Abe Moss [Moss - By the Light of His Lantern

BY THE LIGHT OF HIS LANTERN

ABE MOSS

Copyright 2019 by Abe Moss. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Abe Moss
Visit my website at www.abemoss.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: 2019
ISBN - 9781797874913

ABE MOSS NOVELS

THE WRITHING

BATHWATER BLUES

BY THE LIGHT OF HIS LANTERN

CONTENTS

PART I

The Curse

Chapter One

Nice to Meet You

H e pushed himself up off the sand.

at least it felt like sand.

The sea waves roared and crashed around him.

at least it sounded like waves, and smelled like the sea.

He held himself up on his hands and knees, breathed the cool air, squeezed the sand under him. He was naked

He blinked his eyes, repeatedly, and saw nothing.

He turned his head both ways, eyes peeled wide as a deer in headlights, and nothing but black touched them. Nothing but black.

He got to his feet. He moved his arms, pressed his hands before him, to the side, behind him. He turned toward the sound of the ocean. A breeze wafted from it, over his damp skin. He stepped toward the waves, toes careful through the smooth sand, hands outstretched, fingers feeling for anything to meet them. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Cold ocean mist sprinkled his eyes and nose. Four steps. Five steps. A wave broke on the shore and swallowed him ankle deep, retreated down the sand again. His mouth gaped, trembled.

He crouched and put his hands into the muddy shore, splashed them in the water there, held the water to his face, wriggled his fingers before his eyes.

Nothing but black.

Hello? he called out, jumping to his feet again. Hello?

He started up the shore away from the ocean. He put his wet fingers to his eyes, felt them, touched the slippery surface of his own eyeball and winced. He lifted his head skyward.

Oh my god. Oh my god.

He stumbled up the shore. He stepped on a splintery wooden plank, curved like a boomerang, and staggered away from it, from any others there might be, the bent rusted nails he imagined sticking out of them. There were dead weeds in the sandhe caught them between his toes, bent to rip them off. He lifted his foot to clear them away and lost his balance. He fell, caught himself with both hands. He sat down and pulled the soggy weeds from his foot and hurled them away into the black.

Shit.

He continued up the sandy slope until it levelled out a bit, followed it farther still.

Nothing but black.

Nothing but black.

Hello?

The sand slowly gave way to patches of grass and prickly weeds. He stumbled through them, tiptoed over them, stepped directly on them, cursed. Never did he stop his exaggerated blinking. It was a dream. A kind of dream hed never had before. A visionless dream. Only black. Everything else was heightened. The smell of the beach, the grit of the sand between his toes, the salty taste of the air. Hed never dreamed anything like it, but thats what it wasa dream. Though, it felt nothing at all like a dream

Hey!!! he screamed, and felt himself begin to shake. Someone!!!

He turned in a complete circle. He couldnt help the blinking. One of these times, he thought, hed shut his eyes, squeeze them shut so tight his head would ache, and then open them to a cool, beautiful evening on the beach.

Except why was he on the beach? How did he ever

HELLO!!!

He continued deeper through the grass, growing taller around his ankles until he felt it tickling beneath his knees. He swished his arms ahead of him, crossed and spread, crossed and spread, determined not to run headfirst into anything standing in the dark. It was a good thing, too, because it wasnt much later that he found something blocking his path.

He whacked his flailing hand against it.

Shit!

He held his throbbing hand to his chest. He reached out with the other, ran his palm over the rough, slender shape. Tree bark. He put both hands to it, then. He leaned against it and shut his eyes.

This isnt a dream. Somethings happened. Im blind.

Was it day or night? He couldnt tell.

He sat beside the tree for a long while.

Where am I? How did I get here?

The waves lapped against the shore, farther away now than before, of course. The fact he could hear waves at all was troubling. The beach was miles and miles from home, almost a two-hour drive.

His ears perked up at a strange sound. Low and drawn out. It came from somewhere behind him, beyond the trees. He paused to hear it and then it stopped. Maybe nothing

Think. Think. Where was I last? Was I sleeping? Could I still be dreaming? No. No, I dont think so.

It was dreamlike, however real it may have bee n the suddenness of it, the confusion of it, the dreadfulness of it, something unexplainably bizarre, overwhelming, suffocating. But his senses were too sharp. His mind was alert, awarenot muddy or slippery. It was just

Impossible.

Nothing he thought of reminded him of anything which could have led him here.

I think it was night, last I remember. Was I at home? I think I may have been or maybe Id been going somewhere

That low sound came again, a grumbling, louder than before but distant. A tree leaning toward collapse, perhaps. He looked over his shoulder toward it, as though he could spot the source, narrowed his eyes to pick something out of the nothing, anything. Then it stopped again. It was quiet. Just the waves.

He considered calling out again. That feeling of mounting dread grew stronger, so that his shoulders started to hunch toward his ears. He hugged the tree a bit tighter.

Theres someone out there. In the trees. Suddenly I dont want them to know Im here.

Using the tree to brace himself he climbed to his feet. He stepped away, got as far as he could until he could no longer touch it with the tips of his fingers behind him. Then he continued on. He swished his arms before him, should there be other trees. He found a few others. He touched them, clung to them, and then left them for the next, using them to follow the edge of the beach. Eventually he would find something, he thought. He would find a road, or a house, or maybe even a person to help him.

Theres no one to help me.

An odd thought. He wasnt sure where he got it. Surely someone would come along. Barring that he wasnt completely wrong about the time, that it wasnt the middle of the night, surely someone would happen upon him wandering along the trees like a drunkar d .

But something else told him differently. He was alone.

Not truly

The time of day was irrelevant, because no matter day or night, no one would find him. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He hadnt yet made sense of it, but he could feel it. It wasnt a dream, it wasnt an accident, it wasnt

Blindness.

It was all wrong.

He paused his tree-hopping and leaned against the latest. He touched his face again, ran his hands over his cheeks. He clapped his hands before his eyes. They made the sound, but the black around them was impenetrable.

He whimpered when the sound returned. Despite the distance hed made, it was even closer than before. A low rumble. He faced the thick of the trees. It continued. He listened. Closer, clearer. It wasnt a groaning tree, or anything mechanical. It was a voice. And it was moving toward him.