By the Light of His Lantern Read online

  Terry pulled an extra chair away from another table for Lewis to join them. He sat awkwardly at one of the table’s corners, between Terry and the fatter man, his lantern set between his feet under the table. Without paying Lewis any mind, the other men continued their own conversation.

  “I imagine she’ll be here before too long,” the bald man said. “So long as she doesn’t wash up again. Can never be sure.”

  “Talking about Patricia again?” Terry asked.

  “Mhmm.”

  “Jesus, she’s never getting back here.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  Terry laughed. “She only ever makes it if she gets lucky and some poor fool brings her himself. She can’t survive worth shit.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “You know where she washes up. You’re better off heading there yourself, assure her arrival by being her personal escort… again.”

  “She made it here herself once.”

  “She arrived alone, sure. I wouldn’t be so generous as to assume she made the whole trip that way. Like I said… poor fools…”

  Lewis hadn’t the slightest who they were talking about, but simply hearing these men speak of the world in such nonchalant moods intrigued him to no end. It was nothing big to them, not anymore. This was their life. Was it possible Lewis might become accustomed to this world the same as them?

  “So, who’s the new guy?”

  Lewis sat rigid. The question came from the bearded man, who asked in a friendly-enough tone.

  “This is Lewis,” Terry said. “Found him outside about to get himself into some serious trouble.”

  Lewis looked at Terry questioningly, though he didn’t speak up for fear of not knowing what Terry meant.

  “Found him stumbling out of an alley like the darkness had had its way with him.”

  “We all know how that is,” the bearded man said, and he gave Lewis a wink. “We’ve all seen our own demons here.”

  “Part of the place’s charm,” the heavyset man added.

  “So what happened to you?”

  Lewis thought about it, but… he shrugged.

  “I don’t know why I was down that alley.”

  The other men only nodded, as though even that they understood.

  “Lewis here says he was told about this place by our very own Shaw,” Terry said. “Shaw told him there would be others like himself. Normal. Isn’t that what you said, Lewis?”

  The other men chuckled to themselves and Lewis only smiled sheepishly.

  “Where did you meet him?” the heavy man asked.

  “We were both being held captive.”

  The heavy man sighed. “Sounds about right.”

  “What happened to Shaw, then?”

  “They killed him first.”

  They all sighed. “Yep, sounds about right.”

  Lewis didn’t know what they meant. He didn’t understand their lack of surprise or interest. But, he thought, they’d been here much longer. Any story he told them would probably sound mundane by now in their shoes. They’d probably all seen much worse.

  “And you got away?”

  Lewis hesitated. “I did.”

  “You’re a lucky S.O.B. then. I mean, as lucky as someone might get around here.”

  “Say,” Terry said. “You’re new, aren’t you? I don’t think you mentioned quite exactly how new.”

  “Well… I don’t know. I’m not sure how long I’ve been here.”

  “How many times you washed up?” the bald man asked.

  He thought. “Three times, I believe.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yep.”

  “That settles that!”

  They all laughed and exchanged glances. Lewis did some more sheepish smiling, even laughed a little under his breath, though he didn’t know what he was laughing about. Terry clapped him on his shoulder.

  “You’re new, all right.”

  “I’d say days new,” the bearded man added. “If there were such things.”

  “How long have you all been here?” Lewis asked.

  They all laughed again, a bonded laughter, their eyes meeting in a kind of kindred familiarity.

  “I don’t think any of us could tell you that.”

  “Washed up too many times to count.”

  “Lets just say its been a helluva long night.”

  They erupted in a chorus of laughter. Lewis looked around himself, having forgotten they were surrounded by an entire room crowded full of others, and noticed everyone else was too involved in their own socializations to even hear them.

  When their laughter turned to reminiscent sighs, Lewis asked, “Could a person… avoid death staying here? I mean… if you stayed here, and never left… could the darkness find you?”

  “The darkness needn’t find something it hasn’t lost,” the bald man said. “Don’t ever fool yourself that way.”

  “How do people who stay here pay their dues, then?”

  “Pay their dues?”

  Lewis gulped. “I mean… when does the darkness decide someone’s too comfortable for its liking?”

  The men shook their heads, humored. “Who’s been filling you with this, boy?”

  “I don’t know. Just people here and there I’ve met.”

  Again Terry put his hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “If there’s one thing you should know, Lewis, it’s that nobody understands what’s happening in this place. Not truly. I mean, as time’s gone on, people have tried to pick out patterns, decide on rules they think must exist. Unwritten rules.”

  “Unwritten,” the heavy man interjected, “because there are always exceptions. Just when someone thinks they’ve found a trick to this place, that’s when they’re proven wrong.”

  “The darkness isn’t operating on any kind of logic or according to a rulebook or anything like that. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes…”

  “Sometimes you’re fucked.”

  Lewis lay his hands on the table in front of them. He wiggled the stub of his severed finger, the one the old man had taken from him. The bearded man leaned forward and observed.

  “You ever want that finger back, all it takes is a quick trip back to the beach.”

  Lewis didn’t pay his comment any mind. “What about the things I’ve been told?” Lewis said. “Several people now have told me—”

  “Superstitions,” the bald man said. “It’s a primitive reaction to the unknown, and yet it’s an entirely human one. You’ll find it in no short supply here.”

  Now it was Lewis who nodded.

  “Is there a way out?”

  He expected another round of uproarious laughter, but instead was met with silence. Not only silence, but consideration. Perhaps they weren’t sure of the answer, or perhaps there was a kindness in them that recognized Lewis’s hopeful, possibly naïve ignorance and didn’t wish to crush him entirely. Whatever their intent, none of them answered immediately.

  It was the heavy man who finally did.

  “Tell you the truth, no one really knows. If there is, no one’s found it yet.”

  “There are people,” the bearded man said, “who claim to have known someone who got out. But they’re just rumors.”

  “Not just rumors,” Terry said. “Legends, more like.”

  “If you want total honesty, Lewis… I suggest you sooner accept your place here in this world than spend eternity hoping for an escape. The disappointment has driven many stronger men out of their minds.”

  It was a punch to the gut no matter how carefully they might have tried to deliver the news to him. Sure, the old man at the start had already hinted at the impossibility. But to hear it said by much more present minds was disheartening to a greater degree. Part of him, of course, still didn’t want to accept it.

  “The people claiming to know someone who escaped, what did they say? What are the stories?”

  The men exchanged their glances again. This time their faces communicated something a little more se
nsitive, a little heavy. They were tiptoeing. He might break, they thought, if they weren’t careful with him. A naïve, innocent child. He wanted to hold on desperately to his hopes.

  “Mostly they’re just stories of people who disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “When you’re here long enough, you’ll come across the same people. Especially in little towns like this. People form attachments to locations and they come back to them each time they wash up. Safe places—however safe they actually are. There are many stories of people who just go missing. They don’t show up again, maybe, when you’re expecting them to. Ever.”

  “For instance,” Terry said, “If our buddy Shaw never made it to Mercy’s Shore again. We expect him to come back. We’re friends, of sorts. Any one of us at this table would expect the others to come back here should they die in some way and reset. But sometimes, people don’t show up again.”

  “Ever.”

  Lewis considered it. “And you would take that as meaning that they escaped this place somehow?”

  “Escaped, maybe. Or… something that can be equally as attractive some days… found a way to not reset again.”

  “To be done. Finished with the curse.”

  “Blink out.”

  “Actually die,” Lewis added, understanding.

  “However,” the bearded man said. “Lucky for us, there are many people here who, before falling victims to the curse, were aware of it. That is, they came to this place with knowledge of what brought them here. And because of that—”

  “Because of that,” the heavy man interrupted, visibly excited by the conversation, “we know about the curse, a little, and that a reversal exists.”

  “Might exist,” the bald man said, as though he didn’t want too much optimism at the table.

  “People in the living world could bring us back, if they wanted,” Terry said.

  “Which they never do, of course,” the bald man added.

  “They could,” Lewis said. Hoped. “There could be many reasons.”

  “Yes, but here’s the thing. From what we know—”

  “What we’ve heard…”

  “—yes, all right, what we’ve heard… someone can only reverse the curse if the person cursed is still alive.”

  Lewis sank—not only in his chair but deep in his chest. The men must have noticed this, because they instantly began to all talk over one another.

  “It’s not so bad—”

  “You get used to the—”

  “Anything can start to feel normal once you’ve—”

  “—and besides, it’s not like suffering is exclusive to—”

  “Who knows, maybe you’re one of the—”

  It was the bald man’s voice which Lewis heard above the rest. It was clear and level and firm. His tone did not try to comfort, and his words did not try to reassure. They were simple and they were true, and as Lewis felt his mind reeling back into those crashing depths, it would be his words he remembered once he rose out of them.

  “Sometimes things just don’t work out, kid.”

  Lewis lifted his head and met the bald man’s eyes. They were brown, and they were kind. His eyes had depth to them, Lewis thought. He was a man you could get answers from, clear and direct. Nothing fancy. Part of Lewis, however, still holding onto the tiniest splinter of hope, wanted to know. And if he could ask any of these men, he thought he’d get the truest answer from him.

  “So how then?” he said, looking only into the bald man’s eyes. “If a person was still alive, out there, how could they get out of this place? I mean, if the legends are true or anything.”

  “They’re just legends,” the bald man said. “And I hate to be the cruel one at the table, for having nothing but discouragement on the topic, but as most legends go, there are more than one.”

  “Which of course hurts all of their credibility,” Terry said. “They can’t all be true. And if one is false, what’s stopping the very next from being the same, and so on and so forth.”

  “Well, give me some examples then.”

  “Boy, it would be a waste—”

  “I know, I don’t mind. Just… even if they’re stories, just tell them to me. I’m curious. I want to hear them.”

  There was a pause around the table as the men decided which of them would be the first to speak up. Lewis looked at each of them, from one avoidant gaze to the next. It was Terry’s eye he finally caught, and the hopeful urging in Lewis’s spurred him to speak.

  “Some people believe there’s a tunnel somewhere, hidden deep in a mountain or deep in the ground, near impossible to find, which should you find it will take you back to consciousness in the waking world.”

  “They say you’ll know the tunnel when you see it, because there’s a light at the end. You’ve heard that one before, I’m sure. The deathbed legend. Sounds a lot like that, wouldn’t you agree? Personally I think it’s one of the less creative legends.”

  “Dull people create shallow superstitions,” the bald man said.

  “Another one,” Terry started, “is that somewhere in this world there’s a woman—typically described as being very old—who can grant you the ability to return to your living body based on the deeds which earned you a spot in this place to begin with. As in, she decides if you deserve your life back.”

  “Again, not very creative.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Lewis asked.

  “Well, for one,” the bald man said, “the wise, all-knowing old woman, ay kay ay the oracle, is another cliché.”

  “What’s it matter if something sounds like a cliché? You’re saying for something to be true, it has to be something you’ve never heard before?”

  The bald man thought for a moment and the others at the table burst into laughter. The bald man shrugged.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said with a smile.

  “You suppose he just called you out on your pretentious, cynical bullshit, you mean,” the heavy man said, sniggering.

  “It wouldn’t matter if that were true anyway,” Lewis said. “No one would tell me I didn’t deserve to be here.”

  The table became silent, though the crowded room around them was noisy as ever. Somehow Lewis had stopped hearing any of that.

  “You seem like a good kid to me,” the bearded man said.

  “You’re so young.”

  “What could you have done to be sent to this place?”

  Lewis didn’t want to say so he said nothing.

  “Possible he doesn’t even know.”

  “Whatever it is, or whatever you think is the reason,” the bald man said, “you probably didn’t deserve it. People can be spiteful.”

  “Plenty of people here didn’t deserve it. You would be far from the first.”

  When they began to realize Lewis wasn’t hearing them, they grew quiet. A minute passed. Eventually, after some awkward sidelong glances, the men talked of something else entirely, nearly to the point of forgetting Lewis was even there. But he didn’t mind. He didn’t notice. He breathed calmly, eyes rested on the edge of the table where his hands were propped delicately by their bruised wrists. And while the other men felt no real attachment to him, or any great concern for his struggle—it was one they’d all had before, as most must, surely—it was to Lewis’s vague surprise that when he raised his eyes, Terry’s were still upon him. Lewis then felt something reach out from himself, reaching toward Terry like anchors in search of something stable.

  Terry offered him a sorry smile.

  “You look like you could lay down a while.”

  Without another word Terry stood from the table and made room for Lewis to stand up beside him. The other men paused their conversation.

  “You leaving us?”

  “I think so. I believe our friend here is in need of some rest.”

  Lewis got up and, forgetting to say farewell to the others, followed Terry through the tables. They crossed the packed room, not toward the entrance, b
ut toward a hallway at the opposite corner of the bar. Down this hallway were several doors, about half of them locked and the other half wide open, in which Lewis spied mostly bare interiors aside from beds in the corners and rugs on the floors. Terry led him past several available rooms to the last one with an open door.

  “Back here you’ll have less people shuffling up and down past your door.”

  Lewis stepped into the room. He noted the bare bed with its lumpy pillow and the circular rug trampled thin on the floor. Then all at once he felt a jolt of panic and—it not occurring to him, the light by which he was able to see the room—he looked about himself, down at his empty hands.

  “Here’s this,” Terry said, and handed him his lantern. Lewis took it with great relief.

  “Lay down a while. I’m sure the guys and I will be here a while still, but if I leave before you’re up I’ll come get you, all right?”

  Terry turned to go and Lewis stopped him.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Terry smiled and closed the door behind himself.

  Lewis went to the bed and sat the lantern on the floor and climbed on, lay flat on his back with his head mushed against the crunchy and angular pillow. He thought it might be straw inside. The bed as well. It all felt very pointy, and every movement sent the bed rustling and snapping. It wasn’t comfortable in the least bit, at least not compared to anything he’d had the privilege of sleeping on before, but he was surprised by how good it felt just to lie down.

  He reviewed the things the men had told him, the things he’d learned. It was a question of whether he’d actually learned anything, however. He thought he’d learned a thing or two from the old man, but now those facts were shaky at best. He came for answers and, as it turned out… no one really had them.

  As he thought about these things, his peripheral thoughts foresaw the conclusion he was drawing nearer to, and before he could reach that perilous realization—something like acceptance, but harmful—his mind began to wander elsewhere, into that distorted and nonsensical realm of sleep. He willed it to go there. If there was nothing to think about but inevitable fate, he wished to not think about anything at all.