The Lamplighters

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fowler was livid. His tired heart pounded out a fast drumbeat in his chest, a tribal call to arms, an invitation to fuck with whoever was fucking with him. His duty officer had spotted it, while routinely scanning the monitor screens in The Snug. How he hadn’t noticed it himself was beyond Fowler’s comprehension. Was he losing his touch, finally? Had he been on this godforsaken rock for so long that he’d let his standards slip so badly? No, it wasn’t that. Whoever was responsible for duping him was going to pay, and pay dearly. Their manipulation of the image had been so well executed he could perhaps excuse himself for missing it after all. The subtlety with which the surveillance footage of the Big House had been copied and looped was almost admirable. But the eagle eye of his duty officer had proven more than a match for any such digital trickery. A subtle detail had revealed the ruse for what it was, two long-tailed parakeets, launching their sleek bodies from a branch and across the screen, only to miraculously reappear and repeat the exact same movement some time later. Darkness falling would have alerted them to the deception of course; the Big House stuck in a daylight loop while the rest of the island hunkered down into lengthening shadows. But nightfall was still a ways off, and so Fowler felt grateful for the providence of this head start. Then they’d discovered many more of the camera feeds had been tampered with too. His technicians had traced the source of the bogus camera loops to a networked drive hidden behind a series of firewalls. Someone had actually had the audacity, and hardware, to hack into his security network under his nose. Once he found the hardware, Fowler was sure he’d find the hacker, and his retribution would be swift and merciless. The culprit was certainly tricky and had made it very difficult for his boys to trace then decrypt the source of the network breach. Fowler found it difficult to wait for such tiresome tasks to be completed, urging his men to cut the technobabble crap and give him something he could sniff out and arrest for Christ’s sake.

And eventually, after an agonizing wait that felt like hours, they did. The network breach was sourced at the lighthouse.

The lighthouse. A barnacle on the ordered surface of Fowler’s empire. Home to a useless, senile old busybody who was now proving himself to be a threat—just as he’d predicted. Fowler had requested The Consortium allow him to carry out a termination order but, for reasons unclear to him, they had rejected the request. Never one to question the chain of command, Fowler now felt anger on his very breath. If they’d just allowed him to do his job, to take the old man out of the picture, then this security breach would never have happened. He knew his men had a soft spot for the old man’s stories, for his lies. That’s how he’d compromised the island’s security, right under their noses. The old timer had something to do with Anders’ disappearance and Fowler knew it. He was sure the wrinkly bastard was the one who had broken curfew. How else to explain the unauthorized figure skulking past the security cameras at night? When questioned, the old fool had blinked those narrow bloodshot eyes of his and played the innocent. But he was guilty, and he’d been out wandering despite the rules laid down for him year-in, year-out. It ended here.

Wiping the sweat from his brow Fowler pushed on towards the rocks. He was flanked by his men and had the reassurance of cool gunmetal beneath his fingers. He was an unstoppable force, and the old lighthouse keeper was far from being an immovable object. He’d get to the bottom of all this once they reached the lighthouse, and when he did Vincent would wish he’d drowned himself a long, long time ago.

Looking out across the landscape that had become his world, Vincent was fixated by the long shadows of the approaching men. He’d seen them before in dreams, coming to him en masse like a fleet of black ships with hard uncaring hulls, their only cargo a deep unerring woe.

Pietro’s coughing whimpers of pain caused him to turn from the window, even though he knew the terrible sight that would greet him. Sure enough, rivulets of blood trickled from the boy’s mouth, pooling in the craters formed in his neck by tightened and agonized tendons. Grotesque little bubbles of blood formed around his nostrils, popping wetly. Pietro coughed again and the smell of metallic bile tore away Vincent’s brief olfactory memory of sweet, powdery candy wrappers. Casting a shadow over Pietro’s face as he stood there blankly looking at him, Vincent saw the fear burning in the lad’s eyes. Tears streamed down the injured boy’s face, expressing the intricate, deeper pains that his cries could not find sounds for. His throat sounded like it was splitting as he emitted a single, massive, cracking cough. An eruption of hot blood, like lava from shattered rock, spat from the boy’s lips. Vincent took the spare pillow from his chair, knowing now what he had to do, what he must do.

Pietro struggled at first, but as Vincent pressed the pillow harder and harder into his face he seemed at once to relax into his fate. His arms and legs thrashed and trembled wildly as his windpipe clogged with blood from his ruptured organs. The boy clung to his shoulder with one hand and Vincent pressed with all his might. He was at sea again, in the rage of a storm, clinging to his young son with all his might. As the waves crashed into him over and over until they broke his grip and took his little boy from him again, Vincent let go. Then he realized two things; he’d let go of his hold on the pillow and Pietro was serenely still, and he had a gun pressed to the back of his head.

The men’s voices were just sounds to him. Background noise as if from a television set he’d forgotten was there for all these years. He knew not, nor cared, what the voices were saying. He got the gist soon enough anyhow as they punched and kicked him to the floor. At the sharp impact of a gun butt against his lips, the taste of his own blood was like salt water rushing into his mouth. He savored the flavor of an eternal ocean he was ready to slip into, ready to sleep forever until the waves delivered him to his boy. His child would be waiting for him cold in the currents with his little arms floating limp like a puppet’s awaiting their strings, the strong, comforting arms of his father. He wanted it more than anything, but a dark shape battered against his eyelids. He recognized the shape, spiteful and ugly as a wolf fish—Chief of Security Fowler. The security man was older and heavier, tired somehow. Sure, the hair was thinning and wrinkles were etching their testimony into the flesh around his eyes, but this was unmistakably his jailer. The very same man who had been keeping him prisoner all these years. He heard Fowler’s voice through the fog of violence in his ears, every syllable a month spent in exile, every word a year apart from his beloved Susanna, a year in mourning for his dead son. Fowler barked loudly and a heavy blow knocked him unconscious taking the very light from his eyes.

Questions. So many questions. Vincent had been very confused when he woke from his dream to find himself tied to his chair. It was a lot less comfortable in this position. And with the lumpy old cushion taken away, now it was just a chair. They’d found the American girl’s computer gizmo behind the service hatch below of course, and Fowler was busily rattling off a tedious list of idiotic questions about it. What the hell did he know about computers, an old man like him? They could see he only had books and papers here, and most of those had turned greener than envy. A “canker” Fowler had called it, Jessie’s laptop. A canker in a hedgerow of wires, ready to be pulled out. Vincent laughed and spat saltwater from his teeth and said whatever, I don’t know a damned single thing you’re asking me and probably never will neither. All I have is this godforsaken lighthouse and the ghost ships that circle it. Which is still a darn sight more than you’ll ever have you petrified, grizzled little bastard. At that, Fowler had shrieked like a horse and flew back downstairs to give his men some grief while they toiled over the damn fool computer like it was a hot griddle. Vincent laughed and laughed, then looked down at what they’d done to his fingernails, all peeled back like petals. She loves me, she loves me not. Little petals on the floor. Oh where did you go my sweet, beautiful Susanna. Hot red petals hanging by a thread from his fingertips. Did you see our boy, did he brush pass you in the hallway? Did you feel his seaweed skin? Help me daddy. And then he passed out again with his brain all filled with blood. Help me son.

It wasn’t like he was asking the impossible, Fowler merely wanted the laptop disconnected from his network and he wanted it disconnected now. He could hear the logic in his tech guy’s warnings that simply ripping the thing out could leave them open to all kinds of risks. Viruses, Trojans, the dreaded “blue screen of death”, fuck-fuckety-fuck. But not even the prospect of a full security meltdown could temper Fowler. The old man had left him riled that was for sure, stubborn lips clamped shut despite their very best efforts to break through them and loosen his tongue. Even worse, his patrols had now confirmed the Lamplighters missing from their posts. With the Italian boy, or what was left of him, here at the lighthouse he could only assume the kid had helped Vincent rig the laptop. This left the American girl and the new arrival, Miss Neuborn, to be accounted for. It didn’t take a great leap to figure out where they had gone to. Fowler flinched, a facial tic that spasmed across his furrowed brow as he pictured the twin parakeets flapping across his security monitors, bright as fucking day. Swallowing down the beginnings of a bout of acid reflux, Fowler instructed one of his men to get on the radio and find out what the fuck was going on with Adam’s patrol over at the Big House. This was the perfect opportunity for Adam to show what he was made of. Made of shit, and he’ll mess up—if my lousy day thus far is anything to go by, thought Fowler bitterly. He instructed his tech team to get a goddamn frigging move on and stomped back upstairs with his head full of new questions for the lighthouse keeper. He was all out of fingernails, so he’d have no choice but to start on the toes next. All ten of them.

High up in the trees, a vivid green form rose up from a branch. It spread itself wide and embraced the gentle crosswind, gliding into an expanse of blue. Moments later, it was followed by its twin. The beautiful green birds soared high then weaved in and out of each other’s flight path, lovers and nest-fellows entwined in an invisible trajectory above the dense foliage.

Far below, Marla and Jessie sweated and struggled on. Marla paused and rotated her shoulders in a circular shrugging motion, giving herself a moment’s blessed reprieve from the clammy patch of sweat forming between the backpack and her spine. She cursed as Jessie, a few steps ahead, pushed past a branch that swung back and almost took her eye out. All fun and games ’til someone loses an eye, Marla thought darkly. Oblivious to the swinging branch, Jessie pushed on and Marla had no choice to but to follow. She had no idea how long they’d been marching like this, like conscripts plucked from the city and thrust into the jungles of some far flung conflict they had no desire to fight. Cursing under her breath as she almost lost her footing in some brambles for the umpteenth time, Marla found herself missing the city. London. She pictured herself in her bed-sit, filling out the personality test again. The person who’d done that seemed distant to her now, even after just a short time on the island. She wondered if she’d have been so eager to sign her name on the dotted line if she’d known what she’d put herself in line for. Exploding boats, scrambling through tunnels listening to conspiracy theories from a whacked out American hippy chick and, worst of all, leaving poor injured Pietro behind. Not only that, but with only an apparently senile lighthouse keeper to tend his wounds. It didn’t seem decent, or fair. If her legs didn’t hurt so much she’d probably laugh, or cry, or both.

Just then, she noticed a dark form lying in the foliage just inches from her feet. She stopped to take a look, peering down at the shape to make out what it was.

The bird lay flat on its back, one eye completely closed—the other open. A tiny fly skated across the black ice surface of the eyeball. Both the bird’s wings were tightly closed around its brown body like formal dress—a tailcoat of funereal finery. There it lay, looking to Marla like it was sleeping. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d crouched down and was gently cradling it in her cupped hands. She lifted it from the leaves and studied it more closely—she could see no sign of trauma. Most of all, she felt surprise at its lightness, its fragility in her hands. She placed it back into its shroud of leaves. There was nothing she could do for the bird now. It looked as though it had simply fallen out of the sky, and Marla found this unfathomably sad. Even the skies around this godforsaken island, it seemed, were filled with death. Inescapable.

Then a shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see Jessie, clearly displeased at having to retrace her steps. As Jessie grumpily hauled her to her feet and dragged her on, Marla’s ears were filled with the sound of her own breath, a heavy sound like that of a dog panting on a hot day.

“Quiet,” Jessie hissed, her voice loaded with warning.

“Okay…” Marla said, panting, “I’ll gasp…for air…as quietly as…I bloody well can.”

Jessie scowled, doing her best not to begin an argument. Instead she pushed on ahead and then, seeing something, reached out and parted the web of branches that lay ahead of them. Marla could now see the source of Jessie’s sudden caution, a massive sprawling structure with rows of glinting windows. The Big House.

“We made it. Now all we have to do is get inside,” Jessie whispered. “And get a shift on, girl, there isn’t much time.”

Marla didn’t need a second invitation, her clammy skin aching to fold into the cool shadows of the house. As they crept closer to the structure she found it taking what was left of her breath away. It was huge, really massive, and much larger than the London town houses near the park where she used to walk—and those were vast. They pushed on through the barrier of dense undergrowth encircling the house, great leaves brushing them while the roots concealed beneath conspired to trip them up as trespassers.

Something crunched beneath Marla’s foot, and she looked down to see another dead bird. This one had decomposed so much that it was merely a skeleton sheathed in scraggy feathers.

“Gross.”

Marla lifted her foot and took a couple of steps away from the bird.

Scrunch.

Jessie had halted in her tracks and turned back again, her annoyed look turning to wide-eyed horror as she drew near enough to see what Marla had blundered into.

The carcasses of dead birds lined the forest floor beneath Marla’s feet in a messy spiral that spread out over some ten feet in diameter. At the center of the spiral of little corpses stood the stump of a tree. Its wood was blackened, as though the thing had burned down alive and every inch of it was riddled with writhing maggots. More dead birds covered the ragged surface of the tree stump, their ruination apparently the source of the colony of maggots that had taken root there. It was as though a tree full of birds had perished along with it, struck down by lightning or a death curse. Looking down at the little burst balloon of a bird’s stomach, Marla saw disgusting, fat worms the color of blood writhing there. She tried not to shriek, biting her fist in revulsion. She stepped back and moved towards Jessie, hearing that dreadful scrunching sound with every step, tiny skulls imploding beneath her feet.

“So many birds. What on earth could do that?”

Jessie’s question hung futile in the air. Marla did not want to linger for fear of discovering the answer.

They reached the House. Emerging from the dense green, out into the shade of gigantic wild palms, Marla felt as though she’d stumbled onto a ludicrous stage set in the middle of an amphitheater. The creepers and palms surrounding it added to the effect, looking like huge ropes and pulleys with their leaves and branches forming an umbrella of curtains and living scenery. Looking back the way they’d traveled, she could now see the curvature of the land surrounding the house. It banked gradually upwards in all directions forming a bowl-like crater around the building, which sat castle-like at its center. From this vantage point, the house had the aspect of a great meteorite that had crash-landed just meters from where she was standing and eroded over decades. The building was much older than the others she’d seen on the island so far, eschewing the millionaire’s white stucco and double-fronted windows for more traditional materials. Old gray stone, weathered to an almost turquoise hue, made up the bulk of the structure with old timbers framing each dark window. Exquisitely crafted eaves supported the slate roof. Each length of timber had the undulating curves of driftwood and was carved with subtle designs evoking waves, night skies and the surrounding forest. As Marla studied them her eye delighted at the discovery of hidden details—a branch carved here, a driftwood parakeet perching there.

The snap of a branch and the spell was broken. Marla looked around for the source of the sound, and found Jessie standing dead still a few feet away from her and gazing into the treeline nervously.

“We have to get inside right now.”

Then another sound, this time from behind them, coming from the house. This noise was different, man-made, like grinding gears and cogs of some ancient fairground ride. Turning to look, Marla could now see great metal shutters coming down slowly over every window frame—and in front of the door.

“Run Marla…”

Jessie’s voice was so laden with fear that Marla quickly broke into a run for the door. There’d be time for explanations later. Looking over her shoulder to make sure Jessie was following, Marla saw the source of her fear. Black clad figures were crashing through the undergrowth, heading straight for them.

Marla ran into the solid wooden door with a thud and wrenched at the exquisitely carved handle with both sweaty hands. The grinding metal shutter continued its steady descent above her. Marla’s teeth ground together in time with the mechanism as she gripped and wrenched the handle as tight as she could and shouldered the door with all her might.

Nothing. The door just wouldn’t budge.

Then Jessie was on her and together they repeated the action, two frantic little human battering rams shoving against the door for all they were worth.

The door gave, flinging itself wide open with a sharp crack as the two surprised interlopers tumbled inside onto the floor.

“Godammit!” cursed Jessie. The impact had taken the door off one of its hinges.

Wriggling to her feet, Marla crouched, peering out through the remaining gap at their pursuers as the shutter continued to descend. Fowler’s men were almost at the house, with weapons at the ready. One of the men, realizing he was now in range, skidded to a halt and aimed his weapon at the gap where Marla and Jessie stood crouching.

There was only one thing to do. Jessie got to the shutter a fraction of a second before Marla, pulling down on it with all her remaining strength. Marla helped her, wincing at the loud squealing protests of the shutter as they aided its descent. The man fired his weapon and a small cluster of wires exploded from its tip—a taser gun. Just then, Jessie applied her foot to the metal lip at the bottom of the shutter, forcing it down. Something snapped inside the mechanism and Marla was lucky not to lose a couple of fingers as the shutter crashed into place, sealing them off from the outside world. The taser projectiles rattled off the metal shutter like hailstones, followed by a thud and several muffled voices.

Jessie rushed over to a wall-mounted box and flipped the cover open. She peered inside at what looked like a complex home security alarm. An array of tiny LED lights danced, reflected in her gleeful eyes.

“The lockdown worked. You check all the window shutters on this floor, make sure they are secure.”

“Secure? How do you mean? Aren’t they secure?”

“Just make sure there’s no debris stopping the shutters from closing properly.”

“Debris?”

“Like dead birds. Stuff like that.”

“Dead birds?” Marla shuddered.

“Look, just check the damn windows okay? I’ll check the back door and upstairs.”

Jessie turned and quickly headed toward the rear of the house. Marla nodded, then counted her fingers, to make sure they were all still really there. Now for the windows. She’d feel reassured to know they were all sealed tight. Maybe Jessie had set her the task to achieve just that. Whatever, she didn’t have to be so damn bossy about it. As she began to check off the windows one by one, Marla heard a scream rip through the dust and stillness of the house.

Jessie.