By the Light of His Lantern Read online

  “You’ll see,” the man said.

  “You’ll see,” Karen echoed.

  Lewis listened silently to their exchanges, hoping to glean some information that way, but they didn’t talk much, and when they did it had nothing to do with what was coming. Once, Karen looked back at Lewis and laughed.

  “Didn’t it occur to you,” she began, “where my clothes came from?”

  “Huh?”

  “If I recently washed up and was making my way back, where would I have gotten these clothes?”

  “I don’t know,” Lewis answered, uninterested. “You could have found them anywhere, I guess.”

  She laughed again. “Not so easily. You don’t know anything…”

  He was reminded of the boots again, and the snake, but he said nothing. He was much less concerned with conversation by then.

  “Give him a break,” the man said. “He’s new. He’ll learn eventually. He’s got time for it, that’s for sure.”

  They both shared a laugh.

  “You might be thinking to yourself something like, ‘these people are psychos! They must have done something terrible to end up here,’ but you’d be wrong to think that. We were good people once. I like to think we still are, though circumstances have altered our capability for goodness. Sometimes you have to do bad things to survive. Isn’t that right, babe?”

  Karen sighed. “I’m not in the mood to fucking talk, Grant.”

  Unlike her, Lewis thought.

  After a moment, Grant asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just want to get back. I’m tired.”

  For a moment the blade had eased away from Lewis’s side, Grant being distracted and all, but then he felt it again, firm and focused.

  “We’ll be back soon. We’ll finish this and then you can rest all you like without a care in the world. Not a single thing will interrupt you. Not for a good while.”

  Karen didn’t respond further.

  And Grant was right. Not much later they came to the cave’s exit. It was still raining, they could hear it, though not as hard as before. They stood just inside the exit. The cool wet air felt and smelled lovely.

  “Remember what I said,” Grant whispered in his ear. “Don’t fight. Don’t try to run. You won’t make it. We’re not far now. Let’s move our feet and get out of the rain as soon as possible, all right?”

  He nudged Lewis forward and they stepped into the rain. Karen led the way with his lantern.

  “Don’t let it get wet!” Lewis said, but she paid him no mind.

  The lightning was gone, and the thunder, naturally. It had been nice while it lasted, Lewis thought.

  They walked through a field of dripping grass. Lewis watched his lantern carefully in Karen’s grip, paying close attention to the drops of water on its edges, and the slowly building beads at the bottom. She didn’t seem to care. He thought it probably wouldn’t matter anyway before too long. Whether the fire lived or died shouldn’t have been his immediate concern. If he died, all his progress would be lost and his fire lost just as well.

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  Karen looked at him and said nothing in response. But Grant leaned in. He felt his breath against his ear.

  “You’ll ruin the surprise.”

  Lewis’s already pounding heart pounded harder.

  It crossed his mind for an instant that he might be lucky in a way. Terrible people existed in the real world. Something like this might happen to someone on any ordinary day, even to him. But only here would he be given infinite lives—infinite second chances. Sure, they’d all be spent in suffering, but meeting his end here wasn’t really meeting his end, now, was it? That was something…

  He considered his options for escape. Grant’s hand squeezed his shoulder, and the knife in his other hand prodded his lower back. Any attempt to shrug him off would result in a healthy stab or two. He was already missing the tip of his finger. He didn’t much feel like losing any more blood or appendages if he could help it. Well, for the time being. When they arrived wherever they were headed he assumed there would be bloodletting whether he liked it or not. Probably worse.

  “Nearly there!”

  The grass turned to dirt—or mud, rather—slick and squishy. Lewis slowed, dreading the end of their journey, and the knife at his back pricked him.

  “Keep moving.”

  Karen splashed her feet through a puddle and muttered under her breath. Then, in the light of Lewis’s lantern, a door appeared out of the darkness and they came to a stop. The door was rough and scarred, shiny with moisture. Karen opened it. It swung slowly, grated the floor underneath. The house or cottage or shed or whatever it was they’d found held nothing but more darkness inside. He took a deep breath, finding it hard to get his lungs full, and smelled something ungodly. Something sharp. Something sweet. Stomach-churning. Karen led the way. Grant shuffled Lewis forward on the point of his blade. When they were in the house’s silence, Karen circled them and shut the door. The rain pattered on the roof and on windows unseen.

  “Put him in the back room while we get everything set up,” Karen instructed. “Shouldn’t take too long with some light this time around!”

  Grant moved Lewis through the room. Lewis bumped into a table and the knife pricked him again in the small of his back.

  “Your fault.”

  They steered around some chairs. They passed a large kitchen cupboard. Then they came to another door. Propped against this door was a wooden chair, tucked beneath the doorknob.

  Another deep breath.

  “Please, no…”

  It happened very quickly. Grant stuck his leg out and kicked the chair out of the way. He reached forward with one hand, pulled the door open, and shoved Lewis toward the darkness within. Only… there was something there, in the doorway, blocking his path. He felt hands on his body, reaching out from the next room. He fell into them, burdened them. As quickly as they were on him they threw him away, onto the dusty floorboards, and above him in the darkness he listened to a struggle. Grant grunted, and so did someone else. It sounded like another man’s voice.

  “Stay in there, you cunt!” Grant said.

  Fist met flesh and someone crumbled to the floor next to Lewis. They fell over his legs, which he pulled out from under them and drew into himself, scooted himself across the floor away from the body. The door slammed shut. Chair legs scuffed and knocked against the door as Grant propped it again, locking them inside. Then silence.

  Heavy breathing. Lewis backed away still until he found the wall. After a while, they quieted. He felt them searching for him in the dark, felt their eyes scan over the room like a smothering wave of heat.

  “Where are you?” they whispered. A man indeed.

  Lewis hesitated. Ultimately, he thought, they were in the same boat. Even if this other man wasn’t a good one, he wasn’t an enemy here.

  “I’m over here,” Lewis said.

  He felt their eyes lock onto him.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody.”

  The other man paused. “Yeah, me too.” After another pause, “You sound young. How old are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Do you know why they brought you here?”

  Lewis shook his head, and then felt silly for it. But when he opened his mouth to speak, the other man spoke first.

  “They’re going to kill you. And me. I’m sure you guessed that already.”

  “I figure everything I meet here will try to kill me eventually.”

  “Are you new?”

  “A little.”

  “Ah.”

  There was some shuffling.

  “What are you doing?” Lewis asked.

  “I want to sit closer to you. We can talk quieter that way.”

  Lewis considered. “Shouldn’t one of us sit by the door? We could listen to them.”

  “There’s not much to listen to. You can trust me on that.”

>   “What do you mean?”

  They shuffled closer. Lewis felt a hand on his foot and he pulled it back.

  “Sorry.” The man situated himself against the wall next to Lewis, enough distance between them to not encroach on Lewis’s personal space. “What I mean is, they’re going to kill us. Not much more to it than that.”

  “We could listen to them and form a plan, maybe. Team up. It’s two against two now, isn’t it?”

  “They’re prepared for both of us. Trust me.”

  “Why are they doing this?”

  “Because they’re insane. Like most people here. You’ll be too someday. We all will. After you’ve been here long enough.”

  “That’s it? Because they’re insane?”

  “They’re sacrificing us. To the gods of this place, or something fucking stupid like that. You know anything about this place yet?”

  “Only things I’ve been told, mostly.”

  “What have you been told?”

  Lewis thought for a minute. “We’re here because we’ve been cursed. The curse… is like… aware or something. The old man I spoke to called it the darkness. I think he meant the literal darkness around us, but he referred to it as if it were a living, breathing thing.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I… maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Well, they do,” the man said, referring to Karen and Grant. “And they think sacrificing us will satisfy the darkness for a while. And by that, I mean they think that the darkness will leave them alone because they paid their dues.”

  “The old man I spoke to said something about the darkness feeding on misery.”

  “Yeah, and he might’ve been right. And they might be right, too. No one really knows anything. It’s all superstition. Not much else to do, I guess, with eternity, than come up with loads of superstition to explain it all.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re here because we pissed someone off, someone who hasn’t the faintest clue what they’ve really done to us. That’s all I know. As for this place itself, I can’t say. It’s just chaos. It’s a bit like earth, I’d say. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not. Here, though… more often you’re not.”

  They both quieted as they heard voices outside their room. Karen and Grant. Their voices were low and hurried. It sounded like bickering.

  “Can you tell what they’re saying?”

  Completely ignoring his question, the man asked, “How did you end up here, anyway?”

  “I…” Lewis paused. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm. You wrong anybody?”

  “That’s been suggested a couple times. I know I have, but it’s hard to say who exactly might have chosen this as their revenge.”

  “Ah.”

  The bickering continued, off and on. They listened. The longer they waited, the greater Lewis’s fear grew, knowing they would only be waiting so long. Eventually Karen and Grant would come for them. When Lewis’s and the man’s conversation died down, Lewis grew curious and crawled to the door.

  “Where you going?”

  “I want to listen,” he said.

  He found the door and put his head low to the ground near the gap.

  “Put the tables together and it’ll be fine.”

  “We shouldn’t try it like this. If anything goes wrong…”

  “It won’t. We’ll be fine. Help me put the tables together.”

  Wood screeched and groaned as they moved furniture. Lewis drew back into the room.

  “What makes you think we can’t fight them?”

  “They’re armed. They’ll come for us one at a time, would be my guess.”

  “But we’re in here together. They didn’t even tie us up or anything.”

  “Because they’re confident, and they likely have good reason to be.”

  “Like what?”

  “This is their place. They know it in the dark better than we do. Either they sacrifice us as they intend to, or they kill us in our attempt to escape.”

  “I’d rather the last one.”

  The man only sighed.

  “You act like you don’t even care,” Lewis said.

  “I don’t, really.”

  “You should.”

  The man scoffed. “You really are new, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”

  “You’re going to die, kid. You’ll die here, as well as many other places. It’s a way of life, funny as that sounds. You get used to it.”

  “I won’t get used to it.”

  “Like I said, you’re new.”

  “They don’t just mean to kill us,” Lewis said, though he knew he was guessing. He figured it was true. “They’re going to torture us.”

  “Probably.”

  “I’d rather not let them.”

  “Listen… what’s your name again?”

  “I didn’t say.”

  “All right, fine. Here’s the thing. Pain is temporary. At least this kind. And you’re going to feel it over and over again in this place. It loses its bite after a while. Trust me.”

  Lewis didn’t know how to argue with that, though he wanted to. He didn’t think it was possible to grow accustomed to being tortured and murdered.

  He paused to listen when he noticed a lack of voices beyond the door. They were nearly ready, he thought—adding their finishing touches.

  “I don’t want to start over…”

  “Hey.” Lewis glanced up at the man’s voice, wishing he could see his face. “I tell you what. When you wash up after this, come and meet me.”

  “Meet you? Where?”

  “Not everyone in this place is crazy or vicious. Some people, though incredibly rare, were wronged to have ever been sent here. You might call them victims, though I don’t care for the word…”

  Lewis remembered the old man mentioning something about communities, where others liked to settle, and he awaited the man’s next words with hungry, hopeful clarity.

  “There’s a town I like to stick around. It’s not much safer than anywhere else, and it’s open to anyone who fancies a detour through—meaning you’ll meet your fair share of sadists and the like as often as anywhere else—but there are good people there, too. You strike me as one yourself, whatever your name is.”

  “My name is Lewis,” he blurted eagerly. “What is this town? What’s it called?”

  Something knocked against the door, and the chair scuffed the floor as someone removed it elsewhere.

  “Mercy’s Shore,” the man said. “Named aptly by its founders, though I imagine it isn’t quite what it once was, or what they envisioned it to be.”

  “And your name?”

  The door opened a crack. Neither of them was in any position to fight back, still sitting against the wall.

  “Shaw.”

  Footsteps.

  “Don’t try anything. You’ll only make it worse for yourselves,” Grant spoke in the dark, edging his way toward them. Lewis and Shaw tilted their gazes in his direction, but otherwise did nothing to resist. It was only when Lewis felt a hand in his hair that he truly reacted. “Uh huh… come with me!”

  The fingers wrapped themselves in his hair and he grabbed at them. Somewhere Karen waited, anxious.

  “Do you have one? Where’s the other? Where’s the other?”

  Lewis listened as he was hauled across the dusty floor by his scalp, and he didn’t hear any other struggle or commotion, only his own. He imagined Shaw was still sitting patiently against the wall, doing nothing to escape. Perhaps that was his plan all along. He’d sit and wait. Hide in the corner. They’d wonder if he’d somehow sneaked past them. But Karen was waiting in the doorway for just that purpose. Grant pushed by her, tugging and hauling Lewis into the other room. His lantern was on a table, dimly lighting the area only enough to see the shapes of things nearby.
/>   “I don’t hear him!” Karen said. “Is he in here?”

  Keeping hold of Lewis, Grant answered, “Just watch the door!”

  Instead, the door shut. Grant paused, and Lewis found himself so curious as to what was taking place that he no longer struggled.

  “What are you doing?” Grant asked.

  “I’ll keep the door shut until you’re ready.”

  It seemed Shaw had been correct about their plan to take them one at a time. It angered Lewis—Shaw sitting idly by, content to let them murder them with no attempt to fight or flee. Their murderous plan might not have gone so smoothly had he and Lewis teamed up, Lewis thought…

  Grant picked Lewis up under the arms and heaved him onto the table. Lewis rolled onto his side, tried to crawl across. Grant bunched Lewis’s rags into his fists and dragged him back, tearing his worn shorts apart in the process. Lewis flipped and writhed as Grant’s hands patted him, grabbed at him, clawed at him, doing whatever he could to pin him down.

  “Goddammit, Karen, I need help with him!”

  Karen propped the chair again and left the door. She appeared next to Grant, and together they wrangled Lewis’s arms and legs. Grant bent and picked something up from the floor, which when pulled around Lewis’s ankles he felt was a long, slim piece of rope. He tied one foot to one corner of the table, around the table’s leg underneath, and then he did Lewis’s other foot to the other corner. Meanwhile Lewis and Karen slapped comically at each other in the dim firelight, baring their teeth at one another until finally Grant was there to hold him down while Karen started on his wrists.

  Before long, spending most of his energy struggling to no avail, Lewis was secured to the table by each of his limbs. The ropes were tied so tightly that he felt their threads wearing his skin raw, and the blood swelling in his hands and feet, circulation choked. He caught his breath while they left him to retrieve Shaw.

  After only a few seconds entering the room, they returned quietly, and Lewis saw Shaw with them being escorted upright like a bound prisoner led to the gallows. Only he wasn’t bound. He simply walked with them, his arms held tightly in their grips. They probably didn’t need to touch him at all and he’d have followed like an obedient dog, Lewis thought.