By the Light of His Lantern Read online

In the distance.

  Caught his eye.

  He was woozy at the sight of it.

  The sight of it.

  He blinked several times, wiped and massaged his fretful eyes. Still it remained. It floated in the darkness like a lightning bug, flickering and warm—a tiny square of light. A lit window. It sat below his direct line of sight, which told him somewhere ahead the ground would drop or slope to the shore again. So he moved quickly but carefully, shuffled his feet in long, sweeping paces. It wasn’t long at all before he found it. His foot slipped out over open air. He brought it back. He toed the edge of the drop. He sank to his knees and crawled to the ledge. Dropping his leg over, he found this side of the hill much like the other. Only a couple feet below the ledge his foot found the sand again. He lowered himself. From there, on his butt, he scooted himself down.

  Sand in my ass for days.

  At the bottom, on his two feet again, he walked steadily toward the light, watched the window grow larger the closer he came. It was just the one. Its light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate much else around it. Just a lone beach house, he thought. At least one other soul…

  Please help me.

  Still a fair distance away, a dark shape moved across the window, from one side to the other. Then they returned, passed in a quick blur, and were out of sight once more.

  Heart beating wildly, he went faster. He reached his hand out, covered the window for a moment, dropped it again.

  Hysterically, he shouted, “Hey! Hey!”

  He ran toward the window, waved his arms as though anyone could see him in the dark, kicking up sand in his hurry.

  “Hello! Someone! Somebody! I’m here!”

  The figure returned to the window. They stopped dead center, looking out. Of course they wouldn’t see him. But they heard him.

  “Please help me! Please!”

  All at once a familiar sound returned: a heavy, mucky wheeze. He glanced back, its feet searching the sand behind him, and very quickly the hope swelling his heart turned to a sick fear in the back of his throat.

  “No. No. No! No!”

  A horrid grunt, and the two-legged pursuer was airborne. He braced himself for it, turned toward it, even tried to sidestep it. But it could see him somehow, in the dark. Maybe it smelled him. No matter the case, it fell upon him with all its thrashing weight. He shrieked and fell onto his back.

  As it opened him up, fed on his slippery innards, he craned his neck to see the house in the distance, the orange-red light through the window. The figure looked out, framed by darkness, probably heard the sounds of teeth ripping through meat. They only watched.

  Please help me.

  He couldn’t speak. The pain was too much. He looked down his body, saw nothing but the black. He was grateful for that at least—not being forced to watch his unspeakable companion devour him alive. Damn you, he thought.

  “Come to me!” a voice called. He turned his head in the sand once more to see the window, the figure inside it. Their outline had changed some, possibly with their hands cupped around their mouth to shout. “When you wash up again! Come to me and we’ll talk!”

  The window faded. The darkness squeezed it out like a smothered flame. All that was left were the sounds of a feast, and the pinching and nipping and tweezing that came with it. He uttered one last breath before he heard nothing at all…

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Except for the waves. They receded down his legs, his toes. He picked himself up once more. He paused, listened.

  Just the waves.

  He’d been given a direction. Whether he should trust it or not was his first concern, but almost immediately he realized he had no other choice.

  He called to me. He couldn’t see me, but he heard. He knows something.

  How it was possible that he’d been eaten twice by the same creature and somehow lived to wash up on the same shore shortly after didn’t make any sense to him, didn’t seem real. Each time following his death he awoke on the shore. He reset. He wondered what effect, if any at all, his death had on the rest of this place. Did it all reset? Somehow he didn’t think so. Just him.

  The man in the window. He’ll know. He’s waiting for me.

  The creature stalking him in the dark would be waiting for him, he thought. It knew, too. It’d come right for him. Since it first found him, that first time in the woods… it came right back for him. It followed him in the other direction and got him a second time.

  It’s coming again right now. To fill its belly a third time on the same meal.

  He skated his feet across the sand until he stumbled upon an L-shaped plank of wood. He picked it up. He ran his hand along its edge, pressed its sharp-toothed splintered end to his palm. It would have to do. There was nothing else.

  He found the tree line and followed it as he had the last time, to the right, in the direction of the silhouetted man. Along the way, he paused briefly to listen, to hear the sounds of footsteps or the familiar growl. If the creature came back for him, devoured him again so close to the shore, it would only be that much closer the next time he woke up.

  If it eats me just as I wash up on the sand, could it continue to do so forever? An endlessly replenished entrée…

  He paused and heard a sound, a snapping of branches in the woods. He listened. Nothing else. Not a breath or snort or step. He continued on. He stopped more frequently thereafter, paranoid. Still nothing. Always nothing.

  Eventually he reached the incline. He scrambled up the sand, around the boulders and rocks. He kept the plank of wood held tight. Twice he splintered himself with it, the frayed edges unapologetic and unsympathetic to his plight.

  He arrived at the ledge. He set the wooden plank on the grass above him, and then pulled himself up with both hands. As he hoisted himself, just his legs dangling behind him, a hot breath of air blew against his face. He gasped.

  The creature barked.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  It moved against him, placed its open mouth to his forehead, slimy and hot, and without further consideration he let go of the ledge and dropped back to the sand below. He hit the slope and rolled, over his head, onto his back again, end over end until a jutting boulder interrupted his fall. He cried out. Something ahead of him followed, leaped down from the ledge. Its feet kicked through the sand on its way down. He patted his naked lap in search of his weapon, but he didn’t have it. It of course sat uselessly in the grass above them.

  Another bark. The creature fell onto him, jaws snapping like a rabid dog’s. He pushed it away, found its throat and held it there. Its mouth bit the air hungrily somewhere near his face. With his other hand he searched, spread the sand beside him as though he intended a half sand angel. Something thick and wormy touched his face. A tongue, perhaps?

  He found something, a clump of gritty earth. He seized it. The creature writhed against him. An arm or a tentacle or a tail beat wildly between his legs, slapped him as the rest of its body twisted over his, slippery and agitated. He brought the rock over them both. Its throat still clamped, he pushed it away, arm trembling, and struck the rock against its biting head. There was a whimper. He struck it again, then again. The force of its frenzy lessened, and its weight relaxed on top of him. He rolled over, thrust the creature into the sand under his straddling legs, and clobbered it a third time. Then a fourth. A fifth. The tail or tentacle or whatever had been whipping the ground in the creature’s initial excitement now beat against his back as he sat on top of it. A sixth strike. A gooey warmth oozed over the rock between his fingers. He struck it twice more and it became still.

  It’s done! It’s done!

  He dropped the rock in the sand and reeled himself to his feet, stumbled away up the slope. He feared touching the nightmarish shapes of its body any longer would disturb him too greatly.

  He returned to the ledge. He climbed up, shaking through all his limbs. He found the plank of wood he’d abandoned and took it up again, just in case, and repeated his careful shuffling
until he again saw the lit window below him in the distance. He lowered himself down the opposite ledge. Then, at the bottom of the sandy hill, he started his tentative jog toward the window with the flickering light inside, toward the form of another man—please be friendly!—waiting therein.

  On the way, he stepped on something in the sand—oily and soft. His belly filled with horror as he staggered around it, and he knew it was his corpse there before him, half-eaten. He put it out of his mind as quickly as he could, and resumed his journey to the window a bit more eagerly.

  He stopped short when another portal of light revealed itself next to the window. A doorway. The shadow of a man stood in its open frame.

  Heart drumming, fist clenched around the wooden plank, he went to meet him.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It’s me!” he called. “I’m back!”

  The silhouette stood aside, gestured to welcome him in. Still several paces away, he knew he was invisible to this man. And somehow, even in the light, the man was invisible to him, shaded like a shadow puppet. But all the same, he let his feet carry him to the open door, where the man’s face was barely visible—wrinkled and pale, a smile full of hospitality. The old man’s eyes lit up at the sight of him.

  “Oh my…” he said. He looked him over very quickly, from head to toe. “So young… Come in! Come in!”

  The old man shut the door behind them as he entered.

  “Sit down! Sit down!”

  Though stiff and hunched, the old man moved swiftly across the cottage, feet scurrying, and he pulled a chair out from under the tiny table in the home’s center. He patted the seat of the chair.

  “Thank you for letting me in… I… I just don’t…”

  The old man, dressed in a tattered white shirt and mildewed shorts, sat opposite him, where he took up a small mug and sipped from it.

  “I would offer you some, but it’s very strong,” he said, eyes alight. “Too strong, I’d say.”

  Around them the cottage was mostly empty. There was a cot in the corner, and a dresser beside it, with an assortment of junk piled on top. The source of light was a fireplace across from them, casting a cozy glow over the single room. The walls were unadorned and in bad shape—splintered and faded, laced with cobwebs. The window was open and the sounds of the sea floated in softly.

  “So young… so young…” He repeated this with his mug to his chin, a look of sad amusement. “What’s your name?”

  Looking around the cottage, it took him a moment to hear the question.

  “Lewis…”

  The old man nodded. “Hmm. You look like a Lewis.”

  Lewis, after wrangling his attention back from the dark corners of the old man’s home, leaned forward toward the old man, brows heavy with worry.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  The old man set his mug down. He sat back in his chair, arms folded. His pursed lips told a tale of disappointment.

  “My name is William, not that you should care…” He sniffed, apparently offended by the one-sided introduction. Lewis noticed this, only briefly, but cared very little. He shrugged the old man’s poutiness off in a heartbeat, more concerned with his question. When he failed to acknowledge the old man’s introduction, the old man sighed and continued. “What’s happening to you, you say?”

  “I woke up on the beach. I thought I was blind until I saw the light through your window… What is this place? How did I get here?”

  “The same as the rest of us, I figure.” The old man took up his mug again and sipped. “The same as the rest of us.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” Lewis watched the old man, waited for him to give a better answer. The old man didn’t appear too eager to give him one. He stared absently into his mug. Then all at once Lewis realized his mistake, or what he thought might have been his mistake, and quickly sought to address it. “Thank you for letting me in, by the way. I… I appreciate it.”

  The old man smiled, finally. A genuine smile. He straightened and took another sip of his drink.

  “What is this place?” Lewis asked.

  “Where do you think you are?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. I woke up on the beach, like I said. Naked. I couldn’t see a thing, it’s so dark out there. Where is the sky? The moon? The sun? It’s pitch black!”

  “Indeed it is. Indeed it is.”

  “What’s happening to me?” Lewis blurted, hands on the table. A sudden rumbling moved through his guts and he held himself. “I’m starving…”

  “You and the rest of us. All starving. Nothing to eat.”

  The old man seemed pleased with his cryptic responses, that twinkle in his eyes especially bright. He enjoyed leaving him in suspense, Lewis could tell.

  The old man took a final gulp from his drink and then slammed his mug on the table, wiped his mouth with a satisfied exhalation. He leaned back in his chair once more, head tilted back, and he watched Lewis through narrow, amused slits.

  “Where am I?”

  “This place doesn’t have a name. Nothing official, anyhow. I’ve heard some call it The Abyss. The Dark. The Sinner’s Land. The Hole in the Ground. Others, the religious types, are torn between calling it Hell or Limbo. Call it whatever you like. The darkness never takes offense.”

  Lewis didn’t know what to make of that, but he found it hard to question any of it. He only felt more confused.

  “How did I get here?”

  The old man considered. “I don’t know how it may have happened for you. The reasons are different for so many. And you’re so young…” He watched him through those scrutinizing slits for a long minute. “Plenty, like you, don’t know exactly what brought them here. But others, like me, who do, can tell you a likely story.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Well, quite simply—”

  He paused mid-sentence. His narrowed eyes swelled wide as boiled eggs.

  “Are you… are you all right?” Lewis asked.

  The old man lifted an open hand, fingers like claws. His other hand found his throat. Slowly, he tipped sideways onto the floor, a heavy thud, and a plume of dust lifted around him. Lewis left his seat and crouched next to him in a panic.

  “What’s happening? Are you okay? What do I do?”

  Still clasping his throat, the old man raised a single finger to Lewis’s face.

  “Just… give me a minute…” he choked.

  Lewis waited expectantly, eyes dancing over his purpling face. Then very suddenly the old man went limp, eyes rolled back, and was dead.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Lewis jumped up, hands on his head. He hurried from one corner of the cottage to the other in search of nothing in particular. The old man (what was his name?) was clearly dead—nothing could be done for him.

  He went to the window and peered out into the darkness. Where there should have been a sky above, there was only impenetrable black, indistinguishable from the rest. No land, no sky, no horizon. Just black.

  He searched the cottage a second time, more slowly than the first, to see if he could find anything of use to himself, at least. Some clothes would be nice, he thought. He looked at the dead man’s body beside the table and it crossed his mind to remove his clothes for himself. They were little more than tattered rags, but he thought having anything to cover himself would be a welcome addition. Being in the dark with no direction was stressful enough. The vulnerability of having no clothes made it that much worse.

  “Forgive me,” he said, lips pulled back from his teeth in hesitant disgust as he prepared to strip the old man. He crouched down and took the man’s shirt by the hem and began removing it. As he lifted it over his navel there was a sound at the front door. He startled.

  “Oh!”

  The door swung open. An old, naked man shuffled inside, shivering and wet. He shut the door behind him, and rubbed the dripping water from his hair away from his eyes.

  “I’m back!” he said. “How long was I?”

&nb
sp; Lewis was still crouched over the body, but he’d snatched his hands away from the dead man’s clothes. He straightened. He stared at the old man with absolute bewilderment.

  “I… I…”

  “Excuse me a moment,” the old man interrupted. He gently directed Lewis aside and bent over his body on the floor. Lewis looked between the two of them in horror, mind blank. The dead man on the floor and the very much alive one standing over him were one and the same. “Let me just… get dressed here right quick…”

  Lewis watched as the old man removed the clothes from the body on the floor and dressed himself. When that was done, he said:

  “Wait here…” He took the body’s legs under both his arms. “Actually, grab the door for me, will you? Grab the door?”

  Lewis opened the door and moved away as the old man dragged his dead, naked body across the dusty floor of the cottage and into the dark outside, somewhere along the beach. He returned a couple minutes later.

  Speaking mostly to himself, the old man mumbled, “…should keep them fed and out of my hair a little while…”

  “Keep what fed?” Lewis asked.

  The old man perked up as though he’d forgotten Lewis was there to hear him.

  “Oh! Oh, just the passersby. Usually they don’t cause any trouble—the light of the fire frightens them most times—but having something there to fill their bellies on affords me some assurance they won’t bother me at all. They’re lucky that way… that they can satisfy their hunger…”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Come, sit!”

  The old man sat where he’d been before. This time he did not drink from his mug, as it was empty.

  “It’s poison,” the old man said, cupping his hands to the mug. “It’s just coffee, but it’s poison.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lewis said again. It was all he could say. Nothing in this place made sense to him. He feared nothing ever would.

  “This is a strange place we find ourselves.” The old man stared wide-eyed into his empty mug, as though mesmerized by some hidden power or meaning. “It thrives on our misery, Lewis. As it was intended to do.”

  Lewis shook his head. “I… I still don’t—”