And So The Story Grows

The book sits in the dusty basement of the abandoned house. It has sat there for 20 years. It is hungry, but it can wait. It will wait. Someone will come. Someone always does, in the end. Like the girl, 7 years old, who had first opened its deceptively-blank cover. She was a small meal, little more than a snack. They never found her body, although the book knew where it was. Or like the teenage boy, the one who almost escaped. He didn't read the last chapter, so the book only got part of him. At least they found his body, even if they couldn't tell. Too much scarring, the book supposed. Or like one of the myriad others trapped within its pages, all part of the growing story, which grows larger with each meal.
A creaking interrupts the book's thoughts. The cellar door slowly opens, casting a beam of light onto the middle of the floor, and onto the book. It has waited long enough. It is hungry. It is ready to feed. And someone has come. As a pair of hands pick it up and unfold its cover, the book latches onto the fresh, vibrant soul and begins to draw it into itself. And so the story grows...