The Lighthouse: A Novel of Terror
Page 27
Abandoned here, he thought. Why?
He went around to the driver’s door, leaned inside. Empty. The ignition lock was empty, too; whoever had been driving it—Reese?—had taken the key. Frustrated, feeling a new surge of anxiety, he backed out and stood indecisively for a moment, knuckling his eyes, staring ahead into the blurry darkness.
Alix, he thought then.
And once more he began to run.
Alix
She lay flat on her stomach, her cheek pressed against the cold concrete. The floor under the car was slick with motor oil; the smell of it made her want to retch. She closed her throat against a surge of bile, remained perfectly still.
She could see Cassie’s bare feet and the hem of her robe several yards from the car; she could also see the crumpled body of Adam Reese, the splotch of blood on the front of his jacket. Cassie hadn’t turned, hadn’t moved since she’d shot Reese—as if the act had momentarily paralyzed her. It was another few seconds before the feet moved, turned once again toward the car with such suddenness that the robe puffed out to expose thick ankles. There was a quick intake of breath, and then—
“Alix? Where are you?”
Alix held her breath.
Cassie’s voice rose querulously. “Where did you go?”
After a moment the feet moved out of Alix’s line of vision, back toward the front of the car, shuffling like those of an old woman. She turned her head then, peered out the other side. There was a line of cardboard cartons some four feet away, with a space large enough for her to wriggle through between two of them. She was too confined here under the car; if Cassie realized where she was, there would be no way to defend herself, no way to escape a bullet. Behind those boxes, she would still be protected, yet have more freedom of movement.
But what if she made sounds and Cassie heard them? With that overhead light on, she would make a perfect target, even with the car between them—
The side door slammed resoundingly. When the echo died, the silence was once again acute.
Alix lay motionless, taking in small amounts of air through her mouth. Her chest ached, blood pounded in her temples. She realized she was still clutching Mandy’s headband; her fingers pressed the beads as if she might be about to say a rosary.
You’ve got to move sooner or later. Do it now, while she’s still over by the door.
She made herself move in the direction of the cardboard cartons. She was almost to the rear wheel when she saw an old bathroom plunger lying behind it. It was good-sized, with a wooden handle two feet long. Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing.
Inching along, she stretched her arm out until her fingers could just touch the handle. Then she lay still again, listening. Heard nothing except the heavy silence. But once she came out from under the car, exposed herself in the light . . . that damned ceiling bulb hung right over the car. . . .
Smash it, she thought then. It hangs down low, you can reach it with the plunger . . . and in the dark you’ve got a much better chance . . . smash it!
She crawled forward, took a firm grip on the wooden handle; her head was out from under the car now. Behind her, on the other side of the car, Cassie moved and then called, “Alix?” again. The sound of her name drove her the rest of the way out from under, up onto her knees.
Cassie heard her, shouted something unintelligible just as Alix located the bulb, and lunged up at it swinging her club.
But her first swing missed high, hitting the cord instead and setting the light swaying and dancing crazily; light swirled, weird shadows climbed the walls and then fell back again. Cassie fired a shot, but in her haste her aim was off-line: the bullet cut a furrow across the top of the car to Alix’s left with a sound like fingernails dragging down a blackboard.
Wildly, Alix swung again at the swaying light. She lost her grip on the plunger as she did so, but in flying out of her hand it struck its target. The bulb shattered; the garage was plunged into darkness.
Another shout from Cassie, but no more shots. Alix dropped to her hands and knees again, crawled behind the row of cardboard cartons. When she’d gone as far as she could she got up in a crouch and extended her hands into the darkness around her, searching for another weapon. At first they encountered only empty space, then she felt a lumpy plastic shape, probably a large sack of potting soil or fertilizer. Her touch stirred up what was inside and a faint but pungent filtering of dust tickled her nostrils. She put a hand up in a vain effort to stop a sudden sneeze.
The sneeze came out as a little choking noise, loud in the electric stillness that filled the garage.
Cassie said, “I hear you, Alix. You can’t get away, not even in the dark.” She began moving, coming toward the car.
When she got to it, would she think to open one of the doors for the dome light? Alix squeezed the plastic sack, seeking more shelter. When she tried to straighten, her head banged into solid wood. Wincing with pain, she raised a hand and felt the rough underside of a shelf. Probably a potting shelf, like many old garages had.
Cassie said, “I hear you!” Her tone was horribly gay, like that of a wicked child playing hide-and-seek.
Alix was disoriented now, but she guessed she had moved at an angle toward the rear comer. The potting shelf must be built into the right angle formed by the walls. If she went the other way . . .
“I’ve got you now,” Cassie said. “You can’t see where you’re going in the dark.”
Neither can you.
As if Cassie had read her mind, she said, “I know where things are in here. I can get around without light; you can’t.”
Then maybe she wouldn’t put on the dome light. And that would be to Alix’s benefit. Cassie knew the garage, yes, knew the whereabouts of everything that was in it; but moving around a familiar place in light or even half-light was entirely different than trying to find your way when you couldn’t see at all.
Alix could hear her now, no longer making an effort to be quiet as she felt her way around the hood of the car at the back wall. Alix moved too, away along the side wall toward the front, keeping on the balls of her feet, knees bent, hands touching the exposed studding for balance. Ahead she could make out the faint outline of the big double doors, a lighter gray-black against the clotted darkness within.
Were the doors locked? Even if they weren’t, they might be difficult to open and get through quickly. Still, they were the closest means of escape: she would have to try them.
Behind her, Cassie was still moving. It sounded as if she was now feeling her way along the side of the car, on the other side of the line of boxes.
If she sees or hears me at the doors, Alix thought, will she try shooting in the dark? She might; or she might want me to get outside, where the light is better. How many bullets does a gun like hers hold? Six? Don’t most pistols hold six? Two on Adam Reese (God!), another intended for me. That leaves three, if the gun was fully loaded to begin with. Three too many. . . .
She continued to make her way blindly toward the faint outline of the doors, her hands picking up prickly little splinters from the rough studding. Somewhere, she realized then, she had lost Mandy’s headband. Why she should even think of that she didn’t know. Abruptly, the studding ended and she touched something that felt like pegboard. She paused, listening to Cassie’s movements and trying to gauge the distance to the double doors. Not more than ten feet.
It sounded as if Cassie had reached the rear of the car. Her breathing was more ragged now, almost asthmatic. Alix suspected she wouldn’t be able to hear small sounds; she shifted her weight, moved forward, testing. Cassie remained where she was.
Alix felt the wall again. It was definitely pegboard, the kind of material people use to hang things on. Tools, garden tools. Maybe—
“You can’t hide from me, Alix. You can’t! You’ll just make me kill you and I don’t want to do that.”
The hell you don’t, Alix thought.
She inched along, her fingers touching the tines of a bamboo
rake. No weapon, that.
“I didn’t want to kill Adam, either. He made me. They all made me. I never wanted to kill anyone.” The words trembled with pathos and self-pity.
Go ahead, Alix thought, keep on maundering. Keep on listening to the sound of your own voice so you won’t hear what I’m doing.
She kept moving, groping along the pegboard. A broom hung there, and a mop. A row of smaller toots—pliers, screwdrivers. She took the largest of the screwdrivers, tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. Hardly adequate, but at least it was something sharp.
Behind her Cassie had begun to whine. “I didn’t want any of this to happen! I just wanted to be left alone!”
Alix’s fingers touched something more sharply pointed than the screwdriver—hedge clippers, heavy iron with solid wood handles. She felt for the hook, timing her movements to Cassie’s now-loud rantings. Took the clippers, slid them upward and out—
The metal hook slipped from the pegboard, fell to the concrete floor with a ringing metallic noise. Alix caught her breath. Lowered the clippers, brought them up in front of her.
Cassie had stopped speaking and was coming her way quickly. But she misjudged the distance and crashed into the pegboard a couple of feet away. Tools rattled, something else clattered to the floor. Cassie gave a dismayed cry; Alix felt the woman’s arms flail, lashing out at the air around her.
Gripping the hedge clippers by their handles, she reeled backward, her feet slipping on an oil slick. In the next instant she slammed into the double doors. Over by the wall, Cassie was grunting and thrashing about. Alix turned, threw her weight against the doors, felt them buckle outward but not come open. She heard someone else grunting and realized it was herself.
She lunged at the doors again, and again they bowed but held. Through the foot-wide crack that appeared between them, she could see moving wisps of fog—a glimpse of freedom.
Now Cassie was on her feet. Coming toward her. She tried to dodge, but the woman collided with her; Alix felt the gun in her hand, smashed at her wrist, but didn’t have enough leverage to dislodge the weapon. Cassie had no leverage, either, when she tried to use the pistol as a club. Instead, she managed to loop an arm around Alix’s neck, began squeezing.
Alix’s breath came shorter; the pressure caused blackness to swirl behind her eyes. She dropped the clippers, clawed at Cassie’s arm. The gallery owner’s grip was steel-hard. Alix’s legs broke at the knees and she sagged against Cassie, and they fell together against the doors.
Weakened by the previous battering, whatever had held the doors together now broke with a snapping sound and they flew apart. Cassie’s arm pulled free of Alix’s neck as they both toppled onto the gravel outside. Alix rolled away, pawing at her throat, gasping. When she came up she saw Cassie trying to scramble to her knees; the woman seemed dazed, but the gun was still clutched in her hand.
The raw edge of panic cut at Alix again. She tried to get to her feet—and saw the hedge clippers lying in the doorway. Without thinking, she crawled to them on hands and knees, snatched them up. At the same time she gained her feet and turned, Cassie pushed onto her knees, lifted the pistol, and took wobbly aim at Alix’s body.
Alix lunged forward with the clippers upraised. Brought them slashing down in a desperate chop at Cassie’s head just as the gallery owner pulled the trigger.
Jan
He didn’t remember running the two miles from the abandoned van to the junction, or turning off the cape road onto the county road. But the county road was where he was now, heading toward the village, his legs cramped, his breath coming in little wheezing pants, a band of pain across the bridge of his nose. Another blackout . . .
He couldn’t see very well, and at first he thought it was the too-familiar distortion of his vision; but then he realized it was only that his glasses were coated with mist. He took them off, squinting into the darkness ahead. Where was Alix? Where were the authorities? Why hadn’t he met someone in all this time?
Ahead of him, he realized then, were the gallery and house that belonged to Alix’s artist friend, Cassie Lang. Alix’s friend . . . that must have been where she had gone for help. The house was ablaze with light—and as he drew closer, he saw someone on the porch, standing there as if waiting, looking his way. A woman . . . Cassie Lang?
Alix.
It was Alix!
The last of the tension went out of him with such suddenness that he stumbled, almost fell. Some of the pressure behind his eyes seemed to abate as well, so that all at once he was thinking and seeing with an intense clarity. He found his voice, shouted her name, but she had recognized him too and she was already coming down off the porch, running toward him—the last running either of them would have to do on this long, bad night.
Epilogue
Alix waited by the rented van while Jan brought their suitcases from the lighthouse, then went back for the last of the boxes. The day was clear, with only a few high-piled clouds; the wind blew sharp and cold. The headland was bathed in the pale yellow light of late fall; by comparison the burnt-out hulk of the station wagon and blackened remains of the garage looked grotesque—reminders of evil.
But they were not the only ones. Everywhere were signs of the assault of two nights before: smokestains curled up the round whitewashed tower, seemed to be clutching it like the fingers of a dirty hand; the broken windows were like dead eye sockets; the bullet- and club-scarred front of the house was like a face pocked by some disease.
There were reminders in the village, too, she thought—more subtle but nevertheless present. When they’d passed through on their way from Bandon to pick up their belongings, Hilliard’s streets had been deserted. Behind the walls of the stores and houses, life might go on; but for most of the residents it would be forever altered by the knowledge of what four of their own had become, and of the price those four had paid for their mischief. Adam Reese: dead. Seth Bonner: in a Coos Bay hospital in serious condition with a broken leg, broken ribs, internal injuries. Mitch Novotny and Hod Barnett: home with their families, but only because the Ryersons had declined to press charges against them; free physically, but not in spirit, forced to live the rest of their lives with the memory of what they had done—and what they had almost done—on a night when they had unleashed the animal that lurks beneath the civilized surface of man.
That was the primary reason, Alix supposed, that she and Jan felt no lingering hostility, no grudge toward them or the village itself: none had escaped punishment, and the sentences the survivors would serve would be long ones. All they felt now was pity—for Hod Barnett, who had lost his daughter; for Barnett and Novotny, who had lost a semblance of their humanity; for the little dying town of Hilliard that had lost its self-respect. Pity, and a deep, ineradicable sorrow.
She was glad that she and Jan had been in agreement on not pressing charges; the last thing she would have wanted was to return to the area for a trial. Her fondest hope was never to see Hilliard or Cape Despair again.
There would be no need for them to attend or testify at Cassie Lang’s trial, either. Cassie had confessed, as fully and compulsively to the authorities as she had tried to do to Alix in the garage. Intellectually, Alix knew she should feel some sort of sympathy for the woman; Cassie had been ill-equipped to handle her own passions or the pressures of an unkind world, just as Mitch Novotny and Hod Barnett had been unable to. But her only feeling when she thought of the woman she had once considered her friend was one of revulsion—and an occasional sparking of the terror she had experienced in the confines of that dark garage.
Jan returned with two boxes balanced one on top of the other. “That’s the last of it,” he said. “You want to check around inside, see if we’ve forgotten anything?”
She was about to say yes, but a vague sense of unease, a tightening in her throat kept the word back. She said instead, “If we’ve left anything, it’s probably not important.”
He nodded in understanding. “I’ll lock up then.”
Once the tests were finished, they would make plans for the future, for the alterations in the patterns of their existence that would become necessary if Jan did in fact lose his sight. But it was possible for them to do that now, to start over from a whole new basis and with a unified strength. Months ago she wouldn’t have thought so, wouldn’t have thought herself—or Jan—capable of such courage. But when you have survived an ordeal so much worse than any you could have imagined, no crisis seems quite so awesome or insurmountable anymore.
Jan slid into the passenger seat and shut the door. His wan smile held the same relief she had started to feel. For him the light was no longer a sanctuary, a place he refused to be driven out of; like its name, it had become a symbol of his despair, a place that had finally been driven out of him.
She drove them out of the yard and along the pot-holed road, not once glancing up at the rearview mirror. But then, after they’d gone about a mile and reached the rise from which she had first seen the lighthouse, she slowed on impulse, pulled over, and stopped. Looked back.
The headland lay barren and lonely, looking much, she thought, as it had when the pair of Basque sheepherders had first come to it more than a century ago. Beyond its scalloped reaches the harsh waves beat against the cliffs as they had when ships foundered there and Cap Des Peres became known as Cape Despair. And above it all was the ancient light, a severe white column piercing the sky.