Reading is dangerous

Marcy strolls the aisles of Grumbles, a bookstore in a strip mall in her hometown of Rumson outside Newark, New Jersey. The owner rushes to visit with her when he finishes at the cash register, excited to see his favorite customer. They talk about the weather, children gone off to college and most importantly what new crime novels have come in. The owner Bob turns, rushes behind the counter, and pulls out a stack of books he has held back for her. Excited she fauns over the books looking at each cover and weeding out those she already owns. Other customers draw Bob’s attention away as Marcy eagerly sits behind the counter as if she worked there and opens the first book, a detailed account of the Mafia in Newark and the surrounding area. A busy store this sunny Saturday afternoon allows her the time to read the first thirty or more pages before Bob returns.

“I know you like this kind of stuff, but it’s too morbid for me,” he admits.

“I love it, I can’t get enough,” she says turning back to the pages of her book.

She hangs out in the bookstore for an hour before purchasing her books and bidding her friend goodbye. She exits and is struck by the blinding light of the day; she pulls her sunglasses out of her purse to relieve her shocked eyes. A deafening noise, a gunshot to her left sends her into paralyzed shock, and then she is knocked to the ground in fear by an unknown man running for his life. As she looks up from the ground, she sees a large man dressed in black fire another shot into the head of the body lying on the ground outside the bar next door. He is in no hurry as if he doesn’t care who sees him. He peers around and spies her witnessing his actions, he tilts his glasses and then steps her way. Each step of the man holding the gun at his side paralyzes her further with fear. She cannot take her eyes off him, yet she feels her life may be soon over. He stands over her looking down callously sneering yet calm as she lies in the scattered pile of books. While people run for their lives and hide behind cars for cover he bends over, picks up her books one by one, and hands them gently to her.

“Reading can be dangerous,” he says as he tucks the gun away in his coat pocket and walks to an approaching car, he is gone as quickly as he came.

Soon the police cars arrive, and she is hauled off to an ambulance and taken to a hospital. Bob the bookstore owner rushes outside to check on her safety and takes her books to keep safe until he can give them to her later.

“Mrs. Williams?” a police officer calls out startling her from her shocked state.

“Mrs. Williams, could you give us a statement?” Another man dressed in a nice suit and tie asked beside the police officer.

“Yeah, sure, but call me Marcy,” she insists.

They ask a nurse to leave, shut the door, and turn to talk to her. She looks up to begin her story and is stopped by the sight of a large man walking by her room through the window

As her eyes flutter in the bright lights of the hospital she regains consciousness and sits up. IVs in her arm and a monitor beeping showing her heart rate and blood pressure. A busy and frustrated nurse pushes past several police officers and checks her condition before turning on the entourage of law enforcement and forcing them out of her room. The nurse comes back to her side and continues her duties as Marcy shakes off the effects of the sedatives they administered at the scene.

“If you know what’s good for you just be quiet.”

“What did you say?” Marcy asks startled by the abruptness of her statement.

“I said, If they knew what was good for you they’d be quiet.”

“Oh, am I okay, am I hurt?” Marcy asks.

“You will be if you don’t shut up!”

Marcy is sure she heard the nurse right that time, she gets a tight grip on the mug of water, the only weapon she has available.

“Did you hear me, honey, I said you need to sit up and get that blood flowing again.” The nurse reiterates.

A gentleman dressed in a suit and tie walks into her room, the nurse grumbles under her breath but isn’t as gruff with him as she was with the uniformed policemen. The man walks in and pulls a chair to her bedside, opens a notebook, and then looks up at Marcy.

“How you doing?”

“I’m sore, but okay,” she answers.

“Witnesses from the shooting tell us that you were right there and that the gunman walked over to you while you were on the ground and spoke to you?” he asks.

“That’s right.”

“Nurse! Could you please give us some privacy?” he asks seeing her fidgeting with her wires and tubes so she could stay and eavesdrop.

“Of course,” she replies and walks out grumbling to herself.

“Tell me in your own words...”

Marcy can hear the detective speaking but through the glass partition between her room and the nurse's bullpen a large man dressed in dark clothes walks by while making eye contact with her.

“Marcy! Marcy did you hear me?” the detective asks snapping his fingers in front of her eyes.

“I’m sorry, but is it secure here?” she asks.

“Yes mam, there are two patrolmen outside your room and my partner should be out there somewhere too.”

“Please, tell me in your own words what you witnessed?” he asks again.

“I had been in the bookstore for a couple hours and as I came out the front door as I was leaving I heard a gunshot, then a man fleeing knocked me to the ground. I lay there and watched as the man walked over to me, bent over, and handed me my books. I was afraid he was going to kill me, but he saw that I noticed his gun was locked back and out of bullets. He smiled and said ‘Reading can be dangerous’ and then he got in a car and left,” she explained.

“That must have been terrifying for you?” said the voice of Detective Foster entering the room and standing behind the other detective.

“It was! but it was the way he said it.”

“Said what?” the detective asks.

“I’m all out of bullets, as if he was sad he couldn’t shoot me,” she adds but doesn’t know why she lied about this.

“Was that...”

“Before he said the other thing,” she explains nervously.

The detectives leave after getting her information, and one of the policemen is left to guard her until they can understand who the gunman is. Marcy lies in her bed intently watching through the glass partition for the large man dressed in dark clothes to walk by again. He looks so much like the man she watched shoot another man in front of the bookstore, but then again his description was much like every mobster hitman she has read about. Nurses come and go checking on her, bringing her lunch and dinner. When the nurses were in the room they would ask her questions about how she felt or what she hadn’t eaten but Marcy was too engrossed watching for the large man dressed in dark clothes. Her distracted state only amplified the doctor's worry there may be some underlying trauma from the shooting, so her hospital stay is extended because of her obsession.

“Mrs Williams!” a policeman yells to get her attention.

“Yes, what?”

“Mrs. Williams we have been called off your room...” he trails off as her attention is drawn to the large man dressed in dark clothes walking by.

Stunned shock paralyzes her as she watches the large man stop and slowly lift his finger and point it at her and pretend it is a gun as he fires.

“Nurse!” The policeman yells for help.

Nurses rush into the room and check on Mrs. Williams surrounding her bed trying to understand what is happening to her. A few minutes later the shock wears off and she begins to breathe easier, but as the nurses leave she notices the large man is gone.

“We need to get going Mrs. Williams,” the policeman says.

“Did you ever check on the man I told you about?” she asks.

“Yes mam, he checked out, he is here for his sick wife.”

“You sure?”

“Yes mam,” he says as he walks out of the room.

Marcy watches through the glass partition with desperation, she knows what she’s seen. She watches while nurses and doctors check on her, she watches while she eats, and she even keeps the door open when in the bathroom so she can peer out through the crack in the door. A patient never gets good sleep in a hospital but she isn’t sleeping at all, she even hides the sedative in her cheek and spits it out when the doctor prescribes it for her. At two in the morning she is fighting sleep and losing the battle, she smacks her face to keep herself awake. Then as if a wish was granted the large man walked up to the nurse's station, turned and winked at her, and then turned back to talk to a nurse. As the large man bent over the counter his shirt rose just enough to reveal a gun in his waistband. Marcy begins to scream but quickly clamps a hand down over her mouth only letting out a light squeal. Her worse fears are discovered, what is he asking them? He waited until the cops left before he brought a weapon into the hospital, and when things got quiet and there were fewer nurses on duty he entered her room and killed her. Marcy decides that she is tired of being frightened, she removes the wires from her body, grabs her IV pole, and walks to the glass partition, and opens it.

“I know you are here to kill me, so do it already!” she screams at the large man.

“What?” he says turning around.

“I didn’t tell them anything, but if you’re going to kill me then do it!” she demands closing her eyes and bareing her chest.

Nurses quickly rush around the counter and get Marcy back in her room. She is dragged kicking and screaming back to her bed and restrained, but the whole time the large man watches from the nurse's station with a stoic expression.

“He’s going to kill me! He has a gun!” she screams frantically.

The doctor enters the room and after a quick injection, she slips off to sleep. The man is questioned again but there is no reason to suspect him of wrongdoing. Days go by and she is in a semi-catatonic state from the sedatives, her mind races, dreams, nightmares, and terrors have her screaming out in the dark at night.

A couple days go by and she has calmed down, she is no longer on the sedatives and her outlook on going home is looking good. The police return to check on her after hearing of the trouble she has been in, she had once looked like a good witness but now they are not so sure. As she sits on the edge of her bed disconnected from all the wires and tubes she talks with the police trying to reassure them she can identify who did the shooting. As a courtesy the police plan to drive her to the police station to check mugshots but while she waits for her discharge papers she reads one of the books she bought that fateful day. As she calmly sits in her bed waiting to go home the man she accused walks by once again, only this time she calmly calls out to him. He is reluctant after all that has happened but he comes into her room hoping she has a different outlook regarding him. Her new outlook is only a ruse for her to get him close so she can accuse him without yelling and drawing suspicion from the police. To her surprise he doesn’t get angry, he turns silently and begins to leave the room, then stops at the door and looks back.

“Reading can be dangerous”, he says pointing to the book and walking away letting her know who he really is.

She screams bloody murder, the police rush to her room and see him calmly standing there and her demanding the cops to do something. The large man tells them he went into her room because he thought she would apologize for the other day. She becomes violent trying to get at the man and is hauled off to the psychiatric ward. As she lies strapped to a gurney she hears the police discuss how she is not a reliable witness now and her description is probably inaccurate as well. The large man walks away and places a call on his cell phone, but is close enough for her to hear his conversation.

“It's easier to bury witnesses in the psycho ward than in the woods,” he says on the phone before looking at her being hauled away.

The gurney is moved fast through hallways and elevators until they arrive at the psychiatric ward. A doctor arrives and injects her with a sedative and soon she is unconscious. For once she has a normal dream, one of walking through tall grass with grasshoppers flying about, and then she is violently woken.

“Marcy! You alright?” Bob the bookstore owner asks shaking her awake.

“Bob? What are you doing in the hospital?”

“Hospital? You’re lying on my sidewalk! A car backfired and you fell down and hit your head. An ambulance is on the way lie still!” Bob insists.

As she lies there the ambulance arrives and the paramedics begin to assess her injury, one of them is a young girl, no more than twenty, and the other is a large man dressed in a dark paramedic jacket.

“You?” she accuses.

“I didn’t know reading could be so dangerous,” he says beginning to take her blood pressure and she faints.

“What’d I say?”