So, here is my story. I don’t like to tell it, and I don’t think I will tell it ever again, but you are my author and you really need to know this. It, sadly, defines me at least somewhat. I really wish it didn’t. And just to let you know, you; Tony; and Mrs. Fredricks –my counselor—are the only ones who get to know all of this. Not even Angela knows all of it. Tony will know some, bit by frozen bit; and I do keep things from my counselor for a while, and she will get them even slower. So you would feel . . . privileged. . .
That just sounds horrible. I don’t mean to be completely self-centered or . . . whatever.
This is what happens when I try and stall. I end up making someone feel rotten. I know you don’t but I feel like that’s what happens. That’s why I stay quiet, that and . . . other things. I try not to say anything so I won’t be held accountable or so then I’m not seen or . . .
Sorry, I’ll just stay . . .
*sighs*
*scratches head and sits quietly for a few moments*
It started three weeks before anything happened. I work in the library you see. A clerk. I knew all the ways around the public library. All the ins and outs. I knew what every section held almost better than some of the other clerks that had been there for years and I’d been only a Page at the time.
I was promoted to clerk a few weeks before they came in and was trying to get the hang of everything that a clerk needed to know. I was good with people, always kind and polite, even if they were yelling at me because they didn’t want to pay their fines. Or because I asked the patron to clean up their child’s vomit from the carpet and they didn’t want to because they were in a hurry to get back to their child’s soccer game or the like. I never raised my voice and always tried to do my best to smile.
I did my best to please them and keep the libraries policies in check as well.
It was a Tuesday at about eight o’clock. There were a handful of people still inside. The library was going to close in about an hour.
Then they came in. There were five boys; two of them were as pasty as could be—one with brown hair and freckles, and the other with pearly white hair—one looked like molten chocolate and smelt rather good as he passed by my table, another was well tanned and looked to be a swimmer—moving as if he were water—and lastly the tall brunette with military cut hair and round, hard muscles and brutal stare.
I’d always remember that stare. How they beat into you like a freight train, but were still alight as if light by candles.
It’s been over a year. You think I’d have forgotten those eyes, or the smell or the freckles that danced on cheeks. But they would never leave my memory. I will always see them all, walking through those glass doors as if they were swans, but inside all they ended up being were snakes. Slithery, slimy, and venomous snakes.
They turned to the stairs and walked up the stairs while I was down on the main floor. They turned for the stairs. Four of them followed the military one like they were his own little soldier army. He faced the desk, looking right at me and winked.
I couldn’t help but smile and look down at the keyboard in front of me. They turned around the corner on the stairs and up the other side coming up to the mezzanine that over looked the rotunda. I don’t even know why they were there. Why boys like that would even come to a library. Three of the boys went into the upper level stacks. The other two—the chocolate one and the general—stayed on the balcony. They both leaned over with their elbows on the railing. They were talking quietly. I tried not to look, but I knew they were looking.
One of my coworkers, an older lady who loves to talk and actually converse with me, nudged me and whispered, “That boy is lookin’ at you.”
“I know,” I said and blushed deeply red.
They stood at the top for a few more minutes but then followed their other friends inside. There then came a flood of people and my attention went to the patrons at the desk. It was such a relief to get to get away from the front desk and breathe for a few minutes up stairs. I grabbed my book from my locker and sat at the reference desk, my eye on the internet lab computer monitor screen.
There weren’t many people still there. A few people still hung about. Kids ran with their parents to get the just right book to finish their report that was due the next day. A couple was sitting at a table in the back flirting and playing footzies under the table. Three older men were sitting at the internet computers trying to find trucks online to buy and fix up. But other than that there were hardly any other people in the entire building, aside from staff. I couldn’t even see the boys until they came to the desk.
The testosterone that hung about them was menacing and seemed to encircle them like a fog. The general leaned over the desk and smiled wickedly at me.
“C-can I help you?” I didn’t mean to stutter, but his eyes, the swirling gray, scared me and excited me at the same time.
“Yeah, sweet stuff,”–I could smell his breath as he leaned in closer—“Where are your biographies? Skitter, here,”—he pointed to the brunette, freckled boy that stood behind him off to the far corner—“has to be a report or something.”
“Ah, they are just over there. On the other side of these shelves. Look for the ninety-two call numbers. They go alpha—“
“Would you mind showing us? None of them are so good with direction.”
I nodded and, a little hesitantly, stood up from my swivel chair. I quickly walked a head of them and made my way to the windows next to the non-fiction shelves.
“Who are you looking for?” I asked, trying to be as objective as possible and doing my best to make sure my legs didn’t shake or my skirt didn’t ruffle more than needful.
When no one answered, I turned to face them. General was standing right behind me and nearly ran into me when I stopped at the biography section. I took two more steps back from them and cast my eyes down to the floor.
There came a small voice from the back.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Speak up Skitter,” General whirled and glared angrily at Skitter.
“Roosevelt.”
“Which one?” I asked. He stared at me as if I were speaking a different language. “Do you want Franklin Delino Roosevelt during World War Two or Theodore Roosevelt who was there in the Spanish American War?”
“Um. . .” Skitter started.
General rolled his foggy eyes. “FDR.”
My finger dragged over a few books on FDR and I quietly said, “They are right here. Take your pick and you check out down stairs.”
I quickly took my leave going around the back of the shelves and practically scampered to my desk again. Their eyes were still on me through the book shelves.
One of my coworkers, the “mother hen” of the staff, made the announcement that we were going to be closing within fifteen minutes and to please take their selections to the front desk. The men in the computer lab started filing out. Parents left with their tired screaming children. The couple in the back still stayed, trying to prolong the moment, probably.
I did my final round around the top, making sure all the computers were off, doors were locked, and everyone was out of the building. I asked the couple to finally leave and while I was doing walking them out the boys must have left. I didn’t see them leave but they weren’t anywhere to be seen. I even checked the elevator to be sure they weren’t hiding in there. They just seemed to disappear and vanish.
I locked the top up and left not long after that, after counting the money. My keys were firmly between my fingers as I walked to the car. I hadn’t done that before, but I had this feeling that I was being watched.
I didn’t see them come back to the library for another week. I watched for them at school, just to be on the lookout. But I didn’t see any of them, aside from Skitter. And, true to his name, he was always so jumpy. He looked to have a bit of a mental disability or something. He was always fidgety and didn’t always looking over his shoulder.
He sat alone at a table in the cafeteria. At the back corner, keeping his eyes out for everything that moved. Such a bad place for someone who was, at least, paranoid. Everything thing moved in the cafeteria, from the people who got the food, to the food itself. He always sat alone. Neither General or the other boys came to the cafeteria or to school in general.
I talked to Angela for a few minutes about it. She just made fun of me, saying that I had finally gotten someone to look at me. When I tried to tell her that it was serious, she laughed and made me flush. She can be rather childish sometimes, and she just had a bottle of soda. Her sugar was spiking.
Haru, my brother, was a lot more kind, but still distracted—by Angela and his fascination with her that he told me to keep quiet about. He offered to drive me home after work so then I wouldn’t be alone, but I declined.
“You’re over reacting. We don’t need to go that far,” I said, slightly blushing.
“Are you sure?” he asked when I was alone.
I nodded and it somewhat dropped. Nothing really happened for the next week. But there was this feeling of being watched. Since they were taken away, I haven’t felt it. Which has been a relief, but I still worry. Of course I worry. After what happened. . .
I saw them twice more before anything happened. They came into the library at the same time they came the first time, just a week after the first time. They didn’t do anything, didn’t even talk to me. They just came and went, talked and laughed to each other. I tried not to think more on it, but . . . it has hard not to notice them. It felt like they were watching me, but when I looked up there was nothing. No eyes. No smoke or lasers that seemed to penetrate the air around me.
I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have gone out by myself . . . Haru had asked if I wanted a ride home before I even left for work. Maybe he could sense something was going to happen. . . Maybe . . . I don’t know.
But I walked out of the back library entrance toward my car. It was dark and I’d just gotten out of the staff meeting I was obligated to go to. My keys were in my hand and I was just about to turn them to unlock my car when I heard footsteps behind me. It was ten thirty at night. No one was supposed to be there. Everyone was supposed to have left an hour and a half before.
I turned and saw the five boys. They were all so much taller than me, aside from Skitter and his almost Siamese twin. They loomed closer and each had a bottle in their hands. My keys jingled in my hand. I reached for my door, opened it quickly, and was about to skurry inside when General’s hand reached the door I was in the process of closing. He’d come so close so quickly. His smile sent chills down my spine and his breath made me want to vomit.
“What are you doin’ her so late?” his words slurred.
“Leaving,” I whispered and tugged on the door.
“Not so fast there.” He opened the driver’s side door wider, placing his free hand on my knee and rubbed it gently with his thumb.
“Please, get away,” I whispered again. He simply laughed and slid his hand up higher on my thigh.
The fact was I had nothing in my car to defend myself with. There was no MACE on my keychain, no knife in my armrest compartment, no nothing. I was defenseless.
Before his hand got up too far past my mid thigh, my hand flew to his. His eyes gleamed and his smile widened. The boys behind him laughed and egged him on. Every part of me tensed. What was I supposed to do?
I just can’t talk anymore. . . Sorry. . . Maybe later. Just . . . Not now.
