The Lantern Vermin

I was fifteen when my cousin Mira and I took the lantern tour of the old penitentiary in our dusty, forgotten town of Ashenrock. The prison had loomed over the main street for a century, its granite walls stained with generations of grime, and every local kid knew a dozen versions of what happened inside. The tour was a rite of passage; it promised a ninety-minute shuffle through the dark with nothing but a weak lantern, and the guides spun half-truths about the dead who never left.

We arrived at dusk, the sky a bruised purple, and the prison doors swallowed us into a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. The guide was a thin man named Corbin, his voice a dry rasp, and he handed each of us a metal lantern that gave off a sickly yellow glow, barely enough to see our own feet. ‘Keep your light low,’ he said, ‘and try to keep up. The dark here has a way of pressing in.’ Mira and I exchanged a nervous grin; we were the youngest in the group, and we wanted to prove we weren’t scared.

The first hour was the usual: cells with rusted bunks, stories of escapes and floggings, and the infamous ‘Hanging Gale’ where three men were executed. But as we moved deeper into the oldest wing, the lanterns began to flicker. Not in unison, but one by one, as if something was breathing on the flames. I felt a cold draft that moved against the air, circling my ankles, and my lantern went out entirely. Mira’s was still lit, but her face was pale in its glow. ‘It’s just the old wiring,’ Corbin said, but his voice had lost its certainty.

We reached a low-ceilinged corridor that the guide called the ‘Infirmary Row.’ The walls were lined with small cubbies, each just big enough for a man to stand in, and Corbin told us that prisoners with contagious diseases were quarantined here, often left to die alone. I felt a sudden, suffocating weight on my chest, as if the air had thickened, and I saw shapes in the darkness beyond my lantern’s reach—shapes that weren’t there when I turned to look. Mira grabbed my arm. ‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered. I hadn’t, but I nodded, because her grip was cold and trembling.

Then the tour guide stopped in front of a heavy iron door, one that wasn’t on the official map. ‘This is the punishment cell,’ he said, ‘where they kept the ones who tried to break the asylum.’ He swung the door open, and a stench of old sweat and rot poured out. The cell was tiny, barely six feet square, and its walls were covered in scratches, deep grooves that spelled out a single word over and over: ‘FEED.’ I saw Mira’s lantern illuminate a corner of the cell, and there, in the shadows, was a small, skeletal shape—a rat, I thought, but it was too big, and its eyes were too bright, and it stared directly at me.

Suddenly, all the lanterns in the group went out at once. A woman screamed behind us. Corbin’s voice rang out, sharp and frantic: ‘Everyone, hold your flame! Light your matches! Now!’ But my hands were shaking, and I couldn’t get a match to catch. I heard Mira breathing next to me, and then I felt something brush my hand—not her, something cold and many-legged. I yanked my hand back, and the scratching in the cell grew louder, a frenzy of claws on stone, and then a wet, snapping sound, as if something was chewing bone.

When the matches flared, the cell door was shut again, and the scratches were gone, replaced by a clean, smooth wall. Corbin’s face was ashen. ‘Let’s move,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘The tour’s over.’ We stumbled out into the night air, and the stars seemed unnaturally bright. The group dispersed quickly, muttering among themselves, and Mira and I walked home in silence, our lanterns extinguished.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the word ‘FEED.’ At 3 AM, I heard a scratching at my window—not a tree branch, but a deliberate, rhythmic scrape. I got up and peered through the glass, and I saw a dark figure in the streetlight—a man, hunched and too thin, with long fingers that ended in claws. He was scratching at the glass, and his head was tilted at an unnatural angle, and his mouth was open, filled with needles. I screamed, but when my father ran in, the figure was gone, and only a few thin scratches marred the glass.

Mira called me the next morning, sobbing. She had seen the same figure at her window, and it had whispered her name. I told her it was just our imagination, shaken by the tour, but we both knew it was a lie. We decided to return to the prison that afternoon, to prove to ourselves that it was just an old building. We entered through a broken side gate, and the main courtyard was quiet, but when I looked up at the prison’s facade, I saw a face in a second-story window—the same gaunt face, its needle-teeth flashing in the sunlight. It vanished when I blinked, but the scratches in the window frame were real.

We found the guide’s office, a small room in the visitor center, but it was empty and covered in dust, as if no one had been there for years. A newspaper on the desk was dated 1987, with a headline: ‘Prison Guard Missing After Night Shift.’ I felt a chill as I remembered the tour guide’s name: Corbin. Corbin had been the name of the missing guard. The man who led our tour was not a guide; he was something else, something that used the tour to bring us into the dark.

As we turned to leave, I heard the scratching again, but this time it was all around us—in the walls, in the ceiling, in the floor. The lights flickered, and the door to the office slammed shut. Through the small window, I saw the dark figure in the hallway, and it was not alone. It was accompanied by dozens of smaller shapes, scurrying on all fours, their eyes glinting in the near-dark. I grabbed Mira’s hand, and we barricaded the door with a desk chair, but the scratching grew louder, more insistent, and I knew the barrier wouldn’t hold.

Then, the voice came, not from the hallway but from the vent above us, dry and familiar—Corbin’s voice, but twisted: ‘You fed the lantern vermin,’ it said. ‘Now they’ll feed on you.’ I saw Mira’s face contort in terror, and then the lights went out completely. When the police found me the next morning, I was crouched in a corner of the office, alone, my clothes torn, and my memory of the night was a blank except for one image: Mira, suspended in the air, her eyes open, and the vermin—hundreds of rat-like things with needle teeth—swarming into her mouth.

I never speak of that tour. I never mention Ashenrock. But every time I see a rat or hear a scratching at night, a cold sweat breaks out, and I remember that the Lantern Vermin are still hungry, and they know where to find me.