Nightwalker Chapter 5

Towering before Lev was the library he’d been directed to—or at least, the building that housed it. The grey concrete walls stretched for ages in either direction, massive and featureless save for the small, setback windows high along the façade—more suited for nesting birds than for lighting anything within.

Evening was fast approaching, and Lev briefly considered heading back to find Reggie. But eventually, he pressed forward. If he took the van, I’d be wandering all night trying to find him, he thought, shivering as he began his ascent up one of several broad concrete staircases.

When the library had first been announced, its official name was to be The State Archive Complex. The public, however, had quickly and lovingly dubbed it The SAC—a nickname that prompted the city to rename it in haste. Thus, it became the Orlov Memorial Complex, a name which, to the public’s dismay, didn’t come with such a fun acronym.

The library itself was nestled within this sprawling hub of arts, history, and information storage. Serving as the Face of the entire complex, the library’s front entrance was a darkened wall of glass—designed less for aesthetics and more to prevent the sun from cooking the occupants inside during the summer months.

Lev stopped at the front door of the library and looked back at the city. The sun was closing in on the horizon, and long shadows from the highrises were clawing their way across the tangle of buildings below them. Like finding a needle in a haystack... Lev thought as he began to grow anxious with the thought of losing Reggie, currently his only tether to the normality he once knew.

As the automatic doors of the library opened, Lev was buffeted by a wall of hot air blowing down onto him, but beyond that, the interior quickly veered from the sleek impersonal glass frontage. The front desk was a large, doughnut-shaped desk that was manned by an elderly woman wearing floral eyeglasses that looked in desperate need of replacement. Beyond her, Lev could see an insane spread of auburn bookshelves that extended around a corner in the far distance. "Oh great," he muttered. The lighting was set to the right balance of dim for readers but light enough for perusers to comfortably peruse. Even the carpet, a dark brown-black hybrid, seemed strategically picked to be dark, to not distract from the pages people were to be excitedly consuming... Unfortunately, from what Lev could see, no one was reading. Or perusing. Or even present.

“Hello,” Lev said as he stopped in front of the desk and greeted the woman who was reading a magazine and hadn’t seemed to notice him coming in.

The woman looked up at him in surprise and placed the magazine down before standing up to face him. “Oh, why hello there, young man.” The woman said much to Lev’s amusement at being called young.

“Hi, I’m hoping to find a certain book. The Vora carrion?” Lev said, hoping she could lead him right to it, or at least give him an exact location.

The old woman looked at him blankly for a few moments before walking over to a small table in the centre of the doughnut-shaped desk's inner area. “Let’s see here.” She muttered to herself as she typed on a keyboard. "Author?" she asked as she turned and glanced down her nose at Lev.

Lev grimaced and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, sorry. I was just told it was here," which made the librarian let out a loud sigh.

After some more typing, the woman's back straightened, and she slowly looked up into the distance before stiffly walking back to Lev, shaking her head. “It doesn’t show up in our records, I'm afraid.” The woman said bluntly before sitting down and returning to her magazine.

Lev remained in place, looking at the woman in mild disbelief. D-did it just happen again? he thought to himself in mild terror as he looked around for any other suspicious signs. “Uh, any suggestion on where I should start?” He asked the woman, stupefied on where he would even begin.

The woman opened her magazine and flicked through it to find her page while she replied. “No,” and then promptly returned to her magazine.

Lev screwed up his face and looked to one side as he thought to himself. Yeah, where’s the freaky magic stuff section? After a moment or two of deliberation, Lev walked past the desk and stopped in dread as row after row of towering Auburn colored bookshelves spread out before him.

Lev looked at his piece of paper with the name of the book he was searching for. What kind of book is this even meant to be? Religion? History? he wondered while trying not to think about what had just happened.

As he pondered, something shifted in the corner of his vision—near the shelves along the left-hand side of the library.“I guess I’ll go over there first,” he muttered, tucking the note into his pocket as he made his way toward that side.

Lev peeked around into the last row of shelves and initially didn't see anything, but before he could look away, he spotted, perched on one of the shelves and seemingly staring right at him, a crow. It cawed and opened its black wings slightly, almost as if it was beckoning for him to follow.

“H-hello little guy, you been stuck in here long?” he said as he held out his hand while slowly inching his way towards the bird. When he was within a metre of the bird, it calmly flew off down the aisle and perched on another one of the shelves that ran across the wall of the library.

Lev screwed up his brow as he looked at the bird. “Uh…this is weird.” He muttered to himself as he straightened and looked around again, beginning to feel like he was being pranked... or watched. Seemingly sensing his scepticism, the bird cawed loudly as it continued to stare at Lev. After another caw, the bird flew down the aisle to the rear of the library, which prompted Lev to follow.

So enraptured was he in following that Lev never noticed the odd things here and there that should have given him pause; in one reading nook he passed, there was a book on the ground and a reading light still on, as though someone had left in a hurry. He also passed by a duo of computers for public use that were still logged into a search engine, unfinished sentences typed into their search bars.

Standing in the left-hand end corner of the library, Lev cast his sight down the row of books along the wall and eventually spotted the bird sitting on another shelf in the distance, looking at him once more. “What the hell is going on?” Lev muttered as he stared at the bird, which once again cawed but remained where it was. Lev stopped to right a book trolley that had fallen over and looked around for a librarian. "Where the hell is everyone?" he muttered as he leaned down and slowly picked up the books on the floor, scanning the area for any signs of danger. I'd almost welcome someone coming at me with a prison shank at this point, Lev thought to himself as he stood up.

“Ok, ok, I’m coming,” Lev said. Once again, when he got about a metre away, the bird flew off a short distance to sit on a shelf and look at Lev. Letting out a sigh, Lev muttered to himself. “This isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened recently,” too late now to turn back anyway, he thought as he followed the bird, his eyes flicking around his surroundings for something, anything.

The bird led Lev up onto a small landing tucked away in the rear corner, half a floor above the rest of the library. Up there, the books on the shelves and tables were remarkably different and seemed much older than your usual book. Brown and black leather-bound books adorned the area, and the air felt colder and drier up in this corner of the library. “Creepy,” Lev muttered to himself as he shivered slightly and looked out from his new vantage point for anyone following or watching him. No cameras or TV show hosts to be found, eh? Just me and my new friend. He thought before the crow cawed once more, and Lev resumed his avian-led tour.

After heading around a few bookshelves, the bird flew right to the back corner and landed on a pile of newspapers. As Lev approached this time, it let him get almost within touching distance before it let out a short, sharp caw before it flew up towards the roof and disappeared outside through a window which had a hole in its glass. Lev gazed up at the hole and laughed at himself. Man, I’m losing the plot. He thought to himself as he figured the bird was just playing with him and not leading him anywhere at all.

Lev ran a hand through his hair and sighed, placing the other on the pile of papers as he leaned against the table—only for his fingers to meet something solid while His palm slid down onto the surface. “Huh?” he muttered as he looked down at the creased newspaper under his hand. “There’s something under here?” he muttered as he folded over the paper, which revealed an old leather-bound book.

“I mean, no, of course n- “Lev started to say before he stopped as he noticed the letters on the part of the revealed book. “No way.” He exclaimed before throwing the newspaper off the rest of the book, which revealed, much to his disbelief, 'the Vora carrion'.

Lev swung his head up to look back at the window in astonishment. Without hesitating further, Lev opened up the book and began thumbing through it, which showed illustrations and notes of weird creatures, occult practices, satanic deities, and everything in between. He continued leafing through the book until he came to a page that had been dog-eared. Didn’t know they did that back in the day. Lev thought to himself as he began to take a closer look at the pages of interest. It didn’t take long before he was looking about the library once more, feeling rather spooked, as there laid out in front of him were the characteristics of vampires. Many descriptors on the page aligned with what he had seen in his all-too-short reunion of sorts with Jessica, her pale skin, the way she jumped out of sight so fast, he thought to himself as he read.

“This is crazy,” Lev muttered as he continued reading. He was snapped out of his reading by a low, feral snarl that echoed behind him. What the hell? He wondered in terror as he chanced a look over his shoulder, some kind of pale, lithe creature was stalking towards him on all fours, its body, however, looked like a human body more than any wolf or bear.

From somewhere else nearby, a voice spoke in a mocking tone. "'Tis a shame, for you, to notice the mongrel's approach. They don't tend to kill their victims very fast."

Lev needed to hear no more, and he scooped up the 'Vora Carrion' and clambered up and over the desk as his eyes searched for a path of escape. The creature stalking him was seemingly sicced onto Lev by a short, sharp whistling that made it burst forth in pursuit. The sound of the wooden desk being smashed into shards and splinters echoed as Lev jumped over the bannister of the landing. With eyes fixed on the glowing emergency exit sign in the distance, Lev weaved in and out of aisles to try to lose or at least slow down the beast that could be heard giving chase, its claws scraping on the ground as it stayed hot on his trail.

As the emergency exit grew near, Lev noticed the sound of his pursuer had suddenly stopped. The thought of slowing to look behind him crossed his mind, but he soon thought better of such a thing and kept running as fast as he could. The whereabouts of the beast were soon confirmed anyway, as Lev heard a roar from above him and the beast leapt down onto him from the top of one of the bookshelves.

The pair rolled down an aisle of books as Lev did his best to keep the 'Vora Carrion' between his face and the beasts' wildly gnashing fangs. With a deep breath as a futile attempt at calming himself, Lev drew one leg up between his and the beast's chests before pushing the beast off of him with all of his might. In this attempt, however, the beast tore the book from his hands, and it landed on its hind legs ready to pounce again. "God damn it." Lev wheezed as he tried to scramble backwards, but was met by nothing but a bookshelf. Time seemed to come to a standstill as Lev realised that this was a proverbial checkmate; he gazed in frozen horror at the creature before him; it was, in reality, a gnarled and twisted human more than a beast. It had long, stained fangs protruding from its upper lip. Beneath a bald, scarred scalp, blackened, unblinking eyes were locked onto him. To further add to this nightmarish visage, every bone in the thing’s body was wrapped tightly in emaciated, blood-stained, and scarred skin.

The creature leapt at Lev, who threw his hands up to try to delay the inevitable. But before the killing blow could land, a shadow fell across them — then, a flash of black boots slammed down, crushing the creature into the floorboards. The beast clawed at Lev's leg before the person pinning it down stepped off of it and gave it an almighty kick in the ribcage that sent it rolling several meters away.

Lev looked up at the person who had just saved him and was met by a gloved hand reaching down and pulling him to his feet. "Go to the parking complex three blocks that way, your friend's parked on the fifth level... I'll find you once I deal with them." The figure said as they nodded towards the beast that had been chasing Lev. When he looked down that way, Lev was shocked to see there was another creature in the distance looking to join the fray.

"Y-you can kill those things?" Lev asked in confusion as he looked at his saviour. Judging by their voice, the person was a man, but they were clad head to toe in black tactical gear, save for a leather trench coat,. The person reached into either side of their trenchcoat and drew two long-handled scythes that almost blinded Lev from their glinting beneath the library lighting above.

"Go," the person said as they strode forward to meet the approaching beasts.

As Lev stumbled toward the exit, he glanced back just in time to notice the crow swooping down and landing on top of a shelf above the black-clad figure. Watching.