They wandered through the lonely halls of bookshelves, towers of books leaning over them eerily. Sarah found herself walking very close to Matt, feeling safer with him close. Will and Matt took the lead, their vampire eyesight much more attuned with the darkness, with Sarah following close behind with her flashlight like necklace. Anna was miserable, as most plants generally do not like darkness and she was no exception.

“I hope we can find them quickly and get out of here,” Sarah said. “It’s creepy in here.”

“Let’s go upstairs,” Will suggested, and the five of them walked slowly upstairs, passing the smashing window Peter had climbed in through. Along the far wall they found door after door, and all of them were locked.

“Think it’s in one of these?” Will asked, trying the knob.

“It might be,” Matt said. He leaned against the door and cupped his eyes against the glass, trying to see in. “It’s hard to tell, but I think there’s more books and stuff in here.”

“How do we get in?” Peter asked.

“I think I could melt the lock,” Sarah suggested tentatively.

“Try,” Matt said.

She approached it and slipped off her necklace, then held the gem right against the lock on the door. She wasn’t sure what exactly to do, but evidently it knew. The locked began to glow, until it was a blazing orange and melted to the floor. She pulled her hand back, narrowly avoiding being burned by the super heated metal. They waited a couple minutes for the door knob to cool down, then Will tried it again. To their great relief, the door opened easily. “You’re a genius, Sarah,” Will said to her. “You win a prize.”

“Damn it!” Peter said. “You made me lose the Game.”

“Argh!” Matt cried out, slapping his forehead. “Now you made me lose! I hate you!”

“Guys?” Sarah said. “Now is so not the time for this.”

“It’s always time for the Game,” Matt said.

They entered the until recently locked room, looking around at the books on the shelves.

“I think this may be it,” Sarah said. “This room, I mean. Just look, these are all the papers and books of old university professors.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “But look closely. These are the books of the very old professors. This one’s from 1567. I think we need to try a different room for stuff from 2007.”

“Ite,” Peter agreed. “Sarah, be ready to use your necklace again.

They browsed through room after locked room, skipping through centuries of research. Sarah felt a bit bad about busting all the locks, but this was a matter of life and death, and it couldn’t be avoided.

Finally, they entered a room and Anna said joyfully, “I think we finally found the right room!” while holding up a blue bound book. “See? The book was clearly printed from a computer! And look! The date! 2003! We’re getting close!”

“Ok, everyone look really hard,” Will said. “It was to be in here somewhere.”

They searched. And then they searched some more. There was more searching, more searching, and, wait for it, even more searching! All in all, it was a pretty boring way to spend fifteen minutes. Finally, though, Anna’s triumphant victory laugh rang through the room, and she held up a thick notebook held together by spiral rings. They flipped through it, and saw that some pages were typed up on a computer, whereas others were handwritten. Across the front were the words, “Working Notes of Dr. Richard F. Harrows, 1979 – 2007”.

“I feel immensely satisfied right now,” Matt said. “Like I just won the lottery or something.”

“True,” Anna said. “If the lottery gave away top secret notebooks instead of money.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Peter said. “I have a bad feeling about this all of a sudden.”

“What do you mean?” matt asked. “I just feel happy that we finally found it. After all, we came all the way from Monterey for this damn note book.”

“I don’t know; I just feel uneasy,” Peter said agitatedly.

“Are you rabbit senses tingling?” Anna asked.

Will laughed. “I don’t want to think about ‘rabbit senses’ tingling, if you know what I mean.”

“Shut up,” Peter said. “Pervert.”

“Ok,” Sarah said. “Now I’m getting an uneasy feeling, too.” She wasn’t sure what exactly it was. But a strange sensation had come over her, and she felt afraid, like in a scary movie when you know something bad is going to happen and you can’t help but shout at the screen “Get out of there! Run! Idiot! Can’t you here the dramatic music playing!” But it wasn’t music that told her to get out of, it was…cold? Yes, that was it. She was feeling slightly chilly. That wasn’t too surprising, because she – unlike the others – hadn’t bothered to wear a jacket, and the big old library was rather chilly, but she hadn’t felt cold at all until now.

“Does anyone else feel kind of cold?” she asked, rubbing her goose bumping arms.

“Now that you mention it,” Will said, “It is kind of cold in here.”

“Yeah,” Anna said, hugging herself. “I think it just dropped a couple more degrees.”

Sarah felt her necklace: it was as warm as ever, but for some reason the warmth wasn’t penetrating her like it used to. “I’m getting kind of freaked out right now.”

“We need to get out of here,” Matt said. “You were right, Peter. I’ve got a bad feeling now, too.” He reached a hand out for the doorknob, but Peter shot out his hand and grabbed his wrist, hissing, “Sh! Does anyone else hear something?”

They all waited with baited breath, though it took a few seconds for their human(ish…) ears to pick up what Peter’s rabbit sensitive hearing had heard. Thud…thud…thud.

“Sounds like footsteps,” Sarah whispered. “Really slow footsteps.”

“It’s getting colder,” Will said. The sound of footsteps grew louder, slowly dragging towards them.

“We need to go, now,” Anna said quietly, shivering. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to get away, far away.”

“Shhhh!” Peter whispered. “Whatever it is it’s practically outside the door.”

The doorknob rattled, something on the other side gripped it and slowly turned the handle. The temperature in the room dropped to an all time low, and the glass on the door frosted over.

“Hide!” Matt whispered frantically. They dived behind bookcases and under tables, frantically trying to find the best hiding spot as fast as possible. Matt crouched behind a stack of books on the ground beneath a table, Sarah and Anna tucked themselves into a corner between book shelves, Peter turned into a rabbit and blended in with the shadows on top of some books on a low shelf, while Will deftly scaled the sides of a book case and lay flat on top with an almost dead-like stillness.

Sarah’s heart pounded as the doorknob turned slowly, oh so slowly. The door then opened at thee same speed, easing itself open so smoothly she thought the hinges had just been greased. This was a nightmare. That was the only explanation. Ordinary girls like her just did not get cornered in some library by a monster. That sort of thing only happened in nightmares and horror films, and she was pretty sure this wasn’t a movie. She closed her eyes, then opened them again quickly, hoping to have woken herself up. It didn’t work. She tried again, and again, screaming at herself to 'Wake up! Wake up! Wake up before this thing kills you!' She wanted to run to her mom and lie in bed with her, the power of parents keeping the monsters at bay. But her mom was 3,000 miles away and in a different dimension, and the only thing that stood between her and this horrible creature were a few books. She squeezed her eyes shut, 'Please let it go away. Whatever it is, please let it go away. I want to go home. I want to wake up form this nightmare and find myself safe and sound n my bed. Just please, please, let it go away. Let it not see us. Let it assume it found the wrong room and go away!' She opened her eyes, half hoping to find herself in her bedroom. She shivered involuntarily from the cold and from the fear, and glanced at the door. A large, dark silhouette stood in the doorframe, its head looking back and forth, sniffing them out. Whatever it was, it knew they were there. It moved, sticking a foot out into the room. It was heading straight towards her.