Shorty Story – Mystery

Hi guys! The story is due in a few days, (the 16th), though I want to turn it in by tomorrow. 😛 Anything I’m missing from this revised draft? (The editors said I should work more on character, so if you see anything that might be able to make it deeper, let me know.) Thanks!

@daeus @kate-flournoy @rolena-hatfield @perfectfifths @winter-rose @ethryndal @that_writer_girl_99

The Light in the Night
There was a certain horror to what I saw that night. It wasn’t supposed to be there, much less flickering like the eyes of an angry teacher.
Several high school history papers fluttered to my bare feet as I sprang from the desk.
“Daniel?” my younger brother Jack mumbled as he crawled out of bed and stood beside me. “What’s wrong?”
I pointed at the abandoned house.
It was Cinderella hour, the clock veering on the edge of midnight, and as we gazed from our bedroom window, a light, pale and unnatural, glared from the abandoned house. It had been vacant for decades, so why were the lights in the house on?
“Is it a ghost?” Jack offered.
“No.” My fingers tapped the edge of my desk.
“Thieves?”
“No.” It couldn’t be that. The house had nothing of value. Then again, hardly any houses in our neighborhood did. Several were vacant.
“Then what?”
I didn’t answer. What on earth was going on?
Answers flooded my mind as I picked up my papers, but I discounted them all. Each were impossible. Again, I peeked at the house. I couldn’t avert my eyes.
As if compelled by gravity, I tied my shoelaces, “I’m going to go have a look around.”
Jack slipped on his boots, teddy bear tucked beneath his arm, and snatched my sweaty hand, “Let’s go.”
—-
Against the stars, the abandoned house lay before us, a statue of stillness. A decade of disrepair blazed a trail throughout the entire property. Grass tickled my sides. The obscurity of it all pumped my blood for adventure.
As we advanced, the light brightened, our home now a hundred yards away. The fact was vibrant in my mind, and my feet prepared to bolt at the slightest notice.
Finally, my feet balanced on the shattered timbers of the front deck. Jack shivered next to me. At first I regretted bringing him along, but at least this way I had someone to watch my back. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be necessary.
“Jack, stay close to me.”
There was no reply from him, and I expected none. I could barely swallow. I rested my hand on the rusted doorknob. To my shock, it twisted without much protest. The door widened its mouth, and the throat of darkness swallowed me.
For a while, I trekked about the house with a whisper of regret trickling into my head. I wasn’t supposed to be here. The thought kept me on the edge of my rubber-soled shoes.
Presently, we found ourselves pulled to the light. The room was adjacent to a den, and there was only a four-foot wide passage to it. Fear, or maybe just common sense, taught me to sidle against the wall and peer my nose out first.
Lit by a dangling lightbulb, the room was massacred. The ceiling itself was cracked, beginning from the base of the light fixture and to the rest of the tiles, sagging from water damage. In addition, the window was broken out, allowing a draft. The gray carpeting disappeared beneath the piles of straw, sticks and feathers. The emptiness was worse than a false note on a piano.
“Jack,” I hissed, my eyes transfixed on the exit, “Leave everything alone.”
“Oops.”
“Jack!” When I pivoted, dismay screamed through my eyes, watching as Jack’s hand, holding a stick, scratched the bulb. Almost as soon as the words left my mouth, the lightbulb’s power was cut, and darkness began its eager grasp once again. Fingers, soft and wispy, stroked my hair and I let out a scream, “Run!”
I obeyed my own orders.
—-
“Daniel.”
Buried beneath my covers the next night, I was silently vowing to myself never to follow strange lights again, when Jack was at my side. I should have expected as such. “What?” I grumbled.
“Can we go back? The lights are on again.”
“Never.”
“Are you scared?” he leaned on my mattress, spider-like fingers sprawling.
“Petrified.”
“Please? I won’t be able to sleep ever again if I don’t find out what it is.” His voice was pleading, but not only that, it was shaky with interest.
After a rather exaggerated sigh, I tip-toed into the hallway, “Honestly, Jack. I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”
—-
Somehow, my nine-year-old brother had convinced me to return here, the room same as before. “Everything’s as it was yesterday,” I muttered to myself. No footprints or anything in the debris.
I ventured further into the room, wiping the sweat off my hands and to my jeans. There was nothing remarkable about the bulb. I aimed my flashlight up to the serpentine crack originating from the conduit.
CHIRP.
My muscles braced, jaw tightening painfully. What was that? Again, I glanced the light up into the crevice, and in the gap, I saw nothing but twigs. Tall as I was, I dared to poke the jumble of sticks, but no sooner than I did the bulb cut off and my face was bombarded from every angle.
My scream was gut-wrenching, and this time I ripped the hands from my hair. Nails scratched my cheeks, galvanizing me to run.
Outside, I dashed over to Jack. When he heard my thumping feet, he aimed his beams over to me. I winced at the rays, but his concerned glance overruled the pain. “Your face is all cut!”
I was beginning to think that his theory about ghosts was possible.
Then, his face screwed. “Why are there feathers in your hair?”
“What?”
Indeed, my hair was riddled with feathers, and astronomical realization punched my gut.
“Birds,” I winced at its simplicity, “Birds turn on the lights in the house, because their nest disconnects and connects the electrical wires!”
Jack’s mouth twisted, “Would’ve been nice to know that last night.”
I laughed, my mind now free. “Let’s go home!”
As we walked back, Jack said, rather casually, “I saw lights from the condemned house down the street while you were gone.”
“No. You didn’t,” was my only response.