9. A What?!
A s Jane and Tim, two members of his janitorial staff, said goodnight when they passed where Ollie was leaning against the circulation desk, he chimed, “Have a nice night, you two!”
Knowing they were usually the last to leave, he turned to Jahla and shook his flashlight at her, saying, “I’m heading up to check the desk lamps.”
She absently waved, keeping her gaze down as she continued working on whatever she was doing. Likely damage reports, or something…that he did not want to think about.
Humming, he hurried to the elevator. Pressing the button, he looked back on noting that Red wasn’t following. The cat sat near the desk, and didn’t appear as if he intended to move while he stared back, looking bored.
Shrugging, Ollie stepped into the elevator as it opened, taking it up to the third floor. Even though the staff was usually good at turning off the lights, he always had to double check. There were WAY too many table lamps for him to not. No point adding to his electric bill…or light bulb expenditures…
Ollie quickly checked the lamps in the Rare Books section and the Newspaper Archives, before locking the doors there. And after turning a few lamps off on the third floor, he rushed back and unlocked the door that led up to his home, before opening the electrical box and turning off the elevators and all of the overhead lights in the library. Luckily, the ones above the circulation desk were not connected to these switches.
Once that was done, Ollie closed the box, flicked his flashlight on, and headed down to the second floor using the back stairwell. With the overhead lights out, and only his bright but small beam of light guiding his way, it was pretty easy to spot the rooms with lit lamps inside.
Turning a corner, he said with a laugh, “Found you!” as he hurried towards the dim light coming from around the edges of the many rows of free-standing bookshelves in the room. It was one of the larger rooms on the second floor, with multiple bookcases, desks, chairs, and lamps.
Ollie let out a pleased hum as he reached the furthest desk in the room and tugged on the small chain cord, clicking the lamp off.
With a smile still on his face, he turned around and froze for just a moment, before taking off after the flicker of white that had just disappeared around the row of bookcases.
“Who’s there!?” he cried out, as his flashlight danced over the shelves and books, and…the empty aisle.
Ollie spun around multiple times, letting out a frustrated growl when he found nothing. “I know you are there! I saw you! You… You’ve been following me all day… I… At least…I think I saw…”
He frowned. He wasn’t sure what he saw. Because what he thought he saw didn’t make sense. But then, Westerly Heights was only fifteen minutes from Salem, and it was nearing October. Elaborate costumes or even pranks weren’t out of the norm for this area. Because people were certainly not translucent or copy paper white, and ghosts didn’t exist, so…
Ollie huffed. “Hello?!” Looking around one last time, he sighed again and turned to leave. But as Ollie turned around, a scream forced itself past his lips before his brain even registered what he was seeing.
Meow!
“Got bored of following Ollie around, did you?” Jahla said with a smile, without looking up from the paperwork.
As a scream of terror broke through the air, her head jerked up and her eyes went wide. “OLLIE!?”
Leaping from her chair, which almost toppled over with the action, she grabbed her keys and gripped onto her taser as she took off running towards the stairs. She reached the top and ran right into Ollie.
Squeaking, Jahla dropped her keys in her efforts to stop herself and her friend from tumbling down the stairs.
She shuffled them forward as she rasped, “Holy shit. Ollie, what’s wrong?! Are you hurt?! Did someone attack you? Is someone here?!”
As the trembling man, who was now wrapped around her, shook his head against her shoulder with each question, her racing heart started to slow. Taking a calming breath, Jahla gingerly pulled back.
Gripping Ollie’s shoulders, she eyed the man’s face. His gray-blue eyes were wide and fearful behind his glasses, and he was as pale as he usually looked when he was about to pass out from low blood pressure.
“Ollie…what happened?”
“I…I saw…” Ollie spoke slowly at first, almost in a whisper, before the full-on semi-incoherent babbling commenced. “N-no, I co-couldn’t have seen it. Really, I couldn’t. But I think I-I did. I-it has to be a joke. It di-didn’t look like a j-joke. And there wa-wasn’t any li-light to suggest it was a pr-prank. You know, because pro-projectors. B-but if… If it wasn’t a prank… Th-then…hah…it has to be r-real. But it COULDN’T BE REAL!? It can’t be! It’s…it’s IMPOSSIBLE!”
Jahla’s eyes widened as the man went on. “Ollie.” She sighed when he kept going. “OLLIE!” she snapped.
Her friend flinched back in her hold, his mouth snapping shut, while his eyes remained wide and terrified.
Jahla smiled gently. “Ollie…what did you see?”
Ollie’s eyes started to turn a bit glossy as he let out a soft whimper. “I saw… I saw… I mean…I think…I saw…a…”
“A?” She encouraged him to go on by widening her smile.
“A-a GHOST!”
Jahla locked her knees, just barely stopping them from buckling as shock almost bowled her ass over. Never had a single word almost taken her out. But this had come close. It wasn’t even the word…but more who it had come from.
She stared, blinking at him, her face twisting in bewilderment. “A what?!”