CHAPTER THREE
The walk there ended up being a lot more difficult than I thought. Because the lighthouse was situated on the top of a small cliff, it meant a near vertical climb on my hands and knees. I tried holding my iPhone in my mouth for a while until I decided I was better off letting my eyes adjust to the dark and have my night vision kick in.
With my hands soaking up the sea-sprayed grass and coarse dirt, I slowly found my way to the crest. On the other side, the cliff tapered off gently back into rolling dunes, and behind the lighthouse weedy ground led into a dark forest. It was windier up here and noisier as the waves crashed against the large rocks and boulders. Every once in a while the wind would catch the spray and shower it in my face.
The dark outline of the lighthouse building loomed in front of me. It was enough to make me pause and think for a second.
I knew I could be very impulsive in certain situations, even to the point where I would find myself acting while my brain was screaming for me not to. This was one of those situations. I was cold, the weather was turning for the worse, I had a few glasses of wine in me, it was late, no one knew where I was, and yet my main concern was trying to get into a creepy old lighthouse. As much as the reckless side of me felt compelled to explore it, the rational side knew it was probably the stupidest idea imaginable, even more so because I had this overall feeling of dread about the place.
I know I said earlier that it felt like it was waiting for me and that still held true. Whether it was destiny disguised as dread I didn’t know, but I truly wished that the small, responsible (dare I say “adult”), part of my brain would overpower me and steer me back to Uncle Al’s house.
But instead I decided to take out my camera. I put the strap around my neck and then switched on the video mode. A jarring, blue-white light lit up the ground in front of me. I took a deep breath and aimed the camera at the lighthouse. I flicked the recording switch on; might as well have something to show for my little exploration.
The lighthouse was only a few yards in front of me, bathed in the eerie electronic glow. The windows, for the most part, were all boarded up, though occasionally there was an unobstructed pane, broken or cracked from the corner. The building was impossibly immense up close, evoking a feeling of density. The white paint was peeling, with black glistening patches plaguing its pebbly form. It was probably mildew; in the dark it reminded me of bloodstains. I shivered at that thought and steadied the camera.
I raised it to the second story and scanned alongside it to the tower. The tip was concealed as the camera light was now only catching the fat strands of thick, incoming fog.
I started toward the front of the lighthouse where a few hardy windblown shrubs converged from the cliff’s flanks. I inspected the building. I wanted to get inside but had no clue how. The rusty door was locked shut with a lock I surely couldn’t pick.
“This is stupid,” I said out loud to myself. The sound of my own voice was comforting. It was stupid. I should have turned back.
Instead, I kept walking around. I walked as close to the building as possible, not trusting the surrounding ground, and then came around front. It looked like the cliff’s edge was a safe enough distance from the foundation, maybe fifteen feet. There were a few shrubs planted at the base of the tower and above them was a large round window. A single board had been placed across it. Above the ground floor window was another window, then another, and then another, until they reached the watchtower top.
I walked up to the window and saw that the board had been fastened from the inside. I knew what I had to do and was really excited I could do it.
I felt the board, testing its strength. It felt like it would fall off without much effort, which suited me perfectly.
“We have come to our first obstacle, a boarded window,” I said to the camera, turning it around so that it was filming my face, probably on extreme close-up. “However, this proves to be no challenge to Perry Palomino.”
I put the camera down on the ground, stacking it up against a rock so that it was filming me and stepped back. Feeling strength in my leg’s position and my body’s stance, I sprung forward, my body tilting at the exact angle, my arm extending until my palm met the board with precision. With a satisfying give, it flew off its anchors and into the back of the building, landing on the floor inside with an echoing clatter.
I turned and looked at the camera and mouthed my best out-of-synch Bruce Lee impression, “Movement number four: Dragon seeks path.”
Then, feeling like an idiot, I ran over to and scooped it up. I knew right then I would be showing this video to no one. Even though the objective was reached, my hand was stinging because I didn’t do everything correctly (it had been a year since my last lesson) and I was conscious of how big of a dork I was.
I put the camera back around my neck and poked my head inside. A wall of musty odor hit me, tickling my lungs into a coughing fit. I aimed the light into the darkness and saw the broken boards on the ground in an empty, circular room. A dripping noise came from the corner and there was an overall feeling of dampness. Near the back of the room there was a doorway but no door hung from its bare hinges. I could barely make out what was beyond that; it looked like it was the staircase that would lead to the top of the tower.
There was something strange about this place, something vaguely familiar. I racked my brain for any concrete recognition but came up short.
There was a heavy stillness to the air inside despite the wind that was now freely entering from the coast. It was strangely compelling and very otherworldly.
I put my hands on the windowsill and pulled myself up, my under-used pecs aching from my own weight. I swung my legs around clumsily and hopped down. My feet landed in a small puddle, spraying cold water onto my leggings. I immediately regretted coming inside.
The air here was thick. My breaths were coming in slower and sluggish, like fluid was entering my lungs. The pressure inside was different too, causing my ears to throb.
I shone the camera around me in a circle but the air swallowed up the light as if it was hungry. That analogy made me shiver. It was cold, too, and I hated the way the blackness felt behind my back, like a net waiting to drop. At that thought I spun around. No one was there, of course.
My chest thumped wildly. I breathed out slowly, deeply, and tried to steady my heart. I felt like I just had to come to this place, and now that I was here, reality was sinking in. This really was not the best idea, was it?
I pointed the camera around the room one more time, trying to take in the morbid scenery. I was about to say something witty about my soon-to-be cowardly exit when I heard a THUMP from above me.
My heart literally froze. My breath stopped with it.
I listened hard, as if I strained enough I would sprout super ears.
Another THUMP from upstairs. It came from the room right above my head. The urge to vomit traveled up my body, from my toes to my lips. It increased as the thumps followed a footstep pattern, as if someone was walking across the room and to the hallway.
My first thought wasn’t that it was a ghost or anything creepy like that, but something worse, something that could actually hurt you like a meth-addicted hobo or a rapist who used this lighthouse as his hideout. Or his rape palace.
I looked behind me at the window I came in through. No doubt the person, or thing, must have heard me break in, must have heard my lame ramblings to the camera. They knew I was here. The only choice I had was to go. But could I get to the window before I was caught?
With the footsteps continuing quietly above me, as if they knew I was listening, I carefully slinked my way back to the window.
I reached for the edge of it with my hand when an ominous shadow passed outside. It happened so quickly that I didn’t see what it was but it was human enough that I ducked and flattened myself against the wall.
I was fucked and I knew it. I had stupidly wandered into some epic rape palace run by meth-addicted hobos and bald men with beards who recently escaped nearby jails and had taken over this place for their torture sessions with hapless young women they found exploring the coast. Even worse, I was going to be the hapless woman who decided to infiltrate their headquarters.
In most movies, the heroine would poke her head over the windowsill to get a better glimpse of what was going on outside, but I knew if I did that, I’d be spotted right away.
So, despite the fact that the window represented freedom and a way out of this hell hole, I slowly moved away from it and scooted along the wall. The light from the camera danced around the room and I immediately knew that I was begging to be found. I switched it off with a click and was quickly engulfed in total darkness.
Of course, I knew that by turning off the light I was still letting people know where I was, but at least in the dark I could hide if I needed to. I started fishing around in my pockets to see if I had any weapons. I didn’t. I didn’t even have sharp nails. I hoped my karate “skills” worked well on adrenaline.
While trying to keep the urge to pass out at bay, I decided the best thing for me to do was to go out into the hallway. I was trapped in the dank room anyway, and I wasn’t brave enough to go through the only exit. The footsteps from up above had stopped, although I wasn’t sure when, and the hallway probably had another door or more windows to escape out of.
I inched as silently as possible to the doorframe and poked my head out into the hall. Naturally I couldn’t see anything except murky blackness, but after a while my eyes adjusted.
The air in the hallway felt even heavier than it had in the room and smelled like rotten kelp. I squinted at the staircase at the end of the short hall. Lo and behold, there were inky trails of seaweed in the hallway, leading up the stairs. It was like some kelp monster had gone up there, leaving its entrails behind.
Stop it! I yelled inside my head. I was freaking myself out even more and it needed to cease before my brain spiraled out of control. Only bad things could come of that. My main objective had to be getting out of there swiftly and safely and without losing my mind.
I took my eyes off the kelp and looked around the hallway. Dots of green and black danced before my eyes, making it hard for me to focus, but I eventually spotted what seemed to be a door into another part of the lighthouse.
I crept across the hallway, which was thankfully only a foot or two, and reached the door. My hands fumbled and hit the handle loudly. I winced and froze, keeping my breath quiet. When I didn’t hear anything after a few terrifying seconds, I carefully turned it and pulled. It barely moved.
I brought my hands up along the frame and came across a lock. I jiggled it silently but to no avail. Unless I magically had a lockcutter in my leggings, this door was not the way out tonight.
I felt tears of frustration rushing to my eyes and blinked quickly to keep them contained. I took my hand off the lock and took in a very deep breath, the type I was taught to use to ward off panic attacks. All my previous panic attacks seemed pretty frivolous compared to this. Impending death (or worse) was an honest-to-God real reason to panic.
I had only one option left: Go back into the room and climb out of the window as quickly as possible. Maybe if I did it fast enough, I could leap out into the night without being noticed, and even if I was noticed maybe my stubby little legs and screaming skills would be enough to keep any potential murderers at bay.
I steadied myself and closed my eyes. Pins and needles were literally flowing along my veins, revving my engines.
I turned on a dime and sprinted towards the room across from me.
BAM!