Three nights ago Duncan Hopley noticed the lights flickering for the first time. Five years ago he had moved into the cabin deep within the forest outside Ashland, Washington. He told his family, friends and agent that the move would help him focus on his writing. In truth he had come to the secluded cabin just to get away from the sweeping rush of modern day life. He didn’t even have an internet connection out here. Despite the deception everyone knew his true motives, which he observed reluctantly. All the better, he told himself, at least they will leave me alone. And so they did, everyone except for his agent.

His first two novels had been a success, providing him a meager but livable cash flow that allowed him to live in the stuffy one room cabin. He resigned himself to desperation and cold cans of food, allowing the first of the novels to be turned into a feature film. This netted him enough to console his ex-wife’s financial grievances with a little left over to start a small garden, which has been rotting and overgrown for the last three years. But now the stress was on again, he had a deadline with his agent, two more weeks to submit the finished manuscript for his third novel. It was nowhere near done. His head was empty, as empty as the dark cabin, as empty as his life. That was, until three nights ago.

Duncan sat at his desktop PC, punching in sentences that he quickly erased with a hard pressed of the backspace key. His eyes wandered uneasily over the LED monitor and his right eye began to twitch spasmodically. He pressed the power button on the display and crammed his palms into his eyes, rubbing at them furiously. Glancing at the alarm clock radio set on an ancient heavy oak dresser he sighed.

Then the power went out and the single overhead florescent bulb grew dim. He shook his head hard enough to send bright flares of light popping like fireworks before his eyes. The power failed regularly in this part of the state, it would be off for a day or two before the power crews would find the time to come out and fix the break in the line. He weighed the need to keep his refrigerator running, with the ridiculously easy task of going out the back of the cabin three hundred yards and turning on the generator, against the desire to shuffle the five steps to the couch and go to sleep. He sighed again and stood.

Touching first the grainy texture of the oak dresser and then the cedar paneled walls he walked blindly through the cabin, inching slowly trying to avoid the knee knocker of a foot stool that stood against the wall of the main room. Muttering a mild stream of profanity under his breath he ignored the pang of anger that welled deep inside him, the pang that bristled its venomous spikes dozens of times a day. He almost loathed motivation, He could barely bring himself to do the essential.  Even this menial task nearly pushed him over the cliff of anxiety and into a frothing rage.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” He growled, “What the hell is wrong with me?”

His shin slammed into the foot stool and it went tumbling sideways onto the floor. The anger in his vision crept from red to black and suddenly there it was, a flickering light over his right shoulder. He stopped and pulled in a shallow stuttering breath as the light danced through his peripheral vision. He felt that if he let out the breath that was building up under his rib cage the light would go out. What is that light? He would lose an answer, he had enough problems that seem to have solutions.

Slowly he turned his head, his neck muscles cramping slightly under the strain. The light flickered as if buffeted from a sudden gust of wind. As his vision began to center on the bouncing light it went out. Duncan exhaled his breath in a ragged whoosh and he turned his whole body to where the light had appeared. Strange, he thought to himself in the stifling dark and feeling a chill bolt up his spine. He didn’t have the bright burns on his irises that would almost certainly have traced themselves over this deep darkness. He heard a small drip of water from the drain pan under the refrigerator and shook his head lightly from one side to the other, snickering softly to himself. Maybe it had only been the reflection of headlights from someone droving down this desolate and deeply rutted tract of forest.

“Yeah, that’s what it was.” He told himself, feeling better hearing the sound of his own voice and finding that he actually wanted to go out into the forest to rouse the generator. So that is what he did.

When he came back into the cabin he felt slightly refreshed. He flopped onto the couch, the mysterious light all but forgotten.

The next day Duncan drove his old Chevy pickup down the fifteen miles of rutted and washed out trail to Ashland Lake Grocery. The small general store sat hunched over to one side of the road on the outskirts of Ashland, bisecting the sprawling forest and the glittering lake that accounted for most of the town’s tourist revenue. He hardly glanced at the clerk as he dumped his armload of junk food and beer onto the counter and ordering a carton of cigarettes. He paid with his bank card, got back in his truck and returned to the cabin.

He hadn’t bothered booting the computer back up the whole next day and it had been off since the power had gone out the previous night. After finishing off the greater part of a case of beer he sat down at the stack of crates and plywood that made up his computer desk. As he reached to the monitor’s power on he noticed a flicker glancing off the clear plastic display. He turned his head sharply. The light didn’t disappear as it had the night before. Instead its steady yellow glow fell in faint flickers across the top of the short bookshelf that sat under the one window of the main room. His breath stuttered as he saw that the light wasn’t radiating from a flame outside, it was deep dark beyond the lattice of the window.

“The hell…”

Slowly Duncan stood, pushing back his chair and rising slowly to his feet. The light held fast and he inched forward, as silently as he could, as if any noise would startle the ethereal flame and send it wisping away. There were several unlit candles on the bookshelf, none as tall as where the flame hovered. He stopped a stride from the shelf and watched the flame and saw that it was somehow transparent, not just translucent as a flame tended to be, but almost completely clear. It was unlike any flame he had ever seen before.

Then he was startled by a nearly thunderous ‘CLAP’ that set his heart racing.

“Fuck!” Duncan shouted, turning around to where the sound had come from. It seemed to have come from directly behind his head.

Another clap broke through the silence and he stumbled backward, crashing into the bookshelf. He watched as the magic light appeared to fall over and go out, as if it were actually discharging from a candle. Again a clap jolted through the air like a whip crack and Duncan bellowed deep from the pit of his stomach in terror. He reached back grasping for anything he could defend himself with against… against what? An unseen clapping noise? He shuddered, his jaw clenched so tightly that he could feel one of his fillings crack under the strain. Finally his hand found something smooth and round, the leg of his footstool where it rested on its side from the night before. He pulled back and sent the stool flying through the air. It crashed into the wall and shattered the only framed picture that hung there.

Duncan’s breath came whooshing in and out of his lung and the blood thrummed loudly in his ears. But just as it had started the clapping had disappeared and he could see no more ghost lights. His stomach cramped and he vomited a spray of stale beer onto the hardwood floor. He reached for the plush safety of the couch, fell forward and fainted.

He awoke the next morning to the sounds of birds chirping and the distant hitching of the generator as it drank down the last drops and fuel and then died. Duncan rolled slowly to his back and sat up. An aching splinter of pain seemed to strike directly between his ears then it moved behind his eyes and buried itself deep behind his forehead. He held his head in his hands for a moment and squinted, relishing the hangover. Slowly details from the night before came back to him and then in a galloping nightmare clarity it hit him all at once. Apparently he hadn’t expelled all of the beer last night because his mouth filled with tangy saliva and he doubled over, soaking his socks and the bristly hair on his legs.

“No.” Duncan said to himself. “You had one too many last night, that is all it was. You got hammered. You’ve been out here all by yourself alone for far too long. You even talk to yourself. See? You imagined it. Or maybe it was even a dream.”

The idea that the confusing events from the previous night had only been a figment of his imagination felt like a safety blanket. After all, didn’t the say that drunks had a tendency to become confused or hallucinate? In fact, he felt relieved. He had begun to forget it already, like one would rapidly lose details of an especially vivid nightmare. Perhaps it really had been a bad dream.

Duncan finally gained his feet, grimacing at the slick of beer scented vomit on the floor and pushed through the back door. He pissed over the porch railing and gazed across the unkempt lawn at the woodshed. He decided that the generator would need to be refilled and brought back online, the power was still out. He suffered the glaring morning sun long enough to get his power back on and he slinked quickly back inside.

He didn’t have the vaguest idea what time it had been that he had passed out the night before. But he felt completely exhausted and resigned himself to taking a short nap. He regretted the nap not long after he noticed the last dull glow of the day as it retreating through the window.

The slick of vomit was nearly gone. He hadn’t eaten anything yesterday, what he had expelled had only been liquid and all that remained was the shadow of a stain on the floor. He ignored the mess, going to the refrigerator and pulling out a beer. He cracked it and drank deeply. The can emptied rapidly and he let it clatter into the sink. He pulled another free from the cardboard case on the cold shelf, he pried the tab up with his fingernail and pushed the door closed with one foot.

He skirted the spill of broken glass in the main room and pushed through the front door, sitting on the westward facing front porch. He sat for a while and watched the sun fall, his mind empty. He drank two more cans and gazed across the treetops, watching the slow advance of twilight as it stole the last of the day.  He crossed across the main room and sat on the stale couch. He dug around in the couch cushions until he found the television remote and began to switch on the ever esoteric VCR. Before he could mash down on the power button he caught the flickering of a light and froze. He watched as the light sparked in front of the window, caught and fluttered to life.

Oh god, oh god, please no. He screamed inside his head. He stood bolt upright trying his best to nullify his fear. He had had enough of this haunting. He decided that he would leave. He would jump in the Chevy, drive into Ashland and crash at the Flat Rose Motel next to Beakman’s Diner. Where were the keys? With a mixture of dismay and fear he realized they were across the room, in the kitchen, somewhere.

This time the loud ‘CLAP’ didn’t just startle him, it made his spine like it was made of ice water. Duncan jumped so high that he hit the ceiling with the top of his head. Cursing and shaking in terror he bolted across the room, crunching through the broken glass and ripping ragged holes through the sensitive flesh on the bottoms of his feet. He cried out in pain, dropping rivulets of blood onto the hardwood floor. The blood spread slowly and seeped into the thirsty unfinished hardwood floor. He cried out in pain and horror as the room filled again with another clap. Suddenly more flickering lights began shimmering to life around the small main room. He threw himself into the kitchen, throwing open drawers, cupboards and finally the fridge.

No keys, and why should he be surprised, he thought wearily. The clapping increased in repetition and it seemed to be following him across the cabin. More ghost lights flickered alight above the surfaces of the counters. He let out a high screech and burst through the back door and down the steps, falling sideways as his ripped feet carried him into the forgotten garden beside the cabin. The clapping and the lights seemed to have been trapped inside the cabin. Filling with relief he lay in the damp weed filled garden and gasped, clutching weakly at his feet. For an unaccountable amount of minutes he sat in the garden, more than frightened, scared almost shitless, he had to hold his stomach. His head felt light and he realized he was hyperventilating. He forced his mouth shut and attempted to breathe deeply through his nose. The turmoil in his lungs began to subside and the spinning sensation began to dissipate.

“That smell,” He whispered. Is that sage? Yes, he had planted sage in the garden, along with many other herbs. He had originally planned to take up hunting, maybe even making his own sausages. Sage was good, he thought with exhilaration. He could burn the sage in the cabin. Sage sends away evil spirits, or that’s what he had heard. Anything he could do to get himself out of this shit situation would be worth a try.

Duncan felt around in the dark, following his nose to the smell. He felt through the herbs lilting them up slightly. They were far overgrown and damp. He cursed himself. If the sage was fresh it wouldn’t burn. He smashed it into the soft bed of garden, hearing a crackling and snapping, a small puff of fragrant dust drifting to his nose. YES! He thought, of course, this garden is wild now, there’s got to be some dried sage in here, dead and left in neglect. For the first time he didn’t feel so guilty about letting the garden go to waste.

Shuffling below the thriving sage and pushing aside a sticky clump of rosemary Duncan found the dead sage in a thick coat covering the soil. He pulled hard, uprooting two large handfuls of the magical and musty plant. Rolling out of the garden and onto the grass he could hear the clapping at the threshold of the cabin door. It seemed much less forceful out here, as if it were permeating up through a deep well. Three wispy flames guttered shallowly inside. He decided to go around to the front.

He fumbled through the pockets of his dirty blue jeans searching for the Zippo that was always there. There was no moment of dramatic horror, the lighter was there and it lit on the first strike. With shaky hands he lit the dry sage and it crackled, smoked and blazed brilliantly. He blew a deep burst of breath directly onto the burning sticks and the flame went out. The sage continued to smolder, releasing its incense into the air in front of his face. He coughed and blinked as the smoke burned his eyes. Steeling himself to retreat he slammed the front door open and stepped hesitantly into the cabin.

The clapping had ceased but the flickering ghost flames were still there, dancing in a breeze that he could not feel. Thinking hard, fighting to recall words that would aid the sage in its dispelling effect he remembered that one could chant ‘Om’ or maybe was it ‘Amen’. Amen hadn’t seemed to make much sense in his particular situation, he wasn’t ending a prayer. He would save the Christian reinforcement for later, if this attempt at exorcism failed. He held the sage before him like an ancient shaman or medicine man, eyes wide and ears straining to hear the evil spirits that had entered  his home.

“Ommmmmm,” Duncan moaned, drawing the sage slowly across the empty space before him. The ghost flames began to sputter. He waved his free hand above the smoldering sage sending billows of thick smoke drifting across the cabin. To his amazement they began to burn out one at a time as the smoke flowed through them.

Duncan continued to moan, inching his way through the cabin, moving towards his computer desk. He caught the glint of stainless steel on the desk and realized it was his clutch of keys. He recalled suddenly tossing them from his fingers under arms loaded full of food, beer and cigarettes. He could imagine the sound of the keys skittering across the plywood and the clunk as they slid into the plastic keyboard. He moved forward, continuing to moan as he dispelled the lights with the sage.

Only three flickering lights remained. They hung midair in the kitchen and he stopped for a second, the lights drifted to the floor and he reached out his free hand towards the keys, keepiong the sage between himself and the kitchen. The flames hovered a few inches above the floor. Suddenly a loud ‘CLAP’ crashed through the air. Duncan howled, knocking over the chair. He clutched the keys in his hand and moaned ‘Ommm’ again and again as loud as he could from deep in his chest. The clap game again, a little less loud this time.

“Fuck this,” Sweat from Duncan’s brow trickled into his eyes and stung fiercely. The wavering lights blurred as tears began to well in the corners of his eyes. Backing up he tossed the smoldering sage to the right of the room. He whipped around and slapped his bloody feet all the way out of the cabin and down the porch stairs. He threw himself into the truck. The engine roared to life and he sped away.

The sage lay smoldering on the stale couch, burning into the threadbare upholstery. The embers quickly died out, a dark shadow of wetness spreading across the fabric then disappearing.

Duncan Hopley never went back to his cabin. After staying for a few days in Ashland he put the cabin up for sale at the local realtors. He tended to his wounded feet and attempted to tell his story to the local paper. No one seemed to believe him, and his story fell into the local gossip routine. The only time anyone mentioned Duncan Hopely’s experience was when ill-tempered locals recounted the details to unwanted tourists. That was true until fifteen years later when a small family came to vacation at the cabin for the summer.