The Typewriter

“Well, look at you,” Alison said, dusting off the black Tolex travel case.

She picked it up by its handle and moved it over toward the round attic window where there was more light. It was certainly heavy.

She set it down on top of a large cardboard moving box, and the cardboard lid nearly caved. She picked it up again and moved it to the floor.

A small metal plate adorned the side of the case. It read Royal.

“Sounds expensive,” Alison said.

It felt expensive. It had to be at least as valuable as a bowling ball.

Alison blew away the remaining dust on the top of the case and flipped the latches. She could smell the profit already. She lifted the lid.

“A typewriter,” Alison said with a sigh.

It was disappointing to say the least, but she wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t the first piece of junk that she had found in her grandmother’s attic. She had been cleaning out the house for weeks now, and the attic was the final space to be cleared. Then the house could be sold.

Most of the furniture was already gone except for a couple of beds, dressers, tables, and chairs for staging. The appliances could stay. The closets had been emptied, and the clothes had been divided between Alison and her mother. Alison’s grandmother had a classic wardrobe, and the classics never go out of style.

Alison flipped the lid of the travel case all the way open. On the lid were several pieces of thick masking tape. Written on them, in her grandmother’s handwriting, were only a few words. DO NOT SELL. DO NOT GIVE AWAY. DO NOT REPAIR.

Well, that sealed the deal. Whatever profit Alison hoped to get out of the vintage-looking typewriter was vanishing before her eyes. The typewriter was now a paperweight, a very heavy paperweight.

Alison took out her cellphone and dialed her mom.

“Hey, Alison,” her mom said when she answered the call. “How’s the cleaning coming along?”

“I’m up in the attic right now,” Alison said. “There’s a typewriter up here. Know anything about it?”

“No, Sweetie. Should I?”

“I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s a Royal typewriter, and it looks old. Might be worth something, but there’s a message inside the typewriter’s case that looks like it was written by Grandma. It just says do not sell, do not give away, do not repair. What do you think we should do about it?”

“Well, I guess we keep it. Does it look broken?”

“No,” Alison said, looking the typewriter over from top to bottom. “It’s not missing any keys or anything. All the letters are there. I guess it could have some internal problems. It’s not like I’m going to be typing on it. I’m guessing that you’re not either.”

“So, whose closet is it going to be living in, then?”

“Mine, I guess,” Alison said, closing the lid of the typewriter case with her free hand. “It’ll end up with me eventually. I might as well resign myself to it now.”

“Fine with me. How many more nights are you going to be spending there?”

“I can probably be wrapped up in two. Then I can load up the van and start the long drive home, my new heavy typewriter friend in tow.”

“Glad to hear it. Maybe I’ll drop by tomorrow morning to help finish up. Then we can start talking to the realtor about getting the house listed. I loved that place, but I don’t think I can love it anymore without your grandmother in it.”

“I feel the same,” Alison said. “Talk to you soon, okay.”

“Okay. Love you. Bye.”

Alison ended the call and slipped the cellphone into her pocket.

She grabbed the travel case handle with both hands, carried it down to the kitchen, and set it on the kitchen table. Her arms were ready to fall off.

She had resolved to toss the old typewriter into a closet and forget about it forever, but her grandmother’s message had caught her interest.

Alison sat down at the table, flipped the latches on the case, and lifted the lid. She honestly didn’t know much about typewriters other than the fact that they had keys like a computer keyboard and that they only used paper.

There was a round knob on the right side of the typewriter that connected to a roller along the top. Alison gave the knob a few turns. To her surprise, a torn scrap of paper came feeding out. She gave the knob a couple more turns, and the scrap of paper came loose. It was wrinkled.

“A paper jam?” Alison said, shrugging.

She smoothed out the wrinkles against the flat surface of the tabletop. The scrap was mostly blank except for a single line of letters printed across it. It read: PL S F X M .

“Definitely looks broken,” Alison said.

If this was supposed to be a coherent sentence, then some of the letters clearly weren’t working. She couldn’t help but wonder whether her grandmother had typed it. Who else would have?

On the countertop in the kitchen was a single sheet of pink paper. It was a mock-up of the flyer they were going to use to sell the house soon enough. It was arguably the only piece of paper left in the house, other than the crumpled scrap that Alison had already pulled out. She slipped the pink sheet of paper into the back of the typewriter, turned the knob on the side, and watched the paper be consumed. A couple more turns and it emerged again, this time coming out the top.

“Looks correct… I guess,” Alison said.

With the paper queued up, Alison went through the entire set of keys, pressing each one in turn. Nearly all of them seemed to work. The only ones that didn’t were the vowels. No matter how hard she pressed the keys, she couldn’t type an A, E, I, O, or U.

When Alison pressed the other keys, little metal arms swung upward to type the letters. For the vowels, no arms swung up at all.

Alison looked down into the recesses of the typewriter to find that there were in fact a few of the little metal arms missing, leaving gaps like missing teeth.

“Missing pieces, huh,” Alison said, scratching the back of her head.

Would restoring missing pieces be the same as fixing the typewriter, she couldn’t help thinking to herself. All she would be doing would be making the typewriter whole again, and what was wrong with that?

She stared down at the random letters on the wrinkled scrap of paper. If it was a message, it must surely be missing its vowels.

She thought long and hard about what it might say, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether the message was for her. She couldn’t help but wonder whether the message was supposed to be PLEASE FIX ME.

Alison had loved her grandmother. She had loved everything about her, and it saddened her to think that the typewriter was just going to sit in a closet and never be used. Not that Alison had a use for a typewriter, but she could find one, even if it was just for addressing envelopes.

Her mind was settled. She was going to have it fixed.

Alison closed the travel case, tossed it into her van, and headed across town. She had found a listing for a typewriter and sewing machine repair shop that could probably help her. She really didn’t want to see the poor machine go to waste.

Alison opened the door to Fred’s Type and Sew, and a bell rang above her head announcing her arrival.

She lugged the heavy typewriter case across the repair shop, passing by display pieces of foot-powered sewing machines and tiered shelves of antique typewriters that looked like they’d be murder on the fingers.

A thin man in a gray houndstooth vest emerged from behind a curtain and slipped on a pair of glasses with thick lenses. He looked about as old as the typewriter that Alison was carrying. A name badge pinned to his vest read Fred Platen.

“Hi there!” Alison said, walking up to the front counter. “I found your shop in the phonebook. I’m Alison. I have an old Royal typewriter that looks like it’s missing a few pieces. I was wondering if you could help me.”

The man smiled. “Sure thing,” he said. “My name’s Fred. If you could just set it up on the counter here, we can have a look at it.”

Alison hoisted the typewriter case onto the counter and gave it a spin so that the handle faced toward Fred. “It’s all yours,” she said. “I noticed that a few of the little metal arms that strike the paper were missing. I don’t actually know what they’re called.”

“Typebars,” Fred said, “but you don’t necessarily need to know that to enjoy a good typewriter.” He smiled again.

“Well, it’s missing a few typebars. It seems to be only the vowels.”

“Let’s have a look then,” Fred said, flipping the latches and lifting the lid of the case. “Well, here’s a problem.” He turned the case around and pointed at the rows of masking tape inside the lid that read DO NOT SELL. DO NOT GIVE AWAY. DO NOT REPAIR.

“Oh, that” Alison said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. “Don’t worry about it. The typewriter belonged to my grandmother, but she passed. I don’t think of this as repairing it. It’s more like restoring it.”

“Fair enough,” Fred said.

“See the paper in there,” Alison said, pointing at the pink sheet still fed into the typewriter. “All the letters but the vowels.”

Fred pressed his face in close to the typebar cavity of the typewriter. “Yup. Just missing a few typebars. Luckily, Royals like this are a dime a dozen, and I’ve got boxes full of old typebars that I’ve picked-up over the years. If you’d like to wait, I can get this old beauty back into working shape in no time.”

“Sure thing,” Alison said. “That’d be great.”

No more than twenty minutes later and Fred was back with the typewriter cradled in his arms. A new sheet of crisp white paper had been fed into its roller. “Good as new,” he said. “I tested it in the back, and A, E, I, O, and U are all accounted for.”

“Thanks so much,” Alison said. “What do I owe you?”

“Free of charge,” Fred said.

“Really, why?”

“This used to belong to Gladys Weaver.”

“Gladys Weaver was my grandmother. How did you know it belonged to her?”

“Well, there’s a label on the bottom of the typewriter that says, if found, to return it to Gladys Weaver. It’s even got a phone number on there.”

“Oh, I see. Did you know her?”

“Not really," Fred said, shaking his head. "She brought in a typewriter quite a few years back. She was having issues with it. She said it was typing on its own. You don’t forget a thing like that. I told her that was impossible because this is a manual typewriter. It doesn’t type without fingers pushing the keys. I suppose she thought it had some sort of wind-up gears like a watch. I wish I could have done more for her. I didn’t even put a piece of paper in it at the time, but there wasn’t anything to fix. Generally, it’s my job to keep typewriters typing, not stop them from typing.”

“I wonder what she was using the typewriter for.”

“Whatever it was, she must have been typing pretty hard to lose that many typebars. Looked almost like they were broken off.”

“Broken off? Like somebody pried them out?”

“Hard to think that someone would willfully break them off. Certainly, not on a gem like this one. But weirder things have happened. Nobody seems to value the classics anymore.”

“Well, thank you,” Alison said.

Fred reached beneath the counter and pulled out a few additional sheets of white paper. They matched the one that he had already loaded into the typewriter. “Here, take these,” he said. “See if you like them.”

“Uh, thank you,” Alison said, taking the sheets.

“And, if you really want to thank me, and you really like the paper, come back and I’ll sell you some more. I can get you a great deal.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alison said.

By the time Alison returned to her grandmother’s house, the sun had gone down, and she was exhausted. She hauled the typewriter into the kitchen once again, flipped the latches, and opened the lid. It really was a beautiful thing. She lifted the typewriter and set it flat on the kitchen table. Maybe she’d leave it out on the table for the open house. At a minimum, it was a conversation piece.

Alison downed some leftovers from the refrigerator, took a quick shower, and headed off to bed. She really was exhausted, and the work would continue tomorrow. Maybe her mom would drop by. That’s be nice.

For the weeks that she spent cleaning-out her grandmother’s house, Alison never slept in her grandmother’s room at the end of the hall. It was a little to spooky for her. Instead, she slept in her mother’s childhood bedroom. The first night that she spent in the bedroom, it was dressed wall-to-wall with her mother’s childhood possessions. She had even found an old photo album. Now, weeks into the clean-out, there was only a bed, a dresser, and a mirror. At least there were still sheets, a pillow, and a couple of warm blankets for comfort.

Alison closed her eyes, pulled the blankets up to her chin, and was out in an instant.

She awoke to the sound of typing.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

“Am I dreaming?” Alison mumbled to herself. “Maybe?”

She listened again for the sounds, but there was only silence. She could have sworn that she heard typing. She pulled the blankets all the way up and over her head and went back to sleep.

Alison opened her eyes, awake again. The sound of typing was echoing down the hall.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

It wasn’t a dream. The sound was real.

Alison shrugged off the blankets, kicked out her legs, and sat up on the edge of the bed. She rubbed at her eyes. She wasn’t dreaming. She could still hear the sound.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

Alison stood up, walked over to the bedroom door, and pressed her ear against it.

The sound had stopped. It was pure silence.

She turned the knob, opened the door slowly without a creak, and looked down the hallway toward the kitchen. The house was dark except for a few hints of light coming from a window down the hall in her grandmother’s bedroom and an arc of light coming from the other end of the hall, near the kitchen.

Alison tiptoed down the hallway and peered around the corner. Moonlight streamed in through the kitchen window. There was nothing there and no one there. It was only the typewriter on the table and the sheets of paper that Fred had given her.

She approached the table cautiously.

She picked up the sheets of paper and fanned them out on the table. There were three.

She walked around to the head of the table and looked at the typewriter. There was a message typed out on the paper.

Alison woke up to the sound of typing.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

It wasn’t a dream. The sound was real.

She slid out of bed and walked over to the door. She pressed her ear against it but couldn’t hear a sound. It was silence.

Alison opened the door, walked down the hallway, and passed into the kitchen.

Moonlight illuminated the kitchen table. Two sheets of paper were fanned out across it.

Two? Alison thought.

She stepped around to the head of the table and looked down at the typewriter. There was a message typed out on the paper.

Alison woke to the sound of typing.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

She was back in her bed. Something wasn’t right here.

“What the hell am I doing here?” Alison said. “I could have sworn I was…”

She could hear the pounding of keys coming from down the hall.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

She was starting to remember, but not really. She remembered waking up to the sound of a typewriter. Once. Twice. Three times, maybe? She remembered walking up to the typewriter. She remembered that a message had been written. She didn’t remember anything else. Only sleep.

What was the typewriter doing to her?

Alison sat up in bed, pushed her back against the headboard, and tucked her knees in. She pulled the blankets up to her chin and sat there shaking.

It was only a moment before she noticed a crinkling sound coming from beneath her. She reached beneath the pillow that she was sitting on and pulled out two crumpled white sheets of paper. Each had typing on them.

The first sheet of paper read: UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR.

The second sheet of paper read: CALL YOUR MOTHER OVER TO THE HOUSE. TELL HER IT’S AN EMERGENCY. THROW THE PHONE AWAY.

She dropped the papers to the floor.

Alison looked over toward the dresser where she typically plugged-in her phone to charge while she slept. It was missing, and the charging cable was left dangling off the edge of the dresser. What did she do with it?

Alison pushed off the blankets and sat upright. She had to find her phone. She had to call her mother. All the other phones in the house were already packed away.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

The typewriter was going again.

Alison hopped off the bed and scrambled over to the bedroom door. She flung it open and ran down the hall. She turned the corner to find her mother in the kitchen.

There was now only a single sheet of paper on the table.

The typewriter was still typing.

“What’s the emergency, Alison?” her mother said. “And what’s with the typewriter?”

The typing stopped.

Alison’s mother leaned over to see what the typewriter had written.

Her eyes glazed over in an instant. No iris. No pupil. Only pure white emptiness.

Alison raced over to the table, ripped the sheet of paper from the typewriter, and crumpled it up in her hands. She didn’t dare look at it.

Alison’s mother moved over to the counter and pulled a chef’s knife from the block.

The crumpled paper ball fell to the floor as Alison reached out to stop her mother’s arm as it swung down toward her mother’s stomach.

The knife’s tip ripped through her mother’s coat and sank down into her abdomen.

Alison fought with all her strength to keep the knife from going any deeper.

For nearly a minute, Alison’s mother struggled against her. And then she didn’t.

For no reason, and unprovoked, the knife simply fell from her mother’s hand and clattered down onto the tile floor.

Alison looked into her mother’s eyes. The glaze was gone.

“Mom!” Alison shouted. “Mom! Are you okay?”

Her mother’s hands and coat were red with blood.

Alison’s own hands were stained.

“What happened?” her mother said, clutching at the blood stain on her coat.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” Alison said.

Her mother nodded but said no words.

Alison wrapped her arm around her mother’s waist and started walking her toward the front door.

The front door was unlocked, and Alison turned the knob and swung it open. It was dark outside, but the streetlights were on.

She helped her mother down the concrete porch step, across the lawn, and over to the passenger side of the van.

“Dammit, my keys!” Alison said. She had forgot them inside the house, and she couldn’t just leave her mother standing there by herself.

Alison walked her mother around to the driver’s side of the car and sat her down on the cinderblock fence that divided the properties.

“Stay here, Mom,” Alison said. “Stay here and stay awake.”

Her mother nodded. Her eyes weren’t glazed anymore, but they were certainly in shock.

Alison ran back around the front of the van and headed for the porch. Sitting on the concrete slab was a pink sheet of paper that hadn't been there a minute ago. She recognized it immediately. It was the pink flyer for the house listing. She had used it to test the typewriter. It was still in the typewriter when she took it to Fred Platen. He had never given it back to her. It had the house’s address on it.

At the top of the pink page was the string of letters that she had typed, the set that was missing the vowels.

Further down the page was more typing. It was typing that hadn’t been there before. It read: GO TO THE HOUSE OF GLADYS WEAVER TONIGHT. FIND THE TYPEWRITER THERE. TAKE IT INTO THE BACK BEDROOM. BRING A WEAPON.

Alison stepped over the pink sheet of paper and through the front doorway.

She tiptoed through the living room and peered into the kitchen. The typewriter was gone from the table. The final sheet of white paper was also missing.

And yet, she could hear it.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

The sound was coming from down the hall.

Alison stepped over to the hallway and stared straight down its length.

At the end of the hallway was her grandmother’s bedroom and her grandmother’s bed silhouetted there in the moonlight.

Fred Platen sat on the foot of the bed, and the typewriter sat on his lap. A crisp piece of white paper had been fed into it.

In his left hand were Alison’s keys. In his right hand was an axe.

His eyes were glazed over.