After the Storm

by Chrissy Munder

  Which it was.

  Vincent just stood there. Perhaps there was some unwritten rule in houses this old? Tea after three but only in the dark? Deciding to do without the light, he went back to the stove and turned the burner back on, silently observing until the kettle screamed and he could pour it into the mug ready and waiting. It was a shame there was no real tea, only a few bags of a standard brand, but that was to be expected when he’d just asked for tea and hadn’t thought to specify “loose.”

  Mug in hand, he walked back over to the light switch and flipped it once again, staring up into the glowing bulbs until the lights distorted his vision into a series of brightly colored spots. Then there was the sudden darkness once again. Vincent stood quietly in the blackness; he swore he could almost hear laughter, deep and rich.

  Meds. Had to be the meds.

  He held the switch up once again and this time he felt a sensation, a pressure on his fingers that urged the switch downward. Feeling silly, he resisted, only to be startled when the pressure increased. He could hear the laughter again and for a moment, he felt warm breath on his neck. Vincent whirled around but there was nothing there.

  Letting go of the switch, Vincent stood in the night, hairs standing atavistically on his arms and his neck. He thought he was alone; maybe he wasn’t. He’d never actively counted or discounted the supernatural. Things simply were or they weren’t. Here though, surrounded by the past in the long abandoned lighthouse, the very air heavy with weight of the years that had passed, wasn’t it almost comforting to think that when he died a part of him might remain?

  Chapter Four

  OH GOD, but it hurt.

  Vincent lay on the floor beside the bed, curled around the agony in his belly. It was his own fault, the voice babbled in his head; he’d gotten distracted and forgotten to take his pain pills. He knew he needed to keep a certain level in his bloodstream at all times, the doctor had warned him.

  This is what everyone had worried about; this is what they said. They knew him, they knew he wouldn’t take the trouble to wear his watch, he couldn’t remember an appointment, a call—how would he remember to take his pills? He would lose focus like he always did and he’d pay for it. That’s what they told him.

  Well, fine. It was his mistake. He’d pay for it. He’d writhe on the floor and gasp until either the pain burned itself out or it drove him crazy. Vincent almost managed a grin; it was more of a rictus, the lips peeling back from clenched teeth as he began to crawl his way to the kitchen and the promised relief.

  He’d always been told he was a bit crazy.

  It had been such a good day, clear sky and sun; wind with just a hint of rain. He’d lain in the warm sand outside the station and watched the mosaic of clouds overhead. At first, he couldn’t see any images in the sky and he was afraid, wondering if the disease had stolen that childlike innocence, the ability to believe in what if.

  But Vincent continued to lay there, until the fear finally left him, until there was only the heat of the sun burning through his flesh, warming deep in his bones and then streaming out through his back to the Earth below. Vincent tried to imagine the rays were a laser, searing through the cancer within and leaving him healthy and healed.

  The imagery had taken hold; sweeping away all common sense, and positive he was healed by the visualization, he’d deliberately not taken his pills. Overconfident, then, not distracted. Fine. He’d take it. It was his choice. All of this, except the disease that had started it, would only be his choice.

  You had to be willing to pay if you wanted to play.

  So now he paid.

  The hallway that at times seemed so small loomed before him. Each inch was an exercise of will. He crawled, leaving a river of tears and sweat in his wake as he inched his painful way towards his goal.

  Vincent reached the kitchen doorway and beat his head on the wooden floor. He’d never imagined such pain was possible. He could hear the noises he was making: grunts of pain, whimpers. Screams. At first, he wondered who was making the noise, why wouldn’t they just shut up? Then he realized it was him, and it was okay. He was alone. This is why he wanted the solitude. There was no one here to judge him, no one to tell him to be strong or suck it up.

  No one to comfort him.

  He looked up at the light switch on the wall and thought of the imaginary pressure he’d felt on his fingers, the breath on his neck.

  God, but it hurt!

  “’Stead of fuckin’ around with the light switch, why don’t you do something useful and bring me my meds?” he gasped out, not sure if it was prayer or a plea as he looked at the distance remaining between him and relief. Almost there now.

  Suddenly the windows of the kitchen flew open and a cold wind blew through the kitchen. Vincent curled up on the kitchen floor and panted and groaned and screamed his way through the wave of pain that seemed to ride the wind. He’d move a little farther when it passed.

  Just a little farther.

  He could remember when his ex had given birth to their son; the contractions had come and gone in similar waves. She’d panted and screamed and cursed and he’d just laughed with his lack of understanding. So now she had her revenge and here he was, giving birth to a dark malignancy.

  The wind increased in strength and Vincent wasn’t sure if he couldn’t hear because of the pain, the noises he was making, or because the wind was so loud. As the gusts swirled, the plastic containers on the counter moved towards the edge. Just a little more, Vincent pleaded, not sure what or who he was pleading with.

  As if in answer, the bottles scooted closer to the edge, and then Vincent watched as they fell to the floor in what appeared to be slow motion, the securely-sealed, child-proof lids popping off and a rainbow, a wonderful, numbing rainbow hit the floor and skidded towards him.

  It was his turn to move in slow motion, reaching out as far as he could and wiggling his fingers to grab and stuff and he lay there on the floor, crying weakly as he waited for the magic. He closed his eyes and felt a rough hand softly brushing the hair out of his eyes.

  “Easy, lad.” Was it a voice? Was it his imagination?

  “Thank you,” he mumbled gratefully as he felt the numbness take over. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Five

  VINCENT did a better job of remembering his meds after that night. He couldn’t remember much of it really, just the pain and the sense of forever it had taken to make his way to the kitchen. Waking up on the tile floor, surrounded by the pills he must have knocked off the counter, had been strangely surreal, reminiscent of his wilder days.

  The irony was unmistakable. As a young man, the future stretched endlessly before him, and he’d done everything possible to both accelerate and avoid it. Now, Vincent was reduced to struggling to keep each moment alive. He’d carefully picked up the individual little givers of surcease from the floor, putting them back in their proper containers, and contemplated the vagaries of his life.

  He did choose to learn something from that night: he was smarter, he planned. There was now a small amount of his meds in every room of the station. Vincent didn’t think he had the strength to go through that a second time.

  He lost himself again, attacking his painting, working at a frenzied pace, vision colored by the events of that night and the living, breathing entity he’d finally understood the pain to be. There was a haze of green through the work now, a rich color that swirled through the darkness of the sky. He didn’t understand.

  Time. He was running out of time.

  Words came slowly, the medication a barrier between the outside world and the place in his head where he spent so much of his time. There were letters to his son and to his friends, a few feeble attempts at verse to define his feelings without success.

  He’d made arrangements with the deliveryman from the first day—Brian, that was his name. Brian would take Vincent’s letters with no return address and post them from the different towns on his routes.

  Strange to listen to h
is voice mail and feel… nothing? No, there was sadness deep within, a response to the panic in the voices he loved and their tearful demands that he stop being so selfish and come back where he would be safe and cared for.

  But anger washed over him as well. Didn’t they understand? Didn’t they know? If this was all that was left, he didn’t want to spend it cocooned in safety. He couldn’t see himself strapped to a bed in some airless hospice, just lying there waiting.

  Here there was light and life, water and sky and the amazing feeling every time he climbed to the top of the lighthouse. Perhaps walling himself off in isolation was just as bad in their eyes, but it all came back to his right to choose.

  Vincent did leave a few messages in return. They were nothing special, just an excuse to extend his love. Did it make things worse when he did that? He’d tried to talk with his son at least once a week, but it was harder now.

  Words buried beneath the weight of wind, water and sky.

  Vincent thought he told his son he loved him and to remember that living beat being safe any day. In the end, he just let the battery of the cell run down. It was easier than hearing the words that tugged at him. He thought he’d charge it closer to the end, but maybe not. Maybe he’d just have to let his last work here speak for him.

  His sense of another presence grew stronger. Shapes seen from the corner of his eyes, movement when there shouldn’t be and a comforting feeling whenever he gave in to exhaustion and closed his eyes for few minutes. Vincent knew that his therapist would just call it a manifestation of his fears, or a combination of his meds, and he could accept that.

  Until the night he sat up and looked towards the writing desk in front of the window. Another trick of the night, the telescope was floating, held up by some invisible force, pointing out towards the big lake. Vincent thought of the engraving, the plate on the side of the telescope and wondered who he was looking for.

  “Why don’t you stop playing games and show yourself?” Vincent asked the darkness.

  Breath stopped as the shadows coalesced, a form emerged and a face looked back at him. He wouldn’t call it a handsome face; there was too much character for that generic phrase. The moonlight clung to stark cheekbones, washing over the jaw and the thick blond hair carelessly cropped and thrust back from the wide forehead.

  A lit pipe was clenched between strong teeth and the aroma wafted over towards Vincent as the specter flashed a wicked grin, eyes crinkling up in a manner that made Vincent want to grin back in found joy.

  “Aye. No more playing around.”

  Rough and accented. A voice from the past, a voice from the sea. Vincent blinked and then blinked again. He knew his meds were strong, but still….

  “Come on, then, I did what yeh asked.” The stem of the pipe gestured in his direction. “Cat got yer tongue?”

  “Who are you?” An exhale. Vincent found he could breathe again. “Why are you here?”

  The figure turned and looked out the windows at the big lake, waves dancing to the melody of the night wind.

  “Cason, Cap’n Cason is my name and I live here.”

  “But… what do you want?”

  Fiery green eyes pinned Vincent where he lay; he’d seen that color somewhere before.

  “Want?” The specter snorted. “I want yeh to leave. ’Tis my home yeh be disrupting.” The hand with the pipe punctuated his words. “All yer stuff, paints and the like. Smelling up the place, getting in my way.”

  Vincent settled back against the pillows. Interesting. It was a familiar argument. One he’d had with everyone he’d tried to live with. Why did his subconscious choose to bring it up now?

  “Too bad.”

  “That’s all yeh have to say on it?” An eyebrow cocked as Captain Cason scowled at the interloper.

  “What else is there?”

  “Do what the rest of yer sorry lot always does.” The pipe shifted, scraps of an old children’s story rising to Vincent’s mind—oh, what big teeth you have. “Scream, yell, run out of the house in the middle of the night wearing only yer night clothes.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Vincent yawned slightly, tiredness creeping up on him suddenly, like it always did now.

  “I can make yer life miserable, don’t doubt it. Those few parlor tricks I’ve shown yeh is only the beginning.” The ghost looked at him fiercely, but Vincent didn’t feel threatened.

  “Not very hospitable, are you?” Vincent smiled bitterly before he voiced his next thought. “Besides, you’ll have the place to yourself soon enough.”

  “Hospitable? I’m a cursed haunt. What the blazes does that have to do with being hospitable?”

  Vincent smiled at the indignation evident in the rich voice before his breath caught. Oh, this was new. The pain spiked for a just a moment, twisting his guts with a vice-like grip. He whimpered.

  “What is it, then?” The voice was closer, the rough hand gentle on his forehead.

  “The pain.” Vincent grimaced, panting until the moment passed. He looked up into the green eyes.

  Recognition.

  “You’re not in my imagination, are you?”

  “No, lad.” The rough voice was softer, gentler than Vincent might have imagined it could be.

  “Let me stay?” Vincent pleaded, even as he felt himself slipping away, eager to escape the pain. “Just for a while longer?”

  “Aye then, a while longer.”

  Chapter Six

  IT WAS a better morning for Vincent when he next awoke. He moved cautiously, testing to see if the pain was still with him or if it had left. Discovering that the latest bit had left him as suddenly as it had come, he gratefully swung his legs to the side of the bed and pushed himself upright, wobbling a bit before he caught his balance.

  Tea or coffee. Something with caffeine to clear the fuzziness from his head. That would be welcome. The pain pills helped, but they sure gave him some weird dreams. Vincent yawned as he padded down to the kitchen in his bare feet, shaking his head as he remembered his vivid dreams of last night and a sea captain’s ghost.

  He must have forgotten to close the windows in the kitchen again, and fresh air and sunshine streamed in. Vincent was in awe of the view; the lake and sky seemed to dwarf everything around them. How lucky he was to have been sent to this place. Perhaps, even though he was having difficulty seeing it, everything truly did happen for a reason.

  Vincent leaned against the counter as he waited for the water to boil and bent over the sink to splash cold water on his face, enjoying the shock to his nerve endings. He ran his hand over his closed eyes to wipe it off and felt some of the fog lifting.

  He filled the mug, added a bit of honey for energy and turned to sit at the kitchen table.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed, stumbling back out of the way of the hot liquid as the mug broke against the floor and the tea splattered everywhere.

  There was a man sitting at his kitchen table. But not just any man. This was the same apparition he had dreamed last night, right down to the piercing green eyes and the pipe, even now, clenched between the white teeth bared in a wicked grin.

  Avoiding the mess on the floor, Vincent circled the table slowly. He rubbed his eyes to see if the figure would disappear, but the man just regarded him steadily and with amusement, before taking the pipe out of his mouth and knocking it against the edge of the table.

  Vincent could only watch in a daze as ash fell from the bowl of the pipe to the kitchen floor.

  “What did I tell yeh?” Ignoring the pile of ash he’d just made, the stranger gestured to the mug and tea on the floor. “Yer making a mess.”

  “Who are you?” Vincent asked slowly as he looked around to make sure this was his kitchen. He really needed that caffeine now. “What are you doing here?”

  His visitor just sighed and shook his head at Vincent’s puzzlement. “Didn’t we go over this last night?” he enquired in his deep voice.

  “Last night?” Vincent parroted.

  “Yeh re
member, don’t yeh?” The green eyes fixed back on Vincent. “I introduced myself to yeh then. Isn’t it time yeh returned the courtesy, by the way?”

  “Right,” Vincent muttered as he sat carefully down at the table across from the man in the rough clothing. There wasn’t anything necessarily strange about them, a pair of pants, some type of shirt and a jacket. The material and cut looked different, older.

  “I’m Vincent Poulsen, I’m renting this station house for a few months, until….” His voice tapered off and Vincent gave up and stared at the other man. Maybe it hadn’t been a dream last night; maybe this fellow had broken in and was just taking advantage of his confused state. Stranger things could happen, right?

  “Poulsen, huh? That’s a Scandinavian name. I used to have a sailor under me named Poulsen. Man couldn’t speak a lick of English, but he could work from sunup to sundown without a word of complaint.” There was that grin again, Vincent thought. “Perhaps he did, and I just didn’t understand him, eh?” There was that hearty laugh. “Too bad for him.”

  “So you’re in the Navy?” Vincent tried playing along.

  His visitor laughed again. “Not for a long while, and not in the way yeh be meaning. I told yeh, I was a ship’s captain afore I was Keeper of this lighthouse.”

  “Right,” Vincent repeated. So who could he call? The police? The Preservation Society? Where would be the best place to call and find out if there were any escaped mental patients in the area?

  “So, I agreed to let yeh stay last night—against my better judgment, mind yeh—but yeh seem to have caught me at a weak moment.” The man shrugged and the end of the pipe jabbed in Vincent’s direction. “But if yer to stay, it’s best we set up some ground rules.”

  “Right.” Vincent struggled to unscramble his thoughts.

  “First of all, don’t be playing any of that rackety noise yer lot call music. I’ve not heard anything in the last ninety years or so that even came close to the title, can’t listen to the stuff.” The pipe stem jabbed in his direction again.