d go out there now, flick on the hall lights and herd them upstairs. Tossing the Magic Eight Ball hand to hand, John stepped toward the door leading to the hall . . . and stopped.

Something twitched in his gut.

A feeling. A strange, skin-crawling sensation. For whatever reason (though it was ridiculous), he didn’t want to enter the dark hallway beyond.

Why?

Having no logical basis for his fear, John figured he felt uneasy from abruptly realizing he was alone in the house. He returned his attention to the bookshelf at the rear of his office, the one he’d been browsing when he’d first heard the strange sounds outside, only being made by the cats, after all.

The top shelf held purely “literary works.” Poetry collections of Blake, Yeats, Robert Frost, and Shakespeare. Prose collections of Zora Neal Hurston, Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Flannery O’Connor, and folktales collected by the Brothers Grimm. Novels, from The Man in the Iron Mask to Madame Bovary, to Villette and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, to A Passage to India by E. M. Forster.

The second shelf held old pulp novels from the thirties and forties. When he was fourteen years old his great grandmother, recognizing a hungry reader, started giving him one novel a month. They bore such outlandish titles as The House of Darkness, The Tree that Screamed, The Strangler Fig, The Devil’s Mansion, Crimson Ice, The Undying Monster and Heads, You Lose. He’d consumed those books one after the other, a new junkie mainlining his first fix. Grandma White promised him when she passed, he could have them all. Those books were older than any of the others in his office.

The bottom shelf (the one he’d been searching when he’d first heard the cats playing in the hall) held his collection of horror anthologies. The famed Whispers series, edited by Stuart David Schiff, featuring the varied works of Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Charles Grant and so many others. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror from England. The Shivers series, published by Cemetery Dance. Masques, Borderlands, Shadows, Stalkers, Dark Forces, October Dreams I & II, Corpse Blossoms, Horror Library Volumes 1-5, and Prime Evil. Classic horror anthologies jammed next to paperback collections of slightly lesser repute with titles to match; Shock Rock, Walls of Fear, Tales by Midnight I & II, Hardshell, Post Mortem, Zombie Nation, Zippered Flesh and A Taste for Blood.

John stopped and frowned, noticing something odd. Among the horror anthologies was a black leather-bound book he’d never seen before. It was a strange size, looking more like a journal, jammed between Whispers 2 and his hardcover edition of Dark Forces.

He touched the book’s spine, fingers trailing down its pebbled surface. He was about to pull it out, had his finger hooked on the spine’s edge, but he figured it was probably a collector’s edition he’d bought at Arcane Delights, the used bookstore in town. That’s all.

Scanning the shelves unsuccessfully for something else interesting, John brushed off his knees and stood.

Something swished down the hall.

He wasn’t concerned, however, because he’d already identified it as the cats playing. He ignored the sound, dismissing the slight chill running along his skin. But as he stood, he noticed several things shifted around on top of his bookshelf. Die cast metal figurines of Marvel characters: Hulk, Wolverine, and Spiderman in particular. Which didn’t make sense. The kids weren’t allowed in here. Touching anything on his shelf was absolutely forbidden, because this was the accumulation of twenty years collecting odds and ends. He’d started it shortly after moving in, when Mom and Dad had sent him several boxes of his things they’d stored while he’d attended college. In one of the boxes, he’d found old action figures, a Slinky, some fuzzy dice, the Magic Eight Ball in his hands, and several of his old car models. Some of them intact, others missing wheels, hoods, or engines.

He’d unpacked the contents of the boxes onto the top of his shelf. Over the years, he’d added bits and pieces of whatever caught his fancy. In particular, a few old fashioned soda bottles (Pepsi and Mountain Dew) he’d found alongside the road. Also, the die cast Marvel figurines Marty had thrown away a few years ago when he’d declared them “baby toys” and “could he finally get an iPhone, please?” Last fall, John had come across a set of wax Halloween figurines—a grinning grim reaper, a ghost, a skeleton and a jack’o lantern—at Handy’s Pawn and Thrift. It was love at first sight.

From the looks of it, someone had been in his office messing around with the Marvel figurines. Scattered in a pile were Hulk, Wolverine, Spiderman and also, he saw now, Magneto. He frowned; holding his Magic Eight Ball close to his chest with one hand as he gently re-set the figurines with the other.

Who could’ve been down messing with his things? It had been years since either Marty or Melissa had tried to sneak in here.

Replacing Hulk to its original position against a dark green Mountain Dew bottle from the seventies, John hefted the Magic Eight Ball, wondering if either of the cats was to blame. Not Pebbles, he supposed. She was too big and old to be jumping from the floor to the shelf. Peanut, however, was still young and also small, more than capable of not only launching herself up to the shelf but small enough to walk along its edge while causing only minimal disorder.

Another oddity: Usually he shut not only the basement door at night but also his office door, to keep the cats out. Perhaps he’d been preoccupied last night and had forgotten to close them? Unlikely but it was certainly possible, seeing as how he was the only one in the house so concerned about shutting both doors at night. If he’d forgotten, it was more than likely the others hadn’t worried about it at all.

Speaking of the cats, they were really going at it out in the hall. He should herd them upstairs, but again, for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he didn’t want to leave his office right then.

On a whim, John shook the Eight Ball. “So. Were my cats responsible for this mess?”

Out of the murk, the faded letters on the polyhedron read: Ask Again Later.

John chuckled, but as he examined the arrangement of figurines on his shelf, realization struck him. One of them was missing. He gazed at the little superhero tableau until it came to him. Cyclops. The X-man with laser eyes. He’d been there with the others. Now, John noticed, he wasn’t.

He thought for a moment, working the eight ball in his hands. A creeping unease tickled the back of his neck. Who’s been messing around in here? He dismissed the question, realizing Peanut had probably knocked Cyclops onto the floor, where she’d then batted him under the shelf.

To dispel the faint unease over his shelf’s mysterious disorder, John shook the eight ball again. “Did Peanut knock Cyclops under the shelf?”

The polyhedron slowed its spinning. Faded letters resolved into: Answer Is Unclear. John grunted. “Figures.”

Regardless, he didn’t want to root under the shelf for Cyclops at the moment, the way his knees were getting these days . . .

knees?

my knees are fine

 . . . so he’d search for Cyclops later.

The familiar itch of wanting to read something flared again. It pleased him, but also struck him as a little odd. Normally, he wasn’t so indecisive. He turned to scan the old, pressed-wood shelf to his right, the kind found at K-Mart or Wal-Mart and not requiring any real skill to assemble.

He unconsciously rolled the eight ball in his hands as he scanned the shelves. These books offered a trip down memory lane. His teenage collection of Star Wars novels. At one time he could’ve made the proud declaration he owned every one. Even the hard-to-find Han Solo novels from the late seventies. He’d stopped collecting them halfway through college, though. Now he owned only a fraction of the franchise’s backlist.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to read one of these. He mostly enjoyed their nostalgia. He’d arranged his old Star Wars action figures on the shelves, along with several commemorative Empire Strikes Back soda glasses his parents bought when he was a kid. A final touch was a plastic but realistic lightsaber hilt Marty had discarded when he’d declared himself “too old for space stuff.”

This shelf was a time portal. It transported John to an era before his children had grown away from him. A time when Beth had shown him more than the dutiful obligation she offered now, as she filled her days following Rachael Ray’s advice for weight loss or trendy but affordable home interior ideas, found on some website called Pinterest. She was always “pinning” things (whatever that meant). Recipes, sewing patterns, and hairstyles. Even when she was in the car with him, alone, she focused on her iPhone, listening to him with only half an ear.

John frowned at what appeared to be a black leather-bound book, similar to the one he’d seen on his horror anthologies shelf, between Heir to the Empire and Dark Force Rising. He couldn’t fathom why it’d be here or why it looked so similar to the other one.

He reached out to touch it but figured it must be some sort of Star Wars novelty book he’d recently purchased and forgotten about, which happened often. He’d buy books either at rummage sales, used bookstores, or online, shelve them, then forget about them. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Working the eight ball in his hands, he dismissed the strange black leather-bound book and re-focused on the reading itch he couldn’t seem to scratch.

As he kicked something across the floor.

John glanced down, puzzled, and saw something which only confused him further. The animatronic tarantula (about the size of his hand) which usually sat on his Ramsey Campbell shelf. But there the toy spider was, on the floor a few inches from his foot, obviously what he’d kicked.

John stood still.

Staring at the tarantula sitting in the middle of his office floor, as something whisked along the concrete in the hall outside his office. For one surreal moment, the tarantula appeared real. Poised to scuttle under his desk or turn and attack his foot, which was why Melissa hadn’t wanted it, of course, despite badgering him for weeks to buy one after seeing an ad for it on Animal Planet. Remote controlled, life-like except for its larger-than-actual-scale, it was all Melissa had talked about for weeks until John broke down and finally bought it from the Toys R’ Us over in Utica.

He’d had his doubts from the moment he saw it at the store (he’d thought it neat himself), but at the time he was happy he’d found something his mercurial, ever-more-complex preteen daughter wanted, something he could actually provide.

Which was why (though he’d suspected her reaction from the start), he felt let-down (disappointed as hell) at her immediate rejection the instant he’d removed it from the box. Her eyes had widened (at first he’d hoped in excitement); her mouth had worked silently until she finally whispered, “Ew. Get it away from me. It’s gross!”

He’d done his best to swallow his disappointment and what remained of his pride, hoping maybe Marty would show some interest. It had been a remote control animatronic tarantula, for God’s sake, and it obviously frightened his little sister. As a kid, John would’ve begged for such a treasure. Marty, however, had barely spared a glance from whatever game he was playing on his iPhone, muttering with barely concealed scorn, “Whatever. Thing’s totally fake. Lame, Dad.”

He’d liked it, however, so into his office it went to stand guard over his Ramsey Campbell novels, which seemed appropriate. There it had sat for the past four years.

Until now.

He juggled the eight ball, happy for something to keep his hands busy as he stared at the toy tarantula sitting on the floor. He couldn’t explain how it had gotten there. It hadn’t been there when he’d come in earlier this . . .

Morning?

Afternoon?

He caught the eight ball in his right hand and held it there, considering. It was odd. He’d certainly lost track of time in his office before. Hours of reading had passed him by, leaving him fuzzy as to the time, especially since he’d retired.

Retired.

He frowned. He wasn’t retired. He had ten or fifteen years left before he could even consider it, which all depended on whether or not Melissa would settle for a few affordable years at Webb Community or if she’d insist on something more prestigious and, more importantly, far more expensive.

But he wasn’t retired yet.

was he?

No, he wasn’t retired. His mind had just slipped, thinking about how much time he’d probably spend down here when he did retire, when the kids weren’t around. Not that he saw much of them these days, anyway.

He chuckled and shook the eight ball. “Getting daffy before my time, thinking of retirement and all. That it? Am I losing it?”

Out of the milky fluid, the words read: Future Is Hazy.

For some reason, the eight ball’s continued ambiguity troubled him, which was stupid, of course. The eight ball was a toy, nothing more. It wasn’t purposefully offering him vague answers.

He tossed the eight ball into the air, caught it and was glancing back to the floor when Beth peered around the corner and into his office, face blank. John straightened in surprise, having not heard her steps in the hall . . .

only that whisking sound

 . . . and was about to ask her if she needed anything, but before he could speak, she reached in and flicked the office light off. Plunged into darkness, he didn’t see her leave but heard her footsteps this time, which sounded quick and agitated as they sped down the hall, away from his office, and up the stairs.

“Beth! What the hell?”

A shrill kind of panic filled his chest. He crossed the floor as quickly as he could in the darkness. He slapped at the wall, searching for the light switch. Rationally he knew it was silly to fear the dark. It couldn’t hurt him, right? But his heart was throbbing triple time as he groped for the switch, his panic escalating with the irrational belief he was dissolving into the dark, and soon there’d be nothing left.

He found the switch and flipped on the light, banishing the darkness and instantly easing his throbbing heart. He took a deep breath and massaged his chest with one hand (it felt heavy, the pain spreading to his left shoulder, which scared him in a completely different way), squeezing the eight ball tightly with the other.

What the hell was Beth doing? Shutting the lights off without a word? John wondered if maybe he’d done something to anger her, but Beth addressed her complaints head on. She didn’t play passive-aggressive games. Besides, he’d thought the house was empty, her gone for the day.

His mind swirling, he glanced to the floor, searching for the animatronic tarantula.

It wasn’t there.

John stared at the floor. The toy spider had been there a moment ago. He’d kicked it and then wondered how it had gotten there. Then for some inexplicable reason Beth had reached into his office and flicked the lights off. After he turned them back on . . .

The toy spider was gone.

John glanced at the bookshelf standing next to the writing desk he never used. There the toy spider was, where it was supposed to be, but facing the wrong direction. Also, like his knick-knack shelf, his books were in disarray. Several had been knocked over.

John’s throat tightened.

His chest felt heavy again as an icy dread washed over him. It became hard to breathe, as an aching pain radiated out into his left shoulder. All the hours he’d spent in his office over these years, he knew every nook and cranny, fastidiously dusting and organizing his books and making sure everything was just so.

“Who’s been in here? And . . . how? When?”

Maybe it had been the grandchildren. Marty’s kids were okay. He and Marty had never enjoyed a close relationship but at least he kept his kids in check, unlike Melissa. Her brats ran wild all over the place. They were always getting where they didn’t belong. It figured, with the way she let them do whatever they wanted in compensation for ditching her husband. He remembered the time he’d come in here and her little brat Dillon had been pushing the animatronic tarantula along the floor making vroom sounds.

A spike of real fear lanced his heart.

He gripped the eight ball hard enough to hear its plastic shell creak. “Who’s Dillon? What grandchildren? What the hell is happening?”

Instinctively, he glanced down at the eight ball. Floating letters spelled out: Ask Again Later.

There were those damn cats again, whisking down the hall, though instead of sounding like Fluffy and Princess knocking around pieces of cardboard on the cold concrete floor . . .

no, it’s Peanut and Pebbles

 . . . it sounded more like the hem of a dress or a robe dragging across the floor outside the door to his office, where it was still so dark.

John rested a slightly shaking hand on his aching chest and rubbed in slow circles. He was ill. Confused. Was he having a stroke? A heart attack? He was far too young, at age 45 . . .

60?

 . . . but he’d heard stories, of course. Of healthy men dropping dead from heart attacks in middle age. He had to admit he’d been feeling more stress than usual these days. Melissa had turned from his darling little tom-girl who loved to play with garter snakes into a high school senior with the painted-on face and clothes of those barely dressed girls in all the rap videos she watched.

He was too old to know her anymore. Too old and from a foreign era, the rules of which no longer applied. His worst fear was not Melissa turning up pregnant and unwed, but that he’d push her there, leaving her adrift by fleeing to his office and seeking shelter in the pages of the stories which had become more important to him than real life.

He massaged his chest harder, trying his best to ignore Peanut and Pebbles . . .

Fluffy and Princess?

 . . . whisking something down the hall. Yes, stress. Both Melissa and Marty had become strangers to him. Melissa, a startling feminine creature who scared him because she was developing curves out of nowhere and didn’t at all resemble the little girl he used to take fishing and hiking. Marty had morphed into a sullen malcontent. Hanging around those dropouts from the Commons Trailer Park every weekend, drinking, probably also smoking dope and laying with loose girls.

Wait.

What was he worrying about?

Melissa was only 16. She’d only recently started dressing in short dresses and shirts with low-plunging necklines which sent him scurrying to his office. Marty was only twelve. Getting a little surly, but still doing okay in school and toeing the line, if only barely. They hadn’t gotten into any trouble . . .

Had they?

Again, unbidden, John’s mind toyed with thoughts of a stroke, a heart attack, or some other ailment affecting the mind. Hadn’t the former owner of Arcane Delights, Brian Ellison, recently passed away after Alzheimer’s and dementia had stolen his mind?

No.

Brian Ellison still owned and operated Arcane Delights. Didn’t he? John had bought several old Stephen King novels there, only last week.

Hadn’t he?

Drawn by the memory of the Stephen King novels he’d purchased (he swore only last week), his gaze slid to the huge, handmade wooden shelf next to his office door, which of course was his Stephen King shelf. He owned nearly every one of King’s books and multiple paperback copies of his favorites: It, Salem’s Lot, Pet Semetary, Christine and The Dead Zone.

He paused, frowning at the black leather-bound book stuffed between It and Salem’s Lot. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t place from where. He shrugged and passed it over, searching for the model of Christine he’d built about six or seven years ago . . .

8 or 9

10 or 11?

 . . . when he’d taken up modeling again over the cold winter months. Since then he’d been spending more and more time alone in the comforting solitude of his office. Delicately assembling cars with airplane glue and tweezers, trimming parts with an Xacto knife, escaping into memories of his youth instead of facing the strange realities of today’s world. Obamacare (thinly veiled communism, anyone could see). Marriage equality (he didn’t hate gays but marriage had always been between men and women and such cataclysmic changes made him uneasy in ways he couldn’t explain). The increasing violence he saw on television, like the awful story of two men who’d broken into a family’s home, killed the father and son, tied the mother and preteen daughter to the bed and raped them for hours before setting them on fire. Down in his quiet office he felt protected from this changing world as he channeled his youth through car models, plastic glue and Testors paint.

There it was. The model he’d constructed of King’s famous Plymouth Fury. Sitting on a book club edition of Christine, right where it should be. The relief he felt at the familiar sight nearly buckled his knees. The longer he gazed at it, however, the more something appeared off. The model car sat crookedly, the left front tire leaning inward. Tentatively, John picked up the lovingly assembled 57 Plymouth Fury.

The left front tire fell off.

It hit the original-printing book club edition of Christine, bounced, and fell to the floor with a plastic rattle.

John’s hand began to shake so badly he feared he might drop the model and damage it worse. With forced care, he gently replaced the crippled car, cringing at the way the model’s front end dipped at its missing wheel. Somehow, he forced himself not to drop to his knees to search desperately for it, especially with the way his arthritis was bothering him these days . . .

but he didn’t have arthritis yet

his knees felt fine

 . . . and instead took several slow steps backward until he once again stood in the center of his office, as the swishing sound in the hall grew closer.

Those damn cats.

Feeling strangely infantile in the way old people sometimes do and hating himself for it . . .

but I’m only 45

50?

 . . . John Pinkerton clasped the Magic Eight Ball in two hands and raised it as if in supplication. Feeling equal parts foolish and desperate, he shook it and whispered, “Am I going crazy?”

Faded letters emerged from the murk inside the ball: Answer is Hazy.

He shook it again, rasping, “Am I going insane? Having a stroke? Am I dreaming?”

The polyhedron turned slowly until it revealed: Ask Again Later.

John licked dry lips. Ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. Scattered thoughts bounced around his mind. Why did Beth stare at me like she didn’t see me and turn the lights off? Who’s been sneaking into my office? Who’s moved things around? What’s happening to me? Feeling lost, he glanced helplessly at the desk next to his Ramsey Campbell shelf.

There, sitting upon it, was a black leather-bound book.

The whisking sound out in the hall . . .

the hem of a robe dragging across the floor

 . . . drew closer.

Ignoring the sound, John approached he black book sitting on the writing desk he never used. He finally admitted to himself—though it made about as much sense as the toy spider being misplaced or Beth staring through him and turning the lights off—he’d seen the book all over his office. Jammed in with the horror anthologies, with the Star Wars novels, the Ramsey Campbell novels, and on the Stephen King shelf. Somehow, John knew if he turned away, he’d find it elsewhere.

On his Charles Grant shelf.

Next to Boy’s Life, with his Robert McCammon novels. Nestled between Dune by Frank Herbert and Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov. With his modest collection of Nero Wolfe mysteries. No matter where he turned in his beloved office, his quiet sanctuary against a mad world grown increasingly alien, somehow he knew he’d continue to find it, hiding in plain sight, waiting for him.

A strange sort of resolve hardened inside John, a kind he hadn’t felt since high school . . .

middle age?

 . . . and with an amazingly steady hand, he flipped open the black leather-bound book sitting on the writing desk he never used.

Names.

An entire page of names. A list. He read them off silently. They were men and women’s names (or in some cases, perhaps boys’ and girls’ names) and for the most part unfamiliar. Written in a clear, moderately ornate script. He flipped several pages and saw more. Names and more names, all written by the same hand.

After the fifth page, a name jumped out.

Elizabeth Kinner.

He knew right away who she was. His Kindergarten teacher from 39 . . .

50? 60?

 . . . years ago. A wonderful woman whose tireless love for children had touched everything she’d done in the classroom. She’d been near retirement age when he’d been in her class. If memory served him correctly, she’d passed away quietly in her sleep his freshman year at Webb Community College.

A spark flared deep in his consciousness. He didn’t dare consider it directly as he studiously ignored the whisking sound moving closer to his office.

He flipped another page. More unrecognizable names until he reached the bottom of the sixth page and, predictably, another familiar name appeared: Bob Cranston. Bob would’ve graduated high school with him, had he not been hit by a drunk driver walking home from football practice. The name below, Al Moreland. The boy who’d been hit by a train while riding his four wheeler on the tracks, John’s tenth grade year. They never found Al’s body. Only his demolished four wheeler.

He flipped another page.

And another.

More and more names he recognized. Mr. Drake, the farmer who’d unfortunately flipped his tractor onto himself trying to free it from mud in one of his fields. Sam Perkins, a hunter who’d disappeared in the woods one winter. Eddie Bannister, a two-bit high school dropout who’d been killed, most believed, by his partner in crime Derek Barton (who’d since fled to parts unknown) in a botched robbery at Handy’s Pawn and Thrift. Bud Hartley, local simpleton but gentle giant, who’d died of complications in Clifton Memorial Hospital after a pile of burning garbage at the landfill fell on him. Lizzy Tillman, who’d died when the NYSEG payment center flooded in that awful storm a few years ago . . .

Decades?

And on.

More and more names he recognized as he turned the pages. Names of people he knew, all of them dead and gone. Their names, written on the pages he kept turning, as a robe dragged down the hall toward his office.

He kept turning until he saw nothing but blank emptiness. He flipped back a few pages until he found the last page of names, ran his finger down them—seeing Art Finely’s name, part owner of Henry’s Drive-In, who’d died of a heart attack two years ago, Brian Ellison of Arcane Delights . . .

but I saw him last week

 . . . and several others which appeared familiar, but he couldn’t place.

He stopped at the last name.

“No,” he rasped, throat feeling tight and dry, skin cold and clammy. “No. It can’t be. It can’t . . . ”

He stepped away from the black book full of handwritten names of people who’d died, sitting on the writing desk he never used, gripping the Magic Eight Ball so tight his knuckles ached. He backed away and kicked something on the floor again. He spun, glanced down, and saw the animatronic tarantula on the floor. A gasp, not from him but from a blonde little boy he didn’t quite recognize . . .

Dillon

her brat son Dillon

 . . . who’d been on his hands and knees pushing the toy spider across the floor but had jumped up and was now staring at the toy with a wide-eyed expression crossed between fear and awe.

The boy . . .

Dillon

. . . opened his mouth but before he could say anything a middle-aged woman with a tight narrow face, straight hair and gray-dishwater eyes ducked around the corner and into John’s office . . .

Melissa

 . . . and grabbed the boy by his shoulder, fingers digging into the meat so badly John winced in sympathy. She spun the boy around to face her, scowling, eyes flashing darkly. “What are you doing in here?”

The boy’s mouth trembled; he stuttered, but couldn’t get anything out.

John stepped forward, sad desperation surging through him. Why did she treat her son this way? He was a pain in the ass sometimes and he did sneak into his office and mess with his things but it was okay. She didn’t have to hurt him. Is this what he’d passed on? Was this his legacy? No one should ever touch his things? “Melissa, it’s all right. He was playing, he was . . . ”

His middle-aged divorced and bitter daughter didn’t listen, only squeezed Dillon’s shoulder harder. “Answer me! You know Grandma doesn’t want anyone in here messing with Grandpa’s things! You already broke one of his cars as it is!”

The boy swallowed and finally managed to blurt out, “The light was on! It was on, but I didn’t turn it on, I swear! Grandpa said someday I could have the toy spider, after . . . ”

Something twisted in John’s head.

Had he said that?

When?

And who was this child? And this strange older version of Melissa?

someday I could have the toy spider, after

after

The strange-familiar middle-aged woman shook the boy. “I don’t care. You’re not supposed to be in here, do you understand? Grandma will decide when and if you can have the damn spider. Let’s go.”

She grabbed the boy’s hand and jerked him from the office. The boy protested with, “But Mama, the spider moved! I was playing with it and it moved all by itself!”

The strange-familiar middle-aged woman slapped the light switch on the wall as she left, plunging the office back into darkness. Panic thrummed through John as he scrambled for the light switch, slapping desperately until he flipped it back on.

Relief flooded through him, but it was short-lived, because as he stepped back from the light switch, he glanced up at the bookshelves against the far wall—two blue shelves normally filled with miscellaneous horror, science fiction and mystery titles, with everything from William Hope Hodgson to Bentley Little to Agatha Christie—and gasped: They were mostly empty. A few paperbacks lay forlornly on their sides, but the two blue shelves which had formerly been stuffed full of books was now empty.

Except another black leather-bound book, lying on its side, on the middle shelf.

“No,” he muttered, the word gushing out of him in a frenzied litany. “No, no, no, no.”

He spun around again and saw the Star Wars shelf in disarray, many of the action figures lying sprawled on their sides, the commemorative glasses gone. His knick-knack shelf was likewise in disorder, empty where things had been taken. On the floor sat several cardboard boxes. On the sides, written in neat, precise handwriting in black marker—Beth’s handwriting—he read John’s Things.

The whisking sound hovered beyond his door.

“John.”

He spun, clutching the Magic Eight Ball in front of him. There, standing in the doorway to his office . . .

Beth.

But not the Beth he knew. This one’s hair was white, cut cruelly short in an economical bob. Her face looked much the same, with the exception of lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes tired eyes. Weary eyes, and inexpressibly sad.

“John,” she whispered. “John. I don’t know how the lights keep turning on. But if you are here, please stop. I can’t take much more of this. I’ll sell the house soon, John. Swear to God. Please stop it with the lights. Please.”

Frantic, mind crumbling, John stumbled forward. “Beth. Beth, I don’t understand. Please don’t go. Don’t turn off the lights. Don’t turn them off!”

Beth turned and, as she left his office, flicked the lights off, plunging the room back into darkness. Outside, the whisking of the robe against the cement came closer.

And into the office.

John stumbled back to the far corner where his old recliner was, or should be. His recliner, found at the Salvation Army in Utica, where he’d spent countless hours (more and more as the kids found him old, useless, and irrelevant, and Beth considered him less interesting than her flower gardens or her cross-stitching or her Methodist Ladies Society meetings) reading Rod Serling, Ray Bradbury, Flannery O’Connor, Stephen King and Poul Anderson, sometimes poetry, in his recliner, his seat of dreams.

John lurched backward in the darkness and collapsed, crying out when his backside struck nothing but hard cold cement, not his recliner. It was gone. Everything was gone, gone.

He gazed through eyes blurred by tears. The lights were still off, but a soft glow had seeped into his office, through the door, and he could see the empty shelves, bereft of every single book he’d collected and read and had hoped to read. Gone, gone, all of it gone . . .

Light filled the doorway of his office, a soft glow and a strange sensation of overwhelming peace, of contentment and rest, of kindness and . . .

“NO!” The scream ripped from his guts. “GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Despite the fact he felt nothing but acceptance, John Pinkerton screamed with all his might and threw the Magic Eight Ball at the soft glow filling the doorway of his office. The air of benevolence faded, leaving him with nothing but cold emptiness, crushing loneliness, and worst of all, despair.

He slid to the cold concrete, lying in the fetal position, knees pulled to his chest, sobbing at the loss of something he couldn’t define, couldn’t grasp but also couldn’t bear. He blinked his eyes . . .

***

 . . . as if waking from a deep sleep. He found himself kneeling before the bookshelf in the rear of his office, trying to decide what book he should read next. He shook the Eight Ball with one hand, smiling. “What’s it going to be?” he whispered, “Classic literature, today?”

The white polyhedron, suspended in liquid turned murky with age, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.

John chuckled as he returned his attention to the books before him. “Story of my life,” he whispered. “Story of my . . . ”

Something whisked along the floor outside his office.