Excerpt from "Someone Else's Book Club"

The morning after the incident with Marci King and The Guild of Starving Young Herpezoids back in college, my chest hurt. A tightness gripped the area around my heart and squeezed until breathing became a struggle. It maintained its vice-like hold for several days. The obvious course of action should have been a hospital visit, but the thought of leaving my apartment petrified me. Sleep eluded me with the ever-present threat of extraterrestrial bullies lurking outside my door. Nelson Clanahan finally forced me to seek help.

“Kevin, my boy, what you are experiencing is perfectly natural. You had a close encounter of the worst kind. Your prolonged panic attack is understandable.” He paused while I rocked back and forth on the bed that Marci would share with me. A single tear rolled down my face. Nelson produced a small device like a 1970s TV remote from his pocket.

“What is that?” I asked.

“STORE unit,” he said. “It means Selective Temporal Override & Recall Eliminator. Protocol mandates I use this on you. It will erase the events of last evening from your mind. Make it all seem like some odd, terrible dream. Normally, I would simply perform the protocol, but, Kevin, my boy, I do care for you. Not as a father would love his son or anything familial, for that matter. Certainly not in a romantic way, though you possess a disarming, quirky charm. Rather, you are special to me in some platonic context.”

“Do you mean I’m your friend?” I wiped the tear away so another one could trail behind it.

He pondered this for a moment before replying. “Why, yes. I do believe that would be the word for it. How utterly obvious.” He allowed himself the slightest of smiles.

“So, if you used that thing on me, would I forget you?”

Nelson shook his head. “No, it typically only impacts short-term memory. Our relationship would be largely unaffected.”

“Except you would know something I don’t. You would be keeping a secret from me.”

“As I said, largely unaffected.”

“I don’t want to forget,” I told him, some newfound resolve rising within me. “I want to help you. Maybe I can be your apprentice or something.”

He frowned and twisted his mouth at this idea. “Why would you want to be part of this business?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. College isn’t what I thought it was going to be. The only thing I’ve ever considered being was a poet, which means a career in teaching or fast food management.”

“Both perfectly noble vocations.”

“Those monsters killed the pizza delivery guy, Nelson. They wanted to destroy all books on Earth. Are there more out there? Killing people and carrying out nefarious plots?” After he nodded, I added, “You can’t do it all by yourself. Let me help. Teach me.”

“My boy, I am not doing this by myself. I have support. A young man named Simon Tybalt. He is rather strange but also brilliant. There are others scattered about, but we don’t actively recruit. This is not a life I would recommend.” He stood and slid the STORE device back into the pocket of his argyle cardigan. “If I agree to this, you will need to devote yourself to it. There is much for you to learn. This is not a life conducive to intimate relationships. It is a solitary existence.”

“Have you ever been in love?” I asked.

His gaze drifts to a spot on the floor and sighs. “There was someone years ago. A fine, striking man with a square jaw and broad shoulders. He was kind and lovely in manner, softspoken. We were in love; of that I have no doubt. Two things proved our undoing. The first, of course, was the general public’s attitude toward two men in a romantic relationship. Eternal damnation and all that poppycock. Second, Herpezoids. I attempted to broach the subject one evening with him. I informed him, as delicately as I could, about those loathsome creatures and my mission to eradicate them. His reaction was to say nothing much. Only nodded. After that night, I never heard from him again. I suppose I cannot blame him. As I said, this is not a life conducive to intimate relationships.”

I climbed out of bed, fueled by adrenaline and the need to pee. “Train me. I wanna fight these bastards.”

“Are you sure about this, my boy?” He pulled out his pipe and lit it. “A memory wipe doesn’t hurt. Besides, whatever glory you perceive is associated with this work does not exist. I can assure you. And the pay is likely far below what it should be given the danger involved and the current cost of living under Reaganomics.”

“It pays, too?”