The Library of Souls

by Richard Denney

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THE LIBRARY OF SOULS

  PROLOGUE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FIRST

  CHAPTER 1: OF SOULS

  CHAPTER 2: I SEE DEAD PEOPLE... & BOOKS

  CHAPTER 3: SERIOUSLY SPOOKED

  CHAPTER 4: CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

  CHAPTER 5: THE RETURNING

  CHAPTER 6: UNCLE MONTY VS SPIDER WEB

  CHAPTER 7: BLOOD BATH

  CHAPTER 8: BOOK OF SHADOWS

  CHAPTER 9: GHOST TOWN SOUVENIRS

  CHAPTER10: MADAME HELENA

  CHAPTER 11: TRUST

  CHAPTER 12: MUMS THE WORD

  CHAPTER 13: A LITTLE HELP

  CHAPTER 14: A SECRET LIBRARY

  CHAPTER 15: REVELATIONS

  CHAPTER 16: DEAD AFTER DARK

  CHAPTER 17: ALL IS REVEALED

  EPILOGUE: CASE CLOSED?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE LIBRARY

  OF SOULS

  RICHARD DENNEY

  THE LIBRARY OF SOULS

  Copyright © 2017 by Richard Denney

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  PROLOGUE:

  WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FIRST.

  I can talk to dead people… no, you didn’t read wrong. It’s 100% true.

  When my parents died when I was nine, I was sent to live with my estranged uncle in New York City. You might think, at least you’re not an orphan, but see I’d never met my uncle Monty before and my dad didn’t really have a stable enough relationship with him to leave me with my uncle. They practically hated each other. But how would my parents know that their train was going to crash into another and end their lives as well as hundreds of others? They hadn’t even created a will yet.

  A few days later I was on a plane to New York and had to take a taxi on my own to a shabby looking brownstone that looked as if it were about to collapse at any moment. I had to carry my own luggage up those cracked concrete steps and ring the button that read: Santiago in sloppy red marker.

  I kind of regret ever pushing that button. I wish I would’ve known the insanity that would become my life. I wish I knew that I would never go back to school or make any friends or have any type of life of my own, because once I stepped foot into Uncle Monty’s dank apartment that smelt of rotting Chinese food and dirty socks, I belonged to him.

  My uncle Monty was a con-artist and a real good one at that. True, he wore his tie backwards and couldn’t comb down that godforsaken cowlick on the right side of his head to save his life, but he was good at conning people out of whatever he desired. But he also liked to gamble his money away and spend a majority of it on trying to figure out why he couldn’t talk to the dead. He was born normal out of a family of Mediums or Ghost Talkers, as I like to call myself and couldn’t live with it. So he changed himself and made everyone hate him instead.

  He was good once, I remember my dad telling my mom before they died. But it’s hard to believe that when he makes me sleep on a busted twin mattress with no box spring in a room with foul smelling supernatural objects.

  I, myself am a Ghost Talker. It took me until I was eight to be able to control my ability, which is young for people like me. But once in a while a spirit will just pop up and scare the living daylights out of me, which is how my uncle found out I had the ability.

  A week after I had come to live with him, I was cleaning out a giant luggage trunk full supernatural objects. Some with the price tags still on them from one of the many spiritualist shops my uncle had visited. I had been pulling out a jar of what looked like blue mucus, when a terrifying face slammed itself up against the glass and screamed at me.

  I dropped it and it shattered on the ground expelling a truly revolting smell out of it, along with a disembodied ghost. I was running around my uncle’s office for what felt like forever trying to catch the ghost in an empty mayonnaise jar. But it was no use. That thing was relentless. It wasn’t until I heard a congratulatory slow clap that I knew I had been watched the whole time.

  Uncle Monty stood in the doorway of his office and continued to slow clap.

  “I knew you had the gift,” he said as a large, menacing grin began to spread across his face. It was then I knew my life would never be the same. Of course talking to the dead didn’t really count as being somewhat normal, but it was as close to it as I could get and in that instant, it had all come crashing down upon me like a pile of ghostly bricks.

  From then on, I was his puppet of sorts. He created his own ghost busting agency that he had the audacity to call Monty Santiago: Spirit expeller. He pulled me out of school with the false intentions to home school me and we traveled all around the United States, me kindly asking ghosts to keep it down, while Uncle Monty pocketed the payments he got for his services. I was lucky if he threw me a twenty dollar bill from time to time.

  In next to no time we were one of the top agencies in the U.S. and Monty even got his picture in the papers and in online magazines. But no one knew it was really me that did all the hard work. Why didn’t I rat him out? Because of two reasons: he’d send me to a wayward home ran by someone he personally knew where I’d be treated way worse… and as much as it pained me, he was family.

  No matter how much he told me that I didn’t deserve the gift, or threatened me to get rid of a ghost or two, I did understand that with him, I was better off. I still however couldn’t help but be angry with my parents and no matter how much I tried, I could never get a hold of them. I just wanted to ask them why they left me, and why they left me with him.

  Soon years had passed and I turned thirteen. I couldn’t really solve a math problem to save my life or tell you what a neutron was (I still don’t really know), but I could read twelve books in a week. I grew to love books. They helped me get through my uncle’s rage-filled rants and the loneliness from not being able to make friends because we moved around so much. I loved books more than anything, so when one rainy October morning we got a call from a librarian in Massachusetts about one of the most haunted libraries in the world, I jumped at the chance, even if I still had no choice but to go.

  Who was to know that it would be one of the most traumatic, horrifying, life-changing, and thrilling adventures of a lifetime?

  -From the journal of Simon Santiago.

  CHAPTER 1:

  THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW

  The library was massive as heck. I had to take several steps back, almost tripping over the curb into the street to take it all in. I had done the basic research online, going through dozens of videos of people filming their experiences in the building and several older articles from the 50s about children going in and never coming out. The Childermass Public Library had been built in 1886 by Jonathon R. Childermass, even the town was named after him. Of course it had been built over one of the largest and most overcrowded cemeteries in the United States. That’s the best ingredient to a perfect ghost story.

  Jonathon had the bodies exhumed and moved to a few neighboring cemeteries but since it was so overcrowded, plenty of bodies were left behind, some merely bones and ash. Even after being told numerous times that building over a cemetery was a curse in itself and three of his daughters dying mysteriously, the man did not let his dream of a massive library go.

  Soon after the library had its grand opening, the rest of his children died under another set of mysterious circumstances during the same month. It wasn’t until his wife had gone ill and quickly died that he began to believe the curse. Gossip spread quicker than wildfire and the library stayed empty. No
one had showed up for months. Months later he’d finally driven himself mad and to save the rest of his family from the curse’s grasps, he invited every single member of his family to his library and poisoned all of them.

  Afterward he hung himself from the main chandelier in the circulation area of the library. The building had been closed down until 1952 when a sparred distant relative inherited the library and reopened it to the public once again. Ever since its reopening in 1952, many children have gone into the building never to be seen again. People have died from falling over the balcony of the second floor, and rumor has it a well known serial killer used its basement to carry out his crazed obscenities. And let’s not forget to mention the never-ending hauntings. There were so many articles and videos on this, it would take me weeks to get through it all.

  You’d think after all of this, they’d finally close it down and demolish the building, but as it turns out, the city loves the attention. There’s even a gift shop on the main shopping street where you can buy a ghost in a jar, though the ghosts in the jars obviously aren’t real, the city still makes loads of money off of tourists and television networks wanting to film at the library, which is why no one knew we were coming here. The librarian on the phone specifically asked that this be kept under wraps, because if the city found out they were trying to get rid of their ever-lasting money source, it would not end well for anyone.

  So Monty had the librarian up the amount that he’d be paid for his visit and she was all too glad to do it. I had to admit that this would’ve been perfect publicity for Monty’s agency, but he cared more about the money than anything else. It was his thing.

  The library looked like a manor and a church had a baby. It was made out of dark gray stone and looked dilapidated and in fact, haunted. There were two gigantic stained glass windows on both sides of the double-door front entrance, and several smaller stained glass windows above the entrance’s eave. Gargoyles and faces were carved into the stone, some looking almost life-like. There was definitely some supernatural vibes going on with the library.

  It was also one of the most fascinating buildings I’d ever seen. At the roof of the building, it was fenced with black speared bars and below sat three wide windows that seemed to be glowing. It took me a few seconds to realize that there were candelabras in each of the windows.

  The steps leading up to the doorway were made of stone as well and were cracked and gaping in parts, as if the building had been through an insane earthquake just recently. This place was most definitely old.

  I pulled out my digital camera from my shoulder bag and began snapping photos of the building, hoping I’d get something on camera. Not only was I a massive reader, I also happened to love collecting spooky vintage photos and taking some of my own to keep in albums. It was a hobby of sorts.

  I was taking a photo of one of the large stained glass windows opposite the double-door entrance, when Uncle Monty smacked the camera out of my hand. Luckily I already had the strap fitted around my neck.

  “Put that thing away!” Monty growled at me, his caterpillar-like eyebrows bunched together in irritation. “We need to look professional.”

  “You know I like my photos,” I said lifting the camera up to my face once again. “And that pink tie you’re wearing doesn’t really make us seem professional.”

  I peered up at my uncle and saw that he was fuming, but since we were in a public place, he’d keep it strictly PG and not yell at me or swat me in the back of the head. He pulled out his phone and quickly dialed the librarian. He had a thing for liking to be escorted into the haunt. He thought it made him seem more professional and real, when really all it made him look like was a jerk.

  Peering back through my camera’s lens, I fixed the focus back on one of the stained glass windows. As the blurriness cleared, a nearly transparent girl stood in the middle of the window. She was shaking her head and pointing to where Monty’s Buick sat in the library’s parking lot. Why was she telling us to leave? Even if I begged Monty to ditch this job, he wouldn’t budge, he’d more than likely force me to go inside, and then scold me back at the hotel. I’d never hear the end of it.

  Before the girl could vanish, I snapped a quick shot of her and looked at the display screen, hoping I’d caught something. And I did. It was one of the most perfect photos I’d ever taken. Quickly I swung the strap off my neck and held the camera up to Monty.

  “I got a good one. She’s telling us to leave too.”

  Monty snatched the camera from my hand and rolled his eyes before settling them on the display screen. The irritated look he had vanished and was replaced with pure awe.

  This was the only way he’d be able to see the dead. I could tell it pained him that he wasn’t like me and I almost felt sorry for him. But then I remembered how he treated me.

  “That is a good one,” he grinned. “We’ll put it on the site. And we’re not going anywhere. This is good money, kid. Good, good money!”

  As if on cue, both of the gigantic front entrance doors to the library swung inward, groaning like distressed spirits. A frosty breeze fluttered down the steps and coiled itself around my ankles, seemingly pulling me toward the dark abyss that was the doorway.

  For the first time in a long time, a bundle of chills spun down my spine like spiders made of ice. This was bad, really bad.

  A woman, slim and tall walked out from the darkness of the interior and looked as if she were floating down the stone steps. She looked like a librarian with her pitch black hair up in a tight bun, a chunky pair of brown glasses resting on her bird-like nose, and she was wrapped in a cardigan that was the color of puke. She had a kind face and was giving off a warmth, that of a good person. I could sense it. She must’ve been Octavia Freestone, the librarian who’d called us.

  She looked down at me first and smiled.

  “You didn’t tell me that your assistant was a child,” the woman said, still not looking at Monty. I wasn’t a child. Technically I was a teenager. There’s a difference.

  “I’m thirteen,” I said, a bit annoyed. Yeah, I was short for my age but I still wasn’t a kid. I couldn’t even count the many times I’d been mistaken for a nine-year-old. At least it got me free dessert at restaurants from time to time.

  “I’m sorry, young man. You look so young. It’s not a bad thing though, it just means you’ll still look young when you’re my age.” She sniggered and finally looked up at my uncle. I could see her blush and I wanted to stick my tongue out and shove a finger down my throat.

  “Good afternoon, Montgomery Santiago.” Ms. Freestone gleamed. Monty’s real name is Montoya, but he changed it so it would sound more white. He said it’s better for business. I just think it’s stupid. Sometimes I wish my ability gave me the power to get rid of ignorant people than ghosts. This world would be so much better off.

  My uncle straightened himself up real quick and showcased his brand new white teeth he’d bought with the money from our last job.

  “Call me Monty,” he smiled back.

  “Like Monty Python?” Ms. Freestone tilted her head and giggled. I was truly getting grossed out watching them flirt. I wanted to get inside. I wanted to see all of the books. I wanted to talk to that ghost girl from the window.

  “I love that movie.” My uncle was terrible at flirting and it was almost too painful to watch. More than likely sensing my disdain for their flirt war Ms. Freestone looked down at me and nodded toward the front doors.

  “You’ll get along just fine with Jade. She’s about your age and she helps me run the library most of the time. She’s in the children’s section re-shelving some books. Why don’t you run along and introduce yourself? I’ll show Monty around and you and Jade can meet up with us in the recreation room in an hour.”

  “Yeah, kid. Get a move on, do your job.” Monty tossed my camera back at me and shooed me off. This was surprising, considering he always acted very professional and courteous. He would’ve never spoken to me like that in front of a c
lient. Ms. Freestone was making him act all sorts of weird and I couldn’t help but find it a bit funny, something to make fun of later on at the hotel.

  Leaving the love birds behind me to continue their battle of the flirts, I headed up the front steps toward the cavern that was the doorway. It almost looked like a mouth of a beast and another set of chills ran down my spine. I swallowed the spookiness I was feeling and pushed myself through the doorway. It was almost like I was walking through a force field. A palpable thickness hung in the air and for a moment my breath caught in my throat, as if something were slowly wrapping its hands around my neck.

  I knew this place had its fair share of hauntings, but I didn’t think it would be this strong. If it got worse, I would have to beg Monty to pull out of this gig, I was not about to go through what happened in Texas again.

  The air inside of the building was indeed thick and icy, almost like one of the first jobs we ever had. It was a church in California that had a ghost inside and what the people failed to tell us was that there was no actual ghost, it was something stronger. I don’t remember much, considering within the first few hours of being in the church I’d been knocked out cold. If I had enough sense, I’d turn and run. But I’d be snatched by Monty and tossed right back into this place.

  Something was telling me that we had made a grave mistake. There was something about this place that didn’t want us here and it was strong. I could smell it, like burnt paper and sour milk. I just hoped who or whatever it was would be able to be asked nicely to leave.

  As I stepped onto an ancient looking carpet, the entire library lit up right before my eyes. The creepy feeling I’d had vanished and was quickly replaced with wonder and excitement. I’d never seen so many books before and I was impressed beyond belief. The circulation desk was shaped like a dome but seemed to be void of any other librarians. Where was everyone?

  I looked around me in amazement, walls covered in books, statues of famous book characters at the end of the aisles, and large burgundy chairs, perfect for reading were spread out on the dark hardwood floors. I had to crane my neck to get a good look at the second floor which was blocked off by a railed balcony.