The Library Is Closed

“Attention, the library is now closed,” spoke a voice over the loudspeaker.  Jack moved his eyes from his textbook.  Odd, he thought.  There was no warning.  There was typically a warning an hour before the closure of the library, and a few additional warnings.  Jack looked at his cell phone for the time and stared.  The time was midnight.  But how could it be midnight, Jack thought, his head pounding oddly.  I would have thought it was ten.

Jack rose from his spot, disoriented and confused.  The other students in the Debdella University Library Reading Room appeared to feel the same.  One of them was a very beautiful blond woman whom Jack was loosely acquainted with and was in love with.  Disoriented and confused as he was, Jack knew an opportunity when he saw one.

“Does it strike you as odd that the library is closing now?” Jack asked her.

“Yes, it does,” she said, although she did not make eye contact.  They walked down the hallway towards the door, with a greater flock of students.

“What time do you have?”  She shrugged.  In front of them, a student tried the exit door.  It wouldn’t budge.  The student moved to the second exit door across from that one.  That also would not budge.  The student stopped and looked thoughtful.  He turned back to Jack and the blond woman, whose hair flowed thickly and proudly to her shoulder blades, whose name was Jennifer.

“Are there any other exits?” the student asked them.

“No,” said Jack.

“Well what the fuck,” the student muttered, and walked past them.  Jack could not help trying the door for himself.  It did not budge.  A security guard approached them as others tried the door for themselves.

“Hi,” said Jack.  “Will you let us out?”

“The doors should be open,” said the guard, looking confused.

“They’re not.”  The guard nodded gravely and produced a key.  He placed it in the lock to the exit door and turned it.  But it would not turn all the way.  The guard’s eyes bulged.

“What the fuck,” the guard muttered, and walked past them.  Jack and Jennifer followed him, and came to the front desk.

“The line is dead,” said a librarian looking pale in the face and holding a phone.

“Here,” said Jennifer, producing her cell phone.  “Use mine.”  The librarian put Jennifer’s phone to her ear.

“There’s no reception,” she said.  “You’re phone isn’t working.”

“Try mine,” said Jack, and handed it to her.  The same thing happened.

“If this is someone’s idea of a practical joke, it isn’t funny and there will be consequences,” said the security guard loudly.  “Is this your doing, Michael?”  He was addressing a scrawny and very tall young man who wore a baseball cap.

“Hey man, do I look like I’m having fun here?” said Michael grouchily.  Jack looked off to one side in an attempt to hide his grin.  He was trapped somewhere with Jennifer.  He hoped they would never get out.  Jack glanced at his cell phone and stared, his joy replaced by shock.  At least fifteen minutes had passed, but his cell phone still read twelve o’clock, midnight.

“Hey Jack, how are you?” said a very handsome, young, Chinese man.

“Hey Lee,” said Jack, smiling.  He loved Lee with a passion that distinguished Lee from Jack’s other friends.  “I’m good.  How are you?”

“Bad.  Want to go home, sleep.”

“Who’s your friend?” asked Jennifer, smiling friendlily at Lee.  Too friendlily, thought Jack.

“This is Lee,” Jack said weakly.

“I’m Jen,” she said to Lee.

“Nice to meet you,” said Lee, but he did not make eye contact.

“Hi Jen,” said a young, handsome, tall, and muscular East Indian man, smiling.

“Oh hey Ilu,” Jen said, but only half turned to him.

“Are you going to break one of these windows or something if we can’t get out soon?” Ilu asked the security guard.

“That should not be necessary,” said the security guard.  “We’ll just take the window out non-violently.”

“Would you like any help?” asked Jack.  He hoped to impress Jennifer.

“Well,” said the security guard thoughtfully.  “If you could run up to the second floor and tell the guard there to get the tools to take out the windows, that would be most helpful.”

“You bet,” said Jack.  He did not run, but he walked quickly to the escalator.



Jack’s mission was no sooner accomplished when he heard the screams and shouts of Hell emit from the first floor.  The voices were utterly chilling in their desperation, their horror, and even in their pain.  The security guard Jack had just told to go and get the tools to take out the windows produced a night stick and ran down the stairs.  Jack half closed his eyes in horror and fear, and followed suit.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jack saw what he wished in his heart he did not have to see.  The cause of the disturbance was a man.  The man looked the way that Jack imagined Hercules to look; enormous; massively muscular; handsome; even dressed in bizarrely antiquated, light clothing.  The man chuckled deeply as he jogged along, evidently in pursuit of a fleeing student.  The security guard who had dispatched Jack to the first floor lay in a crumpled heap along with the librarian where Jack had left them; both were dead.  Jack’s eyes shot around for Jennifer, but she was nowhere to be seen.  He saw his friend Lee, however, in front of the exit door; like the first floor security guard and the librarian.  Jack heard the strangest sound he had ever heard a human speak; a sound which seemed to combine anger, sadness, horror, fear, nausea; and realized after a few seconds that it was he who was making the sound.

The newly arrived security guard reached for his radio, put it to his ear, and then tossed it aside in disgust.  He still held his night stick, though his hand quivered.  “Here is what we have to do,” he shouted.  “We have to go at him all at once.  He’s too big for any one person to take.  There are hundreds of us in this library and only one of him.”  The guard’s voice was authoritative and bold.  On the first floor, there were only around fifty students.  Half of them were too far gone mentally to be of use; many of the others were too frail.  But around ten students, one female and nine male, including Jack, rallied around the security guard, who held his night stick in the air and repeated what he had shouted with a soothing confidence.

Jack’s insides seemed to melt as he saw the killer, right out of a Greek myth, who had reached his victim and brutally murdered him, and who turned and made eye contact with Jack.  The man smiled and chuckled, his face looking more like he was playing poker with friends than engaging in mass murder.  But Jack followed the others as they charged the murderer, even when the murderer charged them back, and much faster.  The brave squad commanded by the security guard had as much effect as if they had been assaulting a speeding train.  The murderer did not even stop, but ran through and over them and kept running past them.  Jack was lucky; he was knocked clear by the limp form of a fellow student.  But he was thrown far and against the wall, and it took him minutes to push the brawny form of the student’s body off of him and drag himself to his feet.

Jack did not see the murderer, but from the sound of the murderer’s chuckle he guessed the murderer was on the second floor.  “Hey kid,” spoke a broken voice, and Jack turned to see the security guard who had led the charge, in a heap on the floor but facing him.  “The third floor.  There’s a door.  No ladder, but…something…”  The man closed his eyes and was silent.

“Jack,” spoke Jennifer’s voice, softly.  She, Ilu, and three others had emerged as if from out the wall.  They had apparently been hiding somewhere.  “Come on, we’re going to the elevator.”  They reached the elevator, pressed the button to the third floor, and then hit the stop button before reaching it.

"That guard told me there was a door on the third floor,” said Jack, his brow furrowed.  “Why, I don’t know.  But he says there’s a door so we can jump three stories to the ground.”

“Why anything!?” said a very thin young woman next to them.  “Why is it still midnight even though an hour has passed!?  Why is Ulysses killing all of us!?  Who locked us in here!?”

“Calm down,” said Jack.  ‘Let’s not focus on the “why” of all this.  We won’t last an hour that way.’

“Jack’s right,” said Jennifer.  ‘We can’t think about the “why.”  We need to think about the “how.”  As in “how” are we going to make it out of here alive?’

“I say we stay here,” said Ilu.  “This can’t go on forever, no matter what the clock says.  And we should be O.K. in here.”  No one responded.  The vote had been settled; 1 to 0.

‘Well, now that the “how” is settled,’ said Ilu, ‘I guess we can wonder about the “why.”’

“Wonder away,” said Jack, smiling at Ilu.  “I’d rather blow my brains out than try to make sense of all this.”

“It’s like we’re in a dream,” said Jennifer thoughtfully.  “Or rather, a nightmare.  Perhaps none of you are real; perhaps I am only dreaming.”

“Sorry Jennifer,” said Jack.  “This is all too real.”  As if to emphasize what Jack had said, a loud clanging noise echoed from above them.  In the midst of it, they heard the jovial chuckle they had come to associate with death and horror.  There was a paralysis of shock, and then Jack said, “I’m for leaving this elevator.”  All nodded in agreement.  Jack pressed the button for the third floor.  As the elevator began ascending, the chuckle grew closer, but much faster than one would expect, and then with a great crash the elevator stopped still again, and a huge dent had been driven into the roof of the elevator.  Jack hurriedly pressed the button for the second floor and the elevator began descending.  Some were crying; some were screaming; as the murderer, who was apparently on top of the elevator, banged even deeper dents into its metal ceiling.  All at once, one side of the elevator roof crashed to the elevator floor.  Jennifer was in front of Jack and as the door opened, Jack did not look back as he followed Jennifer, running, out of the elevator and up the stairs towards the third floor.  What he heard behind him was horrible; screams, death cries, and then a heavy trot, beginning as a jog and slowly growing faster, a little ways behind him which he knew was the murderer.

“Jack,” said the murderer.  “First I’m going to rape you.”

On the third floor, Jack saw Ilu out of the corner of his eye.  “You know where it is Jack!?” shouted Ilu in terror.

“No.  It’s a door on this floor, that’s all I know.  Go look.”

They went in separate directions; each tried to get past the bookcases so that they could search the walls for the mysterious door.  It was Jack who found the door, beside the Shakespeare shelf.  The wooden door had apparently been broken open, and small pieces of it littered the grass below as well as the floor around the wall.  The doorway led straight to beautiful, dark freedom.

“Hey, it’s over here!” shouted Jack, shaking in fear.  He didn’t want to leave Jennifer.  A young man who had been on the elevator with him appeared and dropped out of the doorway. Jack heard running from all directions; which one was Jennifer; which one was the murderer, he had no idea.  Ilu appeared.  “Thanks Jack,” he said as he dropped out of the doorway.  Jennifer appeared.  The two of them jumped out of the doorway at the same time.  Jack looked back up from the grass, and saw the murderer drop from the doorway as well.  But in midair, his massive body vaporized and, transformed into a leather-coloured smoke, it blew off in the wind.