Beneath the Blue Lantern

It started on a Tuesday — the kind of evening that drips with ordinary things. The bell above my café door had just jingled its last goodbye, and I was wiping down the espresso machine when I noticed him again.

He walked past at exactly 2:13 a.m.

Every night.

Same dark coat. Same leather gloves. Same wide-brimmed hat tilted just low enough to hide his face.

He never looked in.

At first, I thought it was a coincidence. I ran Blue Lantern Café, a 24-hour spot in a quiet corner of the city. Late-night writers, loners, and taxi drivers were my usual customers. But the man never came in. Just passed by, like a shadow pinned to a schedule.

After a week, I started watching for him. It became part of my ritual: clean, count the register, glance at the window. And every time, there he was — 2:13 a.m., right on cue, fading into the fog-covered streetlights.

I told my friend Jonah about it. He worked the morning shift.

“Maybe he’s a nightwalker,” he said. “Or a ghost.”

I laughed. “He’s too solid. His boots echo.”

Jonah smirked. “Maybe you’ve got a midnight admirer.”

But it didn’t feel like that.

There was something heavy about his presence. Something that made the hairs on my arms lift every time I heard those footsteps.

One night, curiosity got the better of me.

At 2:10 a.m., I slipped outside, coat wrapped tight, the city cold and silent. I leaned against the lamppost just outside the café, the blue lantern overhead humming softly.

At 2:13, he appeared — like always — stepping out of the fog like a scene from an old noir film. But this time… he stopped.

His head turned, slowly. And for the first time, I saw his face.

He wasn’t young. Grey around the temples, tired eyes that looked like they’d seen centuries. His gaze held mine for a long, strange moment.

Then he spoke.

“You shouldn't be here tonight.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded paper — yellowed and creased. He handed it to me.

And walked away.

I stood there, frozen under the blue glow. When I finally unfolded the paper, I felt my heart drop.

It was a newspaper clipping. Dated November 12, 1985. The headline read:

> “Blue Lantern Café Fire Kills Two. Faulty Wiring Blamed.”

I stared at the article. It showed a photo of the same café I now owned — except it looked...older. Different. The windows were narrower. The sign was in cursive.

And at the bottom of the article, two names: Miriam Doyle and Elias Crane.

The second name sounded familiar.

I ran inside, went through old café records Jonah had once collected. Deep in a dusty folder, I found a business license issued in 1982.

Owner: Elias Crane.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I reread the article a hundred times. Tried to find meaning in it.

The next day, I showed Jonah. He paled. “You’re telling me the man in the hat is Elias Crane? But that would make him…”

“Dead,” I whispered.

But dead men don’t hand you newspapers.

I searched archives, records, even visited the city library. I learned that Elias had owned the café with his wife Miriam. They both died in a fire. No surviving family. Case closed.

But here’s the thing.

On November 12, 2023, exactly 38 years after the fire, the café lost power. Everything — lights, clocks, coffee machines — stopped at 2:13 a.m.

When the power came back, the only thing missing was the newspaper clipping.

And Elias Crane was never seen again.

Now, every year on that night, I light a candle in the window beneath the blue lantern.

And at 2:13 a.m., I listen for footsteps that never come.

But sometimes… just sometimes… the bell above the door rings all on its own.