The Lamplighters

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Marla felt her body relax, her heart thudding distantly in her chest as she tumbled down off the lip of the roof. The weight, shape and trajectory of her body caused her to turn slightly in her freefall. She was in a reclining position, hands and feet a little higher than the rest of her. A lock of hair got caught in the spittle at the corner of her mouth and she felt a clear urge to brush it aside. Then she hit something hard. The shock of the impact was enough to delay any feeling of pain. Dazed, Marla tried to sit up and look around. Her body was reluctant to perform such a complicated task, and so she lay there on her back and reached out with her hands to touch the floor instead. The surface that answered her sensory investigations was wooden, not the dirt and foliage of the ground she’d expected. This surprising sensation gave new impetus to her muscles and soon she found herself sitting up and dusting herself off on a second-floor balcony, which had broken her fall. More of the strangely intricate driftwood carvings loomed from the moonlight shadows. Rising to her feet, she peered up at the house looming above her, half-expecting those dreadful eyes to peer back from the spot from which she’d fallen. Marla glanced nervously at the windows to the rear of the balcony. The shutters were still closed behind them, but if they were to open suddenly… Nothing was certain anymore, save for the urgent need to get off this balcony and go look for help. She turned and looked over the edge of the balcony—elated that she was still alive but dumbfounded as to how the hell she’d be able to get down to ground floor level. She scanned the area, no one around. Fowler’s men must have given up; she was all alone here. Then a solution quickly presented itself in a shadow that moved across the balcony’s gnarled, knotted handrail. Tree, big tree. Her eyes focused on it—her closest chance.

Marla had never been a good judge of distance, and lost count of the number of times she’d nearly been killed by angry London cab drivers in the past as a result. As she teetered on the edge of the balcony, ready to take a leap into the void between it and the thick branches of the great tree, she considered ditching the idea and just waiting it out on the balcony. The concept made her shudder. Every instant she’d delayed on the balcony had put the fear of God into her—a palpable fear of that hulking pursuer crashing through the walls of the house to drag her back in. She licked at her dry lips, balled her hands into fists then released them, bent her legs and flung herself toward the tree. Her fingers were outstretched like a cat’s claws and she felt cool air pass through them as she began to plummet, down, down. Branches cracked loudly as she snapped her way through them, her legs flailing in an attempt to break her fall—to hit the ground running. Then she made contact with a larger branch, as thick as a smaller tree’s trunk. It struck her in the stomach as she fell hard against it like a clumsy gymnast. Her body folded and wrapped around the branch on impact and she clutched at its rough surface, feeling the welcoming texture of the bark under her fingernails. The branch held, and she onto it. The tree was her savior—a living, breathing thing. She wanted to kiss it just for being there. Catching her breath, she craned her neck to better afford a look at the layout of the tree and the branches below. It would be a precarious climb, but she felt more than up to the task after hurling herself off the side of the Big House.

As she was about to climb down, a light in the distance caught her eye. At first she thought it was the moon but no—the moon’s silvery light was above and slightly behind her now. She shook her head, concerned her terrorized brain was playing tricks on her. There it was again. The light was moving. Curiosity piqued, she now climbed upwards, forgetting for a moment her urgency to feel the ground beneath her feet. She was compelled to discover the source of this new mystery. Reaching up and climbing a couple more branches into the dizzying heights of the tree, she now had a bird’s eye view right across the treetops to the coves and the sea beyond. Far from the border of the verdant green canopy in which she stood, Marla saw the source of the light, her eyes following its beam as it swept across the treetops. Her irises shrank as the beam shone directly into them momentarily. It was a welcome light, a beacon, and only Vincent could have lit it—the beam of the lighthouse. Then Marla saw other, fainter, lights that appeared to hover like fireflies above the black of the ocean. She’d have to risk climbing another branch or two higher to get a proper look. She did so and squinted, waiting for the lighthouse beam to turn away once more so she could see these tiny lights more clearly. Almost falling from her crow’s nest in shock, it dawned on her that she was looking at the lights of maybe a dozen boats. They were approaching the island.

Adrenaline and elation coursed through Marla’s veins in equal measure. She made light work of her descent through the branches and hopped down the last few, lithe as a spider monkey. As soon as her heels hit solid ground, she was off and tearing through the trees in a sprint for the headland. In her mind’s eye, those little lights danced their firefly dance and sang to her like sirens, their song one of safe harbor—of a way off the island. She whizzed past a tree and had to duck to avoid a low branch hitting her square in the face. Glancing back at it over her shoulder, she saw a dark shape through the trees. The familiarity of that shape almost made her stop dead in her tracks, for it was not the imposing outline of the Big House she’s chanced upon but rather that of its murderous inhabitant—the giant from the basement.

“No…”

The terrified word escaped her lips like a whimper, and Marla began to back away in frightened denial of the shape that was slowly gaining on her. A twig snapped beneath her feet and she replayed the image of Jessie’s neck snapping beneath those thick, sinewy fingers.

Run, got to run.

The thought blazed into her skull, like the beam of the lighthouse.

Run, damn you!

Marla pivoted on her heels and ran. The terrain was rough, with unseen ditches and thick roots that conspired to trip her up and deliver her into the blood-slicked hands of her pursuer. She zigzagged through the trees, avoiding yet more low branches and cursing whenever her path was blocked by fallen trees or made impassable by a hidden ditch or steep drop. Glancing over her shoulder in quick terror, Marla could still see the lumbering shape between the dark columns of tree trunks behind her. He had gained on her but she still had the lead. She was faster and more agile than him. This could prove a distinct advantage—her only advantage. Determined to widen the distance between them, Marla gritted her teeth and broke into a sprint. She could see the beam of the lighthouse, sweeping through the trees up ahead like a searchlight. Glancing behind her again she could see the killer’s obsidian silhouette—further away this time. Elation curled the corners of her mouth into a triumphant smile. Then the wind was knocked out of her sails as she crashed into something.

The something was sticky and stretchy and she fell sideways as she became tangled up in it. On her knees now, Marla struggled to right herself, gasping for breath and clutching at what she mistook for a branch. She quickly let go of the cold wet thing, scrambling backwards to rid herself of its touch. The lighthouse beam swung once again and flooded the area with the revelation of its light. Marla’s jaw dropped as she saw what she’d run into. Adam was strung out between two trees, his battered face a dark mockery of the life that had once resided there. What she’d thought was a branch was his arm, dangling useless, out of its socket. The sticky, sinewy fronds that had entrapped her were, horribly, sections of Adam’s flesh—flaps of skin and muscle that had been torn open and stretched out between the trees like a fleshy umbrella. Ropes of sinew and the workings of veins lashed the fleshy fronds to wet branches slicked with Adam’s blood and juices. A sound like light rain, just as subtle and pervasive, teased at Marla’s ears and her horrified eyes searched out its source. It was the sound of blood dripping from within the ruptured cavern of Adam’s torso. Her clumsy impact had caused Adam’s body to shift and bounce slightly as if on bungee ropes, still held taut in the web of his own flesh. The dripping became more urgent, a constant trickle of blood and steaming bile from his torso cavity. Marla tried not to scream, tried not to yell or cry as the fragile lip of flesh around Adam’s stomach gave way and his innards unspooled wetly. Adam’s intestines uncoiled and made hideous slapping sounds as they hit the ground at her feet. Blood and stomach juices spattered her face. The lighthouse’s beam continued on its journey across the awful scene, catching wisps of warm steam rising from the pile of unfettered organs at her feet and from the yawning hole where Adam’s heart used to be. Shock and dismay stilled the very voice of her and Marla struggled finally to her feet. She untangled her arm from a length of Adam’s flesh and she saw with raw horror a tattoo on its surface—it was the shape of a creature, perhaps an eagle. Her stricken eyes fancied that the hairs on his skin were standing erect. She felt her own skin freeze, signaling the onset of a deep stomach churning nausea. A cold tear chilled her cheek as it escaped from the corner of her unblinking eye and she ran like a madwoman into the woods and away from whatever was capable of doing such a thing to a human being. And that selfsame thing lumbered on after her, his breaths deep and purposeful, his hands ready to fashion more work.

Marla was at the treeline when the light went out. One moment it was there, a rotating beacon in the night sky leading her to the waves and the boats they carried to shore—the next it was simply gone, snuffed out like a birthday candle. Make a wish. She wished for this nightmare to be over, for the tumble of images to be gone from her mind forever. Jessie, like a broken doll in that squalid basement. Pietro, shattered and bleeding with his last taste of precious salt water on his lips. Adam, or the abomination that used to be Adam, strung out between the tree trunks. Marla recalled the totem birds in the attic of the charnel house and wondered, feverishly, if the same hands that eviscerated Adam had wrought their intricate work. She remembered her first furtive flirtation with Adam as she’d met him on the path to Jessie’s summerhouse and the decomposing cat he’d examined in the leaves there. His body was ruined like that poor wretched animal’s. Death was everywhere on this damned island, lapping like blood at its shores, dripping like bile in its most secret of caves. It fell from the very air she breathed in the forms of dead birds. And if she made it through to morning, what then? Would the bright chirps of crickets dispel it? Would death shrink away at the blooming of new tropical flowers, wrinkle its nose at the fresh scent of herb gardens and lie low? No, death would still be there, waiting. Marla could taste it, acrid in her mouth. Is this what death tastes like, she thought morbidly, bitter and chemical and cold? She shivered and pressed on, glancing up at the scant pinprick illumination of stars. The light in the sky had gone out and all she could do was try to focus on the direction in which it had been shining, until now. Grounding herself in a clarifying thought was the only way she could rise above her myriad fears and keep going. That thought presented itself in the form of Vincent. He was the only one who could have been good to his word and lit the beacon, she was convinced of that. But now that the light had been extinguished she found herself praying—praying to deities she didn’t even believe in—that his life hadn’t been extinguished along with it. By powering up the lighthouse, Vincent had proven something to her. He was the only person on this island she could trust. And with a little bit of luck, and boy could she use some of that, she was heading straight for him.

Heart pounding, bladder bursting with the urgent need to pee, Marla pushed on up a steep bank of grass and over the top where she could finally see the lighthouse. No light from its windows, she was prepared for that. But neither could she see the little lights of the boats. Marla began to feel the creeping fear that she had merely conjured them, a mirage of boats to give her hope on this, surely the last night of her life. She felt stricken. The rocks on which the lighthouse made its home were deserted. She could hear the rusty door grating on its hinges in the wind. Her heart descended yet further. She glanced behind her, trying to ascertain the shape of her pursuer in the gloomy landscape. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The realization did nothing to calm her nerves. If anything, she’d prefer to see him, at least then she’d know where he was. Perhaps he’d taken some secret route around the woodland and was already moving into position to cut her off before she could retreat back under cover. Her clarifying thought returned and galvanized her. Vincent. If Fowler and his goons were responsible for shutting out the lights then it followed that Vincent would be in the firing line.

Clambering down the rocks and toward the lighthouse she looked up at the tower, monolith-like against the night sky. The rusty door banged shut, then open as she approached it, putting her nerves even more on edge. Up the steps and inside, avoiding the pool of stagnant water. Oh, but it was dark in there, standing trembling at the foot of the stairs too afraid to go up and too afraid to stand still.

A loud bang and a flash burst out from the darkness, causing Marla to shriek in surprise and crouch into a defensive position. Sparks and smoke from the service closet beneath the stairs. She tentatively peered inside, just to make doubly sure. An electrical fault, that was all. A further jolting, loud pop and a shower of sparks made her jump. It provided all the encouragement Marla needed to turn and ascend the stairs, her nerves in tatters.

The control room was eerily quiet and cold to the eye, swathed in a band of cool blue moonlight that reflected, frostlike, off every damp shiny surface in the room. Pietro’s body was nowhere to be seen, with only a dirty tangle of bedclothes suggesting he’d been there at all. She crossed the room, eyeing an upturned bucket curiously and following a water stain across the floor to where Vincent’s chair lay on its side. She righted the chair, an act of respect for the old man, and walked over to the pile of molding books and periodicals stacked nearest the little coffee stove. Vincent’s decaying library had been ransacked, that was for sure. Torn pages were scattered everywhere and broken-backed volumes had been left open where they had fallen, with some lying on their backs looking like fish out of water gasping for air. The mildew that covered the books was like lichen in a graveyard, a headstone for each of Vincent’s memories, each tome an epitaph for his stolen years in this island prison. A splash of vivid color caught her eye among the dull fusty books and Marla peered closer to find a pornographic magazine like the ones she’d seen in the basement of the Big House. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, strangely afraid that these pages might be part of Vincent’s collection. And yet, why not? An old man alone for all these years, he would surely miss physicality with a woman. Perhaps his jailers thought it a joke to slip this filth in with his crossword puzzles, eager to get a rise out of a widower whose eyes had seen too much tragedy to care for such lusts. No, something had been here and defiled Vincent’s little world, she felt sure of it. Those sickly smells from the basement and the attic of the house were here with her in the room, bringing with them a flavor of decay, of wrongdoing. She suddenly felt more afraid for Vincent than for herself. Had that awful monster of a man been here? Had these high windows played dead witness to the sound of an old man’s neck cracking like a twig? She buried the thought, kicking the pages of the vile magazine beneath a pile of sodden encyclopedias. Then, out the window, she caught sight of first one then many of the tiny little lights. They were still adrift on the ocean. She dashed over to the windows, moving along their circle until she had a better view toward the lights. They were heading east, around the headland. If they continued on their course, they would be heading toward the houses, toward the security buildings—and the jetty.