The Book Palace

She loved her Book Palace. Everyone knew that it towered over the competition.

All the eccentric book-seekers within a 50 mile radius were drawn there for the stacks of rare reference texts, old printings of classic literature and for all of the genres that the chain stores overlook. She had a front row seat to the mad sifting through by her clientele of all her precious finds. And when they, who wildly coveted her wares, finally made their selections she could charge them through the ceiling without hearing a word of protest. Casuals - the people who weren't intoxicated with that old book smell - often complained about her high prices. But she didn't care about the casuals. She didn't have to.

And then something changed. Her once passionate clients didn't come so frequently anymore. After years of steady business, something caused a lull in the patronage. When she asked if there were anything she could do to keep them around, they told her that something about the Book Palace didn't feel right, that the power it wielded over them had become too much. The books made people feel ill, drained. Moreover, rumors started to fly around about the place having some sort of dark presence. Eventually business ceased altogether.

                              *****

It had been days since any customers had shown up. She stood motionless behind the counter. With her finances balanced, the store cleaned from top to bottom and every book sorted and categorized twice over, she had nothing to do any more except wait. It was then that she felt the pull.

A strange sway engulfed her senses. She began digging voraciously through stacks of old English lore, columns of post-colonial African literature and rows of European Science Fiction paperbacks.

Just the feel of them alone aroused her. She rubbed a copy of The Carpet Makers against her piqued bosom and little electric zaps caused orgasmic release. She writhed in ecstasy as the books filled every corner of her body with desire.
                               
                                *****

She was naked now, no food in her stomach. The books were all she needed. She barricaded herself in the basement, where all the oldest and rarest of her collection stood. Those were the ones that really made you high.

But amidst all of the ecstasy, something else crept up within her. A darkness. She wasn't hungry, but she felt pangs of something. She read faster, she sniffed and licked the pages. She fondled them and bit them, ripped them out one by one. The books were glowing now, they were alive.

By the fourth day, the woman had used her emaciated body to build a fortress of books so solid that no one could hope to enter the basement without using explosives of some kind. But if anyone was after her, she certainly didn't know it.

The power of her collection compelled her. All of them - every Bible, every almanac, dictionary and dissertation, etc. - were covered in slimy secretions, and were respiring and wheezing heavily.  She sucked suggestively on an ancient volume of Miner's Magazine.

Her dry, brittle skin was covered in a film of scummy secretions that seeped into the open sores on her body. They had a soothing feel, like aloe vera.

Bile spilled from her mouth as she tried to finish reading a copy of The Red Badge of Courage. She choked on her bile, sputtered and coughed heavily until blood sprayed forth over a pile of breathing Bertrand Russel original editions. She wondered how much they could be worth now, but it was moot anyway. No one could part her from her books. They were now her appendages - her babies. Her body grew cold, but the secretions comforted her. Every bit of fat burned away as her body tried to eat itself. Even the goo couldn't save her.

She had just meagerly placed a mint copy of Blue Beetle in front of her, when she started convulsing, became comatose, never woke up.