Never, After Hours

Never, After Hours

“Kaleb Storm,” she said. She stared down at my name for what seemed ages, and then she cocked her head up from her terminal and scanned the room.

As I walked up to the counter, I pulled out my wallet and dragged out my license. The date was Monday, October 28th, 2019.

The time 2:24 PM left me rushed when I arrived this afternoon and the wait had been for an hour. I began rethinking this whole library card gig was not such a good idea.

Each library patron had taken about 20 minutes to get their card. I remember the time at the DMV when I waited for 2 hours for a new license, but I pasted an ole smile across my face and pretended to have enjoyed my wait.

“That would be me, ma am. How has your day been so far?”

“My name is Delores, not ma am, and not great. Initial here, here, and here, and then sign on the screen the way you want your card to read.”

It’s obvious by that voice inflection of hers that she had been repeating these lines all day. I decided right then, to make my interaction with her a pleasant one for her sake. So I kept a smile from ear to ear on my mug as I stood in front of her.

“Miss Delores, that is a beautiful cross pendant you’re wearing.” 

“Thank you.”

Delores stopped speaking and cut her eyes from side to side as though she had become mortified as she realized she was monitored. She froze, stopping her gaze on the camera which was trained on her. She averted her eyes away from it and handed me my card with a strange word of warning, which only I could hear, and she refused to make eye contact with me.

“Whatever you do, be out before closing. I don’t think they---”

Delores froze mid-sentence. She cast her eyes up and to the left. Over beside the large column there stood a figure, a man. Or did it? I spun my head as if on a swivel in the direction in question.

There was nothing there. Wait a minute, I thought, Where did that guy go? 

“Delores, who was that? Man, that was bizarre. I am sure I saw someone.”

“Mr. Storm, please hurry. We close in a short bit, and you don’t want him to catch you in here after hours.”

“What’s the problem, Delores?” I looked up at the clock which showed a time of 3:43 PM. “I’m just going to check out a couple of books that I know are here, so I’ll finish up like a jar of Jiff, don’t worry.”

I turned and walked toward the book section in question.

“Kaleb Storm, it’s closing time, so don’t be here past 4:00.”

The tone of the voice brought chills down my spine. I turned back, and I no longer saw her. My hair stood on end, or so it seemed. I felt a hot and cold sensation at the same time. I looked up to the ancient-looking wall clock, and the time was now 3:48 PM.

What was it she said? She said you don’t want him to catch you in here after hours. Spooked, I became nervous. And besides, who was the “him” she referred to? I went to the aisle to which they had referred me to.

The two books were about ancient demon religions. They were specific and, according to legend, were true. I had a report due tomorrow at 9:00 AM in my World Religions class at Vol State. It seems waiting till the last minute is one of my hallmark traits. 

Procrastination is my spiritual gift, I suppose, and I am gifted. Secularists might refer to it as a superpower. My mother called it a family inheritance on my father’s side. I always smiled when I thought of her description.

Who would have thought that putting things off until the next day was a gift? At least, I always had something to do tomorrow.

I glanced up at the clock and observed it as it ticked from 3:49 PM to 3:50 PM. Man, I had to hurry. I could not get Delores’s words out of my mind. You don’t want him to catch you in here after hours is what she said.

 There had been no way I would ever figure who “him” might be, but an even larger weight of trepidation came over me, because the last thing I wanted to do today, was to bump into this dude after the place closed, and it pushed me to attempt my egress as quickly as possible.

It would seem that procrastination might not be a good thing after all. My teachers always told me, “the early bird gets the worm.” I need to move it.

As I located the shelves where the books normally were to be chosen, extreme anxiety filled my being and it hit me like a ton of bricks. The entire section was missing, gone, absent, and misplaced. All the sections I needed had disappeared in a nether region of the library. So this is what a ton of bricks felt like when someone is getting hit by them.

“What a time to find this out,” I said.

I know you’re not supposed to talk in a library, but I was now getting beside myself. It dawned on me, there was deadly silence in the building, except the clock clicking away. 

It seemed  I could hear each second as it ticked away on the wall piece. How had I not noticed that before? Each tick became a part of me. And someone, perhaps Miss Delores, would shush the clock for ticking so loud in a library. 3:52 PM. 

Time waits for no man. Now, where had that come from? I considered just blowing it off and asking my instructor for an extension. But tomorrow’s deadline was already an extension. And in actuality, I had waited till the eve before the report was due to get a library card and grab the needed materials.

I doubted I could get another one. So no, I had to get the thing done. So, where has the section moved to? I flew around the aisles till I saw Miss Delores at her station again. 

She was looking down and performing some end-of-the-day task. 

“Miss Delores, can you tell me where the section we talked about earlier is located now?”

Delores said nothing. She lifted her face upward till our eyes locked and showed a facial expression filled with fear and foreboding. Her right arm raised till she was pointing a bony hand to the far back corner. 

Her countenance changed as she spoke. It teleported from fear to anticipation.

“Time waits for no man, and your time has run out.”

I glanced at the time as she spoke in that freaky voice. I both saw and heard as the clock ticked to 3:59 PM. Swiveling my head back to her put Texas-sized goosebumps along my arms. She had vanished. Now I sensed a chill run from the top of my head down to the back of my legs. 

“Miss Delores?” I said. “Where are you?” 

I gave a half-hearted chuckle. This was so freaking weird. Then I realized the library lights were growing dim as the sun had gone to bed early. 

So I rushed to the back of the aisles and located the two books in question. I snatched them from the midst of the others and ran back to the front where check-out was located. I stood at the counter, put down the two books, and called out for Delores. 

The sound, like fingernails running down a chalkboard, and grated me to my bones. Heavy thudded footsteps came from…. somewhere in the library.

“Who’s there? I asked. My voice had a sopranist tinge to it. I couldn’t control it. 

How could that Delores lady have left? I needed her, like, right now, and spun to see the time and watched as it ticked to 4:03 PM.

I was no longer caring about that no-talking rule, as I shouted. “Somebody help me, please.” The footfalls stopped. 

Those words reverberated inside my head. You don’t want him to catch you in here after hours. I didn’t know who this “him” was, but I knew that Delores’ statement was correct. As I attempted to pinpoint the sound of the walking, I walked away from that direction, or so I hoped.

There they were again, coming in my direction. They were heavy sounding, so I knew they couldn’t be on the steps of Delores because she was a small woman.

 So I jogged, no, ran to the front doors to get out. This was not my lucky day. They were deadbolted shut and even had chains on the outside doors. I could see them out of the front door glass.

I felt the glass and realized it to be thick plexiglass that made it impossible to break in or out. Out? It was there to prevent someone like me from breaking out. Wait, what type of library was this?

And it was about this time I realized they built this library to keep people in. The song from the Eagles, “Hotel California,” played over and over in my mind. I could never leave.

That was a stupid thought. No one built a library to keep people in, except for this one. I was freaking out a bit. Softly in the background, I detected the heavy footfalls from before, only now, there was the sound of dragging as well. 

“Why didn’t I heed the words of Delores?” I said. There was no reply to my query.

This library wasn’t that big, I thought. Surely I can find a way out. 

Tick, tick, tick kept resounding through my head as well as reverberating throughout my body. I considered a certain possibility; I was going crazy. The wall clock, the culprit, seemed larger than it had been in the middle of the afternoon, but that was impossible.

Originally, the clock was approximately 24 inches in diameter, and no one would have heard a tick of seconds as they counted off the minutes. Now the clock spanned at least 36 inches and the seconds ticked off with tremendous intensity.

Sprinting back and forth through the aisles, as I evaded the mystery figure, stepping and dragging after me. Finally, I reached the desk to check out those two flipping books. I slammed them on the counter and turned in what seemed moments frozen in time.

I no longer cared about the books, as my only concern was the uneasiness of the footstep man. And there he stood, a figure dressed in what appeared a moth-eaten overcoat that covered threadbare dress pants and shirt.

He was smiling and nodding his head up and down and held a gold-colored pocket watch in his right hand. With his left hand, he pointed, first to the watch, and then at me.

I looked up to an antique-looking wall clock that stretched 4 feet across. Each second sounded as if they were firing miniature canons inside my mind. The time read 10:15 PM, and that was my last recollection.

“Mr. and Mrs. Ronald McClendon,” The man said.

It was Monday, November 25th, 2019. Going into Thanksgiving, the library was always busy with people who had procrastinated with certain reading and writing projects. Today was no different.

The couple rushed up, knowing the time was about out for them. Both had need of library cards for their research on certain world religious beliefs for a report they each needed to complete by tomorrow.

“Why did you make me wait till the deadline?” Mrs. McClendon said. She began giggling, as did her husband.

“You, don’t blame me for you’re always running late. Who was late for the wedding?”

“Please, not here,” the librarian said.

He pointed with his left hand over towards a “No Talking” sign. The same hand pointed up and behind them to a beautiful wall clock of about a 24-inch diameter. It read 3:26 PM.

“Please initial here, here, and here, and then sign the screen the way you wish your cards to read.”

Mr. and Mrs. McClendon did their initialing and signing, per the instructions, and waited for their cards.

“Thank you, Sir,” Mrs. McClendon said. “And by the way, that cross pinned to your lapel is gorgeous.”

“Thank you, but my name is, Kaleb, not Sir, and whatever you do, be out before closing.”

“Most definitely, Mr. Kaleb,” Mr. McClendon said. “We’ll zipline it out of here in just a few minutes. No worries.”

“Just remember, be out before closing. We close in a short bit, and you don’t want him to catch you in here after hours.”

Mr. and Mrs. McClendon turned and looked back at the wall clock, which was still exquisite to look at, now read 3:39 PM.

“Hey, wasn’t that clock about 2 foot in diameter just a few minutes ago? That thing is now 3 foot if it’s an inch,” said Mr. McClendon.

Mr. and Mrs. McClendon look at one another, baffled, and started to nervously laugh. They turned back, wanting to make a comment.

To their surprise, Mr. Kaleb’s station was empty, but they heard two new sounds in what was a previously silent building. There was a discernable ticking of the clock and some heavy footsteps.