Frazer Lee - The Lamplighters

In the midst of all this horror, Marla could almost hear Vincent’s mind snap, the frayed edges of his sanity unraveling never to be mended. She looked on helplessly as he climbed the winding stairs of his lighthouse, utterly bereft. The lighthouse was a ruin to Vincent’s despair and Marla could feel every brick, every bolt and every sheet of glass sighing. The construct of Susanna’s flesh, meanwhile, seemed to be pricking at the memories—infinite arousals playing out across every cell of her skin. The veins that pumped blood all around her were rivers of joy, celebrating the perfect flesh that housed them. Marla saw Susanna remain young and beautiful while Vincent grew old and decrepit. She knew now that through their worship of the Skin Taker and his Gods, The Consortium had somehow made Susanna young again, young forever—but her lover and their son had borne the most terrible price for her vanity.

She saw them, The Consortium, for what they really were, dark demons standing elegant in the proud flesh of bright beings. She saw them at work in their high buildings and at play in their mansions. She could taste their terrible desires, that strong hunger which defined them. They were ravenous for youth, sated only for the briefest of moments before becoming prey to their fear of losing their beauty again. Driven on by this endless cycle, they had enslaved themselves to many lifetimes of death and rebirth, each more painful than the last, each leaving them ever more unsatisfied. Marla watched in shame, for she felt a part of it clothed in Susanna’s skin, as countless innocents fed those dreadful desires through the ritual and surgery of the Skin Mechanic. She heard the deep drone of his voice, a litany burning into their brains, promising perfection. They were a cult and their Gods were youth and beauty. To them, this island was tir na nog , the land of eternal youth. To Marla, the island was still a living hell—and one they could no more escape from than poor Vincent ever could. They were addicts, hopeless junkies hooked on the dark promises of their Mechanic’s art. And the lengths they’d gone to, just to feel the fleeting benefits of his blade. Their awful history yawned wide before Marla’s horrified eyes. She saw them in their places of power, trawling the world for suitable specimens, treating humanity like fish for the net—each writhing innocent destined for their table at a whim. She watched as they collected DNA samples and cataloged tissue profiles, turning their Master’s work into a silent crusade. She felt the shellshock of these revelations, as their great conspiracies were unpacked before her mind’s eye.

She fell backwards into her drab room in gray London. She watched herself arguing with her landlady, saw her laptop gone from her room, saw her stolen panties laced with her DNA in far dark towers where data was extracted and subtracted and re-tested, leading all the way back to her, Marla Neuborn. She wept hot tears as she felt Welland’s hot breath nearby, his strong pulse. He wanted her eyes, all the better to see with. My eyes, I’ll never see that way again . He was pulling her back, they all were. She jolted back into the bright room.

I’m Marla.

Marla was back inside her body now. But she felt those other beings pulling at her mind and body. Her nerves seemed to stretch out into infinity. Too many forms, too many hosts wanting her to fill them just as she’d filled Susanna’s body moments ago. They not only wanted her flesh, but her identity too—everything that made her who she was. Her desires, her memories, her ambitions were all food to them, accessorized by her fleshy presence on this plane. She steeled herself, trying to hold onto a memory, a sensation, however painful. They couldn’t steal her life away from her like this. She had so much potential. She had come to the island to start afresh, it wasn’t fair, she had to try to fight it. Marla felt her mind was about to snap any moment, the same way Vincent’s had. She visualized the notepads she’d been writing in on the porch of the summerhouse. Each day of her life became a page in the pad and she frantically scribbled each event down, however banal. She was desperate to fill the pages—her lifeblood the ink, her will the pen. But they were closing in, breathing down her neck, clamoring over her shoulder. Each time she filled a page they tore it away along with her memories, forcing her to start over, but she couldn’t remember any more. Couldn’t even remember who she was…

Marla! I’m Marla…

Even as she thought her own name, it began to dissolve, to diminish like the fading image of someone she used to love. It was as though the letters making up her name had been printed onto photographic paper, which was then bleached out and overexposed before her very eyes. Nothing left but a blank sheaf of paper, non-descript. Her eyes became lost in the white glare. The lights burned so bright, brilliant really, like the perfect teeth and perfect eyes and perfect nails of her beautiful tenants. Marla-as-world shifted. Everything about her unraveled and she felt them, those demons, luxuriating in her flesh and her potential. They basked in her memories and devoured her dreams. Then she felt herself, her sense of self, torn irretrievably apart as the dark star bodies separated, each taking a piece of her with them.

It was done. For another season at least, it was done.

Morning broke over the island. Sunlight the color of blood oranges shone on the windows of the great white stucco houses, kissing away the last chill of night. Tropical birds went about their toilet, nuzzling at their feathers to release the natural oils essential to their first flight of the day. Taking to the wing, they glided over the treetops and out over the waves that rolled freshly in from the warming ocean. Crickets began to chirp a gleeful cacophony that would last the whole day through, and butterflies rode the breeze of their music above rich outcrops of wild flowers and grasses.

Atop a ridge, The Consortium stood silently welcoming the dawn, dressed now in understated linens. Some had brought Thermos flasks filled with hot black coffee. Others had dragged picnic baskets all the way up here, eager to breakfast in the first light of a very new day.

Marla Neuborn was among them too, a part of each and every last one of them, dissolved into their bright bodies and dark hearts. She looked out with new eyes across the ridge and fixed her gaze on the vanishing point where the sky met the sea. Somewhere out there in the world the first pieces of a puzzle were being laid out. A plan was slowly coming to life, like the start up chime of a computer, the soft glow of a screen. She had already forgotten her name as she stood there, proudly young and virile, with the beautiful people. Marla Neuborn had ceased to exist, even as her youth and beauty lived on. The dying whisper of her name had joined a new call.

A call to new flesh.

A call to The Lamplighters.

Frazer Lee is a writer and director whose screen credits include the award-winning short horror movies On Edge , Red Lines , Simone , and the horror/thriller feature film Panic Button . His short stories have appeared in anthologies including the acclaimed Read by Dawn series. He lives with his family in Buckinghamshire, England, where he is working on new fiction and film projects.

Official Website: www.frazerlee.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/frazer_lee

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorFrazerLee

Doug and Laura thought they bought Galaxy Farm, but the old house is possessing them instead.