There was a monster in the library.
She didn't know how or why or when, but somehow, some way, in whatever form, there was a monster in there. She was without a doubt.
She just knew it; a certainty that gripped her heart in a death hold, squeezing every rational sense in her body to smithereens like a broken raw egg, sticky yellow goo dribbling down a fist that was most definitely carrying salmonella. There was no mistaking it. Something was in the library. She knew it.
If every desired materialistic thing was offered to her on a silver platter, she would choose nothing if it meant she had to stop her path to winning a Pulitzer Prize. Writing was a part of her as breathing was. It didn't matter how she got to her goal as long as she got there in the end. It was why she spent long hours after closing time, at the library, reading and writing her way to getting that Prize; to getting the proof that she wasn't another wasted pretty face that was nothing more than a reclusive bookworm with too many silly ideas. To prove to her simple-minded townspeople that she could do this. It was why the librarian, an elderly man who was beyond the age to retire, let her have free reign of the library's uses even after midnight. Maybe the old man hoped she would take over when he did retire; she had no qualm about it.
But things change when things get in the way. Like a monster in the library.
She began to notice things were queer a month ago. It was when she first began to use the library afterhours, working on a series of short stories for a writing publication company who had been interested in her work before. She was fond of writing fantasy, especially the cheesy romances spiced with fairytale themes. On this particular collection of stories, she had created a character she based of off Rumpelstiltskin the fairytale villain. Her version of this character was beginning as a lowly spinner in a village struggling against all odds. The short stories were the sad, miserable chronicles of his transition from meek peasant to heartless sorcerer. With every possibility at her fingertips and not an ounce of mercy, she wove a colorful series of events with her beloved character "Rumple" being thrown into absolute Hell. A cruel writer, she was, but it was all her own and she loved it.
It was when she was tapping furiously at her typewriter one day, flushed from inner excitement and the impatient need to get the story out on paper, when she heard it.
Her Rumple was in the middle of making the decision to crush his own ankle so he could return home and avoid the war in order be a father, when suddenly, out of the corner of the young author's eye, she heard something weird along with a what sounded like a book falling from the shelf across her. It was a low grunting sound, followed by loud shuffling.
The only light was the lamp at her table, and the shadows of the surrounding bookshelves casted shade around her in long, eerie shapes. She herself sat in darkness, with the gleam of the light reflecting off of her glasses—brown mottled reading glasses with a beaded chain—throwing a miniature spot light on the table. With her fingers poised over the keys of her typewriter, she squinted into the shapeless black around her, straining her eyes as if it would help to find the source of disturbance.
Of course, she saw nothing, and snorted at herself. "Silly, silly me," she mumbled, knowing she was alone, but liked the sound of her speaking into the over all silence of the library.
This happened again, in a similar fashion, the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that—
She noticed it happened well into the night, a quarter past one in the morning. With this strange, spooky occurrence repeating itself for nearly a while work week, she decided that it was high time to investigate. Maybe it was a mouse, she mused. But it couldn't be a mouse. Mice don't make such noise, consistently, in that fashion. It had to be something bigger. A raccoon, then? Maybe.
When Friday rolled around, and she was setting up her typewriter for another long night of writing, she made a plan of action. As one o'clock would come around, she would turn on another lamp—a floor one she stole borrowed from the library's break room,to see for herself what on Earth was making such noise!
So one o'clock came around, and when it neared the time her mysterious notice would start, she flicked the lamp. The room became much more brighter, enough to see clearly.
To her disappointment, nothing happened, even as time passed. No weird noises. No weird thumps in the night.
She left the lamp on the next night, and when nothing happened again, she decided she was being silly, and turned it off.
And the sounds come back again once the lamp is off.
Disturbed, she decided to leave the lamp on for good. The light stopped the weird noises, therefor stopping the distractions. She could get back to her writing with her full attention. And for awhile, things were find for several nights. She was able to complete her current short story on Rumple, and swiftly began the next one. But of course when the employees of the library finally wanted their lamp back, she was forced to return to the unsettling darkness with only her small, yellow-lighted table lamp to keep her workspace lit.
The sounds did not return the first night of her return to darkness; she was confident the lights scared away whatever this thing was for good. It was just two more nights of this when everything changed.
She had wasted about ten pages of paper and ink; her story was just not coming together, and she was hunched over the typewriter with sore fingers and irritated nerves. Her eyes stung from the strain, exhaustion clouding her mind from too little sleep. But nothing she wrote fit. It didn't sound right. She was driving herself mad over it. Steadily, with each typo or confusing sentence, the story was becoming the bane of her existence. In a impulsive wrathful burst when she couldn't handle anymore cursing her writer's block to the heavens, she ripped the pages of useless words out of the roller and flung them to the ground. They rustled loudly, shakily flying about as they fluttered to the ground. A few sheets slid far off, disappearing into the blackness around her desk area.
Sighing, she stood up and mumbled nonsense to herself as she began to collect the scattered paper. The ground was cool under her knees and hands, crawling on three limbs as she plucked up each paper one at a time. Her glasses dangled from her neck, swinging back and forth, tapping the buttons on her yellow blouse and making a cute little sound. Grunting as she reached the bookshelves, she started to grope blindly, searching for the two lost pages.
Something touched her.
Gasping, she dropped her papers and flung herself away, eyes wide as she panicked and searched for something she could not see. Heart pounding in her chest, tense and ready to fight or take flight, she suddenly found something with her wavering hand as she was backing away toward the light of her desk. It was round, a little spiky, and felt cool and leathery to the touch. Then it bloody fucking moved, and something growled.
It sounded like a car engine, put-puttering to come to life. Low and guttural, dark and chilling, something that sounded inhuman and wrong and oh so terrifying. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run until she was home and safe under her flower-printed blankets with her tortoiseshell cat Rose. The dull spines on this long, snake like appendage under her hand moved until it vanished, somewhere in the dark, and something big and heavy stirred close to her, moving amongst the murky blackness. She could feel it, could see faint shadows shifting in the black, silhouetted by the faint yellow light. Like strange shadows that played with one's mind right at the brink of sleep.
Too shocked to move, too horrified to thing beyond whattheabsolutebloodyfuckisthis, she strained her senses to blindly scrutinize as the thing growled again, almost reptilian, and slink away until she could sense it no more.
She could not breath. She could not move. She just sat, pressed against a shelf and not giving a damn that the spines of the books were digging into her back, or that her black flare skirt was bunched about her thighs uncomfortable. The only thing she could do was take quick, sharp breaths as she quaked and panicked and had a little part of her sanity die.
And that was the night. The night Belle realized there was a monster in the library.