Tyler Burbach

Tara McNeely

Keith Miller

Jason Kuchta

Mr. Linden’s Library

            It was a cool, windy day in October of 1978. It was almost Halloween, and Ellie still didn’t know what she wanted to be for Halloween. All her friends had ideas already, but Ellie didn’t want to be just anything. This was the big Halloween costume dance at school she was dealing with, and she wanted to look spectacular.

            Ellie was taking her dear time walking home from school that Friday, and the whole time she pondered thoughts concerning the perfect costume. Orange lights decorated her small town in celebration, and skeletons and pumpkins sat in windows all along the downtown area she passed on her way home. She decided to detour around the stores and take an alley on her way home. About twenty steps into the dimly lit alley, a doorway caught her eye. Curiously, she walked closer to get a closer look. The sign read “The Alley Shop”. Ellie had lived in her small town all her life, and she’d never heard of this shop. With a hint of caution in her step, she pushed open the door and walked into the building.

            The first thing she noticed was the smell. The room was stuffy, and it smelled like the antique stores she went to with her grandma while she was in town. Starting to get even more interested, Ellie started to wonder around the room. Then she noticed in the back corner there was another room with the door slightly ajar. She walked toward it and pushed it open. Lining the walls of the room were shelves and shelves of old books. She could tell they were pretty ancient because every one of them had a dark colored binding and there was not much color. Plus, there was the faint odor.

            One book caught her eye. It was a yellow, and it was smaller than the rest. Thinking it could possibly be a book for younger ages, she felt compelled to take a closer look. Picking it off the shelf, she turned it over in her hands. It felt warm, and it fascinated her. Only one thing seemed odd. There was no writing on it – no title, author, or anything of the sort. She was turning it over again just to make sure when she heard a noise.

            “Hey! Who’s there?” a voice called from not too far away.

            Ellie froze. Wait a minute…she thought… I just walked into a shop…

            “In here!” she called, waiting for the owner of the voice to appear in the doorway. Just as she suspected, a man came strolling into the room. He was an older looking man, probably in his late sixties. He was balding, and he was a tad short and a little round. Ellie had to laugh a little to herself when she saw him. He looked like a friendly, cute old man.

            “Is there something I can help you with, miss?” he asked her pleasantly.

            Ellie didn’t want to make him feel bad and tell him she’d never even heard of the place and was just curious, so she told him something else.

            “I was just looking for a book… I’m doing a research paper for school, and I thought this one looked interesting.”

            “Oh, really!” he exclaimed, sounding happy, “Well this is actually not the shop area of the shop, but the old library of the long ago owner of the shop, Mr. Linden. Things for sale are in this other room over here. But we have not much use of these old books, so let this be a Halloween gift to you, young lady.”

            She thanked the man with a grin, and was about to walk out of the small shop when he called to her once more.

            “Yes?” she asked.

            “What book is that you’ve got there?” he asked her.

            “Well, actually I don’t really know. It was nothing written on it” Ellie replied, “Would you know?” She handed it over to him to check it out. He looked at it questioningly, and then his face grew an eerie white.

            “Don’t open this book.” he told her.

            “… Why?” she asked. She was starting to get a little creeped out, and she wanted to get out and get back to her own bedroom.

            “Well… Just… You won’t even like this one I mean. I’ve heard about this story, and it’s not too entertaining… I just meant you probably shouldn’t even bother opening it.”

            “Thank you sir, if I find it boring I’ll just put it away. Have a wonderful day!”

And she hurried away. Breathing in the fresh air, Ellie was again lost in thought about Halloween costumes the whole way home.

            That night, Ellie had not yet decided on a costume. Unhappily, she talked herself into bed to think about it for the rest of the night. When she couldn’t sleep, she picked up the small yellow book from the floor. Maybe there will be some princess or animal or something that will give me some sort of idea, she thought. And she opened to the first page and started to read.

            Getting into the story immediately, she was drawn into the storyline of the characters and read for over an hour. She felt wide-awake, and then she reached page 107. She started to tingle, and she struggled to keep reading the words. Maybe if she could just focus in on what it was saying, she could stop whatever was happening to her. Ellie managed to focus in on a little sentence at the bottom of the page, but her brain wasn’t able to comprehend what it said. She started to see spinning objects around her room, and then vines began to grow from the binding of the two pages. She was about to scream when one of the vines went to her lips, and then she fell down to her pillow. Her last thought was that of the kind old man in the shop in the alley.

The book had indeed been that of Mr. Linden, a man who had always been seen as a bit weird. He would mumble to himself peculiar happenings, like floating animals with fangs and objects that would come alive before his eyes. He died an old man with a thousand books, but no one ever found out why he was so crazy. He had always been muttering the word yellow…Mr. Linden had been fortunate enough to get through the trauma of page 107. He had put the devilish vines into the book before he died in order to warn others, because he could do nothing else. As generations passed however, the story was forgotten, and all that was remembered was the word yellow. New owners were told to warn, but that was all that could be told. Nothing could be done.

Ellie had certainly seen the warning vines, but not in time. Mr. Linden had failed. He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late.