Strange Pulp 3: Librarian With a Chainsaw (Part Two)

Strange Pulp is an irregular journal of weird fiction. If you’d like to give feedback on this young project, click here. If you enjoy the story, let me know with a like or comment or by supporting my work on Patreon. Any encouragement is hugely appreciated!

In this issue, we catch up with Flora Potter in the climax to the sordid tale, “Librarian With a Chainsaw.” As always, I strongly recommend the ePub and PDF versions.

Read Part One

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Content Warning For Part Two

The slivers of bark wriggled back through Paul’s walls and died. It was morning now, the sun high and cold. The tangle had been active the night before, combing its many fingers through the dirt, leaving furrows whose bottoms he couldn’t see. He didn’t want to know what it was looking for.

He scanned the horizon until his eyes watered from the strain of distinguishing brown earth from brown sky. He couldn’t see the tangle but knew it would be back soon, so he worked as fast as his long-starved body could bear. He crept across the mud to a stump that had rotted from the inside out. It was the biggest he could carry. He scraped a trench around it, exposing roots that crumbled like raw clay. He worked his hands under it and pulled hard. His palms came back bloody. Those cuts, he knew from bitter experience, would be infected soon. It didn’t matter. The black haired woman would rescue him or the tangle would kill him for moving the stump. Either way, this would end.

Paul hummed as he worked. For the first time in far too long, he felt something like hope. He was panting and sweat-slick as he rolled the stump into his hut. He wanted to rest but the earth was already shuddering with the tangle’s approach. Paul heaved the stump against his chest and muscled it through the paper walls.

In the children’s room of the Deepkill Village Library, the paint on Flora’s mural peeled away. It drifted down slowly and piled on the rug like flaking skin.

Flora was woken by the sound of a diamond ring rapping against her windshield. Her head felt like it was full of gravel. Shielding her eyes against the early morning sun, she recognized the deep-lined face of Jilly Bryant.

“Up!” said Ms. Bryant. “Up, up, come on. Let’s go.”

Flora rolled out of the car. Sleep hadn’t helped. Her hair was greasy and her skin felt like a rubber mask. She smelled like bourbon and blood. None of this bothered her. She figured that if you felt like shit, you might as well look like it too.

“I didn’t know you ever came here,” she said.

“Only for special occasions.”

Jilly Bryant was a broad woman with coarse hair, calloused hands, and a voice like sandpaper. She leaned against the hood of her Jeep, digging into the pocket of her work shirt for that morning’s pack of Parliaments, staring at Flora like she was a skin tag: not life-threatening, but unquestionably vile.

“Give me one,” said Flora.

“I didn’t take you for a smoker.”

“I quit three years ago.”

“I don’t like giving cigarettes to people who’ve quit.”

“Give me one anyway or I’ll take the whole pack. I had a shitty night.”

Ms. Bryant produced a cigarette. She offered her lighter but Flora already had the zippo in her hand. She took a long drag. Menthol, baby. It tasted awful in the most wonderful way.

“Okay,” said Ms. Bryant. “Explain yourself.”

Flora glanced at her sagging bandages, at the blood that was starting to leak through. She smiled a little and told her tale—the whole thing, from passing out in the road to the moment she sent the text. The only thing she didn’t mention was that she’d been sleeping in the library. She expected her boss to laugh, but when she’d finished Ms. Bryant just looked sad.

“Is there any more pizza?” said Ms. Bryant.

“Is the pizza important?”

“I skipped breakfast to come here, so yeah. You look like you could use some food, too.”

“I’m not going back in there.”

“You’ll have to.” Flora shook her head. “I’ll let you smoke in the reading room.”

“That’s against the law.”

“No shit. I used to do it all the time. Come on.”

Ms. Bryant walked toward the library. Flora didn’t follow. As soon as Ms. Bryant touched the door handle, her false cheer collapsed.

“What?” said Flora.

“It’s vibrating.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Something much bigger is coming through the divide.”

Flora and Ms. Bryant stood in the center of the very hungry caterpillar, the smoke from their cigarettes curling up to the ceiling like cuddling snakes. They stared at the wall where Flora’s mural had been. The cheerful primary colors had fallen away. In their place was the hideous Norwegian elm, as nauseating as Flora remembered it, but no longer flat against the wall. Its trunk protruded like a distended gut. Its branches had peeled away from the concrete and dangled, wet and heavy, just a few inches above the rug. The tree looked like papier-mâché but as Flora got near she saw its texture was much closer to dried skin. The entire thing glistened like the sap on her foot—which was itching more and more, she noticed somewhere in the back of her mind—and with it came the stench of curdled milk.

“You shouldn’t have painted over it,” said Ms. Bryant.

“Nobody told me not to.”

“The library’s always been fond of that mural. I’m sure I mentioned it.”

“You didn’t tell me a fucking thing.”

“Flora—”

“My onboarding for this job was a text that said, ‘Key under doormat.’ Since then I’ve been making it up.”

“It shows.”

Flora took a deep breath. Once she was sure she could talk without screaming, she said, “I didn’t realize the library had opinions.”

“All libraries do. This one more than most. Didn’t they teach you anything in your master’s program?”

“Apparently not. Anyway, goodbye.”

Flora started for the stairs. Ms. Bryant blocked her, leaning across the rough concrete banister until Flora backed down.

“Let me go,” said Flora.

“I’d love to. Really, truly, I would. But I don’t think I can.”

“Why not? I don’t think you’ll have trouble finding a replacement. It’s a pretty plush job if you don’t mind having your feet ripped off.”

“Please—let’s just talk for a few minutes. After that, if you think you can leave, I won’t stop you.”

Ms. Bryant pulled out a blue plastic chair from a low table that was covered with crayon scribbles. Flora sat beside her. Their knees touched. Flora pulled the Parliaments out of Ms. Bryant’s shirt. She helped herself to another and pocketed the pack.

“What’s your pitch?” said Flora. “I don’t want a raise. I don’t want more vacation time. I want to go home.”

“This is your home now. I’m not talking literally—although you’re not fooling me there; I can see the air mattress in your office. I mean this place is, well…it’s bonded to you. Your love for reading must be particularly deep—or it’s that you’ve been spending more time here than you should. Do they talk to you? At night, do you hear them whisper?”

Flora was silent.

“It doesn’t matter now,” said Ms. Bryant. “This library won’t let you leave.”

“What will happen if I try?”

“I don’t know. But I’m concerned it will be something like what happened to Paul. He was—”

“My predecessor.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

Ms. Bryant shrugged. She looked like she was trying not to smile.

“His tenure was so brief. I was afraid it would scare you off the job.”

“Why did he quit?” She gestured at her ankles. “Something like this?”

“No, no. Nothing so dramatic. It was the middle of last winter. The county lifted its mask mandate. He didn’t feel safe working here without it. He sent me a message just like yours. Nobody ever saw him again.”

“You look like you have an idea where he went.”

Ms. Bryant nodded at the Norwegian elm. It pulsed like a beating heart.

“I think he’s in there,” said Ms. Bryant.

“Me too. When I saw him, there was something massive—something that scared the shit out of him. What is it?”

“I don’t know. I have theories, of course. I did research. My best guess is that it’s connected somehow to the forest that used to stand on this site, that was clear cut when the village was founded in—”

“1813.”

Ms. Bryant nodded. It was the first time she’d looked even remotely impressed.

“Most of those trees were used to make paper. Perhaps the spirit of the forest is, I don’t know—bound to the books in some way.”

“So the librarian’s supposed to, what, protect the books on behalf of the forest?”

“Absolutely not. You’re here to protect the books from the forest.”

“Why?”

Ms. Bryant scratched at the crayon spirals. Purple wax peeled up beneath her index finger.

“We pulped its children. Flattened them. Smeared ink across their bodies. We let toddlers chew on their corners. You shouldn’t be surprised that it’s angry.”

“So what do you expect me to do?”

“Your job. Maintain the collection. Arrange programming. If anything bizarre happens, look the other way. It’s what kept me alive in this job for thirty-seven years.”

“And how did you get out?”

Ms. Bryant finished scraping up the purple. She wiped the residue on her pant leg and started on a streak of orange.

“I found Paul.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Flora dropped her cigarette butt into the waste paper basket beside the crafting table. Nothing leapt out of the wall to grab her as she crossed the floor; nothing chased her as she walked down the steps. Ms. Bryant didn’t follow. As far as Flora was concerned, she could stay there peeling crayon for the rest of her life. As she passed the checkout desk she gave a last look at her Moby-Dick. The next poor bastard can have it, she thought. I’m gone.

Flora tore out of the parking lot as fast as her little sedan could carry her. At the intersection of Hosta and St. Joseph’s she passed Dr. Bark, dangling from another tree, still singing. She didn’t give him the finger. She didn’t even see him. Visions of Toronto danced in front of her eyes. She saw Lia. She saw their apartment. She saw home.

She pulled into the roundabout. As she cruised around the circle of dead grass, the books of Deepkill whispered to her. They asked her to come back, to save them—not for themselves, of course, but for the children who needed them like Flora had needed her library as a child.

And they asked her: what about Paul?

What happened to him wasn’t his fault. He’s a gentle man. He cared for us, just as you do. He doesn’t deserve to die alone.

Come back to us.

Save us.

While you’re at it, save him too.

She went around the circle twice, three times, four times. With each loop, Toronto seemed farther away. She’d spent her life putting books before people. Maybe this time she could save both.

She left the roundabout. She drove to Home Depot. She got herself a chainsaw that could cut concrete and a shitload of gasoline.

The tangle was angry. It dragged itself across the mud outside of Paul’s hut, bellowing with twenty throats. Paul pressed against the back wall, arm over his eye, unwilling to see the thing that was going to kill him. It cracked against the door. The ceiling collapsed. A heavy piece of wood fell beside Paul’s head—avoiding it meant moving his arm, which gave him a quick glimpse of the thing that was outside.

He saw something fat and twisting, stripes running down its side in various unappealing shades of green. Claws the length of Paul’s arm. Orifices oozing golden sap. This was the closest he’d ever been to the tangle and he knew there was much much more that he couldn’t see.

An eye fixed on him. It looked hungry.

“I’m sorry!” shouted Paul.

Several mouths roared. Where the spit hit the wall, it left the stink of sizzling fat. A limb scuttled in and, without apparent effort, tore the rest of the hut away. The sun looked down without pity. The tangle wrapped itself over Paul. When the sky was gone, several eyes fixed on him.

“Forgive me, please,” Paul said, “or let me die.”

He had no idea how much the tangle understood. For all those mouths, it never said anything. Its faces, some furry, some stripped bare, some ashen and some inflamed with color, stared at the useless little man it was about to destroy. They opened, putrid saliva pouring from between their teeth as they prepared to feed.

When Paul was a boy, he loved war stories. Tales of bravery and sacrifice, of strapping adventurers who laughed at danger and died on their feet. Paul spent long nights imagining himself staring down certain death with a smile on his lips and a song in his heart. Now, a grown man trapped in a hell he still did not understand, he knew there was no question of bravery. He was a coward—he had always been a coward—and that was how he’d die.

Its breath scorched his face. Tongues caressed his cheeks. Everywhere it touched, his skin burned. He was sobbing, snot running into his mouth, when the sound came from outside. A heavy thud followed by the grinding of a furious machine. He and the tangle knew at once. The new librarian was here.

Flora stared through the hole she’d cut in the library wall, trying to make sense of what was on the other side. A plain of mud stretching farther than her mind could process. A little hut, smashed to bits but unquestionably the one from her vision. A one-eyed man with a bowl cut quaking in fear. Okay, fine. She’d prepared herself for all of that.

She wasn’t ready for the monster.

It was taller than her old apartment building. Its body was a writhing mass of fur and spikes and skin and gristle. It had mouths where there should not be mouths; eyes where no sane creature should have eyes. It was striped in places, spotted in others, and dripping mud and blood and sap and pus from every one of its many holes. But as she stared at it—because what was there to do with such a creature but stare?—she recognized familiar forms.

The dead-eyed gaze of a little engine that could.

The tight lipped smile of a blue cat called Pete.

The scruffy orange fur of a Lorax.

The pudgy hand of a crayon-toting boy named Harold.

The furious wings of a pigeon that wanted to drive a bus.

The green on green stripes of the hungriest fucking caterpillar she’d ever seen.

Characters from every children’s book she’d ever read and a thousand she hadn’t crawled across each other, melting together and ripping apart. They smiled and laughed and screamed. They recognized what she was and they wanted very much for her to die.

The caterpillar lashed out first. It was as long as a bus, flopping and howling and flinging chunks of half-chewed watermelon like wet red cannonballs. It reared up, dragging the monster’s center of gravity away from the hut. The whole beast crashed down beside Flora, sending a pulse through her like an electric shock. More than anything she’d ever felt, she wanted to run. But she’d come here to save the library and that meant this thing had to die.

The caterpillar’s great black mouth opened so wide that the flesh on either side split. Paul watched it fling itself toward Flora. He saw it close down on her. He saw it swallow her whole. And before he could cry out, before he could accept that death really was at hand, he watched the tongue of her chainsaw explode out of the creature’s side. Flora lunged out of the gash in its throat, body glistening with golden sap, as the caterpillar doubled back on itself, teeth gnashing mindlessly. It bit the head off a grotesque protrusion that reminded Paul of the Cat in the Hat, and then every part of the tangle was fighting every other part, mouths biting mouths and claws raking eyes and blood of every color peppering the dirt like heavy rain.

“Here!” shouted Paul, and Flora limped across the ankle deep muck into what remained of his shelter. He yanked her against the wall, forced her to sit and helped her wipe the sap out of her eyes, nose and mouth. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. All the color had left her face. Her ankles were bleeding again and the places where the sap had touched her skin earlier glowed angry red. Her chainsaw rested on the ground, rumbling like a loyal dog.

“Thank you,” said Paul. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

Flora laughed and Paul did too and they felt like old friends as they watched the lower half of the tangle tear into itself. Wads of flesh scattered across the landscape. Soon, it would remember they were here.

“Got any weapons?” said Flora.

“What for?”

“We’re gonna kill that fucking thing.”

“I just want out of here. I don’t…I’m a long way past being able to fight.”

She looked him over. He was a walking skeleton, short an eye and wearing the shittiest beard she’d ever seen. She felt the throbbing in her ankles and the burning on her skin and she figured that, yeah, maybe getting out of here wasn’t such a bad idea.

She didn’t notice the little piece of bark he was twirling in his hands.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go. If it tries to follow, we’ll trap it in the library and kill it there.”

“Yeah. You don’t know what it means, you coming to save me.”

“My girlfriend would be proud.”

“Sure. Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

But even as she asked, she knew. The thin, fuzzy stalk wrapped around her left arm, right above the elbow, and grabbed her like a vise. She pulled. It pulled harder, slamming her into the mud wall. She tried to rip it off with her other hand, but it just cut deeper. She tried to tear it out of the mud, but its roots stretched deeper than her fingers could reach. With every movement it cut closer to her bone. Pain fogged her vision. Blood poured down her arm.

“Paul,” she said, but he was already backing out the door. Even beneath the mud that caked his face, she could see he was blushing. Not even ashamed of what he’d done. Just a little embarrassed.

She wanted to jam her fist down his throat.

“Help me, you piece of shit,” she said.

“It needs someone. If we leave together, it’ll follow us. It’ll find us. I can’t…I just have to get away.”

“You fucking bastard.”

“Like I said, I’m sorry.”

And then he was gone. He sprinted out of the hut—pretty quick for a guy who’s a long way past being able to fight, she thought—toward the library. She hoped the monster would spot him, would swallow him whole, but it was still consumed with tearing itself apart. Blood coursed down its writhing form. Its chests heaved; its mouths gasped for air. But it kept twisting and biting, every part of it trying to kill the rest. Paul ran under it, slid on his ass toward the library, and was gone.

“Fucker!” she screamed. “You stupid fucker! I hope you choke. You hear that, Paul? I hope you fucking choke!”

Paul didn’t hear her. She knew he wouldn’t. But the monster did.

Its eyes rolled around to face Flora. Its ragged bodies flopped onto the earth and corkscrewed her way.

Flora thrashed. She twisted and pulled and tried out every yoga move she could think of, but the vine around her arm just bit tighter, sucking her deeper into the mud. Her mind was flooded with panic and the thing was getting closer and its mouths were thrashing and she could smell its hateful breath and she was about to absolutely lose her shit when—

No.

She took a deep breath. She refused to die here. And that meant there was only one way. Her right hand found the chainsaw like they’d been made for each other. With the gentlest nudge, the teeth screamed to life.

“Okay,” said Flora. “One.”

The monster was right outside the hut.

She scooted her butt as far from the wall as she could get.

“Two.”

Tongues rolled from its mouths. Rotten air poured over her, so hot it burned her skin.

She held the chainsaw below her left armpit.

“Three.”

She felt the breeze from the whirring teeth against her skin; she heard the bile churning in the monster’s infinite gut.

“Fucking three.”

She couldn’t do it. She had to do it.

It lunged for her.

She cut off her arm.

Paul slammed the concrete blocks into place. The wall absorbed them like healing flesh. The grout filled back in and the smell of mud faded and in no time at all, the wall was whole.

He’d heard Flora screaming as he made his escape—an animal howl that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He’d atone later. For now, it was enough to be alive.

Paul sagged against the wall, staring at a room he thought he’d never see again. He smelled the cigarettes and knew Jilly had been here. And there was another smell in the air—something chemical that he couldn’t place, some disgusting new cleaning product. Otherwise, everything was as he’d left it. He wondered if his wallet was still in his desk. He wanted a cheeseburger.

He wanted one thousand cheeseburgers.

“And a milkshake. And some beer. And I want to spend an hour in a hot tub and I want a fucking handjob and I want to go to the movies and eat popcorn and I want to ride rollercoasters and swim the English Channel and I want to get a shave and a fucking haircut and I want to—”

The wall rumbled. The brick behind his back exploded into powder and fourteen inches of groaning steel plunged through his abdomen. Paul saw the teeth of the chainsaw sticking out the front of his stomach. He fell forward, felt it slide out of him, and collapsed into an ocean of his own blood.

“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.”

He tried to roll onto his back but the pain was too intense. So he watched sideways as Flora forced her way through the wall. Her face was pale, her eyes wider than eyes should be. Her left arm was missing. In its place was a dripping red wound. She’d made the cut cleanly—the bone was shorn flat. She tore off her headband and, using fingers and teeth, tied it just below her shoulder. The bleeding slowed.

“You’re a prick,” she said. She kicked him in the face and then in the throat and was about to step on the bloody wreckage of his abdomen when the tangle threw itself against the wall and the entire world seemed poised to come down. She bolted for the steps.

Through the hole in the concrete Paul saw the tangle, groaning and weak but still immense and hungry, rolling into position to charge a second time. He pushed his feet into the ruined rug and found enough purchase to shove himself to the balcony that overlooked the first floor. He watched Flora dig a pack of Parliaments out of her pocket and nestle a cigarette into her mouth. It was badly bent but she lit it anyway, with a zippo whose flame leaped like a giddy demon.

Through many layers of pain, Paul recognized the chemical stench. He understood why, even before he soiled it with his blood, the carpet had felt a little damp.

Gasoline.

Flora tossed her lighter overhand up the stairs. It tumbled end over end, the silver glinting in the fluorescent light. Paul prayed it would go out but zippos never do. When it landed on the very hungry caterpillar, it was just like flipping on a light switch. One breath and the entire room was bathed in fire.

Paul heard the crinkle of burning paper. He smelled his own flesh cooking. He glanced through the hole and saw the tangle lurching away from the flames. He rolled onto his side and screamed at Flora, “Please!”

“Sorry,” she said, as she picked up a book. “Hands are full.”

She shouldered open the library door and stepped into the parking lot. The shocking light of the sun reminded her of when she was a kid, when she used to go to matinée movies and step into the alley after and be stunned to see it was still daylight. She heard the books of her library screaming as they died. She squeezed Moby-Dick tight against her chest. At least she’d saved one.

She took three steps before she collapsed. Her head smacked hard against the pavement. The Parliament kept burning, making her eyes water as consciousness slipped away.

Maybe someone would rescue her. Maybe she’d bleed out in the parking lot. She wished she could see the sky.

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