I sat in my grandmother's house and waited. It's an old forgotten building, far away from the lights and noise of town. A musty odor lingered in the air. The wood floors creaked with the approaching cold of night, and the 70s era television stared back at me like a giant dim eye made of glass.
She almost made it to 100. I liked her; she was pleasant but odd. I'm sure you've met people like her before. Her body kept traveling through the years, but her mind seemed to dwell in another time. I think it was when grandpa died that she gave up on the future. After that she was only able to cope with the present by reminiscing about the "good 'ole days".
I looked at the window. It was getting darker and the lone sodium-arc light at the end of the road was casting murky shadows across the curtains. I had come to prove something to myself, hadn't I? To prove that my grandmother created stories to stave off the loneliness that plagues anyone who outlives they people they grew up with. Maybe she didn't have anyone to relate to, and that was why she told the stories. I know I could have been a better grandson. I should have visited, called, took some time out of my selfish pursuits to humor a dear old woman who liked to make claims about supernatural events.
Who am I kidding? I'm lying to myself because the night is approaching and I'm sitting alone in the house of my deceased grandmother. And this didn't start in the twilight of her life. I remember she first confided in me when I was too young to really know the difference between truth and bullshit. She had called them "Tokens". When I was a boy I associated tokens with arcade games like Pac-Man and Frogger. I usually put her stories in the same category as Bigfoot: Fun to think about but too absurd to be believed.
"They only come out at night", she would say then add with a grim smile, "And it's best you didn't disturb them."
Who were they? To a nine year old kid they were R-rated movie monsters. I had visions of vampires and axe wielding intruders every time I went to grandma's house and the visit extended beyond dusk.
The wind picked up and made the bushes clatter against the side of the house. There's no one out here to hear my screams, I thought. Not another house for nearly a mile. I was sitting in the living room of a house built in 1929 with the lights off waiting to see if my deceased grandmother's stories about floating apparitions was more than just the fantasy of a lonely old woman.
But I knew there was something more to it. I remember the night I stayed in the guest room when my mom and dad had gone to the city. I remember my grandmother tucking me in and telling me that when she was young she could buy a ticket to a James Cagney film with a quarter and still have enough money left over for popcorn and a Pepsi. I didn't really believe her and I didn't know who James Cagney was, but I liked her stories from a time I'd never known.
Then she told me to be quiet and go to sleep and never mind if I saw a light under the door. She was going to stay up late and watch the tokens appear. I didn't want to believe that, but strangely enough, I found that I didn't have the courage to disbelieve either. So I pulled the blankets up to my neck as my grandmother switched off the lights and closed the door.
From the darkness of the guest room I heard her footfalls. She walked through the kitchen and into the living room, her feet clacking on the wood floor as she went. Then I heard her sit in the rocking chair. After that I heard nothing for several minutes. She was waiting for her nighttime guests.
My eyes were closed, but my mind raced. It seems when you most want to fade out of reality and into the bliss of slumber your mind goes into a hyper alert mode, scrutinizing every creaking board and every tap on the window.
I don't know why it scared me to lie in the dark with my grandmother in another room waiting for something supernatural to make its presence known. Maybe it was because I was nine years old and hadn't completely lost my fear of the dark. No, I know why I was scared and even now it's hard to think about. It was how my grandfather died. They'd found him with severe burns across his chest and hands. I remember my father repeating the coroner's statement days after the funeral. "It was as if he had tried to fend off a ball of fire."
Fireballs? Don't let your impressionable kid overhear that fireballs killed grandpa. Sure, I was old enough to understand the concept of figurative speech, but damn, your average third grader's imagination far outweighs his ability to logically asses his grandpa's fatal accident.
In the end they had called it an isolated gas fire. None of that made sense to me or my parents, but without a more reasonable explanation life went on without grandpa and the gas appliances were replaced with electric ones.
That night at grandma's house I lay silently wishing I could fall asleep sooner rather than later. Time slipped by and at some point I thought I could hear the clock strike midnight in kitchen. Later I felt like some kind of imperceptible energy was building up around me. I don't know how long it was before I saw the first ray of eerie orange-gold light seep in from under the door, but when I saw it I closed my eyes and pulled the blanket over my head, my checks moist from tears.
That was nearly 35 years ago. I pulled my cellphone from my jacket and checked for a signal. I had forgotten there was no coverage in this part of the county. For a moment I considered heading outside, locking the door and driving away. But I wanted to know for sure. And anyway, I wasn't some little kid quivering in my bed anymore. I was a grown man and I intended to know the truth behind grandma's apparitions.
It was late now and the darkness had enveloped me. It had been a long day at the office and I considered coming back tomorrow. No, it was now or never. I wiped the fatigue from my eyes and refocused on my environment. Outside only a faint glow from the street light could be seen against the curtains. "It's best you didn't disturb them," she had said. If they're dangerous why did she stay up to see these so-called Tokens?
The water was still connected and I thought a glass of water would help. I placed my hands on the arm rests of the rocking chair and began to stand up, but then I felt a strange sensation. It was like the electric charge from switching on an old radio or flipping a circuit breaker. I froze for a second trying to figure out what had happened. I slowly sat back down and listened for movement.
At first I thought a car had rolled into the driveway. But it wasn't headlights I had seen. From somewhere farther in the house came a single amber colored flair. It reminded me of one those laser pointers they use at presentations back at the office during meetings. The flair grew stronger and the kitchen began to fill with light.
I looked away, staring at the pattern of flowers on the faded wallpaper across the room. I held my breath thinking back to the description of my grandfather's face when they found him. Tortured they had said. Tortured and scared.
The token floated from the kitchen and into the living room. From the corner of my eye I saw a glowing sphere hovering in the center of the room, shining with the kind of light that reminded me of a meteor burning through the atmosphere.
I sat motionless for several seconds waiting for it to move on, and hoping it didn't sense me. Instead more of them appeared to hang in the air like a bunch of Chinese paper lanterns, and all I could think was that they were daring me to run for my life.
The wind blew and I heard the branches of trees swaying outside. The first token floated closer to me and I could feel a pulsating warmth coming from its surface. I closed my eyes and hoped I would see the light of dawn.
Posted by u/mrgayzone