KOLTON ALCORN - A LIGHT IN THE STREET

A LIGHT IN THE STREET

​An old broken-down Sedan in the middle of the road in the middle of the night. It was all that separated me from the things outside. The old air-freshener hanging from the rear-view doesn’t work anymore and the colors had long since faded. I had the windows rolled up and the doors locked. The ignition wasn’t off by choice, but rather the old vehicle that had belonged to my now dead neighbor had died directly under the street light. The only source of light around was the streetlamp above me. Luckily these things hate the light.
 
The lamp flickered.
 
My heart stopped for the same duration the street was dark, which was only a few milliseconds in reality. Light filled the streets again. Was that movement?
 
I checked my dying phone, 1am, the light only had to work for a couple more hours, then I could run for it.
 
The light flickered again.
 
Was it dimmer than before? The yellow hue of the light barely illuminated the interior of the car, but it didn’t need to, it just needed to be a barrier between me and those things.
 
A small, lanky shape moved just at the edge of the light; they definitely know I’m here, they’re waiting for the bulb to go out. Unlike most nightmare creatures they didn’t have glowing eyes that could be seen from miles away, they didn’t ‘pierce the night’. The only way you knew they were there was if they were either ripping into you or the guy next to you, and the only sound they make were quiet hisses, they almost sound like whispers, almost.
 
The light flickered once again, and as predicted, the radius of the light decreased a small amount, and the beam grew dimmer. I desperately checked my purse for a flashlight.
 
No luck, that asshole Gerry had taken it when he made a run for it, and look how it turned out for him.
 
I hear the hisses, they definitely know I’m in here now. They’re taunting me. I checked my phone again.
 
Damn it.
 
It had only been five minutes.
 
The light flickered again, are those damn things trying to unscrew the bulb?
 
It flickered again…
 
and again…
 
and it flickered again,
 
but it didn’t come back on.