A twinkling darkness was consuming the atmosphere as a man sat perched in a library window, high above a desolate campus. He stared at the last glow of amber horizon as the color receded into the far corner of the sky. Being that he was on the fourteenth floor, he was able to see a half-dozen of Them breaking into the building on the ground level. They were barely visible under the shadow of the library, but he could to distinguish the familiar thrashing characteristics of body language that indicated the worst. A monster of remorse rose inside him, and cast rationality aside as he stood up and took hold of the window clasps…
“No,” he began muttering underneath his breath. “This manic impulse is a product of fear, and fear leads to a panic of noise…” He paused with a wild-eyed expression upon his face, and then exhaled deeply before continuing. “And noise leads to silence.” Might it be possible to out-maneuver them? This was, after all, quite a large library. Feeling shaky and scattered, he sat back down at the desk next to the window. He hastily began stuffing his belongings into their appropriate pockets of his book bag. The contents consisted of a large brown journal, a black binder that resembled a photo album, a small box of packed food, two extra sweatshirts, a black ski mask, and an extra pair of running shoes. He left two items on the desk unpacked. An old German wrist-watch that had a lot of tarnish on it, and a black, Walther P38 semi-automatic pistol with one full magazine containing 15 rounds. He stuffed the pistol into the holster that was strapped on his waist, and he threw the watch over his hand to clasp it on. It was then that he glanced through the window and noticed the lack of movement from the patch of concrete he had been watching moments ago. They were inside. This realization seized hold of him. He stared blankly back at the sky again, which seemed to have fallen a shade darker in his time of collection.
After making sure that he did not leave any valuable possessions around the desk area, he started walked briskly towards the entrance of the stairwell. While he was walking in-between aisles and rows of book shelves, a faint, thunder of sounds stopped him dead in his tracks. It was a noise like a massive assembly of objects falling and crashing, the sound ushering upwards through the floors of the building. And as he looked up at the towering cases next him, he was un-nerved as he convinced himself that the noise he just heard had to be the destruction of bookshelves identical to the ones surrounding him. The image of the window re-appeared in the forefront of his mind, deceivingly soothing like a forgotten refuge. But he must press on; he must escape. When he finally emerged out of the books, it was only empty floor space and the occasional desk-study with a chair that inhabited the remainder of the building level. He approached the doors that lead to the stairwell, and paused for a moment to listen. Nothing issued from the stairwell, and only the hum of fluorescent lighting occupied the floor. Slowly pushing one of the swinging doors open, he winced as the hinges let out a rusty squeak that cut the silence with an echo. He was positioning himself better to sneak through the open doorway, but then he heard it.
It could be heard in the stairwell as echoes and wisps of noise. The sound of consistent rasping lungs, of the malicious way they stomped their legs when they walked and, unfortunately, he could hear excitement in the way it was clamoring up the railings and stairs. It was a silent sort of exasperated echo that was growing louder; it was approaching; searching for the origin of the noise. In a motion of repulsed terror and fear, he retracted away from the door, letting the door shut on its own with a definite bang. This was big mistake, and he knew it. His first noise had been a terrible mistake, but the second noise a person made was usually their last. They would have no doubt whether or not he was here now, and the reaction to the second noise, a silent hustle of excited sprinting, could be heard coming from the stairwell. He backed up on the spot, considering his options of escape. There really weren’t any, escape itself isn’t an option. Forgetting that he was slowly pacing backwards in a shock, he backed into one of the tall, looming bookshelves that marked the beginning of the identical aisles and shelves that existed on every floor.
And then it dawned on him. He looked up to his surroundings and knew what his only possibility of survival was: A sick game of maneuverability and stealth. he ran over to the wall where the lights switches were located, and slapped all four switches down. All of the light on the floor was extinguished. Chills ran down his spine as he started walking back into the aisles of books, away from the open floor space and the swinging doors. He headed towards the most cluttered, dense part of the library collection. And it was there, as he stood in the darkness of institutional catacombs, that he noticed there was no sound emanating from the light fixtures anymore. There was only the internal throb of his heart, and the approaching echo that he associated with the new, silent, world.
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