I stared at it, dumb-arsed.
‘Take it, Neddy.’
I shook my head.
‘Go on.’ She nodded. She actually fluttered her eyelashes and I wondered what I was supposed to make of that. ‘I’ve got plans for us, Neddy. Big plans.’ She didn’t say anything else, just nudged the knife in my direction. I reluctantly took it.
‘What do you want me to do with it?’
She nodded in the direction of the lounge room and I took a step back, my wet hands dripping on the floor.
‘It has to be you, Neddy,’ she said, eyes wide. ‘Our future will be special, but it can’t happen while we’re here. It can’t happen while he’s still alive.’
I sucked in a raw breath. ‘What are you saying?’
‘He can’t follow us if he’s dead. We can leave tonight. We’ll have to go far away, but everything will be all right. We just have to do this first. You’ll do it, won’t you, Neddy? Do it for me. You know I love you best.’
In some remote part of my brain, it made sense. In that part, where my mother did love me, there was light and nothing seemed heavy or cumbersome. But there still wasn’t freedom.
A noise in my head — different to the usual pounding of whatever song was trapped in there — louder than my mother’s pleadings. A low warble. While I stood, numb, it grew to a menacing shriek and fed on my anger.
The knife in my hand. Shining blade. How did I get it? She gave it to me. Gripped in my right hand.
‘Do it, Neddy. Don’t hold out on me, you little shit. I had to beg my parents for money again. They grudgingly gave it to me for what they reckon is the last time. It’s just us now. You and me.’
Was it just us? Her, hovering, with her painted mouth and fetid breath.
‘Come on, Neddy. They’re not going to send a kid to jail.’
I looked away, briefly, and in that moment, there was a flash of yellow light. Or was there? Did I imagine it?
‘Neddy?’
Her face; the expectation and arrogance, like I must obey her. Like I was here to do her bidding, clean up her shit, make her life easier.
She stepped forward, her arm raised, and slipped on the water I’d spilled. Alarm in her eyes as the knife sunk neatly into her belly. Then pain and fear. I stared, motionless. Her dress stained red. She backed away from me, mouth open wide as though she couldn’t think of the word she wanted. No scream, just a guttural squawk.
When she hit the floor, her body sprawled and she writhed, gasping for a whole breath. I stood, mute. Unable to move, unable to think for the screaming inside my head. Confused words. Too many words. Not making sense.
Fuck.
I ran. Another room. My room. My father’s snoring followed me, dense in my ears.
Back to the kitchen. She was so still. Was she breathing? I didn’t want to touch her. I closed my eyes and swallowed, then opened my eyes and gripped the knife, pulled it out of her. She shuddered and a squeak escaped her, like one last protest. I was crying but there were no tears and the screaming inside my head was louder.
In the lounge room, my father slept on his back, stomach rising with his breath. Standing over him, staring at his bloated face, the empty beers cans on the floor, the rage grew inside me until my face burned.
‘This is all your fault,’ I whispered, but it came out like a hiss.
I pulled off my shirt and used it to clean my prints from the knife. A lump lodged in my throat and beads of sweat formed on my brow. I carefully opened his fingers, and using my shirt as a sort of glove, I placed the knife in his hand, rested it on his belly.
All your fault.
Outside, clean of the mess, clean of everything, I stood in the darkness. The twinkle of my mother’s wind chimes, hopeful on the breeze, made my head hurt. The screaming had faded and now there was just a dull pain in my heart. I took the wind chimes down and laid them on the grass, grateful for the silence. Everything was gone, yet it wasn’t. Time stood still, yet it raced on. My hands shook as my feet led me across the yard, past the broken swings. I followed the craggy path to the beach, numb but aware of every breath of air that blew my hair into my eyes.
Waves of terror came and went in a surrealist blur. I was here, but I wasn’t. I’d been at home, but I hadn’t. For a second, I was convinced I’d imagined it all, that it hadn’t happened. But although I’d washed the blood from myself, I could still see it, staining my skin.
It reminded me of the morning we moved into the lighthouse. I’d run outside, keen to explore down on the rocks. Barefoot, I’d crawled over them, hunting for fish or crabs, and I’d cut my hand on something sharp. The blood had flowed, dripping onto the rocks, and I’d stumbled up to the lighthouse, found a rag to wrap around my finger as I climbed the stairs to the light. It was always cool in there. Silent and cool, and there was a soft swirling sound as the breeze rose in a song when the door was left open. I’d fallen asleep up there, and when I’d woken, my hand had been throbbing and the blood had congealed, the rag stuck to my fingers.
Now, calmness slowly smothered the rage and I shoved my hands into my pockets to try and stop them shaking. The shrieking started in my head again and my eyes became wet with tears. Above, the yellow glow from the lighthouse spun in the dark sky and I watched it, transfixed. It invited me but confused me. I was alone. I had nothing left, yet at the same time, the lighthouse stood on the hill, where it had always been. Where it would always be.
And Floyd was there, overseeing all. The guardian of the light. A salvation.
I started running. It seemed like my legs couldn’t keep up with me. It seemed to take for ever to get up the hill, and then suddenly, I was bashing on the door of the little house. When Floyd opened it, his surprise vanished as he stared at me.
‘Jesus, kid, you’re pale as a spook. Got the hounds of hell on your heels?’
‘I…it’s…’ There were no words again.
‘Come on in.’ He gripped my shoulder and led me to the dining room where the table was once again spread with photos.
‘Don’t mind the mess,’ he said as he moved some of the photos to the side. ‘Just visiting with the past.’
I nodded, saw a boy in some of the photos. I wished it was me. I wanted to be the smiling kid with the ice cream, standing on the beach holding the little sailboat, or hoisted onto Floyd’s shoulders at a fête, bumper cars in the background.
‘You okay, kid?’
I looked up at him but there was nothing to tell him that would make any sense.
He handed me a beer, took one for himself, and we drank in silence. I looked at the photographs again, at smiling faces and silly poses. And then I looked at Floyd and his smile seemed genuine. He’d invited me in. He wanted me here.
Slowly, the roar in my head lessened.
CLOAK OF MADNESS
Matthew Wilson
June 9th
Miller’s Lighthouse has always been a place of bad history. No kids came here after dark, no teens smoked pot between the rocks, away from prying parents. Nothing seemed to grow in the salty earth around the stairwell. Not even weeds.
Maybe I should have listened to mom, but I was so sure of myself. So willing to get out from under her thumb and start a new life where she didn’t make every damn decision for me. This lighthouse-keeping job had promise. But it gets so creepy at night, alone.
Even now, I’ve painted over the graffiti my predecessor painted on his final day, before he hanged himself from the rafters. I’ve decided to cut down on my coffee as I can hardly keep my hands from shaking. The winds thrown up by the jagged rocks have a tendency to slam the doors, scaring bats that watch me every time I pass beneath their ceiling roost, hissing hate at me.
Of course, I’d done my homework, wishing to impress my new employer with my willingness to get stuck in. I didn’t need the anonymous, vicious emails with the most gruesome newspaper cuttings enclosed. But even I was sickened at the depths of devilment my predecessor had undertaken to ease his loneliness.
All accounts agree that Andrew Miller wasn’t a nice man, which made being a lighthouse keeper such a promising career choice. Away from people that bothered him. It didn’t matter that he’d been in jail for half strangling his brother who beat him at chess — sore loser — he was cheap and unlikely to pick a fight with a dolphin. All he had to do was turn the light on at dusk, off at dawn, and then sleep all day. Paradise.
But he still called the ferry man within two days, phoning in a problem. No one saw the poor guy again. Not after Miller said a high wave had taken him. Of course, Miller had tried to save the guy, tried to be a hero. The ferry man’s wife would’ve given him a medal to see the lengths he’d striven to.
But this was a place of death, and though the police dredged the shallows for two weeks, nothing was discovered. No blame could be placed. The lighthouse was known as Miller’s Lighthouse from then on. Primarily because Miller had risked life and limb climbing out on the tiny ledge and writing property of Miller in forty-foot lettering.
His bosses made their phone calls, but he’d not damaged the ancient wiring. The large letters were invisible at night when the safety light shone proud. Did they want to replace him with someone who demanded FULL wages?
His employers suddenly realised that a man must while away the early hours any way he can. So long as he didn’t damage the structure, or put passing vessels at risk, but it was quietly recommended that cards or video games should be encouraged, rather than painting class.
Records show that Miller went insane on the last evening in November. At least, that’s when the first killing occurred, when he signalled the ship that the captain was in much deeper waters than he actually was.
The first timer ran his ship upon the rocks, and the sharp coral ripped its metal belly open from bow to stern, and sucked its sleeping passengers down to the depths.
Miller managed to signal the all clear to three more passing ships before the few survivors were spat upon the sand and limped onwards, screaming for police.
The law found Miller quite hospitable when they came for him. He and his Winchester waved on their best efforts, poured scotch upon their heads and cheered as the riot van slammed against the lighthouse door at fifty miles per hour.
No one completely agrees who started the fire. When Miller’s parents sued the sheriff’s office for brutality, the lawman ensured the whole place had been soaked with scotch and oil from the old, ceaseless gears. Miller’s last effort was to completely obliterate the number of dead women he’d plastered up inside the walls.
Now the remains should be a forgotten place. An ivy covered ruin like temples of dead races in old movies, but still ships come through the narrow strait between these cliffs, their business vital to this little town.
Of course, someone had to take over from the maniac.
Mother forgive me for not taking your advice, but your boy is a man now, and has to make his own way in the world, even if he’s still afraid of ghosts.
June 10th
Someone is here. I’m sure of it. Twice now, I’ve woken from the memory of some awful dream of dead children reaching for me, trying to drag me over the high ledge and into the sea to keep them company in the blackness. Yes, this is a place of lonely souls. But every day, men are killed by hunger through lack of money. No one has been killed by ghosts, and if I wish to continue paying the rent and not starve on the street, then I must persevere.
I’ve time now to watch my favourite TV shows and jot my thoughts down in this journal — heaven help me, my imagination is too rich for my own anxieties. But neither of them could completely consume my attention from the strange noises; the sounds of laughing children running down the circular staircase. It must carry over from a grassless field behind the lighthouse. Sound travels over great distances here, in the absence of other noises that one takes for granted while occupying space for the living. If only the weather girl on TV would talk back to me.
Ha.
Maybe the burn marks on the walls, the remains of a loon’s legacy, are getting to me. I’ll have to do more painting of my own. To busy myself, I make sure the inner gears of the giant light are in perfect working order, and shoo away cawing, crapping birds that made a home here when saner men than I left the place to nature.
But now to earn my rent, I had to let the life back into this place, ripping the nests out of the wheels, making sure the light is always polished and not close to burning out. Man, things are harder than simply yanking a doctor Frankenstein switch twice a day and giving birth to a tiny sun in a lightning storm, visible for miles around.
Appendage
Done checking emails. Fourteen from mom telling me to leave this ghastly place. Friends are talking back home that I must be a fan of the macabre to work in such a ghoulish location, a bad reflection on mother almighty.
Even now, she tries to control my life from hundreds of miles way. Apparently, the doctor gave her the wrong tablets, and only I can be trusted to give her the right medication — so she’s playing the guilt card to bring me home. Like when I was a boy and she cancelled my birthday party, saying no one liked me. Only she could love me. We’d be together always, against the world.
Yuck.
Maybe if she hadn’t killed my damn hamster when she thought I loved little Harry more than her, then people wouldn’t be forever running out on her. Maybe if she hadn’t threatened to cut off dad’s genitals if he dared look at another woman, then he wouldn’t have done a runner. She brought her loneliness on herself.
The old girl is an expert at mind games and knew how to play her hand. The guilt continues to give me awful dreams, but I do my best to stay out of her sticky web and make my own way in life. To not be manipulated into throwing away the new life I’ve made for myself here, even if it is in dead men’s shoes. Trying to keep my mind occupied during the long nights, hassled by the dreams of dead children handing me knives to slit my own throat.
June 11th
On its completion, I shall destroy this date entry, but I must write it down in an effort to untangle this mist clouding my head and try to understand what almost went wrong. The headaches are back, I knew I’d never escape them after that curve ball knocked me out when I was ten. A mistimed swing ensured I was out for an hour, and though the doctor gave my screaming mother a sedative and reassurance that no permanent damage had been done, he said some ongoing headaches were to be expected.
After living with mom for eighteen years, I figured they were tension headaches, but still they persisted. A bonus as I was paid not to sleep during the night. My headaches could keep me up, ensuring I checked the light.
But then, I stopped the coffee to relax me, and a greater sapping of my strength than the likes I’d ever known before claimed me just before midnight. There was no pain or fear, but registering the first pang of peace since I’d set foot here, I welcomed it as the floor came at me and I fell like Sleeping Beauty slipping off the bed.
The fog horn blasted through my dreams of Andrew Miller revealing where he’d hidden the bodies. How one could completely let all the blood run out of a corpse if one added a large enough container and half a night’s patience to the equation.
BOOOMMM! BOOOMMM !
‘Wassamatta? Mom?’ I shivered, stretching like a child’s pantomime impression of a flower opening his petals toward the sun, and then I remembered that I was no longer a boy being woken for school. I was purposely on the other of the world, with a job, and responsibilities. I blinked several times, and then screamed when I checked the illuminated hands of my watch.
The 12.01 would be going through the strait now. With no guiding light to lead the way! I’d no memory of pulling the plug out of the wall — the bulb took its usual thirty seconds to warm up, which felt like a damn eternity, and finally, gloriously, light was reborn and at the last possible moment, the ship turned away from the cliffs, scaring several gulls.
God. In a moment of carelessness, I’d almost destroyed so many lives, despite my
promise of being vigilant. Everything my predecessor was not.
Forgive me, mother. You nearly had a murderer for a son. I must take greater care. I must sleep more during the day so that I’m fully rested and able to execute my duties.
But I’m quite restless through the day. There are sounds within the walls.
Scratching noises as the women inside try to get out, crying and calling my name.
June 12th
Damn busybodies are like the police. Not there when you need them, and everywhere when you don’t. I don’t know how they heard my little DIY over the crashing waves, but when the police arrived, I gave them the guided tour of my improvement area. The day was my free time, and so long as I fixed the mess after, I could tear down whatever wall I wanted.
I don’t care what the sheriff said. I told him they’d left some of Miller’s victims behind. There were awful sounds behind the dry wall. I demanded a new search be undertaken if I was going to stay here. Every free man has the legal right to work without threat of stepping on a body, or being bothered by ghosts.
The sheriff could see the care I’d taken to unscrew the wall panels to minimize the overall damage, and my plans of reconstructing them with the simple turn of a wrench calmed his anxieties of me.
Of course, I looked pale. It was the rawest June for two hundred years. A learned man like the sheriff could hardly expect me to shine with a bronze tan beneath endless cloudy skies. Yes, I’d eat more veggies and get more sleep. But I couldn’t go back home. More ships were coming tonight, and he couldn’t get another fellow in with my skills to work the light and kill the millions of moths it attracted yet.
I felt as crappy as I ever had with my current situation, so I thought the sheriff’s departing comment quite biting and unnecessary. I disagreed that my thin and pale appearance was very much like my predecessor, Andrew Miller, who was the only monster worse than my mother, who I’d sworn never to take after.
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