Happy very belated Thanksgiving to everyone! I was traveling for most of last week, visiting relatives in LOLIA (the Land Of Limited Internet Access). However, I did have a lot of driving to do: around 24 hours in a car with no radio or CD player. I made up one great story for this picture, but then needed more than 100 words to tell it properly. So I made up another one, but the same thing happened. So I made up a third, which is below. I’ll write the other ones down soon and post them as well.
This story is so late for the Fictioneers that the next week’s picture is due out in a few hours. But I wanted to do it, so as not to miss any.
copyright Randy Mazie
Out There
“I just lose myself in the library!” my brother exclaimed once.
“You mean in the stories?” I asked.
“No, beyond them. In the worlds beyond paper and ink and words. Out there.”
I hugged him and thought: quirky.
*
Until the paranoia set in. He stopped going to the library unarmed and then stopped altogether. He changed his route to school to avoid it. Finally, he broke in and washed the shelves in gasoline. You could see the blaze for miles. The town was about to crucify him.
*
Until they found the partially-burned thing in the ashes of the horror section.
The Green-Walled Tower 
December 2nd, 2014 at 10:59 pm
You’re so good never to miss one! Better than me. I love this idea of the mysterious, evil living inside of the library.
December 3rd, 2014 at 11:14 am
I’d like to explore the idea more fully. Maybe I’ll write a longer version sometime.
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:16 am
Thing? Thing? What thing?
December 3rd, 2014 at 11:14 am
I was going for a Lovecraftian type of thing here. H.P. Lovecraft would often do that, put “thing” in italics to describe some hideous monster that defied explanation. If I had more words, I would describe it more fully.
December 3rd, 2014 at 12:31 am
Great bit of horror, David. I enjoyed this one and look forward to reading the other two as well.
Horror was my first thought on seeing this prompt, actually. I worked for 5 school years at a university library that was a government depository. The gov docs section was so creepy . . . I often thought it was the perfect setting for a serial killer mystery. But since that would require several hundred pages to tell properly, I went elsewhere with this prompt.
All my best,
Marie Gail
December 3rd, 2014 at 11:12 am
I worked in my college library for 5 years and I too know how creepy it can be, way back in the dusty stacks late at night with only a few buzzing fluorescent lights on. If you ever write your library serial killer mystery, let me know and I’ll buy it. 🙂
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:03 am
Dear David,
So sorry you were too late to link, but glad you posted just the same. It’s nice to know there are others as obsessive about Friday Fictioneers as I.
I could see your story doing well on the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. I have to wonder about the creature in the library. What threat was it to the community when it never ventured forth.
Clever as always, sir.
Happy belated Thanksgiving.
Shalom,
Rochelle
December 3rd, 2014 at 11:05 am
This is often my frustration with 100-word stories: I want to tell more than is possible. 🙂 I envisioned it as a Twilight Zone-esque situation where things from books leak through into our world. Maybe I’ll write a longer story later, telling what was happening.
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:41 am
another brilliant story! I wonder what was found!
December 3rd, 2014 at 11:03 am
some weird monster. You can imagine it since I couldn’t describe it with only a hundred words. 🙂
December 4th, 2014 at 1:58 pm
Of course I had to visit your story.. I’m glad that sometimes it might be worth burning books…
December 4th, 2014 at 9:38 pm
As with Rochelle’s story, only in very specific circumstances. I don’t normally endorse library burning. 🙂