AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He had no idea what the future held for him and Cephus, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have to worry about Death being lonely anymore.
Well, one of them anyway.
“Yeah,” Karl whispered sincerely. “I really am.”
“All right, let’s go then.” Cephus finally cracked his little skeletal grin, teasing, “Kinky fucker.”
“Just wait until I grab the Crisco.” Karl laughed. “You haven’t seen my kinky side yet.”
“Oh yeah?” Cephus licked his cheek. “That so? Well, maybe next time you can show me yours and I’ll show you mine, cowboy.”
“Can’t fuckin’ wait, Baby Death. It’s a date.”
“I’ll bring the Crisco.”
Day 02
I can’t breathe, speak, or move, and it’s so dark all the time. If I’d known it would be this lonely, I would have never bound my soul to a book.
Bound
Vitruvius barely noticed when his book was purchased.
He’d been waiting for so long that being moved around no longer got his hopes up. He had spent decades waiting for someone to take him home from the secondhand bookshop, and the only time his book was picked up now was when it was being dusted.
Vitruvius had learned not to get excited anymore.
The shopkeeper would grab his book, fuss about how dirty it was, give it a brief pass with a feather duster, and then put it back on the shelf. He stayed on the same bookcase by the door, facing a giant poster of Leonardo DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man.
It was where he’d gotten his name, having decided to give himself one because he could no longer remember his own.
He probably had one when he was alive.
Didn’t seem to matter much now, as he was dead and his spirit was trapped in this damn book.
The exact circumstances that got him into this strange situation had been lost along with his name, though he was certain he’d once been human. He knew he had been this way for at least a hundred years and some change because he did remember buying the book he was now bound to when it was new.
It was a copy ofGrimm’s Fairy Talesfrom 1906 with illustrations by J. Monsell Collins. The cover had been bright red with shiny gold letters, and he could vividly picture it in his hands as he walked out of the old bookshop with it.
The leather was now cracked, the gilding faded, and many of the five-hundred plus pages were torn and yellowed. The binding was pulling apart in multiple places, and opening the book to read it risked chunks of pages falling to the floor.
Vitruvius used to worry that the next time it was picked up would be a trip to the trash can.
He didn’t fret about that now. He had finally succumbed to his misery, and he spent most of his time sleeping.
He used to haunt the bookshop like a proper ghost—moving books around, opening and closing the doors, and hiding the shopkeeper’s keys. He could manipulate the words and pictures in his book too, but it seemed pointless. Everything he did around the shop got blamed on the old building or the shopkeeper’s forgetfulness, and no one looked at his pages these days. He hadn’t bothered to try in years, and all he wanted to do now was nap.
Eventually the book would go to the trash can; perhaps it would be recycled or even be ripped apart for some artsy person to modge podge into a vase or line the inside of a drawer. He wouldn’t have to worry about waking up again. He could sleep, dream of absolutely nothing, and be at peace.
The day Vitruvius’s book was finally bought, he thought that the shopkeeper was moving him to another bookcase. She did that occasionally, but this time…
He thought he heard voices.
And the ding of the cash register.
“Don’t worry, Miss Sheppan,” a man’s voice said. “I’ll take good care of it.”
It what? It meaning Vitruvius’s book?
