Ethereal Lights

As a group of onlookers gathered around a roaring bonfire that resembled a scene from Dante's Inferno, I twirled my crimped hair around my finger, annoyed by their mindless chatter. My insides shook like an earthquake, not only because of the chilly winter air, but the foreboding feeling that washed over me. I started wondering why I came, except my friend, Stephen, said I’d regret missing the show. Letting out a huff, I bent down to adjust my pink leg-warmers, then grabbed a wine cooler.

The surrounding dense, fog-laden woods seemed swallowed up by darkness, save the full moon above. Its beams refracted off the rail cars as we stood by, ready to see the phenomenon deemed, The Ethereal Lights. Some people described it as swamp gas or some other strange, natural phenomenon, but us kids knew it as the lost soul of a dead train engineer. Local legend told the story of a railway worker who died in 1908, with his engineer's lantern discovered next to his battered body. How he died was a mystery, but according to the story, his spirit haunted the woods near the railway to this day. The lights emanated from his engineer’s lantern as his spirit roamed the tracks, trapped between the world of the living and the dead. 

 “It’s actually a twenty-two degree halo, which is the large circle surrounding the sun; a pair of sundogs—the bright points on each side of the halo; and a complete parhelic circle—the line that bisects the circle—which is the rarest of this type of phenomenon,” my friend Stephen said, pushing his black-framed glasses up his nose.

  “Geek patrol!” yelled Dirk Hasslebarker, tugging at his letterman’s jacket that read, class of ‘84, across the left shoulder.

His football buddies lined up behind him like bodyguards, their muscled arms dangling at their sides. They started marching toward Stephen and me like the fourth down of a championship game.

  “Stand back!” I yelled, holding out my hand armed with pepper spray.

  “Jesus, Harley, we were just kiddin’ around.”

  “As if, Dirk. I know what you’re doin’ and it ain’t gonna work. I’ll fucking mace your ass!”

  “You and what army?” he said with a smirk and glancing over his shoulder at his teammates. 

  “I don’t need an army. Just decent aim and at least twelve feet. At this distance, your eyes will sear shut in seconds.”

  “Don't worry, Harley,” said Stephen, tapping my shoulder. “It’s all under control.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned Dirk and his band of marauders.

My scowl melted below my cheeks as I jerked my eyes in Stephen’s direction, still keeping my hands out in case Dirk the Jerk tried anything. The asshole squad scurried away as someone yelled, “Beer, chug!”

Works every time, I thought.

Lowering my arms, I noticed Stephen point toward the tracks—that foreboding feeling came back with a vengeance. “Wait and watch,” he said. 

Squinting my eyes, staring over the tops of the trees, I saw something twinkle. At first, it looked like the head of a pin, barely visible to the naked eye. That’s when I experienced a sensation of weightlessness, as if I were floating on air, even though I was still standing on solid ground. I stomped my boots, to be sure. The crunchy ground beneath me confirmed it. 

The light enlarged, slowly at first, as we watched with wide eyes. No one breathed a word. It increased in diameter to the size of a basketball. Its light beams radiated beyond the woods, illuminating the branches of knobby trees and brown bushes in its path. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the blinding light that engulfed us in all directions. I thought of fleeing to my car and tearing down the dirt path that led me here, but an overwhelming sense of awe and wonder compelled me to stay. The crowd broke out into cheers and chants, whooping and hollering as the light show engulfed us like a firestorm. 

Dirk let out a war cry, lifting his beer in the air as his comrades joined in the reverie. Then, without warning, the sky erupted in chaos. Lights pulsed and shimmered erratically, their celestial harmony fracturing into disarray. A chorus of gasps and murmurs rippled through the crowd as we watched in disbelief. Stephen tugged me by the arm, leading me to a clearing as we safely watched from afar. Unbeknownst to the viewers, a cosmic wanderer had strayed into our solar system. Its presence disrupted the delicate equilibrium of the heavens, sending shockwaves through the fabric of reality. As the alien force surged closer, the lights began to spiral and collide, creating a celestial maelstrom. The group, no longer mesmerized by the spectacle, turned and fled in terror. The ground beneath their feet quaked and groaned, as if the very foundations of the Earth were being shaken to their core. A once-celestial symphony had transformed into a cosmic nightmare. Then it happened. 

I turned to see Stephen’s face morph from science nerd to mad scientist as he watched a light beam hit Dirk square in his rear end. He yelped, falling to his knees. With a look of terror, Dirk turned over his hand, letting out a pained cry as his skin bubbled up like burnt bologna. The light beam then hit him square in the chest, shooting through him like a sword had impaled him. His football buddies fled with the crowd, running in all directions, screaming as if an ax murderer chased after them. Stephen cackled while the light consumed Dirk, disintegrating his body into dust particles that disappeared into an updraft of air. Light beams started zapping people like robotic lasers, all of them disintegrating, just as Dirk had. 

I watched in horror, grabbing Stephen’s arm and nearly dragging him to the car. “Get in!” I commanded.

He leisurely entered the car and slammed the door shut, seemingly in a trance and unfazed by the spectacle.

  “Stephen?” I said, waving my hand in front of his face.

Turning his head languidly in my direction, a menacing grin crossed his face.

  “Told you it would be a night to remember.”