My coworker disappeared and now I'm seeing things I have…
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My coworker disappeared and now I'm seeing things
I have been instructed by law enforcement to write down the events of the past few days for official documentation. For the record, I am not the one responsible for what happened to Bobbie. I wasn’t even working that day. I guess it doesn’t matter much now since the police are involved, but I just wanted to state that for the record before I begin describing what I saw here at the library.
This is my official statement.
My name is Melanie Potter and I started working at the Hillvale Public Library about seven years ago. I’d been a part-time shelver since I started back in 2019 right before the pandemic hit. I graduated this past fall from library school with my Master’s and became the Children’s Librarian in January of this year. I am in charge of the second floor children’s department with three part-time staff on a rotating schedule. I handle all the programming and community outreach for our city library.
I’ve been asked to describe in detail my relationship to Bobbie, but I didn’t work with him directly, and I’m not his supervisor. He is a fellow department head up on third. Each floor of the library operates a bit differently. First floor circulation folks are a dime a dozen and mostly part-time. Dusty supervises the front desk and runs a tight ship. Been working here since the ‘80’s. I don’t usually bother remembering any of the other’s names because they often start and leave in such a short time, I barely have a chance to get to know any of them. The reference crew on third are a ragtag group. Bobbie fit right in with them. They mostly stuck to themselves most days.
The library was built back in the 70’s and has a dinosaur of an elevator that is broken half the time, so most of us use the central staircase that runs up all the way to the fourth floor where the admin offices are. The stairs have a unique feature wall made of decorative mirrors framed in brass that run the whole way up the building. For some reason, it always made me uncomfortable to look in those mirrors. Like someone was going to be standing right behind me. Anytime I had to use them, even in the middle of the day, I kept my head down and looked at my feet.
That’s how I met Bobbie, actually. We must have both been doing the same thing, because we collided somewhere between floors after turning one of the corners near the railing. I remember him muttering to himself as I got closer and that’s what made me look up. He was carrying a small bag and a thermos. As soon as we bumped into each other, all of it fell and splattered along the stairs and down the front of my shirt. It was only my second day on the job. He apologized profusely, of course, but he seemed to find it difficult to meet my eyes even after he’d fully gathered up all the spilled food. He ended up flagging down one of the janitors who was mopping just off the third floor and hurried off upstairs. I just figured he was shy so I let it go and went to my office to try and blot out the stain from the soup.
I actually didn’t see Bobbie for another couple months because our schedules never lined up. It was probably about a week ago when I saw him again. He was talking to himself at his desk and kept looking back toward the shelves. When I looked where his eyes were looking, I could have sworn a pair of eyes hid behind the row of books directly behind him. He laughed to himself and shook his head, so I assumed it was some weird game or prank and let it go. I’d been up on third because that is also where the book sale room is located. Being new to my role and a department head, I was asked to handle the book donations and the annual book sale, which didn’t bother me. The library receives a fairly large amount of book donations. Some are kept and cataloged for the collection. Others are sold at our annual book sale and the proceeds used to purchase new books or fund public programs. And yet, still others are…discretely handled.
One such book stuck out to me in the pile as I opened the door. It looked like it was just placed there as it sat right on top of the bin. It was filthy. It looked like crusted leather, but buried under grime and dirt. There was a distinct metal buckle that held the pages closed and it reeked of mildew, wet paper, and dare I even say, *old meat*. It wasn’t even all that shocking since we really get all kinds of folks donating books all the time. I’d run across a fair few that smelled like cigarette smoke or pork, so it wasn’t out of the realm of what I was used to seeing here. I didn’t dare touch it with my bare hands, though. I grabbed my gloves and trash grabber we kept just inside the room and flung it in the trash can. I didn’t think anything else about it. Well, that is until about two days ago. I guess that’s when things started to get a little weird.
I came into work on Wednesday and immediately noticed something was off. I’m not usually the first one to work in the mornings, though I wish I were that type of person. I thought it was odd that my car was the only one in the parking lot when I pulled in, but assumed it was just a fluke. When I opened the door to the staff area with my key, I went to put in my alarm code on the panel and stopped with my finger on the first button. The alarm wasn’t even set. The green light on disarmed glowed next to my finger and the library was eerily quiet. I knew from the posted schedule on the fridge that Bobbie was the last one here the night before since he worked Tuesdays and Thursdays until closing. He’d never not set the alarm panel, though. Wednesdays were our toddler storytime days. I didn’t really give it much thought since I always get here a little early to set up and my mind was distracted. I needed time to rally myself into wrangling hundreds of kids practically feral with excitement.
Of course, the parents were worse than the kids sometimes. Silently judging you for having to tell *their* kid to not lick the walls or put the edges of books in their mouth. The very thought would give me shivers sometimes thinking what kind of germs they were putting in their body. As I walked through the staff areas, I was mentally preparing myself before I had to be “on” so I didn’t think to look down as I walked out from the small hallway that curves around and ends at the main stairwell.
My eyes met my reflection in the mirror for just a second.
Now, the way that mirror is angled when you come in from the back gives you a pretty wide view of the main lobby. I’m not a jumpy or easily scared person. I don’t usually see weird things or orbs or ghost people for attention. The only reason I’m stating it here is so that someone else knows exactly what I saw. In that mirror, just behind me and across the circulation desk, two eyes peered at me just over the top of the desk. The funny thing was, I didn’t even stop walking. At the time, I must have thought it was a trick of the light coming from that odd angle in the mirror and didn’t register them as eyes, at all. As soon as I walked behind the main circ desk, my ears perked up and I stopped in my tracks. The front door was standing wide open and Bobbie’s thermos, the one that had collided with me on the stairs and splattered my shirt with soup, was abandoned in the middle of the floor. It was making a metallic clinking sound as it rolled backward and forward in the breeze coming through the door.
That wasn’t the weird part, though. There were footprints all over the lobby and into the foyer and some even tracked right up to the front desk and then stopped like whoever had made them disappeared into thin air completely. I knew they didn’t belong to Bobbie because they were small, almost child-like, but there was a reddish-brown tinge to them like dried blood caked in mud like you’d find deep in the woods. And then there was the smell. I’ve never actually been around too much rotten meat before, but I knew what it smelled like. My dad worked at a meat processing place before he retired, and when he let me go to work with him as a little girl, I’d puked when I walked onto the main floor that first time.
That was the same smell that met my nose now. I had to stifle a gag and put my hands up to my mouth.
That’s when I noticed the book. I knew it wasn’t a library book because there was no barcode or spine label and we wouldn’t circulate anything of that condition anyway. It wasn’t large, but I could tell right away that was where the smell was coming from. I could tell in the same way I also knew I’d seen that exact book before. And I had thrown it in the trash. And watched that trash be taken out. It had a brown cover and appeared to be leather-bound with a sharp metal clasp that held the pages firmly closed. Along the side, I could see the pages were stained and discolored.
The book sat on the corner of the circ desk on the ledge like someone had just returned it or dropped it off after reading it the night before. I had the sinking feeling that it was connected to whatever had happened to Bobbie, but I couldn’t prove it. I walked the couple steps over to where it sat and ran my finger along the side to see if there was a title I could make out. There was something there, alright, but it was difficult to read like it had been scratched there by something sharp. Maybe *A’s Scary Stories*? I bent down closer to look, but my finger only made it halfway up the spine before pain bit into my skin, and I snatched my hand back so quickly I almost fell backwards.
I looked down at my fingers and a sharp, ugly red line appeared there. Nasty papercut. I hadn’t even touched the pages of the book, only the spine where the title had been, but something had sliced into my fingers like the book itself took a bite out of me. Which, of course, is crazy talk. I just shook my head and wiped my fingers on the underside of my shirt.
I could hear the sound of footsteps behind me and then the loud thud of the staff door closing. Voices carried through the back hallway and Dusty rounded the corner and waved as she turned on the lights in her office. When I turned back around, it was all gone. The book. The footprints. Even the door was shut and locked. I blinked a couple times and looked down all around me, but there was no trace left of any of it. Even the smell had disappeared. Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s impossible. Things just don’t disappear out of thin air.
But, I’m telling you, that is what happened.
When I took my hand out of my pocket, even the cut looked different. It was smaller, but unmistakable if you knew it was there. It was probably just my eyes playing tricks, but I could have sworn something moved underneath the skin of my finger when I looked at where the cut had been. Just a little sliver. But, then it was gone.
Nothing else strange happened that day and yesterday I was out with a weird stomach bug I couldn’t shake so I wasn’t here when Bobbie freaked out. I did get a weird phone call late last night around midnight from an unknown number and when I played the voicemail back, I could have sworn there was the sound of a barcode scanner in the background. You can’t really mistake that sound if you’ve worked in a library this long. It’s very distinctive. There was also a very faint voice, maybe whispering, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. For a minute, the voice sounded a bit like Bobbie but I can’t be sure. I tried calling it back, but the phone number was disconnected.
It’s funny how you don’t really know someone, even when you work with them every day. Like I didn’t know Bobbie that well, but I wonder if I had made more of an effort to get to know him, maybe I would have known how lonely he really was. I know working late nights can get to a person like that. Makes you see things and hear things in the dark. My mom was a night-shift nurse for twenty years and she would tell me stories about things she saw when she’d pull all-nighters and live off of stale coffee and cigarettes. I guess you do what you can to make ends meet, even if it costs you something.
Other than these past few days, I have never seen anything odd here at the library. It’s a great place to work. I heard what a mess he made up on third with that laptop and all that blood everywhere. Some people are just clumsy and messy, I guess. Kids, especially. I could fill a book with how much of a handful *they* can be. I heard there was camera footage of the third floor last night that the police came for this afternoon, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. I hope you find him and he can get the help he needs.
I think that is all I remember, but my head feels a little funny today so if I remember anything else, I’ll be sure to add to this record in the future. I’m more than willing to cooperate with the Hillvale Police Department on anything that will help poor Bobbie. I would stay and help with the investigation further, but I’m training a new library assistant today.
Her name is Angie and she is quite excited to get started.
End of statement.
#entertainment
source
I have been instructed by law enforcement to write down the events of the past few days for official documentation. For the record, I am not the one responsible for what happened to Bobbie. I wasn’t even working that day. I guess it doesn’t matter much now since the police are involved, but I just wanted to state that for the record before I begin describing what I saw here at the library.
This is my official statement.
My name is Melanie Potter and I started working at the Hillvale Public Library about seven years ago. I’d been a part-time shelver since I started back in 2019 right before the pandemic hit. I graduated this past fall from library school with my Master’s and became the Children’s Librarian in January of this year. I am in charge of the second floor children’s department with three part-time staff on a rotating schedule. I handle all the programming and community outreach for our city library.
I’ve been asked to describe in detail my relationship to Bobbie, but I didn’t work with him directly, and I’m not his supervisor. He is a fellow department head up on third. Each floor of the library operates a bit differently. First floor circulation folks are a dime a dozen and mostly part-time. Dusty supervises the front desk and runs a tight ship. Been working here since the ‘80’s. I don’t usually bother remembering any of the other’s names because they often start and leave in such a short time, I barely have a chance to get to know any of them. The reference crew on third are a ragtag group. Bobbie fit right in with them. They mostly stuck to themselves most days.
The library was built back in the 70’s and has a dinosaur of an elevator that is broken half the time, so most of us use the central staircase that runs up all the way to the fourth floor where the admin offices are. The stairs have a unique feature wall made of decorative mirrors framed in brass that run the whole way up the building. For some reason, it always made me uncomfortable to look in those mirrors. Like someone was going to be standing right behind me. Anytime I had to use them, even in the middle of the day, I kept my head down and looked at my feet.
That’s how I met Bobbie, actually. We must have both been doing the same thing, because we collided somewhere between floors after turning one of the corners near the railing. I remember him muttering to himself as I got closer and that’s what made me look up. He was carrying a small bag and a thermos. As soon as we bumped into each other, all of it fell and splattered along the stairs and down the front of my shirt. It was only my second day on the job. He apologized profusely, of course, but he seemed to find it difficult to meet my eyes even after he’d fully gathered up all the spilled food. He ended up flagging down one of the janitors who was mopping just off the third floor and hurried off upstairs. I just figured he was shy so I let it go and went to my office to try and blot out the stain from the soup.
I actually didn’t see Bobbie for another couple months because our schedules never lined up. It was probably about a week ago when I saw him again. He was talking to himself at his desk and kept looking back toward the shelves. When I looked where his eyes were looking, I could have sworn a pair of eyes hid behind the row of books directly behind him. He laughed to himself and shook his head, so I assumed it was some weird game or prank and let it go. I’d been up on third because that is also where the book sale room is located. Being new to my role and a department head, I was asked to handle the book donations and the annual book sale, which didn’t bother me. The library receives a fairly large amount of book donations. Some are kept and cataloged for the collection. Others are sold at our annual book sale and the proceeds used to purchase new books or fund public programs. And yet, still others are…discretely handled.
One such book stuck out to me in the pile as I opened the door. It looked like it was just placed there as it sat right on top of the bin. It was filthy. It looked like crusted leather, but buried under grime and dirt. There was a distinct metal buckle that held the pages closed and it reeked of mildew, wet paper, and dare I even say, *old meat*. It wasn’t even all that shocking since we really get all kinds of folks donating books all the time. I’d run across a fair few that smelled like cigarette smoke or pork, so it wasn’t out of the realm of what I was used to seeing here. I didn’t dare touch it with my bare hands, though. I grabbed my gloves and trash grabber we kept just inside the room and flung it in the trash can. I didn’t think anything else about it. Well, that is until about two days ago. I guess that’s when things started to get a little weird.
I came into work on Wednesday and immediately noticed something was off. I’m not usually the first one to work in the mornings, though I wish I were that type of person. I thought it was odd that my car was the only one in the parking lot when I pulled in, but assumed it was just a fluke. When I opened the door to the staff area with my key, I went to put in my alarm code on the panel and stopped with my finger on the first button. The alarm wasn’t even set. The green light on disarmed glowed next to my finger and the library was eerily quiet. I knew from the posted schedule on the fridge that Bobbie was the last one here the night before since he worked Tuesdays and Thursdays until closing. He’d never not set the alarm panel, though. Wednesdays were our toddler storytime days. I didn’t really give it much thought since I always get here a little early to set up and my mind was distracted. I needed time to rally myself into wrangling hundreds of kids practically feral with excitement.
Of course, the parents were worse than the kids sometimes. Silently judging you for having to tell *their* kid to not lick the walls or put the edges of books in their mouth. The very thought would give me shivers sometimes thinking what kind of germs they were putting in their body. As I walked through the staff areas, I was mentally preparing myself before I had to be “on” so I didn’t think to look down as I walked out from the small hallway that curves around and ends at the main stairwell.
My eyes met my reflection in the mirror for just a second.
Now, the way that mirror is angled when you come in from the back gives you a pretty wide view of the main lobby. I’m not a jumpy or easily scared person. I don’t usually see weird things or orbs or ghost people for attention. The only reason I’m stating it here is so that someone else knows exactly what I saw. In that mirror, just behind me and across the circulation desk, two eyes peered at me just over the top of the desk. The funny thing was, I didn’t even stop walking. At the time, I must have thought it was a trick of the light coming from that odd angle in the mirror and didn’t register them as eyes, at all. As soon as I walked behind the main circ desk, my ears perked up and I stopped in my tracks. The front door was standing wide open and Bobbie’s thermos, the one that had collided with me on the stairs and splattered my shirt with soup, was abandoned in the middle of the floor. It was making a metallic clinking sound as it rolled backward and forward in the breeze coming through the door.
That wasn’t the weird part, though. There were footprints all over the lobby and into the foyer and some even tracked right up to the front desk and then stopped like whoever had made them disappeared into thin air completely. I knew they didn’t belong to Bobbie because they were small, almost child-like, but there was a reddish-brown tinge to them like dried blood caked in mud like you’d find deep in the woods. And then there was the smell. I’ve never actually been around too much rotten meat before, but I knew what it smelled like. My dad worked at a meat processing place before he retired, and when he let me go to work with him as a little girl, I’d puked when I walked onto the main floor that first time.
That was the same smell that met my nose now. I had to stifle a gag and put my hands up to my mouth.
That’s when I noticed the book. I knew it wasn’t a library book because there was no barcode or spine label and we wouldn’t circulate anything of that condition anyway. It wasn’t large, but I could tell right away that was where the smell was coming from. I could tell in the same way I also knew I’d seen that exact book before. And I had thrown it in the trash. And watched that trash be taken out. It had a brown cover and appeared to be leather-bound with a sharp metal clasp that held the pages firmly closed. Along the side, I could see the pages were stained and discolored.
The book sat on the corner of the circ desk on the ledge like someone had just returned it or dropped it off after reading it the night before. I had the sinking feeling that it was connected to whatever had happened to Bobbie, but I couldn’t prove it. I walked the couple steps over to where it sat and ran my finger along the side to see if there was a title I could make out. There was something there, alright, but it was difficult to read like it had been scratched there by something sharp. Maybe *A’s Scary Stories*? I bent down closer to look, but my finger only made it halfway up the spine before pain bit into my skin, and I snatched my hand back so quickly I almost fell backwards.
I looked down at my fingers and a sharp, ugly red line appeared there. Nasty papercut. I hadn’t even touched the pages of the book, only the spine where the title had been, but something had sliced into my fingers like the book itself took a bite out of me. Which, of course, is crazy talk. I just shook my head and wiped my fingers on the underside of my shirt.
I could hear the sound of footsteps behind me and then the loud thud of the staff door closing. Voices carried through the back hallway and Dusty rounded the corner and waved as she turned on the lights in her office. When I turned back around, it was all gone. The book. The footprints. Even the door was shut and locked. I blinked a couple times and looked down all around me, but there was no trace left of any of it. Even the smell had disappeared. Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s impossible. Things just don’t disappear out of thin air.
But, I’m telling you, that is what happened.
When I took my hand out of my pocket, even the cut looked different. It was smaller, but unmistakable if you knew it was there. It was probably just my eyes playing tricks, but I could have sworn something moved underneath the skin of my finger when I looked at where the cut had been. Just a little sliver. But, then it was gone.
Nothing else strange happened that day and yesterday I was out with a weird stomach bug I couldn’t shake so I wasn’t here when Bobbie freaked out. I did get a weird phone call late last night around midnight from an unknown number and when I played the voicemail back, I could have sworn there was the sound of a barcode scanner in the background. You can’t really mistake that sound if you’ve worked in a library this long. It’s very distinctive. There was also a very faint voice, maybe whispering, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. For a minute, the voice sounded a bit like Bobbie but I can’t be sure. I tried calling it back, but the phone number was disconnected.
It’s funny how you don’t really know someone, even when you work with them every day. Like I didn’t know Bobbie that well, but I wonder if I had made more of an effort to get to know him, maybe I would have known how lonely he really was. I know working late nights can get to a person like that. Makes you see things and hear things in the dark. My mom was a night-shift nurse for twenty years and she would tell me stories about things she saw when she’d pull all-nighters and live off of stale coffee and cigarettes. I guess you do what you can to make ends meet, even if it costs you something.
Other than these past few days, I have never seen anything odd here at the library. It’s a great place to work. I heard what a mess he made up on third with that laptop and all that blood everywhere. Some people are just clumsy and messy, I guess. Kids, especially. I could fill a book with how much of a handful *they* can be. I heard there was camera footage of the third floor last night that the police came for this afternoon, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. I hope you find him and he can get the help he needs.
I think that is all I remember, but my head feels a little funny today so if I remember anything else, I’ll be sure to add to this record in the future. I’m more than willing to cooperate with the Hillvale Police Department on anything that will help poor Bobbie. I would stay and help with the investigation further, but I’m training a new library assistant today.
Her name is Angie and she is quite excited to get started.
End of statement.
#entertainment
source
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