Frazer Lee - The Lamplighters

A frenzy of words spilled from her lips, about danger, about the man at the house. The blond man looked delirious and was shivering like he was in a state of shock. He was covered in cuts and bruises, a slick of blood congealing around his ear. Marla could get nothing from the child about where he’d found him. He looked down at the ground, subdued and not speaking. She tried to get through to him, asking how he’d escaped from the house like that—trying to appeal to him with admonishments that he was a clever boy, a brave boy and everything would be all right. Taking the weight of the delirious swimmer onto her own shoulder, she asked the lad where he was headed. To this he did respond, holding out a lithe little arm and pointing inland where the rocks formed a v-shaped inlet. Marla saw a large circular opening there—what looked like an outlet pipe.

“There? You’re taking him in there?”

Now the boy spoke, in that strange little voice of his.

“My daddy can fix him.”

“Vincent? Is he your daddy?”

He didn’t answer. Marla rounded on the boy, using her free hand to lift his chin a little so she could look him in the eye.

“Are you Vincent’s son?” It didn’t seem possible, he’d be much older by now, unless the old man was even more confused than she’d credited.

The boy resisted her touch, and her questions, breaking free from both her and the injured swimmer. As she watched him back away, Marla looked again to the black circle leading into the pipe. Perhaps Vincent had managed to get away and hide inside. She pictured him lighting a little stove, making coffee for her, and recalled how tenderly he’d attended to Pietro’s injuries. This shocked guy was in bad shape, but not half as bad as Pietro had been. Vincent would know what to do. But what about the boats, they’d be ashore by now? Maybe help was on its way, but then again Marla had no idea who was on those boats. She would follow the boy, find Vincent and they could all leave the island together. It wasn’t much, but it was the only plan she had.

“Okay, lead the way.”

She helped the swimmer along with her. Together, they climbed into the pipe. The curve of the pipe meant if she walked dead center, they could almost stand fully erect, as if in a tunnel. The floor of the tunnel was treacherously uneven, littered with gritty sediment and moss underfoot. Trickling water that smelled of blocked drains flowed constantly in little rivulets through the pipe and dripped from above. The air was damp, colder and mustier the further inside they traveled. As Marla made her way carefully behind the boy, the moonlight began to fade into the distance.

“Christ, it’s pitch black in here,” Marla complained, realizing now just how bright the moon had been outside. She glanced over her shoulder. The opening through which they’d entered now looked a marathon sprint away.

The boy didn’t answer. He just made strange little grunts of effort as he walked on into the pipe. The sounds were almost comical to Marla’s ears—like the noises of elderly people getting up out of their seats.

“Where… Where we going?”

It was the muscular swimmer’s voice in her ear. As he spoke, she felt his upper body stiffen in fear. He was having a moment of lucidity and was clearly perturbed to be stumbling into a pitch-black outlet pipe with a complete stranger propping him up.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We’re going to get help.”

“Where the hell am I?”

His speech was slurred like a drunkard’s, his accent strongly Australian. Or maybe Kiwi. Marla could never tell, and had often offended Antipodeans back in London by making a wild guess.

“You’re… on an island. I’m Marla, I kind of work here. But now I’ve resigned. And I’m going to… Oh, never mind—we’re going to get you some help.”

Her voice echoed off the curved walls. The pipe had widened into a tunnel. The young man lapsed into semi-consciousness again, his heels dragging. Marla shouldered his weight as best she could, feeling a sharp twinge in her lower vertebrae. She wondered how long she could keep going like this.

Several minutes of walking and Marla was in near-total darkness, her steps slowing to a crawl. Struggling on, she could vaguely discern a bend in the tunnel and followed the quick shape of the boy around a corner. There was a flicker of sepia light on the wall of the tunnel in the distance and the faint odor of sulfur. The light was immediately comforting to her, now she had something to aim at. The muscles in her lower back screamed in protest as she shifted the weight of the swimmer upwards in an attempt to get a better purchase on him. But as she did so, she lost her footing and they both crashed to the floor. The injured man landed on Marla awkwardly, a dead weight knocking the wind from her stomach. Painfully, she lifted her head and tried to focus on the light up ahead. Still a way to go. She called out after the boy, but he was dozens of feet away now, his little shadow disappearing around a curve in the tunnel.

Then the light was extinguished, plunging the tunnel into total darkness.

“Hey! Hey!” Marla’s voice was cracked with fear, and with hurt from her fall. She could feel the clammy skin of the swimmer against her cheek, still pinioned beneath the weight of his slumbering body. Her breaths were quick and shallow, ringing out a heartbeat tattoo in the icy darkness. Another sound joined the frantic rhythm—a dragging, loping sound. Footfalls in the tunnel up ahead, drawing near. Her eyes widened, begging to admit light that simply wasn’t there. Then the weight of the swimmer’s body was gone from her. It felt as though he had simply levitated into the air like some theatrical illusionist. Blind instinct made her reach out for him, but he was gone. She heard a dull thud and a dragging sound. Marla scrambled backwards in terror, still on the floor, and her hand squished into something moist and spiky. Crying out, she pushed the thing away, smelling rotting fish. The curved wall of the tunnel met her other hand and she struggled upwards into a standing position. Her heart seemed to stop suddenly as she felt something clutching tight around her waist. She shrieked, and pushed at it, feeling the mop of the little boy’s hair between her rot-streaked fingers.

“We have to get out of here. Now.”

Behind her, heavy hot breaths. She jolted in fear again as a violent spark rang out in the tunnel and her vision was filled with viridian flame. A flare.

“Run!”

The boy was clinging to her too tightly. She looked down at him, intent on quelling his fears even as she felt her own terror falling over her like a tidal wave. But the boy was smiling up at her. His grin made her feel rotten to the core. A rapist’s smile painted on the face of a child. Even now she could feel his little hand at her breast, grimy fingers searching out her nipple beneath the fabric of her shirt. She felt the hard throb of his erection against her leg. As the light of the flare danced in his eyes she realized she was not looking down into the eyes of a child after all. An old man’s eyes were looking back at her, through her and into her, perversely knowing and horribly lecherous. How could a look so chilling and evil reside in the innocent features of a young boy? Her heart sank to witness such a perversion of all things holy. Hot tears flooded her eyes and she began to sob in deep despair. She waited to feel the touch of the giant’s hands on her neck, for it was surely he who was standing there hot-breathed behind her, just as sure as it was the hideous man-child at her breast that had led her right to him.

Vincent felt like driftwood, bobbing along on the crest of a cold, indifferent wave. His hand still felt the weight of the gun he’d used to shoot Chief of Security Fowler in the face. Even in his catatonic state he knew that he’d feel its weight for the rest of his days. Heavier still was the crushing pressure of seeing her again, his beloved Susanna. There she’d stood, so proud and lovely—majestic—on the jetty, like nothing had happened and not a day had passed since she’d been taken from him. His psyche had flipped cartwheels upon seeing her face. Was he mad? Had he been insane all these years, eking out damp days in the lighthouse? It didn’t matter. The events that he’d seen unfold recently, that he’d been a part of, would be enough to imbalance any mind however strong. Cold tears formed as he tried to shun the dread image of his son, crawling like a plaything across the rotting timbers of his home. Fear and anger curled his lip as the image was blotted out by the huge blackness of the giant who accompanied his boy and kept him to heel like a little dog. Vincent allowed the twin images to penetrate his brain in a pincer movement, like vultures pecking at the skull of a dead man. He chuckled through their assault, they couldn’t hurt him now; nothing could. He’d remembered everything. When she’d kissed him and held him like that and stroked his hair, hush little baby don’t say a word , it had all come flooding back to him.