A Tale of the Grotesque

The creation of a John Bulow Campbell Library fan page on facebook has brought to mind a story that I'd heard old timers recount many times at the end of a grueling day of cataloging and technical servicing. This story never failed to send chills up my spine and deliver me into torrid dreams at night, causing me to twist and wake with such a start that I would be in a sweat and gasping for breath, fully alert in the flush of adrenalin, and wide eyed staring into the dark.
I remember the first time I heard this story. I had finished a long day of writing call numbers into a book where they could be referred to for further collation.
I casually mentioned to one of my co-workers that I had seen a book truck tucked in a corner of the stacks earlier that day and when I had gone back down, just before closing, that the truck was no longer there. "And did you see any one working down there?" she asked. I admitted that I had not. Then she told me a story of a phantom book truck that prowls the stacks, seen only to people when they are alone in the stacks, in the periphery of vision, more often heard than seen. Years ago a cataloger, the legend goes, began to rage about assigned Cutter numbers. Leaping up from his desk, he grabbed a book truck crowded with backlogged items, items for repair, and miscellaneous items and realia, and vanished into the stacks. Literally. His last words were, "I'll be back when I've done this right." That cataloger has never been seen or heard from since. True to his vow he is condemned (by Zeus probably, who takes people so seriously in the rashness of their declarations) to peruse the stacks in search of mis-attributed or otherwise defectively cataloged items until the collection is accurately cataloged.
And to this day, this truck prowls the stacks on its lonely voyage, it's pusher, the librarian, after long years of fasting is so thin as to be transparent. Ever living, he, though substantial, can be seen through and presents no palpable aspect. His voice, rasped so long in rage, it now proffers the faintest whisper. All his energy is devoted to the motive force of the book truck in his solitary patrol.