Another Way Round

Always be Aware of Your Library Monster

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It was a normal, relatively quiet day in the library. Pages were rustled as people perused their reading matter of choice; kiosks beeped; computers hummed and keys were tapped. The library assistant was going about her business, a stack of books under her chin as she

wandered around putting them back in their proper places.

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     As she was in the process of putting one back, she became aware of an unfamiliar

noise, a kind of faint rumbling. She peered around the shelf into the nearby Children’s

Section. Nope. The Children’s Section was actually pretty quiet for once, the few kids there

were quietly absorbed in their books. The weather outside was bright and clear, yet the

rumbling was becoming more noticeable and people were looking up and around in

confusion. Soon it was more than just a noise; she began to feel it through the floor.

Wait – something about this rang a bell. A few feet away from where she stood was a

panel in the floor, surrounded by yellow and black hazard tape. The rumbling was coming

from there, growing stronger as she walked towards it.

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     Oh, shit.

 

     She looked around, somewhat frantically, for a colleague but she was the only member of staff on floor.

 

     Double shit.

 

     It was strong enough now that everyone had noticed, people were yelping and crying out as books fell and clattered off of shelves. Outside, the world had darkened, as if clouds had covered the sun; inside, the lights began to flicker.

 

     Suddenly, the panel burst open. A chill filled the air as a tentacle – long, acid-green,

covered in gelatinous slime and giving off a faint, phosphorescent glow – emerged, swiftly

followed by more.

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     It was difficult not to panic with all the screaming.

 

     OK, think. They’d covered this in training: in the event of the Library Monster waking up,

they had to feed it or the library, and everyone in it, would be sucked into the Netherworld.

So, what did they feed it? Local councillors? Nope, there weren’t any handy (and, if they

used this option every time, it likely wouldn’t be long before the local authority didn’t have

any councillors left; so councillors were used sparingly, regardless what the staff thought

about cutbacks). Abusive and annoying customers? (A designation that didn’t include

misbehaving children; they weren’t cruel.) Hadn’t had any of those so far today. She sighed,

in the absence of the first two there was only one option left, and she needed to be quick

about it – the dimensions outside were starting to look a little weird. Next to her was the

reservations shelf. She reached for the biggest book to hand – Knitting World: Over 100 Craft

Projects for you to try at Home! – and, like a lion tamer approaching a lion that hadn’t been

fed for a few days, brandishing the book out in front of her like a whip, approached the

waving tentacles.

 

     She whistled. “Here, look,” she waved the book about, “look what I’ve got.”

 

     The tentacles stopped waving about.

 

     “That’s it, come on.”

 

     They reached out, agonisingly slowly. She was pretty sure the shadows outside were

beginning to coalesce into things. The tentacles wrapped themselves around the book and she whipped her hand back in to avoid the slime.

 

     The lights went out.

 

     The things outside started banging on the windows.

 

     Crap!

 

     The tentacles retreated back into the hole and the panel slammed shut. There was a loud

crash, like a clap of thunder (along with a sickening slurp-crunch sound), and the rumbling

and shaking stopped, the lights came on and the view outside returned to sunshine and

normality.

 

     She looked around; everyone was understandably shell-shocked, and she could hear crying coming from the Children’s section, but thankfully no one looked to be hurt. (Hopefully no one had actually tried to leave during that little escapade.) The same couldn’t be said of the library however and she sighed as she surveyed the mess that would have to be cleared up.

 

     “OK everyone, nothing to see here now, as you were.”

 

     No doubt the rest of the staff had figured out what had happened by now. As she went to the back-room, she made a mental list of the tasks to be added to her list: First, new hazard tape; then she’d have to fill out an incident report; update the library catalogue, find out who had reserved that book (why hadn’t she thought to save the slip?) and then contact them to let them know that the staff were really sorry but the book they’d been expecting had been eaten by an eldritch abomination but that it would be re-ordered for them from another library; then start clearing everything up.

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     And just when she thought she’d gotten on top of everything too.