Small Magic: Collected Short Stories Part 6

The black shape comes closer and melts into a man. Both boys watch him and fall silent. Jack raises his gun, takes careful aim, and squeezes the trigger as "Crack!" pops from his mouth.

The man tumbles to the ground.

Jack utters a low, almost whispered, laugh.

"Got him." Jack rises to a crouch and starts toward the p.r.o.ne body. "C'mon!"

Gabe swallows hard and follows, crouching like his friend.

The man lays in an awkward, spread-eagled pose. One arm splays above his head while the other is folded across his chest. His hand clutches at his long, grey coat. Blood smears his fingers.

"Jack..."

The man's eyes dart between both boys. He opens his mouth. "Meine Frau und Kinder. Sorgfalt fur sie, bitte..."

"German. I told you so," Jack taunts. He raises his gun and "Pow!" fires at the man's head.

In the distance, the sound of straining diesel engines and the clank of tank treads echo through the fog. Jack and Gabe exchange a look.

"We better find cover," Jack says. He runs for the ditch.

Gabe is frozen. He looks down at the dead man, staring at the empty eyes.

"C'mon, dummy!" Jack calls.

"You're an a.s.shole, Jack..." Gabe lowers his head and sprints after his friend, muttering under his breath.

Chapter 31: Sometimes They Don't Come Back.

Sometimes they come back on time. We sort them, plop them in place on the cart, and ship them back to the shelves to be handled and picked over. But too often, they're overdue. Occasionally they show up with a handful of coins. No note. No "sorry". Others never pay their fines; we just find the books in the outside bin.

After they've been gone for a long time, the pages are usually creased and wrinkled, the corners bent-even on st.u.r.dy, library bound specimens, and all too often they have water damage. But I like to use the phrase "liquid damage" because you can never be too sure what caused those stains, especially when they're discolored or dark.

The stains bother me. Total lack of respect.

Once, a young woman with fresh st.i.tches and a black eye brought a self-help book back with some of those dark stains. She handed it to me, offered a weak grin, and shuffled out without a word. The book was only overdue by two days. She never paid the fine.

Sometimes the books come back, but sometimes they don't.

So yes, we look. We search. We make every effort to find our missing books. I've scoured abandoned houses, located volumes tucked in furniture at Goodwill, and tracked down a particularly valuable copy of Alice in Wonderland in a bowling alley bathroom. A few years ago, I found a few volumes of d.i.c.kens, torn into strips and shreds and stuffed into a dog kennel behind old man Bernard's place. He had used early ill.u.s.trated copies of David Copperfield and Great Expectations with a gilt pressed covers for dog bedding, and he only raised mutts.

Some of those volumes are so battered and stained, even destroyed, recovery becomes a symbolic act.

But even worse than the stains, even those dark smudges which just might be human blood, is when I can't find the books at all. Sometimes they disappear without any trail, and those...those are the ones that really bother me.

Chapter 32: The Thing about a Haunting.

Some people swore that the house was haunted. Because of this, the children were afraid. Their father requested a haul-away dumpster, bringing his sledgehammer and pry bar, gloves and safety goggles. With these tools and free weekend hours, he aimed at the heart of the myth. It was a tiny house, after all, and they wanted the land more than the building.

The man grunted under the work, cut his knuckles, coughed mouthfuls of dust and splinters and stale air. Sweat cut channels down his face. He wrenched doors from their frames, shattered the remnants of windows, and pried siding from the walls. The dumpster filled once, and the service brought an empty one.

"Don't you want some help?" his wife asked.

He studied the cuts and calluses on his hands. "No," he said. "I'm fine. It's good to work again. To really work with my hands."

The sledgehammer broke bedrooms into fragments. Blonde splinters rained down. Gypsum powder clouded his goggles as he worked, fine and white and powdery. Voices echoed. People lived there, once. The walls whispered s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversations. The floorboards squeaked and groaned with the memory of footsteps. The man heard only his ragged suck of breath and the work prodded rattle of his heart. His bones shook with the work; his muscles sagged like lumps of baker-stretched-dough.

Even a small house bares its teeth and fights when it must.

The man cried as he worked. Big, barbaric tears.

The house surrendered in the afternoon, and the man knelt on the packed earth amidst the ruins, head bowed, and his skin soaked and sticky with grime and sweat. He closed his eyes. Perhaps he prayed for the house and its former occupants and the dreams, loves, and heartaches he destroyed with metal and muscle and blood. Perhaps he merely found his breath and summoned the strength to go home, call the county to haul away another full dumpster, shower, and eat dinner with his family.

Either way, he staggered, weary and aged, to his truck, shoulders stooped and low. His body had become heavy with the demolition, with the freeing of the house.

A haunting, it seems, is not rooted to a place.

Chapter 33: Smoke.

When Ernst woke, he smelled the smoke first, even before he felt the rough cord wrapped around his wrists. His eyes began to water, burning from the ash in the air.

"Hallo?" he called.

Shapes shifted in the darkness. Ernst tried to move his head, but stopped as nylon rope sc.r.a.ped his throat. At his back, a square post, the corners digging into his flesh despite his woolen jacket.

The shapes came forward. Books. The cover of each speckled with morphing yellow and orange firelight...each having sprouted arms and legs of black shadow. One volume of dark green leather plucked its cover open with a shadow-hand. On the open page in front of Ernst, words stood out in the flickering light.

He began to cry. The rope at his throat constricted as he gasped for air, cutting into the soft skin. "Ich bin traurig," he gasped and closed his eyes, remembering the bonfires in Berlin, the piles of smoking pages. He understood the heat that began to sting his toes.

Chapter 34: To Make Things Right.

The fat man approached with a package wrapped in a blanket under his arm. Mick took one more drag, dropped his cigarette, and ground the b.u.t.t into the pavement with the heel of his shoe. He moved his head slightly, just a light nod, and the fat man joined him at the edge of the shadows.

"You're him? Mr. Jenkins?" The fat man patted his forehead with a stained handkerchief.

Mick nodded. "Is it," he looked at the parcel, "healthy."

"Yes. A clean specimen...from a car accident this morning. Tragic really, but fortunate for you, eh?" The fat man chuckled before catching himself and returning to a more serious tone. "For a family member?"

"Someone close, yes." Mick pushed one hand into his jacket and pulled it out with a stack of bills. "Enough."

The fat man's eyes swelled. "Yes." He took the package in both hands. "Don't you want to check, make sure I'm not scamming you?"

Mick stepped closer. "You wouldn't do that." His eyes, rimmed in red as dark as blood in the shadowed alley, narrowed. "Think of the consequences." He took the parcel.

The fat man smiled-a nervous, trembling smile, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the money from Mick's hand. "Thanks...if-" He caught himself before saying more, turned quickly, and waddled back the way he came, head wavering from side to side.

Mick slipped the thin blanket aside and drummed his fingers on the white Styrofoam beneath. "G.o.d, another car wreck..."

Mick Jenkins entered his bungalow through the back door, the door facing the alley. The kitchen light flickered as he flipped the switch. When the light came to life, Mick sloughed off his hard demeanor and slumped his shoulders with a sigh. He tossed his keys on the counter, nearly toppling a crooked tower of unread mail, and dropped the small cooler next to the sink. Cupping his hands under the faucet, he ran some cold water and splashed his face. The house carried a faint odor of decay-something rotten lurking in the silence.

Next to the sink, posted on a cabinet door, a series of newspaper clippings caught Mick's eyes. Finding the oldest article, he touched the yellowing paper with one damp finger, tracing the headline. "G.o.dd.a.m.n car wrecks," he muttered.

Taking up the Styrofoam box, he started down the stairs to the cellar. The old wood groaned and protested, and the temperature dropped like Mick had stepped into a walk-in cooler. Unlike the rest of the house, the cellar was clean and devoid of anything except an old upright freezer and a stainless steel work table-the latter purchased from a restaurant second-hand when they remodeled their kitchen. He moved toward the freezer.

The door opened with a sucking pop, spilling tendrils of frosty air onto the floor. Mick set the cooler on the ground and flipped off the lid. He lifted out a plastic bag-a human liver floating in a thin layer of dark, syrupy blood, and held it in both hands. It felt cold and quite heavy. Healthy. He pushed the liver into the freezer and stashed his new purchase on the bottom shelf next to other plastic wrapped parts-a slender upper arm and two delicate hands. He clicked the door shut and turned to leave.

Halfway up the stairs, Mick stopped and tilted his head as though listening to something. Slowly, he descended the stairs, returning to the freezer. He hesitated before pulling the door open again. This time, his eyes met hers-her severed head resting on the top wire shelf with bluish, nearly translucent skin and eyes frozen open in a look of surprise. He reached into the freezer and touched her stiff lips with a trembling finger.

"Almost have everything I need, babe." He fidgeted with his wedding ring. "Then I'll make things right."

Chapter 35: The Revolution.

Janice woke to a loud crack and tinkle of broken gla.s.s. Her eyes opened and fell on the shelf above her desk--the shelf on which she kept her words.

One jar was missing.

Janice slipped her legs from under the warm blankets. Her feet pressed against the cold hardwood as she delicately shifted her weight and stood. Outside her window, trees brushed their leaves together. A car moved down the street in front of the house. But something else, a scratching sound, pulled her attention away from the other night whispers.

She moved toward the doorway, stepped on a bit of broken gla.s.s, and let out a yelp. Pain danced through her shin, up her thigh, and across her back as she tip-toe danced to the doorway and the light switch, hoping to avoid another shard.

The light flickered. Tiny shadows scurried for shelter under her bed, the desk, anywhere the light wouldn't reach. She looked at the mess on the floor.

"s.h.i.t."