by Sophie Stern
Well, almost.
She still didn’t have the book she wanted.
She ran her fingers over volume after volume. She checked the index card she had in her hand to make sure she had the title, author, and call number right. She was certain that she did, but still, the book was nowhere to be found. She turned a corner and walked into a cobweb. Spitting and sputtering, she waved her hands in front of her and wiped everything from her face.
“Fuck,” she muttered, shaking her head.
She tried not to think about the possibility of spiders crawling on her shirt and instead focused on her quest. This was nice, she told herself. Aside from the general creepiness of the basement, it was kind of calming to be down here. She didn’t have to worry when she was in the library. Here she just got to focus. There were no choices she had to make. She didn’t have to worry about meeting deadlines or dealing with her boss. She didn’t have to solve any real, serious problems.
She could just take a deep breath, and for Victoria, that was a rare treat.
She reached the end of the aisle and looked around one last time. Maybe someone had checked the book out and lost it. Or maybe it had gotten set somewhere and lost within the library itself. That could happen, she knew. It was why so many librarians urged patrons not to re-shelve books they’d been looking at. It was easier and better for the librarians to re-shelve things, rather than allowing patrons to do it incorrectly and risk losing a book forever.
Then she saw it.
Finally.
Sitting at the very end of a row of dusty and slightly-damaged books, it beckoned.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Victoria reached for the bright red volume, wondering how she’d missed it earlier. Then she noticed there was no call number on the spine, no number on the base of the book. It was the same title, though. That was undeniable. She grabbed the book and pulled it from the shelf.
Victoria breathed a sigh of relief. Her efforts had paid off and now she could finally finish up her work. She had worked harder than she could have possibly imagined to find this dumb book, but hopefully it would be the perfect source to complete her thesis. She smiled as she held the book to her chest. Victoria turned to head back upstairs, but before she had gone more than a few steps, the lights in the basement went out, casting her into total darkness.
Victoria choked back a scream.
She was alone in the darkness.
Totally.
Completely.
Absolutely alone.
*
Graham wasn’t the type of guy who minded working late. As a librarian, it kind of came with the job. He couldn’t officially close the library until exactly 10:00. Even if that last hour was completely desolate, part of the appeal of the Mischief Public Library was that it didn’t close early.
Ever.
For anything.
Someone could wander in at 9:58 and Graham would be happy to help them find anything they needed. It was part of why he’d become a librarian in the first place. He cared for others. He didn’t pretend to have a heart of gold or anything like that, but he loved books and he loved helping other people find books that spoke to them. He was a firm believer that anyone could love reading. It was just a matter of finding the right book.
Graham locked the doors right at 10:00. The storm was already starting and he needed to get home. Not that he had anyone waiting for him, but he didn’t want to be driving around in the middle of a frozen hell. He’d rather be at home, reading a book, drinking cocoa, or studying a language. He had started a new rogue in World of Warcraft, and if he was completely honest, he wouldn’t mind grinding a few levels before he went to bed tonight, either. Motivation struck and he decided to close as quickly as he could. Still, he couldn’t skip the nightly routine. The library was too big to just lock up and go. He had to make sure there weren’t any lingering patrons hanging out where they shouldn’t be.
There was no central announcement system in the library, so there wasn’t an easy way to let people know when they were closing up for the evening. Instead, he’d have to wander around the library and check to make sure no one had accidentally fallen asleep or gotten caught up in reading fanfiction on one of the library’s upstairs computers.
Some nights, Graham didn’t mind staying late while people finished up with their printing or if they wanted to check out a few items before going home, but the weather looked bad tonight, and he was more than ready to leave. He did a quick sweep of the first floor, but it was empty. He knew that much. He hadn’t seen movement on the security screens for nearly an hour. Not since the retired gentleman finished watching YouTube and went home to his wife. Not since the bright-eyed goth girl wandered off.
Now, she was someone he wouldn’t mind seeing again.
She was here often, but she was always busy with reading and researching, so Graham never bothered her. She nested up on the second floor in one of the corners and would get caught up in her books for hours. She never bothered anyone, so he didn’t have a problem letting her stay a little late sometimes. He found it endearing the way she’d bring a blanket with her or how she’d sneak in snacks sometimes. She hid them carefully, but a librarian always knows when someone is being sneaky.
Graham generally didn’t like to know too much about the patrons. He’d found, since becoming a librarian, that people felt comfortable with the idea of librarians. They tended to open up, and not always in ways that he wanted them to. He knew more dirt about the people in this town than anyone else, save perhaps a bartender or hairdresser, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. People deserved their secrets, and he liked to respect that as much as possible.
Graham turned the lights off in the children’s area and the back study room before wandering up to the second floor. It was a large, single room, but it had different sections in it. There were shelves along one side: rows and rows of shelves. The other side had several study tables. There were also a few cubicles where people could cozy up for long study sessions. It was popular for the college students. Although it wasn’t even close to finals week, a few of the graduate kids had been spending a lot of time in the library. Thesis season wasn’t anything to joke about. Graham remembered his days in school well.
He had finished walking around and was about to turn off the lights when something dark caught his eyes in one of the corners. He moved back to the last cubicle space and peeked in. The desk had a laptop, a backpack, and several pencils on it. There was also a tell-tale black cardigan draped over the back of the chair.
He sighed.
Goth girl.
There was no one else it could possibly be. Oh, she wasn’t really a goth girl. She wasn’t all about the combat boots or the black makeup or the crazy hair. She wasn’t even especially pale. If he was honest with himself, which Graham usually was, she was quite lovely – even without makeup - to look at. She always dressed in black, though, and she looked very serious. She was attractive, and she probably knew it, and he liked that.
A woman with confidence was something to be admired.
But right now, he wondered why all of her stuff was in his library. Had she forgotten it when she left? Unlikely. Was she hiding somewhere in the library? Also unlikely. She wasn’t the type of girl to want a rousing game of cat-and-mouse. Not that he’d mind hunting her down and playing with her if she was into that sort of thing. He doubted that his little gothic academic was the playful type, though. She seemed very, very smart, but very, very serious.
It was a pity.
He’d love to have a submissive as lovely as her.
Graham walked past the floor-to-ceiling windows on the north side of the library as he headed back downstairs, realizing that she was somewhere in the building. He needed to figure out where because he wanted to go home. Spending the night in the library didn’t sound like fun for anyone, least of all Graham.
“Hello?” He called out. He knew she wasn’t on the first floor. He would have spotted her. “Library’s clo
sing,” he shouted again. He paused, but didn’t hear anything. Where the hell could she be? He wandered around for a few minutes. Was she hiding? In the bathrooms? He checked the restrooms, but she wasn’t around. Had she fallen asleep somewhere? There was a chance she had left, he supposed, but who would leave their computer in a public library? Most people wouldn’t even leave it while they went to get a drink of water from the drinking fountain, yet there it was.
If she was his girl, he’d talk with her about personal safety and security.
She’s not your girl, he reminded himself.
“Sweetie, the library is closing, and there’s a storm outside. You need to come out.” He didn’t like calling out into the nothingness that was the library after hours. This place was his comfort, his passion. He enjoyed spending time at the library. Working here meant he had plenty of time to focus on his writing and he always had plenty of time to read just about anything. Tonight was a different story though, and despite her complete hotness, Graham found himself growing agitated as he approached the last space he hadn’t checked: the basement.
Was there a chance she had gone down there?
There were no cameras in the basement, which was really unfortunate for the library. It was terrible, in fact. He’d told Linda and Casey plenty of times that they really needed to get it on their “to-do” list. The basement was dark and it wasn’t used very often, which made it the perfect place for bad things to happen. He didn’t care if people fucked down there. Graham was a librarian: not anyone’s moral guide. He did, however, care that there were rare books in the basement that could be easily damaged and there was no way to see who went down there, who was touching things, and who might lift something instead of checking it out.
They needed cameras down there, like, yesterday.
He had flipped off the basement lights and locked the only door to that floor earlier. Now he fished the key out of his pocket, turned the lock, and opened the door. Before he could even flip the light switch on, something came barreling out of the darkness, hit Graham in the chest, and knocked him on his back.
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