The Lantern Man’s Toll

The first time I saw the pale light, I was coming home from the late shift at the cannery. The town of Morrow’s Bend was already asleep, its windows dark except for the occasional flicker of a television. I took the shortcut through the old railway cut, a gravel path overgrown with weeds that ran parallel to the abandoned tracks. The air had that pre-storm heaviness, and my boots crunched on the stones.

It was near the rusted water tower that I noticed the glow. Not a flashlight, but a soft, phosphorescent bloom bobbing just ahead, like a firefly the size of a fist. I stopped, thinking it was a trick of my tired eyes. The glow stopped too. I took a step sideways, and it drifted right, blocking my path. My skin prickled, and a smell like burnt sugar and old pennies filled my nostrils. I remember thinking, ‘This is not the fog from the river.’

I turned to go back the way I came, but the path behind me was gone. Not dark, not obscured—gone. Just a wall of blackness, as if the world had been cut with a knife. The glow pulsed, and a voice, thin and reedy, like wind through a cracked window, whispered, ‘The lantern needs its oil.’ I felt a cold hand brush my neck, and I ran. I ran until my lungs burned, and the gate of my yard appeared before me, but I did not remember passing the last house.

That was three months ago. Since then, my reflection has been wrong. In the bathroom mirror, I see a faint smear of light where my face should be, like a candle flame behind frosted glass. My shadow at noon is just a hint of gray, and when I walk past the mirror in the hall, I swear I see a second figure just behind me, taller, with a hat that drips darkness. I’ve taken to sleeping with the lights on, but the glow seeps through the blinds, and I hear the whisper at the edge of hearing: ‘Oil. You promised oil.’

My hands have started to tremble, and I’ve developed a cough that leaves a metallic taste on my tongue, like sucking on a copper coin. I’ve lost twenty pounds. The doctor says it’s stress, but I know better. It’s the wanting, the pull. Last night, I woke to find my feet cold and wet, as if I’d been standing in a puddle, and there was a print on the floor—not a shoe print, but a bare foot, narrow and too long, with too many toes. I tried to scrub it away, but it stays.

The pattern is always the same. I’ll be walking somewhere, and the light appears. It beckons me toward the old well at the edge of town, the one the kids say is bottomless. I’ve never gone near it before, but now I feel its pull in my bones. My palms itch when I think of it. I caught myself drawing its shape in the condensation on the bathroom mirror, without meaning to. And the whisper has become clearer: ‘The lantern has an extra wick. It needs your shadow to burn.’

I went to the library, digging through yellowed newspapers. There’s a story from 1912 about a man named Ezra Croft, a lamplighter who vanished one November night. They found his ladder by the tracks, but no body. The paper said his lamp was still burning, but the flame was blue, and no one could put it out. For years afterward, people reported seeing that blue light in the cut, and those who followed it never came back. I think I’m the latest in a long line of oil.

I tried to fight it. I stayed indoors, drew the curtains, put salt at the thresholds. It worked for a week. But last night, I woke to find myself standing at the edge of the well, the pale light hovering over the water like a patient angel. I didn’t remember walking there. My feet were covered in mud, and my nightshirt was soaked with dew. The whisper said, ‘Almost ready.’ I looked into the water, and I saw my reflection—but not mine. It was a face of light, with eyes like burning glass, and it smiled at me.

I have decided to write this down because I know I won’t be able to tomorrow. The light is growing stronger, and my shadow is barely a smudge now. I feel hollow, like a gourd scraped clean. Tonight, I fear, the lantern will claim its oil. But I am not afraid anymore. There is a strange peace in it, like the calm before a storm. I only hope that whoever finds this note will understand, and that they will not follow the light, whatever it whispers.

They say the well connects to the river, and the river to the sea. Perhaps my light will drift out to the ocean, free at last. Or perhaps I will be just another lantern, waiting for a passerby to stumble into my glow. The town of Morrow’s Bend is quiet tonight, and the old railway cut is dark. But if you ever see a pale light bobbing in the distance, and you hear a voice call your name, do not answer. Do not turn. Just run, and pray that your shadow is strong enough to last the night.