It Fast Approaches

The hallway was impossibly long, but the only thing Benny could do was follow along the corridor. Follow it as far as possible, running, trying to outpace the thunderous footfalls approaching from behind. And even though he knew it was of dire importance to keep moving away from whoever or whatever it was stalking him, each time he reached a door along the side of the hallway, he felt an undeniable and visceral need to stop.

This door. This room. The contents. They were all nearly the same as every room he’d come upon as he made his way down the hall. This time the doorknob was brass. It had a keyhole in the center of the knob. Many of the doorknobs did. Some had keyholes in the plate below them. But Benny didn’t have time to think about that right now. He twisted the knob and the latch clicked open.

But of course it did. All of them had up to this point and he’d lost count after 25. Or was it 28? Either way, it had been a long time since he’d lost count and not once had he run into issues with the doors not opening.

And for a moment, the urgency of his instinct to flee from his unknown pursuer fell victim to his need to see; his need to know.

The room was small and had an aged hardwood floor which was mostly covered by a braided area rug like Benny had seen in each of the classrooms he’d been assigned in elementary school. Sitting slightly rear of center on the rug was a small writing table. It was painted pastel pink – a stark contrast from both the appropriately dingy rug of many colors and the dented and pocked hardwood floor. Mahogany. It had to have been mahogany.

The desk and items atop it were simple. Circling it, Benny made note of the black plastic desk lamp standing at the top left corner of the desk. In the top right corner was a mesh cup that resembled a wastebasket which contained a dozen or so yellow pencils. The majority of the desk’s surface was covered with a clear blotter – covering photographs of unknown faces both young and old. And just like every room to this point in his travels down the hall, sitting centered on the desk – this time on top of the blotter – was a black notebook.

But why a black notebook?

It was always a simple, black notebook.

Outside the room, the sound of approaching footsteps grew louder. Before Benny made to leave the room, he noted the position of the chair at the desk. It was nearly identical to each of the rooms before.

Though it wasn’t a style of chair Benny would purchase or willingly use, it sat pulled slightly back from the desk and set at an angle as if beckoning occupation.

Some other time.

Benny left, slamming the door closed behind him. He did so in part to drown out the sounds of the approaching footfalls as well as in an attempt to wake him from this walking nightmare he was sure he was trapped in.

Before he knew it, he was running again. Running away from whatever pursued him. He wasn’t willing to find out what would chase him for so long.

Run!

One, two, three, four, five... he counted as he ran. This time, he noted, just like each time since he began counting, at exactly 50 steps a door appeared in the side of the hall. This time it appeared on the right.

No knob. This time a handle. Black. Curled on the end and ornately engraved. The keyhole was positioned in the plate above the handle.

The handle provided no resistance.

But of course it didn’t.

The thrum produced by the footfalls of his seemingly inescapable pursuer nearly caused him to abandon his current expedition, however the thought of not knowing proved again too great to deny. But only just.

The room was small. The same size, Benny thought, as each of the previous rooms. The floor was covered wall-to-wall with Berber carpet – gray with speckles of black, or were they navy? – the writing desk was not to be outdone by the door handle. Benny couldn’t place it, but the sight of it tugged at feelings he had to force into the periphery of his mind. The desk looked like it cost more than anything he’d ever owned. More than anything he could ever own with all the engraving on the legs and draped edges.

Just like every time before, there was a lamp – an antique banker’s lamp this time – in the top left corner of the desk and a wooden cup – turned on a lathe no doubt, and finished off by a master craftsman who added an almost jeweled texture around the rim and base, though the “jewels” were carved from the same wood as the cup – sitting in the top right. The cup held a single pen fitted with a diamond or other icy gemstone which was beyond Benny’s ability to determine near the tip of the clip.

The most remarkable difference aside from the apparent cost of the desk was the lack of a blotter. In its place was an embedded glass top which covered an ancient-looking map of lands unknown to Benny.

The chair, this chair called to him. As if in competition with the desk and door handle, the chair could have been imported directly from Victorian England or likewise procured from shop of a master craftsman from around the time of the founding of the country. Benny couldn’t resist temptation and sat. It was undeniably the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever occupied. Not because the stuffing was made of horse tail and thick bits were stabbing his flesh or because the spring steel in the back was overly obvious to his spine, but because he felt one wrong move would make it break under his weight as his grandmother’s had those many years prior.

Even so, he pulled the chair to the desk and examined the final object: the black notebook.

Something about this notebook was different from all the others he’d come across along his journey down the hall. While the size and shape were the same, and the cover appeared to be as unspoiled as all the rest, there was something different about the way the edges of the pages lay.

They sat unevenly. An indication that the pages had been used and worn.

Again, the bludgeoning sound of footfalls requisitioned a presence in his mind by way of pronouncing itself at and then coursing its way through his chest, yet the curious state of the notebook overrode Benny’s waning sense of self-preservation.

A sense. He didn’t know where it came from, how it came to be in his mind, or why it resounded so forcefully with him. He simply knew he needed to open the book.

Benny reached forward and grasped the bottom right corner of the cover. It produced an almost velvety feel pinched between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

Whatever happens, whatever it is that’s chasing me be damned! I will read whatever is written inside this book.

Bracing himself, Benny closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the book.

When he opened his eyes again Benny felt a nearly overpowering wave of nausea. He was standing in his modest study, swaying in front of his meticulously curated collection of books. Through too many moves over the span of not many years, only those closest to his heart remained in the limited space he had for his small bookcases. Each shelf was packed – the differing shapes and sizes utilized much like the pieces of a puzzle.

Each save for the contents of one.

One entire shelf was set apart for the works he’d written and the works he intended to write. Beginning with comp books from school and spanning spiral notebooks and steno pads, the motley collection of notebooks traversed an array not unlike the colors of the rainbow only to end at the pot of gold – several unspoiled black notebooks.

But what was in the book I was about to read!

Benny reached a hand out to steady himself against the weight and strength of the bookcases. The moment he made contact with the oak frame the thrum of the footfalls shook his soul. His breath escaped his chest in a ragged, almost asthmatic wheezing fit.

Whatever it was he’d been running from had found him.

But of course it had. It was part of him.

I’m not ready!

But he had to be ready.

Still facing the row of fresh notebooks, Benny reached tentatively toward them. Pausing for a measured breath, he lightly caressed the spine of each of the would-be future homes to inspiration.

“No. No. No. Not you. Not any of you,” he said. “Sorry. Not any of you.”

Crestfallen he turned from the bookcases. Normally a source of inspiration and wonder, the site of each of the books was presently a torturous reminder of his own inadequacies.

He looked up and spotted his desk. It had always been right where it was, sitting in roughly the same position in his own study as the many he’d only moments before seen in the countless rooms along the long hallway.

Benny’s heart nearly leapt from his chest – though whether from joy or fear, he wasn’t certain.

It was a simple desk, much like his simple oaken bookcases. He’d received the desk from his parents as a graduation present years before when he finally finished college. On the top left corner of the desk sat a simple lamp. Opposite it sat a snarky mug that still had stains flowing down its side from its days as caffeine courier, but was presently overflowing with pens and pencils. Behind the desk sat a simple dining chair with a cushion he’d found at a local thrift shop.

He knew what he had to do.

Benny made his way to the chair and sat. He placed his elbows on the desk and leaned his head forward, placing it in his hands.

And cried.

His sobs were lost to the sounds of approaching steps – the footfalls of whatever destiny lay ahead of him – as they fell in time with each other.

No time for this!

Sniffling, he wiped his nose and eyes on his sleeves and reached forward to the book that sat on the blotter.

“You. Yes, you!” he said. “It was always to be you.”

Turning the velvety cover open, a rectangle of paper fluttered out.

Benny sniffed and offered the paper a bittersweet smile as he picked it up to look at it.

Pay to the order of: Benny Wall

$20,000

For: The Unending Darkness – Book two

Benny’s entire body was vibrating. He plucked a pencil from the mug and on the first page of the notebook hastily jotted down, “First draft”.

If I’m going to read what’s inside this book, I’m going to have to put it there myself!