by Paul E Martens / Christopher Brosnahan / Paul Kane / Lee Harris
I didn’t associate it as closely with the emotions surrounding my sisters death as I had previously worried. After all, this was not where I had listened to those sickening messages - I had listened to those outside. If anything, I felt safer than I had previously felt anywhere since her death. Before I even realised what I was doing, I had picked a book from one of the shelves, switched on one of the reading lamps, and began to read.
It felt like just a few minutes later when I heard some movement nearby. I checked my watch, and realised that I had been there for a number of hours. I had only read a handful of pages of the volume in my hands. I did not remember falling asleep, but it was the only explanation that presented itself. I glanced round, confused at the sudden flow of time, just in time to see somebody moving out of sight around the bookshelves furthest from me. I returned the book, and left the library.
That night, I slept well for the first time in a month, and the next couple of days were easier. However, a few evenings later, I again craved isolation. And so I made my way through to the older part of the library, and up the steel spiral staircase. The fiction area seemed almost like a cocoon of comfort. I couldn’t remember what book I had last started reading, so I picked up another volume at random.
I made myself comfortable, switched on the reading lamp, and opened the book. I was only a few pages in when I heard an announcement over the speakers, audible from the room below. The announcement was that the library was closing for the night. Puzzled, I looked down at my watch, and was shocked to see that it was already half past ten in the evening. The previous three hours had gone by in a flash.
As I made my way down the spiral staircase again, I glanced upwards. Why, I do not know. I saw a grey figure moving about at the chair where I had been. Had I been feeling more cautious, or perhaps more paranoid, I would have gone upstairs, and gone to find out more, but following my short stay in the library, I felt calm, serene. I went back to my room, and I slept as soundly as the dead.
This calm stayed with me for the better part of the next day, but by the late part of the afternoon I was again beginning to feel uncomfortable. As I made my way up to the student bar to try and drink my way to comfort, I passed the library and stopped. I looked at the spot where I had stood with my phone, and the feelings came flooding back, nauseating me with their intensity. Panic and grief overcame me, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. A survival instinct of kinds directed me, as I staggered in through the main doors, and up the stairs into that strange research centre, and to those steel spiral stairs. Even as I climbed them, I could feel the anaesthetic calm sweeping over me, and my breathing began to calm. Within a few minutes, I had forgotten the anxiety attack that had overcome me, and I had - almost with a force of habit - picked up a book at random, settled down at a desk, and begun to read.
I had barely opened the book, when I suddenly became aware of how dark the day had gotten. I switched on the reading lamp, and cast my eyes back down to the book. I glanced upwards after I had finished the first page, and was met with the black of night. On a calm, logical level, I knew that I should be scared, and that I was obviously suffering some sort of blackouts, but the sleepy sense of calm that had overcome me convinced me that all was well. The announcement that the library was closing came again, and this time it did not startle me. I returned the book to the shelf, and looked around, half expecting to see some grey figure. However, all I could see were the four bookshelves. I did not remember going home, but I must have done, because I awoke in my own bed.
I had lectures that day, but as soon as I left my room, that choking panic returned. It was eight thirty in the morning, and the library was not due to open until nine thirty. I forced myself to breathe more normally, and made my way to the cafeteria, where I nursed a bitter tasting coffee over the next fifty minutes. I saw one or two of my friends come into the cafeteria, but I just looked down at my coffee until they went away. I was counting down the minutes until the library opened.
I was stood outside ten minutes early, waiting for the doors to open. The staff member on duty saw me there, and smiled, opening the door. She called me an early bird, and laughed at my eagerness to study. I lied, and made up some excuse about having an essay due in by noon that I desperately needed to finish. She let me in, but told me not to expect this to be a regular thing. I thanked her, and made my way to the steel spiral staircase. As I did, I noticed a reflection of myself in the windows. I looked thin and gaunt, much more so than I had realised.
I could not remember which book I had last been reading, but I was accustomed to that now. I looked at the five…no, the six bookshelves which were there, and sleepily picked up a book, and sat at one of the desks. Within a few minutes, I became aware that it was already darkening outside. I struck a match, and fumblingly lit one of the gas reading lights by the side of me, unused to the mechanism, and glanced down at the book I was reading.
The sound of the librarian’s bell alerted me that the library was once again closing, and I returned the forgotten book back to its place. As I descended the steel staircase, I glanced upwards, and saw that grey figure again. I was about to leave, when the cold panic again hit me. I hid at the back, behind the bookcases, and I waited for the library to close. Whether I waited there for seconds, or whether I waited there for hours, I do not know, but I finally had the library to myself.
I ascended the stairs again, fighting the impulse to take a book, and instead, I lit the gas lamp, and looked around. I walked down past the numerous ornate bookshelves, and around the magnificent fiction section (the envy of most universities). The room was entirely lit by gas lamps, and I walked back to the furthest set of shelves. There was nobody there, and nothing other than the leather bound volumes. I ascended one of the wooden ladders to reach the books highest on the shelves, and I returned to the floor, book in hand. As I walked down the lengthy room to the reading area, I could feel the part of my mind that was still awake screaming at me. I hesitated, and looked around again.
I was fooling myself. The library was safe, and as I made my way down to the large, comfy leather chairs, I sat down and opened the book. I lit the gas reading lamp, and I settled down to -
I slammed the book closed, and span around. The grey figure was there, watching me. It was thin, and angular, with long white hair, and ill looking, translucent skin. It smiled at me, lovingly, and I could feel what it was trying to say to me, its thoughts projected into my head. It was protecting me from the grief and the anxiety, and it wanted me to stay. If I kept feeding it, as I had been so painlessly, it would protect me, just as it had protected me from hearing the desperate calls from my sister.
It was the memory of my sister that made me break the gaze between us and look at my reflection in the window again. I looked ill, thin and gaunt. I looked back at the smiling, loving figure in grey, as it implored me to sit down and read…. Sit down and forget.
I tried to fight against it, but I could feel myself turning round, and opening the book. My shaking hand went to turn the page, when my conscious mind asserted itself. It didn’t take much. It just took me pushing the book closer to the flame of the lamp. The flame licked the edges of the paper, and took hold, dancing across the writing on the paper. The sudden pain as the fire reached my hands brought me a sudden clarity, and I once again had control over my own movements.
Fear pushed me, as I rose from the comfortable seat, and ran past the screaming grey figure. He was no longer concerned with me, desperately trying to stop the fire which had, by now, taken hold of the desk. I ran down the steel spiral staircase, leaving the fire to consume what was behind.
I ran down to the main entrance, to be confronted with the glass doors. I looked around desperately, trying to find a way outside, away from the spreading fire behind me. I saw one of the chairs in the reception area, and I grabbed it and hurled at the glass. It cracked the glass, and rebounded. My mind was sharp for the first time in a long time, and I grabbed the chair again, swinging it at
the glass door, time and again until the cracking turned into breaking.
The air felt like it was rushing in, clearing not only the smoke from the fire, but also my own head. I broke the glass further, making enough space to climb out through. The climb through the broken glass was painful, but I relished the sharp, shooting sensation. It was so different to that dull, throbbing calm I had been prisoner to for so long. As I breathlessly reached the cold air of the outside, my head filled with memories and emotions. They forced my entire body to rack with grief, and I curled up, desperately crying as the library burnt behind me.
I do not know if the creature in the library deserved my hatred. It was trying to help me on some level, regardless of its feeding on me. But my sister was precious to me. Life was precious to me, and the memories were precious to me. Without them, I could exist, but I could never truly live.
About the Author
Christopher Brosnahan lives in London, though he was one of the founding members of a York-based writers’ group, specialising in SF. He was a runner-up in last year’s SFX Pulp Idol competition for short fiction writers.