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“Rest well, Gerry.”The Archivist held his lighter up to the vellum page, and it began to burn with the unmistakable smell of human flesh. He managed not to gag. Gerry’s page turned quickly to ash, which Jon collected in the ceramic bowl that he sometimes used for instant ramen. His obligation completed, he left his office to get some fresh air. Ten minutes and a cigarette later, he returned to an unexpected sight on his desk.“Martin?! Basira?! What is a salamander doing in my office?”-Gerry woke up disoriented.The first thing he noticed was that he felt dry. Like when you sleep in and you haven’t drunk any water the night before so you wake up with your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth and a pounding headache? Like that, but all over. The second thing he noticed was that he was having real trouble blinking. He swallowed, and for some reason that did the trick. The dull blobs floating around his vision coalesced into a smooth blue pit, with something smelling suspiciously of soy and MSG at the bottom. The third thing he noticed was that nothing hurt.
Oh.
Nothing hurts.
Gerry could not contain the joy that bubbled up within him. I’m finally free! Free of that FUCKING book! He took in a deep breath and shuddered. I’m finally free of my mother! After Gerry had gotten a grip on himself, he forced himself to take stock of his situation. If he wasn’t hurting, he wasn’t bound to the book, which meant Jon had burnt the page, as he said he would. That meant that Gerry was either dead dead, or he had been dragged back to life by something that wanted to make him even more miserable. Judging by his extremely human surroundings, that was exactly what had happened. Although, he did wonder about who had poured instant ramen packets into the bottom of a dry swimming pool. That felt like a dumb idea –Gerry’s train of thought was interrupted by a familiar baritone voice screaming bloody murder. “Basira!? Can you find Martin for a moment and tell him to get this salamander out of my office?”“I don’t care if he found it in the gutter, this is my office and I won’t have my desk as a holding area for his pets! It’s unsanitary!”Gerry peeked his head out over the lip of the pool. “Jon? Is that you?”It was, indeed, Jon, looking a bit rougher than Gerry had seen him last. His hair was escaping its scraggly ponytail, and his eyes were wide behind crooked wire frame glasses. He gripped the doorframe like an earthquake had suddenly shaken central London. “Jon? Where am I?”Jon stared at Gerry for a good ten seconds. Gerry noticed that there must be something wrong with his depth perception, because Jon looked awfully larger than when he had seen him last. Some sort of optical illusion, maybe. But an optical illusion didn’t explain why the office itself looked so large and imposing…Jon regained some of his composure and walked towards Gerry, and knelt down to meet him eye to eye. Not just depth perception then, Gerry thought morosely. Jon stared at Gerry until Gerry thought he might be vaporized by the sheer intensity of the Archivist’s gaze.“Gerry? Is that you?” Jon eventually managed to squeak.“Yeah? I take it it’s not obvious?”“Well, no.”“Oh great. Some fucked up body horror thing, I imagine?”Jon took a breath and held it. “Gerry, you are a salamander.”-The first few days had gone surprisingly well, all things considered, Jon thought. After the initial shock of being reincarnated as an amphibian, Gerry had taken to it with his usual sardonic wit. Jon still hadn’t told the others yet – he’d lied to Basira and said he’d deposited the salamander in the little park by the motorway – and fortunately Martin was nowhere to be found to protest. The biggest issue, Jon found, was his terrible animal husbandry.“Hey Jon! Come over here and put me under a lamp or something, before I die for the third time of hypothermia!”Jon dutifully dragged Gerry’s bowl over to the lamp. “Still not warming up. Try your lighter?”Jon flicked the flame off to Gerry’s side. He absentmindedly reached for a statement, jostling his lighter into Gerry.To Jon’s great chagrin, he didn’t notice his mistake until the flames were licking around the black salamander. Gerry didn’t seem to be hurt though, and looked himself down from nose to tail.“I guess I’m finally invulnerable to fire.” Gerry chuckled. “Too little, too late, huh.”The Archivist shivered. Hearing Gerry’s breathy but very much human voice come out of a 20 cm long amphibian was still disconcerting. “Well, it’s certainly not normal.”“Is any of this normal? I died, multiple times, and came back as a small woodland creature.”“No, I suppose it isn’t.”Both not-quite-humans sat in silence for a minute.“Jon, you really need to get me a heat lamp. And a proper humidifier. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me until I can get some sort of autonomy back, but it would be better if I were at least a bit comfortable.”Jon instinctively went on the defensive. “Well, excuse me for not being prepared to take care of a bloody salamander.”He sighed. “I’ll ask Martin tomorrow. Hopefully I can catch him when he comes in, Tim says he comes in earlier than he does most days.”“Martin? That’s the big guy with the nice laugh, yeah?”“That’s the one. He keeps tarantulas. Awful things, really. I hate it when everyone’s comparing their pet pictures and I have to listen to him coo over those leggy little beasts.”“As it is, he probably knows a thing or two about setting up a terrarium. Which I have learned you will probably need, through my additional research on top of my regular work.”Jon glared at Gerry. Gerry shrugged, somehow.“I’m looking forward to meeting all of them. The assistants. We didn’t have a very good, erm, camaraderie going when I worked here, and I regret that. The job might have been a little less fatal had we looked out for each other.”Jon nervously ran a hand through his hair. “Are you joking? This is surreal! We are keeping this a secret until we can get you human again.”
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Gerry looked right and left and slipped out of the bowl. Jon was passed out, snoring head down into the desk. Gerry wondered if he ever went home. Certainly Gertrude had been devoted, but she always kept 9-5 business hours. He scampered down the desk, across the carpeted floor and out into the corridor. Gerry didn’t know what he was looking for exactly. But he was ambitious and bored enough to decide he was going to case out the Archives, and see how he could leverage his surroundings to make things better for him. Jon certainly wasn’t going to help; he was tied up in researching the Unknowing. Gerry had heard bits and pieces about that particular ritual from Gertrude, but he selfishly wished Jon would focus more on figuring out the mystery of the amphibian that had practically dropped in his lap, instead of grilling Gerry about rituals.Gerry spent a lot of time with Jon or alone. He had never been the most gregarious guy, but he was starting to miss talking to people. Jon was good company sometimes, but more often he was stuffy, closed-off, and quick to defend himself. Gerry remembered him being a bit more relaxed in America, but here he was a right terror. From what Gerry knew of Archivists, it seemed fitting. Then again, Jon had been unfailingly kind to Gerry. He’d burned his page, Gerry’s last request, even if he hadn’t realized it would cause all this… salamander chaos. And then he dealt with Gerry’s salamander situation as best he could. When the familiar sight of Jon’s office was starting to wear on him, Jon had done his best to accommodate Gerry’s needs for new stimulus. He’d taken to placing Gerry in his coat pocket to walk him around the Archives. Unfortunately, Jon’s constant running commentary led to him whispering into his pocket all the time. The kicker, Gerry thought, was aside from keeping him alive and entertained, Jon used Gerry’s nickname, the one that his father had given him, and precious few people had ever used. Gerry was glad that Jon had been the one to burn his page. Things could have been much worse. Gerry was startled out of his reverie by the sound of footsteps. Well, not the sound of footsteps. At his size, it was the feeling of footsteps that reverberated the walls and into his body. For an animal without ears, it was deafening. Gerry could see slightly scuffed brown shoes in front of him, and then two massive hands reached down to pick him up. Gerry struggled, but was held fast by who he could only assume from descriptions was Martin Blackwood, archival assistant."Oh! What are you doing here? Come on little guy, you're going to get dried out in this office." Gerry had no idea what to say to that, so he kept his mouth shut. “Elias always cranks up the air conditioning in the summer, dehydrates the air something awful. You’ll catch your death!”Martin hummed to himself as he made his way down the corridor, not at all concerned that it was 10 pm. For a sickening second Gerry thought Martin would walk into the head archivist office and would, no doubt, get into a row with Jon. But Martin passed by the head office, and opened the door into what Gerry could only assume was his own office. He set Gerry down in a Tupperware lid full of water from the kettle. Martin rummaged in his drawer for a while, and produced a strange looking lamp.“There it is! That should do you for a while. Although I suppose before I start with the heat lamp, I should get a better look at you so I can get the temperature right, hmm?”Gerry resigned himself to another bout of manhandling. Instead, Martin picked up the Tupperware wholesale, and squinted through the side of it. He took in Gerry’s black skin, long fingers and most distinctively, the bright yellow eye markings that ran down his sides from the back of his head to tail tip. “Now you are an interesting fella.”Gerry preened. “Thank you!”Martin’s eyes went wide and he nearly dropped the Tupperware.“Did you – did you just – ““Yes I did. Sorry for the shock. Name’s Gerard Keay? You may have heard of me, I used to work around here, for a time.”Martin’s already pale brown skin was starting to turn deathly white. “Umm. Hello, good to meet you, Gerard, but, uhh, if you don’t mind me saying, we thought you, umm, died?”“And you were certainly never a salamander!”Gerry blinked. “I did die. I got better. Although I can’t imagine it hasn’t come without a cost.”“I, ahh, this is quite a shock, you’ll excuse me, I - can I interest you in a cup of tea? Oh no, of course not you’re a salamander. I’m sorry, I’ll be back in a moment once I remove my foot from my mouth!”He scuttled off to put the kettle on. Gerry thought he was taking this rather well. He had never thought about it before, but if he had ever seen a talking eldritch salamander while still alive, he would have likely ground it under his steel-toed boots. Martin returned somewhat calmer. “I’m, erm, sorry for the babytalk out there, no offence meant, I thought you were just a regular animal.”Gerry brightened. “I’ve been called that before, yes!”Martin stared at him. “Apology accepted. Thank you for not squishing me.”“Ah, would have done that for anyone, any…thing, honestly.” Martin took a big sip of his tea. “So. If you don’t mind me asking, Gerard, why are you a salamander?”“I dunno. Why are you a human?”Martin rubbed his temples. “Okay, point taken. How long have you been a salamander?”“Well, I’ve been dead for… three, is it? Years now. I was bound into that awful skin-book – I see you’ve read my mother’s statement, I know, it’s gross – and have been living as a salamander in the Archives for oh, four days now? I’ve been staying with Jon, he’s been keeping me in lunch meat and water –““Wait. Four days and he’s letting you call him Jon? I was ‘Mr. Blackwood’ for a month before he finally lightened up. I can’t believe this.”If Gerry had eyebrows, he would have taken the opportunity to raise one. “I’m telling you how I got revived from the dead and woke up as a salamander, and the most unrealistic part of this is your coworker letting me use his first name?”Martin blushed. “Well. It’s the little details that get you.”“Anyway. So, you’ve been back for only a couple of days… Have you been experiencing anything eldritch, or terrifying, or?”“Other than Jon before he’s had some caffeine? No.”“Oh.” Martin studiously looked down at his tea. “Well, have you been eating enough? Soaking in water? Sleeping enough? The normal things.”“Well, I already told you, Jon’s been feeding me lunchmeats fro – ““That’s bad for you. Unacceptable,” Martin interrupted. “You know what, I’ll bring some crickets from home and you can have those. I know it might feel disgusting to you as a human, but, you know, plenty of people eat insects, good source of protein, and it is what salamanders eat.”Gerry cocked his head. “I’ll try it. I was raised eating headcheese, can’t be any more disgusting than that.”“Then that’s settled. I’ll get you a tank set up in here if you want, and some crickets, and that will help.”“Thank you. Could you bring me back to Jon’s office though? I think he’ll burst an artery if he finds out that I’ve been fraternizing with the assistants.”Martin laughed. “Absolutely. And I’ll make sure to bring around some of the other assistants, see if we can get you introduced to the entire office. I’m, erm, pretty busy nowadays, but I’ll nudge them in the right direction.”
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The bottoms of Jon’s feet were sweating. He had been waiting in this hallway for half an hour, trying to anticipate when Martin would come around the corner, and then he would casually step out and ask him about terraria. It was foolproof.Unfortunately, it seemed that the rest of the assistants had given him faulty information. Martin didn’t always come around this corner from 10 AM to 10:30! In fact, he’d never shown up at –“Jon? Why are you lurking in the corridor?”Jon whirled around, nearly hitting Martin in the jaw with his empty mug. “Erm. No reason. Just having a think.”Martin made an expression that Jon had seen several times before. If the Archivist had to label it, he would have classified it as, “I know you’re full of shit, but I’m too polite to do anything about it”. Jon was frequently on the receiving end of this facial expression.“Well, if that’s all, I’d best be on my way,” said Martin.“No! Wait! I had a question for you,” said Jon. “If you have a moment.”“Ahh, I was going to do some followup on the statements you gave me and Melanie yesterday, but, yeah, I have a moment.”“Martin, how are your tarantulas?”“Marcus and Rosalind are fine. Uh, why do you ask? I got the impression you didn’t like spiders.”Jon rushed into his next sentence, the pathway clear. “Well, you see, I’m trying to help a friend set up a terrarium, and I was wondering if you knew good places to find, erm, tanks and lighting. And also humidifiers. Things that would be good for, say, a salamander?”Martin resisted the urge to smile. “I think I could give you some recommendations, yes. But be warned, I know more about insects and arachnids than I do about herps. I can point you in the right direction, but you should get more advice from other people. We can walk and talk?”Jon nodded, and began jogging after Martin as he rattled off his recommendations for best tropical fish shops in the area. - “Hey Gerry, who’s got the best flat setup?”Tim leaned back in his chair, nearly knocking into the new 20 gallon tank on Jon’s desk. Gerry’s new “desk”, as Jon put it, had supplanted the breakroom as the most popular spot for water-cooler discussion, much to Jon’s chagrin. Gerry took his time to respond. “Hmm. I’d say it’d have to be Martin’s. He lets me run around the flat and annoy his tarantulas from the other side of the glass.”Tim draped the back of his hand across his forehead. “There’s no accounting for taste, but I must say this wounds me, Gerry.”Jon broke in from the other side of the room. “Could you two please get back to work? We are on possibly the highest-stakes deadline in the history of academia.”Gerry shrugged. “I guess you’re just jealous you don’t win Cribs: Archives Edition. You have far too much laundry piled up, and you’ve always killed half the crickets by the time I get there.”“No, no, he’s right.” Tim glared at Jon. “Forgive me for finding even an ounce of joy in this miserable excuse for a job. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have circuses to research, and passive-aggressive looks to throw in Elias’ direction.”Tim slammed the door on his way out.Jon sighed. “I don’t know how to make him like me. Or at least tolerate me.”“From what I hear, not stalking your coworkers may be a good first step.”“I’m not doing that anymore! It seemed necessary at the time, and I know I was wrong, and I have made a decision to trust my coworkers! Why can’t he see that?”“Did you apologize?”Jon huffed and was silent.“I see.”Both Archivist and salamander sat in silence for a while.“Jon, how much do you know about Leitners?”“Well, I know that Leitner collected them, and each one is emblematic of one of the fears,” Jon sputtered. “I’ve encountered a couple in person, and several through statements. Mostly featuring you, I might add.”“Good. So you know they’re not all leather-bound tomes. They come in all sorts. Trashy paperback romances, children’s books. The places you’d least expect.”Jon snorted in disgust. “I am well acquainted with Leitners masquerading as children’s books, unfortunately.”Gerry saw through the bluster immediately. “Oh. I’m sorry.”Jon shrugged with a practiced indifference. Gerry continued.“You may not like what I have in mind then. I think there’s another Flesh one out there, and I’d like to take it out of circulation. Come over to the tank and I’ll show you.” With Jon perched behind the tank on Gerry’s desk, Gerry waddled over to the knockoff smartphone Jon had bullied Resources into buying for Gerry. Gerry’s webbed fingers plopped across the screen as he pulled up the evidence.“I found it on Ebay actually. Some hobbyist collector doesn’t know what they’ve got.”Jon peered over Gerry at the tiny screen. “Wait… That’s one of those cheap middle-grade paperbacks. The ones with the foil covers?”“You’re thinking of Animorphs. And no, it isn’t that, but it’s the same idea. Marketed for children, all bright colors and snappy writing? But whatever’s in there is much, much worse than an honestly very well written teen novel series.”Jon looked at him pointedly.“Hey! I read them and I turned out fine! I’m an upstanding amphibian!”“Gerry, were you initially searching for Animorphs or for Leitners?”“A guy’s got needs! Anyway, I didn’t just find this to try to burn it. I think it might be the only way for me to get my body back.”
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“Do you remember those Animorphs books? You know, the kid’s books with the colorful but disturbing covers?”Gerry remembered very vividly.It was new year’s day of…. 1997? 1998? And the light filtered through the windshield of his mother’s car as they drove through Northumberland, alone except for miles of road, fields, and storm clouds. Gerry was gnawing on a shitty rest stop pastry his mother had bought him at the gas station. “It’s not Neujahrsgeback, but you’re lucky to have it,” said Mary Keay, in her thin, sickly sweet Swabian, “Only good children get New Year’s pastries, and you haven’t been very good in the last year, have you Gerard?”Gerry slouched lower in the passenger’s seat. He was still 10 cm under the height requirement to sit up front, but Mary didn’t let him sit in the back, because she “wanted to keep an eye on him.” He had the feeling that she had finally caught up to him reading Animorphs in the back seat, and wanted to put an end to it. She said reading fiction would “confuse” him, seeing as all the codices and manuscripts she put in front of him were labelled that way.That was dumb. Gerry could tell that the Animorphs books were fake. For one thing, the Animorphs went to real school, in a place where you could go outside in shorts even in the wintertime, and they had things like These Messages on the telly. He would go out and buy the books with his pocket money, and run back home to dig a hole in the yard to hide them in until he could find a time to read them. And then, if Mary was travelling or she was definitely, definitely asleep, Gerry would dig them up and re-read them as many times as he could, committing them to memory. When he had to get rid of them, he would sandwich them in between the eldritch tomes in his mother’s “burn” pile and offer to light them on fire.This was Helpful. Gerry liked being Helpful. Unfortunately, he was also sloppy. That February, Mary found his brand-new copy of The Change in the burn pile, and pitched an hours-long screaming fit. From then on his lightest reading was terribly dry occult theoretical manuals, and Mary didn’t let him out of her sight again. By the time he was a snotty teen, he’d pretty much sworn off reading forever. But he would make an exception for Animorphs books.