Lanternlight Bleeds at Dawn · Part 5: When the Lantern Chooses

Evening came wrong.

The sky did not slide gracefully from blue to gold to red. It snapped. One moment the town baked in dull daylight, the next the shadows stretched unnaturally long, like something had taken hold of the sun and pulled it sideways.

The stranger sat on the narrow bed in his rented room above the saloon. The walls were stained with old smoke. The single window looked out over the main street, where lanterns should have been lighting under the eaves.

They were not.

Folks in Brimstone Edge did not light their own lamps anymore. They shut their doors and prayed their locks meant something.

The stranger set his lantern on the small table by the window.

It burned steady. No wick. No oil. Just that bright, hungry glow.

He watched it for a long time, thinking about the widow’s words, about the sheriff’s face when the flame had flared, about the way the dust had clung to him like recognition.

“Where did you find me?” he asked the light.

No answer, of course.

Only the steady flame, slow and patient.

He reached for the metal ring on top, intending to snuff it with his palm. The moment his hand neared the glass, the flame jumped.

His skin blistered before he even touched it.

He jerked back with a hiss of pain.

“All right,” he muttered. “Have it your way.”

Something scraped along the street below. Long, dragging sounds, like someone pulling a sack of meat over gravel. Then another. Then another. The sound multiplied until it became a low, steady chorus of things moving that did not belong in any man’s night.

The stranger stood, heart knocking a measured rhythm in his chest. He lifted the lantern by its ring.

The flame surged, bright enough to cast hard shadows across the ceiling. For a heartbeat, the wall in front of him vanished, and he saw the street as if he stood in the middle of it.

Shapes moved down there.

Wrong shapes.

Too long where they should be short. Too many joints where limbs should bend once. Heads turning on necks that had no flesh left on them.

Every one of those things stopped in the same instant. Turned. Faced the saloon.

Faced him.

The lantern’s light narrowed and drove spears of gold through their bodies. They shrank back, hissing without mouths.

The stranger felt the weight of the lantern in his hand change. Heavier. More certain.

“Fine,” he said quietly. “You want a host. You got one.”

The lantern’s flame flared, answering.

Down in the street, the dust began to rise, swirling in slow, eager circles, as if the whole town had taken a breath.

And for the first time since he walked out of the storm, the stranger understood: the lantern had not just come with him. It had chosen him.