The Lantern Keeper

My sister-in-law, Maren, had been chasing phantoms for years. She’d regale me with tales of cold spots and EVP sessions, her eyes gleaming with a mix of skepticism and belief. I was hooked. I needed to see something, anything, that would prove the afterlife was more than just our fear of the dark. So I started scouring forums for local hotspots, and I found it: the Ashworth Cemetery, a defunct burial ground dating back to the 1850s, tucked behind a crumbling church on the outskirts of our town. It was perfect.

I went three times. The first, alone, under a freakish bright moon that cast long, sharp shadows. Nothing. The second, with my buddy Ray, who cracked jokes to mask his nervousness. We heard an owl, that was it. But the third time, with a group of four, felt different. The air was thick and silent, as if the world had held its breath. Weird. We walked to the back where the oldest graves lay, their headstones leaning like drunken soldiers. We snapped photos, flash on, and the silence pressed in. Later, at home, we scrolled through the images and found them: glowing orbs, some large and deliberate, others tiny and star-like, floating above the ground.

A few weeks passed. I had shrugged it off as dust or insects, but a seed had been planted. At 4 AM, I stumbled into my laundry room, bleary-eyed, fumbling for the light switch. As my hand found the cord, I caught a flicker in my peripheral vision. I turned to face it.

There, in the corner, stood the figure of a man. Not a ghostly apparition of the kind I’d seen in movies, but something more solid, wearing a tattered brimmed hat and a long, dark coat that seemed to drink the light. His face was in shadow, but his eyes were not. Two points of sickly green light, like the glow of a firefly, held me in place. I felt a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. I tried to scream, but my throat was a dry well. The figure raised a lantern, the glass cracked and blackened, and from within it spilled a thick, viscous light that pooled on the floor and writhed like living things.

‘You found them,’ he said, his voice like the rustle of dead leaves. ‘The ones that drift. But have you dared to look at the keeper?’ I couldn’t move as he stepped forward, the lantern swinging, and I saw, with dawning horror, that the orbs in my photos were not spirits. They were escapees. And he was collecting them. My group had disturbed a nest, and now he was here to reclaim what was his. I felt a tug at my core, as if something were unraveling inside me.

I did the only thing I could. I slammed my hand on the washing machine, and the sudden clatter broke the spell. The lantern swung wildly, and green light splashed across the walls. He was still there, but as if veiled. I ran. I didn’t stop until I was in my car, keys shaking in my hand. I drove to the cemetery, but the gates were locked. I screamed through the bars, but only the wind answered.

Days later, I went back to the photos. The orbs were gone, replaced by a single figure in each frame, standing at the edge of the shot, always facing away. But on the last photo, taken at the back, there was a close-up of his face. The mouth was open, and inside, instead of a tongue, there was a writhing mass of pale, root-like things. I haven’t slept since. My reflection in the mirror seems to lag behind me by a fraction of a second. And every night, at 4 AM, I hear a faint scratching at my window, as if something is drawing a pattern in the glass. A pattern that looks like a cage. The keeper wants his lantern back. And he thinks I have it.