The thing doesn’t even fight back. It justflees—skittering up the side of the wall like a spider on speed, crashing through one of the library’s upper windows in a rain of glass and metal.
Gone.
I stand there for a beat, arm trembling, lips numb.
The silence that follows is almost worse than the screaming.
Broken glass rains down in soft pings. The extinguisher hisses out its last breath. And my body finally catches up to itself.
I drop the can, hands shaking, and reach for the front desk phone.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I—Hi, I… I was attacked.”
“Can you give me your name and location, ma’am?”
“Yes. Olivia Wilkins. I’m at the Walnut Falls Public Library. I just—there was a break-in. Something came out of the men's bathroom.”
“Ma’am, are you injured?”
“No, but it—Listen, this isn’t normal. It wasn’t a person. It looked like—God, I don’t know, like it hadtwo faces. And claws. It was rotting. And it made this… this noise. Like?—”
“Ma’am, please slow down. You said someone attacked you?”
“Yes. No. Not someone. It wasn’t human.”
There’s a pause on the other end. Static hums in the silence.
“Could it have been an animal? Maybe a bear?”
“A bear with two faces and a hatred for cleaning supplies? Are you kidding me?”
“I understand you’re upset?—”
“No, youdon’t.I saw it. I sprayed it. It screamed and ran. This wasn’t just some mangy raccoon with rabies. This thing wanted totear me apart.”
Another pause.
“…We’re dispatching an officer to your location. Stay on the line.”
The squad car rolls up with all the urgency of a pizza delivery, blue lights flashing lazily over the shattered library window like it’s just another Friday night in sleepy Walnut Falls.
I’m still sitting behind the circulation desk when the two officers stroll in. One’s a big, paunchy guy with a handlebar mustache straight out of an ‘80s action movie—Deputy Stan, I think. The other’s a younger woman with tight blonde curls and the permanent look of someone who regrets every career decision that led to this exact moment.
Stan stops halfway through the door, scans the scene—broken wood, fire extinguisher foam still puddled on the floor, my visibly shaking hands—and says, “Y’all got bears in here now?”
“It wasn’t a bear,” I snap, voice raw. “I already told dispatch—something cameoutof the men’s bathroom. It?—”
“Right, right,” he says, pulling a tiny notepad from his pocket like this is just another fender bender. “You said it had two heads?”
“Twofaces. It wasn’t like—” I wave my hand, frustrated, trying to make sense out of something my brain still refuses to fully accept. “It wasone head. But it had another face growing out of its jaw. Like something built wrong. Like some nightmare... built from parts.”
The woman, Officer Kelsey, her nametag reads—arches a brow at Stan, then turns back to me with forced calm. “And you’re sure it wasn’t, say… a man? On something? PCP can do strange things. So can meth. Fentanyl?—”
“Do drug addicts usually have claws that could slice a person like deli meat?!”
She doesn’t answer that.
