Free The Overnight by Ramsey Campbell

him, hushed yet enlarged. "Wilf call twelve, please. Wilf call twelve."
    There isn't a phone in the staffroom. Connie gives him a blink that contains a trace of the look he received from her and Jill. As he fumbles with Ray's phone he almost knocks the Manchester United badge off the computer monitor. "What do you want, Greg?"
    "Are you about on your way down? Angus is due for his break, but you know Angus. He doesn't want to trouble you himself."
    "My time isn't up yet, is it?" Wilf asks Connie.
    "I couldn't tell you without looking at the roster. It's up to you to keep an eye on yours."
    He was only trying to make peace with her. He glances at his watch so as to tell Greg in her hearing that he's wrong, but he isn't. Wilf has spent the best part of an hour in struggling to read a single paragraph. He feels as if his brain has shrivelled to less than a child's inside his uselessly huge skull and is desperate to hide there without risking another word. "So what shall I say to Angus?" Greg insists.
    "You can tell him to make his own calls in future, and here's what I think you should do to yourself." Wilf keeps all that and more inside him, instead blurting "I'll be down."
    He's almost out of the office when Connie says "Have you had a chance to sort your section out, Wilf?"
    "What sort of, I mean sort what?"
    "It was looking neglected last time I found someone a book in it."
    It isn't neglected at all. He tidied it last night and still had had time to help Mad tidy Toddlers. He throws his sushi container in the bin and his fork in the sink and runs downstairs. "Just a second," he tells Angus as he detours to check his books.
    If they're out of order, he doesn't see how. The Bibles are all together, and the books about them follow them. Anything occult is in Occult, philosophies are in Philosophy, even if he can't fit his mind around the more protractedly abstruse titles just now. Are the books arranged by author within their subjects? As he realises he can't judge, he's overwhelmed by a chill so intense it freezes him where he stands. He's peering helplessly at the mass of books when Greg steps out from behind the counter. He leans towards Wilf like an athlete straining to start a race while Angus looks loath to be the reason. "Wilf …" Greg urges.
    "Sorry, Angus. I was distracted." Wilf still is, all the more so when he discovers he can't read the spines of his books from behind the counter. That's the fault of the distance. It doesn't mean he's unable to read. He has no problems in serving customers—by now using the till is as instinctive as driving—which gives him back some confidence until he wonders if it makes him little more than an extension of the machine, no brain required. Just now he isn't anxious to test himself at the Information terminal, and he's glad nobody requires him to use it. By the time Jill takes over at the counter, he's yearning to go home to his own books, but won't his doubts follow him?
    Pacing up and down his aisles shows him nothing he's certain of. The sodden trouser cuff plants a cold kiss on his ankle at every other step. Is he simply convincing himself the books are out of order by looking too hard, just as he couldn't put a sentence together when he tried to read? He's beginning to feel watched, though he can't see the watcher. Is he in danger of betraying his secret to the monitor in Woody's office? He can overcome his difficulty again if he has to—he's older and wiser now. He makes himself turn his back on his section. His shift ended fifteen minutes ago, and the books that fill his flat in Salford are waiting to welcome him home. Once he's there he can relax, and then he'll be able to read. He'll be able to read.

Jake
    Sean brings the Passat to a gentle halt across three parking spaces outside Texts and lays his warm firm slightly pudgy hand on Jake's knee. Not much louder than the chugging of the engine he murmurs "Be good till tonight."
    "What about then, Sean?"
    He gives Jake