The Collector
By
Ethan P. Healey
-1-
The air smelled of rain and rotting wood when Daniel and Vanessa Adams crossed the narrow street toward Harbor Books on the Seacoast of New Hampshire. It was a cramped, fading storefront tucked between a town bait shop and a shuttered antique store. The hand-painted sign above the door was chipped and curling at the edges, its faded lettering barely legible in the gray coastal light. The plan was to grab coffee and walk along the shore before heading home. Vanessa, always the book hunter, spotted the crooked sign through the misted windshield and said, “Five minutes, Dan. Just five minutes.” Daniel laughed and followed her in.
The bell above the door gave a reluctant jingle, like it hadn’t been rung in years. Inside, the smell was overwhelming with mildew and dust. The narrow aisles were more like tunnels, with books stacked to the ceiling and spilling into uneven towers on the floor. It felt less like a shop and more like a hoarder’s den. “Jesus,” Daniel muttered, squeezing sideways past a column of cracked hardcovers. “Fire hazard much?”
Vanessa worked at her local library and understood the value of keeping old books that circulated often. She noticed the ran her fingers along the spines. “Look at this. Half of these are out of print.” Her voice had a hushed awe to it, but even she couldn’t hide her discomfort. Every shelf was too tall, the lighting too dim, the space too narrow. And there was no sign of a cashier. The floor creaked beneath them as they made their way deeper, the air growing thicker, heavier. Somewhere behind the stacks, something clicked like a latch falling into place. Daniel glanced back and saw the front window was fogged, the “OPEN” sign now facing inward. “Did you notice anyone flip that sign?” Vanessa didn’t answer and stared ahead with a frozen look.
She started to notice that the books were changing before her eyes. The titles were no longer ordinary, no dusty classics, or forgotten paperbacks. These had no covers, just blank spines, and they were stacked with disturbing precision. Between them were old VHS tapes, magazines with tattered pages, and small boxes filled with what Daniel didn’t want to identify. The farther the narrow passage went, the obscener it became with piles of lurid photographs, reels of grainy film, and covers depicting old pornographic material that was predatory.
“This isn’t right,” Vanessa said with a shake in her voice. They turned to leave, retracing their steps toward the front door, and that is when they saw him. A massive man stood near the entrance, blocking it entirely. His bald head gleamed under the weak lightbulb. His belly hung heavy over his belt, the outline of a tucked-in white pocket tee stretching taut across his chest. His eyes were deep-set and unblinking.
“Find something you like?” he said. His voice was thick as if he was sipping on syrup.
Daniel cleared his throat. “Not much, we were just leaving. It is quite the peculiar store you have.”
The man didn’t move, and his brow furrowed with sweat beaming from his hairline. “You came in,” he said. “You look at my collection, and you think you just walk out without conversation or a purchase? Let’s not be rude.”
Vanessa tugged Daniel’s arm. “We didn’t mean to upset you, sir.” The man’s lip twitched. His massive hand reached to the side, closing around a book. He slammed it onto a nearby table, the sound like a gunshot.
“You don’t look at things you can’t understand,” he said, stepping closer. The floorboards groaned under his weight. “You don’t touch what isn’t yours, and you certainly don’t be rude to the owner.”
Daniel backed away, but the narrow aisles betrayed him. His heel caught a fallen book, and before he could recover, the man lunged forward towards the couple. Something sharp struck the side of Daniel’s head and the world went dark.
-2-
When Daniel woke, the air was damp and cold. His head throbbed as he recognized that his wrists were cuffed to a metal chair bolted to the floor. The room stank with the same mold, sweat, and decay the two were faced when they entered. Vanessa sat opposite him, her lip split and her wrists cuffed as well. “Where are we?” she whispered.
The walls were stone, the ceiling was about six feet at most, and everywhere there was books. Stacked, leaning, crumbling. They formed the walls themselves, blotting out any notion of escape. Then came the sound of slow and deliberate footsteps. The man appeared from a corner and ducked to enter the room. He was tall and had to hunch over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He carried a lantern now, its flickering light painting his face in strange shapes. His satchel was wrapped around his chest, pressing into his skin. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he said with a smirk. “Most people don’t wake up.”
Vanessa’s voice trembled. “Please just let us go. We won’t tell anyone.” This never worked in the horror movies, and it didn’t seem to work here, either.
The man smiled. “Oh, I know you won’t.”
He reached into the stack beside him and pulled out a book which was an old leather-bound and mottled with dark stains. The cover was blank. “This,” he smirked, “is a special kind of collection. I opened this shop in 1987 with the intention of collecting rare books ride near the coast. It was easy at first, especially during the summertime where people flocked to Hampton Beach. Collectors, professors, students, and all in between came to see me for the rarest books in the world. And then,” he paused for a moment and tapped the book on his knee. “The summer of ’05 changed it all, as a regular collector came into to my shop spooked and aching with pain. He said nothing to me and dropped a heavy book on my foot, and the bell above my shop jingled. Just as it did for you.”
Daniel and Vanessa looked at each other and widened their eyes trying to figure out a game plan. So far, they came up with nothing. The bald man continued.
“I opened the book, and a flash of light stunned my eyes like a flashbang. I was knocked out cold for hours and woke up to my bookshop as you view it now. My life’s work riddled with dusty, uncollectable tomes. The next summer, no one came. Not one single person to even browse the sections. The internet and eBay just started as a shopping center, but I didn’t want to deal with that effort. Until one year, the bell finally rang. I realized that I may never get another customer again. So, I kept them. Every book in this room was once someone who came here and became full time customers. Did you enjoy the narrow path of literature? Did you enjoy your time as my customer? I can’t afford to lose people again. That fucking collector cursed me somehow, and I guess I’m the collector now.”
Daniel’s heart hammered at the story. He was never one to believe in paranormal stories, but this seemed too bizarre for belief. “That’s bullshit.”
The man’s eyes flicked to him. “You think your words don’t have weight? You think what’s written down doesn’t live on?”
He stepped closer, setting the lantern on a stack. “I record what and who I find. The stories. The lives. The souls. And when the writing’s done…”
He opened the book. Inside, the pages were filled with art similar to Chinese characters scrawled in cramped handwriting. But the ink was unlike anything either of them had seen. It was dark, brownish-red, and it smelled faintly metallic. Vanessa whimpered, as he ran a thick finger down the page. “You see, friends, every life has a story. You’ll have one, too. You already started writing it the moment you walked in.”
Daniel yanked at the cuffs, metal biting into his wrists. “You’re insane!”
The man chuckled. “Maybe. But insanity is just another kind of authorship.”
Then he raised his hand. In it was a small knife that was jagged and blackened with age. It seemed to be used many times before as the blade looked dull and a bit rusted. Vanessa screamed.
Daniel thrashed, tipping the chair, and crashed to the floor. The lantern wobbled, fell, and shattered with the flames licking at the old paper. The man roared, lunging toward them as fire spread across the stacks. Daniel’s cuffs snapped free from the bolt, the screws giving way in the heat. He grabbed Vanessa’s chair, wrenching her loose, and together they stumbled through the smoke and burning books. The air was choking. Pages curled into ash around them. Somewhere behind, the man bellowed, “You can’t leave your story unfinished!”
They found a narrow spiral staircase and scrambled upward, coughing, and gasping for air. A door gave way under Daniel’s shoulder, spilling them back into the bookstore. It was empty. Silent. No sign of the fire. No smell of smoke. The air was still and cold, the books neatly stacked, untouched. The “CLOSED” sign still faced them from the window. Daniel turned to Vanessa in an embrace and trembled. “What the fuck just happened?” As she leaned in to smell the familiar scent of his cologne, she began staring at something in the distance that was glowing red.
On the counter, where the register should have been, lay an open book. Its pages were blank except for the first line, written in shaky, wet ink.
“The air smelled of rain and rotting wood when Daniel and Vanessa Adams crossed the narrow street toward Harbor Books on the Seacoast of New Hampshire.”
Vanessa touched the page, and the ink was still wet. As the letters dried, their names began to fade along with their embrace.
-3-
The next morning, the police responded to a neighbor’s complaint about smoke coming from the bookstore. They found the door locked and the windows coated in grime. Inside, no one was there and no smoke scent, but they did smell the familiar scent of a new book as though it was fresh off the press. These two cops weren’t fans of book collecting, but every once and a while picked up the latest John Grisham. As they approached the counter, the police spotted a book that was not a dusty old tome, but brand new. It was taped with a dark red spine and gold edges. On the cover was a lantern flaming from the top with a title that read: The Collector, by Daniel and Vanessa Adams.
Ethan Healey is a Early American historian specializing in 18th and 19th century New England. Ethan is an avid book collector of recent and antiquarian books. He loves the horror genre, Stephen King, and anything associated with Tolkien. He has published a few academic papers across various online outlets, appeared on several historical podcasts, and has published some of his other fiction. Ethan teaches history at a local charter school in New Hampshire and lives on the Seacoast with his wife, Keyanna.
By
Ethan P. Healey
-1-
The air smelled of rain and rotting wood when Daniel and Vanessa Adams crossed the narrow street toward Harbor Books on the Seacoast of New Hampshire. It was a cramped, fading storefront tucked between a town bait shop and a shuttered antique store. The hand-painted sign above the door was chipped and curling at the edges, its faded lettering barely legible in the gray coastal light. The plan was to grab coffee and walk along the shore before heading home. Vanessa, always the book hunter, spotted the crooked sign through the misted windshield and said, “Five minutes, Dan. Just five minutes.” Daniel laughed and followed her in.
The bell above the door gave a reluctant jingle, like it hadn’t been rung in years. Inside, the smell was overwhelming with mildew and dust. The narrow aisles were more like tunnels, with books stacked to the ceiling and spilling into uneven towers on the floor. It felt less like a shop and more like a hoarder’s den. “Jesus,” Daniel muttered, squeezing sideways past a column of cracked hardcovers. “Fire hazard much?”
Vanessa worked at her local library and understood the value of keeping old books that circulated often. She noticed the ran her fingers along the spines. “Look at this. Half of these are out of print.” Her voice had a hushed awe to it, but even she couldn’t hide her discomfort. Every shelf was too tall, the lighting too dim, the space too narrow. And there was no sign of a cashier. The floor creaked beneath them as they made their way deeper, the air growing thicker, heavier. Somewhere behind the stacks, something clicked like a latch falling into place. Daniel glanced back and saw the front window was fogged, the “OPEN” sign now facing inward. “Did you notice anyone flip that sign?” Vanessa didn’t answer and stared ahead with a frozen look.
She started to notice that the books were changing before her eyes. The titles were no longer ordinary, no dusty classics, or forgotten paperbacks. These had no covers, just blank spines, and they were stacked with disturbing precision. Between them were old VHS tapes, magazines with tattered pages, and small boxes filled with what Daniel didn’t want to identify. The farther the narrow passage went, the obscener it became with piles of lurid photographs, reels of grainy film, and covers depicting old pornographic material that was predatory.
“This isn’t right,” Vanessa said with a shake in her voice. They turned to leave, retracing their steps toward the front door, and that is when they saw him. A massive man stood near the entrance, blocking it entirely. His bald head gleamed under the weak lightbulb. His belly hung heavy over his belt, the outline of a tucked-in white pocket tee stretching taut across his chest. His eyes were deep-set and unblinking.
“Find something you like?” he said. His voice was thick as if he was sipping on syrup.
Daniel cleared his throat. “Not much, we were just leaving. It is quite the peculiar store you have.”
The man didn’t move, and his brow furrowed with sweat beaming from his hairline. “You came in,” he said. “You look at my collection, and you think you just walk out without conversation or a purchase? Let’s not be rude.”
Vanessa tugged Daniel’s arm. “We didn’t mean to upset you, sir.” The man’s lip twitched. His massive hand reached to the side, closing around a book. He slammed it onto a nearby table, the sound like a gunshot.
“You don’t look at things you can’t understand,” he said, stepping closer. The floorboards groaned under his weight. “You don’t touch what isn’t yours, and you certainly don’t be rude to the owner.”
Daniel backed away, but the narrow aisles betrayed him. His heel caught a fallen book, and before he could recover, the man lunged forward towards the couple. Something sharp struck the side of Daniel’s head and the world went dark.
-2-
When Daniel woke, the air was damp and cold. His head throbbed as he recognized that his wrists were cuffed to a metal chair bolted to the floor. The room stank with the same mold, sweat, and decay the two were faced when they entered. Vanessa sat opposite him, her lip split and her wrists cuffed as well. “Where are we?” she whispered.
The walls were stone, the ceiling was about six feet at most, and everywhere there was books. Stacked, leaning, crumbling. They formed the walls themselves, blotting out any notion of escape. Then came the sound of slow and deliberate footsteps. The man appeared from a corner and ducked to enter the room. He was tall and had to hunch over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He carried a lantern now, its flickering light painting his face in strange shapes. His satchel was wrapped around his chest, pressing into his skin. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he said with a smirk. “Most people don’t wake up.”
Vanessa’s voice trembled. “Please just let us go. We won’t tell anyone.” This never worked in the horror movies, and it didn’t seem to work here, either.
The man smiled. “Oh, I know you won’t.”
He reached into the stack beside him and pulled out a book which was an old leather-bound and mottled with dark stains. The cover was blank. “This,” he smirked, “is a special kind of collection. I opened this shop in 1987 with the intention of collecting rare books ride near the coast. It was easy at first, especially during the summertime where people flocked to Hampton Beach. Collectors, professors, students, and all in between came to see me for the rarest books in the world. And then,” he paused for a moment and tapped the book on his knee. “The summer of ’05 changed it all, as a regular collector came into to my shop spooked and aching with pain. He said nothing to me and dropped a heavy book on my foot, and the bell above my shop jingled. Just as it did for you.”
Daniel and Vanessa looked at each other and widened their eyes trying to figure out a game plan. So far, they came up with nothing. The bald man continued.
“I opened the book, and a flash of light stunned my eyes like a flashbang. I was knocked out cold for hours and woke up to my bookshop as you view it now. My life’s work riddled with dusty, uncollectable tomes. The next summer, no one came. Not one single person to even browse the sections. The internet and eBay just started as a shopping center, but I didn’t want to deal with that effort. Until one year, the bell finally rang. I realized that I may never get another customer again. So, I kept them. Every book in this room was once someone who came here and became full time customers. Did you enjoy the narrow path of literature? Did you enjoy your time as my customer? I can’t afford to lose people again. That fucking collector cursed me somehow, and I guess I’m the collector now.”
Daniel’s heart hammered at the story. He was never one to believe in paranormal stories, but this seemed too bizarre for belief. “That’s bullshit.”
The man’s eyes flicked to him. “You think your words don’t have weight? You think what’s written down doesn’t live on?”
He stepped closer, setting the lantern on a stack. “I record what and who I find. The stories. The lives. The souls. And when the writing’s done…”
He opened the book. Inside, the pages were filled with art similar to Chinese characters scrawled in cramped handwriting. But the ink was unlike anything either of them had seen. It was dark, brownish-red, and it smelled faintly metallic. Vanessa whimpered, as he ran a thick finger down the page. “You see, friends, every life has a story. You’ll have one, too. You already started writing it the moment you walked in.”
Daniel yanked at the cuffs, metal biting into his wrists. “You’re insane!”
The man chuckled. “Maybe. But insanity is just another kind of authorship.”
Then he raised his hand. In it was a small knife that was jagged and blackened with age. It seemed to be used many times before as the blade looked dull and a bit rusted. Vanessa screamed.
Daniel thrashed, tipping the chair, and crashed to the floor. The lantern wobbled, fell, and shattered with the flames licking at the old paper. The man roared, lunging toward them as fire spread across the stacks. Daniel’s cuffs snapped free from the bolt, the screws giving way in the heat. He grabbed Vanessa’s chair, wrenching her loose, and together they stumbled through the smoke and burning books. The air was choking. Pages curled into ash around them. Somewhere behind, the man bellowed, “You can’t leave your story unfinished!”
They found a narrow spiral staircase and scrambled upward, coughing, and gasping for air. A door gave way under Daniel’s shoulder, spilling them back into the bookstore. It was empty. Silent. No sign of the fire. No smell of smoke. The air was still and cold, the books neatly stacked, untouched. The “CLOSED” sign still faced them from the window. Daniel turned to Vanessa in an embrace and trembled. “What the fuck just happened?” As she leaned in to smell the familiar scent of his cologne, she began staring at something in the distance that was glowing red.
On the counter, where the register should have been, lay an open book. Its pages were blank except for the first line, written in shaky, wet ink.
“The air smelled of rain and rotting wood when Daniel and Vanessa Adams crossed the narrow street toward Harbor Books on the Seacoast of New Hampshire.”
Vanessa touched the page, and the ink was still wet. As the letters dried, their names began to fade along with their embrace.
-3-
The next morning, the police responded to a neighbor’s complaint about smoke coming from the bookstore. They found the door locked and the windows coated in grime. Inside, no one was there and no smoke scent, but they did smell the familiar scent of a new book as though it was fresh off the press. These two cops weren’t fans of book collecting, but every once and a while picked up the latest John Grisham. As they approached the counter, the police spotted a book that was not a dusty old tome, but brand new. It was taped with a dark red spine and gold edges. On the cover was a lantern flaming from the top with a title that read: The Collector, by Daniel and Vanessa Adams.
Ethan Healey is a Early American historian specializing in 18th and 19th century New England. Ethan is an avid book collector of recent and antiquarian books. He loves the horror genre, Stephen King, and anything associated with Tolkien. He has published a few academic papers across various online outlets, appeared on several historical podcasts, and has published some of his other fiction. Ethan teaches history at a local charter school in New Hampshire and lives on the Seacoast with his wife, Keyanna.
