Nyctophobia.

This is a complete re-write of an old story. I cut out a lot if the dead wood, so to speak. Thanks to everyone who suggested various alterations.

Gordon had been afraid of the dark all of his life. Actually it was more a fear of the absence of light, but the doctor's had insisted it was the same thing. He'd been to see many over the years, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, hypnotists, even trying the alternate therapies such as acupuncture and herbalists. As a young child, his parents were called on to answer any questions that may give some insight into his condition. No, he had never been locked in a dark cupboard, hadn't got himself trapped in a cave or more bizarrely, had never seen a corpse by candlelight. By the age of ten, he'd been hooked up to various machines that tested for any abnormalities in the brain, but nothing ever come of it. He was given a prescription by a bored consultant who told his parents he was 'highly strung.'

The pills were a mild form of Valium and let to a long-term addiction. Initially they did help him to sleep, but made him drowsy in the daytime. This led to his teachers branding him as a "dreamer and further alienated him from his peers. He grew up a very shy boy who escaped life by reading books. The wheels of his life had been set in motion and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

It was the dreams that really haunted him, making him wake up in a sweat-soaked bed, a scream dying on his lips. They started the same every time. He'd be walking around in a strange house with nothing but a single candle to light his way. The house seemed to go on forever, he'd turn one corner only to find another door into an empty room. Some had electric light-switches that never worked, others had an old-fashioned rope-pull, the kind you still find in old houses and hospital toilets. He'd flick the switch, pull the rope, but nothing happened. The darkness became a palpable thing, lurking in corners where the candle couldn't reach. Still he had to carry on opening doors into empty rooms while the candle burnt steadily down, wax running down the holder and dripping onto his hands. The only part that varied slightly was the moment when the candle spluttered and died. This was the point where he always woke up screaming.

As a child his mother would run into the room and light another night-light, the old one left floating in its saucer of water. His father had lost any patience he once had and refused point blank to leave the hall light on. Out would come the bottle of Valium and the glass of water to wash it down. If the dream had been longer than usual, then his mother would take him downstairs and make him drink hot milk or cocoa while she changed his soaked bedding. This ritual was carried out in silence, his mother too afraid of her domineering husband to cuddle him back to sleep. So the long silence became an aftermath of the dream and added another, more sinister dimension to it.

As he grew older the dreams started to enter his waking life. Struggling up from another sweat-soaked dream, he'd find himself desperately trying to switch on the bedside lamp, but it wouldn't work and when he opened his mouth to scream out his terror, nothing happened. He was mute and something nasty lurked at the edges of his sight. He'd pinch his own flesh, telling himself he was still dreaming, but if he was then why couldn't he wake up?
Once he even walked into his parent's bedroom but they seemed oblivious to his presence. None of the light-switches worked and he became afraid to face the dark landing. Laying back in bed he'd tell himself this was another dimension to his dream, so why, then, did the duvet press so heavily on his body? It felt like another body lay on top of him, something unseen but very real. Now waking and asleep blurred into one long nightmare.

By the time he was sixteen he was getting up himself, taking the tablet and pulling the curtains back to let the faint street-lamp light into his room. Lying awake, waiting for the tablet to work, he listened to the sounds of the trains in the distance, their clickety-clack reassuring him he wasn't the last person left alive in the world. Sometimes the dream would be so bad he'd lie awake until the grey light of dawn seeped in through the curtains, then he'd doze until it was time to get up. Despite the lack of sleep and the nervous tic he'd acquired, he managed to pass eight of his o-levels. There was no question of taking his A-levels; if he passed them then his father would want him to go to University and he wouldn't be able to hide his phobia there.

He started a job with British Railways; trains had become a lifeline to him in his dream-drenched sleep. He loved the simple pleasure of riding them every day to work; not even minding the short journey home when winter days became longer. Safe in the lighted carriages the dark was held at bay. 'Light!', how he loved it, even the artificial light of fluorescent lamps and the sweet glimmer of dawn-light that chased away the dark corners of his room.
Sometimes he questioned his own sanity, 'surely he must be mentally ill to suffer so much?'

The nightmares had increased in intensity and frequency, now he was having them two or three times a week. Withering under his father's scorn, he moved out and bought himself a little terraced house in a district that was always well-lit and near to the railway line. He had saved quite a bit of money, after all, how could he spend it when he rarely left the house? It didn't matter that he could hear his neighbours arguing, or the sounds of lovemaking through the thin walls. In the depths of a nightmare he would wake up and be comforted by the life around him.

Gordon was now thirty-three, too old for nightmares and too young to give up on his dreams of a normal life. The world was changing rapidly and he felt left behind. Even worse, his old family doctor retired and the new doctor was horrified by his Valium addiction. Cutting down the dosage, he went through hell. Dr Knight assured him the side effects would soon vanish, but his dreams were now overlaid by the feel of myriad little legs crawling on his skin. Now he slept with either the dimmer-lights on low or with night-lights floating in basins of water. Still, he'd wake up from another nebulous dream, to find the light bulbs had blown out and the night-lights drowning spent in the greasy water.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦

The months went by, months in which he hardly knew what he was doing. The psychotherapy didn't work. Neither did the acupuncture or the relaxation tapes. Dr Knight remained cautiously optimistic; she thought he was coping with a traumatic past. That lasted until he walked into the surgery at 9am, dead drunk and screaming at her to exorcise his demons.

The car parked discreetly and Gordon allowed himself to be lead inside. He was heavily sedated the first few days at the clinic but as soon as they cut the medication back his screams woke the entire ward. In vain he pleaded for the lights to be left on, but only the thin beam of the hospital lights lay between him and complete darkness. Now the moans and screams of other patients invaded his every dream. Each night he walked the corridors of his dreamscape, accompanied by the howls and screams of demented demons. In vain he tried to conjure up images of candles burning in the darkness, putting to flight the shadowy corners where evil things lurked in waiting for him.

He became gaunt and thin. Eating became a torture, as his parched throat grew sore with the echoes of his screams. Days and nights became one as the light seemed to recede further away from him, until he walked in a perpetual twilight world. The nurses grew fed up of trying to get him to stay in bed. He haunted the smoking-room both day and night, a ghost that frightened the other patients, especially those fighting with their own demons, whether by alcohol or drug abuse. They eventually discharged him, what else could they do, it was obvious that he was either incurable or had been made worse by the other patients?

While he was inside the clinic he'd lost his job, the redundancy payment would cover the mortgage for the next year, but after that he would no longer cope. Gordon was no longer sure he'd live another year anyway. The dream world, (if it was a dream world, he was beginning to think it was the real world) beckoned him to come inside, enter all the forbidden rooms and maybe find peace at last. Something told him that he belonged there, maybe he had never been meant to be born, and maybe his place was rightfully here? Why bother trying any more if that was the case?

Now he no longer fought the dreams, he wasn't sick, the system may have let him down but the nightmares were taking over his life. In one last desperate effort to be free he tried to blot the world out with alcohol. Slipping out of his house as soon as it was light, using all-night stores to stock up on whiskey, gin, beer, anything with alcohol in it. He made other purchases as well, things that shocked the manager of the corner shop, but everyone knew the English were eccentric, or so he told his cousin, Ahmed. The pale young man had bought his entire stock of fuse wires and ever candle in the shop. Ahmed shrugged his shoulders, 'its all money in the till,' he said.

Gordon celebrated his last birthday by getting roaring drunk. At just thirty-five he'd achieved nothing, just as his father had predicted. He was still a virgin, he'd seen the sunrise but he'd never seen the sunset, he couldn't bear to see the light leech away any longer. If the neighbours thought anything that night, they would have thought he was having a party. Lights blazed in every room, music poured through the speakers, only dying away as the night wore on.

Gordon drained the last of the champagne, staggering slightly he made himself a cocktail of drink and drugs and climbed the stairs to bed. The moment his head touched the pillow he was fast asleep. The nightmare started as normal, holding the brass candlestick he wandered from room to room, careful not to let any stray breeze blow it out.
The first room was empty as always. The next caught him by surprise; both his parents were there, mouthing empty words through empty air. Now each room held inhabitants, some he knew from childhood, some from work. There was one of the girls from work, Linda, the girl he had always wanted to ask out but never had to courage to try. She was as lovely as the first day he saw her, her thighs bared inviting entry. He turned away sickened by the brash display.

Climbing the stairs he found yet another room, Dr Knight lay on bare boards, holding a prescription pad in one hand and a whiskey bottle in another. Her smile was sickly in the candle-glow.
Still he climbed onwards until he reached the last room. This room was furnished, light flooded the room and he looked at his own still form lying on his own bed.

The dark spread from the corner of the room, snuffing out the lights as it passed by. A lone train hooted in the distance and gratefully he slipped into the waiting body. Now the black swallowed the last of the light. He could feel the pounding of his heart and the flow of blood in his ears. But he couldn't see. The black mass moved slowly, taking its time to feast on the terror. Gordon rose and struck match after match to light the candles around the bed. As each one flared the blackness snuffed it out. Slowly the body descended, pressing itself on his chest. He tried to breath in but the pressure was too strong. With one last effort he reached towards the bedside lamp, pressed the switch but the light was immediately swallowed up.
As he gasped his final breath he saw the complete absence of light and knew it had always been real.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦.

© Lisa Fuller April 2006.