Nightlight Page 2

  Ben, they’re coming. Get out. Get out now! He hears Kayla’s voice, but can’t lock in on her position. Like the horrible din, she seems to call from all directions at once.

  Still, Ben reassures himself, it’s only a dream. Dreams are my business, for God’s sake. I’ll wake up. And I have my nightlight.

  He holds his right arm up, letting the gaseous light shine in a half-bubble in front of him. He sees a flat expanse of rock stretching away, but nothing else.

  The stampede is much closer now, screeching and clamoring to a crescendo. Beneath it, the technician hears something else. Something animal…keening. The sound of countless mouths, all hungry. Dream or not, it’s enough to make Ben cringe, but he holds the glowing watch high.

  “The light will protect me!” he yells, though he can barely hear the words over the maelstrom bearing down on him. Then, just as the crushing sound threatens to overwhelm his ears—silence.

  Ben turns in a circle, eyes peering into the green gloom. Nothing. “They’re gone,” he whispers. The words sound like a child’s. “The light worked. The light always works!”

  Kayla’s voice answers. I’m sorry, Ben. I’m so sorry. A slow series of thumps carries along with her words. Like the pounding of a tiny fist against a closet door far, far away.

  Ben doesn’t understand until he sees. Just beyond the bubble of his nightlight. Barely visible in the gloom. Faces. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Abominations with red eyes and savage mouths filled with teeth the size of daggers. All salivating in the dark.

  As the hungry creatures edge into his green halo, the dream technician realizes too late—light may scare away predators in the real world, but in the black void…

  A nightlight only shows the monsters exactly where you are.

 

 

  Trey Dowell, Nightlight

 

 

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