* * *
Voice recorder entry #49B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
How is this storm still raging? How is it possible? It’s so dark outside, it feels like the end of the world.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #50B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
If only I had some rope, I could tie it to the railing on the catwalk, secure the other end to my waist, and climb down to freedom. Or hang myself.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #51B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
And with this final entry in the Delaney Collins diary, what’s left of my heart and mind shatter into a million pieces:
September 4
I think maybe my prayers have been answered and the ghosts are gone. It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve had a nightmare or seen or felt anything out of the ordinary. I’ve been sleeping better. Eating better. I no longer feel nervous or like I am jumping out of my skin. I forgot what it felt like to be this way. Even Momma has noticed. She says her happy little girl is back. Tonight is one of Father’s poker games. I love poker nights. I get to see Uncle Phillip and even with the door closed I can hear the naughty jokes and comments from the poker table. Momma says we can make ice cream sundaes after dinner and play games, just the three of us. I’m looking forward to a wonderful night!
* * *
Voice recorder entry #52B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
That poor sweet innocent girl. Butchered at the hands of a madman.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #53B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Defeated whisper)
* * *
I came here for the money. Of course, I did. It’s always been about the money.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #54B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
I’ve sat here like a coward long enough. The hammer isn’t real. It can’t be. I have to prove it once and for all.
* * *
(Shuffling footsteps. Labored breathing)
* * *
My God, how…? There’s hair stuck to it, torn bloody clumps of auburn hair. And pieces of skin and what looks like bone. My sleeping bag is soaked in blood.
* * *
(Gasp)
* * *
It’s so heavy. How strong would a man have to be to use this as a weapon? It feels evil…it feels…
* * *
(Silence for the next nineteen minutes and forty seconds, and then we hear a loud thud as the hammer drops to the floor—followed by the sound of vomiting)
* * *
* * *
Voice recorder entry #55B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Crying)
* * *
I…I saw her face. Her beautiful long red hair. I heard her screams and pleas for mercy. I saw her face explode when the hammer struck. Again and again and again. I felt the warm spray of her blood on my hands. I was there. Holding the hammer. Swinging the hammer. I killed her. Sweet Delaney.
* * *
(Sobbing)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #56B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Livingston can be heard mumbling and quietly laughing, his unsettling giggling interrupted by the occasional sob)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #57B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Late last night and the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at the door. I want to go out, don’t know if I can, ’cause I’m so afraid of the Tommyknocker man.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #58B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Someone wrote in my notebook. For real this time. Okay, I lied before. Are you happy? I admit it. I fucking lied. Call it showmanship. Call it bullshit. I don’t care. But this is different. This is real. Just a few minutes ago I found my notebook open. My pen lying on top of it. Someone left me a message:
WE ARE STILL HERE
I swear to God I’m not lying this time. I wish I were.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #59B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
It shouldn’t be night already. It can’t be. It wasn’t even ten in the morning when I was downstairs at the cooler. There’s no way that much time has passed. It’s not possible.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #60B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Get off of me! Stop touching me!
* * *
Voice recorder entry #61B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Crying)
* * *
My eyeglasses are missing. I’m sitting here wide awake. I don’t understand how…but they’re gone.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #62B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Crying)
* * *
Someone…something…keeps touching my face. I can feel its breath on my neck.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #63B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
It won’t stop. I can feel its hands on me, its cold relentless embrace. It’s crushing me. I can’t breathe. It’s drowning me. The lighthouse is drowning me.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #64B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Sobbing)
* * *
Please just leave me alone…
* * *
Voice recorder entry #65B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Can you hear them singing? It’s the little girls. They’re getting closer.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #66B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Unintelligible)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #67B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
I want to go home. I want to leave this bad place and never come back. There’s evil here, in the walls, in the air. It lurks along the stairway and slumbers upon the catwalk. It breathes in the salt of the ocean and exhales darkness. It survives on the town’s fear. I can feel it oozing through the stone walls and slithering into my skin. It’s swimming in my veins. I can feel it. I can feel it eating my brain.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #68B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
This. Is. Madness.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #69B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Quiet sobbing)
* * *
Everything’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #70B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Widow’s Point, with its sheer cliffs and windswept ocean views, is one of the most picturesque scenic overlooks in all of Nova Scotia. It’s located a mere five minute drive from the town of Harper’s Cove, a thirty minute drive from neighboring Cambridge, and a zero minute drive from the depths of Hell.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #71B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(A distant murmuring grows in volume and
clarity and coalesces into a pair of young girls’ voices singing the nursery rhyme “This Old Man” in perfect melodic harmony)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #72B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
I just discovered a crucifix in my back pocket. How it got there I have no fucking idea. I’m sitting with my back against the wall, and when I shifted my position I felt something poke me, almost like a bee sting. I reached back there and pulled out the crucifix. I wish to God I hadn’t. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
It’s maybe three inches tall, carved out of dark stained wood. Jesus is naked and nailed to the cross. There are horns protruding from his head and he’s smiling at me with razor-sharp teeth. It’s hideous. It’s obscene.
The lighthouse is taunting me.
* * *
* * *
Voice recorder entry #73B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(The deep Irish voice heard earlier…
Yes, love, it’s done. Each one’s nothing but a bloody carcass on a bed sheet. Oh yes, darlin’, very bloody.
What’s that? You want this one too?)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #74B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
This is a bad place. I can feel it whispering inside my head. It wants to show me something…something terrible.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #75B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
I wish you could see what I see swirling inside my head. There are serpents here. Circling the lighthouse. Beneath the ground, beneath the waves. There are ghosts here. And much worse. The lighthouse is an infinite coil with no end. There are no endings here. Only more stairs. It’s an eternal circle, spiraling, maddening. There is no death in Widow’s Point. I know that now.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #76B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Screaming)
* * *
Oh my God, it hurts!
* * *
(Sobbing)
* * *
Somehow I dozed and woke up with the most awful pain shooting through my leg. I rolled up my pant leg and found fucking teeth marks! Something bit me while I was sleeping! Oh Jesus, I have to stop the bleeding!
* * *
Voice recorder entry #77B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Heavy breathing and the echo of loud footsteps)
* * *
I’m going downstairs again. It has to be safer there. These stairs are fucking endless.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #78B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
It wants to show me something ancient, something slumbering deep beneath the dark waters. The ocean is Its home and the lighthouse is Its beacon. The light shines not across the horizon, but downward, illuminating Its way home from the watery depths. The light house calls It and It shall come.
And It shall come
And It shall come
And It shall come
And It shall come
And It shall come
It is coming
* * *
Voice recorder entry #79B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(Livingston speaks for nine minutes and thirty-three seconds, but in a language unknown. He pauses frequently, as if listening for a response. No responses recorded)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #80B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done…
* * *
(The following is spoken by Livingston in Hebrew, and has since been translated)
* * *
…for rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because I have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected me as king.
We know that we are children of God, and that the whole of this world is under control of The Evil One.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #81B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
This isn’t fucking possible. I was climbing down all this time. One foot after the other, spiraling downward and downward…
…so how in the hell am I back upstairs in the living quarters again? I remember stepping off that final stair, seeing the cooler sitting there in the shadows, taking one more step—and then I was here.
It’s not possible.
None of this is possible.
Widow’s Point isn’t going to let me leave.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #82B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
(A shrill buzzing)
* * *
Jesus! You hear that?
* * *
(Buzzing continues. Livingston can be heard rummaging through his knapsack)
* * *
Come on, dammit!
* * *
(Buzzing is silenced)
* * *
Hello? Hello? I need help!
* * *
(A disharmony of static followed by a man’s voice: “Hey there, Tommy Boy.” An audible gasp follows. “What’s the matter, son, cat got your tongue?” Livingston’s breathing becomes irregular and heavy)
* * *
Da…dad?
* * *
(“That’s right, Tommy Boy, it’s your old man.”)
* * *
No, no, no, NO…this isn’t real…you’re…
* * *
(“Oh, it’s real, all right. Now come give Daddy a hug.”)
* * *
This isn’t happening. You’re…dead.
* * *
(“Well, yes, that is true. I am dead. But you won’t be. You’ll never leave this place, Tommy Boy. You’ll be trapped here with the rest of them, night after night, just you and all of your shame and regret and failure.”)
* * *
Shut up!
* * *
(“Like father, like son, huh, Tommy Boy. Why do you think I drank so much? Why do you think I beat your mom? Why do you think I touched—”)
* * *
SHUT UP!
* * *
(The phone shatters against the wall leaving us with Livingston’s choked sobs)
* * *
Voice recorder entry #83B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
My name is Thomas Livingston. I have been trapped inside the Widow’s Point Lighthouse for what feels like eternity. I no longer know if it is day or night or even what day it is. I have witnessed and felt things beyond any scientific explanation. I feel my sanity slipping away, drifting with the tide. If there is a God, He has no power here.
* * *
Voice recorder entry #84B
(time unknown, Sunday, July 13, 2017)
* * *
Where is Parker? Where is the sun? How long have I been here? The rain never stops. I should be starving to death, but the lighthouse gives me rats to eat.
Widow's Point Page 7