The Lighthouse Keeper, page 19
Max said nothing. Instead, he went to the rear wall of the sitting room and began to rummage around on the equipment shelves. Presently, he came back with two large, heavy spanners, one of which he handed to Nick, who hefted the makeshift weapon dubiously. ‘Think this’ll do any good?’
‘Would you rather go without it?’ asked Max.
‘Point taken.’
‘I’m going with you,’ said Rebecca.
Nick glanced at her. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.’
Nick shook his head resolutely. ‘Not going to happen, Becks.’
‘Listen, Nick,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to stay in here like…’ she glanced at Max ‘…like a scared kid, while you go out there. I’m just not going to do it!’
‘And what about the way you came away from that wall? It was like someone had put two hundred volts through you. What’s going to happen if you go outside and…’
‘And what? There’s something dangerous out there? Something lethal? Max is right. If that’s the case, and it wants to get in here, it’ll get in. Whether we’re inside or outside doesn’t really matter, does it?’
‘I… suppose not, but…’
‘No buts, Nick! And what if it attacks you and Max? Then Jennifer and… and Donald and I are left in here, aren’t we… defenceless.’
Max looked at the expression on Nick’s face and whistled. ‘The girl’s good.’
‘All right,’ Nick sighed. ‘But stay close to me. We’ll do one circuit around the lighthouse – one – and then come back inside. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.’
‘And what if something’s out there?’ asked Jennifer.
‘Then we’ll be back inside in a lot less than a couple of minutes,’ said Max. ‘But at least then we’ll know what the deal is.’
‘Jennifer, you stay here with Donald,’ said Nick. ‘We won’t be long.’
Jennifer nodded.
Max picked up a hammer from the shelf and handed it to Rebecca. They all looked at each other for several moments, each expecting – hoping – that someone would say something else. But no one did.
Nick looked down at his spanner, hefted it uncertainly, then said, ‘All right. Let’s… let’s take a look outside.’
Taking their weapons and some torches, they filed out of the sitting room and along the corridor leading to the front door. Max was leading the way. Suddenly, he stopped dead. Nick bumped into him. ‘What is it?’ he asked, trying to see past his friend in the gloom.
‘Christ, I’d forgotten all about that,’ said Max quietly.
‘Forgotten what?’
Max stood aside to let Nick see.
‘Oh God,’ he whispered.
The front door was still standing ajar, its frame splintered from Max’s kicks the previous evening. They had planned to repair it during the afternoon… the afternoon that had vanished.
Max gave a low chuckle.
‘What’s so funny?’ Nick demanded.
‘I’m sorry, man. But there we were, saying that whatever’s outside could probably get into the house any time it chose. How right we were.’
‘Never mind that now,’ said Rebecca. ‘Let’s just go out and get this over with.’
‘I hear you, Becks.’ Max continued on to the door, slowly took hold of the handle, and pulled it completely open. Then, taking a deep breath, he stepped out into the darkness.
TEN
Wednesday 22 July
1.30 AM
They huddled together on the doorstep in the still night. Although it was cold, there was no wind, and the stars ranged vastly overhead glittered like tiny flecks of silver on black velvet. All around, the sea hissed softly: a great exhalation, as if it had drawn in its breath at the beginning of the world and was now slowly letting it out, as it had always done and always would, for as long as the Sun lived and the world turned.
The light flashed out its warning every fifteen seconds from the tower above them, momentarily casting a cold, spectral light upon the flagstones of the little courtyard. They stood still and listened. For perhaps a minute, they heard nothing but the sea.
And then, gradually, the sea fell silent, and the group looked at each other.
‘I can’t hear it anymore,’ whispered Rebecca.
‘Nor can I,’ Nick replied.
Rebecca clutched her weapon tightly. Even the sea knows something is wrong, she thought.
Max stepped away from the porch and shone his torch to the right and left. Nick followed and stood beside him, holding his gas-powered lantern above his head.
‘I don’t see anything,’ said Max in a low, steady voice.
‘All right,’ said Nick. ‘Let’s get this over with. Which way do you want to go?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I suppose not… left, then.’
‘Okay.’
They moved further away from the door, treading carefully, as if the flagstones were a thin crust of ice on a deep lake.
‘Becks,’ said Max, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Stay between us. Nick, take up the rear, and keep a watch behind us. If you see anything, holler.’
‘Don’t worry. I will.’
Ahead, the floor of the compound angled left around the corner of the house. The darkness was solid, palpable, unrelieved by the paradoxical brightness of the scattered stars. They continued forward, straining to catch the slightest movement, the faintest sound, but the only movement was that of the light cast by their torches, the only sound that of their own breathing.
And then they heard it, that strange confusion of disparate noises, and they stopped and held their breath and listened, as field mice listen to the flap of the falcon’s wings.
‘It’s around the corner,’ whispered Max.
The crackle of paper, the soft beat of a distant drum, the low moan of uneasy sleep, the hiss of flame, the shuffle of something wet and prehensile…
Rebecca felt her breath quicken in her chest. It’s there. Max is right… it is there. Jesus Jesus Jesus…
Max edged forward. After what seemed like an hour, they reached the corner of the house. Max glanced back once, then took a deep breath and thrust his head around the corner.
For an instant, it seemed to Rebecca that the sounds quickened and grew louder, as if whatever was making them had been startled, and then they subsided again to their former volume, a strange substitute for the lost whisper of the sea.
Max’s voice drifted back to her. ‘Nothing… nothing there.’
It’s playing with us, thought Rebecca. Playing hide and seek. Briefly, she considered voicing the thought, but decided not to. She didn’t want to hear it said – not by her, not by anyone. Even though Max couldn’t see anything, Rebecca still felt the presence of something abnormal and unclean. That cold, unassailable conviction was only partly the result of the sounds it made: there was another factor at work, as though the reptile brain at the centre of her head were responding directly to it, without recourse to her physical senses.
‘Can you feel it?’ she asked with a trembling, despairing voice. ‘Can you feel it like I do?’
Max glanced over his shoulder at her, then looked at Nick.
‘I don’t want to be the only one who…’
‘I think we can all feel it, Becks,’ said Nick. She looked at his face, which was cast into gruesome pallor by the pale light from their torches, and tried to gauge whether he was telling her the truth. But she couldn’t decide. She thought about her discovery of the manuscript and the carved stone. Had she unwittingly forged some connection with whatever existed here? Had it somehow chosen her to find those strange artefacts? She shuddered and struggled to hold back the tears that were threatening to flow once again.
‘Come on,’ said Max, and disappeared around the corner of the house.
The others followed, the dark wall on their left, the ocean on their right – black, limitless, silent.
They walked slowly, listening to the sounds of their breathing and their soft footfalls on the cobblestones, and listening to that other sound that seemed to come from all around them.
Why can’t we see it? Rebecca wondered. Is it because we’re inside it? Has it already eaten us? Us, and the island, and the world?
And as she thought this, the sound again quickened and grew momentarily louder, as if the thing that was making it had heard the thought.
Can you hear me? Do you know what I’m thinking?
Rebecca waited for a further response, but there was none. The sound returned to its former volume, while above them the stars twinkled mockingly in the infinite depths of the universe, and the light at the top of the tower responded like a slow and feeble pulsar.
They turned the next corner, and entered the part of the enclosure containing the outbuildings. They paused, and listened.
‘Is it louder here…?’ said Max.
‘I’m not sure,’ Nick replied. ‘Why would it be?’
They looked around, and their gazes came to rest on the door to the larger outbuilding.
It’s in there, thought Rebecca.
Max walked over to the building and reached for the door handle.
Shit!
He tried the handle, but the door remained shut fast.
‘Locked,’ he said.
Nick joined him. ‘What the hell?’ He tried the handle himself. ‘Donald was in here… it was unlocked… how can it be locked again now?’
Max gave the door a disgusted look and then turned away. ‘Goddamn it.’
‘All right,’ said Nick. ‘Let’s get going. We’ll complete our circuit and go back inside.’
Max gave the door one last try. Rebecca had a vision of him throwing rocks at a sleeping tiger – except that whatever was making the sound was not asleep – and said, ‘Come on, Max. Let’s go.’
He sighed and rejoined the group, and together they continued around the house. As they gained the final corner, the sound that had accompanied them began to grow fainter, and by the time they reached the front door, it had ceased altogether.
‘Do you think it’s gone?’ asked Rebecca.
‘I’m not buying that,’ Max replied, pushing open the door. ‘Come on, let’s get inside, quick!’
With a greater relief than she had ever felt before, Rebecca followed Max inside. Nick pushed the door closed and leaned against it. ‘What are we going to do about this?’ he asked.
‘There’s a couple of old wooden chairs in the sitting room,’ Max replied. ‘We’ll jam one under the door handle.’
Rebecca frowned. ‘Do you think that’ll do any good?’
‘I don’t know.’ He checked the time. ‘It’s one forty-five. We should stand watch until morning. We’ll do a shift each. I’ll go first, then Nick.’
Max brought the two chairs from the sitting room. He placed one against the front door, so that its back was wedged firmly under the handle. The other he placed a few feet away, facing the door. He sat down. The chair creaked loudly in protest.
‘If anything happens…’ said Nick.
Max nodded. ‘I’ll come wake you up.’
‘And then what?’ asked Rebecca.
Nick looked at the door in silence for a long moment. ‘Then we’ll defend ourselves,’ he said.
When he and Rebecca returned to the sitting room, they found Jennifer sitting beside Donald, holding his hand.
‘How is he?’ asked Nick.
Jennifer turned haunted eyes to him. ‘He’s awake… he’s been saying things…’
‘What things?’
Donald’s mouth started working again, a tiny strangled voice – barely more than a whisper – issuing from his twitching lips.
Jennifer shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to make of it. Come and listen.’
Nick and Rebecca crouched down beside them and bent close, trying to make out what Donald was saying.
‘… Mother Hydra… Mother Hydra… she is coming I can feel her she is coming close now so close through the spaces filled with things that move but are not alive oh God please my God please help me the separating void is birthing that place those things they are here descending the moon ladder transfiguring the night oh dear God and Jesus Christ preserve and protect me I can see them inside my mind the rotating cylinder the carved rim Christ be with us through the void the continuum where are you Lord please where are you save me save us don’t let them into the world I can see them substance without flesh they can’t be they shouldn’t be they mustn’t exist… inside my mind the rotating cylinder here descending the moon ladder transfiguring translating now through the void the Christ – preserve and protect me I can see – are you save me save us don’t let them the carved rim Christ be with us they are world I can see them – substance without continuum where are you Lord please exist but I can see them where she is coming I can see she is coming – flesh they can’t be – Mother Hydra Mother Hydra Mother Hydra birthing that place…’
Rebecca looked away, feeling nauseous, and moved to the other side of the room.
‘What the hell does all this mean?’ Nick asked Jennifer. ‘Do you think he’s been… driven insane?’
‘I don’t know… but one thing’s for sure: he experienced some unimaginable trauma in that outbuilding, and he can’t get past it… he can’t assimilate it.’ She shook her head. ‘I take it you didn’t see anything outside.’
‘No, nothing; we just heard the sound.’
‘I was expecting something terrible to happen.’
Nick looked down at Donald, who was still muttering his incomprehensible monologue. ‘It did,’ he said.
ELEVEN
Wednesday 22 July
8.25 AM
The first thing Rebecca did when she woke up was to check her watch. She had drifted into a fitful, uneasy sleep at about three o’clock in the morning, after more than an hour of huddling in her sleeping bag and listening breathlessly for any sounds of movement outside the house. The sigh of the ocean had returned soon after they went inside, and she had been reminded of the films she had seen over the years, whose titles now escaped her, in which the sounds of crickets, cicadas and bullfrogs ceased at the approach of some monster or alien. That was what it had been like last night, although it was not tiny, unseen animals that had been shocked into silence by whatever had made that noise, but the very ocean. How could that be?
She thought of what Jennifer had said about one’s perception of time – of reality – being altered somehow. But was that true? Was it only the perception of reality that was altered… or was it reality itself? Had they only perceived the ocean to become silent, or had it actually happened?
She thought of her parents in Avignon, spending a few weeks of the summer in the warmth and beauty of the French countryside. God, I wish I was there, she thought. I wish Nick and I were there right now. In fact, she wished she were anywhere but here. When she had first set foot on Eilean Mòr, she’d had the impression that the island wanted to be left alone. Now she knew that she had instinctively perceived the essential reality of the place; she understood that there were some places in the world where human beings simply do not belong.
She thought of their fearful, trembling circuit of the house in a vast darkness unrelieved by the cold, hard light of the unsympathetic stars, and she wondered how many more places like this there were – on this world and others. Could we ever live out there? Is there a place for us? Or do we exist in a tiny region of sanity in an infinite ocean of madness?
She looked across at Jennifer, who was curled up and facing the wall, still asleep. She hadn’t gone near Donald for the rest of the night, hadn’t even wanted to look at him, so Nick and Max had checked on him periodically, giving him water from one of their canteens, which he had swallowed soundlessly.
What had happened to him? What had he seen in the outbuilding? She thought of what Dalemore had written, how he and Milne had thrown their full weight against the door that night long ago, and how it had remained firmly shut against two strong men. Whatever had been in there was powerful and dangerous… but what was it?
Jennifer moaned softly and stirred in her sleeping bag. Rebecca went over to her. ‘What time is it?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Nearly half past eight. How are you feeling?’
‘All right. Where are Nick and Max?’
‘I don’t know. I guess they’re outside.’
Jennifer sat up and looked at Donald.
‘He’s asleep,’ said Rebecca. ‘What was he saying last night?’
Jennifer heaved a huge, ragged sigh and shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Nonsense words. At least… I hope they were nonsense.’
Rebecca felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. ‘He was delusional,’ she said.
But Jennifer shook her head. ‘I think we’ve seen too much for me to believe that, no matter how much I want to. Here, in this place… either everything is madness, or nothing is.’
Rebecca was about to say something but was interrupted as Nick came into the room. She saw the expression on his face and said: ‘What now?’
‘I think you should come outside and look at this.’
She hadn’t thought her heart could sink any lower, but Nick’s face and his tone of voice proved her wrong. Without a word, she and Jennifer followed him from the room and the house.
Overhead, the sky was thickly strewn with grey, consumptive clouds, as if it had been infected with some unimaginable disease, while all around the sea muttered and moaned as if wounded. The air felt unnaturally cloying and humid, the way it did in latitudes far further south than this. And Rebecca could smell something which she couldn’t identify, but which wasn’t the ocean brine.
Max was standing beyond the wall of the enclosure, looking down at something she couldn’t see, something on the ground.
She and Jennifer followed Nick through the gate and onto the rough, sparse grass.
‘What the hell is that?’ she asked, gazing down at what lay at their feet.
The ground had been churned up in a long, meandering line that stretched away from them across the island and vanished over its ragged edge. To Rebecca, it looked like the track an earthmover might make, except that instead of regular, parallel grooves cut into the soil, this was composed of crazily-angled troughs perhaps three inches deep and about twelve long. And earthmovers left two tracks, whereas here there was only one.
