The Night Shift

By Arron Engling

It had been ages since Matt had found a well-paying job that could fit with his insomniac sleep schedule. Or, rather, what he lacked in a sleep schedule. Work came and went, career positions lasting as long as one of his naps typically did. It was a stressful life, constantly hopping from position to position while wondering if he even had enough to keep the lights on the next day.

This was before he landed on a hidden gem in the paper, a job listing tucked away in the very bottom right corner, as if it was supposed to never be seen by human eyes. In small, Times New Roman font, it said, “Library Nightguard in desperate need. Thirty-five dollars an hour, a ten dollar pay raise guaranteed every year. One thousand dollars sign on bonus. Wellshire bookkeepers hiring. Call 800-546-3000.”

Matt took it without hesitation, showing up for his first shift less than a day later.

“Well, in your job as a library nightguard, you have certain… tasks.”

Matt nodded his head, holding back rolling his eyes in front of his new employer. Of course, he had tasks; despite getting this job and expecting this to be one of his easier shifts (compared to a shady retail store and a food lounge that was quite literally more than he could chew), he wasn’t a fool. He naturally understood some of the duties that came with the role of a guard, having bounced around so often, but the look on the man’s face sitting across from him was… unnerving.

He never could meet Matt’s gaze, eyes constantly shifting around the room to focus on anything but him. A bead of sweat rolled down his clammy face, stark white in comparison to the soft cherry color of his bulbous nose. His shirt was stained, covered in some sort of dry, dark maroon liquid that dotted around the cuffs of his sleeves, both of which dug into his skin from being a size too small. He nearly looked ill. His tongue darted out of his mouth and onto his chapped lips, before he continued to explain.

“We have a set of rules at Wellshire library.”

“I’m aware of that. The receptionist at the desk gave me a run down when I first came in.”

“Yes yes, I know she did.” The man with the tie seemed to quickly brushed Matt off, occasionally glancing at the clock with fidgety eyes. “However, there’s a set of rules she was instructed not to give you. Not until you agreed to stay the full nine hours this night. Do you think your exuberant paystub doesn’t come at a price?”

Matt raised an eyebrow, looking at him warily. “So, what? Do I gotta vacuum or something? Do a little home maintenance? Because I certainly don’t mind if tha-”

“No, it’s not like that.” His new employer sighed heavily, nostrils flaring as he wrung out his hands. Taking deep breaths in and out, chest slowly rising and falling until he found his tone was steady; he finally met the other’s eyes for the first time that night.

“I have hope for you, son. You seem like the resilient type, and Lord knows that’s exactly what this job needs. Just listen to the instructions I give to you, and you’ll be okay. This can either be a very easy job or a very, very hard one.”

Matt opened his mouth to interrupt before his manager raised his hand, solemnly shaking his head and
wordlessly demanding silence.

“You best stay quiet until I finish giving you these instructions. You’ll thank me later, and you’ll want to know these things, and not have to learn them the hard way. Not like our last nightguard.”

So the new hire fell silent, mostly out of an ever-growing anxiousness that crawled up the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end. Something felt off about this place, this job, and he hadn’t even started yet. However, despite his obvious reluctance, his employer took his silence for granted and continued.

“It’s really more of a schedule than a set of rules, but we’ll get to that in a second.

“Rule One, the most important rule of them all is to follow your schedule to a T. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, no matter what happens, you follow your schedule. You got a broken leg? Doesn’t matter, you follow your schedule. You’re running five minutes behind? Then you best hope you learn how to time travel real quick, or you pick up the slack to get back on track. No exceptions.

“Rule Two, stay out of the auditorium from 12-1:30 a.m. You don’t have a route going in, but you will pass by it on your walkthrough. I anticipate some sort of… curiosity, but no matter what you hear behind that door, you stay out, you hear me?

“Rule Three, stay out of the upper floors from 2-3 a.m.. You might notice you’ve got a thirty-minute window from your last route to get back, and might think to yourself, ‘I can take all the time I want getting back to my post,’ right? Wrong. You stay ahead of schedule; you stay punctual, and you stay off those floors when the time comes.

“Rule Four, your last rule, but… potentially the steepest of all.” The man exhaled shakily, reaching up to dab at his glistening, bald forehead with his hastily made tie. He seemed panicky, flustered even.

“When you’re doing your basement walkthrough, leave all the lights off. Yes, there’s a switch by the door, but that doesn’t matter. You have your flashlight, and that’s all the help we can provide you down there. All you have to do is work your way around the outer perimeter of the room. Check to see that the shelves are in order, and get out. I will be upfront with you to remind you of this warning.”

Matt’s manager leaned in, clasping his shoulder with a shaky hand. His grip was firm, yet felt like it could
slide off at any given moment. He was terrified.

“Never, I repeat, never use the security mirrors in the upper corners of the room. Never look into them, never use them for reference when turning down a hallway, and certainly never point your flashlight at them. I understand, the corners in the basement are sharp and you might be worried about bumping into something, but I promise you, if you never look in those reflections, you won’t.”

Matt stood there, mouth agape like a dying fish as he blankly stared at the messied man in front of him. The amount of information that was just shoved into his arms was shocking, nearly mind boggling, to the point where he didn’t even feel his supervisor’s hand move off his shirt as he slowly back peddled.

“It’s a steep learning curve, but you’ll get the hang of it!” he said moving away. “See you at 5 a.m.,” he shouted before frantically grabbing his things, putting on his hat, and nearly sprinting out the door. Behind him, Matt could faintly hear the sound of keys rattling and a lock jiggling in place, shaky and distressed.

Matt was locked in. He was locked in by his own manager. He tried to acclimate to the environment of the library. After all, that’s all it was, right? Shelves upon shelves of dusty books, literature sitting to rot, untouched for months, or even years. It flooded the media center with the faint smell of moldy paper and decaying cardboard, a natural scent of dust enveloping the halls.

Yet, there was another scent that Matt couldn’t quite put his finger on. Incredibly muted, but still there nonetheless; ghosting at the edge of his senses and looming over the building like a fog. Death. It smelled like death.

A putrid, festering smell that invaded every crevice of the library, every door he opened and every room he entered, being greeted by it. He tried to ignore it as he paced through the linoleum halls, monotonously swaying his flashlight to and fro in his hand with his heels clicking against the floor. The smell as ever-present as the groan of the building settling into its foundation, low creaks reverberating into the worker’s skull.

The guard nearly gone to check out of concern, if not for Rule two; stay out of the atrium for the next hour or so. That’s all he had to do to restrain himself; remind himself that they were locked. Nothing could’ve been able to get through to the other side, not without the keys looped tightly around his waistband.

Slam!

Without warning, those pleading bays contorted into loud wails, something that sounded far, far too human for Matt to be comfortable with. It shrieked behind the door, the frame now rattling violently as those merciful pushes turned into vehement clawing. It gargled incessantly, broken words that sounded like the imitation of a human trying to speak, tumbling out of hoarse vocal cords and a tongue that simply wasn’t meant to produce identifiable words. It would’ve sounded like an injured person, if not for the strange tone that constantly ghosted at the edge of its “speech.”

Slam!

It was like an echo of a human, something could’ve once been considered alive, but now… a far, far cry from it. There was simply something unnatural about it, as if a whisper, fueled by some unknown rage, had come to life, wailing out far louder than it ever should’ve been able to. Its shattered voice echoed down the halls; the library filled with ear-piercing screeches as it fought against the door with all its might. All the while, pleading, begging for someone to open the door, someone to come inside, someone to help. That someone, being Matt.

It slammed once more against the wooden door, to the point where the man opposing it feared the wood might buckle and splinter against the ferocious strikes on the other side. Ever so slowly, he began to backpedal leaving the screaming atrium entrance. With each foot he managed to step away, its shrieks only grew louder and louder, as if it somehow knew it was losing its hold on him. Finally, the guard rounded a corner and slipped away, leaving the hinges of the door to rattle incessantly until he disappeared.

Matt almost felt as if he was forgetting something; a nagging sensation that tugged at the back of his tired mind, a siren song for something that he just simply couldn’t recall. It pestered at his mind as he continued to do his patrol, aimlessly walking down hallways as those far-off echoes from the creature screamed in the back of his mind. This wouldn’t have been the first time he suffered a hallucination from lack of sleep, but… something felt off, like he was too conscious for that to have been considered a delusion, but not conscious enough to remember one of his rules.

It was infuriating to the point where he nearly doubled back to trace his footsteps, just to jog his memory. At least, he would’ve, until he rounded a corner only to see the top of something’s head, drifting past the other side of the balcony. It was deathly, unnaturally silent, to the point where he most likely wouldn’t have even noticed it, if not for its startling complexion. Smooth, but littered with long scars, almost as if something had attacked the top of its cranium. Normally, he wouldn’t have batted an eye to this, chalking it up to insomniatic hallucinations, even going as far as getting a closer look. Except there was one issue. He was on the third floor.

The head continued to drift by as it walked, skin a pale shade of gray, mirroring a shark circling through water. Far below, Matt could softly hear something dragging against the linoleum floor; a screech that echoed off the interior of the media center. Piercing and bright, a wayward shriek disrupted the calm nature of his workplace. Matt froze in place, unsure what to do. The head started to rise.

Inch by inch with a garish popping sound, somehow breaking its very bones to grow even higher, the crown of the thing rose above the railing. More and more of its warped features were coming into view. Its muted flesh was pulled taut against its skull, sickly blue veins shining through what little flesh separated its insides from the open air. It could’ve been mistaken for a human cranium, if not for the uncanny sense that surrounded the entire being; an extreme sense of wrong, as if its entire existence was simply a mistake.

That sensation only grew stronger as its eyes came into view. Or lack of them, rather. Staring back at the guard were small, empty sockets, a void of any life. Yet, even without a set of pupils to meet, Matt still had the urge that he was being watched. A burrowing, crawling feeling festered underneath his very skin, until he could stand it no longer.
He finally broke away from its empty gaze and thundered down the stairs, uncaring if he was quiet enough to slip by, earning a loud wail from whatever was staring at him moments before. It was ear piercing, nearly causing him to trip before coming into contact with the plush carpet of the second floor.

Matt staggered from his panic, falling onto his knees, slamming the palms of his hands against the ground to at least keep himself somewhat propped up. The outer edge of the floor was still in view, yet to his horror there were two long poles obstructing his vision. Poles that weren’t there before, that he didn’t notice when he first came in. Then, it hit him. They weren’t poles at all; they were knees.

Elongated and twisted, supporting a frame that was impossibly tall, they began to bend with a laborious creak to bring the creature down below. There was no way it could reached him, he thought, there were some things that were simply too big to contort further to the ground.

Slowly, an extended, mangled finger grasped at the ceiling before another joined its hold, and then another, and then another after that, until there were nearly nine digits grabbing at the ceiling far above Matt. Each finger was equipped with scuffed nails, like they were dragged against something, nearly the length of its palm, if not even longer. It mirrored human anatomy, or at least a contorted, disgusting version of it; like a being created from the sight of a person in a funhouse mirror, twisted and grotesque. Yet still, somehow very much alive.

Matt slammed himself against one of the taller bookshelves, baton clutched close to his chest like a lifeline. He heaved, chest rising and falling shakily as a bead of sweat rolled down his temple, eyes snapped wide as he stared at the far wall.

It was real. He wasn’t imagining things, that was real. It chittered softly, still blocked off between the narrow space between the balcony and the open air between it and the ceiling, beckoning to him, calling to him to come closer, just a few feet, just to spare a glance at it. He would’ve foolishly obliged, if not for the disfigured, claw of a hand that came shredding against the bookshelf opposing him. Wood and paper came crashing to the floor, earning another roar of dissatisfaction at the thing not snagging Matt in tow.

The guard fell to his knees in a fetal position, arms secured over his head as he violently began to tremble, the reality of the situation finally crashing down onto him. The being continued to wail in dismay behind him, reaching out to claw again and again, nails digging into the floor, the carpet, wherever they could sink into. Gouging into the skeleton of the library, bearing its interior frame as wood splintered against its heavy swings. All the while, Matt laid curled up into a ball, adrenaline pumping through him but with nowhere to escape to.

So, he did what he could do; simply squeezed his eyes shut as tremors wracked through his tired body, desperately wanting to wake up from this nightmare. It seemed like its disgruntled screams would last for an eternity, every crevice of his eardrums being sickened by its constant piercing. Until, all at once, the noises stopped. His mind was no longer flooded with paper being shredded, the cries of whatever lurked beyond the balcony. The only sound in the room was the soft beeping of his watch. 3:01 a.m.

Rule Three: Stay out of the upper floors from 2-3 a.m.

Matt shambled to pick himself up off the dirtied ground, in a daze as he shuffled down the opposing stairs. He only realized that the thing was gone when he wandered out onto the first floor, being totally and utterly alone. He wasn’t sure how he found his way to the basement, or why he even continued to bother trying. Yet somehow, he had, dragging himself into the damp, desolate, and especially dark embrace of the lower floor. No illumination whatsoever greeted Matt as he treaded down the rickety wooden staircase, finally approaching ground level after several torturously long seconds of creaking. With the wood buckling underneath his weight, he grimaced at each drawn out groan of dismay that sounded in the shadowed room, silently convinced that it would break.

This was his last task for the night. This was all he had to do. Then he could leave, go home, and most likely sign up for therapy. He repeated that phrase over and over again in his mind like a mantra before proceeding down the hallway, automatically flicking his flashlight on with a soft click. It barely covered three feet ahead of himself, adding to the already suffocating feeling of the bottom floor. It was dusty; most shelves being covered in a fine layer of debris, along with the books inside of them. The muted sounds in the basement relaxed him, no loud yells being there to send him crashing into the wall, or even to get his adrenaline pumping again. But he was alert now, having learned his lesson from neglecting the previous rule.

Matt was simply, physically alone, in a dark room, with nothing but his flickering flashlight to keep himself company, and maybe that’s why he felt himself growing unnerved. Maybe because of the lack of any challenge presented, he began to hear things. Voices that flicked along the rim of his ear, miscellaneous and too fast to comprehend, warning of danger, of fear, that he needed to leave. He was seeing things too. Black shadows that flickered at the corner of his vision, vanishing out of sight before he could meet their gaze. The images constantly reminded the guard of their presence, only to be taunted with emptiness when shined on with his flashlight. Everywhere he turned, it was like something was mocking him silently, taunting him for being just too late to spot it.

With each sweep of his flashlight, the mirrors above flashed, mirrors that he was forbidden to use, even if they could aid his blindness in the dark while walking down the hall. They hung overhead forebodingly, gently urging him to just spare a glance up once, once would it be all he needed. Wouldn’t he like to know what he was walking into instead of putting his, quite literally, blind faith in a surrounding that felt like it was going to swallow him whole?

His pulse began to quicken. He walked faster and faster, to the point of running, yet the only sounds that echoed throughout the room were his footsteps thundering against the floor, and his soft wheezing. His heart was working in overdrive to send him sprinting forward. All the while, Matt kept his eyes glued to the ground; rounding sharp corners that nearly had him sliding onto his side, desperately trying to fight the urge to gaze up at the far-off mirrors that silently chided at him.

Hushed observers to his terror seemingly fueled by nothing, yet what Matt was experiencing felt as real as ever, as if reveling in his terror, begging him to simply use them, see what he would be facing as he rounded the corner. Just look. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he tore his eyes up to gaze at one of those mirrors, only to see something staring back at him.

The faraway staircase shone like an obelisk, shining like the blinding light of day that cut through the heavy fog of the basement. As the guard grew closer and closer, it grew ever brighter, until finally he was tossing himself up onto the ground floor of the library. Sweaty, aching, and exhausted on all levels, the gentle beeping of his watch brought him back down to reality.

5:00 a.m.

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