Noise Below

Now that everyone has left the fun can begin!  

“Why did we have to hide out in the bathroom though?” asked Monica 

“Because we would get kicked out for being here after hours, duh.” I replied 

We came out of the bathroom and the library looked totally different at night than it did in the day time. It was dark and spooky. All the lights were off the book stands looked like something else. Marsha said they looked like ghosts and made us all scream.  

We went looking around for the lights, but when we turned them on the whole library lit up and we couldn’t have that because what if someone went by and saw the lights on? They would call the librarian or the cops and we would be in big trouble.  

We walked all around the library seeing what we could do now that we can’t do during usual library times. Marsha said we should go upstairs to see what all is up there, but I was so unsure because who knows what is stored in an upstairs library.  

All of us went to the top of the stairs and turned the corner and the first one to scream was actually Josh because he saw what looked like a huge ghost, but it was a grizzly bear. 

All of us laughed hysterically, but we knew we would do the exact same thing.  

Onward, we marched to see the great darkness of the adventure of nothingness.  

I said we should go to the basement next since we went up, we should go down. Everyone didn’t know about that the upstairs actually glowed from the moonlight, but the basement would only be lit from our flashlights.  

“So, whoever wants to stay can stay on the main floor and whoever wants to go to the basement can go with me.” I continued  

“Let’s take a vote!” replied Marsha 

“I don’t want to stay alone!” said Josh 

“How about half goes and half stays?” I questioned 

“Well, who wants to go to the basement raise your hand.” said Marsha 

I raised my hand, so did Marsha, Belinda, John, and Jessica. 

“So does the rest of you want to stay up top here?” I questioned  

They all shook their head yes. 

“Okay, well, turn your walkie onto one and if anyone has any problems press the button, talk, and then let go of the button.” I responded 

“Sounds good, good luck and be careful, please!” everyone responded separately 

“We will it’s a basement not a torture chamber.” I said to everyone 

An hour had gone by and the group on the main floor was wondering how long it takes to walk around in a basement because none of them wanted to go down in it. 

“Just use the walkie and ask if they’re alright.” said Josh  

“Hey, you okay down there?” asked Dawn 

“Yea, so far so good.” responded John 

“Okay, it just seems like you’ve been down there awhile and we got to worrying.” said Dawn 

“Nah, were just looking around if it gets to being three or more hours then start to worry. Plus, you all need to search on that level and see what you can find to have fun with.” John responded again 

“We will see what we can find, but there isn’t much more than what was here than when we first started.” said Dawn 

The basement kids traveled on like nothing until something was moving in the corner up ahead.  

“Hey does anyone see that” whispered Belinda 

“Yea” I whispered back 

“What do you think it is” asked Belinda 

“Probably just the air vent blowing something” I said back 

“Yea that sounds right” responded Belinda 

We all slowly walked up to the blowing object and all of us, yes, all of us screamed at once. It wasn’t the air vent at all! It was a ghost!!! Yes, I said a ghost!! As soon as we screamed it fly away. John actually went running after the thing. I yelled at him to come back, but he was already gone. We ran after him and when we caught up, he was standing there staring at it. I asked what he was doing and he said he wanted to see what it was doing there and see if he could talk to it.  

That was the wrong thing to do if you don’t know already! You don’t mess with the dead and their home!!! 

The next thing we knew before we could walkie up to the others, we were all tied up and there were a swarm of ghosts all around us.  

“What do you want with us?” whimpered Belinda 

“Shut up!” I demanded 

“No, it’s okay to ask questions because that’s just what we would like to know.” One of the ghosts had responded 

“We don’t want nothing with you. We were just seeing what the library was like after hours. We wanted to see if it was any different than in the day and we see that it is here in the basement.” I said back to the ghost  

All the ghosts laughed at once and we looked at each other wondering what was going on.  

“Oh, sorry we’re laughing because it isn’t just in the basement and at night it’s all over the library and at all hours of the day it's just all you people don’t seem to pay attention to us as much when you’re so busy with your life.” The head ghost said, “oh and by the way you can call me Nom 

“Why are you telling us your name?” I asked 

“Well, it just so seems that there are just as many of you as there are as us so if we get to liking you instead of being annoyed, we will let you go instead of what we have planned and you can tell people how your night went, deal?” said Nom 

We looked at each other and seemed to have the same thought of what else can we do and ended up agreeing with them.  

“Great,” said Nom, “Let’s get started. Everyone grab your person and let them know what you want to do.” 

“Wait!” I demanded 

“What, now?” Nom asked 

“The people upstairs don’t know about you so what are you going to do about that?” I asked 

“Oh, well, we will give them the same choice we gave you and go from there.” Nom responded 

“What will happen if they deny your request somehow?” I asked 

“You don’t want to know the answer to that” Nom giggled 

All the ghosts went about their business and picked who they wanted downstairs while the ones that wanted to play upstairs waited. 

George picked John, Joann picked Jessica, Maggie picked Marsha, David picked Belinda, and Nom picked me. The rest said they were heading upstairs to have fun now. Nom warned them they better behave or he would be up there so I guess he’s the boss of the crew. 

The walkie went of asking if we were alright, but we couldn’t respond so we knew they would know something was up. It went of a few more times before it stopped so that’s when I figured it was their turn for the choice of the night. I was just hoping Josh didn’t think he was trying to be a hero. 

All of a sudden, I heard the screaming and knew what was going on. Okay, all we have to wait for is to know they got chosen and know nothing is going to go bad.  

A few minutes later everyone came walking down to the basement, but our friends looked as frightened as us. They went to sit beside us, but one of the ghosts pointed to the other direction sending them the opposite way of us. As they went by, I saw that Monica was with Fran, Dawn with Janet, Lora with Felicia, Josh with Micheal, and Jack with Kevin.  

I asked Nom if he was trying to push us against each other and he said no not at all and I asked why the separation then and he explained that it’s hard to talk to each other with a lot of other people talking around you so that’s why we're all splitting up so we can hear one another.  

“So, all your saying is you want us to hear your story and then you will let us walk away basically?” I asked 

“Exactly, you catch on fast... what did you say your name was?” Nom asked 

“Danielle” I said 

“Well, Danielle, let’s find us a place to get comfy because do I have a story for you.” Nom responded 

“I won’t bore you to death with a really huge story because the night is basically over and they will be opening the doors soon and we will have to get you all out of here safely.” Nom said 

“That’s very true we do need to get out of here before someone shows up, but I do want to hear your story before anyone comes or if it’s way too long to even start, I would like to be able to come back and hear it if that’s possible?” I requested 

“Great let’s get started! My group and I started this library a long while ago before you squirts were even thought of wanting everyone that had a story about something to write about it and put it in a place where someone could come and read about it and then come and read another one. We called it Nom’s Load, but as you can see this place isn’t called that it’s The Litteral Library. I don’t know why they would change it. I guess my name isn’t good enough or they don’t understand it who knows. We had all kinds of people coming from all over coming to drop off their stories and checking out someone else’s to see how theirs sounded. It was so exciting to see them coming and going all the time. Of course, we couldn’t keep it open all the time so we set the usual hours and that way people would know when they could come to get the books. The next thing you know some of the books were more popular than the others and people would be coming in complaining that they are still wanting to read that book and when would it be back. That’s when we decided to have a time limit on the books so it would be fair for everyone. Well, then some people would start keeping it longer than we said so we would have to charge them for keeping it so they would know we were serious about it. Finally, we had a system. It went well for the longest time until this one gentleman came in wanting this particular book. Now, mind you all of us was here. My whole gang. Joann, Maggie, and Felicia had the front desk. Fran and Janet ran the upstairs doing cataloging and other things. Micheal and Kevin did the upstairs and main level janitoral things and lastly David, George and I did all the basement stuff. Now, back to where I was, there was this gentlemen walks in likes he owns the place and asks if we have this certain book. Maggie looks it up for him and says unfornately someone has it check out, but we can put you on the list and you can check back closer to your time. That didn’t settle well with this customer he wanted that very book right then. He looked around the library and decided he would walk up and down the aisles. Well, Maggie didn’t feel comfortable so she asked Joann to go tell me and the boys that there is a strange guy up there. So, of course, we run up there as fast as we can and about the time we open the basement door we hear gun shots going off. We go ducking through the aisles like crazy wondering where this is going on at and It just so happens this dude shot all my people and as soon as he saw us he got some good shots off at us and we were all dead. I’m sure we will all tell the same story to each of your friends, but we just wanted to let it be known what it started out as before it became this hangout joint.” Nom had explained 

“Wow, that was really truly touching, Nom” I replied 

“You don’t have to fake it, kid” Nom smartingly said 

“I’m not” I replied, “I really liked it and I’m sure my friends will too” 

Just then I heard several more wow’s throughout the library and told Nom see I told you. 

We all headed back up to the main level of the library where it was beginning to turn into sunrise and when you look at Nom’s group you can hardly see them. 

“See why I said we are always here it just depends on if you chose to see us because of how busy you are.” Nom said 

“Yeah, I now I get it.” I replied  

Nom used his “magicial powers” and let us out of the building before we got caught. 

“What out for ghosts you never know where or when they will appear.” Nom shouted 

“Yeah you got that right.” I replied back 

We all walked off our separate ways to get home to hopefully to start this day off better!