E) Chapter 4

4.
Quite naturally Richard had not slept much. After making the discovery
that he was destined to die in five days time he had felt rather
unwell. The rest of his evening was somewhat spoiled to say the least.
Not even a feature length episode of The Bill could save him a
prolonged catatonic episode. At first he had of course dismissed the
whole thing as some hugely elaborate practical joke, and had had quite
a laugh about it. Then however he opened the book again and found a new
paragraph, one that most definitely had not been there before,
describing how he was finding the whole thing terribly amusing and was
not at all highly disturbed. The book seemed to be writing itself, and
not only that, it seemed to know exactly what he was doing and
thinking. Lying in bed later trying desperately to forget about the
book, he found himself instead spending many hours attempting to reason
the whole thing out. More than once he got up, told himself he had been
imagining everything and checked the book again, only to find another
paragraph there about how he was trying to convince himself he was
imagining everything. He clung for an hour or two to an 'invisible ink
theory' that eventually came tumbling down under the weight of too much
counter-evidence. Granted the ink could somehow be undergoing some kind
of slow chemical reaction causing the text of the chapter about him to
appear only gradually over the course of an evening, but who could
perform such an elaborate feat? And why? And how did they know in
advance exactly what he would do and think that evening?

It was only some time later he began to reason things out a little
further. He did not know the shelfmark of the book, so perhaps it did
not belong to the library at all? That made the idea of some grand
prank more likely, and it begged the question, who was the woman who
had returned the book and what was her role in all this? He felt
certain he would have to find her to unravel the mystery. In the
meantime he gradually managed to persuade himself that whatever
happened, death was not sitting at the end of his bed looking at his
watch just yet.
So he breezed into work the next morning in a state of chronic denial.
Passing Boris, the bearded, bespectacled old Yeti that had been working
in the library since time began, he even managed to say 'Good Morning'
(for only the fourth time in his life.) Everyone who knew him was aware
something either supremely great or supremely terrible had
happened.
As the morning dragged on however his mood began to alter. He was
working on the issue desk, and though at first he offered a friendly
smile and his most courteous service ever to the customers, this was
gradually replaced by an ugly grimace and barely concealed rage. By
mid-morning he was stamping each issued book as if he were delivering
the knockout punch in a title fight.

By noon he was fuming. As soon as Janice arrived to relieve him of his
post he rounded on her. Taking The New Eschatologist out of his bag and
thrusting it in her face he growled 'What's this?'

'B-Book' came the all-too-obvious reply. Richard grimaced and his eyes
narrowed to contemptuous slits.

'I know it's a book Janice, I mean-' He stopped a moment, what did he
mean? What would Janice know about the book? He calmed himself a
little. 'I mean, do you recognise it?' Janice took the book from
Richard's hands and looked at the number on the spine.

'Don't know??old??'

'No, it's not old Janice,' Richard quivered with frustration 'It was
published this year, is it ours?'

'Don't??hmmmm?.I' Janice was sweating and Richard began to realise
pushing her further might only trigger a panic attack and make her
vomit all over him. Certainly it seemed as if she knew nothing that
could help. A few tense moments of standoff ensued before Richard broke
off the interrogation and made his way to the staff room for
lunch.
Once in the Staff Room Richard sunk into one of the old sponge backed
seats in and glared. He was not glaring at anything in particular, just
projecting hatred randomly into space. It was a full ten minutes before
he got himself together and decided on a course of action.

He opened up the The New Eschatologist again, flicked through to the
last page with text on it and promptly launched into a tirade of
profanity. Many new paragraphs had appeared, the last one reading:
'Richard opened up the book again, hoping that he had been dreaming or
imagining everything all along and that when he looked there would be
nothing suspect there. New text had appeared however, describing his
breakfast, his journey to work and his morning at the issue desk. The
problem was clearly not to be so simply solved, he was not imagining
this at all.'

'Who the fuck are you? Eh? Who the- ' Realising he was swearing at a
book and needed to calm down, he raised his hands in the air in a
gesture of conciliation and breathed in and out deeply. Okay, he said
to himself, something very strange is evidently happening, but how bad
is it? What can I do to get to the bottom of this? Thinking rationally
for the first time that morning he decided to look up the book on the
computer. If it was there the records would give him all the
information he needed, including the address and telephone number of
the last borrower. He left the staff room and hurried over to the
computer suite.
There was a queue to use the computers. Richard began to perspire.
Scanning the room for the weakest member of the herd, he settled on a
young student type with glasses and a nervous look in his eyes. Easy
pickings, he thought to himself as he sauntered over to the boy.
'Excuse me' he began in a voice dripping with arrogant authority.
The boy looked up at Richard but did not meet his gaze. Richard smiled
inwardly, he had chosen well. 'I'm afraid I have some very urgent work
to do and need to make use of this terminal.'

The boy looked at him for a moment, unsure of what to do. 'I work here'
Richard continued, adding a tinge of menace to his voice. There were a
few moments more of awkward silence before Richard's years of
practising his evil stare paid off and the boy apologised and vacated
the terminal. The people in the queue glowered at Richard with quickly
acquired yet intense hatred.

Richard logged in quickly, went straight to the online catalogue and
searched for The New Eschatologist. He found nothing. Not yet defeated,
he turned to plan B and searched the internet. Quite naturally he was
not expecting much return from this course of action. Predictably the
online butler he had asked for information found nothing of any use
whatever. It had merely looked at the words used in his search and
found an article about Eschatology in Catholicism Today, and several
religious websites about The New Testament. Richard quickly realised
there was nothing about the book on the internet, and cursing the
failings of technology he left the computer room and hurried up a
flight of stairs to his right to pursue plan C.

His first knock on Dr.Quinn's door was light, polite but insistent. He
obtained no reply and waited a few minutes before knocking again. His
second knock was heavier, not so polite but still reasonably courteous
though quite hurried. Truth be told he felt it was a little too loud
and lacking in etiquette, so he waited a full ten minutes before
knocking again. The third knock was very loud, very self-conscious and
very long in duration. It too provoked no response. Richard
prevaricated, knocked again lightly and then went back to the staff
room.

He stood in the doorway of the staff room and again looked vacantly
into space, not with hatred this time but with a mixture of resignation
and deep despair. Sinking into one of the staff room chairs again he
began to contemplate death and found himself curiously resistant to the
idea. He had always thought he was such a badass that he didn't care
about his own life. This wasn't true though, he was in fact terribly
afraid of dying. If this is a practical joke, he thought, to himself,
it just isn't funny anymore, and he began to think about what people
would say about him at his funeral. He was on the verge of crying
imagining his friend Lance Felwood delivering a beautiful eulogy when
he noticed the local paper on the table in front of him. The front page
had a story about a car that had exploded on a busy street in town a
few days ago. Something seemed familiar about it to Richard but he
couldn't think what. He picked up the paper and skimmed through the
article. Police hadn't yet been able to positively identify the
remains, but the owner of the car was a Mr.Raymond Sanchez. Where had
he heard that name before? Suddenly it struck him. It struck him like a
blow to the face with a wet carp and sent a suitably icy cold shiver
down his spine. He opened up The New Eschatologist and hurried to the
chapter before his own. There he found it, the full story of Sanchez'
death with an explanation for the explosion that even the police
seemingly did not know. If Richard needed any further proof that the
unbelievable situation he was in was real, he was about to find it.
Stuffing the book into his bag he walked, jogged and ultimately ran out
of the library and into the streets outside heading for the local
police station. He needed information and he needed a friend, Police
Constable Lance Felwood could provide both.