Stan clears his throat. “Look, ma’am, we’ve had folks report strange things before. It’s dark, your adrenaline’s up, and sometimes the brain... embellishes. Bears with mange, for example, can look pretty weird if you catch ‘em at the wrong angle. Hell, saw one once had no fur and a bum leg—looked like something fromThe X-Files.”
“This wasn’t a bear,” I say again. “And it wasn’t on drugs. It waswrong.It didn’tmoveright, it didn’tsoundright?—”
“Alright, alright.” Stan scribbles something down, probably “woman hysterical—library bear attack.” “We’ll do a sweep of the area. You say it left through the upper window?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Like a cockroach with rabies. It hated the fire extinguisher. That’s what drove it off.”
Kelsey’s lips twitch. “You sprayed it with a fire extinguisher?”
“Yes! What, you think I keep silver bullets in the staff fridge?!”
Stan coughs into his hand, trying and failing not to laugh.
Kelsey doesn’t bother trying. “Ma’am, we’ll file a report. But unless there’s blood, prints, or something other than broken wood and scared-librarian adrenaline, I don’t think we’re gonna find much tonight.”
I want to throw something. Or cry. Or both.
Instead, I nod. Tight. “Right. Sure. Whatever. Thanks.”
The officers wander off, talking softly into their radios and poking around like they’re looking for a raccoon and not atwo-faced walking corpse.
Then the news van arrives.
Trish Sanchez fromWF Local 7steps out like she’s about to win a damn Emmy for “local woman sees Satan in toilet.” Her heels click against the pavement as she swans up to me with a microphone and a practiced look of concerned empathy pasted on her face.
“Oh my gosh, Olivia? I’m so sorry to hear what happened,” she says in a voice soaked with fake syrup. “Can you tell us, in your own words, what you saw?”
I blink at the camera behind her. The lens stares back like an eye that doesn’t blink, doesn’t care. Justfeeds.
“I… yeah. I was closing the library. I heard something in the men’s bathroom. When I opened the door, it burst out. It had two faces. Claws. It looked… rotted. And it was fast.”
Trish nods solemnly. “Two faces. That must’ve been terrifying.”
“Yes.”
“So just to clarify, you’re saying it wasn’t a person, or an animal?”
“No. It wasn’t. It wassomething else.”
Trish turns slightly toward the camera. “Viewers, this account comes from Walnut Falls librarian Olivia Wilkins, who claims a… mysterious creature… burst out of the restroom and fled into the night after being sprayed with a fire extinguisher.Authorities have not confirmed any sightings, but the window damage and physical evidence do point to a break-in.”
She turns back to me, smile tight. “And, Olivia, how certain are you that what you saw wasn’t, say, a hallucination? Or maybe a particularly aggressive transient?”
“I know what I saw,” I snap.
Trish turns slightly toward the camera. “Viewers, this account comes from Walnut Falls librarian Olivia Wilkins, who claims a… mysterious creature… burst out of the restroom and fled into the night after being sprayed with a fire extinguisher. Authorities have not confirmed any sightings, but the window damage and physical evidence do point to a break-in.”
She turns back to me, smile still tight and polite. “And, Olivia, how certain are you that what you saw wasn’t, say, a hallucination? Or maybe a particularly aggressive transient?”
“Iknowwhat I saw,” I snap. “It wasn’t a man. It wasn’t a bear. It was something else entirely.”
Trish nods sagely, drawing it out like she’s hosting a true crime podcast. “And just to clarify, you said it had… two faces?”
“Yeah. One stacked on top of the other, fused like melted wax. The top one had no eyes, the bottom one just… whispered.”
“To you?”
“What?”
