Panic! at the Library.

 Our school is not really like other schools. We have all kinds of things in the building other than the school which we pass every day but are not allowed to use. Imagine walking by a swimming pool every day knowing that you could not swim in it. To enter the building, you had to walk by security, and I had long since made friends with those guys. Then down the long hall past the restaurant and then the pool. Up on the second floor you could hear the exercise machines and the people using them. Luckily, the smell of the over chlorinated pool usually masked the smell of them. When you get to the secondary building to the left there is a staircase that leads up into the school area, the way down leads to the library. To the right stood the vending machines and the entrance to the squash courts (also unusable for us lowly students). Past the courts we had a massive gym. We had change rooms with showers though no one ever actually had the time to take one. This was my prison for 5 days of the week, and to escape from the bullies and jerks I found every nook and cranny of the place. The best was the library of course. It was divided into four sections, The kids’ section with cushions and colorful hardcover books with large print and happy looking characters. There was the young adult section, filled with reference books on all the different subjects and a few shelves of fiction thrown in. There was a computer lab and a stairwell that led down into the library basement. This is where they kept the good stuff. Things that were rare, or fragile. Books not meant for high school kids.

               That day I was volunteering after school. I had found that measure of safety, after being chased into the library by a group of the mean girls one day after class. The librarian, a short kindly woman with blond close-cropped hair and pale blue eyes, took pity on me and put me to work. She told me that I could come anytime to escape and that there would always be something for me to do, so I began to spend my lunches and after school activity time in the library. I was particularly good at cleaning, I liked to polish things, dust things, organize things. One day she had me sort out a box of books, they were old and dusty and needed a good seeing to, before being filed away in the basement. I eagerly took on the task knowing that as a reward she would let me down there to see it for myself. Most of the other kids did not even know the library had a basement, and I was about to go explore. She led me down the stairs and into the large basement room, at the back a smaller door sat half hidden behind a row of boxes. She moved those out of the way and opened the door with a key which she had strung around her neck. Inside there was a work table and chair, a bookshelf with more boxes and rows of ancient looking books. A tiny window let in some light, but the air felt dusty and stale.

               “You can work in here,” she said “its not the biggest room I know but it has the perfect conditions for the books. They are incredibly old, and you will need to be exceedingly careful.” She pat my shoulder and I sad down at the desk. She put a stack of books before me and left me to my task.” I will come get you when I’m leaving for the evening, ok?” and I nodded already reaching for the first book on the pile.

               It took longer than expected to sort out the books and by the time I was finished I noticed the light had changed. The small window in the upper left of the room told me it was getting dark outside, and I panicked a little. I piled the books neatly in the corner and tried the door. It was locked.

               “Great” I said to myself as I began to bang on the door. I pounded, knocked, kicked, yelling to be let out but no one came. Panic gripped tighter and I gulped air, feeling trapped and claustrophobic. I pushed the chair up against the wall and tried the window. It was sealed, no latch or lock just one pane of glass barring my way to freedom. I slid down to the ground and had a good cry. Then I thought, my parents will notice I am not home. They will come looking for me and then I will be ok. Then I remembered that it was Friday, and they were not going to be in town tonight. I thought about my brother but realized that he wouldn’t be home either. ‘when the cats are away the mice will play” as my English teacher liked to say. There was no getting around it. I would have to spend the night, alone, in the library basement.

               I was too tired to cry anymore, and my mouth felt dry and parched. I reached for my backpack and pulled my empty lunch bag. I searched for anything edible and came up with an old granola bar, left over from my mothers attempts at ‘healthy eating’, a crumb filled bag of chips, and what was left in my water bottle. Which was not much. I took a sip of the warm, tepid water and tried to hold it in my mouth for as long as I could without swallowing. The way I had seen them do it on TV when people tried to conserve water for as long as possible. I resisted the urge to gulp it all down in one go.

               After the panic subsided and I had eaten my meager meal, I found myself getting bored. I rummaged through my bag and realized that I had already returned my library books. They sat in the basket upstairs, waiting to be sorted and returned. I sighed with disappointment. How much easier this would be with some decent entertainment. I checked my phone. No service, and the battery was about to die.

               “Typical” I muttered under my breath as I shoved it back into my backpack. I looked around the room and spotted the old books I had spent the afternoon cleaning. They were in some foreign language I couldn’t understand but I flipped through the top one anyway. Some of the engravings were amazing and for a while I lost myself in the strange occult looking imagery. On one turn of the page, I gave myself a nasty papercut. Before I knew it a drop of blood fell to the page and disappeared. I stuck the finger in my mouth, trying to stop the bleeding or at the very least keep it off the books. I looked for the red stain among the pages but couldn’t find it. 

               “That’s weird” I thought as I pulled my finger from my mouth. It looked red and puckered and immediately another drop of blood welled up. This time out of sheer curiosity I let the drop fall onto the page. It made contact and just like the last drop, disappeared. I blinked and shook my head; this was too weird. I had to be sure, so I let one final drop fall from my aching finger. It fell, hit the page and was gone. I slammed the book shut, and gingerly placed it back on the table. I was losing my mind I thought, as I curled up on top of the worktable and tried to get some sleep.

               Sleep. Would. Not. Come. I lay awake, thoughts swirling through my mind a mile a minute as I played the day out in my mind. Why had the librarian locked me in? I wondered. She had known that I was down here, she had sent me here herself. Only she and the maintenance man had the key as far as I knew, and shouldn’t he have come to check by now? I checked my phone again, but it was dead. Outside the tiny window the moon hung, large and pale nestled in her cloudy nightgown. I yawned but could not keep my eyes closed. Somewhere far away the town clock began to chime midnight.

               A faint glow began to emanate from the pile of books in the corner. Curious I reached towards them and took up the same book as before. I took a deep breath mentally preparing myself for the weirdness. I opened the cover, and the glow became brighter, bathing the room in a strange greenish atmosphere. On the page the words were beginning to swim and run together, As I watched transfixed, they began to reshape themselves into English. I could read them I realized as I gazed down at the page.

               I felt a hand on my shoulder and startled awake. The maintenance man peered down at me with concern and a hint of annoyance in his eyes. I blinked up at him, not quite comprehending. Outside the sun was shining, and the birds sang in the trees. I yawned and stretched, the book falling from my lap as I did so.

               “You should not be here while the library is closed” he said sternly to me. “How did you get in here?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously. “On a Saturday no less” he added as an afterthought.

               “I got locked in.” I said sheepishly. “I was volunteering, and I guess the librarian forgot about me” He shook his head sadly. And pat my shoulder.

               “Oh, that poor woman,” he said “She shouldn’t have done that to you.” He gestured for me to pick up my backpack and I did so. “I suppose she wasn’t in her right mind” he added quietly.

               “Did something happen?” I ask. Sensing that I was ignorant of something. He shook his head again and ushered me out of the library basement. He told me to close my eyes as we walked past the main entrance of the library and into the main building. He led me outside through the back door. Outside flashing red and blue lights told me that I had indeed missed something.

               “What happened?” I asked again but the maintenance man refused to tell me. He walked me to the bus stop and left me waiting for a bus.

               “My daughter is there now and she just texted me, saying that the librarian hung herself. Right there in the library” one on the women said, sitting beside her friend on the bench. I lingered at the edge of the shelter trying to look like I was not eavesdropping.

               “That’s terrible!” replied her friend.” Poor woman, was there a history of mental imbalance?”

               “That’s the thing, she was always so happy and normal,” her phone dinged again and after a pause she continued “Oh my god! “She exclaimed “Now they are saying they uncovered a whole secret room in the basement. Full of occult books, and strange tools. There was a large bloody pentagram under her when they found her. Blood everywhere.” The shorter woman clucked disapprovingly.

               “You just never know with people, do you?”

               The bus arrived and I hopped on in a daze. I flashed my pass and made my way to the very back of the bus. I rummaged through my back for a Kleenex but found the old book instead. It looked newer for some reason, in better shape. I examined it, and for the first time read the title.

               “Body switching for dummies” It read boldly along the front cover. I opened it, skimmed through the pages until I found the page I had bled on the night before. At the top, written in a spidery hand read the line,

 “For protection just add three drops of blood.”