The Old Groundskeeper and His Lantern

“Okay, Ollie is gonna extinguish the lantern… now.”

Several seconds passed. The groundskeeper still gripped the lantern tightly in one hand, slowly scanning the area with his arm outstretched. Its light never wavered.

“And now,” Kyle repeated, pointing a spectral finger at the control room monitor as if to cue the action. Still no change.

“The lantern’s still on,” muttered someone nearby.

“Yeah, I can damn well see that, Vincent.” With an exasperated sigh, Kyle rolled back in his chair, away from the console. His translucent body shook, brimming with frustration. Centering himself, he radioed the ghost on the scene. “Ollie, what the hell is going on out there?”

Almost immediately, he got a crackly response back through the speaker, “It’s electric, I can’t blow it out.”

Some of the others in the room quietly snickered. Kyle pinched the bridge of his nonexistent nose before asking, “Have you considered doing something else, perhaps?”

“I mean…” Ollie trailed off hesitantly.

“Muddy it up! Break it! Anything!” suggested Kyle with some aggression.

A few more seconds passed. Suddenly, the light of the lantern dimmed and became splotchy. Flecks of mud or oil could be seen on his sleeve. He tried to illuminate the direction of the slung muck, but it was too spotty to tell. The groundskeeper pulled the lantern back and unsuccessfully tried to remove the gunk.

“Okay, that works. We can proceed.” Kyle breathed a breathless sigh of relief. “Wait, what’s he doing now?”

The groundskeeper held the lantern sideways, a beam of light coming from its top.

“Hey, that’s nifty, you see that, Kyle?”

“I see it.”

“Lantern’s got a flashlight on top.”

“Shut up,” grumbled Kyle to Vincent next to him. “Ollie?”

“Yeah?” replied Ollie with some hesitation.

“Drain it.” The rest of the room went quiet, all eyes on Kyle and the monitor.

Ollie reasoned, “But we’ve gotta do the car battery later too, and the phone. I could be spent after this.”

“We’ll improvise. Drain the lantern.”

Ollie complied. The lantern was now fully extinguished. Despite shaking it and hitting the bottom with the palm of his hand, tried and true methods, it wouldn’t come back on. There were breaths of relief all around, but nobody said anything.

“Alright, finally we’re getting somewhere,” muttered Kyle with some satisfaction. That satisfaction was short-lived, however, as the monitor suddenly lit up again. Kyle slammed both hands on the console as he stood, though they passed right through it, and stared at the screen. “Oh for the love of…” He took two steps back and gestured at the screen to everyone else. “Who just carries two lanterns around?” The room remained silent.

“Boss?” crackled Ollie over the speaker.

“Abort mission,” Kyle said, defeated, as he slunk back into his chair. “We try again tomorrow night, and now we know he’s definitely got two damn lanterns. Unbelievable.”

Vincent chuckled, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if he had a third light?”