Photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash
“I was really walking fast now, starting to freak out, because I remembered my roommate had laughed at me a few weeks ago saying ‘Don’t you know it’s haunted down there?”
In the Stacks
J. attended the University of Nevada, Reno in the 80’s. She lived in Nye Hall, one of the noisiest dorms on campus. She tried many times to study in her room, but it was so loud. She decided to try the library, which was better. “It was quieter, but I was distracted by the different people coming and going.”
Then,she discovered the stacks–deep in the basement, rows and rows of books. “It was so quiet, so few people, and the rows and stacks of books went on and on. You could almost get lost down there.”
One winter night she came down to the stacks to work on a paper. “It was really empty down there that night. I think I only saw a couple of other people. I was working away, deep in my work, when I felt something brush the back of my hair.”
J. had waist length strawberry-blonde hair at the time. “I froze. I didn’t know if there was someone behind me or what to think. I sat there for a second and then a book fell off the shelf to my right. I jumped up and turned around. No one there. The book was a huge volume and I didn’t see how it could have fallen off the shelf. I suddenly realized how late it was and grabbed my things to leave. As I walked out, the fluorescent lights kind of buzzed and blinked as I walked along one after another. I was really walking fast now, starting to freak out, because I remembered my roommate had laughed at me a few weeks ago saying ‘Don’t you know it’s haunted down there?'”
J. was almost to the stairs when she heard another book hit the floor. She ran up the stairs and didn’t look back. She never went to the stacks again.