The Last Bookstore (Part 3)

Evelyn stared at the torn page until the words blurred.
The threat wasn’t vague. Whoever had written it knew exactly how to hurt her.

That night she didn’t bother turning on the lights upstairs. Instead, she sat at the small kitchen table, her laptop open, steam curling from a forgotten cup of tea. A search for The Scribes brought up almost nothing, the term was too common. She tried adding keywords: cipher messages, hidden in books, Millhaven. Still nothing.

But on the third page of results, a link caught her eye: Obscure Methods of Dissent 20th Century Covert Communication. It was a scan of an academic paper from a defunct university server. One paragraph mentioned a group calling themselves The Scribes, anonymous operatives who, in the mid-1900s, used public libraries and bookstores to hide warnings and instructions for underground resistance movements.

It claimed they never acted directly; their job was to pass knowledge, not wield it.

The article ended with a line that made her shiver:

If you find one of their messages, you were meant to.

The next morning, a black SUV sat idling across the street from PageTurners. Two men in business coats leaned against it, sipping coffee and not looking at the bookstore, but their presence felt like a stare.

At noon, the first arrived. He introduced himself as Gavin Cross from Halcyon Developments. Polished shoes. A smile too tight.

“Miss Chase,” he said, stepping inside as if he owned the air. “We’ve been trying to reach you. Halcyon is acquiring properties along Main Street. We’d like to make you an offer for PageTurners.”

“I’m not selling.”

“You haven’t heard the amount yet.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He glanced around the shop with mild distaste. “Charming place. But the town’s dying, Miss Chase. This could be your chance to leave with a nice cushion.”

“I said no.”

His smile didn’t falter, but something in his eyes went flat. “Things change. Sometimes faster than we expect.”

When he left, the SUV was gone.

By late afternoon, Evelyn’s resolve was cracking. She went upstairs, pulling book after book from the “dead stock” shelves, searching for any clue about the Valentine’s Day prophecy. Halfway through an anthology of short stories, she found it:

A penciled note inside the front cover. A sequence of numbers — 2-14-9-15 — and the word Hollow.

Her pulse quickened. February 14th. 9:15. Hollow could mean the Holloway building, an old structure near the square. The Valentine’s festival always spilled into the plaza in front of it.

She snapped a photo of the note, then froze. Somewhere below, the bell above the shop door rang.

She crept down the staircase. The store was empty, except for a faint draft drifting from the aisle near the poetry section. One of the tall shelves there was slightly ajar, as if someone had tried to move it but stopped.

Evelyn set her hand against the wood and pushed. The shelf swung inward with a low groan, revealing a narrow passage, the air cold and smelling of damp stone.

She swallowed hard, reached for her phone’s flashlight, and stepped inside.

The passage led to a cramped room lined with filing cabinets and crates of books wrapped in brown paper. In the center, on a battered desk, sat another black, untitled book.

This one wasn’t blank. Its pages were filled with looping script, dozens of warnings, dates, and locations. Some were crossed out, some underlined. In the margins, single words appeared: Flood. Sabotage. Fire.

The last entry made her skin crawl:

Valentine’s Eve. Millhaven Square. Crowd distraction. Detonate.

Behind her, the floorboard creaked. She turned.

The man in the dark coat stood in the doorway.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said. His voice was calm, almost regretful.

“I’m not the one planning this,” she shot back, heart hammering.

“No,” he agreed. “But you’re standing in the middle of it.”

-Click for Part 4-