Chapter 15
Jahla weaved through the empty rooms and halls of the Cross Heritage Private Library, her shoes hitting the polished wooden floors hard as her heart raced from the effort. She didn’t know why she was running, only that she had to keep going.
Oddly, while she saw no one, it sounded as if there was both someone running by her side, and an unknown person chasing her from behind. Chasing…yes, she was being—
Jahla jerked awake, her alarm waking her ass up, as it did almost every damn day. Staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, she heaved a sigh as the dream clung in her mind.
“Oh, that better not be a premonition. Halloween is a big enough pain in the ass on its own,” she said with an exasperated groan.
Ollie stood back with a wide smile as he watched Madame Ro Coco animatedly read a story about pumpkin patches and trick-or-treat to his reading circle. The kids seemed to be hanging on to her every word, their wide eyes amazed as they excitedly answered every question she asked.
Madame Ro Coco was basically dressed up like a frilly rococo-style pumpkin.
Her green corset, with frilly leaf sleeves, had leaf bows down the center, and the top layer of her very full and wide skirt was green with white frills along the edges, it parting at the center, leaving a wide gap to show off the frilly pumpkin-orange underskirt with a large jack-o-lantern face.
Her hair was the same orange as her skirt, and she had piled it high on her head in a rococo style, with leaves and vines intricately threaded through it, her long pointed nails completing her outfit.
Makeup-wise, Madame Ro Coco had a full face on, with a bright-green shadow and painted on leaves on her eyelids, and a stark cat-eye. Not to mention, dark-red lips, deep contour, and highlights that could likely be seen from far away.
As much as he wanted to stay and listen, he couldn’t. He had too much to do. Mainly, he needed to check on everyone who was part of the various haunted tours going on throughout the library, to see if they were running out of candy or not. Because he was the candy jester.
As the candy jester, his costume consisted of puffy pants that gathered at the ankles and ended with black frills, his left leg orange and his right a black and white diamond pattern, while his top had long puffy sleeves that gathered at his wrists with more black frills, the right half black, and the left orange and black diamonds.
Around his neck was a frilly orange jester collar, and his right shoe was black while the left was orange.
The tips of his curled shoes, along with the twin points of his black and orange jester’s hat, had bells on them, which meant he jingled with each step he took.
It really just meant people heard him coming, and helped alert staff that he was there to either check on their candy or refill.
He wasn’t sure how it was for other libraries, but with their proximity to Salem, Halloween was the busiest night of the year for the Cross Heritage Private Library.
Sighing, Ollie turned and hurried towards the back of the Young Reader’s section, to begin his check on the teen ghost tours that were going on throughout floor one. He had to at least nod in greeting to anyone who noticed him, which usually was most people as he jingled…
There were a total of thirteen different spooky tours taking place across the various floors of the library, each with six or more stops.
Some were for adults only, and others were for all ages.
There was, of course, a break schedule that alternated, usually keeping it so nine were on while four took a break.
Ollie had everyone reading for the tours dressed up like hooded grim reapers, from the librarians and assistants to the cleaners, Elias, and even Noble. Gothic lanterns hung from the tips of their scythes, while books filled their other hands as they read spooky stories.
Well, the scythes were in holders next to them while they read.
They usually only held the scythes when they took the group to the next person.
Either way, after each story, they’d give out candy to those who listened, adult or not, so he needed to make sure everyone stayed fully-stocked.
Though, thinking of candy, he probably should send someone out to check on the police-run Trunk-or-Treat that was happening in the far right corner of the parking lot.
One by one, Ollie checked on each person on floor one, putting a check next to the person's name in his pocket notebook if they needed their orange pumpkin candy buckets refilled, based on them giving him a thumbs up or down, before moving on to the next person.
Ollie held back his giggle when he spotted Red, with his tiny witch hat on, and a small lantern in his mouth, being followed by a group of teens. The cat was in charge of giving a silent tour of the displays. It had taken a lot of convincing, but eventually, he had gotten Red to agree to the task.
Having circled around to the center of the floor, he found Winnie—the last person he had to check in with on that floor—by the small scarecrow and pumpkin patch that was across from the stairs leading up to the second floor.
The display took up the corner to the left of the front stairs.
She appeared to be at the beginning of the next break for the tour group she was in, obviously having just returned from taking a group to the next person.
While everyone that was part of the tours had to be dressed as a grim reaper, their robes did not have to be the traditional black ones.
And as Winnie had been with them for five years now, she’d had time to get a custom one.
It was made of dark-green velvet, with the bottom of her robe and sleeves spottily fraying and turning to thin lace, giving it a cool distressed look.
Jahla was there too, at her web and spider-covered half-octagonal-shaped circulation desk, with its carved sides, talking to a few people and checking out books. But he ignored her aside from waving before turning to Winnie.
“How’s your candy holding up?” he asked Winnie, as she placed her scythe in the tall weighted stand next to her.
“Getting low.”
Ollie smiled sweetly as he put a check next to her name. “Right, could you do me a favor?”
She eyed him. “Do I have to?”
He snorted. “Preferably, yes.”
Winnie sighed. “Sure, Boss, what’s up?”
“Can you run out and check if any of the Trunk-or-Treat people need anything?”
She sighed again, it sounding heavier this time. “Fine, fine.”
“Thank you,” he giggled.
She sarcastically waved behind her before hiking up her robe and jogged down the front stairs.
Done on that floor, Ollie headed up to the next, and quickly checked on everyone there. As he went up to the third floor, Ollie couldn’t help but beam as he stepped off and spotted Noble.
Standing in the small fake graveyard, which sat against the left curved wall in the center of the floor, the man was wearing one of the library-owned grim reaper costumes.
This meant he wore a traditional black hooded robe, with the bottom hem, ends of the sleeves, and edges of the hood purposely frayed.
He waved as he neared, stopping short of actually weaving through the small group that Noble was reading to.
The man smiled when he noticed, or more likely, heard him, giving him a covert thumbs down to let him know he was low on candy, as he continued to tell his ghost story.
“It’s believed that Dr. Jacobs, the third man to have knowingly been murdered in the house, is—”
Giving his head a shake, causing his bells to ring more, he stopped staring and moved on, after quickly making a check next to Noble’s name. With the Rare Book section closed off, covering the third floor went pretty fast, and it wasn’t long before he’d finished.
With his list in hand, Ollie headed to the large third floor storage room, located at the back left corner of that floor, where he happened to have left his candy cart, which was small, yet convenient.
As he quickly unlocked and opened the door, he found himself freezing in the doorway.
His orange cart, with black spoked wheels, and a striped orange and black canopy above, was right where he left it, but sitting on it, next to his candy scoop, covering the sliding doors that hid deep tubs of candy, was his open grimoire.
Frowning, his eyes narrowed on the thing as he walked over. Spanning across the two aged pages was a title, in bold gothic lettering, with only a single sentence beneath.
“All Hallows’ Eve: On the night of the year when the veil is thinnest, be forewarned, sometimes believing is enough.” Ollie flinched back when the book disappeared the second he finished reading aloud.
Okay…that was…whatever.
Clearing his throat, he shook his head as he pushed his candy cart out of the room, closing and locking the door behind him. Ollie took one of the elevators back down to the first floor, starting his refilling there. It wasn’t long before he was heading back up.
The second floor was busy enough that he had to wait several times until the crowds had thinned to push his cart through and into various rooms. The crowds were the main reason he didn’t bring his cart around with him to do his checks.
His neck starting to hurt from all the nodding he was doing, Ollie almost sighed in relief when he pushed his cart into a room and found it empty.
Even though the tour that went through that particular room was on a break, he was a bit surprised to find no one, as it was one of the rooms that held only horror novels.
But then, he supposed, most people were there for the spooky tours and candy, not so much to actually check-out books. Which was why Jahla was the only one on circulation at the moment.
Eyeing the room, he wrinkled his nose as he approached the zombie display, where a table used to be, with his cart. Another graveyard, but this one had hands bursting through the fake ground in front of crumbling headstones, and three actual shambling zombies in front, the middle one reaching out.
With waxy, dead-ish gray skin marred by open, rotting wounds, partly sunken eyeballs, mostly bald heads dotted with patches of hair, and drab, torn, and dirty clothes, they looked so…
real. Especially the third one, with its active pose.
But more than the pose, it was the middle one’s face and expression, as the features seemed just a bit more realistic, with his mouth open as if he had started to yell or scream on reaching.
While the others’ features were different, their expressions were very passive, their mouths closed.
Regardless, looking at them kind of made his skin crawl. He wouldn't have chosen to stand by the creepy things all night, but it was where the tour reader, Randy, a librarian assistant, had wanted to be.
Ollie started to frown as he continued to stare.
For some reason, the middle one seemed to get creepier the longer he did.
He would almost swear that the shine of its waxy, decaying skin had become duller than the others, making him almost question the fakeness of it.
Which was ridiculous, as it was likely just his mind and the overhead lights playing tricks on him.
Shaking his head at the nonsense, he quickly scooped candy out of one of the deep tubs, and dumped it into the orange pumpkin bucket sitting on the floor.
As he filled it to the brim, he looked towards the door at the sound of approaching footsteps, his brow raising when Jahla walked in.
As she wasn't on the tours this year, Jahla was dressed as a vampire, wearing a frilly black and purple cupcake dress with long striped sleeves, and knee-length strappy platform boots.
She completed the costume with red contacts under her rounded glasses, pointed ears, fake fangs, and small fake wings on her back.
“Looking for me?” he asked as she approached.
“Winnie told me to tell you that they are running out of candy outside.”
“And she couldn’t have called or texted me?”
“I’m thinking your phone died.”
Ollie blinked, before quickly pulling his phone from his pocket. He winced when it didn’t actually turn on, and instead just flashed the dead battery sign. “Ugh…”
“Forgot to charge it during lunch, didn’t you?”
Pocketing it, he wrinkled his nose. “Maybe…”
She giggled, before asking almost absently, as her gaze traveled past him to the zombies, “So, how’s everything going?”
Ollie smiled. “Good, we haven’t run out of candy yet, but then, I did buy more than last year. Though…” He glanced down into the two deep tubs in his cart that were both half empty. “It looks like I’ll need to fill my cart up after I finish this refill run.”
“Pretty sure the numbers have already beat last year’s record,” Jahla said as she moved closer to the display.
“I think so, too. Elias will no doubt have the numbers for us next week.”
“The question is…numbers in relation to what? Visitors? How far we blew past our budget? Or possibly, once again, how much money you are losing by not going through insurance for that fire damage?”
He scoffed. “Likely all three.”
Ignoring Elias’ endless efforts of annoying him into compliance about the fire thing, the fact was, Halloween brought in a lot of two things: donations and…
expenses. It was always up in the air as to whether they’d make a profit or not.
Mainly as there was a mix of free events and paid.
Though the paid ones were always just a small fee, and those had all happened earlier in the week.
“Hard to believe these things are really real,” Jahla said with a sigh after a moment.
He blinked, eyeing the display.
“I'm guessing you are talking about witchy related things and not the wax figures. Though…” His gaze was drawn to the one in the middle again. “These things sure as hell look a lot more real than last year’s.” Ollie poked the reaching hand of the one in the middle, wrinkling his nose at the dry texture that reminded him far too much of real skin. “Doesn’t even feel like wax anymore.”
She frowned, poking the one nearest her. “Feels waxy to me.”
He touched the one she had, frowning on finding that it felt like it should—textured wax, just like touching a shaped candle. When Ollie touched the one on the right and found it was the same, his frown deepened. “Why does the middle one feel so diff—"
Ollie’s scream was echoed by Jahla’s as the middle zombie suddenly moved, letting out a high-pitched grating screech from hell.