Chilling Tales - 1. Chilling Tales

I love this time of night at the county library. It’s nearing closing time and most people have come and gone. Even when it is busy, it’s quiet, but there’s something about this time of night, when it’s getting dark outside and all the parents have taken their children home to feed them dinner. There is only one thing that I find slightly disconcerting.

I think everybody has their own little niche at the library. Someplace they just like to sit and relax as they read. I know I have one and I enjoy nothing more than going to my little spot and losing myself in stories about mystical beings and far off places. Lately though, it just hasn’t been the same.

It all started about a month ago. I was sitting in my spot, like usual, when I felt as though I was being watched. I looked and didn’t see anyone, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I shrugged it off and went back to reading, but over the rest of the week, the feeling of being watched just got stronger and stronger.

I stayed away over the weekend, hoping that when I went back on Monday, the library would once more become the peaceful place that I could just relax and read. When I did finally go back, I decided maybe it was just something with that one spot and searched out a new little alcove to read in. I wish it had been that easy, but it hadn’t been. No sooner had I sat down and opened my book than goose bumps rose up on my arms and a chill crept down my spine.

I jerked my gaze up, but all I saw was an older man walking through the aisles, tracing his finger over the spines of the books as though he was looking for something specific. The hair on the nape of my neck stood up until finally I had enough and snapped my book closed before climbing to my feet. I had only taken a single step when my arm grew cold, and it felt as though someone was gripping it. I shook the invisible grip and rushed from the library, not stopping until I’d reached my car.

I got in and closed the door before realizing that I still clutched the book I had been reading. With a sigh, I got back out and headed inside. I’d return the book and maybe see if there was anyone there that might know some of the history behind the library. There had to be someone who might have had a similar experience to mine or know of someone who had. I just needed to know that I hadn’t completely lost my mind.

I was tense as I walked up to the desk where a girl about my own age was talking to another patron. I overheard her saying that the regular librarian was on vacation and would be back the following week if the lady wanted to come in then. Doubting that the girl behind the counter would be able to help me, I dropped my book in the book return and headed back to my car. Something had changed about my beloved library; I just wanted to know what.

I’d headed home that night and sat down at the computer, determined to figure out why I constantly felt like I was being watched. Even more than that, I wanted to know what had grabbed me. I had never been one to believe in ghosts, but my experiences at the library had made me begin to wonder if I was wrong.

I searched the internet for haunted buildings in my county, and each search result ended up being a dead end. There was a haunted mine in the town to the east of me, but nothing that I could find on was about the library. Nobody else had reported an experience like mine, but the lack of information didn’t deter me. I had to know what was going on. I wasn’t going to let whatever it was chase me away from my time at the library.

It took me nearly two days of digging around with different search words, but I finally found something that looked to be promising. That might actually explain to me what I was dealing with. A woman had come forward, though it only gave the year, saying that she had experienced something similar in the same building that our county library was housed. At the time, the building had apparently been the county courthouse.

I hadn’t realized that it had ever been anything except the library. The woman, whose name isn’t important, had been a cleaning lady at the courthouse. She had been there alone one night when she had felt as though she was being watched. She’d checked to make sure she was alone, and other than the security guard who was still at his desk, no one else was in the building. The feeling never dissipated. Eventually she had done as I had and shrugged it off and gone back to her duties.

She’d finished up the cleaning and left, but two days later, she had felt as though someone had grabbed her arm. She’d left the building after that, refusing to finish the job that night. She’d told her boss that she wasn’t going back into the building, and was essentially told that she either does it or lose her job. Against her better judgment she’d gone back in.

It was when she was cleaning the upper hallway, just outside of the main courtroom that her fears were fully realized. She’d just turned the vacuum on when she felt something brush against her and heard what sounded like the clanking of chains. She shivered, but decided she was imagining things, and went about her duties. Within seconds she claimed she felt hands wrapped around her neck, even to feeling individual fingers pressing into her neck, squeezing as she gasped for breath.

She had apparently fought her invisible assailant, but the pressure never let up and she felt as though she was being pushed backwards. She wrote that just as her vision started to go dark, she felt the hands let go, but before she could even feel relief that it was over, she felt something shove against her. Her assailant had pushed her backwards to the top of the stairs and that last push sent her tumbling down. She apparently didn’t remember the security guard finding her, only waking up in the hospital with a full memory of what had happened. Only, no one believed her. Until now. I sure as hell believed her.

I wanted to know more about when it happened, but with only having the year, all I knew was that it was some time nearly twenty years ago. Wanting to know more, I continued my search and found a couple more attacks in the years since, all of them eerily similar, but nothing about who, or what, was attacking people. I tried searching for incidents at the courthouse prior to the first attack, but couldn’t find even a reference to anything in particular. I sighed and shut the computer down as I thought about my options.

I didn’t dare go back to the library until I knew what I was going to have to protect myself against. Every attack had escalated from something very similar to what had happened to me. I regretted the loss of the library, but in the end, I wasn’t about to be attacked and very nearly killed. It wasn’t worth it. I just needed to find someone who might know some of the history of the building, only then would I be able to return, knowing that I was safe. Until then, well, there was always the library in the next town.