The Last Fifteen Minutes

By: Taylor Arnold

The bell over the door rang, alerting that a new customer had entered the bookstore. It was nearly closing time now but that was okay. The day had been slow and I welcomed any last minute sales. From behind the stack of shelves I called out, “hey there. If you need help finding anything, just let me know.”

Silence followed.

The store remained eerily quiet as I rounded the shelf, the book I’d been looking for now in hand. Where there should have been a person, there was no one. Stranger things had happened. Probably just another person mistaking the store for the gallery next door. I didn’t think much about it.

The last fifteen minutes passed in a blur of preparing for the start of the next day. Bags were restocked and displays were straightened. I added more copies of The Paper of Montgomery County in the rack along with the latest Book Page. When I finally turned the closed sign I felt a sense of relief. Today had been the first day I’d worked the store mostly alone, the manager having left that afternoon with a family emergency. Things had gone well. The store and myself had survived.

With the overhead speakers off, there was only the hum of the furnace as I walked back to the break room, cash drawer in hand. It was like any other day except this time I was evening out the drawer instead of vacuuming and wiping down display cases. It felt good, having that new level of responsibility.

Crash.

Partway through counting, a noise jolted me. My shoulders tensed as I waited for another noise to accompany it. But nothing came. Just the constant hum of the furnace.

The partial saloon style doors creaked as I pushed them open and peeked my head out. It was hard to see the rest of the store around the tall shelves. I blamed my first day closing alone for why I was so on edge. Things fell in here all the time. If that’s what it was.

After a small lap around the store, I found the culprit. Lying face down on the black and white tilted floor was a new hardback copy of You Shouldn’t Have Come Here. The tension in my shoulders had begun to fade, but something about that title pulled at something in my mind. It didn’t feel quite right. How had it fallen off the stand?

Shaking it off, I put the book back in place and retreated to the break room to finish the count. I didn’t make it far.

CRASH.

This time it was louder than the last and I didn’t hesitate to go investigate. When I rounded the shelf the same book was laying on the floor. This time there were several others laying with it. The entire top shelf of displays had fallen to the floor.

A sudden feeling of dread washed down my spine. An icy cold feeling that had me eager to leave the store. Because there was no way the entire shelf of displays fell on their own. Not like that, and certainly not with You Shouldn’t Have Come Here positioned in the middle of it all. The books were almost circled evenly around it. A perfect bullseye.

“Nope,” I said to myself.

With that urge to leave still so strong, I quickly stacked the books onto the front counter and left them there. It would be someone else’s problem tomorrow morning. I was getting out. There was something off about what happened, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out what exactly it was.

Back in the break room, I began finishing up the last of the count. The clinking of change into each slot in the drawer felt too loud, like a siren call announcing my location for anything to hear. The quicker I left, the better.

As I was closing the cash box and stashing it above the counter, I got the distinct feeling of being watched. A prickling sensation at the back of my scalp. Every nerve in my body told me not to turn around. I did anyway, just in time to watch one of the doors begin easing open. Through the slats in the door, I could see that there was nothing on the other side of it. No, it was opening on its own with a quiet creak that set my teeth on edge.

A startled gasp escaped my lips. I watched as the door swung closed again, settling back into place like nothing had happened. But everything had changed. The urgency to leave took over and I grabbed my bag off the counter. Despite that need to flee, I found I couldn’t make myself move. My feet were frozen to the tile, the sound of my blood pumping in my ears as I watched those two doors intensely. There was something out there and it clearly didn’t want me here.

Moments passed and when I finally gathered the courage to move, I burst through the swinging doors. They slapped noisily against the shelves as I moved swiftly toward the front of the store. Something wasn’t right though. Outside the two large front windows, night had fallen. The street lamps glowed faintly, illuminating the now empty Jefferson Street, and the church directly across from the store. I checked my phone to see that it was 12:05AM.

“How?” I asked aloud, voice barely a whisper.

Suddenly the lights flickered out, bathing everything in darkness. I held my breath, waiting for whatever was going to happen. It was when I finally exhaled that I heard it. Distinct footsteps moving across the tile. Like someone was running through the store.

The sound came from the back of the store, but quickly they were approaching. In my hand I fumbled for my phone’s flashlight. The rapid sound of the steps came ever closer and I finally hit the icon and raised my phone like a shield, illuminating the shelves. In the dim light the phone gave off, I saw it as something ducked behind the nearest shelf. A brief glimpse of something… not quite human. It was humanoid in shape but there was something off about it. The proportions all wrong.

My breathing filled the silence and slowly I eased toward the door. I kept the flashlight aimed toward where I had last seen the thing. Each step was silent thanks to the rug laid out in front of the counter. The same one I realized I hadn’t vacuumed earlier, and then I admonished myself for thinking something like that at a time like this.

The sudden sound of movement to my right had me snapping the flashlight in that direction. The thing ducked behind another shelf, closer this time.

It felt like an eternity before I finally reached the door, and when I did my fingers circled around the cool metal handle. I turned it, tugging the door open harshly as the bell dinged overhead. That urge to run was back and I lunged outside. What should have been cold, night air still had the faint smell of old books.

From the back storage room doorway, I stared out toward the front of the store. How could it be that I was still inside the building? I took a step forward, fully prepared to try this escape again, but I stopped. Whatever that thing was, it was behind me now. I could feel its presence. Hands grabbed at my shoulders, yanking me back into the total darkness of the storage room as the yellow door slammed shut. And then the lock clicked into place.

-Taylor Arnold lives in Brown County and has her whole life. She’s an avid reader and a dog mom to two sassy dogs. By day she’s a bookstore manager that many have probably met before. By night she’s a writer. She’s currently working on her first horror anthology set to be published in 2024.