by Ron Ripley
He walked around to the bulkhead, pulled it open, and set the locks. The stairs which led down were steep and narrow, the ledge of each barely more than ten inches deep. Webs clung to the corners, as did shreds of grass and the carcasses of long-dead insects. At the bottom was a tall, narrow door made up of long, thin boards bound together with old iron. Like the doors of both the lighthouse and the keeper’s house, the door before him had once been blue as well.
Shane took a deep breath, calmed his heart rate, and armed himself.
Carefully, he descended the steps, reached the bottom, and thumbed the latch, swinging the door open.
Nearly pure darkness waited for him inside. The smell was rank and musty, a foul odor which threatened to burn the insides of his nose and caused his eyes to water. The daylight illuminated a small patch of earth which served as the cellar’s floor. He stepped in cautiously, allowing his eyes to adjust to the limited light.
After several minutes of trying to adjust to the dark, he could make out rough shelves of canned and jarred food. In the ceiling above, he could see joists and the faint outline of a trap door. His skin crawled as he stepped in further. To the right, he saw four small boxes, one stacked on top of the other. At the bottom of the pile, though, was a fifth, larger box.
Shane stared at them. Blackness pulsed around them and sought to pull him closer. To drag him in.
“What are you?” he asked softly.
“We’re death,” a little girl answered.
“So our father called us,” a boy added.
“Our mother too, Frederick,” a different girl corrected.
“Yes, Jane,” Frederick said.
Another child, an infant, let out a wail.
“You’ve awakened the baby,” the little girl chided.
“Jillian,” Jane said, “the baby never sleeps.”
“It’s why we’re here,” a man said.
“Yes, grandfather,” Jane agreed. “It is why we’re here.”
“Why are you down here?” Shane asked.
“Punishment,” their grandfather answered. “The children for being children. And myself for having the audacity to try and come between them and the discipline their parents sought to administer.”
“They killed you,” Shane said softly.
“Poison,” the grandfather said sadly.
“Drowning,” Frederick said cheerfully.
“Strangulation for the girls,” Jane said.
“Who did it?” Shane asked.
“Father and mother,” Jillian said, sounding as if she believed Shane to be a little too stupid.
Shane held back his exasperation and asked, “Could you tell me their names?”
“Mother and father,” Jane said. “We knew them as nothing else.”
“My son-in-law was Clark Noyes,” the grandfather said. “My daughter was Dorothy.”
“Where is she?” Shane asked. “I’ve come down here for her.”
“Down here?” the grandfather asked, surprised. “Why would she be here?”
“She doesn’t like the cellar,” Jane said confidentially.
“She hates the dark,” Frederick said. “Grandmother used to punish her by locking her in the cellar. For days on end, she would weep in the darkness. The door would be locked, and Mother would starve. Her disobedience kept her stomach empty, kept her in the cold depths. Grandmother sought to teach our Mother, although she would not learn.
“But, in the end, Mother took her anger out on Father. But only after Mother and Father had punished us,” Frederick finished, laughing.
“How?” Shane asked.
“In the lighthouse,” Frederick said, seeming happy to have Shane to speak with. “Oh, in the lighthouse, all the way up at the lantern. She brought him his coffee one dark night and knocked him unconscious. A terrible blow.”
“Oh yes. She strapped him to the light, face first. She stitched his eyelids open, and over hours and hours she burned out his eyes. We could hear the screams from the top of the tower down here in our wooden tombs.”
“It took days for him to die,” their grandfather added. “I’m not even sure how many, only that he suffered tremendously. He would grow silent, and then my daughter would think of some new punishment for him. Some horrific bit of torment to inflict as much pain as she could on him.”
Shane swallowed uncomfortably at the idea of torture. “Do you know where I could find her? Would it be in the lighthouse?”
“No, not the lighthouse,” the grandfather replied. “Not if she can help it. She despised the lighthouse.”
“Where then?” Shane asked.
“The second floor,” Frederick answered.
Shane stiffened. “The second floor of the keeper’s house?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“It’s only a large room up there,” Shane said softly. “There’s nothing.”
“Perhaps not now,” the grandfather said. “When we first moved into the keeper’s house, there were two bedrooms in the loft.”
“Mother’s room looked out over the sea,” Frederick said.
“She loved to see the shore,” Jillian added.
Of course, it’s the second floor, Shane thought numbly. It’s where she came down from. Just because the cellar felt bad didn’t mean she was down here.
The bodies are here.
Her own father and children, whom she murdered.
It’s the death and the torture I felt. Their memories are sifting up through the stairs and into the back of the house.
And she’s upstairs.
Upstairs!
“Thank you, for your time,” Shane said as politely as he could. “I must go upstairs. I must see if Dorothy is in her room.”
A scream from above cut him off and he was plunged into darkness as the cellar door slammed closed and locked itself.
Shane knew exactly where it was, and he threw himself at it, battering the wood as he sought to claw his way to freedom. A second scream rang out, and he managed to rip the old and rotten door off its hinges.
Biting back his anger, Shane went barreling up the stairs and into the sunlight.
Chapter 17: Dorothy Comes In
Courtney did her best to ignore Scott. He had tried to pull the whole ‘I’m your boyfriend, you can’t talk to him’ speech earlier, but Courtney wasn’t having any of it.
She sighed, shook her head, and focused her attention on Eileen. Her friend was still laying on Shane’s sleeping bag, in and out of sleep, from what Courtney could tell.
Courtney removed her hand from Eileen’s shoulder, brushed back a bit of hair from her friend’s forehead, and felt an unnatural heat emanating from her flesh.
Oh no, does she have a fever? Courtney thought.
Muffled voices came from the cellar.
Children’s voices.
Courtney looked over to see if Scott had heard them as well. His wide-eyed, surprised expression was enough of an answer.
Footsteps came down the stairs, and Courtney turned in time to see a woman finish her descent from the second floor. The woman’s face was cold, merciless. There wasn’t hate in her eyes, only disdain and disgust.
“This is my home,” the woman said, facing them.
Courtney gasped, shivering as she found herself looking through the woman.
“We don’t want to be here,” Courtney said, her voice not nearly as confident as she would have liked. “We want to leave.”
“But I don’t want you to leave now,” the woman said, smiling bitterly. “I like your company. In fact, I’m not sure I want any of you to leave. Ever. There’s so much work to do to get the lighthouse ready. I need to be stronger. And for that, I need you. All of you.”
She walked into the room, towards Courtney.
Courtney scrambled to her feet. Her heart beat ferociously in her chest and the impulse to run and fling herself into the Atlantic threatened to destroy her self-control.
“Get out of here,” Courtney said, mustering all of
the force she could. “Leave us alone.”
“Soon enough,” the woman said softly, “I will leave you all alone. But not yet.”
Courtney was suddenly in the air, thrown back against the wall. Her breath was knocked from her, and she collapsed to her hands and knees. With her head spinning and gasping for air, Courtney heard Scott scream in terror. Beneath them, a door slammed shut.
Managing to take a deep breath, Courtney looked up and saw the stranger kneel down beside Eileen. Eileen, in turn, was sitting up, a groggy, confused expression on her face. Then she screamed as she saw the woman, who let out a pleasant, almost beautiful laugh.
Courtney tried to get to her feet, but only managed to collapse onto the floor. Her head spun too much from the force of the throw and she couldn’t regain her balance. In horror, she watched as the stranger reached out, grasped Eileen by the head and smiled.
Eileen screamed again, tried to twist away, but the ghost kept a firm grip on her.
Something shattered outside, and the sound of running feet could be heard.
The woman slipped her thumbs onto Eileen’s eyelids, and Courtney couldn’t turn away as the stranger began to pry Eileen’s eyes out of their sockets.
Eileen’s screams turned to shrieks while Scott vomited and wept. Shane thrust open the back door. Courtney crawled forward, determined to stop the woman.
Then Shane raced out of the kitchen and past her.
“Dorothy!” he yelled.
The woman snarled at him. “You’re all going to die,” she hissed. “And sooner rather than later.”
Even as Shane reached Dorothy, she grinned and twisted Eileen’s head sharply to the left. The result was instantaneous and sickening. A dry, brittle snap.
Eileen’s shriek ended abruptly, and she went limp.
Shane dove at Dorothy, his right hand smashing through her. With a howl of pure hatred, she vanished. Shane landed hard, rolled, and thudded against the wall, small pieces of plaster dropping onto him.
Courtney finished her crawl to Eileen. Her hand shook as she reached out, touched Eileen’s neck, and sought a pulse.
There was none to be found. Dorothy had killed her.
Blood dried slowly on her friend’s cheeks, her eyelids misshapen after the destruction of the orbs beneath.
Courtney began to shake uncontrollably. She pushed herself back and sat down. Shane moved closer, wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her in close. He said nothing.
She suddenly remembered Scott and looked over to him. He was passed out on the floor.
She relaxed into Shane’s arms, smelled the sharp tang of blood on him. Courtney closed her eyes, felt sorrow and rage well up within her, and let out a long, angry sob.
Shane continued to hold her, and he let her cry. He didn’t offer up soothing words, and he didn’t pull away. He quietly stroked the back of her head, held her, and began to sing softly in a language she didn’t know.
The steady thump of his heart accompanied the song, and Courtney wept for her murdered friend.
Chapter 18: Disbelief
Half an hour had passed since Eileen’s death, and Scott’s world continued to crumble
He stood in silence and looked out of the window at his father’s yacht. He watched as it drifted away, the anchor line snapped and the sails furled. It rode the current, out towards deeper waters.
Maybe it’ll be found, Scott thought numbly.
Everything was happening all at once. The yacht. Dane’s murder. Eileen’s murder.
And now this? he thought, turning to look at Courtney.
“How can you do this?” he asked her in disbelief.
Her face was stern, eyes red from crying, skin around them puffy. She had streaks of Eileen’s blood on her, her arms folded across her chest.
“What do you mean?” she said coldly.
“How can you break up with me?” Scott asked, shaking his head. “I mean, how can you do it here? You couldn’t wait until we got back to the mainland?”
“What?” she asked in surprise.
“Yeah,” Scott said. “You don’t think this is hard on me, too? Couldn’t you think of me? You know, maybe that I shouldn’t have to deal with the end of a relationship in the middle of all this crap?”
“What are you, fourteen?” Courtney snapped. “Jesus Christ, Scott, act your age.”
“Why are you breaking up with me?” Scott demanded. “I thought everything was fine.”
“Everything was fine,” Courtney said. “Because we were dating. We’re not engaged. We were dating. And now we’re not.”
“Is it because of Shane?” Scott asked in a low voice, not wanting the older man to hear him.
“Part of it, yes,” she said. “Mostly, though, it’s you acting like a teenager. And, you know, passing out instead of trying to help Eileen really doesn’t qualify you as ‘continued boyfriend’ material.”
His face burned with embarrassment. “It was a little too much to deal with.”
“I managed to make an effort,” Courtney said, biting off each word.
“This is garbage,” Scott said angrily. “Our relationship isn’t done until I say it’s done. You’ll see once we get back to the mainland. You’re just stressed out.”
He stopped as her expression changed.
Hatred filled her eyes.
“You listen to me, Scott,” she whispered. “I’ve had one bad relationship where the guy wasn’t going to let me go. He broke my wrist and my arm, then he cracked two of my ribs. He ate through a straw for months because I shattered his jaw with his laptop. He’ll never, ever have children because of what I did to him. And let me tell you, Scott, you come near me, and I will hurt you. Do you understand me?”
Scott licked his lips nervously as he stepped back, bumping into the wall. He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” she spat. “Just shut up.” She turned around and went into the kitchen.
Scott stood alone in the living room. From outside, he heard the wind pick up, and the waves become louder. Slowly he sank into a sitting position. He dipped his head, closed his eyes, and asked himself, How the hell did all of this happen?
Chapter 19: A Good Idea Gone Bad
George Fallon steered his boat with one hand and kept his beer steady with the other. Vic Nato and Eric Powell sat in their seats, drinking their own beers. The fine, cooling spray of the Atlantic misted over them as George’s new Boston Whaler, Terminal Fleet, cut through the water.
It was nearly six in the evening, and the sun had already begun its descent. But they were only five minutes from Squirrel Island.
“Pity about Mike,” Eric said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the thrum of the Whaler’s powerful engine.
Vic, who didn’t know Mike, stayed silent.
George, who had known Mike Puller since the first grade, spoke up. “Hated the guy.”
“He was alright,” Eric said defensively.
“Sure he was,” George said, “if you were a broad. Otherwise, nah, he’d just as soon steal from you as work with you on a project.”
“I heard,” Vic chimed in, “he had screwed Nate Verranault on a job up in Bangor.”
George nodded. “One of many. He found out what Nate bid on the carpentry, went in and told the owner he could do it in half the time, and for half the money.”
“Didn’t he go to prison for that one?” Vic asked.
“No,” Eric said grumpily, “he went to Valley Street jail in Manchester. He didn’t even do two years.”
“Only because it was under five grand that he got away with,” George said, chuckling. “Anyway, we’ll be there in a minute or two. Got your phones all charged?”
Both Vic and Eric raised their beers in assent.
“Think this’ll boost the website?” Eric asked.
George grinned. “Damned right, it will.”
The three of them, with help from Vic’s girlfriend, had started up a website. It specialized in photographs of death
scenes. Accidents, murders, suicides. As long as death was involved, the pictures went up on the site. They had come onto the idea early one morning, talking about a construction accident Vic had seen.
All the wackos and weirdos who had come out of the woodwork, George thought. Everyone trying to get a look, trying to take pictures.
And the site is a damned goldmine, George grinned. With the money they made from subscriptions and advertisements, they were all enjoying life. George’s new, 2017-model Boston Whaler was a prime example of it.
“There’s the pier,” Eric said, bringing George out of his pleasant reminiscing.
The new structure extended out into the ocean. George, who had been operating boats since his father stood him up behind the controls of an old speedboat when he was four, guided the Whaler in easily. Vic put his beer down, got to his feet, and was over the side in a moment, securing the boat to the pier as George turned the engine off. Eric, slightly unsteady on his feet, managed to get onto the pier and George followed.
“This the place?” Vic asked.
“Got to be,” George said. “Only pier on the island.”
“What the hell?” Eric said softly.
George turned towards Eric and saw the man was staring at the island. When he followed Eric’s line of sight, he gasped in surprise.
At the end of the pier, sitting on a rock, was a boy of perhaps ten or twelve. He wore a pair of dark blue pants, battered shoes, and a collarless, button-down shirt. His skin was tanned, his hair bleached blonde by the sun. Sharp, bright blue eyes stared at George. The boy’s face was thin and drawn. Between his narrow lips and clenched in his teeth was the stem of an unlit pipe.
The boy reached up, took hold of the briarwood bowl and took it out. He pointed at the three men, one at a time, with the pipe’s stem.
I can see through him, George realized in surprise.
“Jesus Christ, George,” Vic said softly. “Is the kid a ghost?”
“I think so,” George whispered.
“This is awesome!” Eric said, barely able to keep his excitement contained.
George took his phone out, turned on the camera, brought it up, and snapped several pictures.