Lights Out

Lucky for me I was on the second floor.

Or on the steps when the lightning struck the power pole down the street.

Hopefully, I'd find my way to bed without walking into any obstacles.

Unlucky for me the house I lived was haunted. Things went bang in the night. A glowing apparition appeared out of the darkness with a lantern to show me the way to where. Even though I screamed, he beckoned me to follow him.

His back was turned to me.

I didn't see his face.

A scared face fresh from battle with blood dripping from his cheeks to dampen the front of his shirt.

Unlucky for me, he took me to the wrong room. He took me to the room where all the dearly departed were having a wow of a party with music and dancing. A cold feeling ran through my body like a ghost walked right through me.

I was rescued by a real man.

He was leading me to safety.

But I was wrong.

The floor opened before us letting us fall over the edge floating through space to softly land on solid ground. Taking a deep breath while I felt my legs to make sure nothing broke when I landed. I pinched myself to see if I still lived.

When my eyes adjusted to the dimness around me there were snakes slithering across the ground hissing at me.

I hate snakes.

The only good snake was a dead one.

The scream didn't pass the clogged vocal cords.

From out of the darkness a pair of arms wrapped around my waist to lift me from the ground before any of the snakes were able to reach me. When I opened my eyes I found I was on a different floor. I was lead down another corridor and into a bedroom.

I was shown into a nursery where a woman knelt beside a crib crying.

The crib was empty.

The mother cried for her missing baby.

Her husband went to stand by her side to comfort her. She turned to see who had entered the room with her husband. She looked up to see me standing there. A smile crossed her sad features. She stood to walk over to me.

I was safe at last.

These nice ghost would take care of me.

They both took hold of my arms to lead me to another room

We went into the room where a beam of light shone down through the ceiling making a circle on the floor. The couple each placed a hand on my stomach until the light went out and we stood in the darkened room.

We were falling again.

My stomach churned.

My head dizzy from all the ups, and downs, and scares.

I was sick by the time we reached the bottom. I heaved what food I had eaten before the lightning had struck. I was picked up and laid on a bed. Both of them sat by my bed until my world righted before going to sleep.

When I opened my eye I found I was in my own bed.

How did that happen.

I had no recollection of returning or the lights coming on.

Last night had to be a dream. A very bad dream. I went to sit up in the bed to quickly lay back down when a sever pain raked through my body. I moved slowly to the side of the bed to try sitting up once again but I wasn't able to put my feet to the floor. Reaching for the phone beside the bed I called a friend to help me.

I was in luck.

My friend had left for work.

She came to my flat to see what was wrong.

She found me stretched out on the bed in pain. She rang for an ambulance to come to take me to the hospital. The ambulance people did what they were able to before they put me in the ambulance to rush me to the emergency room at the hospital. I thought I heard wrong when the doctor gave his opinion. He had to be a quack.

“You're in labour.”

I fainted.

The dream had turned into a nightmare.

Lucky for me I was on the bed when he gave of his news and I fainted. He had to be wrong kept floating through my clouded mind. There was not way I was pregnant. When I finally opened my eyes I was presented with the results.

I had a baby presented to me.

“This baby isn't mine.” I shuddered. I'd wake soon to be in my own bed.

I looked up from the baby sleeping in my arm to find the ghost couple standing at the end of my bed with tears of happiness running down their cheeks before they disappeared.

On returning home with my baby I found the crib in my room, the one from my nightmare with two guardian angels there to watch over us.

A short story I re-worked from hard copy I found in my file. Surprising how you work an old story when seeing it with a different, clearer mind, not stressed from over work, and lack of sleep. This was written in the years I took care of an ailing mother.