STILLETTO EYE & RAZORGUT by DWAYNE COLTRANE & THE HYPERDEATHPSYCHOROCK 3

Chapter 8 - STILLETTO EYE & RAZORGUT AND THE INFINITE LIBRARY

StilletoEye and RazorGut were in a confined room, lined and cramped with books. Trying one of the doors that led out of the room, they found themselves in an identical room. And again. And again. And again.

Passing from room to room, they were constantly assailed by a tortured moan, although in each room it took on a different timbre and quality. Pausing for a while, StilletoEye and RazorGut consulted the books on the shelves, hoping for a map. Each book was a bound with rough leather, and each was a gooey red mess inside, and each moaned, whispered or distantly sang. Inscribed on the spines were names: Dan Leno, Janice Nugent, Hemant Kadamuclmhk, Vijay Seshadri, Dominic Velden, Daniel Barlow, Hayley Broadfoot, Ellen Burnett, Jolanta Gontarz... they walked on and passed into the next room. And the next. And the next. And the next.

Each room was filled with similar books, and StilletoEye and RazorGut could not fathom their groupings. In some corners were stacked bulging and swelling filing cabinets, with scattered loose papers which showed a variety of anatomical drawings, lists of names and countries, indexes, tables, charts, diagrams, calculations... they wandered on. And on. And on. And on.

They were floundering in one room when the far door creaked open, and one of the Vulgar Elect crept in. A huge gelatinous substance, like a giant slug in a tattered dark monk’s robe slithered slowly in, leaving a thick viscous trail. It approached the shelves and another of the grotesque tomes oozed out of it and into a vacant gap of the shelf.

StilletoEye and RazorGut quickly snuck out of the closest door. And the next. And the next. And the next.

They came to another room, and found an old friend sitting looking dejected on a pile of books.*

They greeted ToothDrawer and asked what he was doing.

“I don’t know!”

StilletoEye and RazorGut asked if he knew the way out.

“I don’t know!”

“O well, see ya about, TD.”

“See ya.”

They crept on through the doors. And on. And on. And on.

Coming to a huge room with no books in it, StilletoEye and RazorGut smiled. There was a large opening in the far wall with an escalator descending from it carrying a parade of naked and motionless people. Each one, at the bottom of the escalator, was subsumed into one of the Vulgar Elect, who then leached along to a door and out into the library.

They ran to the escalator and scrambled up, the Vulgar Elect all slowly turning and loudly shushing them as one, their eerie plead lingering as an echo in StilletoEye and RazorGut’s ears

At the top they found themselves walking into a blinding light, and then into an underground car park, with no sign of the library behind them. Up ahead, they saw Betsy, their 55 Cadillac. They got in, strapped up, and drove off.


*See 'The Day The Sun Didn’t Shine.'