Read Online Nightmares From a Lovecraftian Mind by Jordan Krall - Free Book Online Page B

empty room as it smears
interrupted silence on the surface of my gloom.
    But more often than not I pinch the skin
between my thumb and index finger until the pain pushes me into blackness for I
do not want to hear anything but my dry skin cracking. That is what brings me
those dreams of hiding in an industrial park.
    I hide in doorways and corridors and
janitor’s closets and under desks and in bathroom stalls and closets filled
with medication. I hide and feel my bowels nervously rumble. In my dreams, I am
never found.
    Never mind that. My dreams are not
important. No one’s dreams are important. All dreams are bastard offspring of
babbling brains. They try to escape to the dusty corners of the ceiling where
cobwebs catch them, ingest them, and wrap them in plastic to sell in
five-and-dime shops where frugal housewives buy them for their children so the
little pests won’t cry. I should know. My mother took me to five-and-dime shops
when I was a child. More times than not I would come out holding a cheaply made
action figure or toy robot.
    So it is Friday afternoon and Casey asks me
if I want to drive up to his college with him. “It’ll be fun,” he says. “We’ll
just stay in the library and read.”
    “Why do you need me for that?” I ask.
    “I like company when I read,” he says.
“Besides, we won’t have a lot of distractions there and I know you wanted to
finish up your little project.”
    “Okay.”
    And so I drive up to the college with him.
As soon as we approach the campus I know I have made a mistake. It has been
years since I have stepped foot anywhere near that place and I now remember why
that is so. The college seems to suck all the psychic fluid from me until there
is nothing left but a crude construction of bones topped with a sentient prune
inside a pale, wooden cranium.
    “Something wrong?” Casey asks. “You look terrible.”
    “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just…..” I say but I
never finish the sentence. Instead, I open the door to the library and start up
the flight of stairs that will bring me to the third floor.
    “Why do you want to go to the third floor?”
Casey asks.
    “I don’t know. Why not?”
    “I don’t know.”
    We find a table in the corner and sit down.
I set my bag down on a chair and go off looking for a book. Casey has already
picked one up on the way. It is a seemingly random choice but knowing Casey, it
might have been planned weeks in advance. I don’t see the title but I know it
is something about antler jelly.
    I leave him at the table and walk to the far
corner of the room. The books there are dusty and look untouched. It is as if
college students don’t read anymore. I expect the books to be mere props. I run
my fingers along the spines, pushing them inward to feel the weight of them,
just to make sure they are real.
    After a few minutes of perusing I find a
book that interests me.
    I sit down on the floor and start to read.
Sitting next to Casey isn’t something I really want to do. He moves his lips
while he reads. He also has mild body odor like cheese. Besides, my little
project requires unconventional reading environments and the library floor
seems to fit that description.
    What is my project? It’s….
    Casey touches me on the shoulder. “What the
hell are you doing?”
    “I’m reading,” I say. A sound on the other
side of the shelf makes us both turn our heads. It is the sound of a heavy
sphere rolling through sludge. Then: doors open and close followed by wordy
dreams being sucked through brown cotton until they scrape the dull paint on my
walls and form bulbous pyramids of black glue.
    “Let’s go,” I say. “I’m going to check this
book out.”
    “You can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “They’re closing the library at the end of
the semester and they want all the books in. You can only read them in here
or…..”
    “Or what?” I ask.
    “Or you can steal them.”
    “I have no problem with that.”
    Casey nods. “Didn’t