The Lantern at Deadman’s Crossing

You should know, before anything else, that two of us write these entries—Aster and I. We’ve been best friends since we were kids, growing up in the scraggly outskirts of Cinder Flats, a town that the map makers mostly forgot. We’ve shared a lot of weirdness, enough to fill a ledger, but this one is the one that still makes me check my rearview mirrors on lonely roads.

Our favorite pastime, when we had no money for gas (which was often), was to bike out to the old railway bridge we called Deadman’s Crossing. It wasn’t a lake house or a castle—just a rusted iron skeleton spanning the dried-up creek bed, with a single signal lantern that flickered a sickly amber, never quite green or red. The bridge was fenced off, but we’d squeeze through a gap in the chain-link and walk the ties, pretending we were brave. That night, three years ago this October, we were out there later than we should’ve been, the moon barely a sliver, and the air carrying the iron tang of rain not yet fallen.

We had our usual routine: flick our lighters at the graffiti, kick stones into the abyss, tell the story of the old brakeman who’d fallen asleep and let a freight train plunge into the creek, killing six hands. We’d always laugh and call it bullshit, but that night, as we reached the middle of the bridge, the lantern above us snapped from its bracket with a sharp ping and clattered onto the tracks, glass shattering. The light didn’t go out—it rolled, wobbling, and then stood upright on its own, the flame inside holding steady like a patient eye.

Aster nudged me, laughing nervously. ‘Probably just rust and a gust,’ she said. But there was no wind. And then the lantern began to move. It didn’t glide; it tilted forward, one step at a time, like a beetle, and started crawling toward the far side of the bridge. We should’ve gone back, but our legs carried us after it, because that’s what we do—we chase the strange. The lantern stopped at the exact spot where the trestle dipped, and the ground beneath us gave a low groan, like metal waking up.

We watched, hearts hammering, as the lantern’s flame grew taller, almost a foot high, and then split into two. The second flame detached and hovered a few yards away, bobbing. Aster reached out her hand—I can still see the look on her face, half thrilled, half terrified—and the floating flame moved towards her fingers. I screamed her name, but before it touched her, a sound came from below: a rhythmic, wet slapping, like something climbing the dry creek bed, hand over hand.

The lantern then flickered out, plunging us into a black so total I couldn’t see my own hands. The slapping grew louder, and I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck, even though nothing was there. We ran—stumbling over ties, scraping our palms—and didn’t stop until we were back through the fence and slumped on the gravel road, gasping. When we finally looked back, the lantern was back on its bracket, swinging slightly, the light a steady green.

We never rode out there again, but the worst part came later. About a month after, I found Aster on my porch at dawn, clutching her arm. She rolled up her sleeve, and there was a handprint—five long fingers, bruised purple and black—wrapped around her wrist, as if something had grabbed her in the dark. She said she’d felt it every night since, a cold grip that tightened whenever she closed her eyes. We tried everything: ice, salt, even a blessing from a traveling preacher, but the print stayed, fading only to a faint scar by the following spring.

And now, every time I see a yellow light flickering at the edge of town—a porch lamp, a streetlight on the fritz—I think of that lantern, patient and waiting. It’s still there, I’m sure, at Deadman’s Crossing, its green eye glowing for anyone foolish enough to walk the ties. We share this account, but we don’t talk about that night. We don’t have to. The memory is carved into us, like that handprint, a reminder that some lights aren’t meant to be followed.