By the Light of His Lantern by Abe Moss

Author:Abe Moss [Moss, Abe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781797874913
Published: 2019-07-30T22:00:00+00:00

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Something moved over Lewis’s feet. He opened his eyes and sat up, chest already heaving. When he looked there was nothing there.

“You’re awake.”

He startled.

“Jesus,” he said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.”

The weight shifted at the end of the bed as the girl stood, and Lewis listened as she tiptoed along the side of the bed toward him. She stopped, standing next to him. Her voice, a soft sigh, wobbled out of thin air. Lewis looked at her without seeing her.

“You need to know something,” she said. “Remember what those guys were saying out there?”

“What guys?”

“Those guys you talked to. Out there with all the other people.”

“You were there?”

“I’m always here,” she said. “I was listening. But do you remember when—”

Her point was cut drastically short by a commotion outside. There was a crash of some kind, and with it a group of voices rose in distress. Someone shouted very loudly and shrill, and a man barked what sounded like orders or maybe some kind of caution. And then after this, all of these sounds flowing from one to the next so quickly, the screaming started.

Lewis stood and picked up his lantern. More screams outside. Doors opened out in the hall. Whispers. Lewis moved toward his door and listened. Measured, hesitant footsteps crept past on the other side.

“Don’t go out there,” the girl said.

Lewis, hearing her but not really, cracked his door. The hallway was dark, but there were others there. He opened his door and stepped out into the hall.

“Put that away!” someone quietly shouted.

“Huh?”

“Leave the fire.”

He thought it over. If he must, he thought he’d rather stay behind with it. He’d hide in his room until the commotion fizzled.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

Someone else responded, behind him. He turned and could just make out their nose and brow, the rest of their face filled by pools of darkness.

“Sounds like someone’s causing problems.”

“It might be nothing,” someone said.

Lewis did as he was told and set his lantern in the bedroom and then closed the door behind himself. Perhaps the girl was in the hall with him, or perhaps he’d closed her inside, he didn’t know. She had a tendency to quiet down around others, he noticed.

Without voicing it, he and the others agreed to journey down the hall toward the bar together, keeping close. Once they reached the end of the hall there was enough light to dimly see the larger room, the tables vacated, the other patrons crowding the windows. The street outside was darker than Lewis remembered. Some of the torches might have gone out. Maybe they were put out. But it was markedly darker.

The shouting was in intermission. Lewis and his small group bled apart between the tables. He followed the rear wall from one side of the room to the other toward the table he’d sat at earlier. He thought maybe he’d find Terry and the others that way. When he reached the opposite corner he strained his eyes to search for them in the dark.

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