The Lamplighters

by Frazer Lee

  The something was sticky and stretchy and she fell sideways as she became tangled up in it. On her knees now, Marla struggled to right herself, gasping for breath and clutching at what she mistook for a branch. She quickly let go of the cold wet thing, scrambling backwards to rid herself of its touch. The lighthouse beam swung once again and flooded the area with the revelation of its light. Marla’s jaw dropped as she saw what she’d run into. Adam was strung out between two trees, his battered face a dark mockery of the life that had once resided there. What she’d thought was a branch was his arm, dangling useless, out of its socket. The sticky, sinewy fronds that had entrapped her were, horribly, sections of Adam’s flesh—flaps of skin and muscle that had been torn open and stretched out between the trees like a fleshy umbrella. Ropes of sinew and the workings of veins lashed the fleshy fronds to wet branches slicked with Adam’s blood and juices. A sound like light rain, just as subtle and pervasive, teased at Marla’s ears and her horrified eyes searched out its source. It was the sound of blood dripping from within the ruptured cavern of Adam’s torso. Her clumsy impact had caused Adam’s body to shift and bounce slightly as if on bungee ropes, still held taut in the web of his own flesh. The dripping became more urgent, a constant trickle of blood and steaming bile from his torso cavity. Marla tried not to scream, tried not to yell or cry as the fragile lip of flesh around Adam’s stomach gave way and his innards unspooled wetly. Adam’s intestines uncoiled and made hideous slapping sounds as they hit the ground at her feet. Blood and stomach juices spattered her face. The lighthouse’s beam continued on its journey across the awful scene, catching wisps of warm steam rising from the pile of unfettered organs at her feet and from the yawning hole where Adam’s heart used to be. Shock and dismay stilled the very voice of her and Marla struggled finally to her feet. She untangled her arm from a length of Adam’s flesh and she saw with raw horror a tattoo on its surface—it was the shape of a creature, perhaps an eagle. Her stricken eyes fancied that the hairs on his skin were standing erect. She felt her own skin freeze, signaling the onset of a deep stomach churning nausea. A cold tear chilled her cheek as it escaped from the corner of her unblinking eye and she ran like a madwoman into the woods and away from whatever was capable of doing such a thing to a human being. And that selfsame thing lumbered on after her, his breaths deep and purposeful, his hands ready to fashion more work.

  Marla was at the treeline when the light went out. One moment it was there, a rotating beacon in the night sky leading her to the waves and the boats they carried to shore—the next it was simply gone, snuffed out like a birthday candle. Make a wish. She wished for this nightmare to be over, for the tumble of images to be gone from her mind forever. Jessie, like a broken doll in that squalid basement. Pietro, shattered and bleeding with his last taste of precious salt water on his lips. Adam, or the abomination that used to be Adam, strung out between the tree trunks. Marla recalled the totem birds in the attic of the charnel house and wondered, feverishly, if the same hands that eviscerated Adam had wrought their intricate work. She remembered her first furtive flirtation with Adam as she’d met him on the path to Jessie’s summerhouse and the decomposing cat he’d examined in the leaves there. His body was ruined like that poor wretched animal’s. Death was everywhere on this damned island, lapping like blood at its shores, dripping like bile in its most secret of caves. It fell from the very air she breathed in the forms of dead birds. And if she made it through to morning, what then? Would the bright chirps of crickets dispel it? Would death shrink away at the blooming of new tropical flowers, wrinkle its nose at the fresh scent of herb gardens and lie low? No, death would still be there, waiting. Marla could taste it, acrid in her mouth. Is this what death tastes like, she thought morbidly, bitter and chemical and cold? She shivered and pressed on, glancing up at the scant pinprick illumination of stars. The light in the sky had gone out and all she could do was try to focus on the direction in which it had been shining, until now. Grounding herself in a clarifying thought was the only way she could rise above her myriad fears and keep going. That thought presented itself in the form of Vincent. He was the only one who could have been good to his word and lit the beacon, she was convinced of that. But now that the light had been extinguished she found herself praying—praying to deities she didn’t even believe in—that his life hadn’t been extinguished along with it. By powering up the lighthouse, Vincent had proven something to her. He was the only person on this island she could trust. And with a little bit of luck, and boy could she use some of that, she was heading straight for him.

  Heart pounding, bladder bursting with the urgent need to pee, Marla pushed on up a steep bank of grass and over the top where she could finally see the lighthouse. No light from its windows, she was prepared for that. But neither could she see the little lights of the boats. Marla began to feel the creeping fear that she had merely conjured them, a mirage of boats to give her hope on this, surely the last night of her life. She felt stricken. The rocks on which the lighthouse made its home were deserted. She could hear the rusty door grating on its hinges in the wind. Her heart descended yet further. She glanced behind her, trying to ascertain the shape of her pursuer in the gloomy landscape. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The realization did nothing to calm her nerves. If anything, she’d prefer to see him, at least then she’d know where he was. Perhaps he’d taken some secret route around the woodland and was already moving into position to cut her off before she could retreat back under cover. Her clarifying thought returned and galvanized her. Vincent. If Fowler and his goons were responsible for shutting out the lights then it followed that Vincent would be in the firing line.

  Clambering down the rocks and toward the lighthouse she looked up at the tower, monolith-like against the night sky. The rusty door banged shut, then open as she approached it, putting her nerves even more on edge. Up the steps and inside, avoiding the pool of stagnant water. Oh, but it was dark in there, standing trembling at the foot of the stairs too afraid to go up and too afraid to stand still.

  A loud bang and a flash burst out from the darkness, causing Marla to shriek in surprise and crouch into a defensive position. Sparks and smoke from the service closet beneath the stairs. She tentatively peered inside, just to make doubly sure. An electrical fault, that was all. A further jolting, loud pop and a shower of sparks made her jump. It provided all the encouragement Marla needed to turn and ascend the stairs, her nerves in tatters.

  The control room was eerily quiet and cold to the eye, swathed in a band of cool blue moonlight that reflected, frostlike, off every damp shiny surface in the room. Pietro’s body was nowhere to be seen, with only a dirty tangle of bedclothes suggesting he’d been there at all. She crossed the room, eyeing an upturned bucket curiously and following a water stain across the floor to where Vincent’s chair lay on its side. She righted the chair, an act of respect for the old man, and walked over to the pile of molding books and periodicals stacked nearest the little coffee stove. Vincent’s decaying library had been ransacked, that was for sure. Torn pages were scattered everywhere and broken-backed volumes had been left open where they had fallen, with some lying on their backs looking like fish out of water gasping for air. The mildew that covered the books was like lichen in a graveyard, a headstone for each of Vincent’s memories, each tome an epitaph for his stolen years in this island prison. A splash of vivid color caught her eye among the dull fusty books and Marla peered closer to find a pornographic magazine like the ones she’d seen in the basement of the Big House. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, strangely afraid that these pages might be part of Vincent’s collection. And yet, why not? An old man alone for all these years, he would surely miss physicality with a woman. Perhaps his jailers thought it a joke to slip this filth in with his crossword puzzles, eager to get a rise out of a widower whose eyes had seen too much tragedy to care for such lusts. No, something had been here and defiled Vincent’s little world, she felt sure of it. Those sickly smells from the basemen
t and the attic of the house were here with her in the room, bringing with them a flavor of decay, of wrongdoing. She suddenly felt more afraid for Vincent than for herself. Had that awful monster of a man been here? Had these high windows played dead witness to the sound of an old man’s neck cracking like a twig? She buried the thought, kicking the pages of the vile magazine beneath a pile of sodden encyclopedias. Then, out the window, she caught sight of first one then many of the tiny little lights. They were still adrift on the ocean. She dashed over to the windows, moving along their circle until she had a better view toward the lights. They were heading east, around the headland. If they continued on their course, they would be heading toward the houses, toward the security buildings—and the jetty.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Get the goddamn floodlights off. How long does it take? Jesus! I told you they like to dock in near-freaking-darkness, the arc lamps play havoc with their skin…”

  Fowler’s men got to it. All around him a frenzy of black fatigues. Guy ropes were tightened up and tied off, the deck washed down, barrels and other storage containers removed and placed where they should have been days ago. Of all the times for an official visit, they had to pick now. Now, dammit. Fowler stood, his neck muscles tensed so much that they looked about to snap at any given moment, looking out to sea and those little firefly lights. They were a portent, flags heralding a doom about to unfurl in his tight little world. The chief did not like inconveniences of this magnitude. An unannounced visit from these little boats, and the people they carried onboard was the largest inconvenience he could imagine. He barked more orders to his men, how many times did he have to tell them—all but the emergency lights, throat sore from all the shouting. A nasty headache was forming from a splinter of pain behind his left ear. He knew it would only grow more painful as the night went on. Good. He needed his pain sometimes to better focus on who, and what, was most deserving of his wrath. The American bitch had started all this and he grimaced at the very thought of her. Without her antics with the laptop and the security network those little lights wouldn’t even be there—bobbing their way closer to his little empire to peer into the dark corners of his oversights, his ineptitude. Yeah, it was the American girl’s fault all right. She’d be put to task for all she’d cost him. If not for her, the old man would still be poring over crossword puzzles and sipping that foul brew he dared call coffee, impotent and insignificant in his rat-infested tower. But no, he’d seen fit to turn on the fucking lights. Christ! Fowler was sure the pilots of those boats had seen them, idling towards the beam for a while like moths to a very big, ugly flame before resuming their collective course to the jetty. The old man would pay for this, but right now he had to focus on the task in hand.

  “I want this fucking jetty cleared of non-essential staff now!” he bellowed.

  Several black-clad men scurried away into the shadows, quick as roaches under fluorescents, and the boats arrived noiselessly. Their sleek shapes glided into position around the jetty in the movement and formation as effortlessly elegant as dolphins might swim. Fowler could see the silhouettes of deckhands in the scant glow of the emergency lights as they readied their ropes then tossed them to his men, who tied them off efficiently and without greeting. The largest of the boats was directly in front of Fowler, its black hull reflecting the red glow of the emergency lights like angry eyes. He swallowed hard, dry grit in his throat. One by one they disembarked from their vessels and took their places on the jetty. Their knowing eyes commanded respect. Many of Fowler’s men had never even seen them before and lowered or otherwise averted their gazes, unable to make eye contact confidently. The eldest, and tallest, of their number disembarked last and made his way gracefully through the columns of his comrades until he was just a foot or two away from Fowler.

  “Sir,” said Fowler, bowing his head with military stiffness. The address was loaded with reverence and a servility Fowler’s men had never until now heard in his voice. There was something else in his diction—guilt, embarrassment, and inconvenience.

  The graceful man standing in front of him just smiled. White teeth and almost incandescent skin. Hair as lustrous, strong and white as a waterfall. He put a single fingertip to his lips then spoke in a soft, almost musical tone.

  “Trouble, Chief?”

  Fowler drew breath, ready to answer for all his oversights, all his fuck-ups. Sentry Maiden had intercepted an intruder, that was all. Perhaps he would neglect to mention the computer hacker, the Italian boy blown out of the water, Anders gone AWOL. The waves lapped against the jetty’s support beams far below his feet. It was a queasy sound and he felt seasick. Get a hold of yourself, soldier. Cold sweat began to spread like a sickness across the back of his neck. This was the effect these people had on him, on anyone crossing their path. He fought to gain control of himself, growing aware of a trapped nerve in his thigh as it made a Saint Vitus’s dance in his leg.

  Fowler opened his mouth to speak. The waves lapped sickly on. Then a splash and a black sound from his flank. Everything went red. He clawed uselessly at his crotch. His head exploded.

  Vincent stood next to Fowler and pulled the trigger again. Click. Again. Click. Again. Chamber empty, wild eyes staring. No one had even noticed him clamber out of the sea and onto the jetty, distracted by the arrival of these immaculate, shining people. He was sodden from head to toe. Fowler’s body fell to the floor, making a dull thud on the jetty as his skull leaked brain matter and blood onto the planks. Seawater dripped off the old man and trickled across the jetty, snaking like cold tongues intent on tasting the blood.

  One of Fowler’s men took a few unsure steps towards Vincent, his eyes blinking from the aftershock of the murder. The tall man held a hand up, casually, as if placating a child. It was okay, he would handle this.

  “Look who’s here to see you. Dear Vincent,” the musical voice soothed.

  No sooner than he’d said it, one of the boarding party moved from the rear of the group. Vincent’s eyes filled with tears as he saw her beautiful lithe frame and golden hair. He fell to his knees, dropping the still smoking gun and folded himself into her embrace. She ran her fingers through his wet, thinning hair and kissed his forehead, a lullaby of whispers sighing from her perfect lips. Vincent sobbed, murmuring something over and over again through the pain of his injuries, of his decades here on the island and how he wanted to give The Man his bullet back.

  After a few quiet breaths, Vincent stood and started walking away from the group as if in a trance. Nervously, one of the security guards stepped in to block his exit, but the shiny white-toothed man gave the instruction to let the old man pass.

  “Let him go. Let him go home. Back to his lighthouse.”

  He uttered the words like a kindness.

  The guard twitched, then pulled his gun and aimed it at Vincent’s head, intent on blocking his path.

  “I said let him go home.” The voice again, like music and starlight.

  But the nervous employee stood his twitchy ground. He had seen the old man gun down his boss in cold blood. He was as shocked as the rest of the men. Much as he never liked the chief, the guy had always been on the level with them. He ran a tight ship. These guys had no business letting Vincent go. He explained as much, in exasperated tones. His comrades stood firm with him, an uprising of sorts. They were security; they would handle this. The blonde woman walked towards the nervous guard like a cat. Her gossamer-thin clothing fluttered in the breeze. Sweat licked at his brow as she moved intimately close to him as a lover. She was odorless, smelled of nothing, not like a woman smells. Perfume and product and sweet breath. There was nothing. He sighed involuntarily, a submissive sound, like the breeze at a window about to be shut. She fixed him with her eyes and gently sniffed at the film of perspiration on his neck. One by one, each guard was entwined with such a lover of his own, not all women. Two of the men found themselves in the embraces of men taller and stronger than they, not caring that their secrets were out. Each guard was utterl
y transfixed. Silence as thick as fog descended over the jetty.

  Then their necks snapped and their limp bodies toppled into cold black waters, useless as the weapons that slipped from their fingers and sank beneath the waves.

  Stratum spinosum

  He’d had to work the dark boy quickly. Too quickly, for shame. It seemed like an age since he’d performed a field procedure. But then the heat had taken him, reminded as he was of the old days in the forests when his craft was younger and more primitive rather like those it was visited upon. He’d been a god then and they had names for him that made children cry themselves to sleep and women cradle those children tightly as they writhed perspiring in the humidity of nightmares to come. The dark boy’s flesh had reminded him of those villagers and their supple ways. Too quickly. Working on the boy should have been a gift. It was a part of the calm after the storm, its opportunity a vital component of ritual. As he’d undressed the carcass, he’d rattled through the root of his base knowledge, tasting the words on his tongue like blood.