The Murderous Twins

The McKellen twins felt the librarian’s stinky breath brush against their nape, so they quickly slid their dirt-and-blood-stained hands under the table.

“Shut up, you two!” hissed the librarian.

“Sorry,” said Milo McKellen, with the fakest of smiles.

The librarian stomped back to his dimly lit desk, where he resumed his scribbling on a notebook. Occasionally he raised his bald head to survey the hall like a living security camera.

Martin McKellen peeked under the table. A few droplets of blood had stained his jeans, and now it would be impossible for him—or rather, his mother, if she hadn’t been gone—to wash them away. They would become foolproof evidence, marked forever on his favorite pair of pants.

A pale moonlight cast long shadows over the library hall, where the McKellen twins, still soaking wet from the rain, had found shelter. They had sat on one of the long benches, their hands and arms covered in dirt and blood, and now they were arguing. Their disagreement kept on drawing the attention of the librarian, who scowled at the twins and scolded them whenever they spoke a little louder.

“See that corner over there?” Martin asked Milo. “Let’s go talk there. He won’t interrupt us.”

The twins tiptoed to a corner far from where the librarian sat, hoping to get more privacy. They were surrounded by books, as dusty as if no one had ever touched them except the person who had placed them there, centuries prior.

“So,” said Milo. “What were we—”

“The body,” said Martin.

“Yes. The body. I think we should’ve buried it instead of letting it sink into the lake.”

Martin snorted. “As if a hump of soil in the middle of the woods is something you see every day.”

“Better than a dead woman in the trunk of her own car, if you ask me.”

“What other options were there? I couldn’t even think straight, those damn blue lights…”

“Well, it’s no use discussing this now,” said Milo. “We got rid of her.”

Something hit the floor and echoed throughout the library hall. Martin peeped out.

The librarian was kneeling near the bench where the twins were sitting earlier, and he was struggling to get back up. The ink from his fountain pen had bled in a large puddle onto the marble floor, and now the librarian was fumbling for a tissue to clean that mess with.

Milo peeped too, and he said, “He’ll be busy for a while.”

Martin leaned against the book-filled shelves and sighed. “We can’t hide in a library forever, Milo.”

“I know,” he said. “But we’ve got to at least wait for the rain to stop so that we can hop on a train and leave.”

“Where were you thinking?” Martin asked.

Milo shrugged. “I don’t know… Canada?”

Suddenly, a clap of thunder boomed in the night sky outside, and the library’s doors burst open. Martin looked over at the two men who had just entered the building. They were wet just like the twins were, but they wore blue uniforms like—

“Police officers,” said Martin in a quivering whisper. “There’s two of them.”

“What do we do?” Milo whispered back.

Martin shook his head. I have no idea, he thought. He was afraid to even think at this point.

“They came looking for us,” said Milo. “No doubt about that. Otherwise, what would two police officers do in a library after hours?”

“Hush, Milo,” said Martin. “Please. Don’t let us be caught.”

“Good evening,” thundered a voice. It was one of the two men. The twins cocked their ears. “I’m agent Philips, and this is agent Clifford. We’re looking for a couple of young men, probably in their twenties, red-haired, pretty thin…”

The librarian did not answer, so the other police officer, Clifford, urged him. “Have you seen someone with this profile by chance?”

Martin held his breath. He prayed the librarian didn’t reveal where he and his brother were hiding.

Second by second, a thick silence was filling up the atmosphere like a cake rising in the oven. Except, this oven was far too hot, and this cake was about to explode.

“Avoid us any trouble, Mr. Librarian,” said agent Philips. “Just tell us if you’ve seen them or not, and we won’t bother you any longer.”

Martin pushed Milo back into the corner and flattened himself against the bookshelves, in case their cover was about to be blown.

The librarian cleared his throat and spoke.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t seen them.”

Martin and Milo gasped as quietly as they could and peeped out from behind the bookshelves once again. The two police officers were looking at one another. Clifford’s eyes became two narrow slits, two poison darts he was now aiming at the librarian.

“Are you sure?” said the agent.

“Sure,” said the librarian, trying to sound more sure than he was.

“Very well,” said agent Philips, nudging at Clifford. “Sorry to have disturbed you, we’ll leave you now.”

But Clifford turned and pointed at the bench where the twins were sitting earlier. Under it, there was a mess of paper tissues and ink, and—

“Look,” said Martin to his brother. “The blood is gone.”

Milo looked down at the blood on his hands, by now dry, and then over at the bench. “What blood, Martin?”

“When I hid my hands under the table, I spilled blood everywhere, on my jeans, on the floor—“

Clifford’s voice boomed once again. “What’s that over there, Mr. Librarian?”

Agent Philips grabbed his colleague by his arm. “Let’s stop it here, Ben. He says he hasn’t seen them.”

Clifford broke free of Philip’s grip and fetched the heap of stained paper from the ground. He marched back to the librarian’s desk, where the poor man was standing still but frail, like a clay statue.

Clifford unfolded one tissue and slammed it on the librarian’s desk. It was stained with large blotches of blood.

“What about this, Mr. Librarian?” Clifford scoffed. “Been dabbing the floor all night long, haven't ya?”

The librarian didn’t move a muscle, he just stared at the stained tissue.

“These kids have slaughtered their mother!” Clifford roared. For a moment, all the books in the library seemed to have teetered, like there had been a severe but rapid earth tremor.

“Clifford, calm down now,” agent Philips commanded. He turned to the librarian. “Tell us the truth, sir. As you can see, this is pretty urgent.”

The librarian slowly pointed his index finger at the corner where the twins were hiding. Milo gulped, and Martin stopped breathing altogether.

The two police officers looked at one another one last time. Agent Clifford pulled out two pairs of handcuffs, and Philips led the way.

When they reached the darkened corner where the twins were supposed to be hiding, though, there were only rows of shelves full of dusty tomes to welcome them.