“Yo, cuz,” Matt said, and gave me a quick hug. Tony just gave me a hard slap on the back. Though they were an odd duo, I couldn’t help but feel a lot of affection toward my cousins.
“How’s it going, guys? Keeping out of trouble?” I winked at them.
“Trying to,” Matt said. He shot a tepid look at his dad, then shrugged nonchalantly at me. “A couple of our friends are coming out tonight to have a bonfire on the beach.”
“I’ve got a gas can all ready to go,” Tony piped up.
Oh, great. Gasoline, booze, and my cousins—what could possibly go wrong? But the idea of having a bonfire with a bunch of young guys did sound more exciting to me than the night that usually unfolded at my uncle’s place: Trying to play Scrabble with the family without someone (usually me or my dad) flipping the board over in anger.
The rest of the day went along without incident. After everything was set up for the evening, I went on my usual exploration of the grounds with my SLR camera.
After I had roamed the fields, my leggings wet with last night’s dew that clung to the high, brown grass, I skirted alongside the beautifully broken down fence that divided their property and the neighboring cheese farm. I removed my sweater and tied it around my waist; the sunshine was blissfully warm.
The air was filled with the gentle sounds of the waves, with birds that flittered above my head and the occasional “moo” of faraway cattle. Behind me were the rolling hills of pine that soared up the nearby cliffs and undulated inland. In front of me was a cattle guard, which my Docs navigated with ease, and beyond that, the spotty dunes and its hardy foliage.
I climbed to the top of a small dune and looked over to my left. There I glimpsed the lighthouse, with its rounded head of cracked paint sticking out over a rusted red roof. The lighthouse wasn’t your typical straight up and down phallic-looking thing. Instead it was built into a two-story building, rising out of it like a bell tower (I fancied this one looked rather like the Mission in Hitchcock’s Vertigo). The building was boarded up and the lighthouse lacked a functioning light, but it still felt alive to me, like it was merely sleeping.
I was staring at the lighthouse when the breeze picked up. It came in off the coast, sweeping wet and salty air over my arms. I shivered and slipped my sweater back on. As I was doing so, I peeked out of one of the holes in the front. I saw a movement by the lighthouse door, like someone had walked in front of it.
I froze. Then quickly pulled down my sweater and looked again.
There was no one there.
Shivers ran down my spine and I was about to start for the lighthouse when I heard my mother calling for me, her voice faint in the deepening wind. I debated a moment, then decided perhaps the great indoors with laughter, family and a glass of wine might be the better option. I watched the lighthouse for a few more minutes until the lack of movement squashed my curiosity and headed back to the house.
***
It was about ten p.m. when our parents finally retired to their rooms. Ada and I were watching a ‘50s B-movie (None of Them Knew They Were Robots) but the minute they said good night, we were up with our box of wine and heading for the beach.
Matt and Tony were already there, as were several of their friends. Because a fence didn’t protect the beach area, it was easy for them to drive their dirty 4x4s off the highway and onto the sand.
The wind had picked up as the night went on, and I was grateful for the warm jacket and scarf I had packed. The night sky was still clear with millions of stars sprinkled across the smooth slate above, though off in the distance the hazy, grey mass of mist could be seen. It wasn’t getting any closer; it was just hovering. Waiting offshore.
The bonfire was going full-blast thanks to generous helpings of Tony’s gas can, which I eventually confiscated and kept far away from us on the other side of a dune.
It was a cozy scene. I was huddled on a long piece of driftwood beside the twins and some of their friends. On the log opposite the fire were a few more people, plus Ada.
I was keeping a very close eye on her. She had been sneaking sips of wine and beer all night. Now, I was definitely not one to talk—at her age I was doing far worse—but as far as I knew, I wasn’t sure if Ada was much of a drinker. In fact, I had never seen her drunk before and she obviously was now. She was drinking Old English out of a paper-bagged 40 oz (because that was cool?) bottle and alternating between cuddling up to and slobbering over a greasy dude called Whiz. That made me a bit nervous.
Whiz was probably the least eligible out of all of Matt and Tony’s friends. For one, I already knew he had a girlfriend. He was talking about her earlier and, as you can imagine, he wasn’t singing her praises. If that wasn’t enough, I had heard Al once say that the twins hadn’t started getting into trouble until they met Whiz. His name, by the way, was totally lost on me. He seemed to have half the IQ of someone from Jersey Shore.
And, as always, the fact that Ada seemed to be having a great time rubbed me the wrong way. This time it was over the fact that I didn’t have a guy to slobber over. Not that I would ever touch Whiz or any of Matt and Tony’s friends in a million years….well, OK, that wasn’t exactly true. There was a cute guy on the other side of the fire that I should have been all over if only I wasn’t a complete moron around guys. He was just my type, too: tall and broad-shouldered with light eyes and wavy chestnut hair that sparkled all pretty in the fire’s glow.
But despite the fact that we were exchanging flirtatious glances across the fire (at least mine were flirtatious; he probably just had smoke in his eyes), I was miles away from actually doing anything about it. Years of having your appearance poked at tended to make you quite insecure with the opposite sex.
I sighed and looked over at the dark waves crashing on the shore. I knew I was a little bit drunk from the “goonbag” wine but sitting around the fire and drinking with a bunch of teenagers was starting to feel stifling. I wanted to get up and explore. I wanted to check out the lighthouse.
I contemplated asking the twins or Ada and her new boytoy if they wanted to come along but one glance around the fire told me that these youngsters were better off staying close to the house. The last thing Uncle Al needed was a bunch of drunks heading off to the lighthouse in the middle of the night. They’d probably burn the whole thing down.
I got off the log and dusted off my butt. I leaned into Matt, trying not to draw attention to myself, and told him that I was going for a walk and would see them later.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned. I would have loved to ask what he of all people considered stupid but I didn’t. Instead I whispered to him to keep an eye on Ada. Thankfully, it seemed like something he could do.
I walked away from the fire and toward the ocean until the light from the flames was too weak to see by. I took out my iPhone and put it on the flashlight feature. It was a pretty pathetic beam of white light but it helped me make my way down the beach and over pieces of rogue driftwood. The lighthouse was visible in the wavering moonlight, waiting for me.
CHAPTER THREE
The walk there ended up being a lot more difficult than I thought. Because the lighthouse was situated on the top of a small cliff, it meant a near vertical climb on my hands and knees. I tried holding my iPhone in my mouth for a while until I decided I was better off letting my eyes adjust to the dark and have my night vision kick in.
With my hands soaking up the sea-sprayed grass and coarse dirt, I slowly found my way to the crest. On the other side, the cliff tapered off gently back into rolling dunes, and behind the lighthouse weedy ground led into a dark forest. It was windier up here and noisier as the waves crashed against the large rocks and boulders. Every once in a while the wind would catch the spray and shower it in my face.
The dark outline of the lighthouse building loomed in front of me. It was enough to make me pause and think for a second.
I knew I could be very impulsive in certain situations, even to the point where I would find myself acting while my brain was screaming for me not to. This was one of those situations. I was cold, the weather was turning for the worse, I had a few glasses of wine in me, it was late, no one knew where I was, and yet my main concern was trying to get into a creepy old lighthouse. As much as the reckless side of me felt compelled to explore it, the rational side knew it was probably the stupidest idea imaginable, even more so because I had this overall feeling of dread about the place.
I know I said earlier that it felt like it was waiting for me and that still held true. Whether it was destiny disguised as dread I didn’t know, but I truly wished that the small, responsible (dare I say “adult”), part of my brain would overpower me and steer me back to Uncle Al’s house.
But instead I decided to take out my camera. I put the strap around my neck and then switched on the video mode. A jarring, blue-white light lit up the ground in front of me. I took a deep breath and aimed the camera at the lighthouse. I flicked the recording switch on; might as well have something to show for my little exploration.
The lighthouse was only a few yards in front of me, bathed in the eerie electronic glow. The windows, for the most part, were all boarded up, though occasionally there was an unobstructed pane, broken or cracked from the corner. The building was impossibly immense up close, evoking a feeling of density. The white paint was peeling, with black glistening patches plaguing its pebbly form. It was probably mildew; in the dark it reminded me of bloodstains. I shivered at that thought and steadied the camera.
I raised it to the second story and scanned alongside it to the tower. The tip was concealed as the camera light was now only catching the fat strands of thick, incoming fog.
I started toward the front of the lighthouse where a few hardy windblown shrubs converged from the cliff’s flanks. I inspected the building. I wanted to get inside but had no clue how. The rusty door was locked shut with a lock I surely couldn’t pick.
“This is stupid,” I said out loud to myself. The sound of my own voice was comforting. It was stupid. I should have turned back.
Instead, I kept walking around. I walked as close to the building as possible, not trusting the surrounding ground, and then came around front. It looked like the cliff’s edge was a safe enough distance from the foundation, maybe fifteen feet. There were a few shrubs planted at the base of the tower and above them was a large round window. A single board had been placed across it. Above the ground floor window was another window, then another, and then another, until they reached the watchtower top.
I walked up to the window and saw that the board had been fastened from the inside. I knew what I had to do and was really excited I could do it.
I felt the board, testing its strength. It felt like it would fall off without much effort, which suited me perfectly.
“We have come to our first obstacle, a boarded window,” I said to the camera, turning it around so that it was filming my face, probably on extreme close-up. “However, this proves to be no challenge to Perry Palomino.”
I put the camera down on the ground, stacking it up against a rock so that it was filming me and stepped back. Feeling strength in my leg’s position and my body’s stance, I sprung forward, my body tilting at the exact angle, my arm extending until my palm met the board with precision. With a satisfying give, it flew off its anchors and into the back of the building, landing on the floor inside with an echoing clatter.