“Oh right,” said Jake. “Of course. You fucking idiot, what do you think I was doing when the truck hit me? I was working on the follow-up, Milstead. I was writing the sequel to All My Colors. And I tell you, it would have been a damn sight better than whatever jumbled atrocity you were bashing out. And I wasn’t a fucking photocopier like you, I could write.”

Todd pushed Jake. He was surprisingly solid.

“Fuck you!” he said. “I’m a writer! Fuck you!”

Jake stepped back, laughing.

“Okay, have it your own way,” he said. “You’re a writer. You wrote All My Colors, you’re a writer. I wrote All My Colors, I’m a writer.”

He smiled at Todd, and it was a horrible smile, with too much knowledge in it.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he said. “This isn’t about the book. This isn’t even about writing.”

“What is it about then?” said Todd.

“It’s about her,” Jake said.

*  *  *

They were in an old part of the library now. Todd hadn’t really noticed, on account of the two animated corpses, but the shelves had gone from modern metal to Victorian polished wood, and there was a smell of age in the air. The motes of dust caught in a shaft of sunlight (and where was that coming from? There were no windows) seemed heavier here.

“Welcome to the stacks,” said Jake. “You know what stacks are, right, Todd?”

Todd knew what stacks were. They were the backstage part of libraries, the storage areas.

“I told you this is where books come to die,” said Jake. “And these books are scheduled for the furnace.”

He gestured, and Todd saw that the shelves were stuffed with old books, a careless jumble of hardbacks and paperbacks, parchments and manuscripts, books without spines and books with illuminated covers.

“All trash,” said Jake.

“Is that why you brought me here?” said Todd. “So I can see my book being burned?” He laughed. “My New York Times best-selling book?”

“Todd,” said Jake, “you don’t think my book was a bestseller? Jesus, you heard of it, didn’t you? And if you heard of it, it must have been a bestseller. All My Colors by Jake Turner was huge, pal. Just like you thought All My Colors by Todd Milstead was going to be huge.”

“It is huge,” protested Todd.

“Size Matters For Todd Milstead,” laughed Jake. “Todd baby, your book—my book—came out of nowhere and it went straight back there. You think people remember stuff? They forget their friends, Todd, they forget their parents. They’re not going to remember some stupid book.”

“Why not?” Todd said, stubborn now.

“Because is why,” Jake replied. “Because she makes people forget.”

Todd was about to ask Jake what he meant when he saw it.

The shelf.

“What the fuck?” said Todd.