Chapter 2
OLIVIA
“God, I swear if I hear one more guy on Bumble say he’s ‘spiritually aligned with gym culture,’ I’m gonna set myself on fire,” Peggy Sue groans, tossing her phone face down on the reference desk like it insulted her ancestors.
I don’t look up from the overdue returns. “Maybe you just need to adjust your radius filter. Try… outside of the tri-county area. Or the tri-state.”
She scoffs. “Honey, I’d have to adjust it to Jupiter to find a man in this town who doesn’t think bathing is optional or that ‘Netflix and chill’ is a personality.”
I laugh, even though I feel every word. “Aren’t you the one with a date tonight?”
“Yeah, but it’s probably just another guy who thinks ‘historian’ means I roleplay as Betsy Ross in the bedroom.”
I finally look up. “Don’t you?”
She winks. “Only on Thursdays.”
That’s Walnut Falls for you—big hearts, small minds, and even smaller dating pools. Still, I love this place. The library’s quiet hum, the way the floorboards creak like old ghosts trying to gossip, and the steady rhythm of work that keeps the loneliness from settling too deep.
Peggy starts gathering her things, reapplying lipstick with practiced flair. “You mind locking up solo?”
I wave a hand. “Nah, I got it. Go let some poor bastard find out you’re smarter than him.”
She leans over and kisses my cheek. “Godspeed, Olivia. Try not to kill Booger and Burnout.”
“Only if they ask real nice.”
Speak of the devils—giggles erupt from the photography section.
I sigh and stroll over.
Booger and Burnout are huddled over a high-class hardcover titled The Human Form: A Study in Light and Shadow. Which, of course, means boobs. Tasteful boobs, but still boobs.
Burnout nudges Booger with his elbow. “Dude, look at this one—her expression is, like, ‘Please admire my soul through my nipples.’”
Booger snorts. “Ten outta ten. Would philosophize with.”
I cross my arms. “Alright, Casanovas. That’s a reference book, not a romance novel. And those models are someone’s mother, daughter, and probably more talented than both of you combined.”
They whip around, faces red, but not ashamed.
Booger grins. “Miss Wilkins! We were just, uh… appreciating the light techniques.”
“And the shadows,” Burnout adds, too quickly.
“Uh-huh. Well, it’s time to appreciate the exit sign. We’re closing up.”
They groan in unison.
Booger flops the book closed and mutters, “Censorship in action.”
“I’m a librarian, not a censor. You can check out any book in this place,” I say, walking them toward the front door, “except the one you’re drooling on. That one’s seventy bucks and imported from France.”
Burnout pouts. “There’s nudity in France?”
“There’s also discipline in France. Go emulate that part.”
They laugh and trudge out with their backpacks sagging like overripe fruit. Booger calls over his shoulder, “Night, Miss Wilkins! Tell Miss Peggy she’s hot!”
I lock the door behind them with a dry chuckle. “Absolutely not.”
Suddenly, silence.
The kind that settles into your bones. The kind that sighs through the rafters and whispers, You’re alone again.
I lean against the circulation desk and let my smile drop. Just for a second.
The overhead lights buzz softly. Somewhere, a radiator hisses. I can hear the hum of the Coke machine in the break room and the distant ticking of the grandfather clock in the history nook.
No one left. No one is coming. Just me, my thoughts, and the same old ache in my ribs.
I love this library. But there are nights—quiet, echoing, suffocating nights—where I feel like one of the books no one checks out anymore. Still here. Still full of stories. Just gathering dust.
I push off the counter, muttering, “Alright, drama queen, mop first, existential dread later.”
The cleaning cart squeaks across the tile as I do my final sweep. I pass the children’s section—little chairs neatly tucked under tiny tables—and start toward the bathrooms with the trash bin in tow.
Then the lights flicker.
I freeze.
“…okay.”
I wait.
The lights steady again. Just an old building. Power grid’s always had hiccups. Last winter, the Christmas lights shorted out half the library. I found a charred plug behind the nonfiction section and almost cried when I realized it melted through a biography of FDR.
Still.
Something about this flicker feels… heavier. Like the air thickened for a second. Like the whole building held its breath and then let it out too slow.
“Probably just the wind,” I mutter.
Except there is no wind inside.
I give the hallway a long look, then shake my head. “Too much coffee. Not enough carbs.”
I keep walking.
Toward the men’s room.
The cleaning cart bumps a tile seam and jolts. The plastic trash liner flutters like it's shivering. The hallway feels longer than usual. Like someone stretched it overnight and forgot to tell me.
It’s just a hallway.
Just a library.
Just me.
I’m fine.
I reach the bathroom door and stop.
Something smells… off.
Chemical tang, sure—cleaners and that weird lemon-urinal cake thing. But there’s something underneath it now. Something is wrong. Like burned hair. And meat left out too long.
I squint. There’s a smear near the bottom edge of the door. Greasy. Black.
My heart thumps. Hard.
“Okay. Probably a prank. Probably Booger. Or Burnout. Or… both.”
I raise the mop like a makeshift spear, grip it tight.
The smell is worse now.
It’s not just gross—it’s wrong. Something about it bypasses my nose and goes straight to my gut, like my body knows before my brain can process. Rot layered over rot, like meat left out during a blackout heatwave, slathered in cheap cologne and piss. I taste it in the back of my throat. I gag.
The light above the bathroom door buzzes—then flickers.
Once. Twice.
I freeze.
Chittering.
It starts soft, like static in the walls. But then it rises in pitch, an awful clicking rhythm, like teeth snapping in a jaw too wide to belong to anything natural. I squint toward the door. The sound’s coming from the other side.
“Booger?” My voice cracks. “Burnout? This is so not funny.”
Nothing.
I grip the doorknob.
The metal’s cold—freezing cold, like it hasn’t been touched by warm blood in years.
I recoil, rub my palm on my jeans, and try again.
My heart thuds a warning, but I’m already in it now.
I’ve seen enough horror movies to know this is the part where the smart girl leaves—but I’m not smart tonight.
I’m just pissed off, alone, and exhausted.
I throw the door open.
And the world detonates.
The door doesn’t swing or creak—it explodes.
It shatters outward in a hail of wood and brass, hitting me like a shotgun blast. I scream, flinging my arms up too late.
Splinters rake my face, my arms, my throat.
I hit the ground hard, my spine slamming the tile as pain bursts across my back like fireworks.
Then everything is in shadow.
And breath.
And chittering.
It looms in the threshold. A thing that should not be.
Its shape is roughly human—if you squint, if you ignore every screaming nerve in your body telling you it isn’t.
It walks on two legs, but they bend wrong.
One is longer than the other. Its gait has a sick twitch, like a marionette pulled by drunk gods.
Its skin—what’s left of it—is stretched tight over bone in some places and sagging in others like wax left near a flame.
Gray-green and shiny with rot. Maggots squirm in a divot where its belly should be.
Its ribs poke through its chest, but not like a starving man.
More like the bones are trying to escape the meat.
The head—or heads—are fused. Two faces. One stacked atop the other, mouths stretching too wide, twitching, grinning. Chittering. Gibbering. The upper face is eyeless, jaw hanging open like it’s mid-scream. The bottom one has one eye, clouded, and lips that whisper too fast for me to understand.
The sound. Oh god, the sound.
Clicking, scraping, muttering in a voice like shattered teeth and rusted gears. It talks in tongues no human mouth should know. My ears burn. My skull thrums like a tuning fork left on a dying note. Something behind my eyes starts to slip—like my brain wants to curl in on itself and hide.
Its claws are the worst part.
Long. Curved. Thick as crowbars and tipped in blackened bone. They twitch with anticipation, flexing and scraping the floor like it’s testing how fast it can tear me apart.
I scream.
Not a cute scream. Not a movie scream. A real one. Raw. Ugly. It tears from my chest like it wants to save me by sheer volume.
The thing twitches.
Then it lunges.
I scream again and bolt.
My shoes slip on the polished tile, but momentum—and raw, teeth-clenching terror—gets me moving.
My breath rasps in my throat as I sprint past the reading nook, past the magazine racks, past the stupid little rubber plant I keep forgetting to water.
Behind me, the thing skitters forward, claws clacking on the floor like a dozen steak knives tumbling over marble.
I don’t look back.
I can’t.
My brain is screaming run in every language it’s ever known, even the dead ones I learned for fun in college. Latin. French. Panic. The universal tongue.
I aim for the front doors. The keys are still in my back pocket. If I can get to them, get the lock turned, but no.
The monster beats me there.
It moves too fast, jerking across the space like something half-remembered in a dream, limbs bending in wrong directions, faces gibbering nonsense so loud it drowns out my pulse. It slams down in front of the exit and lets out a noise that sounds like someone vomiting gravel and fury.
I backpedal, stumbling over my own feet, heart battering my ribs.
My eyes land on the wall.
The fire extinguisher.
“Shit. Okay. Yeah. That’ll do.”