9. I Came in With A Bang!

Mandy entered cautiously. Her heart pounding at the memory of what that book had done to them. She stepped in. One foot carefully placed after another. It wasn't what she had expected. The room was clear. It looked even cleaner than it usually did. No debris, no fallen shelves. No book.

She walked over to where the wall had broken. She studied the surface closely and sent her hand to touch. It was completely smooth. Suddenly the fear of not knowing what happened overcame the fear of carrying the book with her. 

It was all surreal yet intangible. To live through something yet have no tangible proof. Was it a dream? She turned to examine the room for clues but there were none. Then she could hear a noise. She became breathless. Searching around helplessly for the book. The noise it had crippled them with still burned in her mind. 

The noise grew louder. It came closer, it was a scream. She turned back to see a blue figure coming for the window. She dove behind a desk and covered her head. 

STEVE GREY.

Steve's lungs and throat burned as he let out a ceaseless scream. He had been hurtling through the air for what seemed like hours but he was sure it wasn't that long. Without warning, he was thrown through more glass. His back came in hard contact with something before he tumbled to the cold floor. 

He groaned in pain, rolling over. He was holding back a gag from the ridiculous G force he had to endure.

"Steve?". When he opened his eyes, he saw Mandy's round worried face.

" Mandy?"

His voice was weak and unrecognizable to him. Mandy left her refuge, which was the desk he had bounced on. He was back at the library room and so was she. Mandy ran to him, helping him up. Even with her help, he still felt like his body was made of anchors. The sensations hadn't left him. He tried to cooperate as Mandy sat him in a chair. She examined him before backing up.

"What…" from her face, he knew she had no idea where to even begin.

"I don't know." he said breathlessly. "Jesus! Everything hurts."

A large groan escaped him as he turned aside to look at where they had left the book. There was nothing there. The wall was as good as new. He examined the rest of the room before turning to Mandy.

"Did you do this?" he asked.

"What? No." she seemed offended. He knew she had the means.

"It disappeared? How?"

"Just like it appeared. At this point what is impossible?" she stood up, walking to the clean wall.

"So do you make it a habit to sleep under library desks?" Steve wasn't going to let her off the hook. He knew that with the kind of money she had access to, she could work magic just as well as any weird book. 

"Well do you make it a habit of flying into library windows after hours?" she asked crossedly. "Were you flying?"

"I don't know what's happening to me. I was at home when suddenly everything was out of whack! Then something kept pushing me around and... "

"Hey, Steve."

"What?" he asked. 

"Shut up and look at this." Mandy had walked to the opposite wall, looking at a shelf with particular interest. He could barely stand up but he did. "Do you see? It's definitely out of place."

He followed her pink nail and noticed it too. Unlike the other books, which were all hardcover, this one had a soft-ish cover. A worn leather brown cover. It was almost dark enough to fit with the others. Mandy bent down and picked up a hardcover from the floor.

"Sneaky little bastard," she said. "Well, let's bag it."

"What?" Steve nearly jumped right out the window. The window! "Wait, does this building have an alarm?"

"Shit! We have to leave. Come on." 

He watched, pale, as she picked the book and dumped it into a small bag. He still felt the gloves and the bag weren't enough distance. Mandy hooked one arm around his waist and walked fast. This time, like she was shitting her pants. They approached the entrance and he saw George leaning on the main desk laughing. Mandy grabbed George's arm and they left like the thieves they were.

MANDY MAHARI.

As George sped the corvette like a mad man, several blocks down, they could hear police sirens. It was a narrow escape. George had a satisfying grin on his face. Sometimes she wondered what she would do without him. She wondered how she would have turned out. 

"Enjoying this, aren't you George?" Steve asked from behind, his voice a mere cough. 

She turned around to examine him and he didn't look alight. His skin was deathly pale and he was shivering. His eyes were closed and his hand clutched at his curly locks. George too, spied through his mirror and he gave her a questioning look. She just shrugged, not wanting to tell him about the book.

"Are you okay?" she asked Steve.

"Yep!" he strained. "Nothing to see here."

"George, take us to the hospital, he doesn't look okay at all!" Mandy said.

It was about to get a little worse than not okay. Before her eyes, Steve began to convulse. His body twitched and quaked. Mandy couldn't trace his eye movements. They were rapid. She unbuckled her seatbelt and knelt down on her seat. She did her best to hold him down but his movements were strong.

"Miss Mahari, things are getting worse." George announced.

"You think!"

She turned around to see his hands off the wheel. The car was slowing down. She looked at the fuel gauge, it was nearly full. The car coughed to a stop in the middle of the night road. George reached for the door but it didn't work.

Immediately, Mandy turned her eyes to the bag between them. It was rattling just like Steve. They both backed up as much as they could. They could tell it was only just the beginning. The bag flew up and the book slipped out. Everything in the car that held little mass began to float. Her curly brown hair floated into vision. George's coffee cup went up, spilling it's contents in slow-mo.

The book itself floated next to Steve and he quietened down. The book opened up and so did Steve's eyes, his eyes glowed blue. They were already naturally blue but now, it glowed, the flames within whipping like ethereal splendour. The entire car was bathed in the blue light. George's glasses captured the hue.

Before their eyes, Steve read the book without reading because as Mandy saw, the pages were empty. Yet they flipped. His eyes running back and forth. What did he see?