Library Ghost: a Quirky Flash
"Library Ghost"
By Heather Stearns
(formerly Heather S. Ingemar)
*
They all laughed at Farah for suggesting it.
"Ghosts aren't real! And what would one want with a bunch of missing books, anyway?"
They laughed at her until humiliation spread burning and heavy over her cheeks, and she fled to the relative safety of her cataloging desk. Maybe she was silly for suggesting it. The Moreland Public Library was a new building, an ordinary building. Nothing traumatic or violent or horrible had happened within its walls. So why, after every minor incident, did she immediately think 'ghost'?
Farah had no explanation, just a sick little prickle up her spine, which every librarian knows is not a well-supported answer. And so, when the next batch of books – by King, Dickens, Roberts, and a medical non-fiction book on Ebola – went missing in action, Farah kept her mouth shut.
Still, they laughed at her. One of the shelvers snickered and made spooky noises as she passed Farah's desk on the way out for the night. The branch manager grinned and waggled her fingers like the ghoul in the old Nosferatu movie after bidding Farah to not stay too late.
Farah ground her teeth and snatched the next book for processing off the pile.
As the hours wore on, the library settled like a giant beast into slumber. The clicking of her keyboard keys entering book information into their system grew loud as a deep silence stretched over the stacks. A prickle raced up Farah's spine. Her fingers faltered on the keys.
"I know you're there." Farah swiveled in her chair and scanned the dark stacks. Shadows welled between the shelves, hiding the bright spine labels on the books. She wanted to add "even if they don't," but couldn't quite bring herself to say it out loud.
The air system clicked on. Farah turned her chair from one side to another, listening to the hum of the equipment. She rubbed the back of her neck. The air shut off, and the quiet was like death. Maybe she did simply have an over-active imagination…
Thump!
Farah flinched in her chair as a book somewhere in the stacks fell off a shelf. The noise seemed to reverberate in the empty building. Farah held her breath, then let it out slowly. She'd better go pick it up. She edged herself from her chair.
Thump! Thumpthump!!
Everywhere, books came off the shelves. Farah shrieked and planted her hands over her ears as the library came down around her. Books rained from the shelves and slithered along the aisles. Papers rustled and took to the air. Farah shrank against her desk in fear. Books bumped her legs, scraped past her shoes as they traveled toward the common area. Hardcovers galumphed their way over paperbacks, the oversize books tumbling behind. As literature and non-fiction met in the middle, they swirled together to create a huge column rising toward the ceiling. Farah peeked between her fingers and saw that the mass assembly of books was not just a column.
It was a figure. A huge, human-shaped figure. It beckoned to her, and she unfurled herself from the floor. "And they don't believe me," she huffed, suddenly angry.
The book-creature shoved a hand through the glass-topped computer station and ripped the tower free. Cords and circuitry dangling, it dropped it at Farah's feet. A slow smile crept across her face as she picked up the book scanner from the wreckage.
"Oh, but we could show them, couldn't we? We could make them see."
The creature took the scanner from her. As it whirled the corded device around like a nunchuck, it laughed with a rustle of papers.
* * *
If you enjoyed this and would like other stories of a similar, unusual, and slightly spooky nature, please check out my other works (mostly pubbed as Heather S. Ingemar) on OmniLit, Amazon, Fictionwise, eReader.com, and Barnes & Noble. 
