(Contains flattenings. Commission for ultrabude, thank you for your support!)
The first drops of rain started to paint the concrete paths outside of a quaint, smalltown library darker to herald the coming summer storm. Inside, one Rebecca perused the various sections, more or less aimless with her search of a good book to take home over the summer. Rebecca was not a superstitious person, elsewise she’d not be in the library so close to closing time. The town had suffered a series of recent disappearances in relatively quick succession, which was certainly unnerving no matter who you were. Word spreads fast in such and insular community, and it was no secret many of the locals found the young solitary librarian to be a bit creepy. The woman was the only known employee of the library and was of very few words. As Rebecca came to think of it, she’d never heard the librarian speak, and wondered if she was simply mute. It was completely unfair for the townsfolk to be gossiping in such a hushed way about her, as though she had something to do with the disappearances, even if one of the missing people was last seen in the library before they vanished without a trace. In Rebecca’s opinion, people ought to be focusing on finding the real culprits than spreading superstition about staying in the library late at night. The wind began to rattle the windows of the library, shaking Rebecca from her thoughts. It was really starting to come down out there, she should hurry on out of there before the visibility got too bad. Picking up her pace, she took a left here and a right there and… wait no, the entrance was over here, right? She stared at a brick wall where she was certain the stairs down to the entrance had been.
As if to prove her wrong, she heard a voice she did not recognize call out, “The library is closing, if anyone is still here, hurry on home.”
Was that the librarian? Rebecca hurried towards the voice, “Wait! I’m still up here, I’m coming!” She called, hoping to not be too much of a bother. The hallways started to feel really long. She was jogging now, panting, where were those stairs?
“Anybody? No?” The librarian’s voice called out again, apparently not having heard Rebecca.
She could hear the door opening somewhere. To her left? No. This was crazy. “Wait!” she called again in between breaths. She heard the definitive shunk click! of the door being closed and locked below her. This fact was nowhere near as concerning to Rebecca as the seemingly endless darkened aisles of bookshelves surrounding her, followed by a sinister sounding laugh.
“Name, Rebecca S. Age, 28. Last seen, the Faebrook Public Library.” Casey said, pining up a picture of a young woman with long black hair on a board next to seven other pictures, “Missing person number 8 in Faebrook…”
“We’re going in finally, right?” Samantha asked impatiently. She’d been a private investigator and ghost hunter with her friend Casey for the better part of four years now, and this had all the telltale signs of a haunted Library spiriting victims away to some nefarious end, and she’d sniffed that out from the very second case, but the authorities had barred their interference up until now, and it was driving her crazy.
“Yes, thanks to Rebecca’s family,” Casey said, “Never thought it would be so hard to check out a public library,” they mused, wondering if more than just the disappeared people were under this specter’s influence, “Strange indeed…”
“Can’t wait to show up yet another smalltown deputy that thinks he knows what’s up,” Samantha chuckled, testing the camera and its night vision, eager to capture evidence of the haunting while the pair packed their bags. Samantha was a taller woman with a healthy weight on her hips and chest. Her long curly hair was freshly washed and conditioned, the dark brown curls bouncing on her shoulders and down her back while she fussed with the recording equipment. Her naturally tanned skin and deep brown eyes in addition to her obvious care for her fashion made her an outlier in most people’s stereotypical definition of nerd and obsessed-with-the-supernatural investigator, but then most people’s ideas of these things were quite wrong in Samantha’s opinion anyway.
“And to bring closure to the victims’ families, yes?” Casey pressed with an exasperated sigh. They were a touch shorter than Samantha, and much wirier, though given their surprising athletic ability they could be better described as lithe. They’d been friends with Samantha for many years before they ventured to start their own investigation/ghost hunting business. Both of them had a firm belief in the supernatural rooted in their own personal experiences with various ghosts and ghouls, much to the predictable disbelief of their families and friends. Together they’d solved a number of cases and banished many a ghost from this world, and nothing could beat the relief they brought to the victims of hauntings and possession attempts even at the spiritual and physical risk to themselves if one asked Casey. The ceaseless mockery of their profession in the mainstream bothered Samantha more than it did Casey, but the latter would be lying if they said it was of no bother at all.
“Yeah, yeah, no duh,” Samantha shot back at the insinuation, “We’ll kick some ghost butt, save a town, and be able to put the tormented souls of the victims to rest all while those stuck-up coppers watch from the bleachers.” She grinned at her ghost hunting partner, eager to get into the thick of it.
“We’ll need to be prepared,” Casey cautioned, making sure they had flashlights, their EMF detectors, some incense and sage to burn in case they needed to cleanse an area, and of course extra batteries throughout, “Anything that’s taken 8 people is bound to be powerful.”
The ride into Faebrook was spent shifting gears into a mission mentality, more for Samantha than Casey, but both had to allocate energy towards steeling themselves against the paranormal as well as the skeptics that often made their jobs more difficult than necessary. Eight people were missing. That was the reality, and it was up to the pair of them to make sure no one else fell victim to whatever was causing all of this. Their first stop was to their employers for this job’s home, both to reassure them that they were on the case and to start out with what would most likely be the friendliest faces in town for them. Samantha knocked on the door but received no answer. Another knock. Another long period of silence. She shared a look with Casey, who started to circle the property, taking note of any signs of inhabitants. There was a car in the driveway. Lights inside were on. Casey could hear Samantha calling out to the homeowners from the front but saw no movement inside to answer. On the way back to their partner, Casey tried the back door and looked for any open windows, but everything was locked tight.
“No good, seems like no one is home,” Samantha huffed, annoyed.
“All the signs point to someone being here, but the place is locked up and no one is answering,” Casey said, confirming the front door was locked as well. “We don’t have much a choice, let’s start asking around.”
“Can’t wait to talk to the… charming locals,” Samantha sighed, figuring their pickings would be slim with intel considering how these things normally went.
The pair set off into the town of Faebrook proper to ask about Rebecca and the 7 other missing people, the investigation, and the library. Most of the locals were surprisingly cagey. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was not surprising that they were cagey with a couple of out of towners with camera and other recording equipment asking about a series of tragic disappearances. It was the way they were cagey that was surprising. It wasn’t as though the pair of ghost hunters were being blown off as tourists or crazy. Instead, it was almost as if everyone knew what was going on, but such information was much too dangerous to share. They were met with hushed whispers and frightened, darting eyes. Many refused to speak of the vanishings or even say the names of the missing. Some called the police that had been investigating fools and warned the pair to leave whilst they still could. Only one young woman, shaking and shivering in the hot summer evening gave them any further hints. She spoke warily of one place. The library, and of the accursed librarian within. She told them if they really were intent on seeing what it was that was causing this, they ought to go there before whispering some sort of name. Marianne Ellesborough. She did not say more and rushed to the safety of her home following that utterance, leaving the ghost hunters to ponder their next move.
“It’s getting late,” Casey said, “But it sounds like something very suspicious is going on with that person she mentioned and the library.”
“Wonder if that’s the name of the librarian everyone’s so scared of?” Samantha guessed, walking beside Casey.
“Unlikely,” they replied, showing Samantha their phone screen.
“Ah? ‘Marianne Ellesborough, 25, killed in tragic accident at the local library’” Samantha read from the article.
“Apparently, she was a librarian there like 60 years ago, died while organizing some shelves upstairs because one collapsed on her. What a way to go,” Casey sympathized.
“Sounds like we know the name of our ghostie,” Samantha said, “If she died a violent death like that it makes sense why she’d be lingering around to lash out at women her age that venture upstairs.”
“Maybe, that’s still a lot of assumptions to make, but it’s a good lead,” Casey cautioned.
“Let’s hurry to the library before it closes! We can camp out in there and do some real investigating!” Samantha called, running ahead suddenly, leaving Casey to chase after her.
Arriving at the library just as the evening light began to darken, the pair entered through the large wooden doors. Before them were a couple of stairs leading up to a comfortably lit lobby. A reception desk sat just ahead with two staircases to either side of it zigzagging upstairs. The lobby itself had multiple desks, tables, and chairs scattered throughout for reading, studying, arts and crafts, or what have you. Beyond the lobby was a round room decorated in bright, pastel colors with large but thin books on shelves, arts and crafts supplies, plush flooring and low tables and chairs. Clearly something of an activity and reading room for children. With nothing else to see down here besides a door directly behind the front desk that was more than likely an archive of some kind, the bulk of the library’s selection lay upstairs. Behind the dark wood desk was a woman with dusty brown hair tied up in a messy bun. She wore an older fashioned outfit with a long-sleeved light-colored top and dark skirt that traveled to touch her knees with suspenders hiking the waist of the skirt up just under her bosom. Her expression was a bit vacant, but she bowed a quick greeting to the ghost hunters as they entered the library. Without speaking a word, she gestured to the hours listed on the desk, indicating that it was close to closing time, but then offered a slow swing of her hand to the stairs as if to say, ‘after you’. She almost had the mannerisms of a doll with her soft, unchanging expression and almost too fluid movements without speaking, it was obvious why people tended to lump her in with the mysterious goings-on. She looked to be about Casey and Samantha’s age, maybe 25 or so, with a name tag that simply said ‘Mary’.
Eager to begin their nighttime stakeout, Samantha rushed ahead up the stairs, forcing Casey to abandon their discrete investigation of the librarian in order to stick together. Casey sighed internally. This was go time, and they wished Samantha would take this whole thing a little bit more seriously. At the very least, Samantha waited for her ghost hunting partner at the top of the stairs, allowing the pair to begin scoping out the upstairs. The library wasn’t huge. Upstairs there were a few study or reading nooks interspersed between sections. Nonfiction, reference, fiction, young adult, fantasy, mystery, the usual fair. Each section had a couple of aisles of bookshelves to its name to result in a pretty robust but not overwhelming assortment of books for all kinds of readers. To start with, Samantha and Casey walked the perimeter and through the aisles, taking note of any cold spots or EMF activity, though they both knew the real show didn’t start until closing time. They were setting up a camera on a tripod in the far back corner of the reference section with they heard their alarm go off. Closing time. Rather abruptly, the lights turned off, and in the distance, they heard a young woman’s voice call out.
“The library is closing. If anyone is still here, hurry on home.”
“Does she not know we’re here?” Samantha asked, finding the ‘if’ in that statement a bit odd.
“More likely she doesn’t check…” Casey replied.
"Anybody? No?” The voice called again, “Goodbye, then.”
Before either ghost hunter could voice their uneasy feeling with the last thing they heard before the door shut downstairs, the spirit box crackled to life inside Samantha’s bag. The device was meant to rapidly oscillate between radio frequencies, allowing certain spirits to stitch together phrases and messages to communicate, but this time a single woman’s voice came through without any of the normal cutting in and out, not to mention the fact that Samantha hadn’t turned it on in the first place.
“1, 2… I buckled my shoe…” spoke the voice, crackling over the spirit box as though it were a walkie talkie.
“Keep ahold of it and give me the camera!” Casey whispered harshly, taking the handheld camera from Samantha so they could capture this immense spiritual activity. The pair stood from setting up the stationary camera and started to venture the darkened upstairs, waiting for another message.
“3, 4… I opened the door…”
“Okay… okay okay,” Samantha was shaking, but not from fear. Years of hunting ghosts and specters and other such frights hardened her nerves against such easy scares. No, Samantha’s trembles were those of rising excitement. This was a huge burst of supernatural activity, and they hadn’t been here that long at all! Keeping the spirit box in one hand, Samantha clicked on her blacklight flashlight to scan for any evidence of their ghost touching the physical world.
“Marianne Ellesborough?” Casey called into the air, hoping to provoke further activity.
“5, 6… I was crushed, life eclipsed…”
“That’s really more of a slant rhyme I think,” Samantha commented.
“Stop that,” Casey chided, snapping the camera around to catch what they could swear was a rattling bookshelf nearby. More importantly, Casey began to realize, “Hey, we’ve been walking straight for way too long. The stairs should be here.”
“Spatial anomaly? We must be dealing with a doozy here,” Samantha guessed, stopping to light come cleansing incense.
“7, 8… I watch, I wait…”
“…And snatch up a bunch of people to your spooky lair,” Samantha said, growing in confidence as the smoky haze wafted over her and Casey. Soon enough they’d be able to clear the way to the stairs and start with the removal of this pesky spirit. At least that confidence lasted up until a gust of frigid wind rushed from whence they came, blowing out their light, blustering the smoke away, and causing their equipment to flicker and shutter before shutting down completely, leaving them in darkness. Instinctively they grabbed each other to stabilize one another in the tempestuous wind, as well as to calm one another’s heightened nerves. This was no ordinary poltergeist they were dealing with, as the hunters were quickly learning.
“With 9 and 10… I’ll live again…”
The voice became crystal clear without any crackling from the spirit box before an immense rattling sound filled the room. The sound of hard wood scraping against floor and books clattering all around them heralded a giant bookshelf moving towards the pair at a high speed. Samantha and Casey dove in opposite directions to avoid getting smashed by the shelf, which seemed to stretch both upwards and onwards to infinity, separating them by a geometrically impossible barrier while destroying whatever equipment they’d brought with them.
“Samantha!?” Casey’s voice called out. Panicked. Distant. That wasn’t like Casey at all… but Samantha struggled to make her body or mind react too much to that. Maybe it was the shock, maybe she’d hit her head, or maybe some sort of supernatural possession was taking root, but it took all of her strength to force herself to rise to Casey’s call.
“I’m alright!” Samantha’s reply came after a terribly long silence. Taking a deep breath, Casey reassessed their situation. Clearly this was a powerful spirit. Maybe too powerful for them to deal with. No matter what happened later, their first priority had to be to get to one another an escape.
“We need to get out of here,” Casey said, calling through the debris of the ghost’s apparent attempt at culling the pair, “Lets just keep moving, we’ll expend its energy one way or another and outlast it.”
“Right, right, I’ll see you soon.” Samantha said, though her quivering voice betrayed her nerves.
They began to move their separate ways, forced to be alone by their unseen foe. While they walked, Casey pondered the things that Marianne Ellesborough, if that was indeed her, said. It was a simple and effectively creepy rhyme but thinking about it closer definitely had Casey’s stomach churning. Marianne was indeed crushed and killed, and up until now there’d been 8 victims. If by a 9th and 10th disappearance, Marianne came back to life somehow, clearly, she had plans to make Casey and Samantha numbers 9 and 10. Never before had Casey encountered a ghost with such intense force behind it and couldn’t help but worry for Samantha’s mental state. The darkness of the halls stretched out before Casey, but they noticed that the books were not repeating. It was difficult to see them in the dark, but the spines were all unique and increasingly ancient looking, resembling fantasy spell tomes more than modern books. Soon enough, Casey came across a dead end. Stacks of books formed walls taller than could be seen and up against one was an utterly massive book open to a blank page. Truly this book must have been something like six or seven feet tall, with the page able to comfortably encompass all of Casey’s body and then some.
“With 9 and 10…” That same voice whispered into Casey’s ear, causing them to whip around in surprise. A powerful force gripped their body and slammed them into the book, suspending them in midair against the blank page. It felt like a giant hand squeezing the life out of Casey’s torso while they flailed against their unseen captor. Panic gripped Casey that only grew worse when a gigantic sewing needle looped with a partially translucent thread floated towards the page Casey was pinned against. Casey watched the needle stab into the page beside their arm, causing them to freeze in place for fear of being skewered. Strangely, the needle reemerged and dove back into the page repeatedly, but never tore the likely fragile paper of the massive book. A tightness gripped Casey’s arm as though they could feel the threads of the sewing needle pinning it to the page. Then, with a tightening tug, they watched in horror as their arm was squeezed into the page, becoming no more than a two-dimensional illustration of their arm. Trying to tug away from the book caused Casey to feel the otherwise petrified arm try to come along with the tugging, flapping the page along with it. Casey could still feel their arm but could not move it. Even more horrifying than that, though, was that their arm felt… good? It was a tingly almost euphoric sensation that spread over Casey’s arm. So distracted were they at this latest revelation, that they hardly noticed their other arm fading into the page of the book with another round of sewing from the needle. Steeling themselves against the strange supernatural force that held them and against the pleasurable tingles of the sewing needle, Casey kicked and fought with all their might, but was powerless against their left leg stiffening and stiffening as the threads of the sewing needle tightened around it and then pulled hard. Casey had to bite back a fluttering gasp as their leg sank into the page. It wasn’t that it was sensual per se, but it was undeniable that it felt good to become an illustration. There it was again. The fight left Casey’s right leg and with a yank the tingles claimed that too. Casey was a torso and a head sticking out of an otherwise flat page, and they were not long for this form. Casey could already feel the threads wrapping around their body as the needle callously did its work.
“You won’t… have your tenth…” Casey breathed even as their torso began to become a picture, “Sah-Samantha will… esca-” their words were silenced by a final tug. Casey’s entire being was sealed as a rather simplified illustration of themselves within the pages of this giant book. A series of cursive words faded into view on the opposite page, telling the story of a foolish ghost hunter that thought they could fight against the spirit, only to end up a silly picture like the rest. Casey’s mind swam with the pleasure of the pressure of being 2-D but retained its awareness as a person. Something stuck out to Casey about the taunting nature of the words they somehow knew were being written, and they could swear a blush touched their cheeks.
Samantha stomped through the library, using some sort of bravado to mask her fear, “Alright already Marianne,” she sneered, “If you’re so big and tough with the bookshelves how come you can’t even face me one on one!?” A book fell nearby, causing her to let out a startled squeal. “Come on, Sammy,” she chided herself, “Pull yourself together, dammit. What would Casey say?” She sighed and pressed onward, looking for her fellow ghost hunter and the way out. Just outlast the ghost’s energy and regroup in the morning. That was the plan, and it was solid. No need to stray.
“…I’ll live again.” The voice returned to send a frigid chill down Samantha’s spine. There was something almost familiar sounding about the voice, but that was nowhere near as pressing as the fact that the ghost had apparently answered her challenge. Turning to face her foe, Samantha instead found a book waiting for her. A massive book. A book the height of a person. She warily approached the book, and either curiosity or supernatural compulsion drove her to open it. The first page told the story of a drifter stopping in the library for a place to rest from the rain on their way out of town. The second had nothing nice to say about someone using the library computers to cheat on a report. Page after page had these little taunting blurbs about their predicaments, accompanied by a drawing of said person. Drawings that strongly resembled the missing persons. Page 8 talked about a girl that stayed in the library wandering about just a little too long, and page 9… Page 9 was about a foolish ghost hunter.
“Casey-!” Samantha gasped, stepping back. This was bad. Super bad. She didn’t get much time to dwell on that though, because a ghostly breeze blew the page over to the next blank page. The last page. Samantha’s page. Samantha turned to run but was quickly snatched up and slammed onto the page by an invisible hand. The wind was driven from her chest from the impact, and a spectral needle and thread began its baleful work. Her legs were first. Ice cold fingers took time to seemingly pose her before the tightness of the thread squeezed on her legs. It was uncomfortable at first, and truly her mind was spiked by fear, but then the squeezing reached a crescendo and tingling euphoria rocked her body. Lifting her head, she could see her leg fading into the page. It was objectively horrifying, but she couldn’t help but lay back in stunned relief. It felt shockingly good to the point that she almost felt herself anxiously awaiting that slow build on her other leg to the final tug that pulled it to become one with the page. Maybe it was the shock, maybe it was the pleasure, or maybe it was her mind simply breaking as it came to truly comprehend the inevitability of her fate, but Samantha truly and utterly gave into the needle, and allowed the ghost to pose her in a relaxed laying back pose like one would see on some sort of tasteful pinup, and though her mind was shattered, all of the pieces remained once her body became completely illustrated. A final blurb talked about the ditzy Samantha who was so gleeful to become a simple drawing and complete the book before it shut. She couldn’t help but agree with the statements made on her opposite page before darkness overcame her sight.
Morning came and went, and soon it was once again time for the library to close. The librarian, normally quite silent, hummed to herself as she readied herself to leave this place. She turned off the lights, made her last call for people to vacate the premises, and of course… fetched her book. Marianne tucked the book under her arm before leaving and locking the door behind her. It was her favorite book, despite its simplicity. She would argue that the characters really helped define her life, despite it being only ten pages long.
Well. Twenty if you counted the illustrations.