Ghost Light

Image by Elias from Pixabay.

A spooky tale based on the legend of Bingham’s Light (I mixed different versions of the story into one). Read it below or listen on soundcloud.

While my friends huddled around a roaring, red and orange bonfire, chatting and drinking, I teetered on skinny legs. My insides shook like an earthquake. It was a chilly October night, but the wait added to my anxiety. The surrounding dense, fog-laden woods seemed swallowed up by darkness, save the full moon above. Its light beams refracted off the rail cars as we stood by, ready to see the light. The media described it as swamp gas or some other strange, natural phenomenon, but according to legend, it was the lost soul of a dead train engineer. A poor railway worker had been killed in 1908, his engineer’s lantern found shattered beside his broken body. How he died is a mystery, but according to the story, his spirit still roams the woods near the railway to this day. 

I remember one of my friends pointing toward the tracks, saying she saw something flash. A feeling of awe mixed with fear washed over me like a flood. I wanted to run, but my curiosity got the better of me. At first, it looked like the head of a pin, barely visible to the naked eye. Was I imagining it? But then my body began to lift, internally, as if floating, though my feet remained on solid ground. I stomped my boots to be sure. The crunchy, cold ground beneath me confirmed it. 

The light enlarged, slowly at first, as the group held their breath. No one said a word. We watched the light increase in diameter to the size of a basketball. Its light beams radiated beyond the woods, illuminating the branches of knobby trees and brown bushes in its path. I wiped my brow, shielding my eyes from the light that was now blinding. It engulfed us in all directions as the group of onlookers seemed frozen in place. I wanted to run to my car and tear down the dirt path that led me here, but an overwhelming sense of grief struck me in the chest. Tears began to fall from my eyes. The crowd began to wail and scream as a feeling of dread and horror engulfed us like a firestorm. Then it appeared. A shadowy figure and the outline of an ancient lantern. From out of the darkness, it crept slowly along the tracks as we stood stone still. A faint groan seemed to float over our heads, rushing around the bonfire and back toward the figure. No one dared breathe as the figure lifted from the ground, its light visible in the air above us. Then, without warning, it began its descent, shrinking from us, just as it had arrived. 

No one moved for the span of five minutes. Grief and anguish turned to fear and disbelief. I wiped my eyes, then scurried to my car without saying my goodbyes to the group. The light and its torchbearer left me with a gnawing, agonizing feeling that chipped away at every ounce of my hubris. 

The drive home seemed like a blur as my mind grappled with the night’s events. Adjusting my rearview mirror, a small dot of light appeared above the trees as I sped by. I brushed it aside, rationalizing that it must be my mind holding onto the fear of the night’s event. I blinked, rubbing my eyes as anxiety filled my gut. The short drive seemed to take an eternity when something caught my view from the corner of my eye. I snapped my head around to see a lantern shining its light from my back seat. I screamed as my car skidded across the center line. Gathering my senses, I whirled around to see a dark figure and its lantern light, vanish beyond the treeline.

The lost soul and his light touched all of us that night in a way we never imagined. It’s said, once you see him, he’ll forever haunt you— his spirit now mingled with your own. As I laid my head upon a goose-down pillow that night, I shrugged off the earlier events, reminding myself I didn’t believe in such things. It had to be some sort of mass psychosis. The rustling of branches outside my window caused me to pause, when a miniscule ray of light whisked across my view. It was then, reality set in, and I realized, the tale must be true. The ghost light and its tortured owner would always be with me.