It happened on one of those long, lonely nights in the library. I was drowning in papers that needed grading, as I’d just taken on extra courses to get back in the dean’s good graces. I was on academic probation then for an incident—let’s call it that. No foul play found for any party involved in the end, so I didn’t understand why I was still being punished for it. In any case, I had to work late pretty much every night, and it was on one of those nights that I met the mollusk.
That’s what he, or it, called himself. But that wasn’t in fact the first time I had seen him. My first glimpse was on a private campus tour, which was given only days after finding out I got the gig. The reason the position was opened was because the last teacher had passed, sadly. But if I were being honest with myself, I would have to admit, somewhat shamefully, that I was in good spirits that morning.
I remember spotting a building where the ivy worked its way up the walls as if it were trying to climb up and into the windows. Some dorm room, I figured. No, the tour guide corrected me: a library. Someone working by the window caught my eye. A young man in a brown tweed suit.
“Students dress formally here, huh,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Saw a kid up there, full suit and tie.”
“Oh. Some of them, maybe. They dress in all kinds of ways here. Usually pretty casual.”
“Ah ok. Thought it might be school policy or something.”
“No. All of that’s been phased out. Years ago, at this point.”
So that was the first time I saw him, though I’d forget as soon as I looked away. I had more important things on my mind then. I was touring my new place of employment, a rather prestigious university in the Northeast of the United States. The semester had already begun, so I didn’t have much time to assimilate and get to work. I toured on a Saturday, and my first courses, the first of my career, would be on Monday. But it turned alright, as did the next two full school years. Then, just when I was beginning to feel settled, things went rapidly downhill.
~*~
After the first week with the new schedule, it was clear that my weekends would be spent in the library, specifically in my favorite room in it. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was meant to work there and only there. I Goldilocks’d a few other spots, but none other would do. Inset shelves lined the walls, which had gorgeously stained wooden cornices running along the top of them. The look, smell, and feel of this room, the John J. Hursman Private Study Room, which could hold about 20 people under the fire code, was the one for me.
My first Friday there was a slog, my vision blurring about halfway through the seemingly endless stack of papers to be read and graded. I paused to rub my eyes and take some intentional belly breaths. It would be a long haul from there, I knew, but I’d get through it just as I did many other stretches of my life where it seemed absolutely hopeless that the good times would ever return.
Thus preoccupied, I hardly noticed when the student walked in. Nothing unusual to it. It wasn’t that late, after all. I only glanced up for a brief moment as the young man walked over to the far end of the long table at which I was attempting to work. My back was practically to the furthest wall of the room, which was only about fifty or so feet deep. The suited student sat at the seat closest to the entrance. We didn’t make eye contact when he came in, and I was soon back to staring hopelessly at one of the papers I was meant to grade.
Then something twitched at the top of my head, one of those instinctual things, and I was compelled to look back up. I saw, with a start, that the student had been standing and staring at me for what must’ve been a while. Only then did I put together, all at once, that this was the student I’d seen in the window on my tour, and I had not seen on campus since.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Yes, professor, I believe you can,” he said.
“Do I have you in one of my classes?”
“No, sir.”
“Ah, ok. What can I help you with then?”
“You can see my trick.”
“Trick?”
“Yes. It won’t take long, I promise.”
“I’m busy here, actually. A lot to get through.”
“Really it won’t take long. And it would mean a lot to me.”
He had a phony smile on that didn’t sit well with me. Maybe it was due to the way he was dressed, but he had something of a salesman to him. Something slick and slimy.
“Alright, if it’s quick. What sort of trick is it?”
He bowed in appreciation. Then he removed his coat and draped it over his head. He bent his legs until he was squatting, the jacket nearly at the floor such that only his right leg, from the knee down, was visible beneath it.
“You must stand,” he said, “for it to work.”
I stood, not quite knowing what I was doing. Without peeking out from underneath the coat, the student seemed to sense where I was.
“Stand just in front of me, here,” he said, and shook the coat in the general direction before him. I walked around the corner of the table, feeling extremely stupid for agreeing to this.
That’s when the crouched young man began to slide his way forward, reaching out with his leg, then dragging the weight of the rest of his body. Step. Slide. Step. Slide. He was covering barely a measured foot at a time by this method.
I watched him in silence for the first few steps, then felt I had to say something, “What’s… going on?”
“Sh!” the student said curtly. Another step. Another draaaag. Another step.
“Ok, that’s enough,” I said, but the student continued.
I took a step backwards then. Without being fully conscious of it, I was moving toward my stuff to gather it and leave. The student seemed to sense he was losing his audience and sped up his movements.
Step. Slide. Step. Slide.
Soon, he was only a few feet from the edge of the table, which I had retreated to while watching his progress. From under his coat, he slowly reached out his hand, arm limp, which he then slapped around.
Step. Slide. Slap.
The performance was so bizarre, I froze for long enough that the student was able to reach me, slap his arm down on my shoe, and begin to squeeze with surprising force.
“What the hell are you doing? Get off me!” I jumped back and kicked out instinctually. The student stepped and slid close again and repeated the slap and squeeze bit.
“Enough, enough,” I said, and I wanted so badly to reach down and pick him up or shove him backward, but I knew I couldn’t lay a hand on a student. Not with everything else going on. Surely, security cameras were filming the whole thing. I had to conduct myself with absolute professionalism here. That’s the only way I could be sure this wouldn’t be the last straw.
“I’d like you to stop. Now. Stand up,” I delivered in my most authoritative tone.
“I’m the mollusk,” the voice under the coat said, and slapped his arm even more wildly, “Everything in the library belongs to me.”
I clumsily slid my papers together and unceremoniously dumped them into my bag. I walked quickly around the cloaked weirdo and left the room, pausing at the doorway to glance back for just a moment. The mollusk, so-called, hadn’t moved an inch. He was still squatted down under his coat, arm slapping back and forth like one of those inflatable greeters on car lots.
~*~
I had plenty to talk about with my colleagues the following day. They all just rolled their eyes. Not at me, at the students.
“Getting weirder every year,” a professor of History said.
“Probably filmed it for their website,” an older professor of Linguistics said.
“Do any of you have this kid? Full suits. Stands out,” I asked.
All frowned and shook their heads.
Before long, my workload forced me back to the library. Walking in, I felt a curious kind of dread, like the kind I felt as a kid when I entered the classroom of a teacher whom every child was, for good reason, afraid. Why should I be afraid of a strange teenager? I thought. If I’m going to hack it as a professor, I really need to get used to personalities like these.
I returned to my favorite study room, and unintentionally paused before entering to see if the student was there. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if the student had been. I liked to think I would’ve gone in anyway, but if I was truly being honest with myself, I might have moved on to find another place to work.
In any case, I was able to sit and get to reading and grading without interruption for several hours. By then, the sun had once again gone down, and again I was alone. Some little voice of instinct told me I ought to leave too, so I began to gather my things with a haste that surprised me.
Then, the student walked in. This time, he didn’t say a word. He immediately dropped down and became the mollusk, stepping and sliding with an impressive amount of speed.
I stood and shouted, “Hey, stop it. You’re an adult and you need to act like one. This isn’t a daycare.”
The mollusk said nothing. He just continued on until he was at my feet. This time, his arm landed on my ankle and his fingers gripped down so hard a shooting pain shot up my calf.
I wanted to kick out and shake him off, but I was petrified of hurting him. Who would believe my story if I said what really happened? Even if I could get a hold of the video footage, if any existed, who would even be able to tell what was happening from the clip? People would interpret the pixelated footage to be a young person cowering in fear in front of a large adult man, who then savagely strikes him. 9 times out of 10, they’d probably be right.
I had no choice but to very mindfully try to pull my foot free, being very cautious of where it might go if the young man were to suddenly let go, ensuring the path would be safely up and away from him. But I could not accomplish this gently, and the ache in my leg was growing worse.
“Are you trying to get me fired?” I said without any forethought. It just ripped out of me in my panic. “Are you trying to get me in trouble? Let go!”
The mollusk’s scrawny wrists and hands had an impressive level of tensile strength. I had to walk in an awkward, backward circle, working my way around him, dragging the student slowly across the floor, praying he’d let go when he felt himself being carried so. I resolved to drag him out of the room if I must. But about halfway to the door, the student released his grip.
“You belong to the mollusk,” he rasped as I limped out. “Everything in the library does.”
~*~
I tried to take action against the student, wanting to set the narrative before it got out, but I couldn’t pin down who it was, even searching through ID photos with the security guard.
The guard, an older man with a perfectly round gut and bushy gray mustache who the students called “Tex” even though he was from New Hampshire, told me it was likely a townie who had either snuck in or paid for library access. Unfortunately, those who pay for library access were not required to have a photo ID, only a card.
“Get all sorts using the library,” Tex said. “And they ain’t studying, half of ‘em.”
I moved on to the librarian and searched the names of those who signed in, but without knowing anything specific about the student, that didn’t yield any clues either. It wasn’t even possible to distinguish who had signed in as a student from who had paid for a card, and the librarian was unwilling to cross-reference every name with the full list of currently enrolled students.
I had to settle for describing the student to the librarian and suggested this young man not be allowed back in.
“Sure, I’ll just ban every guy with a suit,” the librarian scoffed.
“He is disturbing a professor and possibly harassing other students,” I retorted.
After a few more unproductive volleys, I painted a picture of him as thoroughly as I could once more, though I hadn’t even seen the young man’s face for more than an instant. The librarian, sensing she could not be rid of this annoying man without offering to do something, agreed to warn the student he wouldn’t be allowed back in if he were to ever do something like that again. It wasn’t quite the closure I sought, but it would have to do.
~*~
I avoided the library entirely for a full week, possibly longer. I struggled to focus anywhere else, and I knew I’d receive some mediocre reviews at the end of term. This filled me with rage and self-pity. Could this be the same student that made the accusation earlier? I wondered. Had I given this kid a bad grade, or had he seen a crush speak to me in a flirtatious way, and now sought childish revenge?
I was meant to be a professor doing my work in that library, and in that room specifically. That’s what felt most right to me. That’s what kept the heaviness off my shoulders. I had not come all this way, and worked this hard, just to choke it all away at the last minute.
So I returned to the John J. Hursman study room. I told myself, just don’t ever be in the room alone again and you’ll be alright. When the last student gets up to leave, exit with them. A simple enough plan, and a good policy considering the circumstances. Unfortunately, I never did have a good sense of time, especially not under duress.
I looked up one moment and there were three students left, none of whom made any indication they would stop anytime soon. Then, when I looked next, they were gone. It felt to me as if they’d disappeared, but looking at the clock, then at my stack of graded papers, I saw that several hours must have passed.
I shoved everything in my bag, crumpling and crushing the lot of them, and rushed out the door. I’d just have to give an excuse to the students as to why so many of their papers had creases and tears in them. I’d say I dropped my bag and they blew away in the autumn wind. Ideal distracted professor clumsiness. I was lucky to track them down at all, I’d say.
I was indeed lucky. I made it out before the kid showed up. Not a kid. The mollusk. God, I hated even to think that. As I turned into the main hall to exit, there he was, already crouched and step-sliding toward a wide-eyed me.
I looked around desperately for the librarian or the one sleepy security guard that was required to be there all night, as the library was technically open 24/7, though large sections were vacant most nights. But no one was there. Only me and the mollusk.
I turned and sprinted down the hall, figuring there had to be another way out. There’s no sense in not trying to look foolish on security footage that may or may not ever be reviewed, I thought. If this kid were to touch me again, I’d hurt him. I felt sure of it. Or it was at least very possible. If he grabbed my ankle like last time, I’d throw him off, and I might even use the other one to very intentionally strike him wherever it seemed the mollusk’s head was most likely to be under that stupid affectation of a coat. It was in both of our best interests, I told myself while running madly down a barely lit hall, that we do not get close to one another.
Then, I had the thought to stop and take a picture with my phone. No, video. I had to get someone to see what I’d been dealing with. Maybe it would help ID the student too. So, against my better judgment, I jogged back the other way to take a quick snap before bolting. But the mollusk was gone. I was shocked, considering I only turned the corner what felt like seconds earlier. But I’d never been good with time.
I opened the back door, which was thankfully not yet locked, as it sometimes was late at night. As soon as I stepped out, I saw him. The mollusk. Crouched under the streetlamp. He’d run out the front and all the way around the building. He must’ve been sprinting like a lunatic to get there that quickly, I thought.
“Back in with you,” the mollusk rasped. “Back into the library where you belong. Little book.”
“You’re not well!” I said, panicked. “You really need help!”
“Back in, little book! Now!”
I felt bad for the student then. He clearly was unwell. I felt my fear being swapped for a tremendous sadness, even empathy.
I walked briskly along the grass which grew right next to the building, still not wanting to walk close to the crouched student on the nearby sidewalk, despite feeling almost embarrassed for him now. I just wanted to ignore him, as one does in the city when someone acts erratically on the streets or subway. But the mollusk wasn’t going to let me. He had stepped up onto his legs, which he’d never done in front of me once the coat was on. I therefore didn’t see him coming until he tackled his way into my ribs.
I was knocked a couple feet backward and hit my head on the library wall, hard. Dazed, I saw the mollusk trying to drag me back into the back entrance door. I couldn’t figure out how he was moving me, a large person weighing over 200 pounds, with only one skinny arm.
~*~
My vision was kaleidoscoping slightly from the head injury, which I later discovered was just short of a concussion, so I couldn’t fully make sense of what was happening until the mollusk had me halfway across the back entrance threshold. Survival instincts returned just slightly, and I kicked out at the lumpy form before me and caught my assailant on the shoulder. The mollusk spun back and sideways, collapsing on the floor. This gave me just enough time to slide up onto my feet and jog off with a drunken stagger.
I ran as best I could, glancing over my shoulder but not able to make sense of anything I was seeing. Lights blurred into shadow. The mollusk could’ve been running after me or he could’ve not been there at all. It didn’t matter anymore, I thought, I just had to get around other people, anyone else at all. How in the hell could a university as large as this be so empty, at any hour?
I made my way up to a building which I could not recognize and shouldered my way into the nearest door. I fell to my knees, then grabbed a trash can and used it to help myself back up to my feet. That’s when my vision managed to focus and, to my horror, I saw that I was back in the library.
It did not seem possible to me, but in my dizziness, I’d run in a large curving circle from the back of the library to the eastern-most wing of it. As soon as I realized my mistake, I tried the door and somehow it was locked. Either that or I wasn’t pressing the bar the right way. My head was beginning to pound and my vision was getting scrambled again.
I turned and looked down the hall, cold sweat beading on my forehead, and frantically scanned the area for any sign of the mollusk. But there was none. I tried to calm myself with slow heavy breaths. I rubbed my eyes in the hopes my vision would stabilize, and it helped some.
The library was dark except for mandatory fire escape lights. Normally, lights should turn on automatically, but of course they’d been manually shut off for the night, just when I needed them. It must’ve been much later than I expected. Around 4, I guessed.
I wanted to shout for help just then, but I was afraid I’d alert the mollusk to my presence. So instead, I walked cautiously down the hall. I’d find another way out and save myself, again. This time, I’d be sure to run in a straight line, damn it.
The mollusk was waiting for me as soon as I rounded the corner. He was perched on a table, such that even slouched, his arm was level with my face. He slapped and grabbed the top of my head, pressing into my eyes with determined force.
I bellowed an animal yawp and punched erratically toward my attacker. Every blow I landed, so I thought in my confusion, felt like it was thudding against something hard, as if the student were wearing one of the trash cans beneath the coat. He’s really had become a shelled mollusk, I thought absurdly, and was now protected by some natural armoring of some kind. It was more likely that I was accidentally striking the wall in my blindness, but in either case, I jerked my face back and managed to wrench myself free, despite the pressure of the vice the mollusk had clasped on.
I staggered backward, turned and began to run again. My vision was nearly gone then. The world was a chaotic collage of shadow and light, a clumsy and insane bokeh. I was smashing into the wall, colliding with trash cans and display tables. I heard glass shatter behind me, but kept plowing forward like a running back.
I looked behind me for just a moment and saw a dark blob that seemed to be gliding along the floor with unbelievable speed. Not crawling, but sliding effortlessly. A lightless lump with a tongue-arm flapping in the air. And it was gaining ground on me. Fast.
When I turned to face forward once more, I saw that I was about to run face first into a wall, and threw my hands up just in time to brace for impact. Without understanding what was happening, my palm slapped cool steel and I soon felt the chilly blast of the night air once again on my face. It had been a door I ran through, and thankfully for me, it had been unlocked.
I stumbled forward, not expecting the step down, but continued on, hands out like an old Hollywood mummy in case I made contact with something less forgiving, vision still smeared. I ran toward a light in the distance, and when I got to it, I collapsed. Then, a voice.
“What the hell’s got into you?”
It was Tex. It had been the security booth toward which I’d been running. Then, I let the unconsciousness I’d been fighting off with adrenaline finally overtake me.
~*~
I woke up in the nurse’s office. I looked, vision sharp, and after some inspection, found massive bruises on both sides of my body.
“You’re going to feel it, now that you’re up,” the nurse said.
“I do. It hurts everywhere,” I said.
She slapped a cup down on the desk beside me.
“We need to test you. As soon as you’re able to stand.”
~*~
I passed the drug test. No alcohol in the system either. They attributed it to an anomalous stress-related incident. I was wise enough not to try to defend myself by sharing what really happened. They suggested I take some time away to recover, and I was certain it was the end of my career there. I knew this meant I was not wanted back.
~*~
“You may have heard rumors by now of what happened to me,” I said to my students upon my return.
“To my relief, there hasn’t been much chatter about the professor who lost it after only a couple years here. No fault of the students, of course. Well, most of you anyway.” A few students laughed nervously at this.
I’d lucked out. I’d become a punchline among faculty and students alike, but never with any specifics attached to it. Some students gossiped that my erratic behavior, including the prior incident, had been due to a predilection for psychedelics. This, if anything, earned me a better reputation than I’d had prior.
I wallowed privately for a long while, but only after a concentrated effort to make sense of what happened that night. But it’s not something that proved to produce very many results for online inquiries. I even had the audacity to ask the previous professor’s wife if she’d heard of anything like that, before her husband passed. She simply hung up.
I was sensible enough to understand this was not something that any amount of curiosity or desperation would be likely to shed light on. The rational explanation was that they were right; I did experience some kind of psychotic break induced by stress. But just because the explanation was suitably tidy does not mean that really was the case. I of course knew, on whichever aspect of mind that simply knows that it knows, as sure as anything else, that something else happened to me there.
I believed that I was unlucky enough to cross paths with something. I wouldn’t call it evil or demonic. I did not fully know if it would fit into any of the categories and taxonomies of the strange. It was something though, not a student, nor a hallucination—not the latter exactly anyway—and for some reason, maybe just miserable luck, I had walked into it as one does a spider web, invisibly cast across a sidewalk. The kind that you feel unnervingly twitch across your face, and when you look down, you see perched on your shoulder a huge brown, hairy thing that makes your entire body spasm out in disgust and primal terror.
The mollusk had nearly devoured my dream. Perhaps it intended to do even worse to me. Yet, it had fully succeeded in neither.
I took a deep breath at the threshold of the John J. Hursman study room. My first time there in a very long time. I had to work here. I was always meant to work here. Perhaps the mollusk had known this too and had been waiting for me. I stood there for quite some time, looking in but not really paying attention to the students huddled over laptops and notebooks. I was paying attention to what I felt internally. Could I sense any trace of the mollusk’s presence still lingering there? If I did, I would turn right around and never return. Or ought I too, I wondered. Ought I grant this fear this tremendous power over the course of my life? Would it really be acting in self-preservation to turn my back on what I felt to be my purpose, and the opportunity to live it just so that was so deeply important to me?
I took a deep belly breath. Then I stepped forward across the threshold, using my foot to slide the rest of my weight behind me. I’d injured my leg badly that night. It might never recover fully. Step. Slide. Step. Slide. Step...