This Book Does Not Exist (12 page)

I drop the lighter in my pocket.

Finding it here now means Naomi was probably in this room at some point after The
JFK
Incident.

But would she have been coming out of
the Door
– or going through it?

I step into the flood of light. It is too powerful for me to keep my eyes open. I reach out, grasping for the edge of
the Door
. I find it. I push. I’m able to move it. Which means I can shut it. I can prevent, I think, any more incidents from springing up out of nowhere like at my parents’ house.

But if Naomi is in the other world, and I close
the Door
… I could end up trapping her inside.

The safest course of action – as far as her wellbeing is concerned – is to leave everything here as is.

Before I do anything, I’ll make one more play to contact
Geppetto
. I’ll ask if he knows where she is at this very moment, and if he responds to me, and she’s in the other world, I’ll walk through
the Door
. I’ll run for her, searching. And when I find her, I won’t let go.

I release
the Door
and walk out of the building, looking for the spot where I was able to get cell service earlier.

I can’t find a signal. Everywhere I go there is just an SOS.

I linger in the middle of Cedar Road. Grime and potholes surround my feet. I feel a kinship with the decaying city of East Cleveland. I stare inside the building with the slogan “Come
to
 
Geppetto’s
today because tomorrow may be too late,” its walls harangued by the light emanating from the other world. The longing I have for Naomi echoes between two distinct places in my mind, one that holds on to the past,
the
other that envisions the future. The pathway to each seems to be chartered by both acquiescence and will. I can’t determine where either action will take
me, but a firm and basic hope
for resolution rises above all else. I consider going back inside the building, not to enter the other world, but to slam
the Door
closed once and for all.

Instead I turn away from
Geppetto’s
.

I get back inside my car.

I drive away.

The second I have cell service I bombard Geppetto with questions. At the very bottom of the message, I write:

“YOU’RE NOT HELPING ME IF YOU DON’T TELL ME WHERE SHE IS RIGHT NOW”

My anger and frustration can’t replace the fear that I am on my own.

“It’s okay,” I tell myself. “You’ve been here before. You’ve been here your entire life.”

Yeah, I think. And there were plenty of times I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

What I believe is that the world inside
the Door
is being let out into the environment in which I live. The
world
where only deadly things seem to occur is bleeding into the balanced world where both good and evil exist. Whoever left
the Door
open – Geppetto or Naomi, I assume – has allowed the two worlds to combine at will.

I believe I have little choice but to engage the other world if I intend to find Naomi, which is why I left
the Door
open, fearful of locking her inside and unwilling to risk entering it again myself if she has in fact emerged, safely, from the abyss. But I need to determine if the other world is affecting anyone besides me.
If it
is
, then that would change how I proceed. I would have to think about turning back and shutting
the Door
, no matter the residual consequence.

I come across my first opportunity for a test subject on Carnegie, while driving towards the highway. An unkempt man is standing on the side of the road. He is holding a cardboard sign.

I pull over.

The man approaches my window. His hair is long and thin and greasy. His beard looks like it consists of gathered, dirty straw. His eyes lack presence; even as he knocks on my windshield, they don’t move in my direction, as if he thinks I’m somewhere else.

The man shows me the cardboard sign. It is blank.

As I think through how to discuss
the Door
, he knocks on my windshield again. This time he actually looks at me. He must sense something is wrong because he glances down at the piece of cardboard and begins to laugh. He flips the sign around. There are words on the other side. He was holding it backwards.

I smile, calmed by the light-hearted moment.
I prepare to ask the man if anything strange has happened to him since last night, but before the words leave me, I read his sign:

“Lost my family lost my job need money and new life HELP ME”

I take five dollars out of my wallet and put the window down. Handing the bill to the man, I say, “I don’t know if this will help.”

I pull back onto the road and call my brother.

Tim
: Mike-

Me
: Is anything out of the ordinary happening there?

Tim
: Where are you?

Me
: Anything bad, anything weird, anything dangerous?

Tim
: What are you talking about? What’s weird is how you left LA.

Me
: I left because Naomi disappeared.

Tim
: Huh? She didn’t disappear. She went to med school.

Me
: She didn’t go to med school.

Tim
: Isn’t that what you told me?

Me
: I said she might go to med school.

Tim
: That’s not what I remember.

[I don’t want to debate this point with him.]

Tim
: Dad told me you
won’t
talk to him.

Me
: I talked to him. But I can’t talk to him right now. So nothing terrible has happened? Nothing bizarre…

Tim
: Mike-

Me
:
The Door
must not be affecting you. It’s just me.

Tim
:
The Door
? What door? What’s going on?

[I think.]

Tim
: Mike. Hello? Are you there?

Me
: You remember that girl that looked like Kirsten
Dunst
from Joe’s birthday party? She added me on
Facebook
. Did she add you?

Tim
: No, what does that have to do with
-

Me
: What about an old guy named Geppetto?

Tim
: What are you talking about?

Me
: I’m going to go. Be careful. I don’t think you need to be, but just… Just in case.

I hang up, switch over to
Facebook
and write a new status:

“I want to know if anything bad or dangerous or scary or weird or painful has happened to you, especially if it seemed impossible or unnatural – and if you see or hear from Naomi please tell me.”

Then, on Twitter, I post:

“I assume today is not going to be a good day”

On the highway, I receive several alerts from
Facebook
. In order to check them without causing an accident, I pull off the side of the road.
 

A number of comments have been left on my status, and there is a new message in my inbox. I tap on the message first, thinking
Geppetto
has finally responded. However, it’s actually from Naomi’s friend, Virginia. That she sent a private message to follow up on her lead – as opposed to using another public wall post – implies she wants to keep whatever she found between us.

I assume the worst.

I tap outside of the message before reading any of it.

I check the comments on my status.
which
have been left by four separate people. Two of the people I barely know – someone I can’t really remember from high school and a girl Tim went on a date with. The other pair of comments
are
from Kirsten and Joe:

Jared XXXXX: dude…what the hell
?:

TODAY AT 6:01 PM

Lauren XXXXX: well, I drank way more vodka cranberries than I thought was possible last night!
now
on my way to church at
st
. Theodosius
lol

TODAY AT 6:02 PM

Kirsten XXXXX: Mike, this type of status merits a phone call

TODAY AT 6:16 PM

Joe XXXXX: Kirsten! How have you been????

TODAY AT 6:17 PM

Collectively, I take the comments to mean one of three things:
the Door
is only affecting me;
the Door
is affecting others, but it has not affected any of my friends;
the Door
is affecting others, and it is only a matter of time before it affects my friends.

From a probability standpoint, I suspect the first option is the most likely. Good. I don’t need to change course.

Having gained some reason to be optimistic, I’m able to face up to my paranoia about the contents of Virginia’s message. I tap on it, prepared to accept whatever she has learned:

“The guy I thought would know is dead. Sorry.”

The life of a stranger has been lost. I should feel at least a touch of sorrow. Rather, my apprehension grows. The nature of the unidentified man’s relationship with Naomi has gone unstated, which is upsetting. Who was he? How did she know him? Why would Virginia think he could tell her where she was when I couldn’t? Is it plausible that Naomi might have – I don’t know when – developed feelings for him? If I’m supposed to be sympathetic to the notion that she could be in anguish over his death, I’m not. In truth, a complex part of me finds solace in the idea that Naomi might be hurting, too. Whether this is because of jealousy, selfishness, or because I have to consider the possibility that Virginia’s message might not even be from this world, I can’t say for sure.

Against my wishes, I begin to imagine Naomi doing things, all kinds of things, with this hypothetical other man, a faceless combination of everything I’m not – emotionally stable, financially well-off, scientifically inclined, carefree, adventurous – the boyfriend I thought Naomi wished I was whenever we fought. I see them kissing, holding one another, having sex, eating dinner, dancing, smoking cigarettes in LA on the beach and in NYC on the steps of a brownstone.

Respite comes in the form of a list of songs in my
Facebook
news feed that Kirsten has been listening to on
Spotify
. I pick one – “Sky Might Fall” by Kid
Cudi
– and stream it.

Afterwards, I buy the song on iTunes probably just to keep myself occupied. The download is almost finished when a pair of “dings” chime from my phone, and a notification banner rotates in and then out at the top of the screen, indicating an incoming text message from a number with a 216 area code that is not in my address book:

216XXXXXXX

Jul 27 6:21 PM

You should come to bars

in
Cleveland. This is my

new
number. – Naomi

I can’t stop staring at the text, as if I’m waiting for it to vanish.

Why would she suddenly reach out to me?

I envision
one likelihood
: because I left
the Door
open, and she was able to escape from the other world.