Something was missing from my life.
It was gin.
The cashier put the gin in the bag. She tried sticking something else into it.
“Wait — what’s that?” I said. “I didn’t buy that.”
“Oh, this? This is my book.”
She handed it to me. Before I could stop her.
The title of the book was Murder Starts with M.
Alice slid the dagger gingerly into Georgina’s back. That was the first line.
“What do you think?”
“It’s…”
“Were you going to say ‘good’?”
I nodded. Reluctantly.
“Really? Do you really think it’s good?”
She was quivering.
“Sure,” I said.
The cashier cried a little. She looked like she might blow up.
She stuck the book back in the bag.
There was a trashcan outside the liquor store. An old man was picking through it.
I threw the book in the trashcan. The man grabbed it. He opened it.
“A pool of lipstick-red blood spread across the off-white carpet like a shallow swimming pool,” he said.
The old man closed the book. He threw it back in the trash.
I noticed something peculiar on the bus. I always do.
A smiling guy was breathing heavily. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a book. There was a gun on the cover.
“I’m a writer,” he said to the passenger next to him.
The woman slid over. She reached into her purse.
“I’m a writer too,” she said, waving a paperback.
The bus driver stood up. He opened a book — and his mouth:
“And the waves rolled on and the storm rolled, and Miguel rolled out of bed and rolled a cigarette and helped himself to some hot buttered rolls.”
The bus crashed into a bookstore. Luckily, it was empty.
Not everyone survived. The writers that survived started eating the dead ones.
That was the peculiar thing.
I was just a few blocks from home. The gin was getting heavy.
I heard screams.
A girl was lying in the street. A bunch of those things were on top of her. Smothering her with books.
All I had on me was the gin.
I drank the gin. I smashed the end off the empty bottle and charged at the things.
They staggered back.
I grabbed the girl’s hand. I lifted her up.
An old guy who looked like Norman Mailer tugged on her purse, but she pulled it free.
“Come on,” I said.
We ran to my house.
I locked the door and bolted it.
I passed out.
When I woke up, I had a headache. There was a pillow under my head.
I head the fireplace crackling and noticed the doors and windows were boarded up.
“My name’s Madeline,” said the girl, walking into the room with two coffees.
“Did you do all this?”
She smiled.
“My dad’s a lumberjack,” she said.
There was a big pile of novels on the floor.
“What happened to my bookcases?” I asked.
Madeline never quit smiling.
“Right,” I said.
It was incredibly strong coffee. Thank god.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Madeline answered. “This month.”
The front door burst open.
A dozen writers squeezed through it.
We grabbed the nearest objects at hand, books.
I threw my least favourite books by my favourite authors. I threw Martin Chuzzlewit and Hocus Pocus. I threw Coriolanus and Sylvie and Bruno and Across the River and Into the Trees.
Before I could stop her, Madeline threw both volumes of my Moroccan leather-bound edition of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. Oh, well.
The writers retreated.
I slammed the door. While I held it shut, Madeline hammered the bookshelves back in place.
“That was close,” she said.
“I need a drink,” I said.
We slept in shifts — on the sofa. Only I couldn’t. Instead, I lay awake listening to the sound of thousands of fingernails running down book spines.
“Madeline?” I said, sitting up. “Did you remember to board up the basement windows?”
“Yes,” she said, flipping the page of her book.
I sighed — and lay back down.
A minute later, I sat back up and said:
“Do you think they might come down the chimney?”
“Not with the fire going, no.”
“Right,” I said. And then I said, “Madeline?”
“Go back to sleep,” was all she said.
I must’ve. I dreamed I was trapped in an alley. Those things were closing in. One lunged ahead of the pack.
“Read,” she said, holding out a book. Vampire Wizards.
“Who published this?” I asked.
“I did,” she said.
I flipped through the book. It was full of grammatical errors.
“Well?”
For once in my life, I told the truth.
“Don’t quit your day job,” I said.
Then the writers piled on top of me and ate my skin.
When I woke up, Madeline was chopping down the kitchen table.
“I reinforced the doors and windows,” she said. “No one’s getting in — or out.”
She laughed.
I laughed.
I made the coffee this time.
The coffee table was missing, too.
Madeline sat by the fire. Her bright side looked beautiful.
“My lips are so dry,” she said, rooting through her purse for something. I hoped it was gin.
Something fell out of her purse. Into the shadows.
She picked it up.
A paperback.
Death Insurance.
By Madeline Brooks.
I jumped up. The coffee cup crashed on the floor.
I tried prying the boards off the windows, doors.
Madeline licked her finger.
My fingers were bleeding.
“Chapter One,” she said. “The Beginning.”
No, I thought. The End.
Rolli’s latest book is Plumstuff. Buy him a coffee.
rollistuff.com 