The Library: Rewrite

Part Four: Broken Brick Wall by Roberta J. Cabot Being chased by a bunch of zombified students was not my idea of a restful Saturday night at the movies. To be fair, though, I didn't think the kids were expecting to spend their Saturday being zombies, either. Given that Marie was helping me get away from them, I'm sure she wasn't responsible for the kids. But who was? In just two days, the it's as if the details of my life were slowly being rewritten. Like a book undergoing a redraft. But the changes weren't bad. I had friends now, two of them gorgeous babes who apparently were my best friends, and I now seem to be closer to mother. Sure, there were things that weren't exactly stuff I was hoping for, or actually want - things like changes to my body, or that I am now plagued by a French-speaking ghost and a bunch of zombies. I have to understand what this is all about, because everything is starting to become too crazy. My name is Mark. And this is the continuation of my Halloween story.

*** Mark ***

After Marie, the ghost, led me to a basement level underneath the library to escape the zombies upstairs, I finally caught my breath.

"Vous êtes en sécurité ici," Marie said. "Pour le moment."

I wondered what she meant by that. I mean, why would this place be safer than upstairs? This basement, or whatever it is, was huge, and since it was empty, it made the cavernous place feel even more huge. More huge? What is the right phrase... I mean "énorme."

"Que voulez-vous dire?" I asked. "Quel est cet endroit? Et qu'est-il arrivé aux gens là-haut dans la bibliothèque?"

She shrugged. "Je ne sais pas," she said.

"Mais ils se comportent comme des zombies!"

Marie giggled as she walked down the stairs. And that got me a little iritated. Well, at least being angry was better than being scared.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" I asked. She continued to giggle as she made her ghostly way to me.

"Quoi?"

As she stood beside me, her giggling was starting to really bug me.

"Quoi! Es-tu en train de te moquer de moi!"

"Are you hearing yourself, mon amour?" she asked me.

"Que voulez-vous dire?" I asked, and then it suddenly dawned on me.

"Oh, mon dieu!" I exclaimed. "I am speaking en français!"

"Effectivement," Marie agreed.

"Tell me what is happening!" I cried. I had to consciously force myself to speak in English. What came out was indeed English, but with a decidedly french accent. It wasn't as if I forgot English - I mean, I still know it, and have not forgotten anything - but my way of enunciating, my cadence: those things seem to require a deliberate effort now, to make me sound American instead of it just being instinctual. It was like English was now relegated to a second language for me. But my sudden fluency in French was not the thing that was most troubling. What was troubling was that French now seemed to my first language, as in, it was what I seemed to be the most comfortable with now. As I thought of it, I realized that my thoughts - my inner dialogue - seems to be in French now.

The ghostly girl felt sorry for me, and tried to give me a hug, but her ghostly arms just passed through me.

"Oh, ma soeur bien-aimée," she said sorrowfully. Her ghostly voice was faint but was quite clear and distinct.

"You have said that before," I said, but with my new accent. " How can I be your sister anyway?"

Marie sighed and started to speak, but I couldn't hear anything.

"Qu'est-ce que vous avez dit? I cannot hear you?"

Marie's hands went to her throat, and her expression turned into fear.

I saw her mouth move and I could see she said, "Ils savent!" - "they know..."

"Who?" I asked. "Who knows? And what do they know?"

Marie looked at me. She tried to reach for my hand, but it was as if here hand and arm was made of smoke. She looked at me with irritation and impatience and, instead, waved at me to follow.

She glided to the farther end of the cavernous basement, as you would your friendly neighborhood creepy ghost, and I jogged to follow. All the time she was speaking, but I could not hear anything. As we reached the far wall, The little light that we had coming from the swinging doors had become less and less, since it was a good twenty feet from the foot of the stairs.

I fetched against the wall. Feeling the alternating roughness and smoothness of the wall, I knew the wall it was in red brick, with several portions of the wall having collapsed because of the crumbling mortar. This place was old! Maybe ten years or more. And incredibly scary as well.

Nevertheless, I spied a light switch on the part of the wall near me. Instinctively, I flicked it on without thinking, like you would a wall switch when you're in a dark room, and I was rewarded with maybe several dozen ancient lightbulbs turning on, their yellow light casting enough illumination to show that the basement was indeed enormous, with floor space being about twice that of a football pitch, ummm, I mean a soccer field. Mon Dieu, what is happening to me?

I saw Marie floating near the brick wall maybe six metres, I mean twenty feet, away from me. Merde! This is very frustrating!

She was trying to feel the wall, searching for something. But she was un fantôme, so she could not touch anything. However, she was still able to find what she was looking for and waved for me to come closer.

I nodded and approached her. In the dim light of the old lightbulbs, I was able to make out the part of the wall she was pointing at, where a few bricks in the crumbling wall were sticking out. She was telling me something but I couldn't make it out. But by her gestures, I was able to understand what she wanted. So I reached out, grasped the first brick and pulled it out. I did the same thing with the second brick, but this second one seemed stuck. Planting my feet firmly, I grunted and pulled it out of the wall.

"Aiie!" I exclaimed as I fell backwards on le joufflu. Rubbing it, I stood up. "That hurt like un fils de pute," I said to myself, and looked at the hole made by the bricks I pulled out of the wall. Now what? I looked to Marie, and she was frantically gesturing at the wall.

I didn't really understand what she was trying to say, but I think she wanted me to look through the hole made by the two bricks. It seemed that there was a hollow area behind the wall. I took my mobile and switched on la app de lampe de poche.

In my mobile's light, I looked through the large hole and, inside, I saw a couple of notebooks covered in centimètres of dust. Those must be it.

I thought about how to get to them but there was no other choice - I had to enlarge the hole. I put my fingers in and tried to pull out the adjacent bricks. Again, I planted my feet firmly and pulled again. Nothing budged the first eight times but in la neuvième fois, I felt something give. On la dixième fois, I was successful - too successful, actually, since that section of the wall collapsed.

And I fell on le derriere. Again.

Marie found it hilarious and she laughed herself silly. Although, without any sound, it was like la pantomime. There was one good thing here. I wasn't as scared of Marie. In fact, I thought she was nice. Aside from being un fantôme, of course.

The hole was big enough for me to reach in and pick through les décombres, I mean the debris, and got the two notebooks.

I used my sleeve to wipe the accumulation of years of dust and they turned out to be diaries. I was about to open the first one but then I noticed the flickering of la lumière de la bibliothèque à l'étage. Oh, excusez-moi, I mean the light from the library upstairs.

I looked back to the stairway I came down from, and the zombified kids were there in the doorway. They were starting to mill around., like they were becoming restless. Some of them were reaching out, as if testing if they could get through, but something was preventing them, and would pull back their arms quickly.

"Marie," I said, "le zombies - they will be coming down. They will catch us - catch me. I do not know who or what is doing this, and for what purpose. And why me. And Why I am talking this way, why I am changing, who are my new friends. Why? Why, why, why! Dieu, tout cela peut lentement vous rendre fou..."

I looked up, and Marie was looking at me compassionately. She gestured for me to follow her further down, deeper into the basement. She was moving, or gliding quite fast, so I had to jog just to keep up with her.

At the end of the basement, there was a steel door, like an old-fashioned coal cellar door. Maybe there was an old heater here when this basement was still in use. Marie gestured to that door, and I grasped the door handle.

As I was about to turn it and push the door open, I paused. I could not see them yet - they were still too far, and the basement was very dark to begin with - but I could hear their shuffling, and they were definitely in the basement already, and were on their way.

I turned back to the door and pushed it open. After half a dozen tries, I was rewarded with a small shower of dirt. It would have been more but the dirt and soil was caked and packed down, not to mention the rain had made the mud sticky. This door was never opened in a while, and there was at least deux pouces... two inches of dirt on the ground that I had to push against.

I took out my mobile and switched on le flashlight app again. In my mobile's LED light, it was indeed a coal cellar basement door which led to the outside. I could actually see les étoiles when I looked up.

Slipping a little bit in the small layer of mud, I stepped out. I then carefully closed the door. La lumiere showed steps, and I carefully climbed it, trying not to slip in la boue... the mud.

*** Mark ***

When I climbed out, I found myself across the street from la bibliothèque, I mean the library. I was surrounded by the crumbling old ruins that most kids in the university have seen hundreds of times and ignored.

I peeked over the remnants of the ruined brick wall that I have seen so many times but hardly paid attention to, and I saw the library in its full eerie splendour but, tonight, it was even more eerie.

The streetlights around the library were fading in and out, and the security lights and floodlights of the building were likewise flickering. But more than that...

Mon dieu...

Around the building, ghostly spectres like a dozen Will-o'-the-wisps, were flying around and through the building, and the library was bathed in their ghostly light. That and the flickering street lights made the gothic building even more scary. And even this far away, I could hear ghostly cackling.

But there were no cars anymore - no people. But it wasn't that late yet.

I looked at my wristwatch and saw that it was almost four AM... Not again!

Four AM - the witching hour - and it's almost over.

I looked back at the cellar door where I came from, and I saw Marie, floating nearby. She was making gestures in the air, like a conjurer would, and then pointed to a nearby tree.

The small tree suddenly fell and effectively blocked the doorway.

She then floated down and came to me. She held a finger over her lips and shushed me.

Of all the ridiculous...

And then she pointed to the ghostly apparitions that were presently cavorting around the building across the street. Ahhh. I kept quiet then, and tried not to be noticed.

I stayed behind the crumbling brick wall and watched the spirits. It was like a fête... I mean a party, for ghosts. But that was one party I did not want be at.

I then heard muffled pounding - it was the zombies trying to get past the cellar door. But they could not get through anymore.

Slowly, though, the pounding faded, and as I looked, the ghostly spectres disappeared one by one, and the cackling faded away.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 4:03AM. The witching hour was over now.

I sat on the broken wall and sighed in relief.

"Is it over?" I asked her.

"Pour ce soir," she said in her ghostly voice. She could speak again.

"For the moment?" I asked.

"Au moins."

She gestured at the dusty diaries in my hand and looked at me.

"I will read them," I said. She nodded.

"When will I see you again?" I asked.

She waved at me. "Soon," she said, and faded away.

I sighed. I stood up and looked to la bibliothèque. I mean the library. I suppose it was safe now. I could feel it. Rather than go back through the basement, I walked across the grass and to the other side of the street.

As I got there, there was a steady stream of kids coming out of the building, thankfully not acting like zombies anymore. They did look a little bewildered, wondering why they were still in the library at this late hour. I giggled. If they only knew what they were doing before.

Across the intersection, I walked to the cafe, and I found my little Aprilia that was still chained to the lamp post. I unchained it, Took my helmet out from under the netting, lifted the seat and deposited the two diaries in the compartment, sat down and started it up.

Its engine sounded loud in the still, quiet night, so I did not rev it too much. I swept my blond hair from underneath my leather jacket so it laid out on the back of the jacket instead of under it, put on my helmet on and pulled away from the curb. That did not feel right.

Turning down University Drive, I made for my apartment. I wondered what Kristy and Nancy are doing now.

Author’s Postscript: I apologize for typos and grammar. I will clean it up later - I didn't have much time to proofread and still make the 8PM schedule.

- Bobbie

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