Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror #1)

by Karina Halle

  He looked up at me. “Come on!”

  I began to pull myself up on the windowsill.

  “You can’t leave,” the voice moaned from behind me. It sent chills down my spine, despite the roaring heat of the advancing flames.

  I turned around as quickly as I could in the water.

  The lighthouse keeper stood in the doorway, his outline stark against the orange light. The flames now snaked into the room along the door frame and steadily climbed the walls like pyrotechnic hands searching for something to ignite. I knew I had little time before the flames engulfed me completely.

  I also knew I couldn’t leave just yet.

  Though he was completely across the room, I had no doubt his kelp tentacles could easily ensnare me again with a flick of his wrists. No one would save me this time. I had to know how this was going to end.

  “Why me?” I asked. “Why did you start coming for me? In my dreams, to this place. What do you want!?” I shouted over the roar of the flames.

  He grinned, white teeth against the black void. “I was told you would listen.”

  “Who told you?” I barked as the fire came closer. I could hear Dex yelling for me to jump from outside.

  “She told me you would listen and that you would come. That you’d help me. That you’d free me. I’ve been so lonely. I’ve been waiting for someone like you.”

  His head lowered as if he was genuinely sad. I felt nothing for him.

  “You’ll have to keep waiting,” I said, determination rising in my voice.

  He looked up with a sneer and the kelp came flying my way.

  With less than a second to react, I jumped up on the window and launched myself off the building.

  I was going to land to the left of Dex and for a second it looked like a group of bushes might break my fall, but that wasn’t the case. I managed to get in landing position in mid-air and then go limp as my legs, knees bent, slammed into the ground. Thankfully, the grass was wet and soft, and I was able to propel myself off of it and go into a low roll.

  I rolled for two revolutions before I sprang up to my feet again. I looked behind me and saw the cliff end less than a meter away.

  Dex, who had been yelling this whole time, ran over and grabbed my arm.

  “Are you OK?” he asked frantically.

  I was OK, so far. I looked up at the porthole to see Old Roddy’s shadow standing there, looking down on us. The flames now had completely taken over the room and were licking at the edges of his raincoat.

  “Do you see him?” I whispered to Dex, not taking my eyes off of the horrific sight.

  “Yes, I do,” Dex replied quietly and to my relief.

  As flames engulfed Old Roddy, he extended his arm out of the window and pointed at the sea, just as he had in my dreams.

  I turned to look. There was nothing there except the steady, beaming swirl of the Tillamook Lighthouse doing her duty off shore.

  I looked back up and saw him slowly disintegrate into the fire.

  Dex turned to me. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  He grabbed my hand and scampered over to the nearby bushes. He reached in and pulled out his camera. He must have tossed it outside before jumping out of the window. The bulb for the light had broken, but other than that it looked like his gamble turned out OK.

  With the camera safely tucked under his arm, we were off and running northward, skirting around the lighthouse as far away as we could. The sound of sirens began to fill the air in the distance and the severity of the situation hit me. Uncle Al’s lighthouse would burn to the ground because of us. How the hell were we ever going to explain this?

  We slipped and slid down the cliff and made it to the dunes when a large explosion threw both Dex and me into the sand. Instinctively, I covered my neck with my hands as small pieces of debris rained down.

  We lay there for a minute. I could feel Dex on the wet, crunchy sand beside me and heard him move, obviously alive.

  When I saw the fragments of the blown lighthouse had stopped falling, I lifted up my head and looked at him. He was covering his head with his camera, which was surely embedded with deep grains of sand now. From my shattered lens last week to his scratched-up camera today, this place was not audio/visual friendly.

  “Are you OK?” I asked. I tapped him with my hand.

  He rolled over on his back, groaning and wincing, with his eyes shut in discomfort.

  “Where did you learn to roll like that?” he muttered, his voice low and broken.

  “What?” I asked, spitting out sand.

  He opened his eyes wide, as the flames from the explosion danced in his dark pupils.

  I rolled over on my back, lying beside him, and watched the night sky as the flames from the lighthouse danced high into the darkness. The rain stopped. You could hear the crackling flames and sirens that were still far enough away.

  We lay there, watching the light show while catching our breath.

  Finally, Dex replied. “When you jumped out of the window. And when it exploded I was ready to cover you, but you had already propelled yourself across the grass and were all in protective ninja mode or something.”

  “I’ve...taken some classes,” I answered breathlessly.

  “Uh huh,” he gasped and took in a deep breath.

  I rolled over and looked at him. He rolled his head to his side and looked at me. I found myself speechless. I honestly couldn’t even get over the fact that we were alive.

  He slowly nodded. He looked sleepy, but I saw the understanding beneath his drooping lids. I felt like I could just stare at him and he would just know everything I was thinking.

  He reached over and grabbed my hand. He squeezed it and held it in the air above us, about as victorious a gesture as either of us could manage.

  I gave him a small smile.

  “Are you hurt at all?” he asked.

  I didn’t feel anything until now. I wanted to stay in my sandy grave, but I knew I had cut the back of my head when I was thrown into the glass. I felt the bones in my shins throbbing, my elbows burned, and my throat felt raw from where the kelp squeezed me.

  Also, my lungs wheezed, my eyes stung, and in general my whole body felt like a truck had hit it.

  “I’m OK,” I said though.

  He giggled. “Well, shit, aren’t you just Mary Fucking Wonderwoman. I think I broke my fucking ankle from the fall, not to mention when I cracked my head on the stairs.” He reached up and rubbed the cut that ran along his forehead. When he stopped laughing to himself he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  The sirens were close now and I could see red lights illuminating the trees in the distance.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, hoping I could just close my eyes too. Maybe I would magically appear in my bed at home and everything would be dealt with.

  Dex grunted.

  “I mean, what do we say?” I continued. “Do we go back to Uncle Al’s? Do we stay here and wait for help? How do we explain to Al, to anyone, what the hell just happened? ‘By the way, some dead fisherman attacked me and blew up your lighthouse?’ ”

  “Dead?” he scoffed, eyes still closed.

  I nodded. “He was dead, Dex. I mean, he wasn’t alive alive. He wasn’t...like us.”

  Even my truthful explanations sounded weak. How could I even begin to explain what happened to anyone when I couldn’t even explain it to the only person who was there?

  “He’s dead now,” he said without a trace of interest. “And I honestly don’t think that should even be mentioned. No one was supposed to be in that lighthouse at any rate, let alone some bat-shit crazy Captain Highlander.”

  He opened his eyes and rolled over on his side to look at me. “There will be no trace of him. Whether he was already dead or not.”

  “We’ll have to lie.”

  “No. We’ll tell the police what we were doing there. Tell them I flicked a cigarette down the hall and that started everything. Places like this have all sorts of fue
ls and chemicals still inside them.”

  For emphasis, he fished a package of cigarettes out of his pant cargo pockets, scrunching his face up in pain as he did so, and pulled a cigarette out. I noticed how shaky his hands were before I really noticed what he was doing.

  “You don’t smoke,” I told him. I hadn’t seen him smoke at all this weekend, let alone smell it on him.

  “I do and I don’t. My toothpick friend comes out when I’m in quitting mode,” he spoke, the cigarette bobbed between his subtly duck-like lips. He pulled out a gold lighter with his other hand from some other unseen pocket and lit the cigarette in one trained swoop. He took in a deep puff and blew the smoke out in rings that joined the flames in the sky.

  With a whoop, the urban sound of a police siren or an ambulance (I often confused them) filled the air and echoed out of the trees.

  Dex coughed. “OK. Time to do this.”

  He got to his feet without making a sound, but I could tell he was in a lot of pain.

  He put his hand on his lower back and looked down at me. From his jaunty stance and wiggling cigarette, he reminded me of the silhouette of the Captain Morgan’s pirate.

  “Do you want me to carry you?” he asked. I didn’t know if he was belittling me or just being polite. I decided on the former just in case.

  “No,” I said forcefully, and sat up. My abs burned with the crunch, especially the sides that bore the brunt of the kelp’s pull earlier.

  I got to my knees and then slowly stood upright. I knew the hit on the back of my head would probably make me feel woozier than normal. I didn’t dare touch it, though, in case Dex made a big deal about it. All I wanted to do was get home.

  And get to work. Oh God, work. The meeting. That thought alone had me starting to sway a bit. Dex reached out and steadied me with one hand and leaned down.

  “Can you make it? I wasn’t kidding about carrying you,” he said.

  Well, it’s better to be safe than sorry with you, isn’t it, I thought. I shook my head, took in an invigorating breath of half ocean air and half burning fuel, and straightened up.

  The top of the embankment now swarmed with people in uniform and emergency vehicles. I guess a lighthouse explosion was one of the most exciting things to ever happen here.

  And now we were caught in the middle of it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I thought talking to the curious police officers, EMTs, firefighters, and the local news reporter, plus Uncle Al and the twins, would have shed a lot of doubt on our story but they all seemed content to buy it. One firefighter said a fire starts every week because of leftover engine oil or whatnot. What I think he meant was that drunken sailors got stupid but as long as they believed what happened without questioning us, we were golden.

  And then there was Uncle Al’s reaction. I felt extremely guilty for destroying his historic lighthouse. None of this would have happened had his stupid niece not shown up at his door with some slightly unhinged filmmaker.

  But Uncle Al looked nothing short of relieved. I guess he really did find the place evil, the cradle of some demonic, horrible spirit. I understood how right he was about that and I think he did too. While we were explaining what happened, I noticed he had a suspicious look in his eyes. It wasn’t accusatory, but rather a look of knowing there was more to the story than we were telling everyone. It actually calmed me, as if he was in on the secret without knowing.

  Either way, Dex and I were very lucky to not only walk out of there alive, as people kept telling us (oh, if they only knew...), but also to be excused by the authorities without any further inquiries.

  That’s not to say the ambulance attendants excused us so readily. They had to do a thorough once over on both of us to make sure we didn’t sustain any burns or injuries.

  Dex and I sat beside each other on the back bumper of the ambulance as the two medics poked and prodded. Dex’s female attendant asked him if he was taking any medication. Dex hesitated and then said a name I couldn’t pronounce, something “zapine.”

  The woman did a double take.

  “It’s for heartburn,” Dex said, voice flat and eyes steady until the attendant just nodded and went back to her business.

  The hard-nosed Chinese guy that I had was making me nervous. He touched me in places, asking if it hurt, and then gave me the look as if he didn’t believe me. Half the time it did actually hurt but I knew the more I admitted, the more they would want to take me to a hospital for further inspection. All I wanted to do was get back home. I started to regret sticking around and wished Dex and I had just booked it back to the house and played ignorant.

  While Dex’s attendant left to go get something out of the front of the ambulance, my head was tilted back rather roughly. The guy—I think his name was Jesse—peered at my neck suspiciously.

  “How did this happen?” he asked, referring to my neck bruises.

  I could see Dex out of the corner of my eye craning his head to look over in my direction. We never had a chance to explain what had happened to us earlier. I guess he never knew what happened to me at the top of the tower just as I still didn’t know what happened to him in that room.

  I had to think quickly. “Sexual asphyxiation. You ever tried it? You should.”

  Though my head my tilted back and I couldn’t see Jesse’s face, I know he was shocked. In fact, I could tell he looked over at Dex for an explanation. I hoped Dex would throw the attendant off this trail.

  “It’s a little game we play,” Dex said, his voice laced with subtle sarcasm. I wanted to high-five him for his answer. “You know how it is.”

  “Uhh,” the attendant replied, and brought my head forward. He suspiciously looked me in the eyes. I gave him a look as if he was the one who was the freak.

  I nearly made some caustic David Carradine remark when he slid his hand down the back of my head. He stopped at where my hair was wet from being smashed against the glass. He took his hand away slowly and we both stared at it in the ugly light of the ambulance. It was red with blood.

  I looked over at Dex. He was staring at me, eyes wide and mouth dropped a little, but didn’t say anything even though I could see words were forming at the tip of his tongue.

  Jesse held his hand in front of my face and said matter-of-factly, “You’re bleeding. And you have glass in your hair.”

  At this moment I could have chosen to cover up the matter with some inarticulate lie or I could flat out tell him I didn’t know how it happened.

  “That was my fault.” Dex suddenly spoke up. “I panicked when I pushed us out the window. I guess I didn’t check that it was a clean break.”

  I managed a smile at Jesse and didn’t risk looking at Dex in case Jesse caught on.

  Jesse shook his head and motioned for me to go farther into the ambulance.

  “Is she going to be OK?” Dex asked. I could almost hear a hint of boredom in his tone.

  Evidently, Jesse heard it too. He gave him the stink eye. “I’m going to clean out the wound and check for a concussion. I think you’re free to go now.”

  Dex shrugged and walked away. As Jesse sat me down on a stretcher, I could see Uncle Al and the twins coming up to Dex. They all looked my way and Dex began explaining something to them. Then Jesse closed the ambulance doors, shutting me inside the small, sterile room with him. I felt very uncomfortable.

  He stopped in front of me and narrowed his eyes. There was something very vindictive about this guy, like it was his life’s mission to mistrust everyone he meets.

  “Is that really what happened?” he asked seriously.

  “What, with my head?” I wasn’t about to tell him the truth, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t have been satisfied with it anyway. Or he would have recommended I be sent to a different kind of hospital.

  He put a stiff hand on my shoulder. I eyed it with disdain but he didn’t remove it.

  “Did your boyfriend hurt you?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Jesse the attendant looked
annoyed at my outburst and took a step back.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said. “He’s my...well, my partner. I mean, sorta. And like we said, we were filming in the lighthouse hoping to get a glimpse of something supernatural. When all hell broke loose, the only thing we could do was bust out of the window. I may have hit my head when I went through. I was probably concentrating on not, you know, dying, and didn’t notice.”

  “May have...” he said slowly, his head moving from side to side as if he had a slow-motion tic.

  “Look, are you going to fix my head or not? Isn’t that your job?” I spat out wearily. I was growing more exhausted by the minute and my brain swirled with a million events that I refused to process.

  “Fine. Just trying to help.”

  He flipped my head down and proceeded to sift through my thick hair, mopping crap up with swabs and pads that reeked of alcohol and stung like hell. Miniscule pieces of glass rained down to the sticky floor like tiny snowflakes.

  Ten minutes later he finished with a hardcore Band Aid and a square of gauze he stuck awkwardly at the back of my head. This would go down well at work tomorrow. I could just imagine Frida going “Well, Perry, the job would have been yours but we decided to go with someone who didn’t look like she drank a liter of tequila over the weekend and consequently hit her head on a bathtub during some kinky sex game.”

  “Can I go now?” I asked impatiently.

  “You really should go to the hospital to get checked out for a concussion,” he answered.

  “Maybe I will when I get back to Portland tonight. I just want to go home.”

  “You won’t be able to drive.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, lucky for me, he’s driving.” I gestured in the direction of the closed doors, hoping Dex was still outside. I felt so confined inside this fluorescent-lit doctor’s office on wheels.

  “Technically, he shouldn’t be driving either,” he said morbidly.

  “I’m sure he’s—”

  “Not on his medication, anyway,” Jesse finished.

  Medication? I must have looked confused because Jesse raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.