Bill Pronzini: The Lighthouse

Jan was out on the stairs by then, peering downward, trying to bring the gloom at the bottom of the stairs into focus. He was ready to dislodge the compressor, send that hurtling downward, too, if necessary-but it wasn’t necessary. Bonner lay twisted below, unmoving, the diaphone canted across his legs so that only his upper body and his feet were visible.

The sudden release of tension made Jan’s own legs feel weak, rubbery, as he descended. Bonner’s weapon, an ax handle, lay on one of the steps partway down; Jan bent to claim it before he went the rest of the way. When he got to where Bonner lay, the silence that had built around him was thick, no longer echoing, broken only by the faint thrumming duet of the wind and the fire outside.

He bent to look more closely at Bonner, afraid that he’d killed the man; the last thing he needed right now was a death on his conscience, even the death of a tormentor. But Bonner wasn’t dead. There was a bloody gash on the side of his head where the diaphone had struck him, and one of his legs was bent at an angle that could only mean a bone had shattered; but his mouth was open and he was breathing in ragged, painful gasps.

Jan swallowed against the taste of bile, stepped over him and out into the wreckage of the living room. Holding the ax handle cocked at his shoulder, he looked into Alix’s studio, then hurried through the kitchen, cloakroom, pantry. All of them were empty. He went through the pantry door, around to the front yard. Stood for a moment to let the icy breath of the wind clear his head, dry the sweat on his body.

The station wagon was a blackened hulk inside a dying ring of fire. Beyond it, the garage was sheeted by flame, burning hot and smoky from the paint and oil and chemicals stored inside. If the wind had been strong, gusty, there would have been a danger of the fire spreading to the lighthouse. But it had died down, changed direction-capricious wind. What sparks and embers blew free were being carried away to the southwest, out to sea.

In the fireglow he could see that the grounds were as deserted as the house. Outside the fence, the road-as much of it as his narrowing vision could make out-also appeared to be empty. Nobody here now, just Bonner and him. Just him.

But he couldn’t stay here, couldn’t just wait, because he couldn’t be absolutely sure Alix had made it safely to a telephone. He’d been right about Bonner-but what if he’d been wrong about the others?

He began to run.

It was a hard run at first, but he couldn’t keep up the pace. He was out of shape, and exhausted from the tension and exertion of the past two hours, and his head ached, throbbed with every step. He was worried that the fresh exertion would bring on the bulging, or worse, one of the blackout periods. Or that he would drop from sheer fatigue.

He slowed to a trot, then to a fast walk, and when he had his wind back he began to trot again. The night was black around him, streaked with fog. Anything more than a few feet away appeared to him as smears and blobs. He kept swiping at his eyes, poking and pinching at them in a vain effort to widen his field of vision.

He had gone a mile or so-he had no real sense of distance, nor of passing time-when he came around a bend in the road and one of the larger blobs ahead of him materialized into Reese’s van. He came to an abrupt halt when he recognized it, then warily moved closer. It was angled off on the side of the road, lightless, the driver’s door yawning open.

Abandoned here, he thought. Why?

He went around to the driver’s door, leaned inside. Empty. The ignition lock was empty, too; whoever had been driving it-Reese? — had taken the key. Frustrated, feeling a new surge of anxiety, he backed out and stood indecisively for a moment, knuckling his eyes, staring ahead into the blurry darkness.

Alix, he thought then.

And once more he began to run.

She lay flat on her stomach, her cheek pressed against the cold concrete. The floor under the car was slick with motor oil; the smell of it made her want to retch. She closed her throat against a surge of bile, remained perfectly still.

She could see Cassie’s bare feet and the hem of her robe several yards from the car; she could also see the crumpled body of Adam Reese, the splotch of blood on the front of his jacket. Cassie hadn’t turned, hadn’t moved since she’d shot Reese-as if the act had momentarily paralyzed her. It was another few seconds before the feet moved, turned once again toward the car with such suddenness that the robe puffed out to expose thick ankles. There was a quick intake of breath, and then “Alix? Where are you?”

Alix held her breath.

Cassie’s voice rose querulously. “Where did you go?”

After a moment the feet moved out of Alix’s line of vision, back toward the front of the car, shuffling like those of an old woman. She turned her head then, peered out the other side. There was a line of cardboard cartons some four feet away, with a space large enough for her to wriggle through between two of them. She was too confined here under the car; if Cassie realized where she was, there would be no way to defend herself, no way to escape a bullet. Behind those boxes, she would still be protected, yet have more freedom of movement.

But what if she made sounds and Cassie heard them? With that overhead light on, she would make a perfect target, even with the car between them The side door slammed resoundingly. When the echo died, the silence was once again acute.

Alix lay motionless, taking in small amounts of air through her mouth. Her chest ached, blood pounded in her temples. She realized she was still clutching Mandy’s headband; her fingers pressed the beads as if she might be about to say a rosary.

You’ve got to move sooner or later. Do it now, while she’s still over by the door.

She made herself move in the direction of the cardboard cartons. She was almost to the rear wheel when she saw an old bathroom plunger lying behind it. It was good-sized, with a wooden handle two feet long. Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing.

Inching along, she stretched her arm out until her fingers could just touch the handle. Then she lay still again, listening. Heard nothing except the heavy silence. But once she came out from under the car, exposed herself in the light… that damned ceiling bulb hung right over the car…

Smash it, she thought then. It hangs down low, you can reach it with the plunger… and in the dark you’ve got a much better chance

… smash it!

She crawled forward, took a firm grip on the wooden handle; her head was out from under the car now. Behind her, on the other side of the car, Cassie moved and then called, “Alix?” again. The sound of her name drove her the rest of the way out from under, up onto her knees.

Cassie heard her, shouted something unintelligible just as Alix located the bulb, and lunged up at it swinging her club.

But her first swing missed high, hitting the cord instead and setting the light swaying and dancing crazily; light swirled, weird shadows climbed the walls and then fell back again. Cassie fired a shot, but in her haste her aim was off-line: the bullet cut a furrow across the top of the car to Alix’s left with a sound like fingernails dragging down a blackboard.

Wildly, Alix swung again at the swaying light. She lost her grip on the plunger as she did so, but in flying out of her hand it struck its target. The bulb shattered; the garage was plunged into darkness.

Another shout from Cassie, but no more shots. Alix dropped to her hands and knees again, crawled behind the row of cardboard cartons. When she’d gone as far as she could she got up in a crouch and extended her hands into the darkness around her, searching for another weapon. At first they encountered only empty space, then she felt a lumpy plastic shape, probably a large sack of potting soil or fertilizer. Her touch stirred up what was inside and a faint but pungent filtering of dust tickled her nostrils. She put a hand up in a vain effort to stop a sudden sneeze.