15: Scotophobia

Prompt #15 is quite specific, giving the occupation of the title character (a teacher), the setting (a lab), the key object (a fuse box), and the theme (irony).

Louis told himself to breathe.

He was still in the lab. The astronomy lab he went to almost every night. It's just dark is all. Really really dark.

He took a deep breath in, then out. In. Out. There. That's better.

Weren't the exit signs supposed to stay on when the power went out? What happened to the exit sign?

Breathe in, Louis told himself. Breathe.

Better again.

Then, he heard the door open. He nearly jumped to the ceiling.

"Mr. Pitt?" It was Claudia. Louis was expecting her. It was time for astronomy class.

Louis fought to keep the fear out of his voice. "Yes, Claudia, come in."

"Why is it so dark in here?" she asked. Louis heard the door close. "The whole building's dark."

"I don't know, Claudia," Louis said, trying really hard to sound natural. "All the lights just suddenly went out."

"Must have blown a fuse," Claudia said. "Should we call someone? Or just call off class for tonight?"

Claudia pulled out her cell phone, the glow illuminating her face.

Louis felt better already. "No," he said, "don't call anyone. Let's see if we can fix it ourselves."

Louis reminded himself for the hundredth time that he should get himself a cell phone sometime.

"I guess," Claudia said. "Do you know where the fuse box is?"

She snapped her phone shut, and it was pitch dark again. Louis's felt his blood rise again, which also reminded him how hungry he was.

"It's by the stairs," Louis said, and this time a little panic escaped and put a little squeak in his voice.

"Are you afraid, Mr. Pitt?" Claudia asked. "You're an astronomy teacher afraid of the dark?"

Louis answered as calmly as he could. "Would you please turn your phone back on so we can find the fuse box?"

"OK, scaredy pants," Claudia said, and pulled out her phone again.

In a moment, Louis was by Claudia's side, crowding her close as they crossed the lab, past the star charts and the orrery and the lens grinding stations and over to the stairs which led to the observatory upstairs.

There was a spare fuse mounted on the wall next to the box. By the light of Claudia's phone, Louis pulled open the box and replaced the single fuse inside.

The room lights came on instantly.

"There," Claudia said, putting her phone away again. "That's better."

Louis, able to breathe again, was getting very hungry.

"Wait a minute," Claudia asked. "Where is everybody? I'm not early, am..."

Claudia fell silent, her face blank, her arms limply at her side.

There would be no more students in class tonight. Louis had called them all, all except Claudia, saying the class was canceled because it was too cloudy to observe anything. Claudia was on her own. No one would miss her for an hour or more.

Louis felt his fangs sharpen in his mouth. He approached the entranced girl, turned her head, and drank her life from her neck.

It was a good thing he fell into death-like sleep moments after closing the lid on his coffin.

Copyright 2012. Timothy H. Ruppel. All rights reserved.

This work by Timothy H. Ruppel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.