The Night Librarian

I’m the night librarian. My shift starts after everyone else has gone home. My job is to re-shelve all the books, periodicals, electronic collections. I also have to put out the new magazines, remove the old, outdated material, get the interlibrary transfers ready, and send out notices about reserved items that have arrived — you know, library stuff.

My library is the main branch in the city. It’s not so old — not like the Darby Free Library in Pennsylvania that's been operating since 1743. Nor is it as grand as the main library in New York City, nor do we have anything as fantastical as their lions — Patience and Fortitude — to guard our front doors. But it has the gravitas befitting the main library branch. 

The library is built in the downtown core, on a block that was first settled way back in the 1840s. It’s on Main Street and is part of Old Town, the original settlement. The first buildings built on this block were commercial businesses — a general store, a haberdashery, a barber shop, a mortuary, and a stable, all with lodging above. The buildings went through different iterations as owners and uses changed, until the fire of 1907 wiped out all of the buildings for five square blocks. Dozens of lives were lost, and all the buildings were a total loss. The conflagration consumed everything in its path. 

Construction on the library began in 1908 and finished in 1911. One hundred and ten years ago it opened to the public. 

The city built a very fine library, much in the style of public buildings of the time — marble facade, ionic columns “as wide as a man’s shoulders” as it was described in newspapers of the day. A beautiful example of Beaux-Arts architecture, reflective of the economic optimism of the time. 

I have worked here for twelve years, always as the night librarian. It’s fairly large library, but not big enough that the library board would hire another night librarian, but big enough to keep me busy all night long. I love the serenity and the peacefulness in the early hours of the morning. That is, until it wasn’t serene or peaceful anymore.

The first time something happened, it was a Monday, just like any other Monday. I was working hard to play catch up. The library does have a weekend night librarian, but he’s not very good or very efficient, or very fast, so Mondays are my busy night. I was in the children’s section on the main floor, putting away books, straightening up the area, when I saw a slight movement from the corner of my eye. It’s an old building. We have a pretty ironclad rodent abatement program, but sometimes one of the little buggers gets in. You know the old saying, if you see one mouse, there are a dozen you don’t see. So, I walked towards the movement and looked down the aisle. Empty. But there was a copy of Horatio Alger’s, Ragged Duck laying on the carpet. I had straightened this aisle earlier in the evening and all the books had been back on their shelves. I picked up the book, and looked at it. It was a very old copy -- I didn’t think that it was part of our current collection. 

Another slight movement at the end of the aisle caught my eye. I walked to the end of the aisle, scanning left and right. Nothing. But, again, my peripheral vision caught movement, a couple of rows over. I headed towards the back of the library. When I got to the back wall, I saw that the door to the basement was open. It should not have been open. The first thing I do every night is make sure that the library is empty and all the doors and windows are locked. I have no reason to go to the basement, ever, so that door is always locked while I’m working. Now it was slightly ajar.

I’m not easily shaken. But I’m not stupid, either. In every scary movie ever made when someone goes to the basement, bad things happen. I stepped forward, grabbed the door, and locked it from the inside. If there was someone or something in the basement, it was going to stay there.

I called the police, not nine-one-one, but the general number and asked for officers to come and check the basement for … what? A mouse? A prowler? A …? I settled on an unknown person. The police arrived, and checked the basement. Empty. They asked me a number of questions.

— Was I sure that I hadn’t left the door open? 

— Could it have been another employee who left the door open?

— Maybe I had missed locking the door and it had been open the entire time?

Yes, no, and no.

The police said that I did the right thing, blah, blah, blah, but I knew they thought that I was over-reacting. I was embarrassed having called out the Calvary, but still a bit uneasy.

That was Monday. 

Then it happened again on Wednesday. It was about two in the morning, and I was up in the reference department, on the third floor. I heard a thump. I was alone in the library. There should not have been any thumps. 

I called my brother Donovan. I’d told him about the last time, and he said to call him if it happened again, so I did.

He came right over, and I met him at the front door. We walked back up to the third floor where I had been working. There was a pile of books on the floor that had not been there when I had gone to let Donovan in. I went over and looked at them. They were very old reference materials, the type of books we keep in Special Collections. 

“These were not here when I called you,” I said. We looked at each other.

“Let’s walk through the library, and check it out,” said Donovan. “You lead the way.”

The third floor is the top floor that’s open to the public. There was only attic storage above us. And the door is always locked.

“Should we check up there?” I asked.

Donovan shrugged and nodded. “Why not?”

I just want to mention that I feel the same way about attics as I do basements. Bad things happen in attics at night. 

I pulled out my keys and unlocked the door. The stairway was dark, only illuminated by the red EXIT sign and the light leaking in from the third floor access door. The light switch for the space was at the top of the stairs. We climbed up. I flipped the switches and the banks of humming florescent lights stuttered to life. We looked around. 

Very few renovations had been done up here since 1911. It was still one cavernous room, with the same footprint as the floors below it, except for the peaked roof, and only one small window in a dormer at the far end of the room. I rarely came up here unless it was to find some obscure tome that someone has requested. There were rows and rows of metal library shelves that held our non-circulating collections. They filled the entire middle of the room. Along the walls were all iterations of filing cabinets, from the 1910s right up to the present. All were filled, I knew, with reference material, most of which was now available online. 

We slowly walked along the edge of the room, looking down each of the aisles. Nothing was amiss. When we reached the end of the room, the lights suddenly flickered and went out. Of course they did. I hate attics.

Donovan and I both pulled out our phones, turning on our flashlight apps, and slowly shone the lights around the room. I could see the light coming in from the door at the far end of the room, so the lights were only off up here. My heart was pounding.

“Turn the lights back on! NOW!” Donovan shouted into the darkness.

I heard a giggle.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered to Donovan. I was so scared, I thought I was going to vomit.

I heard him swallow. “Yeah.”

We stood there rooted to the spot. Suddenly the lights buzzed back on, and we were both momentarily blinded. We heard light footsteps running down the stairs.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, moving towards the door at the other end of the room.

I wouldn’t say that we ran out of there, but we did walk very, very quickly. I slapped the light switches off, and we tore down the stairs.

My heart was still pounding in my throat, and my hands were shaking when I tried to re-lock the attic door.

I looked at Donovan. He looked like I felt. He was as pale as the pages of one of the books on the shelves. 

He looked at me. “Did you hear the footsteps?”

“Yup.”

He blew out a loud breath. “Should we go see — you know, look around.”

“Nope.”

“Okay.”

Donovan stayed with me the rest of the night until it was time to go home. 

He insisted on coming to work with me on Tuesday. We arrived at eleven o’clock and left at seven the next morning, with nary a giggle or a thump. The same with Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.   

I went into work today, Monday, alone. I'm sure Donovan has better things to do than babysit his sister. It was a normal shift. Until it wasn’t. It was about three-thirty in the morning, and I was at the reception desk getting the interlibrary transfers ready, when there was a crash behind me that made me scream and jump up. I ran for the front door, getting ready to bolt into the night if I had to. 

Okay, I admit that I’m not as steady as I used to be, not any more. Every little sound makes me jump. But this was no little sound. It sounded like the re-shelving cart being smashed into a wall. I was petrified. I immediately phoned Donovan. He was on his way.

***********

I woke up coughing. I opened my eyes and looked up at the sky. I was outside. How had I gotten outside?

“Thank God. You’re awake.” Donovan was squatting beside me on the lawn. He held my hand and gave it a little squeeze. 

I was on the the front lawn of the library. I tried to get up, but my head reeled, and my body ached. What had happened to me? 

Then I smelled it. Smoke. I raised myself up on my elbows, and looked at the library. There was smoke coming out of the front door.

Oh no, no, no, no. Not the library! 

Then I heard the fire engine sirens getting closer and closer.

I was starting to panic. “Donovan, what happened?” 

“I came right over when you called me, but you weren’t at the front door, and you didn’t answer your phone, so I started to get worried. I called nine-one-one, and I told them that you thought that someone was in the library with you.” He looked at me, straight in the eye. “It was a person, right? You’ll tell them it was a person, not, right?”

I nodded. I understood what he was trying to tell me. Person, not ghost, and the police will try to find who did it. Ghost not person, and we’d be branded crazy.

“Anyway, I saw the smoke coming from the back of the library. I broke the window, ran in, and found you.” He paused, and looked at me. “In the basement.”

“In the basement?” My head pounded. “I never go in the basement. I hate it down there.”

“Yeah, well, that’s where I found you. I dragged you out and called nine-one-one again for fire.”

We watched the firefighters run into the building, but come out after a few minutes, emergency over.

“The fire’s out?”

“Yeah, more or less. Because the fire was in the basement, the sprinklers only went off down there. No where else.” That explained why we both were wet.

He kept looking at me. I knew he wanted to say something else, but it was like he was frightened.

“What?” I said.

“Uh … Here.” He put his phone on selfie mode, and handed it to me. I gasped.

My hair was completely white. When I had left the house this morning my hair was dark brown, with a smattering of grey. Now it was snow white. How?

I looked up at him. “What happened to me?” I stammered.

“I don’t know. When I found you unconscious, it was like that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tess, when I found you in the basement, you weren’t alone. There was someone, something else down there. I don’t know what or who it was, but it was angry, and wouldn’t let me near you. I started the fire.” He paused, shamefaced. “It was the only way to get you out. I’m sorry.”

Before I could say anything more, a man and a woman came toward us, both with badges on lanyards around their necks. Police.

“Hello. Are you the ones who called in the fire?”

I stood up, a bit wobbly. We both nodded. “I’m Tess Winston, I’m the night librarian. This is my brother Donovan Winston.”

The woman took out a notebook and wrote our names in it. 

“I’m Detective Terry Waits and this is my partner Carlos Ito.” She nodded at her partner.. “Can you tell us what happened?”

I told them what I remembered. Donovan took over explaining what happened after he had arrived. They asked him questions.

— No, he didn’t see the person clearly, only saw someone running away in the smoke.

— No, he wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman.

— Yes, he was sure there was someone in the basement.

— Yes the fire was burning when he arrived.

“Are there security cameras in the library?” Detective Ito asked me.

I nodded.

“The fire’s out. Why don’t we go inside, and you can show us the recordings?”

The four of us headed for the front door. The inside didn’t look too bad. There were a number of wet footprints leading to the basement door at the back of the library, but the first floor was pretty unscathed. I was so thankful the fire hadn’t been up in the stacks. 

I settled into my desk at the reception desk, and pulled up the feed. 

“We have multiple cameras on each floor, except the basement and the attic. Which ones do you want to see?”

Detective Waits looked at the grid on the screen showing all the cameras in the library.

“How about we start when you arrived for work?”

We watched me come in and do my security check.

“Hey!” said Ito. “What happened to your hair.”

I just shrugged. "I don’t know.” 

Both detectives looked at me suspiciously, like I spent my shift dying my hair. They let it drop.

Then we watched me walk around the library doing my work. At three twenty-seven a.m., the tape showed me jumping up, my hands flying to my mouth. There’s no sound but it was obvious I screamed.

“Stop it there.” I complied. “Now back it up a bit, and switch to the camera where the library cart was.”

I switched cameras to the back hall, near the basement door. The cart came sailing up the hall, and was slammed into the end of one of the aisles. But the cart was moving by itself. No one was pushing it. Plus we could see the basement door — it was open.

I stopped the camera, freezing it there.

“You saw me make sure it was locked.” Both detectives nodded.

“Go back to you in the first camera, and play it forward.”

We watched as I jumped up and ran to the front door. We watched as I made the call to Donovan. Then the really weird started.

I was standing looking out the door, my back to the hall. Then I was being dragged backwards down the hall. I was screaming, struggling. I was thrown against the wall. I was grabbed by the hair and dragged down the hall. I was thrown into the basement door opening, disappearing from sight. Only me. No one else. It was like I was being thrown around by an invisible hand. I stopped the playback. I thought I was going to be sick.

“What the hell happened to you?” Ito asked.

I looked at him. “I have no idea. The last thing I remember is making the call to Donovan.”

I continued to play the recording, split screen showing the front door and the basement door. There was Donovan banging on the door, calling my phone, breaking the glass, running down the hall. Smoke rising in the hall. Donovan struggling with me on his shoulder. Donovan dragging me outside. The fire department arriving. I stopped the recording, and turned to look at the detectives, hoping for some answers.

*****

Ito and Waits sent the Winstons to the hospital to have Tess checked out. both detectives sat in front of Tess’s computer.

“That was messed up,” said Ito.

“Yeah. And her hair,” said Waits.

“That can’t happen.”

“Nope.”

“Then WTF?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s look at the security tapes again.”

Just as he said that, the lights flickered and went out, plunging the entire library into darkness. The computer started to spark and sputter. A blue light filled the space, sucking the air out of the room. Then the lights came back on again. Ito and Waits looked at each other. 

“Let’s do it at the station, tomorrow, during the day,” said Ito.

“I hear ya,” said Waits.

They both got up, and left the building.