The power outages here have made posting challenging. So, I apologize for being a little backlogged. Here’s what can happen when the lights go out.
The worst night in my life was the night after I bought this house.
I was warned it was haunted, but I don’t believe in ghosts, right? And when I looked at the house in the daylight with the real estate agent things were fine. It was a beautiful house built in 1901. The previous owner took meticulous care of the place and did an extensive renovation where he replaced existing windows with larger ones and added additional windows and skylights, all while still keeping to the aesthetic of the house.
I noticed the industrial diesel generator on a pad in the corner of the yard and asked Patty, my agent about it. “Does this place lose power a lot? How could he justify that beast of a generator?”
“I was told that his mother lived here for some time and her health conditions required continuous power and that any interruption would mean debilitation or death.”
Inspectors pored over the place looking for faults and came away empty. The guy who inspected the foundation said he hadn’t seen a place so solidly built. “Great bones!” he said.
Just before I signed the papers, the seller’s agent said, “I do have one disclosure we haven’t mentioned.”
I laughed, “I’ve had people going over this place from the attic to the basement and everything in between. Sewer, electrical, water, foundation – I know more about this house than I did my last one. What disclosure could you possibly have?”
“Well, pursuant to California law, I am obligated to tell you this place is haunted.”
“Haunted?” I said incredulously. “The state of California is into ghosts now?”
“Not really,” she explained. “It’s not a question of whether they believe ghosts exist or not, but case law has held that unidentified disturbances generally classified as ‘hauntings’ are disruptive enough that regardless of whether you believe in a haunting or ghosts, such a thing must be legally disclosed.”
I was speechless.
Taking my silence for understanding, she said, “Sign here to acknowledge that you’ve been duly informed that this house is haunted.”
“Oh yeah,” I said chuckling, “Let’s get these papers signed so I can take possession – possession? Get it – of my haunted house!”
Escrow closed and I moved in and that day was wonderful. I went upstairs, showered, got dressed for bed, climbed into my fresh sheets, and turned my nightstand light off.
All hell broke loose.
I saw the red eyes at the foot of my bed first. Then I felt the hands on my throat. I fought the grip with one hand and reached for the lamp with my left. As soon as I barely touched the lamp the hands around my throat released and a force hurtled me bodily from the bed. I landed in a heap and unseen hands immediately grabbed and punched me and I could feel them clawing up my body to my throat again. I scrambled for the staircase where a shove knocked my feet out from under me and I fell hard on the stairs, smacking my head into a banister while rolling down stair after stair. At the foot of the stairs I tried to stand, but I had broken my ankle in the fall. I could feel blood on my face from a gash. I didn’t feel hands and took that as a mercy until I heard footsteps start down the stairs after me.
I lost my mind with terror and dragged myself towards the front door as best I could. The steps kept coming down in an unhurried way that scared me even more. It was a predator toying with its injured prey. I reached the door, stretched up to unlock the deadbolt and unlock the knob. I threw open the door and started belly crawling out yelling, “Help! Someone help– “ I didn’t finish the sentence before powerful hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me back into the darkness, slamming the door behind me. Mercifully, I lost consciousness pretty quickly after that.
The next morning my neighbor found me bloody, severely beaten, and unconscious on my front porch. I had no recollection of how I got there. I remembered getting pulled back inside, so the fact that I ended up outside but just on the porch led me to assume that when whatever it was finished having its fun with me it set me out there like a used, discarded dish towel.
The toll at the hospital beggared the imagination: severe concussion, contusions, deep bruising over 90% of my body. Broken ankle, sprained wrist, fractured arm, a dislocated shoulder, and a collapsed lung.
The police were called in. A sweet detective asked me gently about whether this was a case of domestic violence and that I could open up to her. When I told her that I was beaten as soon as I turned my lights off, the police searched the house and found no sign of forced entry. The front door was actually locked with my house keys still inside. No fingerprints, nothing stolen…
I wasn’t healthy enough to discharge for another two weeks. During that time an old man came to visit. He brought flowers and a bottle of whiskey, bless his heart. “Do I know you?”
He shook his head. “You don’t. But I feel this is at least partly my fault. I’m the previous owner of your house.
“I told my agent that I had to warn you about the Darkness, but she insisted that the ‘haunted house’ clause would be enough. I knew she was wrong in my heart… I’m so terribly sorry.”
“You said ‘The Darkness’?”
“It’s an evil that possesses that house,” he started and I could see the color drain out of his face. “I learned the hard way, like you. Why do you think I opened up all those windows and skylights and that generator? I always wanted there to be light in that house no. matter. What.” He punctuated the last three words with jabs of his finger.”
“The generator wasn’t for your mother?”
“My… No, my mother died years before I bought that place. She never set foot in it. It was to keep The Darkness at bay. You lose power for a heartbeat and that sucker kicks on – the batteries in the basement cover the seconds between losing power and the generator coming online. As long as you leave a light on in every room, you’ll never lose light. But,” he held up a finger, “If you turn the lights off…” he waggled the finger, “There’s nothing to stop it from coming at you.”
“Yeah, I found that out.”
“Me too!” he said. “Broke my hip the first night and choked me out. I couldn’t believe I survived.”
“But you stayed? Why not move?”
“Same reason you aren’t going to move. First, you just bought the place and you’re so invested you can’t exactly buy another place or afford to sell it. And second, you feel a sort of… responsibility. I know I did – I couldn’t just turn that, that, thing over to someone else.”
“Except you did.”
He hung his head. “I did. I guess I thought enough precautions…”
“So what do I do now?”
“Leave the lights on.”
And I did. I left a light on in every room always. I was meticulous about maintaining the generator. I installed solar panels and upgraded the old batteries in the basement to Tesla Powercells. That house would stay lit like a Christmas tree even after the apocalypse hit.
Or, so I thought.
The rain started and floods were predicted, but I’ve seen the maps, I’m not in a floodplain. And then the basement started taking on water and newscasters were talking about this being a “Once in a millennia” kind of storm and said things like “defying recorded history.” But this place isn’t in a flood area, so I didn’t evacuate. Hell, I’m the only one in ten square miles with electricity!
But I woke from a dead sleep an hour ago to a huge roar. The levee on the east side of town collapsed. I watched from the upstairs window as a huge wall of water swamped the generator. But the batteries should still hold. I went downstairs to check on them… and that’s when I noticed the water pouring in and rising fast. I retreated upstairs and I’m writing this as the lights are flickering. I just heard what sounded like laughter. What’s that? Oh my god, it sounds like growling. The lights just flickered. The water must be reaching the Powercells.
The lights just went out.
Pray for m–
