The Bulb That Burned Back

At nineteen, I was a self-proclaimed skeptic with a penchant for provocation. I had just transferred to a small university in the middle of nowhere, a place where the nights were so quiet you could hear the crickets argue. My dorm room was a cramped single on the third floor, with a window that overlooked the cemetery that bordered the campus. It was a joke among the students, a source of morbid curiosity, and I, in my infinite bravado, decided to use it as a backdrop for a stunt.

One evening, after a particularly dull lecture on folklore, I found myself alone in my room, the electric lamp casting a sickly yellow glow on the stack of books I never read. I was bored, restless, and full of the invincibility that comes with being young and foolish. I had heard the rumors about the cemetery, the whispers of a woman in white who wandered among the tombstones, but I scoffed at them. I decided to prove my courage, or rather, my stupidity, by taunting the very thing I didn’t believe in.

I turned off the overhead light, leaving only the lamp on my desk. I positioned the chair so I faced the window, the cemetery’s silhouette a dark patch against the slightly lighter sky. I spoke aloud, my voice dripping with mockery, ‘Is that all you got? I’ve heard you wail like a lost puppy. I’m right here. Come show me your face, or are you too scared of a living soul?’ I laughed at my own wit, feeling a surge of pride. I even made a sign of the cross backwards, a childish gesture I had seen in a movie.

But then, the lamp flickered. A single, sharp blink, as if the bulb itself had taken a breath. I paused, my laugh dying in my throat. ‘Nice trick,’ I said, but my voice was less steady. I watched the bulb, its filament glowing steadily. I waited for a moment, then shrugged it off as a voltage fluctuation. I wasn’t about to be frightened by a lamp.

I continued my diatribe, my words growing more vile and mocking. I called the presence a coward, a shadow without substance, a figment of frightened old wives’ tales. I was on a roll, my bravado at its peak. Then, the lamp went out. Not a flicker, but a full, complete darkness. The room plunged into an abyss, the only light coming from the faint moon outside, but even that seemed to dim.

I sat there, my heart beating a little faster, my bravado cracking. Okay, maybe a coincidence. I fumbled for my phone, but it was dead—a new battery I had just charged. In the darkness, I heard a sound. A faint, dry rattling, like dried leaves skittering across a floor, but this was indoors, and there were no leaves.

I listened, holding my breath. The rattling grew closer, moving from the corner of the room toward the window. I could feel a cold draft, even though the window was shut tight. My skin prickled with goosebumps. I tried to laugh, but it came out as a thin, high-pitched giggle. ‘Come on, I’m just kidding. You’re not real.’.

Then, I saw it. A shadow, not my own, flickering at the edge of my vision. It was tall, impossibly thin, with long, spindly arms that hung like dead branches. It wasn’t stationary; it moved, sliding across the wall like a stain of ink. And as it moved, it passed the lamp. And for a split second, in the darkness, I saw the bulb. It was not dark. It was glowing, but with a deep, pulsing red, like a coal fanned to life, and the filament inside writhed like a living worm.

I scrambled to my feet, knocking my chair over. I lunged for the light switch, my fingers fumbling. The switch clicked, but nothing happened. The overhead light remained off. I pulled the chain on the lamp, but the bulb only grew brighter, its red glare illuminating the room with an unholy hue.

The shadow stopped, and I felt a presence behind me, as if someone was breathing down my neck, but there was no breath. I turned, and there, reflected in the window, I saw a face. It was not my face. It was gaunt, with hollow eyes that stared at me without blinking, and a mouth stretched in a silent scream. The shadow’s arm reached toward the lamp, and with a crystalline crack, the bulb shattered. But the shards didn’t fall. They hung in the air, suspended, each one a tiny mirror reflecting my horrified expression.

I screamed, but no sound came out. The shadow leaned closer, and I heard a whisper, like static, forming a single word: ‘Mocked.’ Then everything went black.

I woke up the next morning, lying on my floor, the lamp’s shade bent, the bulb intact but dead. The power was fine; the overhead light worked when I turned it on. I told no one, but I couldn’t sleep with the light off for a week. The memory of that red glow and that face haunted me. I stopped taunting things I didn’t understand. I even started going to the campus chapel, not out of faith, but out of fear.

Years later, I still don’t know what happened that night. Maybe it was a power surge and my mind playing tricks. But the part that truly terrifies me is this: when I finally replaced the bulb, the old one was on my desk, but inside the glass, etched into the surface, was a tiny handprint. A handprint too small to be my own, and too big to be a child’s. And whenever I pass by that dorm now, I see a light flickering in that window, and sometimes, I think I see a figure staring back, with bulbs for eyes that burn red. I never replaced that lamp; I threw it away, but it still finds its way back to me, in my dreams, and sometimes, in the corner of my eye, a bulb glows red, and I know it’s waiting for me to mock it again.