The freezing wind from outside bit at my face as I stood in front of the door, “Hello, I’m here with FetchQuest to deliver an order. Are you… Xavier Corton?” The seven foot tall latino man stood there, a glazed look in his eye as he looked down at the clipboard in his hand.

There were two packages at his feet, illuminated only by the light from within the lighthouse. A large wooden crate and a box just big enough to hold a softball, “Yeah, this the—”

“Alright, please sign at the bottom sir.” He held out the clipboard and pulled a pen from the front pocket of his official FetchQuest tee.

“Right, I uh… of course.” Signing across the bottom, a thought permeated the ducts of confusion in my mind, “Don’t you wanna know what’s—”

“You have a right to what you do here sir, I’m just trying to do my job. Have a good night.” He rudely plucked the pen from my hand and turned away, heading to his boat.

“You too… dickhead.” Normally employees would ask me all sorts of questions about what I do here, and that was when I was just ordering adderall. Not to mention this latest delivery, though I suppose they may just not know what they deliver.

Regardless, I needed to start preparing. The moment the government sees how much money was pulled out of my account, they’ll surely be sending someone to find out what I bought.

Picking up the crate, I wondered if it would be enough. It’d only been about 25 pounds, and I was really just guessing on how much I’d need. Dropping the boxes on the kitchen table, I headed to the shed to grab a crowbar.

Returning, I set the small box off to the side before prying the top off, the odor of almonds hitting me in the face. “Is the smell usually this strong?” I wondered to myself as I looked down at the white substance. They were individual, one pound bricks of C4. A remote sat atop all the bricks, a pack of energizer batteries in a box beside it, and it even came with an instruction manual. Who knew? Granted, I doubt they come with a manual in the military, if you’re holding this stuff, you typically have experience.

The manual outlined things like how to target weak points, how far away you should be before activating it. Basically everything FetchQuest needed to tell you to ensure you were alive enough to continue buying from them. Obviously, getting a hold of C4 is extremely difficult, even if you were to purchase from FetchQuest, (assuming you could find it.) There’s a bunch of psychiatric tests, background checks, and you even have to talk with one of their on hand psychiatrists. It’s for those reasons it took five days to buy all 25 pounds of Uncle Sam’s wrath.

Grizelda didn’t seem any closer to waking up unfortunately, which was bad news if it meant I had to shoot us both out of there. Regardless, I had to begin preparations. One of the files Bill had left for me outlined how basically everything running to and from the lighthouse was tracked by government officials. However, FetchQuest has a special encryption system that meant the only thing the suits could see was how much I spent. And even then, that was because they had full access to my bank account. If the spending of over four grand on unknown items didn’t get their attention, then the transferring of all my funds to a special currency owned by FetchQuest was sure to send them heading straight here. My best estimate was that I’d have an hour to set up all 25 bricks of C4, have Grizelda out of the Lighthouse, and ensure I had everything I needed. Then, they’d be coming straight for me.

I patted myself down, ensuring I had my gun. Heading up to my bed, I pulled out Bill’ old laptop from under it. I sat down, looking over a few of the messages he’d left for me one last time. A tear escaped my eye as I read over the line again, “…keep your head held high, you’re remarkable, kid.” With that, I shut the laptop, walked it right down stairs, and promptly threw it out the kitchen window, a splash accompanying the sound of the window sliding shut.

Heading to my bag, I made sure I had the bare essentials. Anything that could be tracked went into a trash can along with a healthy splash of gasoline. Credit card, debit card, Walgreens reward card, all of it. After starting the trash can up, I got to doing the same with the bag I’d packed for Grizelda. Putting them both on, I picked up Grizelda, taking her outside, and leaning her against the outside wall.

Gazing up, I wondered if the lighthouse being off would mean they’d be coming sooner. I shook it off, clapping my hands and saying aloud to myself, “Let’s get this shit done!”

First thing to take care of was setting up the EMP. Assuming they’d dock at the prison section before the wooden docks, I’d have more time to set up the C4 with the disruption down below. Heading inside I opened the package for the EMP. The device was smaller than I expected, about as thick as a book, the device was no larger than one of those “Yes” buttons. It was a stainless steel color, and had nothing more than three buttons and a small display on it. Turning it on, I set the timer for 30 minutes, immediately heading to the prison and pulling the lever.

I’d intended to just use a remote to activate it when I was ready, but electronic signals couldn’t make it through the floor panel. Which was good, cause hopefully that meant the EMP would be confined to the two cell blocks, but I couldn’t be certain.

As I walked down the stairs, I could hear a few sets of shades talking amongst themselves. Pulling the lever for the second floor, I began, “ATTENTION SHITHEADS AND NON ALIKE! I’VE GOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL OF YOU!” There was some groaning, but I was mostly just getting cussed out. “ALRIGHT, IF YOU ALL DON’T WANNA GO FREE YOU’RE MORE THAN WELCOME TO STAY!”

Turning around, I heard some shuffling, then one shouted, “WHAT’S THE CATCH HUH?” The voice was painfully gravely, it shocked me a bit to hear they could yell that loud.

“ALRIGHT! I’VE STRUCK YOU’RE INTEREST I TAKE IT!?” After I received their affirmations, I continued, “In a little while here, there’s gonna be some government officials coming to take Grizelda and I out! That’s because of a little surprise party I’m throwing for ‘em! The fireworks are gonna be unlike anything you’ve ever seen! But, what they don’t realize is, I’m expecting them!” I held up the device, “This thing here is called an EMP! In other words, this thing goes off, you’re all set free, simple as that!” There was some excited murmuring sounding from the back, “HOWEVER! I have a few conditions, cause I’ve got more than enough C4 to just blow this prison up and leave you all to drown! Well, most of you.”

A hush fell over the prison, the only sound that remained was a small echo which was quickly dying off. “Quite frankly! I think we can all benefit from our current predicament! This device will go off 30 minutes from when I arm it! That’s when I expect the suits to be arriving! Do I make myself clear?!” There were some affirmative sounds, “GOOD! Here are the conditions then! ONE, under no circumstances are any of you to harm me nor Grizelda! TWO, you can kill anyone else you feel like! In fact, I say go nuts! THREE, once I finish everything I’m doing, I will open the floor panel and you can all go wherever you want!”

There were scattered conversations, then the gravelly voice from earlier spoke up, “We aren’t responsible for non-sentient atypicals!”

The word choice caught me off guard, “If you mean the primal shit! Sure, there aren’t many of them and I can put one or two down if need be!”

There was a bit more murmuring, the shade leader spoke again, “How do we know you’ll set us free!?”

“When the EMP goes off, it’s gonna kill the locking mechanism to the floor panel too! I’m sure once that happens, you guys would be able to break it yourselves! Now do we have a deal!?”

“Sure! Fuck it!”

“Wonderful! Go nuts!” There was cheering, bashing on cell doors, and a few other noises I’d rather not think about as I set up the EMP on the ceiling of the second floor. I pressed the “arm” button, and it began ticking down the seconds. Heading straight to the top, I shivered, pulling the lever for the floor panel above ground, before heading back to the lighthouse.

The C4 was the tricky part. While it came with a manual, I didn’t know where to find the weak points of a fucking lighthouse, and I’d already tossed my only access to the internet. So instead, I decided to place it around, just far apart enough that I could fit 12 pounds around the circumference of the inside, and 13 around the outside.

By the time I finished, I could smell the stuff on my hands. I’d already moved Grizelda and all of our belongings next to the docks before loading the batteries into the remote and ensuring it was wirelessly connected to the receiver. That was when I noticed a white flake pass by my face. It startled me for a second as I tried to figure out what it was. But as more flakes began to fall, I looked up, seeing snow clouds overhead, obscuring the moon. Smiling, I kind of just took it in for a moment, trying to appreciate the rare weather phenomena.

I wondered how much time had passed. “Surely it’d been longer than 30 minutes by now? So wher—”

A bang on the floor panel shot me out of my thoughts. It was rapid, sporadic, and loud. Cautiously, I put the transmitter in my pocket, exchanging it for my gun, something far more useful given the situation. Aiming it down to the fake grass, I pulled the lever. In hindsight, the panel must’ve functioned by gears, that’s the only reason I can think of for it opening with just as much ease as any other time I’d gone into the prison.

The shades didn’t hesitate to burst out the moment they could squeeze through the opening. There were wings, fins, arms, beaks, blood, guts, the sound of splashing and then… nothing. The sound of waves licking the island was all that could be heard.

Clink clink clink, the sound of metal on metal reverberated from below and I readied my pistol. “Hey now, I thought you were gonna let me go free.” The gravelly voice I’d negotiated with previously scraped up from beneath the panel, “I’ve never been one for standing the moment the plane lands. I prefer the chaos be past me before bothering.” The metal clinking stopped as the gaunt, wrinkly, but surprisingly well dressed man reached the grass. His checkered jacket and bleached white khakis spoke for themselves, “They’re all dead down there by the way, and if you’re wondering, they have reinforcements coming. I think they said something about being five minutes out. I’d stay to help, but that wasn’t part of the deal.”

The man turned away, heading to the edge of the island, and simply walking off. I was frozen, we’d had a slow week, after all the preparations, I had to leave the light house off almost all week. But despite that, I knew for certain, I never captured that man.

It was only when I heard the engines of motorboats that my mind kicked back into gear. I charged back to the docks. There were men in some sort of combat armor driving them. That was when I realized the futility of our situation. I expected a boat with a few feds maybe, but this was more than I could handle. As they approached, I threw a blanket I’d brought, over Grizelda’s head, dropped to the ground and pulled the transmitter out of my hand, pressing the button for detonation.

I barely got my hands over the back of my neck before the explosion sounded. I only heard the first second or so of the explosion before everything went silent, and fluid began seeping from my ears. The air pressure hit me simultaneously, launching hot shards of steel and concrete straight into my skin. What followed shortly thereafter was a series of gusts of wind followed by more debris slicing me up.

When the wind had settled, I slowly opened my eyes, first glancing to the now collapsed pile of rubble. I couldn’t believe it, the lighthouse was actually gone. I then glanced around Grizelda and I. There were a few large hunks of reinforced concrete sticking out of the ground. I’d been careless, but our luck saved us.

That was when I felt myself being yanked to my feet. Metal wrapped around my wrists and I was spun around to see a man screaming at me. I just looked at him in confusion. The man grabbed my face, turning it to each side. He turned to a soldier on his left, still holding my face, and said something. Then, he sprayed something in my face, and I was out cold.

-——————————-

The room I awoke in was disorienting. I blinked hard a few times, trying to get some foggy fluid out of my eyes. I tried reaching up to rub them, but my hands were chained to an interrogation table. I blinked a few more times, my vision finally clearing. I felt off, a little looser than usual, it was almost a drunken sensation. I was kind of just looking at the white wall giggling. When I looked to my right, I saw my reflection, which sobered me up a bit. I had stitches and bandages scattered around my arms, neck and face.

Before I could inspect any further, the door on the left opened, revealing a white haired suit with a mustache that screamed “Sam Elliott.” He promptly removed his sunglasses, hanging them over his white undershirt. The smile that followed suit sobered me up, making me wanna sock him in the face.

“WHER—” I burst into a coughing fit, my throat far too dry to be screaming, “Where’s Grizelda?”

“That ain’t none of yer business. See, what we’re trynna figure out, is why you’d be so reckless? The pay was good, you were protectin’ people, keepin’ the shit that kills people outta the city. And yet, despite that, you blew that lighthouse there to smithereens.” His southern drawl was palpable, only causing the urge to knock the man out that much stronger.

“Right, like you could comprehend my reasoning. Given your stance on the situation, I don’t think I’ll be changing your mind any time soon.”

Scooting his chair back, he put his dress shoed feet on the table, proceeding to lean back and put his hands behind his head, “Welp, it ain’t so much you changin’ my mind I care about. More of ehhh-information I suppose. I mean hell, where on Earth could you’ve gotten C4 without leavin’ the island? Our scans showed no planes… not even boats.” He hesitated, when I looked away, “Ah, so it was delivered by boat then? How interestin’.”

“How di—”

“NOW XAVIER, I do believe I made it clear who is askin’ the questions.” He turned to his left, staring at the mirror, “Did I not make myself clear?”

The intercom came to life, “Yes sir, you did.”

“See? Now, back to the matter at hand, I do believe you have information on who you got them explosives from exactly. I’d much appreciate you handing that over willingly, I prefer to negotiate y’see, but I’m not above gettin’ my hands a little dirty from time to time.”

“Wouldn’t that be police brutality? Pretty sure that’s a federal offense.”

He snickered, which slowly turned into cackling, “You think we’re police officers do ya?” He turned back to the mirror, “Get a load of this guy, thinks he’s in a police station right now.” Facing me again, he spoke, “No no no, you don’t get it, this is, what you might call, a federal experimentation center. Same place we take… well what I think Bill called ‘em was shades, am I right?”

Clicking my tongue, I sneered, “You’re treading dangerous waters there, you sure you wanna go there?”

The man chuckled, “Well, those handcuffs have held stronger shades than you in place.” Putting his feet down, he leaned in, “I’m not too worried about a failed lighthouse attendant.” He tipped back into his chair, “Listen, you play ball with us, and we’ll let you go free. Quite frankly, we’ve been shutting down lighthouses along the coasts, we just don’t need ‘em anymore. But yer little light show made things a bit more complicated. Thankfully we’ve got everything sorted, but it was a close call to be sure. All I wanna know is where you got them explosives, tell me that, and I’ll be sure and let you go free,”

“And Grizelda?”

“Who?-Oh o-o-of course, we just needa get some information outta her first o’course.” I looked him up and down, “Alright, I can see why you may not be so trustin’ but just know, we really don’t want any harm to come to y’all. We’ve our objectives, and killin’ people ain’t exactly part of em. Now if you’d please, tell me why you decided to blow the buildin’ to hell? Did it have somethin’ to do with Bill?”

I shuttered, glaring at him, “You’re stepping into muddy water again.”

He held up his hands in a fake defensive manner, “Hey now, I think that’s reasonable.”

“Just, drop the act. One minute you tell me you aren’t scared, the next you’re feigning fear.” He put his hands down, face becoming more neutral, “If you must know, yeah, it was partially… Bill, I guess… in a sense. But quite frankly, it was largely the inhumanity of it all. I came to the realization, what we were doing was unethical, that’s all.” I avoided eye contact as I finished.

“That’s a rather specific change of heart, wouldn’t you agree? And just after spending quite some time with a new individual. You think she may’ve had somethin’ to do with this sudden change of heart?”

I looked him in the chin, “Can’t say I exactly agree with that conclusion.” I mentally kicked myself as I finished.

“Sayin’ it ain’t exactly that, leads me to believe she planted the seed. Would I be correct?” I couldn’t think of a response, “Well then, that is rather interestin’. Guess we should be more careful about the morality of future subjects.”

I stared him dead in the eye, my face reddening, “What the FUCK do you mean!?” I burst into another coughing fit with the end of my question.

“Well, quite simply, I was lyin to ya before. We’ll always have need for them lighthouses, I just… y’know what, nevermind. I’ve got everythin’ I need now. I sure as hell hope to never see you again.” Finishing, he stood, putting his glasses back on, and exiting the room, leaving me to fume in my ignorance.

The next few days were a fog. Everything after the conversation was simply vague ideas of distant emotions, coupled with a few frames of either nightmares, or a horrifying reality. But when I eventually found myself fully conscious, nothing was familiar.

The room was bland, a hard wood floor, white walls, a couple windows in the back of the room, metal bars covering them. Across from the windows laid a door, a big metal one, not unlike the ones in schools, there was even metal netting in the glass. Then, just beside my bed, there was a small desk with a notebook and rubber pen.

Standing, I felt the muscles in my legs reject the motion. They were stiff, and the aching in my body felt odd. I looked myself over, noticing a few scars lining my arms where I’d previously had stitches. That was when I noticed my clothes, a gray tee and gray sweatpants, without a string, along with a pair of gripped socks. I didn’t even own sweatpants, let alone the type of socks I was wearing.

Pulling up my right pant leg, there were multiple larger scars, a couple of which were still scabbed over. “Guess the explosion did more damage than I expected. Media doesn’t give C4 NEARLY enough respect.” I laughed to myself, breaking into a small coughing fit.

That was when someone opened the door, she looked at me and I dropped my pant leg, “Bed check, oh, you’re already up and at it, good morning.” The woman smiled sweetly at me, closing the door.

“Wait! Where the fuck am I?”

She pushed the door back open, looking at me with that ever present smile, but I could see mild concern behind her eyes, “You’re at Hollow Wood Hospital. I’m sure you remember signing yourself in. I apologize, but I need to check on the other patients. If you have any questions, there are plenty of other nurses to ask around.” She closed the door behind her, but not before giving me another kind hearted smile.

After giving myself a full body inspection, I sat on my bed, trying to figure out what was going on. “Where am I? How long have I been here? Who put me here?” Upon asking myself the last question, my mind shot to the southerner with the far too familiar mustache. “It must’ve been them, it makes the most sense. But then, where did they put me? She said hospital, but that can’t be right. Nothing around here gave off the feel of a typical hospital. But where else could I be? They must’ve given me some sort of—” My mind stopped, “Oh god, where’s Grizelda?”

I shot out of bed, flinging my door open, “Wow there mister, you oughtta be more careful—” It was another nurse.

“Sorry, but is Grizelda here? I need to know she’s—”

“Sir, I need to ask you to calm down. You’re startling some of our patients.”

I stared her in the eyes for a moment, noticing she was looking to her left. Looking to my right, I noticed I’d attracted some attention. It was mostly just a small disturbance, but a couple people seemed to curl up in their distress, “I apologize miss, I just wanna know if a girl named Grizelda is being held here.”

“I’m sorry, but that name doesn’t ring a bell. If she is here, she would be in the female wing, not here.”

All at once, a sort of disorientation fell over me, “O-okay, th-thank you.”

I lost my sense of focus, walking to the tv room and dropping down on the couch, next to a guy I had spooked earlier. I gazed at the tv, lost in thought. “How did I fuck up so hard? How the hell am I supposed to fix this? Can I fix this? Grizelda is out there somewhere, and she could very well be in the same situation as me. There’s no guarantee, but what’s obvious is, I don’t belong here, yet, I am. Following that logic, Grizelda is either in the same position as me, or one even worse.”

“Aye, Xaviah, how ya doin’ mate?” An Australian accent knocked me out of my daze.

I looked up to my left, hoping to find the source of the noise, “Hey, uhh, who are you?”

He chuckled to himself, “Oh yea, you said somethin’ bout that. Name’s Clyde, you forget who I was again?”

“Yeah, I uhh… I guess so? When did we meet?”

“I think we might wanna go to my room yeh? Pryin’ ears ain’t great for honesty ‘round ‘ere.”

Cautiously, I stood, “What do you mean?”

“Wel if I tell ya now, that’ll kinda defeat the purpose yeah?”

A sense of unease came over me, as if my brain knew something it couldn’t translate for me yet, “Yeah, sure.”

I gestured for him to lead the way, and he started down the hallway I’d initially come from. A few rooms down from mine, he opened the door, gesturing for me to go first. The moment he closed the door behind us, I felt a mild gust on my neck.

Immediately, I grabbed his arm, spun him around, pulling it around his neck, “Damn, I yield holy fuck.”

Letting go of his arm, he began rubbing his shoulder, “Sorry, I just, guess I’m a little paranoid.” I chuckled to myself, keeping my eye on him.

“Well no shit, some nice moves ya got though, can’t imagine where you got them.” He bellowed, holding out his hand. After giving it a firm shake, he continued, heading to his bed, “But in all seriousness, there’s some wack shit goin’ on. You were tellin’ me about some lighthouse yesterday, you rembe’ that?”

“Yeah, ther- I mean no, I don’t remember but I know what you’re talking about. My job… or I guess… old job now, capturing shades for the government.”

“Ye, I never worked in capturin’ anythin’, but I saw shit on the police force. Told ‘em I wouldn’t ignore it, ended up here. As far as I can tell, they’ve been trynna give me meds n shit, but they haven’t done shit for me, that’s how I know it ain’t just imaginary. Then you show up, screamin’ ‘bout zombies ‘n’ sirens ‘n’ shit, almost felt like a sign y’know?”

He was giving me crazy eyes and laughing a little too much, and I began wondering if I’d really trusted this guy with anything. Glancing around, I tried to pick up on anything that might tell me for sure if this guy was crazy or not. That’s when my gaze focused on something under his bed, it was a pill. “Of course, I can’t be sure. I mean, they tell me I have schizophrenia so I can’t say whether or not any of it happened y’know?” I slowly began stepping back, trying to avoid any potential physical conflict.

Standing, he began walking toward me, “Come on now, let’s just talk about it. The people here don’t know what they’re talkin’ about.”

“Guy, you’re creeping me out and I’d really rather not hurt you. So either let me leave, or I’ll put your ass on the ground.” He froze, “So you understand me then?”

His eyes went gentle, then saddened, “Ye, ye, sorry for botherin’ yeh.”

I quickly left the room, taking a glance around. Most people seemed to still be in the tv room, but one guy with black hair and their hands in their pockets was walking just a few feet away.

Finale (2/2): https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/xi3yc8/the_strangest_lighthouse_around_finale_22/

This site is open source. Improve this page.

yessleep