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It was late into the night when Annessa Wright looked up from her desk at the library. She’d already finished organizing the returned books and had spent the last couple of hours looking into the history of the small town she’d just moved to. It was a quiet town that didn’t have anything famous or notable about it. That’s why she’d chosen it to begin with. Annessa had moved from city to city every year since graduating high school thinking this was the next best place to start her novel. After the fifth big city, she realized she wanted a place with fewer distractions. Being in her early 20s, the cities always had something going on that allowed her to push the writing back further and further. The job at the library was the perfect place to earn a living and have time to draw inspiration.

Mary Sue and George Smith, the couple she had begun renting from were extremely pleasant. They had no children, but they were expecting a daughter soon. Mary Sue looked ready to pop, Annessa thought when they first met. None of the friends she had made over the years were ever pregnant, so she didn’t know exactly how far along Mary Sue was.

They’d rented her their granny unit for the past 2 months on their large property. It was almost 40 acres and Annessa often felt like they were the only people in the world on quiet days. They frequently invited her to dine with them in the main house and often invited her to town events. They made her feel more at home than she had felt in a long time. But they had one request of her that kept nagging at the back of her mind. Under no circumstances was she ever to get close to the eastern woods. ‘There’s wild animals that’ll drag you away,’ they’d always say.

The whole town seemed to echo this sentiment. No one said it directly, but folks would often avoid looking East, towards the woods. The few people she’d tried to ask about it would grow uncomfortable and quickly change topics. She was good at reading those around her and learned quickly to avoid bringing it up in order to get along.

The library was on the eastern side of town, along with a few other governmental buildings that people visited infrequently. Annessa assumed part of the reason for the job opening was that no one wanted to work this close to the woods, even though there were a few hundred yards of cleared flat land between here and there. Even so, the library had large windows on every wall except the eastern side.

So that’s what had kept Annessa late at the library this particular night. She was supposed to be writing her novel, but much like every other time she’d tried to write she found something that distracted her.

She thought, ‘This one should be easy to figure out. Then it’s back to writing.’ For all her ability to read those around her, she didn’t seem to notice her own bad habits.

There had to be something in the town’s history that led to this mass fear of the woods. But in the hours that had passed, she had found nothing. News online about the town was barren. It was as if the town didn’t exist to the outside world. You could find it on a map, but that was it.

Only one other person worked the library aside from her. Betty used to open and close before Annessa arrived. The library was only open 8 hours a day, but Betty seemed relieved to have someone closing instead. And now that winter had come along Betty was leaving earlier. Annessa assumed it was because the days were shorter, and night came sooner.

It was just past closing when she decided to go to the local newspaper archives. She locked the front door and headed to the back room, where the microfilms of old newspapers were kept. It felt like an archaic way to store them, but no one used them anyways. The library wasn’t going to waste any money digitizing them. She’d grabbed two of the oldest ones she could find and turned on the microfilm reader. Two wouldn’t take her long to go through. She didn’t want to stay too late. Mary Sue and George didn’t hold her to a curfew, but they did seem nervous about her working late at the library already. Best not to have to dance around the topic of why she came home late, next time they invited her to dinner.

The glow of the microfilm reader’s screen was the only light in the room as she loaded the first newspaper article. It featured the election results of the town’s mayor. She quickly moved on to the next article in the old paper. A local festival. She moved on. A puff piece on the local diner. She moved on. On and on it went until she reached the end. She looked at the clock and it had only been about 10 minutes. She had plenty of time for the next paper. So, she loaded it up.

The featured story above the fold read LOCAL CHILD MISSING. Annessa’s interest peaked. She began reading the article.

A local child has been reported missing to local authorities. Annessa Smith has been reported missing…

Annessa’s eyes grew wide at the name. It wasn’t her last name but she hadn’t known many people named Annessa. She kept reading.

…reported missing by her parents for the past 2 days. Authorities claim the last known sighting of Annessa was walking home from school on the wooded side of East Willow Lane. Parents, George and Mary Sue Smith, are asking…

Annessa reread the names of the missing child’s parents. George and Mary Sue Smith. That couldn’t be them. This paper was dated over 80 years ago and Mary Sue looked barely older than her. Maybe George was related to them.

A chill air brushed the back of her neck. She turned around and felt the cold touch her face. She stood up and could hear the rustling of papers near the front desk. As she slowly made her way to the front, she noticed the front door was wide open and a strong breeze was blowing in. The few returned books she organized laid open on the desk as the wind turned the pages. She quickly shut the door and double checked the latch. Nothing seemed to be broken. She closed the books and stacked them under the desk. Having lived so many places, Annessa rarely felt nervous by her surroundings. However, suddenly everything about the emptiness of the library made her uneasy. She could finish her research tomorrow during business hours.

She strode towards the back room, where she’d left the microfilm reader on the article of the missing child, but as she got closer, she noticed the screen was off. The room was dark. She stood there a moment trying to remember if she’d turned off the screen as she walked away. She couldn’t remember doing it, but she needed to put the microfilms away. Betty would open the library in the morning and Annessa didn’t want to find out what she thought about that particular article.

Annessa flipped the light switch by the doorway, but nothing happened. The overhead lights were out. While the room was still dark, the light from the rest of the library gave some visibility. She could easily make out the microfilm reader and the desk on which it sat. She entered the room and walked up to the reader. As she did, the reader’s screen turned back on. The article of the missing child now dimly illuminating the once dark room. But in the opposite corner from where she stood, she could see a tall dark figure. Two large glowing red eyes were staring at her from the center of that dark shadow.

The screen of the reader sparked and went out. Drowning the room in total blackness before Annessa’s eyes could adjust. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard it hurt. Her breathing became shallow and quick as she turned around to run out of the room. As she passed the doorway, she smelled something in the air. Smoke was billowing from the room. She stared at the doorway with its thick curtain of smoke floating up to the ceiling. As she backed away, she looked up.

The smoke hung so thick in the library’s rafters that she could read words in it. WELCOME HOME. Annessa’s face turned white as she looked back towards the door and saw the hulking shadow with glowing red eyes moving towards her. She turned around to run but smoke encased her, and everything went black.

LOCAL CHILD MISSING

A local child has been reported missing to local authorities. Annessa Smith has been reported missing by her parents for the past 2 days. Authorities claim the last known sighting of Annessa was walking home from school on the wooded side of East Willow Lane. Parents, George and Mary Sue Smith, are asking that everyone in town join the family this Sunday at the chapel to pray for their daughter’s return.