By the Light of His Lantern Read online

  All this would be laid bare in honest detail on the pages of his book, which meant he had little time to waste.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  He approached the tiny shack empty-handed, his voice the only tool he planned to use. When he reached the door he stood thinking, planning, scheming, but ultimately he had little control over how the next few moments would unfold. It was an awkward reunion, to be sure.

  He knocked three times.

  “Huh?” a tired voice said. A chair scooted. The old man groaned. The door didn’t open, however. Instead, he peeked his head out the window. “Who is it?”

  Lewis stepped toward the window, close enough to be seen by the firelight but not within arm’s reach. He saw the confusion in the old man’s eyes melt to recollection, and then harden to fury.

  “It’s you,” he said. “You slimy fuck.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re the last person I ever want to see.”

  Impatient, Lewis sighed. “I’ve met a handful of others since I saw you last and I highly doubt that’s true.”

  “What do you want from me? Leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Now he did step closer. “Please understand. This is all still new to me, and it was newer to me then. I didn’t know what I was doing. What I did, as terrible as it was, wasn’t personal. I was just trying to do what everyone else must find themselves doing at the start.”

  “I don’t give a shit about you,” the old man said, and he turned away. He sat down at his small table. The table was bare. “And don’t lie to me. Wasn’t personal. Bullshit.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry my ass.”

  “I mean it!” Lewis leaned into the window. “Please. I need your help.”

  “Of course you do. That’s why you’re really here. You don’t care about people. Only when you need them. What about when they need you? You don’t give a shit. And neither should they. Neither do I.”

  “Please. I’ll do anything. What can I do to make it up to you?”

  “Find me another bottomless mug of coffee and we’ll talk.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “I do.”

  Lewis listened to the beach nearby, the waves on the sand.

  “I’m sorry I called you toothless.”

  “You broke my mug.”

  “You cut off my finger!”

  “You took my clothes! And my sword!”

  Lewis chewed his anger, his frustration, the words that wouldn’t come.

  “Yeah, well… You cut off my finger!”

  “Hmph.”

  “I’m sorry I offended you. But you tried to kill me, and everything got a little out of control… Listen, I don’t have much time.”

  The old man laughed. “You have all the time in the world, my friend.”

  “No, really. I don’t.”

  The old man cocked his head toward Lewis, his baggy eyes skeptical but humored. “We both have all the time in the world.”

  “Except I’m alive,” Lewis said. He watched as the humor drained from the old man’s face until all that was left was the skepticism. “Out there, outside this place. I’m alive.”

  “And how do you figure that…”

  “There’s someone after me. He’s not like us, he’s part of this place. The curse. He has these eyes, like fire, that can see in the dark. He has this bird, too… He can sense I’m still alive. He wants to use me, to escape himself. I got away, but I only have a little while before he finds me again. I know where to go, I know the way out.”

  “Boy, you’re being led on a wild goose chase.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You met one of the loonies. Lost his mind and told you a story. Good to avoid him, but I wouldn’t trust what he says…”

  “It’s true.” He tried to think of anything else he could tell the old man to convince him but there wasn’t much else to tell. And when he thought about it, how could he be sure the fiery-eyed man wasn’t crazy after all? “I need your help. He’ll be here soon, I know it.”

  The old man grew quiet. His eyes settled on a dusty spot on the floor and rested there as he thought.

  Very low, he said, “What exactly do you want from me?”

  “I need a boat. I remember—”

  “There’s nothing out there but waves. Waves that’ll bring you right back, paddle as long as you want. Trust me.”

  “No, I need you to trust me. This is different.”

  “Different how?”

  “I’m alive! I have a chance. According to this man, if I go out there, I’ll find it. It’ll reveal itself to me.”

  The old man was silent again. Then he said, “And suppose I went, too. Would I see it?”

  “I suspect you would.”

  “I don’t suppose I’d be able to leave with you…”

  Lewis thought about it.

  “I don’t really know the first thing about it… but I think you might. The man who’s after me… he thinks he can leave with me. I’m sure it could be you instead, assuming it’s real at all.” What he failed to tell him was that his pursuer intended on using his body as his own, as a ‘vessel’. Lewis had no intention of letting anyone do any such thing. But the lie was vague enough, hopeful enough. The old man continued thinking. “But he’s going to be here soon. If we want a chance at any of this, we have to leave now. You told me before you had a boat. Right? You said you tried escaping all kinds of ways, and one of them was in a boat you made. Do you still have it?”

  “I still have it.”

  Lewis sagged with relief. “Please, take me to it. You can come with me, if you want. If we find nothing, it’s only a short trip back to your shack…”

  The man, visibly cheered by the prospect of something he’d long ago given up, laughed heartily. “That it is. That it is…”

  “And maybe, after being cooped up in here for so long, going for a little trip would be—”

  “Don’t try to appeal to me.” The old man stood from his chair. “I know my reasons for doing anything I do. I don’t need persuading.”

  He produced a small knife from a pile of junk he kept in the corner beneath his cot. With it, he cut a piece of wood from his fireplace and put it inside yet another wire-handled jar, larger and clunkier than the one Lewis had previously taken. Lewis watched all of this through the window, never invited inside.

  “Lucky I have a bunch of these trinkets,” the old man said. “You made off with my good jar.”

  “What’s wrong with that one?”

  “Nothing is wrong with it. The last one was just better.”

  Lewis didn’t argue. The old man took one last look around his little shack, as though it might be the last he ever saw of it. Then he came out with Lewis. They stood a moment, the old man getting his sense of direction sorted out.

  “Glad to see you took such good care of the things you stole from me,” he said. “I’m sure someone else will find good use for them now.”

  “I said I’m sor—”

  “But never mind that. Hmm. I believe it’s this way!”

  The old man led them toward the waves.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  They followed the shore, the old man leading with the lantern which emitted its soft, safe glow around their feet on the sand. Repeatedly he turned as he walked and gave Lewis the most incredulous stare.

  “What do you keep looking at me like that for?”

  “Nothing,” he said, though his voice willfully implied otherwise. Unable to keep it to himself, of course, he elaborated. “I bet you don’t even remember my name, do you?”

  Lewis didn’t pause in his gait, but he screeched to a halt in his thoughts. Like a pinball, he careened off every corner of his skull in search of it, but he had to admit he hadn’t the tiniest idea. His wavering silence said enough.

  “I knew you didn’t. I was right about that.”

  They walked on and, astonishingly, the old man didn’t press the matter.
r />   ✽ ✽ ✽

  Over the sounds of the ocean it was easy to imagine the sounds of something approaching, feet kicking through the sand toward them. A few times Lewis caught the old man doing the same, as he would jerk to his left, lantern out to catch the source of the noise he thought he heard.

  “Always makes me jumpy,” he said. “Going this far away from my shack.”

  “How much farther?”

  The old man held the lantern up ahead of them, as though he could see their destination beyond the few feet of light it provided.

  “Should be very close,” he said.

  “How do you know? What if we pass it? Or… what if it got washed out to sea?”

  “It’ll be there.”

  Lewis supposed he had no choice but to trust him. His eagerness to find what he was looking for made him impatient. What if he somehow managed to fumble it and ruin all his chances? He’d been holding out hope all this time, to be forced to accept his fate after coming so close to what others perceived as impossible would be crushing.

  “I met others,” Lewis said as they walked. “Others like me. Like us.”

  “I bet.”

  “There was a town. Mercy’s Shore. You heard of it?”

  “I’ve been there. Yep.”

  The old man didn’t seem too keen on talking about it.

  “Why do you choose to stay out here by yourself? There are other good people to keep you company.”

  “Who said I want company? I never said I wanted company.” His pace had slowed, his feet dragged more sand with them than before. Tiring. “I’m just fine alone. It’s how I lived my life before this place. Besides my wife, mostly. And it’s how I’ll live it here, too.”

  “You wanted my company,” Lewis said. “Didn’t you? When you told me to come back to your shack that first time, to come find you again.”

  “A lot of good that did me.” The old man scoffed. “I don’t want anyone’s company. I want to be alone.”

  Lewis, normally reluctant to think about life too much, couldn’t help thinking about it now as the old man reminded him of himself in a way. Willfully alone. Why did everyone need so badly to be with others? Could they not rely on themselves? He tried to distance himself and they pawed at him helplessly, tried to lure him into their circles, their lives, as though they didn’t have people enough, or that he must be mistaken for not wanting his own. And for what? So that he could become accustomed to their company and feel lonely without them some day? Then, in recalling this—as though he’d been in this cursed world so long that he’d somehow forgotten—he recognized the hypocrisy in what he now tried to sell the old man. That deep, hollow hunger he’d felt, starving to meet others like himself, to reach Mercy’s Shore not only because he wanted answers but because being alone in this place frightened him more than he could admit. And was it so different back there, in life? He ran from it, closed himself off from it, and yet that loneliness remained. Would that loneliness ever even exist if he truly didn’t want something different? Was he really any different?

  It was sudden, his realization. He felt like a pretender, and he felt small for it. The old man claimed to want solitude, but had he ever had his doubts? As Lewis followed him along the beach, he worried he might someday convince himself he wanted it too.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Ah, there it is.”

  Lewis sparked in excitement. He was certain they’d find nothing, that the old man was delusional in thinking it would still be where he left it after all this time, however long it must have been. Finally they arrived, and he was one step closer to freedom.

  The boat, if you could call it that, was barely in the shape of one. More like a round wooden bowl. The old man claimed to have built it himself, a claim which was apparent in many ways.

  “You built this?” Lewis asked, as they came to a stop beside it.

  “I know it looks iffy, but it floats. It’ll carry us fine.”

  Lewis feared it might not carry one person, let alone two.

  “What about a paddle, or…”

  “Paddle wouldn’t do much, to be honest, given its shape. Turn you in a circle is about all you’ll get.”

  Lewis was speechless.

  “It’ll work,” the old man reassured. “Here, lets get it to the water.”

  Lewis watched in bitter disappointment while the old man bent and jerked the boat unsuccessfully toward the ocean. The more he pulled the more Lewis expected it to come apart in pieces.

  “Are you going to help or just stand there?”

  Lewis reluctantly shuffled his feet toward the boat when he heard something and waited, looked to the sky.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything. Now come on and help me pull this thing. I’m tired already as it is…”

  It came again, unmistakable this time. Lewis spun so quickly in response he leaned against the boat to brace himself, and subsequently rattled the old man to his knees as the boat teetered in the sand.

  “What are you—”

  The circling bird swooped over them, a rush of wind through Lewis’s hair. It swooped again, snapped its beak in his ear. He ducked out of the way the third time, cowered against the side of the boat. It dived again, talon points clipping the flesh of his scalp. Over the ocean foam, over the bird’s cries, a clear thought cut through like a sword through brittle wood—a memory.

  “Oh god,” he said.

  The old man was getting to his feet as well, propped himself up on the edge of the boat. The lantern was in the sand behind him. Lewis crawled toward it on all fours, shielded himself as the bird barraged him with beak bites. He was nearly there. He reached for it. The bird must have realized. It pushed off him then, dived over his outstretched hand to pinch the handle in its talons. Just as it lifted the lantern from the ground Lewis grabbed hold, wrapped both hands around the scalding glass.

  “Fuck you!” he shrieked.

  He lay on his stomach, hands over his head as they played their game of tug o’ war. Through sand-gritted eyes he saw the bird over the lantern, beating its wings, black eyes alight like tiny suns. His hands were slipping. The flame inside the glass flicked and whirled, the wood rolling around the bottom. Lewis focused on it, stared into it until he was blind to anything else he could possibly see. Feet kicked the sand next to him. The old man was there. Lewis watched in grateful awe as he fought the bird away with his knotted, hardened fists. Finally, it relinquished the jar and retreated. Lewis got to his knees. He turned the jar sideways, the flaming wood rolling down. Just before it could spill out, before he could stomp it into the sand and return them to darkness, he saw something. In the flame a black shape appeared. Only a second, just a glimpse. If he’d blinked he’d have missed it. It was a face, blackened with smoke, eyes open to see him through the flames.

  The jar exploded in his hands.

  The old man fell to the ground beside Lewis, stiff as a charred log, engulfed in flame. Lewis lay on his back, lifted his hands to his face, which were dancing with fire themselves. Too pained to move, he flexed his blackened fingers, watched the glass fall out of them into the sand. He felt it in his face when he blinked.

  A giant pair of boots stood before him. Something unfurled, a blanket or a cloak, and he was covered, hands patting him through the fabric until the flames were out. The fiery-eyed man pulled his coat away, wrapped it back around himself. In the light of the old man’s burning corpse Lewis saw him, a hulk of fury and ancient patience finally stretched thin.

  “Are you well?” he asked. He bent over him to observe. Lewis couldn’t help groaning as he tried and failed to move. “Ah. Barely hanging on. Just the way I like them.”

  Lewis remained still, as it was agonizing to move, while the man kicked through the sand presumably checking out the boat.

  “This will have to do,” he said. “Our last boat was much better. But this should suffice.”

  He crouched and lifted Lewis into his arms. Lewis moaned. The
burnt skin covering his forearms pulled tight over the sensitive flesh underneath as his arms dangled underneath him. The man set him gently into the bowl of the boat, which he couldn’t fathom how it would carry them both. Then, with brute strength, the man dragged the boat to the water. The entire boat shifted, tipped nearly sideways as he climbed in. He stepped on Lewis’s leg, a bright shot of pain.

  “Sorry about that.”

  He sat down, pulled Lewis over his lap like a napping child. Any second Lewis expected to feel him stroking his hair affectionately.

  “We have no paddle, but we will get there,” he said. “The ocean, and the darkness, wills it.”

  Slowly but surely, the waves carried them out.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The boat rocked peacefully across the ocean, a cool breeze helping them on the way. The bird cawed and walked around the boat’s lip, claws scraping and tapping. Lewis opened his eyes, only to see those watchful embers staring back at him, the swell of his grinning cheekbones underneath. He closed his eyes instead and did not plan on opening them again.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It is a shame about your friend,” the man said.

  Lewis, half-asleep, didn’t quite know who the man meant—there were multiple now who had died by his hand—and so he said nothing. He felt the man watching him, waiting for a response even if only physical.

  “Did you hear me, Lewis?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Terrible thing that happened,” he said. His grin could be heard in his words. “A real shame… Was that your first taste?”

  Lewis wished he could roll over and bury his face into his arms, cower fetal-like the remainder of their time together. As it was, however, even the gentlest rocking of the boat sent his burns and glass-wounds singing.

  “By that, I mean your first taste of bloodshed.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I know you have spilled blood here in this world. I can smell that on a person. But you have before as well.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” He struggled to speak. The words were strained, a chore to even vocalize the simplest thoughts. “That was an accident…”

  “Perhaps. I have seen bloodlusts started by less. Then before long, you would think you were here all along, like the other beasts…”