It was Saturday again. That dreaded day when they came to haunt the reading corner promptly at 10:00a.m. She could smell the fetid blackness inside them as they approached the counter. Their wide murky mouths would split open and reveal a gangrenous grin. Repulsed, she would take their chosen books out of their spidery hands to be scanned and stamped. She could feel their hard pebbly eyes watching her as she worked. Those eyes were filled with a rotting void of sinister illusion.

   For the majority of humankind, they wore veils of delicacy and innocence. Where she saw slimy opalescent skin and gaunt nefarious faces, most people saw cherub smiles and rosy cheeks. What plane of vile existence did these beings call home? She shuddered as her visions of reality decayed in a grave of impending insanity.

   She glanced at the clock. Three more hours until they were gone. Yet they never really went away; they stood by her bed at night and laughed in her dreams.

   Her headaches had started when they had appeared. Sludgy heavy pain accompanied by a dull howling in her ears. The howling brought on the nausea that threatened her now as she glanced at the reading corner. She ran to the office bathroom as the "children" in the reading corner began to snicker.

   Vomit gushed through her fingers as she scrambled into a bathroom stall and lunged for the toilet. She spent ten minutes with her head buried in the porcelain bowl before the fierce retching subsided.

   She had to go back out there. The staff would be wondering where the hell she was. She grimaced as she slowly pulled herself to her feet. Consciousness threatened to abandon her and she stumbled into the stall door. She closed her eyes and let the dizziness pass then staggered to the bathroom sink to wash her flushed face. Once satisfied she was at least presentable she grasped the doorknob, collected herself for a moment and prepared to face them again.

   The library was as silent as a derelict tomb. No one was behind the counter, the office was completely deserted and no one was at the computers surfing the net or doing research. Terrified by the emptiness, and the suspicion that gnawed deep inside her brain, she crept to the edge of the counter and dared herself to look into the reading corner.

   There they were, all six of them, sitting at the long yellow table clustered around something they were working at intently. In perfect unison they stopped suddenly and targeted her with their raw biting stare.

   "Come here," one of them sent this sluggish gurgling thought from its mind to hers and she was compelled to obey. The one who sent her the command stood and seemed to float towards her. It wrapped its skeletal fingers tightly around her wrist. Its grip bit into her flesh like a razor blade and when she looked down at her hand she noticed blood dripping from her fingertips. She didn't scream for the being lulled her with secret promises it whispered inside her mind.

   It lead her to the long yellow table where their gruesome handiwork was on display. The table was splattered with blood. In the center of this gore were thin strips of human flesh that had been arranged to spell out the cryptic words: "Tempus edax rerum."

   "What does it mean?" she asked the being that held her wrist.

   "It is what we are," it spoke inside her head once more in that ancient rippling voice. "Time that devours all things."

   She felt a drop of liquid hit her cheek as the being let go of her wrist. She touched the droplet on her face and curiously examined it. It was thick, black and filled her nostrils with the pungent scent of iron. Black blood, she thought and noticed the liquid also held tiny sparkling slivers of glass.

   In seconds, she was engulfed in a torrential downpour of this black rain. She looked up and her eyes began to bleed as the black rain bit into her eye sockets. Quickly she looked down and towards the bizarre beings.

   Their skin was turning an oily black as they melded with the dark liquid that fell from the ceiling. She watched them seep into the black rain as it fell. The rain fell through the floor, never accumulating. She laughed hysterically as her last shred of humanity greeted madness with a schizophrenic handshake.

   The black rain had sharp teeth, she soon realized. It was devouring her flesh in large chunks yet she felt no pain. Pure ecstasy filled her as the pieces of her torn flesh melted into the black rain. She embraced the aeons of darkness as they consumed her and she became their infinite child.

©7-20-2003 Louise Bohmer