Alice's Library

Evening had descended and brought with it the chills of a snowless winter night. The barren trees outside were convulsing in the harsh wind as I watched them from the 4^th floor bay window of the antiquated library. My skin shivered. I yawned and headed back into the labyrinth of dusty stacks. As I walked, the motion sensor lights caught my movement and the dim incandescent bulbs clicked on above, struggling to etch radiance into the cold dark.

I heard someone whistling an abused version of "On My Own." The shrill sound echoed through the center aisle that split the floor into a corrupted symmetry of molding shelves. Ignoring it, I continued wandering the long rows of cracked leather-bound tomes. I picked out a thin volume titled Alice Among the Fairies, an old Charles Dodgson misprint. The whistling was coming closer. It was the only mortal sound in the otherwise dead library. As I flipped through the dry yellow leaf, the pages made a scratching like sandpaper on an unfinished coffin. The whistling was only steps away now. I looked up and saw a lanky figure standing at the end of the row.

"We close in an hour." It was Tenniel, the strange old security guard who roamed the floors of the library muttering lines from old musicals to himself. His lazy eye stared off to the right, which strangely made his cold leer twice as frigid.

"I'm just waiting for the wind to die down," I ventured. Tenniel grunted and turned away. His trailing footsteps echoed off the splintered marble tile.

The lights along the center aisle started to click off one by one as the motion sensors forgot about Tenniel. I returned to my book. The pages were filled with darkly illustrated caricatures of Alice. One pictured her sitting beneath a tree stroking what seemed to be a very dead cat. Another portrayed her confronting a life-sized rabbit that had sharp ears and hyperbolized whiskers. He was holding a twig of a carrot that had been gnawed to its core giving it a dagger-like quality. I was rapt by the drawings. The light went out above me, and the pictures on the page left a negative imprint in the silent darkness. I waved my hand above my head and the light clicked back on with a familiar electric hum. I read on.

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I do think I can't remember feeling any different. And if I can't remember feeling any different, then am I not the same as I was? But if I am not changed, then the question is-

The light went out again. Puzzled, I waved my hand in the air, but to no avail. In the total darkness I thought I heard the rhythmic meter of something breathing. What felt like a faint flutter of warm breath brushed my face before the light clicked back on with resounding intensity and high-pitched whining. I squinted in the sudden brightness and saw a pair of glacier-blue eyes looking at me through the cracks in the bookshelf. The whining light became abrasively luminous. The bulb shook and shattered cascading frosty hot shards over me. I covered my head with my arms and clenched my eyes.

Darkness. My quickened pulse throbbed in my neck, but I felt no breath and heard no sound save the beating blood pumping in my ears. Peeking through my elbows, I noticed a light on in my peripheral. As the beating in my ears subsided, I heard someone whistling "The Music of the Night."

"Tenniel!" I shouted. The whistling stopped. "Tenniel!" I shouted again.

"What?" a low voice returned. I stood up and darted towards the center aisle, the fractured glass bulb crunching beneath my feet as I ran. Lights burned on one by one as I passed beneath them. I stopped when I reached the aisle and looked down the crooked path to see Tenniel standing at the doorway. A thick wall of blackness lay between us.

"What's going on? I was reading and the light shattered above me," I shouted at him.

"Old building. Faulty wiring," Tenniel shouted back. "I'll check the breakers." He started to walk away.

"Wait, Tenniel," I yelled. "I'll come with you." Tenniel stopped reluctantly. As I made my way down the marble aisle, an overhead light started squealing behind me. I wheeled around just as the bulb burst.

"Hey!" Tenniel shouted. I started sprinting towards him. I swear I felt hot breath on my nape as I ran.

"Did you see that?" asked Tenniel when I got to him.

"See what?" I wheezed.

"I thought I saw something behind you right before that light broke. I won't have no bum kids shacking up in my library for the night." Tenniel's one good eye was fixed on the emptiness behind me.

"I thought I saw something earlier, too," I panted. Tenniel shined his flashlight into the darkness and it reflected off the bay window. There was nothing. He pushed me aside and started walking towards the phantasmal presence.

"Wait, Tenniel," but he wasn't listening. I bated my breath as he neared the darkness. He turned and caught my eye with the flashlight's glare. I squinted to see him.

"Guess it was noth-" The metal flashlight dropped onto the hard tile and began rolling.

"Tenniel!" I yelled. The flashlight continued its arc until it finally settled. In the single shaft of light I could see Tenniel's body. A scarlet puddle oozed from underneath him and bloody tributaries filtered through the cracks in the marble. The aisle lights flicked on. Behind Tenniel's corpse stood a little blonde girl wearing a tattered blue dress. Her head was down and her hands were behind her back holding something-it was dripping.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense," she said in a mousy voice. She looked up and stared at me with her glacial eyes. Then she furrowed her brow and her face turned dark. Her eyes turned red and she brandished a bloody carrot-dagger. "Nonsense!" she screamed.

All the lights in the library started to burn and shrill as the room became a sanctuary of illumination. The bulb above me cackled and cracked. I turned and ran. The shelves started to rumble and crash. I was nearing the bay window-there was no way out. The red eyes appeared in a reflection between the panes just as I crashed through the looking glass. Clawing at the glassy air, I was screaming and falling when-

"Hey."

I awoke with a start. Tenniel was prodding me with his flashlight.

"You can't sleep here. Library's closed." I let out a tempered breath and put my head against the stack behind me. I was alive. In my lap lay an open book. "You hear me, kid? You got to leave."

"I thought you were dead," I sighed.

"Nonsense," he replied. I looked up to him and he smirked. The bulb above me started to brighten and squeal.