Leave the Light On

Her grandfather had passed two weeks ago, and now the house was hers. She’d driven up that morning with a single duffel bag and more grief than she could organize. The house still smelled like his pipe tobacco and mothballs. Dust settled in quiet corners like old memories.

The storm didn’t bother her—what unnerved her was the light.

The porch light.

It had turned itself on the moment she stepped inside, long before she found the switch near the coat rack. She’d left it, assuming maybe it was wired into some automatic timer her grandfather had rigged up. That was the kind of thing he’d do: old-world stubbornness fused with Depression-era ingenuity.

But now, standing in the dark kitchen, she noticed it had blinked off, then on again. Slowly. Once. Twice.

Like a signal.

Leah opened the door and stepped onto the porch. The air smelled of wet pine and ozone. Rain hissed against the trees beyond the gravel road.

The light buzzed softly. Moths danced in its glow. There was no wind, yet the swing creaked on its chain as though someone had just risen from it.

She sat in it, almost daring the night to explain itself.

10:46 p.m.

The power went out.

Everything hushed: the refrigerator's hum, the tick of the living room clock, the ceiling fan's hypnotic rotation. In their absence, the house exhaled decades of silence. The only light came from the porch, glowing steadily like it was powered by something other than electricity.

Leah lit a candle and carried it room to room, unsure why. Maybe to prove she was alone. She passed family photos—her grandfather as a young man in uniform, her grandmother forever smiling from beneath a 1950s hairdo.

And then she saw it.

The hallway light—out when she arrived—was now on.

11:15 p.m.

She stood at the end of the hallway, staring.

The light bulb wasn’t flickering. It glowed with the same eerie steadiness as the porch light.

She stepped closer.

Under the bulb was a narrow table and an old rotary phone, dusty and dead. She reached for the bulb's pull chain and gave it a tug.

Nothing.

It didn’t even click.

The hairs on her arms lifted. She backed away.

12:03 a.m.

The rain intensified.

She sat at the kitchen table, her candle almost gone, the house holding its breath. She opened a drawer—half out of boredom, half out of instinct—and found a stack of old index cards. Her grandfather’s handwriting, looping and precise, marked the top one:

“If the light comes on after midnight, do not go outside.”

Her chest tightened.

The candle died.

The porch light flickered once. Then again. Then glowed brighter.

12:07 a.m.

She stood behind the door, hand on the knob, unsure whether to turn it. A sound came from the other side—not thunder, not wind.

Footsteps.

Slow. Heavy. Deliberate. Like boots on wet wood.

She didn’t open the door. She stepped back, heart pounding.

The swing creaked again.

This time, she knew it wasn’t the wind.

12:30 a.m.

In the attic, she found the old lantern and lit it with trembling fingers. Boxes loomed around her like forgotten sentinels. In one corner, a chest she'd never seen before sat open.

Inside: dozens of unlit bulbs. All identical to the one glowing on the porch.

And beside them, a journal.

She flipped through it—entries written in haste, margins scribbled with warnings. Her grandfather's final note chilled her:

“The light keeps them out. Never turn it off. Not even when they knock. Not even when they call your name.”

2:17 a.m.

She hadn’t moved in over an hour.

The light still burned.

Outside, something brushed against the wall. Something too heavy to be a branch. It moved, slowly, toward the porch.

Then it stopped.

Silence.

And then: a voice.

Her mother’s voice. Calling her name. Soft. Familiar. Wrong.

“Leah. Sweetheart. Open the door. It’s okay now.”

Leah bit her lip to keep from answering. Her mother had been gone for five years.

4:44 a.m.

The light began to dim.

She scrambled down the stairs, grabbed the remaining bulbs, and replaced the flickering one with shaking hands.

It flared. Then held steady.

From outside came a sigh. A long, bitter exhale.

And then… nothing.

5:58 a.m.

The sun crested over the hills.

Birdsong returned like a held breath released.

The light clicked off.

Leah stepped onto the porch. The swing sat still. The voice did not return. The world was quiet again.

She returned inside and wrote three words on the back of the index card:

Leave the light on.

Just in case.

For the next night.

For whoever comes after.