The Lamplighters

Chapter Twenty

The flashlight beam dipped slightly and Jessie rattled it in an attempt to revive the ailing batteries.

“Come on,” she said, moving off down the passageway. “We’d better get going before this runs out.”

Marla followed quietly behind, trying to absorb all Jessie had told her. For a moment back there, her paranoia and fear had begun to take a hold of her too, but now Marla wasn’t so sure. Jessie hadn’t been able to tell her who might have killed the German girl, only that it was “just a feeling” she’d had. What if Vera had simply been dismissed from the island for breaking Fowler’s precious rules? It was certainly in keeping with what she’d seen of him so far. And all that stuff about hacking into computers, which Marla had to admit was beyond her, just sounded like paranoid stoner ramblings. Marla was bitterly disappointed with herself. She’d hoped to turn over a new leaf by coming to the island, but all she’d done so far was get wasted on smoke and drink, not to mention her bleak one-afternoon stand with Pietro. Regret flooded through like a virus and she could almost feel it thicken and slow her blood, making her limbs feel dense as mercury. She stopped walking and sighed heavily.

The fading flashlight beam, now a sepia color, skated around the passageway wall as Jessie stopped to see what was wrong.

“Why did you lie to me about the party, at the Big House?” Marla asked. Her tone made it more of an accusation than a question.

“Marla, we have to keep going. I don’t wanna walk through here in the dark…”

“Me neither, so why not explain it to me as we walk?”

Jessie exhaled loudly in frustration. “I told you already I needed to find out if you were a plant. I wanted to make sure you weren’t sent here to spy on me. You arrived so soon after Vera left, I just couldn’t be sure. Her disappearing like that, gave me the jitters. I needed to nix the security cameras—that was no word of a lie I promise you toots. And getting access to the Big House was part of the deal too. But not for a party…”

“What for then?”

“As a place to hole up if things got rougher, after I’d set the SOS beacon. Figure if I can hack in, unlock the place and fuck with the spy cams then I can lock it down again too. It’s the perfect defensive position. I was going to tell you all of this, I totally was, but I had to make sure you weren’t one of Fowler’s cronies first. That’s why Adam made sure he was on duty when you ran down to the jetty, so he could see if you’d go through with it—or go tell Fowler.”

“So now you know I’m just another loser after all, is that it?”

“Oh, we’re all losers in this game Marla. Nobody knows I’m here on this island either. Way I see it is, we’re expendable. Maybe that’s why they brought us here.”

“If you really think someone wants to kill us, then why didn’t they just shoot me on the jetty? Why go to all the trouble of job interviews and business class flights and security details? Answer me that.”

Jessie wasn’t listening. She’d seen something up ahead. Her pace quickened and Marla fought to catch up to her as she rounded a slight curve in the tunnel. They had to stoop inside the passageway as it funneled inwards. There in the distance, like a pinprick in a curtain, was a tiny speck of daylight.

“Look Marla, a way out. But we’re gonna have to crawl to reach it. Are you game?”

“I’ll bloody well crawl out of here,” Marla said. She’d had enough of the cloying subterranean dark but felt a dread sense of claustrophobia at the prospect of dragging her sorry backside through the narrow tunnel.

“Follow my lead and keep your breathing steady. In through your nose, out through your mouth. We’ll be there in no time.”

Marla cringed. Jessie was beginning to sound like a motivational coach. A motivational coach who was clearly suffering from paranoid delusions. True to her own words, Jessie had indeed gone “totally cabin”. What a joker, dragging me in here, thought Marla as she felt gravel scraping painfully against her leg. As the walls closed in tighter and tighter, she had to crush her limbs inwards then force them out again in a wriggling motion to move herself forwards. Jessie was some way ahead now, giving it her all, and Marla’s sense of dread began to mutate into cold white panic. What if I get stuck? Jessie’s not going to be able to turn around and help me. Jesus, what if the roof falls in—I’ll be buried alive, trapped down here until I suffocate. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Marla had stopped still in the tunnel, hyperventilating now. Fear entered her mouth like dust, drying her tongue and clutching at her throat. In the distance she saw Jessie’s wriggling form surrounded by a thin halo of light, like an iris in the eye of a dark and distant storm. Then she felt something brush against her foot. As it slid along her ankle and up her leg, she tried to scream.

The scream died in Marla’s windpipe and her body lurched forwards in panic at the cold clammy thing gripping her ankle. Dust motes flew up in front of her eyes looking like hazy baubles against the still distant shaft of daylight up ahead. Scrabbling like a mad thing to rid herself of the chilling grip, she clawed at the rough rocky surface of the wall. She felt a jolt of pain as one of her fingernails bent back and tore away from the tender flesh hidden beneath it. Tears flooded her eyes and pain-fuelled anger shot through her system conspiring with the adrenaline already there, causing her to lash out violently with her free foot. Contact. Whatever she’d hit felt heavy and fleshy and hard and clearly had feelings, judging by the muffled cry it made when she kicked it. She kicked again, only harder, then shuffled for all her life was worth up the tunnel. Her breath sounded like an alternator inside her head as she pushed and slid, and pushed and slid, her way toward the light. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.

She could sense the thing still following in the tunnel behind her. She heard its rasping breath, guttural and hideous, beyond the pounding of her own head. Her brain felt like an extension of her heart, throbbing and pumping as blood rushed around its vascular expressway, threatening to burst out of her skull any moment. Marla felt her pursuer’s dread touch at her heel again and this was all her shattered nervous system needed to push her the last few feet to the lip of the tunnel. As she erupted from the hole like a stopper from a champagne bottle, she saw Jessie’s shocked face looking at what must be the thing behind her.

Jessie grabbed Marla’s hands and pulled her free, the two of them tumbling into sand and stones and dirt. They rolled over and tried not to fall as they stood to face the mouth of the tunnel.

“What is it?” Jessie’s voice, a hotwired alarm.

“Something… Something in the tunnel. It grabbed me.”

They stood, watching and waiting for some dread thing to come scurrying after them over the sand. But nothing came. Jessie looked at Marla quizzically.

“There was something in there with me. I swear.”

“Let’s go,” Jessie said and marched away. Marla took one last look into the gloom of the tunnel mouth and followed.

Chief of Security Fowler cursed as he shook droplets of scalding hot coffee from his fingers before shoving the raw digits into his mouth. Sucking the still-steaming fluid away, he removed his fingers from his mouth and surveyed the damage. Little pink welts were already forming on his skin—a visual representation of the shooting pain he was feeling as the heat penetrated the sensitive epidermal layers. Sonofabitch.

He placed the coffee cup back on the desk, then thought better of it and hurled the whole sorry mess into the trash can. Returning his attention to the bank of glass-screened monitors in front of him he replayed the footage of the pleasure boat’s last moments one more time. The image was annoyingly grainy. In fact “grainy” was being far too kind; there was so much digital noise on the footage it looked like it had been captured on an island in the Antarctic—during a blizzard. Data from Sentry Maiden would no doubt prove more revealing, but for that he’d have to wait for his men to complete their maneuvers around the island.

The screen told pretty much the whole story, however degraded the image. A pleasure boat had somehow made its way unnoticed to the far side of the island. No proximity alarms had been tripped, no radar alerts forthcoming. Visual contact had been confirmed by a lookout. Thank Christ someone was doing his goddamned job, he thought. He’d dispatched Sentry Maiden immediately and had followed protocol to the letter. In this instance, “protocol” denoted blowing the fucking thing right out of the water. Despite this efficiency, Fowler very much doubted his superiors would be happy with the situation. Far from it. How could a yacht get past all the safeguards and end up that close to the island? That’s what they’d want to know and Fowler would be lacking the answers. They’ll be pissed as all hell and I’m damned if I’m gonna take the fall. He glanced down at the spilled coffee in the trash can. What a mess.

Switching the screens to display current views of the island compounds, Fowler placed his stinging coffee-singed fingers against the cold glass of a monitor. A pair of exotic birds fluttered by the great eaves of the Big House. Palm trees swayed gently in the wind, casting fingerlike shadows across summerhouses and swimming pools alike. No doubt the Lamplighters were slumbering behind shuttered windows, oblivious to the clean up operation being undertaken just a few scant nautical miles away. All quiet on the Western front. Good, long may it remain that way. Sighing heavily he balled his other, good, hand into a fist and left The Snug. Once outside, he’d begin the search for someone to blame for this mess.

Marla and Jessie were working their way across the rocky ledge towards the lighthouse when they saw him. A near-naked figure, lying there on the lowest rocks where the waves churned with foam. Pietro. His body looked broken, his once-perfect skin battered and bleeding. From up here, Marla could not tell if he was breathing. They looked to one another and, without speaking, knew what they must do.

Jessie went first, taking care not to slip on the sheer surface of the rocks as she made her descent. Marla followed at a cautious distance. Climbing down to the treacherous waters was the last thing she wanted to do, but it would take both of them to haul him up to safety—if he was still alive.