Exit, Persued by Bookwyrms || Nate & Skylar
Research gone wrong with @theskyeandsea
After his conversation with Remmy, Nate knew there was only one place he hadn’t turned over in his search for information. He had stopped in once or twice, but the Archive always freaked him out, so he never stayed long. Not to mention the fact that in order to buy any of their tomes, you usually had to give something important or strange in return, and Nate was terrified of finding anything they would consider proper payment. Of course this would be his last ditch effort when it came to figuring out zombie specifics, his last stop to find out if there truly was a way to live a “normal” life after the change. He paced back and forth outside the shop for close to 30 minutes before he finally entered, speed walking to the back of the store so as not to make eye contact with anyone. While his anxiety began to settle to a normal rate, Nate’s eyes scanned the shelves. “Zombies….Z….what was it Remmy called them….Draugr? Ok...Dr….” He pulled out a few volumes and began to flip through the worn pages, eyes scanning for any sort of useful information.
Bleh. Even after stopping in here once before, the Archive still gave Skylar the creeps. There was just something about the fact that it seemed like there were never any employees, that there was some weird kinda unspoken trade system in place, the general ambiance… Nope. Why wasn’t there a Barnes & Noble or something in town? Shaking her head, Skylar forced herself to focus as she glanced down the rows of shelves. Morgan had hinted that the Archive might have more supernatural texts than Skylar had initially thought, so… here she was. But, this time it wasn’t for her. Rem was going through a lot and, while she was going through her own issues, focusing on Remmy’s felt more manageable. It was productive in a way that she didn’t need to think about herself. As she walked down the shelves, Skylar rounded the corner and nearly ran into a man reading a book. Startled, she held her hands up apologetically, “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you, my bad.” She said, shaking her head. Glancing at the books on the shelves behind him, she saw that she was in the right section. Zombies and other undead, neat.
Nate nearly jumped ten feet in the air when the stranger ran into him, one of the books slipping from his hand and toppling down to the ground. “Oh! No I’m sorry! If I’m gonna read I should really sit down- at a table! Like a normal person.” He laughed awkwardly, kneeling down to pick up the stray book, hoping he didn’t ruin it by tossing the old thing around like a child’s toy. Ordinarily, Nate was the kind of guy who kept all of his books in pristine condition, never liking to lend them out lest the borrower fold the pages down like a heathen. “Am I in your way? Do you need help finding something? Not that I work here, I definitely don’t, but-well...I can help! Unless you want me to leave you alone. That’s fine too.” He scratched absently at his arm, the anxiety making his skin crawl. “Sorry…”
Skylar winced apologetically at the way the poor man jumped-- oh dear. She really hadn’t meant to surprise him, it was just a little tricky for her to pick up other people’s presence in quiet places like this. “No, don’t even apologize, I’m the one who spooked you.” She said, her fingers fidgeting at her side, spelling out the word sorry in ASL just out of instinct. Scooting back out of his way to let him pick up the book, Skylar glanced at the books on the shelves for a moment. “Are you sure? You really don’t need to, like you said, you don’t work here. But, um, if you have any pointers on finding books here, I’d love the help. The organization system is a little weird.” She said with a wry laugh, hoping it would make him a little more at ease. The last thing she wanted was to make someone uncomfortable when they were just trying to shop for some books.
Nate grinned through clenched teeth. Even if it wasn’t necessarily his fault, the awkward had already set in and he was gonna have to roll with it. “Yeah! Really, I uh...don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I don’t mind at all!” His eyes flicked around the store and if he was being honest, having someone else around while he did his search might not be the worst thing in the world. This place really gave him the creeps. “Yeah, I uh...I don’t know that they super have much of an organizational system.” He shrugged, holding his books tightly to his chest. “So what is it you were looking for? Was it…” Nate glanced around at the section they were in. “Undead in nature?”
“Thanks so much, really.” Skylar said warmly, a smile on her face. “I’m Skylar, by the way. Have you been here before?” She asked, curious to know if he had much experience in the Archive. The one time she’d been in here with Remmy, she hadn’t found too much in the way of information, just bits and pieces. But, now that she was a little more focused in her efforts to find something that could make sense of their situation, she had more of a mission. “Um, yes! I’m looking for stuff on zombies, actually?” She said. Hopefully that didn’t sound as weird to him as it did to her. Nope, there was nothing weird at all about just… asking about zombies. Mmmmm. Maybe she should have tried beating around the bush a bit more. Oh well, what’s done was done.
Nate felt more at ease by the second, which was saying a lot considering he was in a sketchy book store that specialized in the supernatural, looking for information on zombies alongside a complete stranger. He sucked in a deep breath and smiled, nodding to himself. “Uh, twice. But uh...not for long.” Glancing around quickly to make sure there wasn’t anyone else in earshot. “I kinda...get the creeps? Being in here?” He shrugged, his fingers gripping the edge of his books. “It’s definitely less weird if we look together though, right?” He froze, his smile locked in place. “Z-zombies? Do you know someone- I mean…” Be casual. “Is it just out of curiosity?” He passed her one of the books in his hands. “‘Cause this one, uh...looks promising.”
Hearing that someone else found the Archive just as creepy as she did made Skylar feel just a little bit more relaxed. At least she wasn’t alone in her opinions. “Trust me, I get that. It’s not a super comfortable place to just… hang out in. Which is a shame, it seems like they have a lot of good books and information here.” She said with a nod. He hadn’t said his name, but Skylar supposed that was to be expected-- not everyone was super friendly with people they just met. “For sure.” She nodded with a smile. But, when the man handed her one of the books, she balked a little bit, “Huh? You don’t need to give me your book, really. But… were you looking into them too?”
Nate smiled, his lips pulling tight over the awkward expression. He didn’t need to be this weird, they were just two strangers, looking at books on zombies in a super creepy, probably haunted book shop. He took a quick breath, trying to force himself to be more normal. “It’s fine, I uh...looked through it already.” He shrugged, turning back towards the shelf full of potential answers. Last time he’d been in here he had barely made it to this section of the store, let alone made it far enough to grab a book and peruse it. “I’m uh...Nate, by the way. And yeah, they’re uh...super interesting, right?” He smiled over his shoulder, hoping she didn’t prod too much. He reached out, pulling another worn book off the shelf, opening it carefully. Its pages were old and weathered, yellowing at the edges. Dust even seemed to pour out of it as he flipped a page, noting that there were paragraphs just...missing. “Huh...that’s weird.” Maybe it was one of those niche writing styles, like if t s eliot wrote novels on the undead.
The strained smile he offered her elicited a twinge of pity-- he just looked so uncomfortable. “Nice to meet you, Nate. And thanks, really.” Skylar said with a bright smile, hoping that it would put him a bit more at ease. “Mhm, they are.” She nodded in a non committal way. She didn’t want to sound too interested in the subject, otherwise he might ask her why she was looking and then she’d have to lie and that would… just be a whole mess. Nope! Not happening. As Nate pulled out another book, Skylar flipped through her own and frowned. What..? Whole chunks were gone, some sentences even ended mid-word. “I bet it can’t be as weird as this.” She said, gesturing to the section she’d opened to. As she pointed to a section of the book, her finger brushed against the interior of the spine-- “Ouch!” She gasped, withdrawing her hand quickly. What the heck was that?
Nate stepped over toward Skylar before freezing in his tracks. Her book looked the same as his: incomplete. Like the printer was running out of ink mid sentence, sputtering out between words. What made his freeze, however, wasn’t the weirdness of the pages, but the girl’s yelp of pain. “Are- oh man...are you ok? Paper cut?” He hoped it was merely a paper cut. He leaned forward, not noticing the pages slipping out of his own book’s binding, fluttering down to the ground. Out of the small gap where the pages used to be attached to the ancient binding came a flood of tiny, wriggling...worms?? “OH NO-” Nate dropped the book and began slapping his arms, attempting to brush off any of the things that managed to climb onto him. “What the heck?!”
Skylar looked at her hand in confusion, and saw a few tiny worms clinging to her index finger. “What are these things-- ow!” She grimaced, scraping the worms away with the edge of the book. But, more of the wriggling worms came out of the binding and attempted to latch onto her arm. She dropped her own book on the ground and began to swipe at the worms. “I don’t-- they’re biting me!” Skylar squealed, doing her best to get them away from her. Backing up, she ran into the bookshelf behind her and felt biting on the back of her neck. More?! “What are these?” She asked, looking to Nate as she tried to squish the worms that clung to her.
Nate panicked. Lord only knew what kind of diseases these things might contract, or if they were somehow venomous. He mirrored Skylar’s attempts to fling the bugs off himself, crashing backwards into another case of books, sending them toppling to the ground. In any other circumstance, Nate would have been horrified at the amount of damage he was surely doing, but at the moment all he could think about were these minuscule creatures nipping at his flesh. “I don’t- I don’t know!!” He scrambled over to the girl and tried to help her swat the things away. “Do you- you don’t think we’ll get in trouble for ruining their books, do you?” Surely his priorities were a little out of whack at the moment.
Shaking her head, Skylar replied, “At this point, ow! I think we’re fine to--” Before she could finish speaking, a man came by the shelves, a strange covered bird cage in his hand. Judging from the outfit he was wearing and the little name card on his chest, he must have been an employee? Or maybe the owner? Skylar didn’t really have time to question it. “The bookwyrms are at it again... “ The man grumbled as he fiddled with the latch on the cage with thick fingers, shaking his head. “Excuse me? Sir?” Skylar asked, but he was either not paying attention to her or simply didn’t care. Instead, he uncovered the bird cage and revealed about half a dozen flying little… Tinkerbells? “Okay, you little shits. Take care of this mess-- and I don’t mean the customers.” The man grumbled before opening the cage. Glancing over at Nate, Skylar stared at him with wide eyes. Was he seeing this too?
Nate’s stomach dropped as the figure of authority rounded the corner, a less than pleased look on his face. “I’m so sorry, sir! We didn’t mean- the books- there’s something biting us-” But the man didn’t seem to care about his rambling apology. “Sir?” He looked over at Skylar, wondering if this was just how this weird store operated, but she seemed equally as confused, still swatting at the small creatures. His eyes followed her gaze until he focused on the...things in the cage that the man was holding. Instead of a bird, the cage seemed to house a bunch of flying...fairies?? “Uh- Sir?!?’ But the man paid no mind, releasing the winged things into the store where they immediately began to swarm around whatever had come out of the books. The downside being that a lot of those little buggers were now all over Skylar and himself. “C-crap!!” Nate screamed, swatting at both the flying creatures and the biting ones. “What do we do now??”
“What the--” Skylar grimaced as the strange creatures began to fly around, grabbing at the bugs that were biting into her skin and yanking them off. They were helping, kind of, but only in the most painful of ways. “Can you call them off? Please?!” She asked the man, but he was leaning against one of the bookshelves, thumbing through a magazine, the empty birdcage sitting on the ground next to him. Ugh. Looking over at the man next to her, she blinked. Who was he again? Whatever his name was, he seemed to be having an even worse time than she was, Skylar swallowed. This was a mistake, all of this was so dumb and stupid and why was she even here in the first place? Brushing off as many of the bugs off her as she could, she felt a fairy thing tangled up in her hair, yanking at more of the worm things. “Get off, get away! I, I think we should leave. We should go.” She said, holding out a hand to guide him out of the library.
Nate scrambled away from the flying creatures who seemed to be- yep. They were eating the bugs that were crawling out of the blank book pages. He wasn’t sure what the things were, but the shop owner seemed perfectly alright with just letting them create chaos around the store and nip and Skylar and himself in their quest. He frowned down at the book he’d been reading, trying to think of the name of that lost library in the desert, the one with all the information supposedly lost to time or looters or something. The blank pages reminded him of that, and he was sad for a moment. But then a flying fairy launched itself at his head, eliciting a nice and manly yelp before he took Skylar’s hand. “Gladly!” He propelled himself forward, mumbling out another apology for all the damage they’d caused, though admittedly not as much damage as the things he’d intentionally let loose. Speeding out the shop doors, Nate nearly crashed to his knees outside. “What- the heck-” he gasped, his hands still slapping away small worms from his arms and neck.
The two of them raced out of The Archive, the strange little creatures paying no attention to them once they ran out of the store. Skylar shook her head, shaking free some of the little worms that had latched onto the back of her neck, as well as the ones tangled in her hair. “Ugh, ew, ew, ew…” She grimaced as she rid herself of the last of the worms and started to stomp on them, squishing them into the pavement. Looking up at the man next to her, she gave an awkward grimace in his direction. “Are you okay? There were a lot of them on me, did you get bit too?” She asked, still trying to figure out what this guy’s name was. She could have sworn that he had just told it to her, but… why couldn’t she remember it? What was happening?
Nate’s skin was crawling as he pawed at every inch of skin he could reach. He was sure that even a scalding shower for 24 hours straight wouldn’t be enough to make him feel clean or safe. “Yeah-not...not too much I think…” He looked up at the girl with terror in his eyes. “You don’t think they like carry disease or anything, do you?? I know- I know there’s...that one kind of insect, they bite you and they give you….lemon disease? I- I think it’s a- I dunno…” He waved his hands in front of him as he searched for the word. “You know….that bitey thing?”
Tilting her head, Skylar couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man in front of her. Between his words and his body language, it was clear that the entire incident had shaken him up. Which… for any normal person who’d just been attacked by gross worms and then by… freaking evil tinkerbells? She could hardly blame him. Reaching out, she patted his shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture-- hopefully physical contact wouldn’t make him freak out more. “Lyme disease? I think that’s something you can get from ticks in the woods? I think, I think we should be okay. Those weird bug things…” Her eyebrows scrunched together as she tried to figure out why she’d been in the bookstore to begin with, “They… which section were they in again? I’m sorry, I-- I can’t remember.”
Still feeling the ghosts of insects crawling over him but fairly certain it was in his head at this point, Nate began to calm down. He flinched a bit at the physical touch, but more so because he thought Skylar was about to swat away some book bug. He smiled awkwardly, wrapping his arms around himself as if that would create some sort of protective barrier. “Oh! Yeah! That’s what I was thinking of! Weird…” Nate’s brows wrinkled in confusion. He was sure he’d known the name of that disease. He shrugged to himself but cocked his head to the side. “You don’t remember what you were looking for?” Weird. Or was she just trying to get him to say what he was looking for? In a hushed voice, he leaned in. “Z-zombie aisle?”
Wracking her brains, Skylar struggled to think about what she’d been looking for. But, the second the man said the words, it came back to her. Zombies. Of course. She’d been in the Archive looking for information on zombies to see if there was anything she could do to help Rem. “Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I was looking for. How didn’t I remember that…” She muttered, confused. “And, hang on. Your name-- You just told me it, didn’t you? It’s, it’s something with a N? Noah..?” She said. No, that didn’t sound right, he didn’t really look like a Noah. Her hands fidgeted at her sides, stinging slightly from the small bite marks that dotted her skin. What was going on? Was she having some kind of… weird young person stroke? Or was she going insane? Of all the things to make her question her sanity, it wasn’t the awful worms or the pixies trying to smack them, it was the fact that she couldn’t remember this guy’s name. Wow. What was her life right now?
Nate nodded, his brows crumpling low over his eyes. Panic began to set in, wondering if she had forgotten his name or what she’d been looking for because of the mysterious bugs’ bites. Or maybe it was those literal flying fairies? Who the heck knew. Maybe she was just a forgetful person. “Nate-” he smiled lightly. “But you were close!” He glanced back at the store, a shiver running through him. “I uh...don’t think I’ll be coming back here anymore but…” Turning back to Skylar, he hugged his arms around himself a bit tighter, his voice dropping. “If uh...I find anything- on the undead stuff? I can definitely share it if you like?”
“Nate.” Skylar repeated. What the heck was going on? He’d literally just told her what his name was, hadn’t he? Eyebrows coming together in confusion, she nodded. “Sorry about that. I just, I couldn’t remember. I’m not usually like this, I swear. But, um. Yeah… I’m not going to be poking around the back shelves of this place anymore.” At least, she wouldn’t be doing it without someone who knew a little bit more about this whole thing. “Um. Yes! Yeah, that’d be really helpful, thanks! Here, let me give you my phone number.” She said, fishing a piece of paper out of her pocket before writing her number down. “And… I mean-- if you notice any other weird stuff. Like, like the tinkerbell things that were in there? Let me know?” She asked, tone hopeful. She didn’t want to be too nosy, but he hadn’t reacted with complete shock when the pixie things had swarmed him. Did that mean he knew about this magic stuff too? And if he did… then did he actually know about zombies..?
Nate smiled, hoping it came off as more reassuring than it felt. Everything about this felt off, except for Skylar. She at least seemed normal. “No worries, I’m sure it’s just the uh...dust or something in there.” He nodded to himself, hoping that maybe that really could explain it. “It’d be no problem at all.” He reached out, taking her number and placing it in his wallet. “Sure thing, it’s uh...not entirely uncommon to see this kind of thing. Usually I stay as far away from it as I can, but if I see anything I’ll let ya know.” Nate wasn’t sure why she would want to find more of those things, but maybe she knew more about them than he did. “It was nice meeting you, you know...in spite of all,” he gestured vaguely to the store behind them. “That.” Dusting himself off a bit more, he was already planning the 6 hour decontamination shower he’d be having after this.
Nodding at his words, Skylar stuck her hands in the pocket of her jacket to hide the way her fingers were fidgeted nervously. This entire thing had put her on edge and she honestly just needed to go home and lie down. Maybe that would help some. “Mmm, I really appreciate that, all the same.” She said with a smile. Wincing a little, she hummed in agreement. “No, I completely get that. See you around, Nate.” Skylar waved politely before turning around and walking quickly away from the Archive. A large cup of tea, a hot shower, and anything but a book sounded great right about now. And, hopefully with a little rest, he would be less shaken too. As she walked away, she shook her head. What the heck was this town?
