In sophomore year of high school, I practically lived in the library.
I’d go there almost every day after school to sit and read. Then I’d borrow a stack of books, mostly history, and finish them at home before they were due back. It was routine at that point.
That’s why I noticed it straight away.
I opened a book I’d borrowed about medieval Europe and saw a small white sticker stuck firmly to one of the pages. I leaned in and took a closer look.
The sticker was a prescription bottle label.
The edges were worn, and it had been pieced together in two halves. One side was faded to a thin film – it had been peeled off and reapplied, but I could still read the text.
At the top was the name of a pharmacy and a date, and below that were some details.
THEODORE HARGREAVES
An address below that.
Lisinopril 10 mg – Take one tablet by mouth every day.
I didn’t recognize the medication, but I recognized the name – it was Mr. Hargreaves, my history teacher.
I saw teachers and students from my school regularly at this library, so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I still stared at it for a second longer than I probably should have. Then I figured it was a mistake and left it there – he must’ve been using it as a bookmark and forgotten. I didn’t want to peel it off and risk tearing the page.
The second time, it caught my attention immediately.
Different history book, another label – same name, address and medication.
This time it was stuck deeper into the book on one of the middle pages. I flipped back a few pages, then forward. Nothing else – just that one sticker. I remember thinking it was a strange thing to use as a bookmark.
By the fourth or fifth time, it stopped feeling like a coincidence. Always the same sticker with his name, stuck on a random page.
I went to the library one morning to return a book, well before I’d normally go after school, and saw him there. He was exactly the same as he was in class – friendly and relaxed.
“Good to see you’re reading,” he said with a smile.
I greeted him and we made some small talk. I almost mentioned seeing the labels, but then I stopped myself – something made me feel like I wasn’t supposed to. At the end of our conversation, I just smiled and left.
A few afternoons later, I was back in the library. I went to the history section and plucked a book off the shelf, flipping it open without thinking.
Sure enough, there it was again – Mr. Hargreaves’ prescription label, pressed flat on one of the pages.
Just then, a voice snapped me out of my trance.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
I looked up.
My friend Matt was standing in front of me, hands in his pockets. Matt didn’t come here often – he lived further out, on the edge of town.
“I didn’t know you even knew where the library was,” I remarked.
“Ha ha, very funny. I was nearby.”
We talked for a bit, and then I held the book up slightly. “Look at this. I keep finding Mr. Hargreaves’ stickers in these books.”
He stepped closer and scanned the text.
“…a messenger asked for help from nearby towns…”
I tapped on the label below it, pressed flat against the page. Matt leaned in and squinted as he read the details on the faded sticker.
“Huh, he lives a few streets away from me. Who knew.”
“Why would he be putting these in library books?” I asked.
Matt shrugged. “I mean… probably just uses whatever’s lying around as a bookmark.”
“That’s what I thought the first time,” I said.
I plucked two more books off the shelf nearby that I’d put back a while ago, which I remembered seeing the stickers in.
“He keeps putting them in books.”
I reached for a book about wars. Took a moment to find the label, but I knew roughly where it was.
“…many families were trapped as supplies began to run out…”
I ran my finger across the label below it. Then I put it back on the shelf and opened the third book.
“…a few managed to escape, though most were…”
Underneath was the label again, in a chapter about the famine. He glanced at it, then back at me, looking mildly amused.
“Maybe he’s just weird.”
After Matt left that afternoon, I sat at a table with the books I’d taken from the shelf laid out in front of me. I frowned, then shook it off and closed the books, carrying them back to the shelf.
A few months passed.
I still saw the labels in books every now and then, but I stopped paying them much attention.
I didn’t think about them again until I was talking to Matt at school one afternoon, leaning against the lockers while people moved around us between classes.
“You know those labels you were talking about?” He smirked slightly.
“Yeah?”
“I walk past that house all the time,” he said. “Ever since I found out that’s Hargreaves’ address, I can’t not notice it. Weird knowing a teacher lives that close to me.”
I shrugged. “They have to live somewhere.”
Then a pause, as he glanced down the hallway.
“I’ve heard stuff from inside a few times when I walked past.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What kind of stuff?”
He frowned, like he was trying to decide if it even sounded strange out loud.
“Like one night, I heard something scraping, I guess? And once I think I heard knocking or something, but like, from the inside of his door.”
He made a small motion with his hand, tapping against the locker beside him.
Then there was a brief silence between us.
“Anyway,” he added, straightening up. “Probably nothing.”
That afternoon at the library, I found myself thinking about the labels.
I pulled out a few books from the history section and started looking for them. And as I found them again, one by one, I noticed something concerning for the first time.
The line of text above each sticker.
“…a messenger asked for help from nearby towns…”
“…many families were trapped as supplies began to run out…”
“…a few managed to escape, though most were…”
I swallowed and looked in two more books.
“…efforts to seek help from neighboring regions…”
“…a group managed to escape, though some were…”
My heart started to race. I put the books down immediately and texted Matt.
hey, can you show me where hargreaves’ house is?
By the time we got there, it was just starting to get dark.
The street was quiet, with a few distant figures occasionally walking past under the streetlights. Mr. Hargreaves’ house sat halfway down the road, curtains drawn, no lights on.
The same address shown on the prescription labels stuck in the books.
Matt slowed beside me, hands in his pockets as he glanced at it.
“Looks the same as it always does,” he shrugged. “What did you think you’d find?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“We should probably go,” he added with a sigh. “Before he sees teenagers from his school just standing outside his house. That’s gonna be hard to explain.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re right.”
We turned and started walking back the way we came. We’d barely made it a few steps when Matt stopped.
I almost walked into him.
“What?” I asked.
He didn’t answer straight away, just tilted his head slightly, listening. Then I heard it too.
A dull, hollow sound. Knock. Then again. Knock knock.
My heart started racing as Matt turned back toward the house.
“That’s it,” he said quietly. “That’s what I was talking about.”
We both stood there for a second, then walked back towards the house. The front porch creaked slightly as we stepped onto it.
The sound came again, louder now, from somewhere just beyond the front window. The curtains were drawn, but not fully. There was a small gap where the fabric didn’t quite meet.
Matt leaned in slightly.
“…that’s weird,” he murmured. “I don’t remember that.”
He pointed, and I followed his gaze. Behind the curtain, barely visible in the darkness, were wooden boards running horizontally across the window.
I felt a chill run through me.
“His curtains are always closed,” Matt said with a frown. “Wonder why there’s wood all behind it.”
Another knock.
Then the curtain shifted slightly. Something moved behind it.
I sucked in a breath.
“Did you see…”
“Yeah,” Matt whispered.
My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone and turned on the torch, aiming it through the curtains. The light cut through the gap between the boards.
An eye.
Open wide, staring straight back at us.
We screamed and stumbled backwards. Matt grabbed my arm.
“What the hell…”
The knocking stopped instantly – silence. Then we heard footsteps from inside the house.
We ran.
Down the porch steps, onto the pavement, away from the house as fast as we could. We didn’t stop until we were halfway down the street.
My chest was tight, my breathing uneven as I fumbled for my phone.
“Call them,” Matt said.
I told the police everything – the books, the labels, the sounds, the eye staring at us through the window. My voice was shaking so badly I could barely get the words out.
By morning, everyone knew.
Mr. Hargreaves had been arrested and the house had been sealed off.
Inside they’d found a girl – she was fourteen, only a few years younger than the both of us.
She’d gone missing around three years ago, from a different state hundreds of miles away. Taken, transported, and kept hidden somewhere no one would think to look. A normal house on a quiet street.
Locked away in his house for three years.
She’d been peeling the prescription labels off empty medication bottles and boxes – whatever she could find in his bin with his address on it without it being noticed. Pressing them carefully between the pages of books he brought home from the library, and would eventually have to return.
She couldn’t write any messages – if he saw even a mark out of place, there was no telling what he would do. So she worked with what she had, looking through the words in the books and placing the labels with his address under specific words. Underlining them with the stickers.
Hoping someone, anyone, would notice that she was trapped, needed help and was unable to escape.
It had been right there the whole time.
I kept thinking about how many times I’d seen those labels and dismissed them as something harmless, before putting them back on the shelf.
If we hadn’t gone there that day, she might have never left that house again.
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