Be Quiet

“Shhh! For the last time, be quiet!”

Jackson and Nora immediately stopped giggling as Mrs. Harrison eyed them up and down, an irritated look on her face. This was the fifth time today she had told them to be quiet, and the pair were starting to get annoying.

“Listen, you two,” Mrs. Harrison started as she walked toward them. “-if you don’t stop with all that noise, I’m going to have you leave for the rest of the day,” Mrs. Harrison told them in a serious tone.

They eyed her sympathetically, and then Nora spoke. “Mrs. Harrison, we’re so sorry, we won’t make as much noise anymore,” she told the older woman in her most convincing voice. Mrs. Harrison accepted this apology and went back to sorting the books on shelves.

As soon as she was finished sorting, Mrs. Harrison began to hear Jackson and Nora’s giggling again. Sighing to herself, she began to walk in their direction, preparing to ask the two to leave. It would be a letdown for them, sure, but other people in the library needed to be able to focus. “Okay, guys, you keep making noise, so you’re going to have to- “

Mrs. Harrison stopped. The pair weren’t in their seats, where she had left them. They were gone just as quickly as she had gotten back to her desk.

Eh, they probably left, Mrs. Harrison thought to herself as she walked back to her seat. When she sat down, however, she stopped in her tracks. There was giggling, again.

Mrs. Harrison turned around, and she said sternly but calmly, “Alright, children, this isn’t funny. Make noise one more time and I call your parents to come get you.” Despite this threat, Jackson and Nora’s giggling continued to echo through the air.

Mrs. Harrison was starting to get angry, and, frankly, a little frightened. “Stop this madness at once!” she yelled, literally putting her foot down. Everyone in the library stopped what they were doing and turned to face her, confused as to why this senile woman was yelling at nothing.

The giggling kept going. Mrs. Harrison, scared and confused, turned to one girl. “Do you hear that?” she asked. The girl nodded no. Mrs. Harrison asked another child, who nodded no. Everyone else that she asked also answered no, which only freaked out Mrs. Harrison even more. What in gods name is happening, she questioned.

The giggling soon transitioned into boisterous laughter, which only made poor Mrs. Harrison freeze in her tracks. There was no way two children could be laughing that loud, even if the library was dead silent. She tried to ignore the laughter and focused on doing menial tasks, like sorting more books and cleaning up tables. The laughter did not stop.

At one point, Maya, a frequent library guest, asked Mrs. Harrison if she was okay. She responded with a dull “yes,” which didn’t convince Maya. However, she didn’t want to press the issue further, and so Maya left the library.

At closing time, two hours later, the laughing had still not ceased. Mrs. Harrison became sick of the constant loud noises she was hearing. The library was empty, so she could now question who was making the noises without worried looks from library-goers.

“Who is making those incessant noises?!” No answer, just persistent giggling. Mrs. Harrison yelled again.

“You heard me! WHO IS MAKING THOSE NOISES?!”

Suddenly, the library went dead silent. The laughter had stopped. Mrs. Harrison sighed in relief, grateful that the noise was no more. Finishing her cleanup before leaving, she began to pack her things. Suddenly, before she could finish, there it was.

A chant. A sentence being repeated, constantly, in hushed tones. It sounded like a nursery rhyme.

Books and books and rows of books. There’s so many, take a quick look!

Over, and over, and over again. Mrs. Harrison stopped.

And then she screamed. 

She screamed and screamed and screamed even more and covered her ears to block out that god-awful rhyme. The chanting became louder, and louder, and louder, until Mrs. Harrison could no longer hear herself scream. Books and books and rows of books. There’s so many, take a quick look! 

Jackson and Nora had to have been performing some sort of cruel joke on the old woman. That had to be the only explanation, Mrs. Harrison realized. Pulling herself together, she got up and tried to find the source of the chant. It wasn’t in the storage closet, or in the office, or behind the shelves.

The archive. That’s where it was coming from.

Mrs. Harrison walked nervously toward the archive, grabbing a wooden pole from the side of one shelf. The chanting was drastically getting louder. Books and books and rows of books. There’s so many, take a quick look!

Turning the knob of the old door and pushing it open, Mrs. Harrison slowly walked through the dusty rows of the library archive. This room looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Decades. It was older than Mrs. Harrison herself, who was well into her seventies.

Books and books and rows of books. There’s so many, take a quick look! At this point, the chant was so loud that Mrs. Harrison had difficulty pinpointing an exact location of the source. Books and books and rows of books. There’s so many, take a quick look! She was getting close, that’s all she knew. Stick in hand, she continued walking through the room.

Books and books and rows of books. There’s so many, take a quick-

Abruptly, the chanting stopped. And then it started again, but moved slowly, word by word.

Books. and books. and rows. of books. There’s. so many. take a quick. Look. Somehow, this was more chilling than before.

“Shhh! For the last time, be quiet!” Jackson and Nora’s voices began to mock what Mrs. Harrison had said earlier. These voices sounded more authentic, and less like they were being projected from a sound system.

“Shhh! For the last time, be quiet! Shhh! For the last time, be quiet! Shhh! For the last time, be quiet!” And then there was a crash, and a bang, and a frightened Mrs. Harrison turned around.

She screamed. As the mocking stopped echoing through the archive room, Jackson’s laughter could be heard. Mrs. Harrison’s screaming stopped.

“That’s what happens when you aren’t quiet,” Nora said as the library became silent. The pair no longer made the wretched noises, and in the depths of the archive room lay poor Mrs. Harrison’s limp body.