Fear Story Part 2

Fear Itself

“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths”

--Banquo, Act I, scene iii

     I nearly walked out of the store without paying, but it didn’t matter anyway because when the woman saw the book in my hands, she refused to take any money for it. “It’s just someone’s old sketchbook,” she said, flipping through the pages. “Somebody probably left it, and then it got stuck on a shelf. Go ahead and take it, dear” I shrugged, and she peered quizzically at me. “Are you alright?”

     She had long gray hair and round eyes behind her spectacles, kind and wise-looking. I wondered who the ugly sweater she was knitting was for. It sat, green and wonderfully knobby, in a pile on her lap. I noticed fleetingly that I was sweating.

     “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, nodding, “Thanks for your help.” She looked concerned. “Come again soon,” was all she said though. I left the shop.

     The sunlight was odd and muted through the clouds, kind of watery and weak, though the sidewalk was still hot. I walked down the line of shops, book in hand, wondering what to do with it.

It terrified me; not so much the images as the signature written in my own spikey cursive in the front. I reopened it and felt the lines of my name, which had left an indent on the page; the “s” of Grimes was smeared. I shut it and held it in front of me, unsure of whether to hold it tighter or thrust it away.

      When I passed the ice cream parlor I noticed a table of teenagers inside, laughing raucously and joking with the waiter; he chuckled with them good naturedly as he served their ice cream, ruffling the boys’ hair like a favorite uncle as he passed. A girl whispered to a boy with blue eyes and he gave her a dimpled smile, and I saw her hand reach for his knee under the table. I turned away, feeling very much like the new girl, and kept walking.

     Some of them noticed me as I walked past, and smiled, but it wasn’t for me—it was as if they though I couldn’t see them, their grins curious and self-confident.

     I wasn’t sure where I was going, but suddenly I was horribly, cripplingly homesick. I didn’t know how to be here, in this small town where I knew no one and no one knew me. This place where I found my name written in a sketchbook beside my worst fear, like a warning or a cruel joke. I pulled my sweatshirt closer around myself against the sudden breeze and pushed forward.

     I walked until I reached an entrance to the forest. After stumbling a few feet into the trail, I sat down on a mossy log and watched the sunlight cut through the trees and shift as the leaves blew, breathing out into the quiet of the woods. It was not silent, but muffled, as if every sound was under water.

     The book was either some other Katrina Grimes’, or evidence of some unfathomable friend or stalker. The signature was what confused me; obviously written, not copied, and so obviously mine. Not to say my signature was anything distinctive, and it was never the same. But you know your own signature, like you know your own finger nails, or the back of your head in a picture.

     But what could I do with it? I bit my nail until it bled, and rubbed my hand through my hair over and over, and recycled all my nervous habits. All I could think to do was to keep it safe to use as evidence if any other strange, passive aggressive move was made.

     I had nearly come to the final decision that I would go back to the house and stuff the sketchbook into my closet, when I felt something like a hair or leaf brush against the back of my hand. I looked down and saw a small, compact black spider scuttle across my fingers, and then another up my arm.

     I screamed, dropping the book, and shook my arms to fling them off, rubbing my hands against my jeans and making small, pathetic noises in my throat until I felt convinced they were gone, though the skin of my hand still crawled. I took a breath of relief, then froze in horror when I looked down.

     The book had landed open, the pages pressed against the dirt, and spiders were pouring out around it as if escaping from within. There seemed no end to them, all crawling on top of one another, a hoard. I couldn’t tell if I was screaming or if it was just a ringing in my ears, and I frantically kicked the book. It landed open, right side up, to a blank page.