Chapter 2 – Chap 2

“DOUGLAS!” the imposturous voice of my ‘wife’ calls to me; louder, more urgent, backed by a rumble of anticipatory thunder- “OPEN THE DOOR, DOUGLAS!”

“You just tell me why you’re outside at all, Heather”, I reply, sweat budding and leaking down my brow, “it’s far too stormy a night to be outside”.

“Just let me in and I’ll explain! I need to a chance to dry off!”
She laughs, an artificial sound that sets my teeth on edge. It SOUNDS like laughter, sure, but it’s a meagre copy. There is no mirth behind it. It’s fake. Like a person who’d never laughed even once in their life making a sorry and stilted attempt.

I glance to the rules. To Mad Jack’s rules above the sink:

‘DON’T LEAVE THE LIGHT ALONE’.
‘DON’T LET THEM IN’.
‘THE TWIN BEAMS MUST BE MANNED’.

‘DON’T LET THEM IN’.

“Alright Jack… alright”, I mutter, every muscle of my being shaking feverishly. “Ye best not be playing pranks with me now…”

I swallow.

“I’m sorry Heather!” I call loud above the relentless drum of the rain, “I’m really, terribly sorry, but as you well know, the woman I married died a long time ago…”

I hear a whistle, loud, angry and high-pitched from beyond the rattling door-

“I don’t know what you think you’ll gain by way of entering ma lighthouse…” I bellow, as the whistle rises into a scream, a scream that curls my very blood and is terrible beyond words.
“…But you’re no wife of mine! AND YOU’RE NOT COMING IN!”

And just like that, the screaming stops. The door comes to a rest on its hinges… and the storm lulls, just for a moment, before a renewed barrage of thunder rocks against the walls.

A cold gust blows in from beneath the door and I wipe the sweat from my forehead, swearing to myself, sprinting forwards and sliding across the door’s second and third bolts, scampering back up the stairs, up, up, up to the top deck, past the great light and pushing out of the door into the storm beyond, gripping onto the rail as I squint, peering out into the distance.

It takes a moment… a few rotations of the beam… but eventually I catch sight of it. Sure as can be, it’s there. The Door. The Reflection. And tonight, by all that I hold dear, I swear it, the door stands open.

I cannot see beyond, nor can I explain to you exactly what it is that differentiates THIS door from the door of the previous month… all I know is that it is different. And it is open.

I run a hand through my rain-soaked hair.

“What the fuck is this, Jack”… I mutter, “what the fuck is happening to me? Is this is it? Is this the end? Am I finally succumbing to whatever madness it was that you fell to all those years ago?”

I feel a swell of vomit rise from the depths of my guts, and I suppress it, spitting out into the sea.

“My fucking WIFE!? What would I have seen if I’d opened up that door, eh? What horrors come for me tonight?”

The wind howls in response. The sea surges in towering, angry waves.

And a series of figures rise up from the depths.

I stare down in cold horror, watching as the sea recedes from the narrow, rocky shore at the base of the lighthouse. The waves keep coming… and yet… they no longer crash against the lighthouse … they seem to split, to carry off and around the edge instead… Allowing room for the figures to make their way up onto the wet rock of the island’s tumbled shore.

They’re pale and shiny, man-sized, and rising up from the darkness of the sea all around, encircling the lighthouse completely, two-dozen of them, or perhaps a few more still…

Their skin is grey, and they are adorned in tattered, sea-stained robes that might once have been white. They step clumsily from the water and onto the land, and the one directly below me looks suddenly up, and I swear in alarm.

The man’s eyes are like those of a fish. Lidless and staring, bulged from the sides of his face. He raises a hand towards me: a long, flayed and scaled fin, and he cocks his head as his robes are thrown about his body in the wind.

“LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER!” he calls up to me, his open mouth revealing rows of thin, long and sharpened yellowed teeth.

“O KEEPER OF THE LIGHT! An opportunity has been granted to you to rinse yourself of your sins!”

I grimace and point the shotgun down towards him, and I fire.

My aim was always shite, and the distance and weather don’t help, but I clip his shoulder in a shower of scaled flesh and bone and he gargles, screaming as he falls to the rocky ground, flailing and twisting unnaturally, crawling back across the stone and into the depths of the sea. Another of these harrowing monks steps forward and takes his place:

“Your time runs THIN, LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER!” he calls up, “OPPORTUNITY TO ABSOLVE YOUR CRIMES IS LIMITED. TAKE THIS CHANCE WHILE YOU CAN”.

I shoot again. This time I miss completely; brittle rock shatters by the figure’s feet.

I wasn’t much of a good man before my time in the lighthouse, you understand. These monsters down below aren’t just crying platitudes, I’m sure of it. I get the sense they know my deeds, they know my past, though I’m not sure how, or why.
I used to run with gangs. Glorified body-guarding, basically, drugs business, etcetera. I hurt people that didn’t deserve to be hurt. I used to like feeling part of a team, back in the day before I came to appreciate the gift of solitude, as twisted a team as it was. Never a fan of guns though. Always preferred the knifework.

And those days are behind me now anyway. Long behind. Took me a while, but I got out. I was a cunt, plain and simple, and that’s not the man I want to be. No-one likes a cunt.

The sea-eyed monk raises his arms, he opens his mouth wider, wider still… and he begins to sing. It’s a sad, sad song, and one that chills me to my core. The others join as the lightning flashes in the swell of the storm beyond.

“AWAY WITH YE, DEMONS OF THE DEEP!” I roar, “I’VE NO PLACE FOR YOU HERE!”

The myrted bishop below holds his hands… his flayed fins… out to the sides, he cocks his head, his eyes bulge…
“Reject the sins of the land, lighthouse keeper! Submit to the sea and you will be spared!”

“Ye’re nae priests of mine!” I call back, “I’ll be doing no such thing!”

“We would welcome you with open arms, keeper!”

“SUCK MA BALLS YE FISHY FUCK!”

I hastily reload as the singing grows louder, and gritting my teeth, holding steady against the rail as the rain beats down across my head and my back, my coat caught in the wind and thrown behind and across as it tries to drag me around the porch… and I fire.

Boom.

The priest with which I palavered drops like a stone to the ground; but not before losing his head in a burst of wet, grey flesh.

The singing comes to a sudden stop as his corpse quivers on the slippery rock, and the remaining monks turn to face back out to sea. They raise their fins as one and the water beyond starts to swirl. The waves lose their rhythm and become caught in a frothing, churning whirlpool, rising rapidly in speed and intensity as the gale blows my rainsoaked beard about my face.

I stare, watching in horror as the water darkens, as the swirl reverses, and great, dark spires begin to rise out from beneath. The waves caught in the spin crash into and against each other violently as the thin, black spires ascend from the depths, the towers upon which they are built rising with them, then arches, crenellations and impossible windows of black-blue glass.

I take a step back from the edge, my mouth agape, as a terrible, watery cathedral rises out of the sea… and up, up into the storm.