Scary Story: The Haunted Lamp

It was the first antique I'd ever owned.

"This is very old, and that makes it special." my mom explained as she presented me with the old lantern that had been converted to an electric light. Looking at the thick green glass on it's side and the dark grey metal I imagined the lamp on a boat.

"Could this have been on the boat with Christopher Colombus?" I asked.

Mom said it wasn't quite that old but it was too late. I'd already decided I had Christopher Columbus' lamp. We hung it in my room and it cast and eerie green light over everything. Mom tucked me in, and left me to read for a bit. It was then that it occured to me; the original owner of this lamp was dead. The person who made this lamp was dead. How many people had held this lamp and were now dead?

Mom came back in kissed me goodnight and turned off my antique light.

I woke up a few hours later scared out of my mind. There was no particular focus to this fear, just fear. I didn't know how late it was but I could hear that the house was silent, that everyone had gone off to bed. I felt all alone. I wanted to turn the light on. I looked at the lamp, and I was afraid of it. Light was what chased away the bhildhood boogey men, but to have light I had to first face this boogey man, in the dark.

I could wait it out I decided. I tried to shut my eyes, but they kept popping open. The fear continued and now it was fully focused on the dead man's lamp. I had to have light. I stood on my bed, looking down toward the foot of my bed, toward that damn lamp. My bed was a mile long as I walked walked down it, one arm extended, ready to snap that light on as soon as possible.

I was almost there, when a smokey green hand shot out of the light. The hand hit mine and I felt an electric charge through my body. I was too scared to scream. The hand then hit my throat and pushed me back wards, back onto the bed. I felt it's grip tighten around my windpipe. I couldn't scream, I couldn't even breath.

And then it stopped. I looked around my room. I was wet with sweat and it made me cold. My blankets had all been kicked down to the foot of my bed. As I lay there in the dark, my heart beating a mile a minute, I wanted the light on but I had learned my lesson. I wouldn't try that again. I took a deep breath and bolted from my bed, terrified as I tore through the house, down the hallway and into my parent's room.

The tears started flowing, relief replacing fear as I told my mom what happened. She told me it had just been a bad dream and let me crawl into bed with her and my dad. I convinced myself that she was right. That it had been a dream, though it didn't feel like one. I let the light stay in my room for a few days more. I didn't want to tell my mom to take it away, she'd given it to me with such fanfare. So, I broke it. And then gave it to her explaining that it been an accident.

To this day, it is work to convince myself that I dreamt the whole thing. When the movie Poltergiest came out, with smokey green hands shooting out of the tv I freaked out all over again. Apparently the filmmakers had seen something simillar to what I'd seen, I thought. That movie scared my little brother James to the point that he slept on my parent's floor for several months after seeing it. I still haven't asked him why. Did he see the hands too? I don't want to know.

Read my other Scary Story, Girl Without a Face HERE.