I don’t know how it even happened. We were locked in the library after hours. Perhaps we just got too caught up in our books tucked away in our favorite corner where no one saw us, or perhaps we were meant to stay. All I know is, my best friend, Charlie, and I were trapped in the library and the sun was about to go down. I’d never been in a library after dark before, much less after closing. The librarian had left a few lights on which made it easier to see when we decided to explore. Why did we decide to explore? We should have used our heads and called someone to come and let us out…
Something about it seemed exciting, having the old building all to ourselves. Naturally we started exploring. We started upstairs, checking out every cupboard and closet. We mostly found cleaning supplies and boxes of books. I began to get nervous when we decided to venture downstairs. The stairwell was darker than the upstairs room and the vaulted ceiling made every noise echo eerily. Had I been alone I would never have ventured downstairs, I wish I’d been alone…
I hesitated on the landing; the downstairs looked even darker than the stairs. Charlie took my hand and told me there was nothing to be scared of, that it was just a library and that books couldn’t hurt me. He had a point, a stupid one, but he had one. We reached the bottom of the stairs and he fumbled around for a light switch. When the lights came on they looked dim and gloomy, as if they knew they shouldn’t be on. One of the bulbs flickered and buzzed making me jump. I should have gone with my gut and gone back upstairs.
At the bottom of the stairs was a door that led to a hallway. There were two doors in the hallway not including the one we had just walked through. I knew from experience one of them led to another room full of books. The sign beside the door said it was non-fiction. That meant textbooks, biographies and historical records. Charlie, figuring that that room would be boring turned his attention to the other door. It was a big dark wooden door that looked like it would be very heavy. It would have made sense to be locked…why couldn’t it have been locked?
The door swung open easily revealing only darkness. I clung to Charlie’s arm and stood just slightly behind him as he reached one arm inside to find the light. Instead of a switch he came across a string hanging from the ceiling, he pulled it and the single light bulb clicked on. The fixture wasn’t firmly attached to the ceiling so it swayed and cast weird shadows over the mostly empty room.
It looked like what had once been someone’s office. There was a big metal desk sitting toward the back of the room. There were a few book shelves with only one or two books remaining on them and there was an old metal filing cabinet. The air felt colder inside the room, I exhaled and thought for just a moment that I could see my breath on the air. I began to tremble, but Charlie didn’t seem to sense anything wrong. He walked boldly over to the desk and began to open the drawers one at a time.
I still had his arm in a death grip so naturally I went with him. There wasn’t much remaining in the first drawer; what appeared to be some old paperwork, a broken pencil and a small box of matches. When he went to pull out the second drawer it gave way and crashed onto the floor breaking. That’s when I saw it. Someone had put a false bottom in the drawer and hidden some sort of leather bound book inside.
I crouched down and picked it up, once again feeling that tingling chill. I brushed off the layer of dust and opened it to the first page. It was a diary, but it didn’t look to be from this century, much less this decade. It seemed pretty boring so I started skimming. I quickly stopped when the handwriting became large and messy.
October 27th
She’s here, I’ve seen her. She’s angry, she wants us to leave.
October 28th
She said if we don’t leave now we never will… I’m scared, the others don’t believe me. They think I’m imagining things.
October 29th
I’m not crazy; she left a message for me. James is missing, last any of us knew he was here, she took him…or worse.
October 30th
Each entry was messier than the last as though they were written in more and more of a hurry. But there was no entry for October 30th. Why was there no entry? And why was I finding this diary more than 50 years later on the same exact day?
I looked up at Charlie who had been reading over my shoulder. He was staring away from me, his gaze locked on something. He was in the way so I couldn’t see what held his attention so firmly. His hand was gripping the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles had turned white. When he turned to look at me all the color had drained from his face as well.
“Run.” He said it first as a whisper, and then he said it again louder, “RUN!” I grabbed his arm and ran with only a moment of hesitation. He scrambled to close the door behind us but it seemed to be ripped out of his hand by some invisible force. The door to the stairwell was closer so we turned and raced toward it. Charlie’s hand was suddenly ripped from mine. I turned to see why and saw him being dragged kicking back into the room by some THING. Before he disappeared completely behind the door he looked me in the eyes and once more told me to run.
One of the light bulbs overhead shattered and my natural flight instinct kicked in so I ran. I turned and I ran harder than I ever had before. I made it through the door to the stairs, up to the first landing. I was almost at the top of the stairs when it grabbed my ankle making me fall on my stomach. It had me by the leg. It was trying to drag me back to that room. Its grip was cold and strong. It was pulling my leg…it kept pulling my leg…just like I’m pulling yours.
