Studio Scordatura • Reginald E. Bloom • Collective

Excerpt from Collective (2003)

The old building spanned half of the city block; the remainder was taken up by several smaller storefronts, one empty, another a small print shop, and the third a pawn and loan of questionable esteem. The seemingly abandoned two-story storefront awaited them, its windowless southern face looming over its neighbors, the ghostly remnants of a painted mural advertising war bonds still clinging to the weathered brick. A wooden sign that read "Don Quixote's Books" still hung over the door, futilely stretching towards the edges of the large display windows to either side. The panes were cracked, papered over from within. The light from the nearest street lamp refused to step foot into the shadows within the stoop that concealed the front door.

"It's seen better days," Kathryn blurted, ushering him towards the door.

Edouard held back in order to absorb the antiquitous façade. "I'd be inclined to agree. Impressive nonetheless."

"Like I said, much of the building was used for storage. When we bought it, we discovered that squatters had found a way in. Through the sewers, probably. We found a hole in the basement," she continued, searching her coat pockets for her keys. "Some brick, some mortar, good as new."

While lost in the nostalgia of a train whistle in the distance, Edouard was distracted by the slamming of a car door across the street. He turned, expecting to see one or more of Kathryn's friends arrive. In a gravel parking lot sequestered between two buildings two cars idled. A pair of young men were making themselves comfortable on the hood of a "pimped up" muscle car. The fact that the two teens—probably a small time pusher and his customer—paid his attractive host and him no nevermind did little to put him at ease.

In an effort to free both her hands, Kathryn handed her book bag to Edouard and said, "It's not the best part of town, but don't let that worry you. Even the occasional wino that stumbles through here pretty much keeps to himself." She gestured towards the only two cars besides theirs parked on their side of the street. "We've been coming here two nights a week for almost five months, and never an incident. Aha..." she exclaimed, retrieving the small ring of keys from the depths of her coat pocket. Edouard turned, eyes trained warily on the dealings across the street as his ears listened for the tumblers in the lock barring their way from relative safety. The door squealed open, and he didn't wait for an invitation to follow her in.

The smell that accosted him was musty, but not altogether unpleasant. Old books—at least certain ones—were his specialty, so he was quick to overlook the stench of deteriorating pulp. She stepped around him with an "excuse me" and locked the door from within, smiling as her blue eyes caught his steel-grey admiration. It was hard to believe that they had only met a few short days before, at the city library that had become a frequent haunt of his since he had moved into the old mill town the previous month. As she fiddled with the lock a second time, Edouard averted his eyes and glanced around, stifling the urge to remove his handkerchief and blow his nose.

The only light came from a monitor stationed behind a counter to his left that was overrun by mostly haphazard stacks of books that threatened to obscure the computer in its entirety. To his right were a number of aisles formed by bookshelves that reached the ceiling, but it was impossible to tell their depths as boxes had been crammed into them and stacked almost as high. Although he couldn't see the end of it, he assumed that the aisle in which he stood ran the entire length of the store. For some reason, the darkness that awaited him was almost as uninviting as the company outside.

"Kathryn... are you sure it's okay? They won't mind?"

"Mind? Of course not. As long as they know you're seriously interested-you won't have any problem convincing them that. Just wow them with your knowledge, and you'll be one of the gang in no time. And call me Katie. Kathryn seems so damn formal."

"Katie. Yes, I will."

"Always the gentleman," she laughed, brushing a lock of dirty blonde hair out of her face, the rest of it having been pulled back into a loose tail.

Her demeanor was a stark contrast to the backdrop. Foremost in his mind were the stories, of the previous owner of the bookstore who had been a prime suspect in a series of murders. Bodies of two of his presumed victims had been found in the basement. Kathryn—Katie, that is—had bragged about how her parents had bought the place and all of its contents for a song after it had stood vacant for almost seven years. Although it was to keep their socially awkward son-her brother-busy doing something constructive, she spent almost as much time there with her small circle of friends, all "practitioners" of the occult. Practitioners in that they spent all of their time practicing, but never really succeeding in doing anything except unearthing rare old books on mysticism from the previous owner's private library, housed in a corner of the same basement in which the bodies had been discovered by police.

It seemed that no matter how his thoughts wandered, they kept returning to the building's bloodstained history.

"This way," she said, walking past the front counter and turning a sharp left.

Sidestepping a box pushed against the end of one of the aisles to his right, Edouard asked," This place has lighting, I assume?"

"Hold on," she said, striding down what appeared to be a short hall. Opening a door at the end to her left, concealed by a shallow set of bookshelves, light poured forth. "Better?" she said holding the door, waiting.

He followed, navigating his way around the occasional stray box or stack of books. "Much. Thank you."

"My pleasure."

continued...