The Lantern in the Attic

In the summer of 1987, our small town of Ashford, nestled in the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, was shaken by a tragedy that would leave a permanent stain on our quiet streets. The Morrison house, a dilapidated Victorian at the end of Maple Lane, became the epicenter of horror when the youngest son, Timothy, bludgeoned his mother to death with a fireplace poker and hid her remains in the old cistern under the cellar floor. The body wasn’t found for months, until a neighbor reported a foul smell. The police excavated the floor and discovered the grisly truth. The house was boarded up, condemned, and left to rot, a dark monument to madness.

I was sixteen that year, and my best friends, Danny and Marcus, and I were inseparable. We were fascinated by the macabre, and the Morrison house held a morbid allure. It stood at the end of a dead-end street, its windows like empty eye sockets, the porch sagging under years of neglect. Every night we rode our bikes past it, daring each other to get closer, and we always saw the same thing: a faint, flickering light in the topmost attic window, like a candle burning behind a dirty pane. We joked it was Timothy’s ghost, but deep down, it sent chills down our spines.

One sweltering July night, with the cicadas buzzing in a frantic chorus, we decided we’d had enough of just looking. We were going to get inside. Armed with a flashlight, a crowbar, and a flask of cheap whiskey we’d stolen from Marcus’s dad, we approached the house just after midnight. The moonlight cast long shadows, and the air was thick with the smell of decay. The front door was nailed shut, but a side window offered a way in. Danny pried off the plywood with the crowbar, and we climbed through into the dusty darkness.

The interior was a time capsule of tragedy. Torn curtains, overturned furniture, and a layer of grime covered everything. We moved cautiously, our flashlight cutting through the blackness. The air was heavy and still, as if the house itself was holding its breath. We explored the ground floor—the living room with its faded wallpaper, the kitchen with its old porcelain sink—and felt a palpable dread. Then we found the cellar door. It was slightly ajar, and a cold draft seeped from the crack. We exchanged nervous glances, but our bravado pushed us forward.

We descended the creaking wooden stairs into the root cellar. The smell of earth and rot was overwhelming. The cistern was a dark hole in the concrete floor, covered by a wooden plank. We shined the flashlight into it, the beam revealing nothing but blackness. ‘You think she’s still down there?’ Marcus whispered. ‘Shut up,’ Danny said, but his voice trembled. We hurried back upstairs, our hearts pounding.

The rest of the house was quiet, but we felt watched. We climbed to the second floor, passing bedrooms with peeling paint and broken mirrors. Then we came to the attic stairs. The light we had seen from outside cast a dim glow beneath the door. Someone was up there. We crept up, our footsteps echoing on the wooden steps. The door was slightly ajar, and we pushed it open.

The attic was vast, filled with old furniture and trunks. In the center, on a dusty table, sat a lantern. Its flame flickered with a strange, almost pulsating light. But there was no one else in the room. The lantern seemed to be the source of the light, yet it was oil, not gas, and it had been burning for months? That was impossible. We approached it slowly. Danny reached out to touch it, but as his fingers grazed the metal, the flame flared, and a cold breeze swept through the attic.

Suddenly, the door behind us slammed shut. We spun around, but no one was there. The lantern’s light grew brighter, casting dancing shadows on the walls. Then we heard it—a low, guttural whisper, like a voice from the grave. ‘You shouldn’t have come.’ We tried to open the door, but it was stuck as if held by a force. The whisper came again, louder. ‘Now you’ll join me.’

Terror gripped us. We threw our weight against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The flame in the lantern began to swirl, forming a face—a woman’s face, twisted in rage. ‘Mother?’ Danny stammered. It was her, Timothy’s mother, her features distorted by hatred. She had been waiting for intruders, for souls to trap.

We finally broke the door open, the wood splintering under our combined force. We tumbled down the stairs, the lantern’s light behind us, the whisper chasing our heels. We didn’t stop running until we were on the street, gasping for breath. We looked back at the house, and there, in the attic window, the lantern still glowed, as if it had never moved.

We never spoke of that night. We went on with our lives, but something changed. We each started having nightmares, waking up in cold sweats. And sometimes, in the corner of my eye, I would see a flickering light, like a lantern, in the distance. It was always there, reminding me that we had disturbed something that should have stayed buried. The Morrison house still stands, abandoned and rotting, and every night, the lantern in the attic burns, waiting for its next visitors.