Visions of a Dark Horizon

With this story I wanted to challenge myself to create a horror narrative in the most innocuous place I could think of – a place always associated with safety; the local library. I think I did a pretty good job with that, I hope you do too. Also included in this story are my 200th Twitter follower Maria Florinda Loreto Yoris, my 500th follower Lynne Armstrong-Jones, and my 1000th follower Steven Arnett – thanks to you all and the whole Twitter writing community that has been so great since I joined.

Bindings

By Chad Anctil 

Lorraine pulled sharply into the parking lot behind the old brick building, tires splashing through a wide puddle and breaking up the thick oily sheen that covered it.  The clock in her dash glared at her with amber accusation – 9:03.  Three minutes late on her first day at work was not a good look, but she hoped her newness and the weather would give her some leeway with the other staff.  

She opened her umbrella as she stepped out of the car but it did little against the driving October rain that had been the main cause of her tardiness.  The wind drove each tiny droplet into exposed skin like little shards of ice.  She slung her worn canvas bag over her shoulder and rushed around the corner, hurrying past the green and gold sign identifying the building as the Solarid Street Community Library and finally making it to the main entrance, but as she reached for the well worn brass door handle she stopped mid-grab.  Two police officers were exiting the library, both of them still dripping from the rain so they must not have been inside long.  The female officer peered at Lorraine and there was a look in her eyes that fell somewhere between sadness and dour resignation.  Lorraine let the officers pass and headed into the library, shaking off her umbrella and removing her long black raincoat.  

“Hello Helen,” Lorraine said immediately, smiling at the older woman behind the large mahogany circulation counter.  “I’m sorry I’m late… the rain was-” 

“It’s fine, just don’t make it a habit.” Helen said nonchalantly, and Lorraine felt both relieved and embarrassed.  She hated being late.  

“What’s with the police?” Lorraine asked as she settled in behind the counter with Helen.  The head librarian was in her fifties but looked a decade older.  She had been with Solarid Street library for over three decades, she had told Lorraine during her interview.  She was almost as much a fixture there as the building itself.  

“Silver alert,” came another voice, a younger woman with raven black hair had emerged from a back room, responding to Lorraine’s question.  “We’ve got a senior care center about three blocks away, and we get a lot of the seniors that come in, reading and chatting; we’re kind of a social center here.”  The woman held out a hand with rings on every finger and a dozen bangle bracelets jingling on her arm.  “I’m Lynne Armstrong-Jones.  Assistant Librarian.” 

“Hello Lynne, I’m -” 

“Lorraine Grant, fresh out of Library University, right?”  Lynne smiled and shook Lorraine’s hand jovially.  She had an energy about her that landed somewhere between a pop star and a character from The Muppets.  

“I got my Masters in Library Science from The University of… yeah, Library University, that’s close enough.” She smiled and returned the handshake.  “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m happy to be here.” 

“What’s that accent?” Lynne asked with effervescent curiosity.  “Obviously not a local, but I can’t place it.” 

“Oh I’ve lived pretty much everywhere there is to live,” Lorraine smiled.  “I was an army brat from day one, and dad got some pretty crazy posts, so I lived in a dozen different countries by the time I turned sixteen.  As far as my accent, I usually just call it ‘eclectic’,” she grinned.  

“Well we will have to chat about that.  I love travel!” Lynne said excitedly.  

“Do you travel a lot?” Lorraine asked with enthusiasm.  

“Not on a librarians’ salary,” Helen chimed in, but in a kind way, like family banter.  

“So true,” Lynne agreed with an exaggerated sigh, then pivoted the conversation. “So who was it?” she asked Helen.  “Who are the cops looking for?  Ms. Loreto-Yoris again?”  

Helen shook her head,  “No, she’s fine.  It was Mister Carson,” she said with a note of sadness and what Lorraine thought may have been a look of warning.

“Isn’t he the one with the built up shoe?  Archie?” Lynne said with mild shock.  “He’s such an interesting guy – did you know he summited Everest back in the 70s?  He was just in here ye-” she stopped short of saying ‘yesterday’ and looked from Helen to Lorraine.  “I mean, he’s in here all the time.  He’s a nice old guy, I hope they find him.” 

“Does that sort of thing happen often?” Lorraine asked, feeling the odd tension that had somehow surfaced.  

“More often than you think,” Lynne said, not looking up from the pile of books she was sorting purposefully.  “They usually find the missing folks after a few hours.  Some of them wind up here because, even if they’re confused, they seem to know the library is supposed to be a safe place.” 

“Supposed to be?” Lorraine found herself asking.  Lynne seemed to jump a little.  

“Is a safe space, obviously…,” she said with a grin.  “It’s supposed to be a safe space so it is a safe space, for everyone, obviously.  That’s what we’re here for, after all.”  

“So, Miss Library University,” Helen spoke up, putting a few books on top of a cart that seemed to have rolled out of 1956.  “I’ve got these books to re-shelve, the top two shelves go to the children’s section, and the bottom shelf is adult fiction.  Get to know the place.  We probably won’t have much of a crowd until after 10:30.” 

“What happens at 10:30?” Lorraine asked.  

“Saint Luke’s,” Lynne said.  “They have a 9am morning mass, followed by a ‘church social’ from 10 to 10:30 that serves instant coffee and yesterday’s donuts, but attracts a lot of folks from the senior center.  After 10:30, the social hour moves here,” she grinned.  

“And then around 2:45 most afternoons we get the after school crowd,” Helen added in her warm but raspy tone.  “Kids working on projects or waiting for their folks to get out of work.  We’ll have you coordinate some after school program stuff as you’re getting used to things.” 

“Sounds good,” Lorraine said, taking the cart and heading into the library, towards the childrens’ section.  

The library was well over 140 years old, Lorraine knew from the interview process as she applied to work there, and she knew it was one of the oldest buildings in the area, so she was curious to learn more about its history.  Physically it was a low, heavy brick building with high windows that did little to let in natural light, especially on a day like this with heavy black clouds making the place seem even darker.  The ceiling, like in many public buildings, was composed of battered and stained rectangular tiles and 80s era fluorescent lights appearing at regular intervals, which lit some areas clearly while leaving others in heavy shadow, especially in some of the stacks.  

As she pushed the squeaky wheeled cart towards the childrens’ section, Lorraine thought she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and stopped, turned.  There was nothing there in the section of shelves nearest her, but she swore she had seen some kind of movement, a shadow passing between her and the light at the end of the row.  She realized that at the far end of the row was a heavy steel door she hadn’t noticed initially.  As she watched, the fluorescent at the end of the row flickered, went out momentarily, then blinked on again.  

“That’s Historical Biographies,” Lynne said from almost directly behind her, making Lorraine Jump.  “It just… does that sometimes.” 

“Sure,” Lorraine said, her heart still racing in her chest a bit.  “I mean, historical biographies, pretty intense, right?  What’s with the door?” She indicated the nondescript gray door where the fluorescent light flickered again.   

“That’s just the basement.  Boiler room, that kind of stuff,” Lynne responded, not meeting Lorraine’s gaze.  “Why, jumpy already?” she teased, carrying a small stack of books towards another section of the library.  “That usually doesn’t start until day three or four,” she smirked.  

“Just first day jitters,” Lorraine assured her with a smile and a laugh, and continued on to the children’s section.  

At least this area of the library was brightly lit and colorful.  There was a table full of tactile games, a few stuffed animals, and a large colorful play mat in the middle of the floor.  Lorraine smiled to herself as she replaced each book onto its designated shelf, the cheerful colors and playful characters on the covers of the books helping to calm her nerves and center her.  

It was no wonder she was jumpy, she told herself;  between the heavy storm outside, being late for her first day at a new job, met at the door by police as soon as she arrived… it would be a lot for anyone, wouldn’t it?  

Children’s books put away, Lorraine headed over to the center of the library to the adult fiction section, one of the largest sections in most libraries, organized by author and genre.  No matter where in the world they were stationed, Lorraine always found a library, and that was where she had spent so much of her teenage years and beyond, exploring distant worlds and ancient ruins, meeting fantastical heroes and fiendish villains.  Falling in love and having her heart broken a thousand times over and still going back for more.  It was why she became a librarian; books were her one great passion in life, so a life spent in service of books – and the community, of course – was a life well lived.  

Again she stopped as she walked past Historical Biographies.  This time she thought she felt a chill, like a breeze from an air conditioning unit, but she knew those wouldn’t even be turned on in October.  She was curious if a library this old even had AC. Could there be a breeze like that coming from the basement door? It was closed, but still… There was a smell, too – fleeting, she barely caught it, but it was enough to make her pause. She looked around again, staring down the row of shelves, waiting for something to happen.  

There was a sudden peal of thunder from the storm outside and a flicker of lights, and Lorraine jumped and screamed out loud.  

“Shhhh!” Helen scolded her from behind the circulation desk, and then all three women began to laugh out loud.  

“I apologize, I have no idea what has gotten into me today,” Lorraine said, shaking her head.  

“First day jitters?.” Lynne retorted, repeating Lorraine’s own lame excuse back at her as she carried a stack of DVDs towards the media center.  “Or you’re starting to realize the place is haunted,” she whispered low as she passed by with a wink.  Lorraine stared at her as she walked past, unsure if she was kidding or… it was an old building, after all. 

As expected, a trickle of elderly patrons began arriving shortly after 10:30, slowly making their way to different areas of the library in groups of two or three.  Lorraine introduced herself to many of them, welcoming them in from the rain.  Several stopped to talk to her, making small talk and telling her about themselves and their history with the library itself.  

“I got my first library card when I was only eight years old,” Mrs. James said, patting Lorraine on the forearm kindly.  “Old Mister Arnett, he was the librarian back then, and he handed me my card with such a smile.  That was eighty one years ago…,” she said wistfully. 

“And that was here, at this library? That is amazing,” Lorraine said, impressed.  

“Yes it was.  At that very desk.” she smiled, indicating the circulation desk that still lined the entrance wall. “That was after the riots happened, of course.” She shook her head.  

“The riots?” Lorraine asked, curious.  The old woman nodded with icy severity.  

“You can still see the scorch marks on some of the bricks outside…,” she said, and patted Lorraine on the arm, smiling again before walking slowly to her group, taking a seat beside another woman who was looking at a knitting magazine. 

Lorraine spent the morning familiarizing herself with more of the library – the media center, the small classrooms near the back of the building, and the storage area where they kept everything from old classroom globes to extra cleaning supplies and, apparently, a box of puppets that had been around since a kids drama program in, if she was reading the box correctly, 2003.  

The odd feelings Lorraine initially had began to subside as more people arrived and the library seemed more like a collection of people and their lives more than a collection of books and objects, but there was still something about that biographies section, and that door; why did it make her so uneasy?  Maybe it was the way the overhead lights just seemed to miss the corners, making the row more shadowy than the ones around it, or maybe it was the way the one fluorescent light there seemed to flicker randomly as she watched it out of the corner of her eye.  

Once school let out, Lorraine’s afternoon got very busy.  She worked the circulation desk, checking books in and out for excited children and harried parents and assisted as best she could, and at least tried to stay out of the way of Helen and Lynne as they maneuvered through the ebb and flow of kids, adults, and old folks who were enjoying the library.  The weather outside was still a downpour, but the library was safe and warm, as it should be.  

Safe.  As it should be.  So why did Lorraine keep staring at the basement door? Why did it make her so uneasy?  

“Helen, earlier this morning an older woman mentioned something about a riot that happened here, I guess a while back?  And scorch marks?” Lorraine said as they were closing up.  The rain had passed, but it was dark outside and she could see the big halogen lot lights streaming through the South wall of windows.  

For a moment it seemed like Helen hadn’t heard her, but then she turned slowly.  “Sometimes, bad things happen to places, and those bad things can leave a scar.” She shook her head.  “Most people here in the neighborhood don’t talk about it, but it’s part of the soul of the place.”

“What happened?” Lorraine asked. She had stopped organizing the books on the desk.  

“It was about a century ago.  This neighborhood was thriving – shops, hotels, even one of the first moving picture theaters in the area.  Problem was, it was a black community,” she shook her head and Lorraine knew what was coming next.  “And there were plenty of folks who didn’t like that.  There were some made-up charges against a few members of the community, and things just got bad.  Fires, an armed mob… lynchings.  You won’t find a lot of this in the history books, or it may be a footnote in an article on the Tulsa massacre… ‘See also, Solarid Street.’ or somesuch.” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-” Lorraine said, feeling like she had opened some old wound.  

“No, no – it’s alright.  It’s actually a point of pride for us, in an odd way.  You see, when things were at their worst, when the fires were burning and people were most afraid, when they couldn’t go back to their homes, they came here.  The library was here, and they say over two hundred people sheltered here, right in this very building, and when the mob came here trying to break in, trying to get to them, they couldn’t get through the doors, and then they tried to burn the library down, but she wouldn’t let them.” 

“She?” 

“The library.  The building wouldn’t let them.  It wouldn’t burn.  You can still see the scorch marks, yes – on the back, on the South side.  Where they apparently piled old tires and wooden pallets and doused them in oil – or so the story goes.  They set it all ablaze, but the library just wouldn’t burn.  She kept her people safe.” 

There was a kind of pride in Helens’ retelling of the tale, and Lorraine felt it too.  She wasn’t sure how much was real and how much was urban legend, but after a century, did it matter?  Probably not.  

“So, does anything else weird-” 

“It’s not haunted, if that’s what you’re asking.” Helen said quickly and with a finality that told Lorraine this topic was off limits.  For now, at least.  “Pay no attention to Lynne, she’s just trying to spin you up.  She’s just happy she’s not the new girl anymore.” 

“Not haunted, got it.  So, the basement…” 

“The basement is exactly what you would expect from a century-plus old building that’s seen better days.  That’s where the furnace is, and it works OK most days, we had it modernized back in the nineties,” she said.  “It’s dirty, dusty, damp.  It’s probably got a few rats from time to time, but they don’t bother us up here,” Helen got very serious for the last part. “But there’s no reason for you to be down there, and you never, ever want to leave the door open.  Understood?” 

“Why is that?” Lorraine asked with a shudder.  

“You did hear me say ‘rats’ right?” Helen looked at her quizzically.  “That door is pretty much the only thing keeping them from exploring the greatest hits of modern literature, if you get my meaning.  The door should always be locked, there’s a key in the drawer at the circulation desk, but you really shouldn’t need it.” 

“Got it, keep the door closed, locked, definitely not haunted, but rats…  Good information,” Lorraine said.  “Thanks Helen, I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Try not to be late,” Helen said, then opened a drawer and pulled out a keyring with a green fob attached.  “In fact, as penance for being late on your first day, you get to open tomorrow.  8:30 sharp, open up, pull the books out of the drop box and get them checked in, get the place ready for the day.  I’ll be in at ten to nine.” She handed the keys to Lorraine.  

“Thanks, I’ll take care of it.” she said, taking the keys.  

“If you have any questions that can’t wait until I get here, my number’s on the sheet on the wall in the back room,” Helen said.  “Have a good night.” 

_____

Lorraine arrived at the library the following morning at 8:20 am, a full ten minutes earlier than she needed to be.  The rain had stopped, but the sky was still heavy and gray and there was a cold dampness in the air that caused her to pull her coat around her tighter as she headed into the library.  

She unlocked the doors and walked slowly into the empty space, smelling a damp earthiness that she hadn’t noticed the day before – or maybe she had, just a momentary whiff.  Likely just caused by the damp weather, she convinced herself.  She turned on the circulation desk lights and froze, listening.  There was a sound, like whispering, coming from the stacks.  

“Hello?” she called out, walking cautiously towards the rows of shelves.  “Is someone there?” 

Silence.  

She shook her head and turned back towards the front of the library when she heard it again.  Like a long exhaled breath, or an old song whispered into the darkness.  She spun around.  She saw the basement door, a darker shadow against the wall.  

“Who’s there?” she called out again.  Again, silence was the only response.  

“Being here alone is just messing with my head,” she said to herself out loud.  “Let’s get some lights on in here.” She flipped on half a dozen switches to turn the overhead fluorescents on throughout the library, so that the darkened corners were revealed in a sickly flickering yellow glow, but at least there was light.  

She whistled to herself as she emptied the overnight drop box – only four books, so it wouldn’t take long to get those checked in – and then she began to tidy up some of the displays that they hadn’t gotten to the night before.  She was thinking again about the puppets in the back room when a loud crash made her jump and cry out.  It seemed to come from the stacks, and she cautiously moved to investigate.  

“Hello?” she called out again.  “If you got locked in here overnight or something, it’s OK, you’re not in any trouble.”  She had heard of people, mostly kids, having been accidentally locked inside a library or museum overnight.  

She went row by row, looking for the source of the sound, but didn’t see anything out of place.  No books fallen, no displays knocked over, nothing at all out of the ordinary.  

She walked down Historical Biographies and tugged on the handle to the basement door.  Locked tight.  She stood near the door and listened intently, but all she could hear was her own heartbeat thudding in her ears.  

She checked the back room, just in case the sound had come from there and she had mis-heard it due to some acoustical anomaly, but there was nothing strange there either.  

“OK, so definitely haunted then?” she said aloud to herself, and as if in response, she heard the whispers again, coming from the South wall.  From the Historical Biographies section.  

“Nope, that’s OK, that’s totally OK, just the wind” she said and headed back to the circulation desk to finish checking in the overnight books.  She kept glancing at the shadowy stacks out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t hear any more whispers.  

“No problems then?” Helen asked as she arrived.  

“None,” Lorraine said, forcing herself to cheerily catalog DVDs. She didn’t want to get a bad reputation so early in the job.  Especially a reputation like that.  “At least the rain stopped.” 

“But the temperature dropped ten degrees outside.  It’s going to be a cold winter,” Helen said, taking off her coat.  “I’m getting too old for these winters.” 

“Maybe you should check out libraries in Florida?” Lorraine teased.  

“Helen wouldn’t know what to do in another library,” Lynne said as she walked through the door.  “I don’t even think she’s walked into another library since the 80s.  It would be like cheating on her girl, isn’t that right, Helen?” 

“A library…,” Helen said with practiced gravitas, “is like the binding of a book.  Without the binding, a book is just a collection of individual pages…” She purposefully dropped a small stack of papers off the circulation desk, to accentuate the point. They fluttered to the floor like fallen leaves tossed in a stiff autumn breeze.  “There’s nothing holding the pages together.  The neighborhood is the same.  Without the library, a neighborhood is just a collection of people, of individuals, but the library binds those people together into a community.” She threaded her fingers together to demonstrate this binding principle.  

“That was beautiful,” Lorraine said, and she meant it.  

“That was from her last fundraising speech in front of the town council,” Lynne replied.  “And she practiced it on me about a thousand times,” she smiled.  

“Did it work?” Lorraine asked.  

“You’re here aren’t you?” Helen replied, and Lorraine caught the oh so slight semblance of a smile cross her face.  

“That I am, and let me clean up these papers for you,” Lorraine said, internally calming down and starting to feel more at home. “She is quite a place, isn’t she,” she said mostly to herself.  

At 10:30 the church social crowd came in, bundled up against the cold, but more animated than they had been the day before after coming in from the rain.  Lorraine said hello to everyone as they trickled in, and when she saw Mrs. James come in, she greeted her warmly.  

“Hello again, Mrs. James.  I wanted to thank you for sharing a bit of your history and the history of the library with me, I really am learning a lot.” 

“This place has quite a history, dear,” Mrs. James said.  “Quite a history.”   She patted Lorraine’s arm again.  “Some even said it’s cursed,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, then walked slowly towards a group sitting in one of the reading nooks. Lorraine couldn’t tell if she was serious or just messing with the new librarian, but she assumed it was the latter.  Mostly.  

The day went much the same as the previous, the seniors enjoying their magazines and socializing before the kids came  in after school.  Lynne had printed out a stack of Halloween pages for the younger kids to color, putting a tin of well-worn crayons in the middle of the long, low table in the children’ section. She excitedly called out their bold purple bats and blue jack-o-lanterns’ as the kids colored in their masterpieces.  Once finished, some were carefully tucked into backpacks to be displayed proudly at home, while others were taped up on the kids’ section walls with small strips of old cello tape.  

The library felt warm and yes, safe, as people gathered and chatted and read books and used the small collection of out-of-date computers.  Every so often, though, Lorraine would feel a chill, a strange coolness that ran up her back.  She would catch a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a patch of darkness that seemed darker, more solid than the area around it.  That, and the fluorescents around the Historical Biographies section kept blinking, flickering in ways that unnerved Lorraine, even though she told herself over and over again it was just simple electrical problems in a century old building, nothing unusual or unnatural.  

“Hey Helen,” Lorraine said as the afternoon started to quiet down.  There was a resume writing class in one of the side rooms and a young brother and sister still coloring in the kids’ section, but the rest of the library was empty.  

“What’s up?” Helen asked, folding over the page corner of a dog-eared romance novel she then tucked behind the circulation desk.  

“Mrs. James…,” she started, and Helen smiled but shook her head.  

“Ah, Edna…  Is she going on about the curse?” 

“Something like that,” Lorraine nodded. 

Helen sighed heavily. “Listen, Edna is a sweet old lady, but let’s just say she lived a pretty uneventful life, history teacher in a small public middle school, and now maybe she’s trying to play catch up.  Yes, there are some unusual occurrences in the history of our small hamlet, but the same can be said for pretty much any town in America.  And where Edna and some others see curses, most folks see providence…”

“Like the library protecting people from the riots?” Lorraine asked.  

“That and more. The story of the settlers here, the ‘curse’ story… well, the story in the history books claims that the first settlers stopped here because they were being pursued by members of the local tribe, possibly a Penobscot raiding party, but the tribe wouldn’t follow them into this land, into what is now Solarid.  They settled in the area and though there were the usual challenges – weather, wildlife, what have you – the tribes left them alone, and the community thrived.” 

“You sound like you could write a book.” Lorraine smiled at the older womans’ passion.  

“This library, this neighborhood, it’s my home.  Some outsiders might see a run-down part of town, full of graffiti and vacant lots and maybe more than our share of unsavory characters, but if you look at it, really LOOK at it, you’ll see the real community, the people, the street art, murals, musicians on the corner during the summer, the block parties to celebrate a graduation or a quinceanera.”  She smiled with the pride of a woman who had been a part of all of this and more in her decades serving this town’s vibrant and colorful community.  “Sometimes to celebrate the good, you have to acknowledge the bad.  Can’t see a light without the darkness,” she added cryptically.  

Lorraine nodded.  “I’ve only been here a couple days, but the people here, they’re great. They have so much respect for this library, you can really feel it.”

Helen smiled and went back to her filing.  

“Oh,” Lorraine suddenly remembered, organizing a magazine rack.  “Mister Carson, the missing gentleman.  Did they find him? I hope he’s OK.” 

“I haven’t heard, but then again we usually wouldn’t if he turns up safe.  Lynne, did you hear anything about Archie?” 

“I haven’t heard anything, and he wasn’t here today.” She shrugged.  “No idea.  I hope he’s OK, too.” 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Helen said, but for some reason it didn’t sound sincere.  She didn’t even look in Lorraine’s direction when she said it.  

“I hope so,” Lorraine replied softly, but something inside her knew he wasn’t.  

It was early afternoon and things were quiet and Lorraine joined Lynne in the back room to discuss some kids’ activities.  

“So, how are you finding our wonderful haunted library?” Lynne inquired playfully.  

“You know that talk had me freaking out this morning opening alone,” Lorraine admitted.  “All kinds of sounds, weird smells.  Being alone here really gets the mind going.” 

“That’s not just your mind playing tricks,” Lynne said in a conspiratorial whisper.  “We see stuff, hear stuff all the time here.  Weird stuff,” she grinned.  “We’re just not supposed to talk about it.” 

“So you really do think it’s haunted?” Lorraine asked, wide-eyed.  Lynne shrugged her shoulders. 

“I don’t know.  I know I don’t like being here alone, it just creeps me out sometimes.  Like you said – weird sounds, whispering.  But, are there actual ghosts here?” she shrugged again.  “I think if ghosts are real, then yeah, probably, given the history of the place.”

Lorraine shivered, which made Lynne laugh.  “Oh come on – even if there are ghosts here they’re not gonna hurt you.  Helen wouldn’t let them,” she grinned, and Lorraine laughed with her.  

“That is true, Helen does not abide by any nonsense.” Lorraine said, nodding.  “And what about the basement?  Nothing weird there?” 

“I mean…,” Lynne suddenly looked uneasy.  

“Lynne?” Lorraine looked at her, expecting another punchline, but none came.  

“It’s just… I’ve never actually been down there.  I’ve never even seen the door open.” 

“Are you serious?” Lorraine was shocked. 

“Hey, I’m terrified of rats, and dirty dark spaces, and there’s no need for a librarian to go down there.  Helen doesn’t even go down there,” Lynne said honestly.  

“What about maintenance, inspections, stuff like that?” Lorraine asked.  

“Yeah of course, but that happens on the weekends, from what I’ve been told.  Always happens when I’m not around.” 

“Don’t you find that a little odd?” Lorraine asked.  

“I do not,” Lynne shook her head.  “Rats.” she said again, to emphasize her discomfort with rodents.  “It’s just a basement.”

Lorraine shook her head and headed back out into the library to help organize more coloring activities for the kids.  

Lorraine opened the library again the following day, another morning covered by heavy gray clouds and the chill of winter carried on the wind.  Again she smelled a damp, earthy smell, stronger than it had been the day before, and as she turned on the lights she investigated different areas of the library, to see if there was some kind of leak or other source for the strange odor.  

She had reached one of the side classrooms when she was startled – that was putting it mildly – by a loud noise coming from the stacks.  She rushed over, looking for whatever may have made the sound, and again heard whispers, more clearly than she had heard them previously.  She couldn’t make out words, but there was a cadence to them, she could hear it.  She slowly followed the sound and, a few rows over, she found the source of the initial noise – a large book had landed on the floor.  She moved towards it, bending down to pick it up.  

“And what are you doing on the floor, Mister Churchill?” she said as she lifted the heavy book, then realized where she was – Historical Biographies. 

Almost as soon as the realization hit her, Lorraine felt a chill breeze on her back and smelled that deep, damp, earthy smell again, but even stronger.  She turned around and dropped Mister Churchill to the floor once again.  

Before her, at the far end of the row of historical biographies, the basement door was wide open  where it had clearly been closed tight a moment before.  A light seemed to flicker from within the opening.   

“What the hell?” she asked, looking around, checking if there was a maintenance man working on the furnace or some other mundane explanation, but she didn’t see anyone. She moved closer.  There was a steady draft that flowed up from the dim stairwell and Lorraine moved up to it, less than a foot away now, and peered in. There were stairs, as she expected – wide cement steps stained with years of use and neglect, and there was a dim light from below, but Lorraine couldn’t see much of anything past the first few stairs down.  

Instead of calling Helen for something as trivial as the basement door being open, she flipped on the flashlight on her phone and started walking down the steps.  

There were ten steps in all – she counted as she slowly descended – but she felt that she was much further below the library than that, like she was being buried underground with every step.  She felt that she was very deep, the rough concrete floor feeling more like carved stone,  ancient and heavy.  She looked for a light switch but there was none along the wall, so she held her phone in front of her to illuminate the gloom.  She slowly moved into the room that opened up before her at the base of the stairs, headed towards the strange flicker of light as the sing-song whispers seemed to be getting louder, and Lorraine had no idea if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.  

“Hello?” she called out into the gloom before her.  “What am I doing?” Lorraine whispered to herself as she slowly crept through the room, past modern pipework spliced onto ancient iron machinery that that hissed and creaked as she walked by.   

Another dozen feet, two dozen, and Lorraine saw that flicker of light coalesce, amber and yellow dancing along the wall.  The furnace?  She crept forward even more slowly, realizing that the source of the whispering and the source of the fire were likely the same place, which looked as if it were just around a corner that was now only feet away.  Maybe there was a simple explanation for all of this, she thought to herself, imagining the whispering as simple pressurization sounds coming from the furnace. 

As she slowly, cautiously peered around the corner, Lorraine dropped her phone, and she screamed.  

Lorraine was frozen in place, her entire body shaking.  She found herself looking at a room, and she had the distinct impression she was somehow no longer in the library.  The room was wide and long and low, lit by several torches and a wide brazier that sat in the center of the chamber.  The walls, floor and ceiling were all stone, gray and damp in the torchlight, with deep shadows that danced menacingly.  She looked more closely and saw that the walls were covered by petroglyphs, and almost every surface was covered.  

There was a man there, or at least she assumed it was a man, wearing what appeared to be a heavy, rough spun wool doublet and pants in a deep, soiled brown color.  His back was to her as he worked over a heavy wooden table, his shoulders heaving up and down with rigor, and he made no move, did not turn around or acknowledge her at all as she screamed.  

The strange man was not the cause of Lorraine’s scream, however.  No, that was the mangled, flayed body that hung on a heavy wooden frame, tied up with thick crude ropes.  The skin seemed to be peeled off of much of the body, with huge patches of raw bloody flesh exposed.  She saw scraps of clothing strewn around the corpse, as if it had been hastily sliced off and discarded so the killer could get to the skin beneath.  She saw a heavy black leather shoe with a lift tossed off to the side of the room and realized the truth with a gasp.  

“Mister Carson… ‘ Lorraine said with a choked whisper, her eyes taking in more and more of the horrifying abattoir she found herself in.  There was a tray of bloody knives and other horrifying instruments, all covered in gore.  There was a wide, low bookshelf holding dozens of heavy leather bound tomes; Lorraine couldn’t tell what kind of books they were, but she could feel that their presence here infused them with a dark malevolence.   

There were sheets of what she initially thought were rough hand laid paper hanging on primitive drying racks near the wide brazier, but to her horror she realized the pale sheets hanging there were skin…human skin.   

Lorraine felt faint and fell heavily against the rough stone wall, her legs nearly giving out from underneath her, and she began to retch.  It was all too much and, head spinning, she started to back out, before the man, the murderer, the… thing that stood in the middle of the room realized she was there.  As she backed out, however, there was a heavy, grinding noise and a deep metallic slam, and instead of the open doorway that she had entered through, an iron wall barred her way.  She gasped and spun around, looking for another exit, but it was clear there was none.   

“You’ll not be leaving this place, miss.” the voice said in a dry, cracking hiss.  “None what find this place ever leave.  Ye belong to the land now.” The figure turned to face her, and once again Lorraine shrieked.  

It wasn’t a man. Maybe it had been at some time in the distant past, but now the face that stared at her was cadaverous, pallid and loathsome, with deep, rheumy eyes that glared at her from dark gray pits.  Its lips were cracked, dry and bloody, and a mottled gray tongue licked them as the thing stared at her.  

As she stared at the horror, she realized its clothing was smeared with mud and dark ichor.  It wore strange charms made of wood and stones and bone around its diseased neck, and its hair was thin and caked in filth the color of dried blood.  

“You’re all part of the land, you see.” he hissed, grinned at her, his breath rancid and his teeth rotted and diseased. “Your stories, all part of the land, the land cares for you all, the land protects you, and you are bound to it.” He moved aside and showed Lorraine what he had been crafting on the table when she arrived. Her voice gone, she was incapable of screaming, but she whimpered as she realized what she was being shown.  “Your stories bind you,” he said.  

He was a bookbinder.  His heavy wooden workbench held a binding frame, a press, spools of twine, print blocks, and quills.  He was binding loose pages together, making the thick tomes that filled the bookshelf along the far wall.  Instead of paper, though, he was using…  She looked again at the sheets of skin hanging on the drying racks.

“A library is like the binding of a book.” Helen had said.  “Without the binding, a book is just a collection of individual pages…”

“The natives, they knew of the curse,” he said in his hollow voice, pointing to the petroglyphs carved across the ceiling. “Theirs were the first stories…,”  He walked to the wooden frame that held the corpse of poor Mister Carson.  “We thought them savages, but they knew.  They knew to stay clear of this place.”  There was a flash of metal and the heavy, wet thing that had been Archie Carson slumped to the floor, congealed blood shooting across the dark stone as it landed.  “The land protects, yes…,” the thing looked back at her with black malice,“…but her price is high.  She looks for stories, you see,”  the thing said, looking at Lorraine and then to the rows of books.  “Special stories, full of life.” it licked its lips again with its pustulent tongue. “So many stories in you…,” it whispered.  

‘Dad got some pretty crazy posts, so I lived in a dozen different countries by the time I turned sixteen…’ she heard herself saying.  

Stories.  She realized the books were the stories of the people here, carved into the skin of those who lived them. And the more stories a person had, the more places they had seen…

‘Mister Carson summited Everest in the 70s…’ 

So many books, and before that, drawn on the cave walls… in blood. 

The corpse-thing shambled towards Lorraine and suddenly grabbed her wrist with his gray, skeletal hand, his grip like an ice cold vice.  Lorraine screamed and fought back, but it was no use, the thing dragged her across the floor and began binding her hands to the heavy wooden frame that had held Mister Carson.  

“She demands her stories,” it whispered to her, with hot, wet breath like that of the grave. “She demands sacrifice….” 

She screamed again, raw red panic in her voice as tears rolled hot and wet down her cheeks.  She watched him in terror as he drew the cruel hooked blade from his belt and began his work.