The Last Lamplighter

I never thought I’d be the one to see them, but here I am, writing this from the cold cab of my ute, parked half a kilometer from the old Lamplighter Station. The name’s a joke, really—it’s a solar farm, not a lighthouse, and the only lamp I’ve ever tended is the one in my own head. I’m a security contractor, and the job was simple: watch over the place while the crew took their Easter break. The station sits on a barren stretch of the Nullarbor Plain, a hundred kilometers from the nearest town, and the only company I had was the hum of inverters and the occasional dingo cry. My ‘cabin’ was a converted shipping container, but it had a bed, a heater, a fridge, and a TV that picked up one fuzzy channel. I’d been here three nights, and the worst I’d faced was a power flicker during a dust storm. Then the crew left, and I was alone with the infinite rows of panels, their glass faces tilted to the sky like a thousand dead eyes. It was the 21st of March, two days before the crew was due back, and I’d just settled in for a night of bad movies when the station’s phone rang. It was my boss, his voice crackling over the line. ‘Listen, the boys are coming back early—they’ll be on site by six tonight. Can you make sure the gate’s open and the control room’s unlocked?’ I glanced at my watch: 5:47. ‘No worries, I’ll head down now.’ I grabbed my torch and walkie, pulled on my jacket, and stepped out into the fading light. The walk to the main gate was about two hundred meters, along a gravel track that bisected the southernmost blocks of solar arrays. The panels stood in neat rows, their dark surfaces drinking the last of the sun. I remember thinking how peaceful it was, how the silence was so deep it hurt my ears. The gate was an industrial cage affair, padlocked with a heavy chain. I fumbled for the key, but as I touched the lock, I saw something that made me freeze. On the other side of the gate, in the dirt, was a fresh set of footprints. Not boot prints, but bare feet, small, like a child’s. They led from the gate, across the track, and vanished into the gap between two panels. I told myself it was a drifter, maybe a kid from a shepherd’s camp, but the cold pricked my spine. I unlocked the gate, swung it open, and decided to check the control room before the crew arrived. The control room was a small building near the substation, usually locked. I found it unlocked, which was odd. Inside, the main monitor displayed a grid of energy output, but the lines were flat—no power at all. That was impossible. The sun was down, but the batteries should still be trickling. I flicked the breaker, then the main switch, and the screen blinked to life, but the numbers were wrong. The output read 0000.00 MW, but the timestamp showed the same time as my watch: 17:52. Behind me, I heard a soft giggle, like a child’s, but high-pitched and wrong. I spun around, but the room was empty. My radio crackled: ‘Gate’s open. Crew’s here.’ I looked out the window, and sure enough, a convoy of utes and tucks was rolling through the gate, headlights cutting the dusk. I let out a breath and headed to meet them, but when I reached the gate, the vehicles were idling, engines running, but no one got out. The lead driver, a grizzled bloke named Al, rolled down his window and said, ‘We got a problem. The solar field’s off-line, but we’re getting a reading of 1.2 gigawatts from the western block. That’s four times capacity. And the panels in Block 7 are facing west.’ I stared at him. ‘That’s impossible. I just checked the control room—everything’s dead.’ Al shook his head. ‘Come take a look.’ I hopped into his ute, and we drove along the perimeter track to Block 7. The panels there were angled ninety degrees from the others, all facing the horizon to the west, where the sun had just set. And between the rows, I saw them: silhouettes of small figures, standing motionless, all facing the same direction. Al gasped. ‘Who the hell are those kids?’ I didn’t answer. I just watched as the figures began to walk slowly toward a single panel at the end of the block. As they got closer, the panel began to glow, a soft blue light emanating from its surface, like a cold flame. One by one, the figures touched the glass, and their bodies seemed to merge with it, disappearing into the panel. The light pulsed, then faded. I grabbed the radio and called my boss, my voice shaking. ‘There’s something wrong here. The panels—they’re absorbing people.’ My boss laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. The crew’s there now. They’ll sort it out.’ But when I looked back at the convoy, the utes and trucks were still idling, but the doors were open, and the cabs were empty. Al was gone too. I was alone again. Then the radio crackled again, and a voice I didn’t recognize, a child’s whisper, said, ‘The lamplighters never sleep.’ I dropped the radio and ran back to my container, locked the door, and sat shaking. Through the small window, I could see the western horizon, where a single panel was now bathed in an eerie glow. And I knew, with a terrible certainty, that come midnight, I would be the only soul left on the plain, and the lights would be looking for a new keeper.