Fury

by Steven James

  After searching through the storage room and the bedroom once again and coming up empty, he decided to investigate the tower itself.

  The spiral staircase leading up into it appeared to have been designed for someone short, so Daniel nearly had to duck.

  Kyle would have had a rough time being a keeper here.

  There were no windows, making Daniel’s ascent feel even more confined, but the door at the top must have been open because light was filtering in and windblown snow curled down around him.

  These are the stairs that Jarvis Delacroix climbed six times every night when he came up to make sure the light was still burning.

  Six times.

  Every night.

  Daniel wondered what it would’ve been like to do that, to know people were depending on your ability to stay awake—that they were betting their lives on the fact that you could keep the light in this tower burning.

  He arrived at the top.

  The glass from the light had been shattered and shards lay strewn across the floorboards. A narrow balcony hugged the tower. Cautiously, he stepped onto it.

  The railing was gone, rotted away, so he was careful to stay close to the tower as he looked around.

  From here he could see the barren shoreline stretching out in both directions, but with the snow cascading down on the lake he couldn’t make out any of the other islands or the mainland.

  He did, however, catch sight of Kyle in the rowboat. At the moment, he was looking toward the forest nearby rather than at the lighthouse.

  Daniel tried calling to him, but his words were fighting the wind and Kyle apparently couldn’t hear because he didn’t face him. Thinking that if he yelled any louder it might make Kyle think something was wrong, Daniel turned his attention to the island instead.

  Beyond the field, a wide swath of woods lined the rocky coast and, even though the deciduous trees had lost their leaves, the grove was dense enough so that, in the snowfall, Daniel couldn’t see through it.

  Jarvis Delacroix had written that he’d buried Betty on this island in a place where no one would ever find her.

  Maybe that’s why you’re here. To find her body.

  But no, there had to be something else, some other reason why he’d been drawn here, because there was no way he was going to find a hidden grave that’d been out here for nearly eighty years, especially not in frozen ground under two feet of snow.

  Looking back at the boat, Daniel saw his friend staring in his direction and waving to him.

  He waved back as Kyle called out something that he couldn’t quite hear. He held one hand to his ear to indicate for Kyle to yell louder, but all he could make out was the word “Going.”

  Probably just telling him it was time to get moving.

  There wasn’t anything else to see up here.

  After gazing one more time at the snowstorm blowing in across the lake, Daniel started down the stairs.

  He’d descended twenty-nine steps when he felt something in the empty stairwell bump against his leg.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-ONE

  He stared around uneasily.

  Nothing was there.

  You weren’t imagining that, Daniel. Something touched you.

  However, he was most definitely alone on the stairs.

  Spurred on now to get out of the tower, he took the next few steps more quickly, but then felt it again. This time something banged even more solidly against his shoulder.

  When he looked up, he saw what had touched him.

  Boots.

  A body was hanging there, swaying slightly, perhaps from the force of Daniel knocking against its feet.

  From where he stood, he could see the dead man’s face, lifeless and bloated and pale. There was a noose around his neck, at the end of a long rope leading up into the tower.

  Daniel closed his eyes and told himself that he was just seeing things, that this was a blur, just like the other ones, that there wasn’t really a body hanging right above him.

  After a long moment he slowly opened his eyes again.

  The body was still there, coming to a rest now, still and grim in the air.

  A blur.

  But it looked so real hanging there in the center of the spiraling stairwell.

  Make sure.

  Make sure it’s not there.

  Hesitantly, Daniel reached out to touch one of the boots to see if this was just a blur, just his imagination.

  The leather felt rough and worn, just like real leather might.

  But no, it can’t be real. There’s no way this is actually happening.

  As he was lowering his hand, the dead man tilted his head and peered down at him. When the corpse spoke, its lips barely moved, but its voice was clear and obviously not just a trick of acoustics from the wind channeling down the stairwell.

  “Daniel.”

  No, this isn’t real!

  “Two thousand six hundred and seventy-five days, Daniel. Remember what happened on August twenty-eighth.”

  Then the man’s mouth stopped moving and he simply hung there and stared at Daniel with his vacant, dead eyes.

  Without looking back, Daniel descended the remaining stairs, taking them two at a time.

  What happened on August twenty-eighth?

  What does “two thousand six hundred and seventy-five days” refer to?

  Just get out of here. Get back to the boat. Figure it out there.

  But when he came to the kitchen, he recalled what Jarvis had written in his diary about storing strawberries and raspberries in his root cellar.

  Wait.

  What root cellar?

  To get to a cellar in bad weather, it would’ve made sense that it would be located under the house. However, Daniel hadn’t seen any access doors on his way up to the building—which meant that, if there really was a root cellar, there might very well be a stairway down to it located somewhere here in the keeper’s home.

  But he hadn’t come across one.

  Get going, Daniel. There’s nothing here.

  But maybe there is, just do a quick check, then you can get on your way.

  Though he was intent on leaving, he was also here to get answers and at this point all he had were more questions.

  Avoiding the stairway up the tower so he wouldn’t see the all-too-real blur of Jarvis Delacroix again, he went back through the house room by room and didn’t find any doors that might lead to a cellar.

  Curious, he returned to the kitchen, and his gaze landed on the three-foot-tall pile of split logs lining the west wall.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  Daniel began to move the wood aside.

  As he made his way through the stack, he noticed that a couple of the floorboards beneath it had a different grain than the rest of the floor.

  He kept going, removing logs.

  And that’s when he saw the hinges.

  Yes.

  A trapdoor.

  He had no idea how long this pile of wood had been here, and frankly he didn’t care, but he did care about what it was covering up.

  Both more motivated and more nervous about what he might find, he set to work uncovering the rest of the trapdoor to the cellar.

  A few minutes ago Kyle Goessel had watched Daniel disappear into the tower.

  Since the wind had starting whipping up whitecaps on the lake, he’d tried calling to his friend, encouraging him to hurry, but with the distance he wasn’t sure Daniel had heard him.

  From the start, Kyle hadn’t been thrilled about Daniel exploring the lighthouse by himself. Despite his own apprehension about the ice, he would have gladly gone across if there were some way they could’ve both made it safely to land.

  But there was only one set of oars and once Daniel was onshore there was no way to get them back to Kyle in the boat, except perhaps trying to throw them, but the distance was too far to guarantee that they’d make it to him.

  Now, the storm was picking up and the gusts co
ming in across the lake had a sharp edge to them.

  Kyle loved creative writing and a phrase came to him: the teeth of the wind gnawing at the shore.

  And you’re caught in their path.

  He was waiting for Daniel to come out the front door of the keeper’s house when he caught sight of a glimmer of movement on the edge of the forest.

  He’d thought he might have noticed something earlier, right before Daniel appeared at the top of the tower, but now he was nearly certain that something was there.

  Using one hand to shield his eyes from the snow, Kyle stared at the trees, scrutinizing the woods, but couldn’t make out anything unusual.

  But you did see something just now.

  You did.

  He studied the periphery of the forest: only bare trees in a strengthening storm.

  It was probably just your eyes playing tricks on you.

  Probably just—

  No, wait.

  There.

  Yes.

  A deer?

  No.

  Someone was standing behind one of the leafless oaks. It was only because of the way the person was turned that Kyle was able to pick him out.

  A dark blue coat. That was about all Kyle could see.

  Then the man emerged and entered the field, heading toward the keeper’s house.

  Black jeans. A black ski mask covering his face.

  He was carrying something.

  It looked like—

  Yes.

  A gasoline can.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-THREE

  Kyle yelled for him to stop, but the wind overwhelmed his words and the man continued to cross the snow-covered field.

  Finishing with the logs, Daniel tipped the trapdoor open, then started down the rough-hewn wooden steps that led into the root cellar.

  Kyle shouted louder, and finally the man looked his way, but his face was hidden behind that ski mask.

  For a moment he stood there stock-still, a dark, faceless form outlined against the snow, then he turned once more to the keeper’s home and strode toward it.

  Daniel arrived at the bottom of the steps and began to look around.

  Using the cell phone as a flashlight in one hand, he used his other hand to sweep aside the thick cobwebs that laced the air in front of him.

  The earthen walls were supported by stout timbers that’d been fitted in place against the floorboards of the kitchen.

  Underfoot, a smattering of small rocks covered the dirt floor.

  The air felt cool, but not bitterly cold—low fifties, maybe. The root cellar smelled of dust and mildew.

  There were two dozen jars of preserves piled on the ground and a stack of dried herbs near the wall.

  Other than that, the place appeared empty.

  But something didn’t feel right.

  He turned in a slow circle, taking everything in, and his math mind noted that though there were six support beams on the left side, there were only five on the right.

  Not a huge deal, but everything else about the house, about the tower, was symmetrical. Why hadn’t the root cellar been dug out in a square to match the floor plan of the kitchen above it?

  The Edgar Allan Poe tale that Teach had mentioned in class on Friday, “The Cask of Amontillado,” came to mind.

  In the story, the protagonist, who was also the antagonist, had buried another man alive, sealing him up in the catacombs.

  He did it in a place where no one ever found the corpse.

  Daniel set down the phone with the light angled toward the wall, and began to inspect the pile of dirt in the corner where the sixth timber should have been visible.

  Kyle eyed the ice that stretched between him and shore.

  You need to stop that guy. He’s going to burn down the lighthouse. You need to warn Daniel!

  Although the rowboat was still anchored, it’d drifted slightly. So, after guiding it up to the edge of the ice, Kyle killed the motor and seated himself somewhat precariously on the gunwale with his feet hanging over the ice.

  Taking a deep breath, he lowered his left foot.

  The ice held.

  Good.

  He transferred more weight onto it.

  It held.

  Alright. This was going to work.

  He swung his other leg into place and was steadying himself, ready to let go of the boat, when the ice underfoot cracked and splashed away. Losing his balance, he almost went in—as it was, his boots dipped into the ice-cold water—but he managed, just barely, to hold onto the gunwale.

  The boat rocked wildly as he scrambled back inside it, his heart jackhammering in his chest.

  That was close.

  Okay, so walking across the ice was not going to happen.

  But you need to do something!

  Hoping to make enough noise to alert Daniel that something was up, he clambered to the back of the boat and fired up the outboard.

  The ground wasn’t frozen and Daniel was able to scoop out handfuls of the loose, rocky soil.

  He’d gone in about eighteen inches when his hand found something hard and round and about the size of a melon. A rock probably.

  But, no. It felt too smooth to be a rock.

  Carefully, Daniel brushed the soil aside.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FOUR

  It was a skull: blackened and charred.

  He stumbled backward.

  Betty.

  This is where Jarvis buried her after she died.

  This is where—

  He heard footsteps on the floorboards above him.

  At first he thought it might be Kyle, but then he realized how ridiculous that was: there was no way for him to have gotten to shore.

  But if it wasn’t him—

  You left the trapdoor open. Whoever’s there will know you’re down here.

  Daniel started for the steps, but had only made it halfway there when someone slammed the trapdoor shut.

  Hurrying up the stairs, he pressed against the door to open it, but whoever was up there must have been standing on it because it wouldn’t budge.

  “Hey,” he called. “Step back!”

  No one replied.

  A moment later, though, Daniel smelled gasoline and felt some of it slosh through the floorboards above him.

  He ducked his head to the side so the gas wouldn’t spill onto his face.

  “Hey!”

  He heard wood being moved around and guessed that whoever was up there was piling the split logs over the trapdoor again, or at least bracing one in place against the wall to keep him from opening the door.

  Then, the person in the kitchen ignited the gasoline and a few more drops of it fell, burning this time, in and around Daniel in the root cellar.

  He thrust his shoulder against the door but it held fast.

  You need to pry it open or wedge something in and break the clasp.

  It would’ve been ideal if he had a knife or even a set of keys to jam in there, but all he had was Kyle’s cell phone.

  Scanning the cellar, he tried to see if there was anything he’d missed, anything else he could use, but there was nothing.

  No.

  Wait.

  There was one other thing down here that he might be able to use.

  Not the dried plants or canned preserves.

  From anatomy class, he knew that the femur is the strongest bone in the human body.

  It won’t be sharpened on the end, but if you can find a way to snap it in half . . .

  No, Daniel, do you even realize what you’re thinking?

  What choice do you have? You have to do it.

  No!

  You’re going to die down here unless you can get that trapdoor open.

  He directed his attention to the wall where he’d been digging, then rushed down the steps to see if he could locate one of the skeleton’s upper leg bones.

  Kyle saw curls of black smoke slither out of the spaces between the boards covering the windows of the
keeper’s home.

  No!

  The person who’d carried the gasoline can into the house exited the front door and then traversed the snowy field toward the oars that Daniel had used to cross the ice.

  Digging through the bones was sickening and heartrending, and Daniel prayed that he wouldn’t be cursed or haunted somehow for disturbing them, but right now he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice.

  He found the pelvis and tunneled in deeper, cupping away handfuls of dirt and various bones that he thought were probably from Betty’s spine.

  At last his fingers closed around a bone that felt large and sturdy.

  He drew it out of the soil.

  Yes.

  The femur.

  But just as he’d expected, the ends of it were rounded, so he propped it against one of the support beams, angling it in place so it wouldn’t slip to the side when he kicked it in the middle.

  Honestly, he didn’t know if this was going to work—if the bone would be brittle enough to break.

  But if it is brittle, will it help you get out of here?

  Try it.

  You have to.

  It’s your best shot.

  After lining up his foot, he stomped against the center of the bone like he might’ve done if he were breaking a stick for a campfire.

  It shattered into three pieces. He snatched up the longest one and tried to pry open the trapdoor, but it didn’t give him enough leverage.

  Quickly returning to the skeleton, he dug desperately through the rock-infested soil for the other femur.

  Flames flicked down and around the floorboards above him.

  It took a minute, but he found the bone.

  Tugged it out.

  Hurry.

  He jammed the femur in place against the beam and brought his boot down.

  This one broke in half. He grabbed the longer piece, drove the sharpened end into the space between the boards along the edge of the trapdoor, and tried to crack the hasp from the wood to pop it open.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FIVE

  As Kyle frantically tried to think of a way to help his friend, a channel of flames burst out of the top of the lighthouse and flared into the sky, devouring the sheets of snowflakes slashing against it.