I knocked on her door again. “Sarah!” I yelled, louder this time. I pressed my ear against the door, expecting to hear a scuffle of chair legs across the plastic tiles, a chink of china on the draining board. I didn't hear anything. I knew she was in there, she'd not left her flat in weeks. Is that how long it had been? Just a couple of weeks? I thought about the last time I'd been here, only last Friday, and panic set in. “Sarah!” I screamed. I punched at the door and turned the handle blindly, throwing my weight against the door. It wasn't locked.
As soon as I burst through the door, I smelled something cruel. Decaying. And I prayed to God it was only mouldy food that had been left untouched. It wasn't mouldy food.
I don't know how long I stood there in the kitchen, the sheets of paper with that word scribbled across still hung on every wall. My neck ached, keeping my eyes up at the body behind the kitchen table. She'd used a neck scarf to do it. She must have stood on the kitchen table and.. She must have done it last night, she didn't look like Sarah anymore. Hours must have passed before somebody noticed the door open. The smell.
The funeral was nice. Her parents were devastated; they couldn't understand why she'd done it. Nor could I; but I knew what started it.
We'd gone to Esquires Cafe on a Wednesday afternoon, only a month ago, after she finished her shift at Dragon's Toyshop round the corner. A latte for her and a black coffee for me. It had been quiet so we'd sat upstairs. They had a balcony but it was raining so we stayed inside. With the heating on and the dim lighting, it had been cosy. She complained about work being stressful with Christmas coming up and I'd complained about how being unemployed was stressful with Christmas coming up. Then we sipped our drinks gratefully, the rain patting on the windows reminding us of what was to come when we walked outside. It wasn't the weather we'd have to worry about.
It was during this break in conversation as we sipped on our coffees, that Sarah saw the book. Lying on the table next to us. The set up of the cafe meant that there was space in between tables for people to talk and not be heard. In the middle of the room was a book shelf housing many different books: some were intellectual such as facts about space, how to learn Italian, then there were several odd magazines and old fiction that people had donated for the lonely sipper. The book on the table, however, stood out from the others. Firstly, it was open to the first page, as if the reader had suddenly left before starting the tale, or perhaps had left it there on purpose to entice an innocent wanderer looking for an empty table. The latter is my belief. A book so powerful could not have been innocently left there.
Curiosity killed the cat. More precisely, Sarah's curiosity killed her. She stood and reached over, placing it carefully on our table. She flipped over the cover and that's where it should have ended. It looked to be made of leather, a pale colour. The colour of human skin. The thought had given me chills but she had only grinned. “Look at the symbols on this thing,” she almost cried out in excitement. I guess if you loved your horror and Gothic films, as Sarah did, the cover would have given you chills of pleasure. It gave me chills of a different kind. A naked woman had been sketched in the arms of a man. At least from the neck down. His face was grotesque: pointed ears that depicted horns, a pig's snout, his eyes were slits, and his tongue was that of a serpent's, touching the woman's face. I think the woman was dead. Around the border were archaic symbols I'd never seen in my life, but at the top of the cover was the word 'Cire'. Sarah's eyes were hungry for more when she turned to the first page. I knew something wasn't right with that book. I knew it; I could feel it. I should have stopped her reading it. I definitely should have stopped her stuffing it into her bag before we left.
It was the next day when I noticed something had changed in her. At first I forgot about the book. We were meant to go to the cafe again but when half an hour had passed and she didn't turn up, I went to her work to find out where she was. Her manager said she'd called in sick. She hadn't called me. So I went to her apartment, knocked on her door and she'd answered. If I'd have barged in and seen what she'd done then I could have stopped it. I'm sure I could have stopped it then. She told me she was sick and I believed her, she looked it. She said no more and I left.
A week later I went back to her work and asked for her. The manager told me she'd quit. I went to her apartment and barged in that time after she refused to open the door to me. Nearly every inch of every wall had been covered in white paper. On every sheet of paper was one word, black ink and scratched so deep her pen had almost ripped through the pages: 'Cire'. The same word on the front of that book. That's when I remembered. “What is this?” I demanded. The look on her face was one a lunatic would give a doctor from his padded cell, in his straitjacket. I don't think she'd slept since that afternoon we went to the cafe. Her eyes were red, teary, and bloodshot with great swipes of black under the sockets. I don't think she'd eaten either; her cheekbones stuck out and body looked close to emaciated. Even though she looked terrible, she was grinning. “Sarah.. What the hell?” I didn't know what to say. This was crazy. Sarah was 22, she liked hanging out with friends, she had a well-paid secure job. She was normal and happy. Why would she just do this?
She answered me in sentences I could not understand. “He will save me.” She whispered. I shook my head. “He will purify my soul.” I was scared of Sarah in that moment. I asked her if this had to do with the book. She gasped; “It is the gateway to a better world.” I told her she was crazy and she laughed. I told her to get a grip. I grasped a sheet of paper closest to me and tore it from the wall. She screamed out but I grabbed another sheet and another, throwing ripped paper over my shoulder. A force to the back of my head forced me to hit the wall and fall to the floor. I looked up to my friend and froze. She held a knife in her hand and I thought in a panic that she had stabbed me in the back of my head, but the pain was dull and there was no blood. When I looked into her eyes, I saw they were blacker than night. Her eyes were normally sky blue, but there was no colour in them. They were inhuman; they were terrible and I ran from the apartment, not daring to look back until I was out of the building.
It took me three days to return. She seemed calmer, and let me in. She made me a drink and I saw that the pages had gone from the walls of the kitchen. I scanned the room for a glimpse of the book, knowing that would stop this. Whatever this was. I couldn't see the book and I didn't dare ask about it. It seemed she had gotten rid of it, and she was more like Sarah. I couldn't get the image of her eyes out of my head, but her eyes were their normal sky blue that day. She said she'd meet me at the cafe on Monday afternoon. She said she was feeling much better. I wanted to believe her, but there was something eerie about her. Something that gave me goosebumps.
That had been Friday. The last time I saw her alive. The police never found the book bound in leather, the same colour as human skin. They've asked me over and over: “What does the word mean?” I don't know. I don't know why she killed herself. She told me she was feeling better.
I go to the cafe everyday. I check every book shelf and every table. The staff think I'm crazy but I'm not crazy. I'm trying to protect people from that book. Where is the book now? Will it turn up again, lying open on an empty table? For an innocent customer with a steaming cup wandering around, looking for the right table. Will it turn up on my table? If it does, will I read it?
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