At some point on the American coast where the horizon is almost constantly fog and where the rocks are most treacherous, there is a lighthouse. It doesn’t have a particular name that I know of, though the locals of the small town nearby simply call it Point Perilous.
It has, for all intents and purposes, earned the name.
I’ve worked there for almost five years now and I hesitate to call it bizarre. I’ve learned that everything is normal when you live there day to day, and anyone who knows of lighthouses can simply assume things might go bump in the night. Hauntings come with the territory.
But, it pays well, its not close to my hometown, and every week or so I’m able to head into town for a few hours of free time. Its not the most sociable of jobs in all honesty, but I’ve had worse.
The only form of life I interact with on a daily basis is a beast named Nessie, the so called ghost of Point Perilous. He’s an old dog that’s been here since the lighthouse was built and he’ll be here when the town and ocean itself are long gone. He’s good company for a beast, and is smart enough to definitely be on the payroll.
If he is I’ve never heard.
The boss doesn’t allow any form of internet or cellphone for reasons I’ve never cared to ask, probably something about it interfering with the radio signals or electronics. The locals say there’s no service anyway. The only contact to the outside world that I can get is an old radio that has three channels in total I can successfully remember. The boss, the news, and the channel I announce any particular dangers to nearby ships. Some days the only voices that are alive I hear are the chatter between ships, and sometimes I prefer it to everything else. Gossip is gossip and like anyone else, I’m a sucker for it.
I reach the police through the boss, but even than its still a waiting game to see if the sheriff even bothers to show up. Its not that they don’t try, I hear, its just they know they can’t do much about the shrieking women in the forest or the horses that I’ve chased off so many times. I know they can get here, the road along the cliffs isn’t that bad.
The sorry sod of a local tasked with bringing up food and supplies to the lighthouse proves it. Lucky for me, they always bring a stack of missing persons reports and brings back any reports I might have. Usually that report isn’t much, but they like the assurance I’m alive. Keeps the sheriff from coming up for a wellness check I guess. In return, I keep a look out for the missing, even have their photos posted on the door.
They always show up. Everyone does.
This week has been different. The thing about missing people is that they’re almost always dead or half way there. I do what I can to warm up those with something left kicking in them but the sea is never to kind to strangers. Half frozen is better than half dead, easier to deal with in my opinion.
I had been on the lookout for a small crew that had been lost, attacked by something the delivery man wouldn’t describe. He had also whispered though, when I didn’t ask further, that apparently they were trying to take something from the shipwrecks under the waves.
You never touch what the water claims in this town, they must’ve been fools or visitors for not knowing. Those can be used interchangeably in this town. The old sailors love to warn everyone not to go to the wrecks or just about anywhere within a mile of the water, but it never works much. Not when its very easy to see them setting off into the ocean in the morning.
All the same, a storm was in the air. I could smell it and see it well on the horizon and the news station said so. Its always right about these things. The men probably wouldn’t turn up but I looked to the horizon just in case.
Sometimes I see flickers of lights from ships, the occasional call in morse code for either help or the radio channel. No help messages had been shared of recent, nor did I hear anything of them. For all I knew, they were alive.
I was checking the windows for leaks and making sure the light would keep steady last night like I always do. No sailor would be out during the storm, but the lighthouse had to remain on at all times, through storm or death, light and horn.
I had just finished fastening the window to the bedroom when Nessie started barking.
Nessie is silent as a ghost most days beyond his small huffs and sighs. I was used to hearing his footsteps though in between the calls of the lighthouse’s foghorn. That’s what I considered the loudest noise he could possibly make.
The sound was like a gunshot, echoing through the rooms and in my head like the pinball machine at the local diner. I ran downstairs to find him staring at the door, a growl in his throat that only came when someone had washed up on shore and that I needed to go help immediately.
He’s a good dog like that.
The door barely could open with the force of the wind, the storm had arrived far too early.
If you’ve never been in a storm on the sea, know that its freezing. Thousands of tiny needles prick your skin and soak you to the bone, even through the thickest coat. I can’t exactly recommend it. I could barely make out the ground as I held up an old electric lantern and even than everything was mostly just mud. Nessie blended into the darkness beyond, his deafening barks leading the way down to the beach.
In all honesty, its less of a beach and more of a million rocks thrown together. The ocean was nearly to the cliff face and the ground was coated in muck.
I called for Nessie to come back, whoever was out here wouldn’t be alive, not with the rain itself so fierce. I didn’t want to lose my one companion. I found him with his nose in the rocks, a small and raised tide pool that was barely protected from overflowing by an overhang. He was trying to climb into it. I shoved him aside before he tried to enter the too small space and got stuck.
There was a child.
A full on child who was staring up at me with tear stained eyes. It was difficult to see them, in the shadows cast by my lamp, but they were assuredly there, eyes almost glowing and hair as muddy red as the deep sea creatures.
“You okay?!” I had shouted over the storm and they didn’t respond. “You’re parents around?!”
They looked past me to the ocean where the sea was dark and angry, highlighted behind lightning as thunder boomed yet nothing seemed to exist besides waves and water. It was dangerous. Whoever their parents had been are definitely dead. Nothing good survives the storms here.
I picked them up out of the tide pool, holding them close even when they struggled to try and get back to the small place. They were as cold as the corpses I would usually find and silent as one as well, soaked to the bone in a too big sailor’s shirt and trunk. I couldn’t tell how old they are at the time, and admittedly still can’t. We rushed back to the lighthouse, Nessie thankfully at my heels before the door slammed shut behind us from the force of the wind.
I set them down in the bathroom, trying to will the water heater to finally work for once and produce an even semi warm bath. The crashing from the storm was loud even through the walls. It sounded like something was wailing, pained and saddened. Sometimes you heard it in the air, often from the forest, but never had it been so pained.
It made me want to cry.
The child seemed to be listening to it, head tilted. They were still silent even when I questioned them. I was guessing mute though they also seemed particularly shy, curled up on the floor next to Nessie. Nessie had taken an immediate liking to them, a first though a thankful one at that.
Eventually the bath water was warm and when they sat up to investigate, immediately hellbent on getting in, still clothed. I let them do as they pleased, hesitant to try and help them though when they just sat in the water with a small pleased smile, I figured it would be fine.
As long as they were warm.
Nessie laid his head on the side of the tub, staring at the child who stared back. With that handled, I fired up the radio.
It crackled to life, exploding in static before leveling out to hear the quiet jazz music that usually occurred when the news station was on break. It was almost never, but the storms must have scared the host off. I switched it to the marked dial, it crackled once more before becoming a crystal clear silence.
“Hey,” I said into it, probably sounding angrier than one should with their employer, “I found a kid in the storm.”
It was quiet for a few moments, before the boss’s voice sounded through, hollow and uninterested. “Dead or alive.”
“Alive, can you alert the police? Their parents were lost at sea.”
“Injured?”
“No. They’re fine. Can you please alert the police? This is serious, its bad here and if there’s more people out there, it won’t be pretty.”
“We will. Watch the child.”
They went silent and wouldn’t answer further.
They’re incredibly lucky they pay so well.
The kid peaked around the corner at me, almost comical with Nessie’s head above them in a Scooby Doo style. They were soaked yet almost dirt and sand free surprisingly. I sighed, grabbing one of the shitty old towels I kept on hand to scrub what was left from them. They happily took one of my old shirts to wear as clean clothes though it was more like a dress on them than anything else. Nessie seemed to find it funny.
I herded them to the bed. The extra blankets would keep the kid warm hopefully and Nessie jumped up as always, taking his spot at the end as the kid sat staring at me.
I could still see their eyes when I shut off the lights but a lot of things stared in the dark so I couldn’t really mind.
I also didn’t mind as the storm continued into the night, that’s just what simply happened when you lived close to the sea. The mirror lagged behind by a few seconds when I brushed my teeth and I honestly couldn’t tell if the water tasted saltier than it usually did. The chair by the hallway’s window creaked and I set an extra pillow on it from the closet.
Storms meant I could sleep and I intended to make full use of that. I stole a blanket and intended to settle on the old couch for the night.
There was a thumping outside on the deck.
Things thumped in the night. Usually it was pacing in the old office above the living quarters, a steady drumming walk that became heavier when a body had washed up on shore. Sometimes something banged on the closet door and I’d learned over the years that its best to keep it closed or I’d end up with another scar around my wrist from something grabbing onto me. Occasionally the hallway window rattled when the thing was dirty and I needed to get up on the ladder to clean the outside of it.
Footsteps on the deck were new, especially ones loud enough to be heard through the rain.
Nothing new happens at the lighthouse, or nothing new had been happening.
I decided to check it out, heading downstairs after checking that the kid was still in place on the bed. I felt bad leaving them alone. When I was a kid I’d always had my siblings with me at night besides when they’d be taken for church services. I hated sleeping alone. I didn’t want the kid to experience that nagging fear as well.
But I didn’t trust the footsteps, not when I could see Nessie’s ears following it. I whistled for him to follow and took my lamp outside. The kid would’ve been safe in the lighthouse. Nothing had ever gotten in before that hadn’t already been there. Nothing was supposed to.
I found a man on the deck, stomping on it with heavy boots like a mad man before looking up at the creak of the front door. He stared at me for a moment and than dashed off, disappearing soon. His face looked familiar and it didn’t sit right with me. Nessie growled but I stopped him from running after.
The storm would swallow both of them whole if it had the chance.
Something screamed. Not the wailing from the sea or the cry from the forest. Something from the lighthouse. It was an awful sound, heart wrenching and horrifying in the same breath.
I stormed in, slamming the door behind me with barely a glance as Nessie led the way.
The last box of food that had been brought had a total of six missing men from a singular ship, all presumed dead when their half eaten dingy had been brought ashore.
Two stared at me in the bedroom with faces that matched those on the door, one holding down the squirming child and the other holding an axe in their hands.
Wide yellow eyes stared at me for a moment, a pause that had the men tense and than the kid began to thrash. The man holding them down shouting at the other to hurry as the other told him to hold it still.
And the child screamed, louder than before. It was ear splitting, making us fall to our knees as a steady ringing began. Nessie charged forward and ripped the axe from one of their hands.
All I could hear though was the screaming.
Sadness.
Why was I sad though? It was like everything was missing, like the only thing I’d known had been ripped away. Every thought of home, the very warmth I’d always known gone and leaving me alone with no idea who I am.
The sea was gone, ripped away and calling, hoping for comfort. I could hear it.
And it was gone as Nessie howled. We had all dropped to the ground to hold our heads and I could feel the warm blood dripping into my palms from my ears. It rung in the air still, the storm worsening with its call.
The kid scrambled away from them, hiding behind me as the men stared at me in anger.
“Hand it the fuck over,” One of them said, voice shaking. “Hand it the fuck over so it can pay for what its done.”
I just pushed them behind me more. The sea was wailing as the child sobbed.
“Can’t do that,” I said back as Nessie crouched, muscles tense and fur seeming to ripple in the darkness.
“You’re going to kill us all,” one of them hissed and I honestly didn’t care. I was not going to talk with a stranger like he wasn’t trying to kidnap a child. “You don’t know what’s out there, what it fucking did to us, or whatever the fuck its after it. Let us end this before it brings something else.”
“There’s nothing to end,” I said simply, “I’m a lighthouse keeper, its not my job to understand.“
“This isn’t a fucking lighthouse-“
You know, sometimes I forgot that Nessie was described as a guard dog on the job description. There’s never been anything that’s attacked me directly. Sure things had tried but usually they backed off without much fuss.
It was surreal to see Nessie’s jaws latch onto the man’s neck and rip it away, cutting off whatever he wanted to say. I forgot the color of blood.
The kid just hid behind me, silent as a ghost.
The next day the boss would call and say there are no missing children reports, only four men found dead from a local ship and two missing. The boss’s voice spoke of knowing. I just said I hope we find them.
They all turn up one way or another, eventually.
I woke up with the child at my side and Nessie at the other on the too small couch in the living room. The radio was playing the music before the morning news show and soon the host’s voice would greet us as I cooked breakfast.
The bodies were gone, probably food for the thing under the stairs and the guppies in the tide pools. Apparently the kid eats raw fish which is a bit strange but they ate the bones as well so its less clean up for me.
The kid has a few new freckles. They definitely didn’t have any before. They match mine.
The library is empty which is good because I forgot to wash my boots from the night before and the kid has taken to hissing at anyone who gets too close. Nessie is keeping them from eating books, and the sea is still wailing.
The lighthouse seems pleased, perhaps it’ll let me survive a few weeks more to update again. I don’t really want to think of what the man meant, because if this isn’t a lighthouse than the only source of information might have just died.
Well, at least the old sailors at the bar are still around, that lot knows almost everything. Maybe they’ll agree that something is wrong with the sea.