The Moses House, Limbo City, Five Thirty in The Morning, Severe Snow Storm
By the time the pizza arrived it was 5:30 in the morning, my hair had fully dried, and the last episode of the Golden Girls marathon was coming on. It was one of my favorite episodes, where Sophia finally realizes that her son Phil is a transvestite right before he dies of a heart attack. When the doorbell rang Dante was in the bathroom, and I jolted at my chance to get to the pizza before he did. Even though I had never seen him eat before, I kinda figured that he was the "I-can-eat-a-large-by-myself" sort of guy. I climbed out of the couch and ran a hand through my hair to get it out of my face, but my curls just fell back down without anything holding them there. Barefoot on the cold wooden floor, I hurried to get to the lukewarmness of the welcome mat, like a little kid pretending that the floor was lava. From the hallway I could hear Sophia and Blanche talking in the background: "You call a man gay if the guy can sing the entire score of "Gigi." But, a six foot three, two hundred pound married man with kids, who likes to dress up like Dorothy Lamour, I think you have to go with queer". Opening the door, my laughter was cut short as a massive gust of AXE Chocolate and cheese grease practically knocked me off my feet.
The delivery guy looked like an 18 or 19 year old kid, and his face looked like the pepperoni pizza we ordered. He had obviously flat-ironed and hair sprayed black hair, with a streak of Monster Energy green shooting through his bangs. He looked like a skunk, and his nose was really short but pointy on the end, with the slightest attempt at a mustache resting awkwardly below. I wasn't sure if the kid had eyes or not. His bangs hung over his pimply forehead dramatically, and he was using all of his strength to keep them there. He looked like he was trying to look depressed- or maybe he just didn't want to be delivering pizza at 5 a.m.
Looking out past him and into the street, snow and ice had managed to cover anything and everything - the kid's car even had icicles hanging off of the mirrors. It must have been at least five or six inches deep by now, and in only a few hours that was unheard of for Limbo City. Usually our winters were short and damp, never actually getting cold enough for snow to stick. Even though we lived in the upper north east, it was almost like Limbo was sitting on top of a hot spot.
"Wow, I bet it was really hard getting here. The snow looks pretty deep." I chatted as I handed him the money. The Black Veil Brides wanna-be reached for the cash slowly with hands covered in leather fingerless gloves and said, "Getting up this street was the hardest thing ever." He flipped around and pointed to the road. "My car stalled like, 5 times on the way here, but Dad wanted to get this last pizza out since I got four wheel drive." He sighed after every sentence, like it took a lot of energy to come up with something to say. He counted the money at the speed of a snail and continued to mumble, "All of the town is covered."
"Is any public transit running? Or is everything shut down?" I asked in my best concerned voice.
He handed me back some change and started to unzip the pizza from the green carrying case. "Everything's down, and the snowplows aren't doin' nothing. Power's out too. Buncha trees down and whatever."
I suddenly became more interested in the goth Napoleon Dynamite standing before me and decided to see if he knew anything about downtown. "Is the power out all over the city or just in patches? Do you know if Eagle Furnace downtown is alright?" The cold air was seeping into the house by this point, and my arms were covered in goose bumps. The pizza guy outside looked like he was 200% done with all of this, but I kept pressing him for information on the library. "I have a library downtown- I'd like to know."
"Downtown's been out for like, two hours," he grumbled. "Everything but Golgotha Square is out. You know, where the church is? None of the snow plows or anything's running either 'cause it snowed too fast or whatever."
Crap! The library is without power in below freezing temperatures? I immediately thought about the water pipes in the bathroom- what if they burst and the water goes out towards the nonfiction section? The building is over 50 years old, the chances of that happening are pretty high. The books, bathroom, and floor would be ruined! If anything was damaged and the city found out about it, they would use it as an excuse to try and shut me down again, and not only would I be out of a job, but the family would be disgraced and everything I had worked for would be destroyed- how could I let this happen? If the pipes were to break, everything else in my life would too.
The library is what distracted me from everyday life, my past, and my future. It was something to keep my mind off of how lonely I was, how badly I missed my parents, and the constant feeling I had that they would be disappointed to see me in the shape I was in now. With the library I had a job, work. And not only was that work important to my roots, but it had become important to me as well. If the only thing in my life that created any happiness for me was taken away I would be drifting through life again, just like I did when Daddy and Mother died. I wouldn't have anything to tie me to the ground, and my life would return to the shitter.
After I finished processing the information the pizza guy had told me, I started freaking out, and I took the hot cardboard box out of his hands agonizingly slow. Standing there holding the delicious smelling pizza box, my eyes weren't focusing on the stereotypically jolly Italian chef holding a pizza printed on its' cover, but the heart wrenching idea of losing the biggest thing going on in my life right now. I started running through a game plan in my head; I would get Dante to help dig out my driveway, somehow take one of the cars downtown, and check on the library. Maybe we could eat the pizza on the way or share a piece with Louis when we made it to the library.
...Louis.
"Oh my God!" I said aloud, throttling the pizza and flinging it down against the halltree. "Louis!"
After all this time with Dante I had completely forgotten about poor Louis! It must not even be 5 degrees outside, and all he has is his coat and a single thick blanket. If he's stayed outside this long, hypothermia has surely set in by now, or worse, frostbite on his toes, fingers, or face. If he couldn't find a way to get back into the library, his only other option would have been to go to a shelter, but the closest one is on the other side of town- he never would have made it in time! How could I have forgotten about him for some guy I just met last night? He depends on me, and I let him down. My stomach dropped and tears started to well up in my eyes, but I was so angry at myself I wouldn't let them fall and wiped them away in frustration.
I quickly put on the pair of slip-on Vans I had sitting by the door and put on the heaviest coat I had hanging nearby, an ugly brown one I kept for emergencies. My brain was spinning with the thought of Louis freezing to death out in the cold. How could I have done this to him! I kept thinking to myself. My shaking hands struggled to grab the zipper, but finally I managed to close up my big coat and pull my gloves out of the pockets. I bent over to make sure the laces were tied on my vans, moving my big yellow Simpsons pajama pants out of the way to see them. After flapping over myself in a torrent, I heard Dante in the living room turn the TV off and drop the remote on the coffee table.
My sudden movements must have startled the Pizza guy. "What's wrong?" he asked, his once purposely hidden eyes now just barely visible under his skunk bangs. He looked sassily surprised at me, and his weirdly mammalian face was twisted up between the two emotions. "Don't you want your pizza? I drove all this way for you to eat it!" he suddenly mumbled at me, voice cracking, acting like pizza was still somehow incredibly important in this situation. (But I mean, how can you blame him? Pizza is pretty much mandatory for human happiness and is proof that God loves us).
I smiled at his ignorance and sharply asked him, "Can you drive all the way back? Back down towards Eagle Furnace, if I paid you? None of my cars have four wheel drive, and I desperately need to see if my friend is alright. I need to check on my library."
He looked flabbergasted. "What do you mean? I was barely able to drive up this hill!"
"He's an old homeless man that I've been taking care of. He has to sleep outside. Can you take me to him on Eagle Furnace?" I repeated furiously, my eyes aflame with the determination to get to him before it was too late. The kid was about to stutter something, but was interrupted by Dante's sudden appearance into the hall. He was visibly confused as he picked the pizza box up off of the floor.
Tucking it under his shoulder, he grabbed a hold of my arm, pulled me back and said, "What's goin' on? This kid bothering you?" Dante gave the kid a good look up and down, probably checking to see if those green and black bangs were hiding a demon behind them.
Ignoring his question, I briefed Dante on my situation. "They're without power around the library and Louis's out in the middle of it! It's probably not even in the positive numbers anymore! He could freeze to death if I don't find him and help him!" My eyes were stinging with the threat of tears, and I rubbed them out again. Seeing that I was emotionally unstable for the fiftieth time that night, Dante nodded his head in understanding.
"So what you want is for this kid to give us a ride down there to check on him? Did I hear that right?" asked Dante. I nodded and Dante shot me a lightning fast smile for my efforts before opening the pizza box to dig out a slice. Laughing, Dante mumbled, "Just as long as we can take the pizza with us I'm down for whatever, babe."
I took the hair tie off of my wrist and hoisted up the black curtains of my hair into a more manageable ponytail. As my hands fiddled with making sure all my curls were out of the way, Dante reached for his jacket on the hall tree and quickly punched his arms through the sleeves while swapping hands for the pizza box. Within a few seconds his first piece of pizza had seemingly evaporated into thin air, and I smiled at how I had correctly guessed his eating habits earlier.
Noticing that we looked ready for action, we were suddenly slowed down with a "Hang on, what are we doing right now?" from the Pizza Skunk, still confused. "We can't walk up there right now, look at the snow!" He threw his arm out in the direction of downtown with a scowl on his face.
"Listen, I said I would pay you if you took me downtown, right?" I reiterated loudly.
"I can get you down there, but I don't think I can take you back." replied the skunk hesitantly.
I grabbed my pocket book off of the hall tree and flipped through it, pulling out two one hundred dollar bills. I held up the cash for him and threw the bag on the ground. "That's fine. I can find another way back. I'll give you two hundred bucks if you take me there, ok? I just really need to check on my library and my friend."
The boys tiny and well-hidden eyes widened considerably at the sight of my money, and he immediately agreed. Dramatically flipping his dirty green and black hair, he backed off of the porch and waved for us to follow. Dante took another slice of pizza out of the box as we slammed the door behind us and slowly followed the pizza guy down the now icy and slick front steps of the house. As the two guys waddled down the stairs I took out my keys and locked the front door, the copper doorknob almost too cold to hold onto for very long. Instead of taking the stairs, I went to the ornate metal railing around the front porch and hoisted my way up and over, leaping down into the pile of snow below. I waded over to where the guys were and the yard only to receive two thumbs up from Dante, who was balancing the pizza box with two pieces hanging out of his mouth. I laughed and took the pizza box from him, making sure that I atleast got one slice.
"Ok, so since you know where you need to go you sit shotgun ok?" directed the Pizza Skunk. "This guy'll have to make room in the back." He grumbled to me, lazily pointing a Nissan Xterra idling out in the road. I could hear Dante puff behind me, and I turned to him and smiled.
"Dante," I said clearly, wanting to pause for a second before we got in the car. "Thank you for coming with me." I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight, quickly letting go to open the side door. Swallowing his last bite of crust, Dante smiled back at me and jerked open his side of the car.
"Anything for you." he said.
Inside of the SUV, the grey seats were stained in all the places where your butt goes, like multiple coffees and Cokes had been spilt there over the years. And it looked like the kid didn't do a very good job cleaning up the mess- everything you touched was sticky, and there was a shitload of Energy drink cans, fast food bags, and for some reason about a half a deck of Yu-gi-Oh! cards on the floor. Poor Dante had it worse though, since about two weeks worth of the kids' laundery was scattered all over the back seats. It was all a bunch of black t-shirts and black jeans, with the occasional pair of beat up Chuck Taylor's incorporated into the mix. The smell was a disgusting blend of pizza, AXE body spray, Monster, and straight-up ass. However, there was an itty-bitty plugin air freshener attached to one of the air vents, but it looked like there were only a few drops of "Cranberry Orange Muffin" left in the shell. All hope for an enjoyable rescue mission was now gone. At least it was warm in here though!
Slinging the door open dramatically, the kid flung the pizza bag back behind him and practically body slammed back into the driver's seat. "I'm not making any promises that we can make it there, but I think the old girl still has a little bit'a kick left in her." I don't know how he could see through his bangs to do it, but he suddenly grabbed the gear shift and slammed the Xterra into reverse. Giving up on the rearview mirror, the kid simply grappled the back of the seat to turn his body around and look out for the rich people's mailboxes and shrubs. Slowly but surely, the tires kicked up enough snow to back us into a driveway, which then set us in the right direction towards the neighborhood's entrance. "Fuck yeah!" shout/slurred the pimply teen driver, who then proceeded to flip the volume knob all the way up.
Suddenly the all to familiar intro to Metallica's Master of Puppets screamed through the speakers, through the doors, and seeped out onto the snow covered street like an intoxicating blood. My body jumped due to the sudden loudness, but a huge smile opened up on my face, and Dante just started laughing as we bounded down the street at an unhealthy speed. "JUST CALL MY NAME 'CAUSE I'LL HEAR YOU SCREAM... MASTER! MASTER!" I began to sing along with James Hetfield and pulled out my best air guitar skills (which are pretty freaking awesome). Both guys in the car immediately started screaming with laughter, and the pizza guy pulled out a can of Monster from his black military coat pocket, which he immediately chugged and smashed against his forehead. Not even fazed, Dante and I both were dying laughing at this kid and this whole situation. Even though we were barreling down an icy road at about 60 miles per hour, I was having too good of a time to notice if we were about to die or not. A combination of Metallica, a random goth pizza delivery guy, and a desperate need to help a homeless friend had helped to stir up a little bit of my old self. For the first time in a long time, I felt incredibly care free.
"I like this kid!" shouted Dante from the back seat. He raised a glove hand and smacked the boy's arm in a masculine sign of acceptance. The kid beamed at us. "You guys are cool! This librarian chick knows every fuckin' word to a Metallica song. That's fuckin' awesome." For the first time in a while the kid turned his attention back to the road and shifted in his seat. I was tempted to remind him that he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, but then I realized that this car didn't have any. Dante was sprawled out in the back now, one foot up on the seat and the other pumping along with the beat of the metal. We were all looking at the road now; we'd finally made it to the middle of town.
Everything was dead and cold, nobody was out, and most if not all of the streetlights had gone out under the snapping weight of the freshly formed ice. The buildings looked like people hadn't been living there for years, as snow and ice made the windows look dusty and untouched. Occasionally you would see the ghostly appearance of a flashlight walking through a store or an upper apartment window, which was the only reminder that a human presence still remained in this part of the city. Ours were the only tire marks, and looking down the street on either side it didn't look like a snowplow was coming any time soon. I suddenly felt aware of how dangerous our situation had become.
The boy's smile dropped, and I could see his eyebrows bunch up under his flat bangs. "This wasn't like this when I was sent out. The power was still on here." he mumbled, kneeling against the steering wheel to get a better look at some of the taller buildings. "It must be getting a lot shittier in the other parts of the city, too."
A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I flipped around to talk to Dante, whose body was now on the edge of his seat. His torso, arms, and head were now practically in line with ours. Placing his elbows on top of the front seats, his arm draped over the front of my body and laid itself against the space between my arm and chest. After running a hand through his hair, Dante asked me, "If this guy isn't outside the library, where would he be? Is this his permanent spot or is there a shelter he goes to sometimes?"
I thought for a second about some of the other places he might have talked about, but I remembered that after every story he told me he always ended it with, "But they don't let me stay there anymore." I frowned and replied, "I really don't know. The past few months he only stays near the library. Lots of shelters have turned him away, or really messed with him. At the library is where he always told me he felt the safest, so he rarely left."
The kid in the driver's seat turned down the music and angled his face towards me, still keeping his eyes on the road. "Ok, I know you keep saying that you work at a library dowtown, but in all honesty I've never even seen it once- and Dad's pizza place is on that street, so it's not like I've never been there before." He gave me a concerned look, like I was losing my mind, but I shook him off.
"I promise you, it's down there. My family, the Moses's, were the ones who started it back in the 30's." I semi-shouted in frustration. Both of these guys had no idea what I was talking about, had no idea of its' existence. But then again, let's back up and have a better look at who we're talking to. Dante was raised as a "problem child" in multiple orphanages and foster homes, and the pizza guy just crushed a coke can against his forehead. Dante probably doesn't even know that he's named after the guy who wrote Inferno, and Pizza Goth here has probably never looked past the three pages of Huck Finn he read Junior year. Thinking this over in my mind, I started to feel pretty sorry for them.
Startlingly, Dante's head flipped to the drivers side of the car, and then on to the back. His body thrashed around until he was hanging over the tunk, his nose in the air like a hound on a blood trail. Looking intently at something down the street, Dante shouted, "Did any of you see that?"
"See what, Dante?" I asked nervously, looking out into the darkness at the poorly illuminated and dangerously snow covered streets. If Dante saw something in a world that I originally thought was creepily devoid of all life, I certainly didn't want to be wrong. An image from the movie I Am Legend appeared in my mind, the part where his dog goes in to a warehouse full of zombies that the audience knows are there, but can't see. My eyes grew worried and dark, and I refused to look at Dante until this chill up my spine had vanished.
Dante remained silent for a few seconds, until finally he turned back around to face the road. "I don't want to creep anybody out, but I think I saw somebody out there." His serious eyes shifted from the floormats to my blackish-brown ones, and he gave me a look that I definitely took into consideration. He was telling me to be careful, and I knew he wasn't joking around. "We're getting close to Eagle Furnace, but try not to slow down. As soon as we get to this library I want you to go home, ok kid? This storm's getting really bad."
The pizza guy looked at me and mumbled, "Ok." After a few seconds of silence he returned with, "What's going on? I feel like the storm isn't what you're really afraid of."
Dante and I both eyed each other carefully, and I could tell he was thinking about something terrible. Something that only the devil could bring to the table. I didn't want this kid to be scared, but I agreed with Dante in the idea that he was better off getting out of here while he still could. If demons really were a part of the equation, I didn't want the pizza guy to end up the quotient. Feeling incredibly nervous now, I got to thinking about Louis and his vulnerability to the demon if he had left my protection circle. If there really was something out in the storm, what was to stop it from preying on someone who was too easy a target? And if it was as strong as the thing from earlier tonight, what was keeping it from pulling over the car right now? My stomach dropped, and I turned my face back around to get a better look at the boy. He looked scared. With the music gone and the intoxicating blood drained from the car, he had nothing to distract himself from his disturbingly leery and mysterious company.
"There's no trouble, but if you don't hurry there definitely will be, kid. You just need to get home as soon as possible. There's something out here who doesn't take too kindly to people like us." Dante pointed towards the outside and laid back against his seat.
In the distance I could see the library, barely illuminated by the headlights of the car. Even though we were still far away from the building, I practically pressed my face against the windshield looking for the man who sat on the bench outside. Without any street lights, it was nearly impossible to make anything out but the roof and the car lights reflecting on the windows. "Here, at the end of this street, this is the library." I shouted into the eerie quiet of the interior. The boy leaned closer against the steering wheel to get a better look, but still seemed confused.
"At the end of the street? What do you mean? Up on that little hill?" Pointed the boy, a single ungloved finger raised and smushed against the glass in the general direction of the library. I shook my head, "Mm-hm, right there." I grabbed the door handle anxiously and turned my body around in order to get a better head start. However, it looked like I was the only one doing so. Everyone else just seemed to be extremely and absurdly puzzled. Ignoring them, I kept a look out for Louis, but from this angle it was hard to tell if the bench was occupied or not; the snow was making everything blend in with everything else. The clear cut lines of the streets, sidewalks, and steps were all smeared out and erased with the white of the snow, which was so high now, some stores had snowbanks as tall as a fire hydrant in front of their doors. Growing impatient for the car to stop I thanked the boy for the ride and handed him the money, all 200 of it. For a 10 minute drive that's a pretty big tip, I thought to myself.
Instead of desperately grabbing for the money like any other teenage boy would do, this one had both hands on the steering wheel, looking around everywhere but in the direction of the library. "Ma'am, I think this is the wrong street." he mumbled into the ever present awkwardness. I looked at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world and threw a hand out in the direction of the giant sign erected in front that read "LIMBO CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY".
"Damn it, what's so hard about this? It's right there! Are you blind or something?" I crossed my arms with my fistfull of money and laughed at the stupidity of it all. "There's a huge sign right there! The building! That is literally. right. there?" I tapped my finger on the windshield in its direction and began unwrinkling the hundred dollar bills.
Dante hoisted himself up to get a better view. "What the fuck are you talking about? All of these houses are abandoned."
I flipped around in a rage and glared at Dante with the force of my entire being, my fists stretching out the green bills. "These aren't houses! These are city government office buildings!"
"Uh, no, they're not. It's just a bunch of run down shit." replied Dante bluntly. "Come on, we need to let this kid go, so take us to where the library really is."
The boy joined in with a muffled yeah, and later added in, "I think maybe you misread the street name." The kid was getting freaked out, and was suddenly realizing that giving two random pizza-loving strangers a ride might not have been worth $200.
I threw the money at the kid and immediately bailed out of the crappy hauler. I couldn't take the idiots in there any longer. I flipped my legs over the side and slid off of his nasty grey seats, my coat bunching up at the bottom from being smashed up by the cushion. When my feet slid into the snow and onto the road, I adjusted the fit of my jacket and pulled it down from around my neck and ears. Immediately my face felt like it was going to fall off from the cold and intense wind, and I instantly regretted the decision of not taking my hat or a scarf. I looked down the street for a brief second, but I couldn't see anything more than 100 ft away. The street looked like it could be endless, and that the other end hadn't been reached in years. The snowstorm was making everything look grey, like the Titanic after being underwater for a hundred years but with snow. I twirled back around and looked at the pizza kid, whose once hidden eyes were now wide open in unsure alarm.
"Thanks, kid." I shouted into the wind. "Now go home! Get out of here!"
Slamming the door to the XTerra, I started jogging toward the library and into the wind, snow brushing over my cheeks and eyelashes. Although I was hurrying and trying the best that I could, I was being careful of the snow and ice below. Vans weren't the right shoes for an Antarctic rescue mission, but they were what I had close by when I first panicked. Behind me I heard the whipping of Dante's coat in the fierce wind as he closed the door, but before that he shouted something to the pizza guy involving the words "home" and "couldn't"- the rest of it was too covered up by the wind to be heard. After Dante closed his door, it took a while for the boy to drive off, like he was watching me to make sure that I was alright. When I heard the snow crunch under the weight of his moving tires, I genuinely hoped that he was heading home. What he did for us was nice; the kid deserved to be home safe.
"Where are we going, Bellatrix?" Dante was still a good distance behind me, although he looked to be Tigger jumping one leg at a time through the knee-high snow drifts with ease. "I hope you know what you're doing! It's fucking freezing out here."
I didn't stop to answer him, instead I pulled out my pink key ring and shifted through the metal catalogue until I finally found the little gold one for the front and back doors. "I have no idea why you're so incredibly blind, but once we get inside and see the 2,723 books I have in my roster, I think you might find it in your heart to believe me."
Looking down at the snow covered road I noticed the slight incline of where the drift went up when the sidewalk did, and I decided to dig my now soaking wet checkerboard tennis shoe into the drift to make sure that my observations were correct. Finding the cement, I hoisted myself up the little bit onto the sidewalk and made my way towards the stairs. I could see the metal pipe railing of the stairs, but the stairs themselves were hidden. As I climbed them, holding onto the metal railings to make sure that I didn't bust my butt on the ice, the snow had pushed and leaked through my Simpsons pajama bottoms, making my legs shake with cold induced pain. Behind me I heard Dante stop walking, and I could tell that he was having second thoughts about following me.
"How did you get keys to this house? Did you buy it or something?" he hollered. Jerking back around, I examined the look on his face and he looked completely honest. Getting angry about how silly this all seemed and how obvious the existence of the library was now that I was marching up its' front steps, I stopped my assault on the stairs and gazed down at him critically.
When our eyes met, Dante immediately shook his head and threw up his hands like he was through with the whole thing. "Listen, whatever joke you're trying to pull, I really don't think it's funny."
My patience had reached its high water mark, and my mouth exploded with a very angry, "I'm not joking." He jumped back a bit. "You're the one who's messing around. Are you making fun of my job or something, because I'll have you know that I take it very seriously." I put my hands on my hips for a moment and shook my head rather furiously. Dante could tell that I had had it.
"Listen sweetheart, I don't have to be here, so waste your own damn time playing librarian." Dante flipped his hand up in the air and began a casual stroll down the street, obviously over my antics.
I wasn't having this. I was so close to getting him inside the door, but I had somehow been unable to show him the incredibly apparent library that was standing in front of him. Why couldn't he see it? I've been coming to work here everyday for 2 years, surely I wasn't the one hallucinating. The building in front of me was as plain as day, and very obviously an open, public place. Not some kind of abandoned house like Dante and the pizza boy were talking about. I ran down the stairs to catch up to him- If I was crazy I wanted to know.
"Dante," I called, grabbing his hand to stop him. "Dante please listen to me! Please come inside. I need your help." When I grabbed his hand he didn't reject it, instead he pulled on me gently, silently asking me to come closer. He was looking down on me with a scowl, and I couldn't help but wilt under his scrutinizing gaze. I let go and wrapped my arms around myself, looking down at the sidewalk now covered in knee deep snow.
All of a sudden Dante's face softened. "I don't know what it is, but I can't stop thinking and hoping that you're right." I lifted my head and started to feel a little better, smiling at him briefly.
"Come on," I said, my breath a visible cloud. "We need to hurry and find this guy." I waved for him to follow, and we waded back to the stairs.
The metal pipe railing had ice cycles hanging off of it, and it hurt your hands to touch it it was so cold. From about the middle step my eyes shot up to the concrete slab and looked for any movements or signs of Louis. I hiked up the stairs by twos, and quickly jumped to the head of the slab. Now that I was at the top I waded towards the wooden bench where Louis always slept. To my despair I didn't find him there, but deep in my heart I knew that Louis was smarter than to stay out here in the cold. His body had been replaced by a healthy helping of snow, making the bench look more like a cushioned loveseat. Hopefully he was still in the building though, and I grabbed the predestined key from the keyring and hastily moved toward the halfway frozen door, which required some shaking to loosen its lock and bolt.
Dante was behind me, still looking hesitant, but closer to me this time. Ready to see how surprised he would look when he saw the inside, I opened the door leaving a wide path for him to enter. There was still a little bit of warmth within, but I'm sure that it was quickly drained when the door was opened. When I felt the heat on my skin and the familiar scent of the library all around my face my eyes jutted to Dante's. He walked into the library slowly and carefully, like what he was seeing was incredible or unbelievable. Sneaking behind him, I opened the door to the janitor's closet and picked up the flashlight. As I turned it on, the cheap wooden tables, chairs, and bookcases became illuminated in a yellow light.