Lights Out

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It burned and burned. That’s how it went then.

And in this moment too. The shadow it casts is invisible, but you can feel its wickedness scolding your breath. You stare at the window, eyes glazed, smoked by the slow deterioration of life.

A few more steps.

You’d been telling yourself a few more steps for days. And you had made it. The path had been overgrown, but you trusted the markings on the trees you’d left as a child. The bold scarrings beckoning you this way. This way. This way. You’d trusted your internal compass, kind of like the ones birds have.

But now, you stare at the hazy speckle of light, the magnetism of it morphing your legs into noodles as you stand in the thickets of collapse.

You can hear crackling as the candlelight flickers out. Darkness capsizes your remnants of poise and you fold to the ground, the burden of your backpack pawing at your neck as you curl into a ball on your side. You attempt to rise as pine needles poke at your chaffed bare legs and sap penetrates your palms. The imprisonment of fatigue crushes your sensibility. You think of the car you totaled as a teenager, its imminent fate, a box of bruised bling.

You hear a ringing in your ears. And a whip. A slam. A pot dropped on the stove. Is someone cooking in there? Or is it the flame avenging itself with its own crackle?

If I stop breathing, I’ll be able to hear.

But the sound throbs in unison with your heartbeat, like a Grandfather clock wound up on cocaine.

You attempt to unfurl yourself, and it folds over you, veiling you from the darkness of the world and holding you captive in your own suffocating shadow. A swarm of something black. A blanket?

Yes, to sleep would be nice. I can take a few more steps later.

The ground quivers and pine needles stir. You think you see a firefly, but maybe it’s the North Star peaking through the canopying branches. Your eyelids snap open, closed, open. Futile. There is no distinction. Just black.

Something is touching your skin. Your bare arm exposed to the air is tickled. Tentacles. Spider webbing. Wisps of ashes. There is no distinction. Just touch.

You wish you’d hugged your daughter before you left, touched her face with your hands and kissed her forehead, she was being a little brat, hiding your keys and giggling and flushing the kitchen sink sponge down the toilet, how she scrambled up there to get it you have no idea, and you scrambled to tie your shoes to get out of there on time

and you hear a scuffle behind you, feel hot breath on the wisps of hair at your temple then on your cheek, the tickle on skin now pinching, insect pincers or teeth, and you turn your face into the darkness and reach one sappy hand for the hot breath and you feel for her red hair, she wanted to wear pigtails today and you feel it

the hair and the breath as it bares down on you, your sweatless brow, she needs to fill her water bottle before her soccer game

and the tumbling, sniveling, piercing, the crackling flame, pine needles in flames beneath you, all sides of you, enshrouded by the unseen and the only felt and heard

and you retract your hand and tuck tight, tuck her into bed, the flannel sheets so cozy like the white sand on that island we went to, she says

and you’re frozen, a cold wet force and hot breath in your ear, a symphony of slurping, this smoothie is too watery, I don’t like it, she whines, and you slam the blender into the sink

and the slurpy breath births teeth and blood spurts, you carry her dripping from the bathtub into bed, someone get a towel, you yell

and the smell of lilac soap and iron do their dance, wafting and warping through time

and you’re rolled to your back, back arching over the backpack, heart exposed, a gust of wind, I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I’m riding my bike all by myself, Mama, she says, rolling, rolling, pedaling wobbly strokes, heart open in the wind, hitting a curb, thrust, back arched hard over the big rock

and you convulse into a tuck, clenching, knees to heart, tucked chin, a full tuck for a cannonball just as you leap from the diving board, you tell her, that’s how you do it, and she tucks and you tuck and she splashes into the pool, a fountain of water and blood

and you grab her wrists and pull her out of the water from the edge of the pool the way she likes

and your screams mimic the sounds of flesh out of water, torn wet flesh, echoing existence then and now confiscated

the crowd cheering and whistling as she accepts her award for “Best Haiku” and she is asked to recite it, and she cries and screams in the middle of it, nerves shredded, and you tell her it’s okay, being on stage is scary

and the night folds in, a cannonball tuck and the wax of the candlestick is still hot, and they drip, blow the candles out, darling, before they become stumps of life and bleed into the frosting and she looks up at you and doesn’t understand how such a little bit of fire could possibly ruin her birthday cake

and lights out

I submitted this for the Campfire Ghost Story Challenge. Thanks for reading, and for considering a clicked heart, comment, Pledge and Tip if you so choose. See more of my writing and info about me here: Jessica Amber Barnum