Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti © 2008
Strange Lights
© by Joshua Scribner
Caroline Stebbers was never afraid of the dark, not one single time, but she did become afraid of the light. She lived alone, completely by choice. Her home life was simply too fascinating to be disrupted by the presence of other people, especially if what she happened to be doing was sleeping. No one was ever allowed to disturb that in anyway. She made sure of this with a series of locks on each of her doors and the turning off of all phones. Her house was miles away from anyone else's house and she kept it totally dark at night, inside and out.
That's why she was so afraid when she awoke to a light. It was coming from outside her bedroom. She was definitely not the most beautiful woman in the world, but definitely not the ugliest either. There would definitely be some men who might want to stalk her. She had many nice things in her home, most of which could be sold for money, so getting inside could be profitable for a regular cat burglar.
She kept a pistol under her bed. She got that pistol now and took it to the hall outside her room. The light seemed to be coming from her living room, which had no overhead light and could only be lit by two lamps. Light shone from the one furthest away. She went immediately to it, gun raised, and shut it off. If someone was here, she'd rather fight them in the dark. She went around the house and checked all possible entrances. None were compromised.
Should she call the police? That would mean dealing with people, and condescending, procedural people at that. Besides, maybe it was just some electrical glitch. Or maybe the last time she had turned the lamp off she had turned it a little too far, leaving it just on the verge of coming on, sliding nanometers per second, until it clicked on and woke her.
“Good enough,” she announced to a house she presumed empty of all life but her. “I've got more work to do.” She went back to bed.
#
The next night Caroline was asleep when she was again brought to by a light. This time, the light hit her window. Once again, she grabbed her gun, but she hesitated before leaving the room. It was the outside light that was on. It came on automatically at night, but only if the switch was in the on position inside the house. This one had an easy explanation. The switch was right by the switch for the kitchen light and sometimes she flipped it on by accident. She had probably just forgotten to flip it off, and she hadn't noticed when it had come on hours ago because she had already been asleep before darkness came. Sleeping was fun.
She did the checks from the night before, found everything locked, hit the switch to the outside light and got back in bed.
#
The next night provided the brightest light so far. It came directly from the hall. Caroline had been in a state of sleep that waking up from was very confusing and terrifying. She actually scream out, “NOOOO!” Then she sat up in bed.
When the fear went away, the anger came. She didn't bother with the gun. She walked out into the hall.
Should she call the police?
She still didn't think so. She wasn't even going to check the locks this time. She went back to bed. With her head on the pillow, she said, “Nice try.” She then went to sleep.
#
Caroline awoke to a light that shone right over her. She rushed to the other side of the room, to the switch, but then noted that she'd not exactly walked or run across the floor.
Crap, she thought.
She watched her body get out of bed. She watched it look around the lit room and heard it speak.
“I just love advanced astral projectors. You use dreams to leave your body night after night, and it becomes like second nature. I knew if I timed it right you'd eventually jump out without your subconscious having time to put up the proper blocks. It was hard finding the right light to startle you perfectly, and even harder flipping the switches without corporal form, but in the end I think it was worthwhile.”
The demon moved with her body across the floor. Caroline felt as violated as possible. She took all that anger with her as she darted into her body and knocked the demon out.
She fell to a knee. Demon removal could be quite exhausting. She wasn't so tired she couldn't speak, though.
“Stupid demon. You should have known after three failed attempts I'd figure your plan out. I told my subconscious to expect you. That's why you couldn't get a strong grip.”
Caroline couldn't hear the demon from her awake human body, but she suspected it was screaming out in anger as it went away.
