Breadcrumb #659
RENEE LAKE
The library stands empty. Everyone has gone for the night. A silent building against the twilight. The windows are gaping holes to pitch-black rooms lined with bookshelves. What would the books say if they could talk? Would they tattle to weary librarians about the otherworldly nighttime activities?
The night time patrons come in, through bookshelves, out of walls, up from the floors. Dozens of spectral beings. Some transparent, but obviously people; others wisps of white smoke with voices. A few in color and even fewer solid and lifelike. Many are black and white like old photos or movies.
They settle around the room, far enough back so they can’t be seen through the large glass doors and windows. They don’t want to frighten the entire neighborhood, and if people saw them, their nights together would end.
“I think the old librarian suspects something,” a teenage boy says, laughing, pulling a book down from the shelf. It seems to float in the air next to him.
“Should we be more careful?” A young man in a suit and tie peruses the nonfiction section a few feet away.
“Not sure how we could do that, we clean up after ourselves.” The boy grins at a particularly naughty joke in his book.
“It seems to float in the air next to him.”
They don’t haunt this library. They use it as a meeting place.
A sad woman holds a baby, enjoying the break from wandering the lonely highway, night after night.
Wisps dance together, excited to be anywhere but the swamp.
Two little girls read picture books out loud, wishing people would bring books into the old hospital wing instead of bouncing balls.
“Maybe we should see if there is another library, we could rotate, that way there’s less to be suspicious of?” A voluptuous blonde ghost breezes into the room. Her hair floats behind her like a mermaid underwater. She is beautiful and pale, with eyes burning like coal. Everyone adores her, especially their host.
An older ghost scowls at this. He is why they gather here. This used to be his library. So many years ago, he forgot how many. Back before the library had fluorescent lights, computers, and audiobooks.
“I don’t like to leave my library unattended,” he says in a thick southern drawl.
“We know dearest, we know. It was just a suggestion,” the blonde tells him, laughter in her black eyes.
Silence once again fills the room, as more ghosts show up.
One-man drifts near the ceiling, eyes closed, trying to decide how best to scare tourists at his prison.
A shadowy woman known as the Red Lady of Everston Estate keeps to herself. She sits in a corner, fear leaking from her, affecting the very air.
“Who wants to read out loud tonight?” a tween girl asks. Her head crooks at an odd angle. She’s dressed in Puritan fashion.
“I will,” the blonde woman says, gliding into the middle of the room. She holds a hardback novel. It is bright red and leather-bound.
She begins to read. It is a light-hearted tale about friends on a journey. The story is full of jokes, euphemisms, innuendos, and life.
The rest of them congregate around her. They eagerly listen to her voice twist and turn over the words and spin the chapters of the novel.
The library is quiet, aside from her voice. She reads, untiring until the light begins to peer over the horizon.
The sun is rising.
She sighs and closes the book to grumbles and groans.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” the little girls say; their hollow voices echo in the room.
“You know we can’t,” the teenage boy tells them. He’s lit a cigarette. It isn’t real, merely a manifestation of vice.
Their host looks out the window, “you all know the drill, out you get.” He loves the book club, but as dawn approaches, he is anxious. He wants to be back in the basement with the dust, damaged books, old microfiche, and cobwebs; he hates making the librarians nervous.
One by one, the spirits leave, they need to get back before the sun rises too high. If caught by daylight, their eternity will fizzle in the heat. No one wants that, and no one knows why. These rules have been in place too long to question. But they all remember Dead Hazel, who roamed the cemetery. How she told them she wanted to see the sun once more and then never came to the book club again.
Twice a week, they meet. From sundown to just before sunrise.
They can’t be gone from their haunts every night, or they start to forget who there were, who there are. They will moan in their houses, scare the unaware or retreat into the darkness of their minds until the next meeting. It’s something to look forward to. Nothing in this afterlife is how they thought it would be.
This brief respite brings joy and companionship. The old southern man watches as they disappear, the woman with the burning eyes is last to go. She always is. Waving, she blows him a kiss before stepping through the back wall.
He sighs and rights a chair the children knocked over. He will put everything back in its place before the librarians return, they already feel his presence enough, no need to cause them panic.
As he sinks down into the basement, he’s excited for the next meeting of their ghostly book club and another phantom kiss from a woman who still calls him dearest.