Knowing I was going to see him gave me the motivation I needed to head down with the book cart. One of the first buildings on campus, the library’s employee elevator was ancient and hadn’t been renovated when the upstairs had been constructed. I got in the small space, pushed the button for the basement floor, and whistled on the way down. The motor made a grinding sound, like the wires holding the thing were rusted. The place was the perfect setting for Max’s zombie show.
The door slid open and I stepped out gingerly, my hand immediately going to the light switch on the right of the cold concrete wall. One of the florescent bulbs blinked annoyingly, like it usually did, and made a metallic clanking noise that sent chills straight up my spine. I glared at it. One of these days, I was going to come down here and this place was going to be pitch black. I made a note to tell Pam that maintenance really needed to check the wiring in this place.
I wheeled the cart past dusty discarded desks and study carrels to a hallway that led to a series of locked doors on either side. All were storage for various items. I unlocked and entered room 105, the biggest storage area and the room where everything went to die. I felt sad for every single book there that would never be read again. During the day, when I didn’t work, I imagined it might be a pretty cool place as sunlight poured in from the ground-level windows near the ceiling. But at night, it was dark and musty, chocked full of metal shelving, rickety chairs, and an eerie padding sound which I took to be the vibrations from the heating and air system. Or maybe it was the footsteps of the patrons above me. Either way, the place gave me the heebie-jeebies.
I shoved a doorstopper in place with my foot and flipped the light switch. And just like last week, this one didn’t work at all. The maintenance person was slacking. Luckily I was prepared. I clicked on the mini LED flashlight I’d bought at Wal-Mart when I started this job and stuck it in my mouth as I used both hands to push the cart to the back of the room.
Using my flashlight, I walked down the dusty aisles, shelving the non-fiction books in the correct Dewey Decimal order. It was taking longer than I thought it would. The library closed in ten minutes. Getting worried she might forget I was here, I tugged out my phone and typed a quick text to Pam, then shoved the phone back in my pocket.
I’d just shelved a book about Egypt when I heard the creak of a distant door. My stomach jumped to my throat. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone down here but me.
A soft shuffling sound echoed from the main part of the basement, and I stilled.
An image of a giant rat flashed through my head.
Then a gnarly-looking spider with fangs. Ugh.
The door to my room slammed shut, and I screamed, the shrillness shattering the eerie quiet of the room. My hands clenched the cart, shoving it out of my way as I ran for the front of the room. The flashlight fell to the floor in my haste.
A laugh pierced the quiet after my scream, the sound muffled by the door between us.
I twisted the knob but it wouldn’t open. A rattling sound came each time I shook it, and with a sinking feeling, I suspected what the flashlight confirmed when I looked through the rectangular window on the metal door. A chair had been pushed up under the handle, locking me inside.
Fear rose in my stomach.
I took a step back.
“Who’s out there?” My voice was thin and reedy, bouncing off the concrete walls.
Nothing but silence greeted me.
I slapped my fists against the metal door. “Let me out!”
The laugh came again—a girl’s.
“This isn’t funny!”
And then I heard movement and a tapping noise, fading. Someone was running.
I put the light back up to the window, trying to illuminate more of the hallway. It didn’t show me much, but the window in the door across from me caught a reflection of light as the stairwell door down the hall opened and someone slipped inside. Whoever the culprit was, she was leaving by the stairwell that led back upstairs.
Every scary movie I’d ever watched flashed through my head. I fumbled for my phone, but when I tried to call out I realized I was so deep in concrete that I didn’t have any service. Which meant Pam had never gotten my text.
With hands that trembled from adrenaline, I jerked my phone into the air as if that might improve the service. Nothing.
I swallowed down the helpless feeling eating at me, trying to keep it together. My brain scattered in a million directions as I paced a small patch of floor lit by the streetlight coming in from the ground-level window high up the wall.