Welcome to the first short story I’ve ever posted on Substack. It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while and something I want to do more of this year. Why? To push myself out of my comfort zone, improve my writing, and explore the random ideas making noise outside of the bigger pieces I’m working on. This one’s called Lightbulb. I hope you enjoy it.
As Eleanor sipped her coffee, she wondered if Rosa was the same woman she’d spoken with on the phone. That person had been excited about sharing her story. Different to the sadness standing in front of her.
“Are you recording?”
“Not yet,” Eleanor said. “Not until you’re ready.”
Rosa nodded, sitting down. “No point dragging it out any longer.”
Eleanor leaned forward, legs crossed. Tapped her phone’s screen. Waited a few seconds to see the numbers counting up.
“Before I tell you about the lamp, you need to know something,” Rosa started. “It’s important.”
“Go on,” Eleanor said. She forced warmth into her voice, knowing how much it helped people open up.
“A few months ago.” Rosa paused. Closed her eyes to steady her breathing. “My husband killed himself. Put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”
“Oh my God, Rosa. I’m so sorry.”
“They told me it was painless but I don’t believe it. How can you do something like that and not feel a thing?” Eleanor watched Rosa put her cup on the table and run hands through hair that needed a wash. "It’s been five months and I can’t tell if it’s got any easier. It’s like adapting to a tumor I know I’ll never be able to cut out.”
“Were you there?” Rosa looked up and Eleanor saw surprise on her face. Sensed no one had ever asked her that.
“No. I was at work but came home to the mess.”
The air grew thick with an uncomfortable silence. Eleanor forced herself to swallow, rearranging herself in her seat. When she started writing a book that brought together a collection of true tales about haunted objects, she never imagined it would lead her to moments like this.
“You said you wanted to talk to me about a lamp,” Eleanor urged.
Rosa nodded. Threw a thumb to the room’s corner.
When Eleanor had been welcomed into that little house in the middle of nowhere, passing a front yard that needed weeding, stepping over old mail into the living room, she’d wondered if the lamp Rosa had just pointed to was the one she wanted to talk about. Wondered if its three legs and wide shade belonged to the same lamp she’d mentioned on the phone.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“It looks like any other lamp.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“And you believe it’s haunted?”
Rosa got up, groaning on knees that looked like they ached. She moved to it. Picked up the plug that sagged from its bottom like a sad tail. Inserted it into the wall and pulled the little chain at the top of its legs to ignite the bulb.
Eleanor expected brightness. She was ready for the light. The bulb gave both but, with it, a scream so loud and violent Eleanor wanted to run. She covered her ears. Opened her mouth in a pained and confused grimace, looking for the human source behind such a bleak and gut-wrenching yell. It was a scream drawn from the gut. A painful noise that filled the room so fully Eleanor wondered if it would drown her.
Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The scream was severed. The suffering ended. Rosa had turned the lamp off.
“Shit,” Eleanor whispered, hand around her throat. “Where did you get that?”
“Why? You want one?”
“No, I just…I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I don’t think anyone has,” Rosa said, making her way back to the chair, falling into its groove as though she’d just looked out the window or watered her plants.
“It always did that?”
“Of course not.”
“When did it start?” Eleanor felt stupid as soon as she’d asked it. Rosa hadn’t just told her out about her husband’s death for nothing. “I’m sorry. That was silly.”
“It’s alright.”
Eleanor’s ears still rang with the scream. It was like its viciousness had stained the walls. Made them wet. “That noise. It sounded human.”
“It was human,” Rosa replied.
“How do you know?”
“They’re the sounds I made when I found him.”
Eleanor stayed quiet, aware of a nervous itch pulling at her insides. She didn’t know what to do. What to say. She moved her eyes to her phone to see if it was still recording, noting the scream’s mountain in the sound wave.
Her arms started to ache. Her eyes felt tired and uncomfortably heavy. She rubbed at them, hoping it would remove some of the discomfort.
“Does anyone know about this?”
“Not a soul.”
“That’s good.”
“And I want to keep it that way.”
Eleanor felt something good slipping from her fingers. She felt panic fighting against an odd tiredness breaking around her neck. “But you said I could use this. For the book. You were excited about it.”
“I don’t want to be featured in your book, Eleanor.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can.”
“You can’t.”
“We didn’t sign anything.”
Eleanor was about to argue, next words gripped between her teeth. Only, they didn’t come. As much as she tried to move her tongue and lips, she couldn’t hear herself over whatever was taking over her body.
She tried to fight it. Attempted to summon enough energy to worry about the fact that something wasn’t right. But it was too hard. Too late. Whatever was happening had happened and she’d forgotten what she should have been worrying about.
Her vision grew blurry. Her arms and legs felt cold. She looked into her coffee, wondering what Rosa had slipped in there. She wanted to ask her about it – wanted to call out for help – but the tiredness took over and she was dragged into its black.
“I wasn’t lying about the lamp.”
Eleanor forced herself to open her eyes. Her mouth was dry. Her head ached. She tried to move her hands but they were bound; tied to something hard. She groaned, putting pieces of her surroundings together to determine what was happening.
She was in a basement. It was lit by a single exposed bulb. The floor was hard. Cold. There was a person here. A woman with a voice she recognized. She’d mentioned a lamp. Yes. A lamp. The lamp. The one for her book.
“It is supernatural. Possessed. Whatever you want to call it,” Rosa said. She had her back to Eleanor, bent like a coat hanger, eyes squinting as she looked under the lamp’s shade. Eleanor focused on it. Saw it was unplugged, standing as it had in the living room. “I wasn’t lying about my husband either. He really is dead.”
Rosa’s fingers remained busy; preoccupied with unscrewing its bulb. “What I was lying about was who those screams belonged to. They were his. Not mine.” Finally, with a gentle twist and a satisfying sound of rubbed metal it released and Rosa let out a noise of triumph.
She watched the woman hold the bulb up. Eleanor saw its filament humming, vibrating behind the thin glass with an unnatural and menacing glow. Rosa carried it to the beaten wooden bench in the basement’s corner. Placed the bulb in a line of others arranged with care, each alive with their own unique hum.
“What are you doing?” The words hurt when Eleanor spoke. Her wrists burned as she pulled hard against the bonds.
“What a story this would have made for your book,” Rosa continued, ignoring her. Eleanor watched as she pulled a drawer from the bench and removed a bulb from its original packaging.
“Let me go,” Eleanor said.
“I can just picture the title now,” Rosa said, hand out in front of her. “The lamp that bottled screams. The light that trapped terror in a bulb. The fun you could have had.”
“Rosa, you’re scaring me. Please let me go.”
“And to think I could have missed it. To think I had it sat in our living room with no idea what it was capable of. It’s like we were destined, that lamp and I. We unlocked something in each other. My husband’s death liberated us both.” Eleanor said nothing, analyzing Rosa as she returned to the lamp. “Sometimes, I come down here and listen to them. Plug those bulbs in one after the other just so I can hear them scream.”
“Please,” Eleanor said. She shook at the binds again. Threw all her strength into the idea of getting out. “Let me go.”
“I guess you’re curious about how it all works, seeing as how you were going to write a book about it.”
“I don’t care. I just want to go home.”
“You take a fresh bulb – from whatever store sells them. Insert it like this.”
“Stop, Rosa.”
“Plug the lamp in like this. Turn it on.”
“Rosa, please.”
“And, it’s ready.”
Eleanor sobbed. She looked at the woman who’d invited her into her home. A person who’d been excited about telling her story. A stranger excited about a lamp.
“Now, enough with the small talk,” Rosa said, smiling. “It’s time to hear you scream.”
Before you go
My latest book, Waxwing Creek, is out now. It’s a collection of interconnected horror stories about a haunted motel in a small town called Hunt. It’s available in paperback and on Kindle (including Kindle Unlimited).
Feel free to check out reviews on Goodreads or click the button below to grab a copy.
If you want to connect, I love hearing from readers. I keep an Instagram updated and post regularly to Threads and Notes. You can also find me on TikTok.
/ JJW
Dang, man. A first short of many to come, I hope! This was fantastic—dark and creepy. Loved it.
Great story and nicely written.