10. Fix It With Sleep

J ahla was looking at Ollie like he was insane, and he couldn’t really blame her.

“I know how it sounds! But I saw it…a ghost! At least…I-I think I did. I mean, I couldn’t have! G-ghosts aren’t real…but I think…I did!? Sh-she w-as… I SAW books through her! She was translucent! And floating in a…I want to say in a late 1700s style dress?”

Around there, maybe. She was upper class, at least—no, she was nothing! As she had not been there. She couldn’t have been, as ghosts weren’t real! But…maybe…they were?

Jahla was quiet for a moment, her expression having smoothed out, before slowly saying, “Ollie, I think it’s time you go on a vacation. These walls—” She waved her arms around, and then bent down and snatched what appeared to be her keys from the floor. “—are obviously getting to you. Like, do you even leave here beyond going for groceries, and library-related meetings, and oh, randomly meeting up with sketchy people to check if the shit they bought, or are trying to buy, is real or not, followed by subsequently cooling it in jail after that meeting goes to hell?”

“That’s only happened two times!” Ollie huffed, glaring.

“Ollie, I feel two times is still two times too many.”

“Well, it hasn’t happened recently! The last time was…like eight months ago!” he grumbled, before adding, “Also, I get my groceries delivered now.”

“Of course you do,” she deadpanned.

“It doesn’t mean anything! It just saves me time! Also, grocery stores are busy…and noisy, and…uncomfortable.”

“You’ve just described life in general.”

“All of this is beside the point. As insane as it sounds, I saw…a ghost! And you know me! You know I’m not the type of person to make that up! Like you believe in this shit more than I do!?”

“What I believe in is leaving all paranormal and supernatural shit ALONE! It doesn’t bother me, I don’t bother it. If I get a hinky feeling, I go in the other direction, away from it, so I can continue living a peaceful life without dying from something unknown.

“You, on the other hand, are a straight up skeptic, who believes in none of it. So yes, I do understand that you would not make it up. Which again is why I am saying it is time you leave this library for longer than a few hours!”

“What does it have to do with the library?! How will that fix it?! I saw a GHOST!”

MEOW!

Ollie jumped, letting out a string of made up curse words. “Flipping, fudging heck, Red!” he hissed, glaring down at the cat.

Jahla snorted. “You could actually say fuck, if you wanted. There are no children present…unless you can see a ghost floating around here that I can’t?”

“The ghost wasn’t a child!” he snapped. “And if I start cursing out loud when I want to, I risk saying it when I don’t!”

“Ollie, finish turning out the lights and go get some rest. You need it.” She patted his shoulder. “It’s Sunday tomorrow, the library is closed. Get out of these walls. Go do something non-work related. Hell, go to Salem, or maybe not, since you are already seeing ghosts.”

“You really want me to step foot into that nightmare on a weekend this close to October?!”

The wall-to-wall crowds—Ollie shuddered.

Jahla chuckled. “Just go somewhere, I don’t care where. Get away from all of these books, and give your brain a rest.”

“Elias is coming tomorrow to go over some details on the Drag Queen Storytime.”

“Of course he is,” she groaned. “Fine, after that, get out of here!”

“But…I’m pretty sure there is some?—”

“No! Whatever it is, it can wait. Now shoo, shoo.” She waved him away. “Go finish closing.”

He took a hesitant step back before blurting out, “Can you come with me?!”

“Oh, my God.” She sighed. “Fine! Lead on.”

Ollie swallowed hard as he looked back down the hall that he’d run from, then he slowly retraced his steps, Jahla and Red following behind him.

Entering the room, with the light of his abandoned flashlight as his only guide, he took trembling steps forward, snatching up the light as he reached it. He spun with it in hand, flashing it all around. Jahla winced as he blinded her.

“See! No ghost!” she grumbled, using her hands to shield her face.

But…there was nothing that would project anything either.

He kept the thought to himself, and went back to checking all of the remaining rooms for lit lamps. Once they were done on the second floor, they quickly repeated the process on the first. His friend seemed unimpressed, while Ollie found himself filled with trepidation and dread as they finished.

“And look at that! Done, and not a single ghost spotted,” Jahla chimed as they reached her desk.

He just grimaced in response.

She grabbed her bag before turning to him and, with a soft chuckle after seeing his face, she said, “Ollie, it’s going to be fine. Now, I’m heading out. I’ll finish what I was working on Monday.”

“Why…” he rasped hesitantly, before gasping in desperation. “Why don’t you have a sleepover with me?!”

“No, I’m going home.”

“Okay, but…” He trailed off as she gripped both of his shoulders.

“Ollie, you are a big boy. There are no ghosts. You imagined it due to being overworked. Go upstairs, and get some sleep. I’m out.”

Letting him go, she reached under the desk and flicked off the lights above, before waving and heading towards the stairs.

He waved half-heartedly, even though she wasn’t looking to see it. Ollie flinched when he finally heard one of the doors open and close below.

Despite knowing that they were set to lock automatically, he walked down the stairs, and double-checked. Finding both double doors locked, as they should be, he stared at them for a few seconds, building up the nerve to turn around. And then he did…slowly.

Swallowing, Ollie looked up into the dark library above. Their operating hours ran from 9am to 8pm, Monday through Friday, and on Saturdays they closed at 6pm. But closing procedures usually took an hour, so even if the windows weren’t always covered by thick curtains, there wouldn’t be any light from them. The only lights that were on near him currently were the glowing exit sign above, the single spotlight over the front stairs that never turned off…and his flashlight.

“It’s…it’s fine. It will be fine! I imagined it!”

He had to have imagined it. Ghosts were not real… Not…real… No matter how detailed the woman he had never seen before had been, she had not really been there.

Swallowing again, Ollie slowly walked back up the steps. Reaching the top of the entrance stairs, he headed right up to the next floor, not daring to look in any other direction, nor to flash his light anywhere beyond where he needed to walk.

Ollie managed to remain calm as he walked up the first set of stairs, but by the time he stepped onto the second landing between the first and second floor, he was running. Ollie ran all the way up, not stopping until he was slamming shut the door he’d unlocked earlier.

With his heart racing, he locked it quickly, before resting his back against it and taking a gasping breath. “Fine…” he wheezed. “It’s fine… There is no such thing as ghosts.”

MEOW!

“Frick!” Ollie squeaked as he jumped. Clutching at his chest, he let out a tired sigh as he whined, “Red, you are going to give me a heart attack one day.”

Meow!

He blinked, grimacing when he realized the sound had come from the other side of the door.

Spinning, Ollie quickly unlocked it and stepped back, holding it open. The cat eyed him with clear displeasure as he walked in.

“Sorry, Red.” He cleared his throat and closed the door, making sure to relock it before heading up the stairs.

Unlocking and opening his front door, he let his cat in first before closing it behind himself. He engaged all of the chains and bolts that he rarely used, before redoing the door lock.

Moving over to the security panel, Ollie began turning on all of the security alarms in the library. Staring at the screen, he froze, his eyes slowly widening.

“Security!” Ollie gasped. “I have security cameras!”

Rushing past his kitchen into the hall, he opened the first door to the right, entering the room that had been turned into one of the two library security feed rooms, mainly as it was closet small, and not much use as anything else. It barely fit the desk, chair, wall of screens, and computer that was currently inside it.

The screens were labeled, and all showed various parts of the library, but they weren’t what interested him.

Sitting in the chair, Ollie woke up the computer and opened the auto-generated saved files from the security footage that day. The feed was saved by room, with a new file each hour, and the files overlapped a few seconds in time.

Pulling up the feed for the second floor, he quickly found the room he was looking for, and the correct angle that just happened to show above the row. He clicked the file for 6pm, scrolling until it was close to the end, before just letting it play.

At the first flicker of white, Ollie’s eyes widened, his heartbeat speeding up in sheer panic as the edges of his vision started to go dark. The darkness continued to encroach while he watched the apparition appear in front of him, and then disappear right as he ran away…

“Oh…oh, no—” His words cut as everything went black.

The brush of a sandpaper tongue against his cheek, and a loud monotone Meow, jerked Ollie awake. Straightening up in the desk chair that he’d been awkwardly flopped over in, he rubbed his neck with a wince of pain.

Ollie glanced around, feeling confused, as he started petting Red, who was sitting in his lap. And then everything came rushing back. “Oh…” he whined. “Did I really just faint?”

He took a deep breath as he hugged his cat, before reaching out with a shaky hand towards the mouse. Rewinding the footage, Ollie watched again.

Instead of panic, this time he started to frown. “Hah…nothing… There’s nothing…”

No ghost. Nothing was there. Just him freaking out in the face of…nothing.

“But…I…”

Pulling his glasses off, he rubbed his eyes as he groaned loudly in disgust. “Jahla is right. Sleep… I need sleep, and to…get out of here.”

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