The Booking by Ramsey Campbell Interior illustrations by Santiago Caruso (2015, Dark Regions Press)
* * *
If we were to read Campbell as an allegorist, a primary insight would be: avoid bookstores, especially as places of employment. (The Overnight from 2004 is an obvious example.)
The Booking centers on the plight of Kiefer, newly arrived in town. He quickly finds himself homeless when he loses the key to his vacationing girlfriend's apartment.
Unluckily, Kiefer finds a berth and a job at the cobwebbed and spider-infested Books Are Life. Located on a forgotten street, Books Are Life is owned by Mr. Brookes, as fly-blown as his stock.
Books Are Life is a store "bigger on the inside," as Kiefer discovers.
....As Brookes tramped upstairs with a shelfload of books, Kiefer took the steps to the bookcase by the door. The muddy window was a mass of spines beyond deciphering—reflections that obliterated every trace of the unlit street. Kiefer balanced on the top step to lift down all the contents of the highest shelf he hadn't listed, clamping the armful between his hands while he turned it from horizontal to vertical. The trick he'd learned in libraries felt like a memory solidified. He felt his blind way down the steps, and as his foot groped for the next metal tread he was unnerved by fancying that he was about to step down into nothingness. Of course the floor was where he knew it was, but he was close to forgetting his burden of books by the time his feet found it. He dug his chin into the topmost cover as he made his way to the desk, and felt as if the column of volumes was supporting his flimsy head.
How damp were the sections of the desk where the fish and chips had been? When he touched the desktop he couldn't judge, and straining for a sense of it only made the surface feel less like wood. He had to plant the pile of books beside the computer, where their spines put him in mind of a sidebar on a website. He was used to Brookes' style by now, and he could live with describing books that way; surely it didn't make them less real. He listed every detail that made the items sound more desirable, and once he'd replaced the books—his arms trembling while he elevated the burden, his legs lending a shiver to the steps—he emptied the next shelf. He had no idea how long listing those items took him, but why should it matter so long as he stayed awake? Whenever he set about describing a book he lost all sense of anything beyond it, and could easily have dreamed the lights had gone out, isolating him and the computer in empty darkness. Perhaps this meant he would be ready for bed once he'd dealt with this shelf of books, or just one more after that, if not another. When at last he thought to glance at the time in the corner of the screen he saw that it was almost three o'clock.
Summing up book after book seemed to have used up his senses, so that he had to remind himself that the digits meant it was the middle of the night. He finished listing the latest batch of books and returned them to the middle of the second bookcase from the door, and then he let the computer rearrange the list in author order before he put it online. He was tempted to wait for responses, but fatigue kept making the chilly darkness lurch at him. He shut down the computer and carried it upstairs to bed.
Perhaps Brookes had retired after all, since there was no sign of him. Kiefer found soap and a towel in his suitcase, along with a frayed toothbrush and a scrawny crumpled tube of toothpaste. The water he had to splash on his face was as cold as the cold tap even though it came from the other, and his reflection in the mottled mirror might almost have been striving to outdo his grimaces. "Good night," he called without thinking as he emerged from the bathroom, and hoped he hadn't disturbed his employer. When he peered along the corridor he saw and heard nothing except darkness.
How far did the corridor extend? He felt he mightn't sleep until he knew. He wrapped the other items in the towel and returned them to his suitcase—he didn't care to leave them in the dilapidated bathroom in case one of the omnipresent spiders attached a web to them—and then he ventured along the corridor. He was listening for Brookes, but he didn't even hear floorboards creak underfoot unless he kept himself aware of them. He used his phone to light the way, having failed to locate a switch. Once he'd passed between two unlit rooms full of books on shelves and on the dusty floorboards, he reached the end of the corridor—at least, the wall above the side wall of the shop. Beyond it the corridor led into darkness too extensive for the flashlight beam to find its end.
Kiefer stepped forward, but not far. The elongated passage stretched past open rooms containing exactly what he expected to see—shelf upon shelf of books—and he could have thought it was reaching for the dark. Perhaps the flashlight had begun to strobe, unless he couldn't hold it steady, because the books appeared to be twitching on the shelves, jerking out of their own shadows as though eager to be seen—eager for him to open them so that they could add their contents to his mind. He was close to imagining that he could hear their impatience, a clamour of whispers on the brink of definition. It was just a wind ruffling their pages, but this made no sense either. He'd had enough of books for one night, and he retreated to his room.
The bed didn't seem to have benefited from playing host to books. Under the lumpy mattress the bedstead felt as hard as stone. Though Kiefer was tired enough to doze, he kept feeling as if someone was about to waken him. More than once he heard a muffled clunk somewhere below him, perhaps the thud of a book replaced on a shelf. If Brookes was still abroad, he needn't expect Kiefer to be. The thought let Kiefer sleep, although only to dream that the restless books were swarming out of the dark to store themselves in his skull.
The Booking, only slightly longer than a short story, observes the unities of that mode. As Kiefer struggles to modernize Books Are Life and put its stock on line, he studiously resists the observation that his surroundings are changing him, as they clearly changed Brookes.
Like The Last Revelation of Gla'aki (2013), but on a smaller canvas, The Booking explores all the ways men arrive, settle, and rationalize not leaving while there is still time.
It's not that they haven't been warned, or seen the danger signs: merciless transmutations are simply too swift.
Jay
15 January 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment