The Lighthouse: A Novel of Terror (24 page)

“But—”

“The compromise is this: If anything else happens, anything nasty or even unpleasant, then we’ll leave immediately. Go to Seattle, visit Larry Griffin for a minimum of two weeks. . . . ”

It was a concession that pained him; she could see that. But there it was. And she could also see that it was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

She studied him for a moment in the glow from the red candle on the table. His jaw was set, his eyes firmly meeting hers. This, she knew, was one of the crucial moments in their relationship: she could recognize his need as greater than her own and thus ensure the survival of the marriage; or she could override his need with hers and continue a process of erosion that seemed to have already started.

No contest, Ryerson, she thought. She said, “Compromise accepted,” and smiled and reached for his hand.

It was after nine when they returned to the lighthouse.

The fog had come in again; it moved in sullen, sinuous patterns over the headland, hiding the cliff edges and the sea beyond, obscuring the top of the tower so that it seemed to have been cut off two-thirds of the way up. It gave the cape a remote, alien aspect that made Alix shiver, even though the station wagon’s heater was turned to high.

She drove through the gate and braked in front of the garage; Jan got out to unlock the doors. The mist made him look oddly insubstantial for a moment, even in the glare of the headlights. Then he came back to the car and she drove them into the darkness inside.

“Home,” she said, making it sound as light as she could. But there was no conviction in the word.

He said, “You go ahead to the house. I’ll lock up out here.”

“I can use some coffee. How about you?”

“Fine. With a little brandy in it.”

She hurried across the yard, taking out her house keys as she went, and unlocked the door and switched on the living room light. She shut the door quickly against the gray fingers of fog, but the chill of it was in the room—a dankness flavored with stale pipe tobacco and the vague lingering odor of manure. Or was she just imagining the manure smell? Jan had cleaned the bathroom, but another scouring wouldn’t hurt; she’d do that first thing in the morning, while he took care of locating chemicals for the well. They’d have to go back to Bandon for that, probably. He would have gotten them today, except that it had been after merchant’s hours when they’d arrived. Her fault. She shouldn’t have spent so much time driving around or walking on the beach.

She set about building a fire in the old wood-burner, hoping that the damned thing wouldn’t start smoking before it spread its warmth. She was still arranging wood on the grate inside when Jan came in. He said, “Here, let me do that. You make the coffee.”

“With a slug of brandy, right?”

“Make it two slugs of brandy.”

In the kitchen she took the drip grind from one of the canisters—decaf, or they wouldn’t sleep tonight—and put it into the Mr. Coffee. But when she opened the cupboard, she found it empty of bottled water. There was none in the fridge, either. Had Jan used up the last of their supply cleaning the bathroom? No coffee for them tonight, if he had.

She went down the three steps and through the cloakroom to check the pantry. She had her hand on the latch when she thought she heard something inside, a kind of shuffling or skittering movement. A chill seemed to make the same sort of movement on her back, as if someone had drawn a bony finger downward along her spine. She listened for a moment, standing rigid, but there wasn’t anything else to hear. Her imagination acting up, producing more horror fantasies about rats in that abandoned well under the pantry floor. That, and nerves.

She opened the door, reached inside for the light switch. It was way over near the shelves on the left; you’d think the people who had built the place would—

In the darkness something moved across her hand—something alive, something that chittered.

A cry froze in her throat; she jerked her hand back, banged her knuckles against the inner wall. Her dragging fingers touched the switch plate. Reflexively she flipped the toggle upward.

Scurrying things on the floor, on the shelves. A bag of sugar ripped open, spilling whiteness like granulated snow. Yellow eyes glaring, fangs bared, little clawed feet snicking against wood.

Rats!

The pantry was full of rats!

Her throat unlocked and she screamed, a shriek of revulsion and primal terror, and then recoiled backward, pulling the door shut with a crash. But one of the rats got through. She saw it, felt it slither across her boot—huge, half as big as a full-grown cat, gray fur matted and riddled with mange. She threw herself sideways, up against the wall, and the rat turned at the noise or movement to confront her. It came up on its hind paws, its mouth wide open as if in rictus, its fangs gleaming and its yellow eyes full of evil. Another cry tore out of her, strangled and mewling this time. Dimly she beard Jan yelling, felt herself flattening against the wall, clutching at it in a blind groping for escape.

But the rat didn’t attack her, it wheeled and skittered the other way, into the cloakroom just as Jan appeared from the kitchen.

He saw it, shouted something, and the rat veered away from him, over to the wall where they kept their shoes and boots and galoshes. Through a kind of haze she saw it rear up again, backed against the wall just as she was—cornered rat, trapped rat, its eyes not yellow but red now in the gloom, like the eyes of a demon. Saw Jan yank his furled umbrella off a hook on the wall, the one with the heavy brass handle shaped like a falcon’s head. Saw him lunge at the rat, flail at it with the brass end. Heard the thing squeal as it fought him like a drunken boxer, heard it squeal again, a different kind of sound, one of pain and rage. Saw blood, and more of Jan’s wild swings, and the grimace of frenzy on his face—

She shut her eyes, twisted around toward the wall, and jammed her hands over her ears to shut out the thuds and grunts and squeals. She had no idea when the violence ended. She was still standing, face to the wall, eyes shut, hands pressed to her ears, when she sensed his nearness. And in spite of herself, she shuddered when he touched her.

He turned her, pulled her against him—not gently. “Are you all right? It didn’t bite you?”

“No, no. . . . ”

“It’s dead. I killed it.”

She had nothing to say. She buried her face against the rough cloth of his coat and held him, not so much for comfort but because she was afraid to look at him up close this way, afraid that the remnants of his savage fury would still be visible. The rage was still in his voice, in the throbbing rigidity of his body.

“More of them in the pantry,” he said. “I can hear them. How many, did you see?”

“I don’t know. Several . . . I don’t know.”

“All right. I’ll get them out of there.”

“How? You can’t kill them all—”

“I will if I have to.”

He turned her again, so that they were side by side and his arm was around her shoulders. She didn’t took at what lay bloody and mangled on the floor of the cloakroom as they passed through it. Just let him guide her through the kitchen and into the living room, sit her down near the wood stove—the second time today she had let him lead her away from the scene of an outrage.
Déjà vu.
And things happened in
threes
, didn’t they?

She glanced up as he started for the door. He was still carrying the furled umbrella in his left hand, and when she saw the blood on it she swallowed against the taste of bile and looked away again. “Jan, be careful. Don’t let one of those things bite you.”

“I won’t.”

The front door opened, banged shut again. She got up and went to the stove, stood close to its warmth. She was oold; it was all she could do to control her shivering.

From back in the pansy, she heard the squealing again.

She shut her ears to it, listening instead to the wind. It shifted, began its skirling in the tower and kitchen chimney, and the stove in turn began to smoke. She turned to it. fiddled with the damper. It did no good. If the wind kept up like this, the room would be full of smoke in another few minutes and she would have to open one of the windows. Otherwise—

The door popped open and Jan was there again. She straightened, turned as he shut the door against the undulating fog outside.

Oddly, it was his hands that she looked as first. He had put the umbrella down somewhere; he caniod nothing in them. His face was congested, the rage still smoldering in his eyes. And the skin of his forehead and around his eyes was drawn tight, so that he was half squinting—the way it got when he was having one of his bad headaches.

He said, “I got rid of them. All of them.”

“Did you kill any more?”

“No. They scattered when I opened the outside door. We’ll have to put out traps. They’ll come back after the food.”

We won’t be here when they do, she thought. Will we?

“Will you be all right alone for a while?” he asked.

“Alone? Why?”

“I’m going into Hilliard.”

“After Novotny? For God’s sake, Jan, no!”

“Yes. This is the Last straw. I’m going to have it out with him.”

“No! Call the sheriff, let him—”

“Fuck the sheriff,” Jan said, and that frightened her all the more. He never used words like that—never. “There’s nothing he can do. This is between Novotny and me.”

“Jan, you promised you wouldn’t drive anymore. You
mustn’t
drive, not when you’re having one of your headaches.”

“I don’t have a headache. Don’t argue with me, Alix. I’m going.”

“Then I’ll go with you. I’ll drive—”

“No you won’t. I told you, it’s between Novotny and me. You’re staying here, behind locked doors.”

“I can’t stay here, not with those rats—”

“They’re gone, they can’t get back in the house. You’ll be all right. Just don’t answer the phone.”

“Jan . . . ”

But he was at the door, through it, gone into the mist.

She ran out after him, caught up near the garage. “Please don’t go.
Please!”

“Go back inside. You’ll catch cold out here.”

“I won’t let you go—”

“You won’t stop me. Go back inside.”

The look he gave her froze her in place; he moved on to the garage. Even in the foggy dark, it was unmistakable—a look of resolve and the kind of savage fury she’d seen when he was beating the rat to death. Chills rode her back and shoulders. She couldn’t move even as she heard the car start, saw him back it out and the lights come on. Couldn’t move as he drove out through the gate and fog swallowed the car. The last she saw of it was its taillights glowing bright red. Like the rat’s eyes in the cloakroom just before it died.

Hod didn’t like it. He just didn’t like it.

Taking a few potshots at the Ryersons’ station wagon, that was one thing. Even putting some shit down their well—no big deal. But the rats . . . that was an ugly thing, there wasn’t any call for that kind of thing. Big ones, too, seven or eight of them. And half-starved. Mitch had got a couple of kids to trap them; the Stedlow place was crawling with the buggers, with old man Stedlow dead a year now and his kin just letting the house and barn go to ruin. Rats like that, who the hell knew what kind of disease they might be carrying? Suppose one of them bit Ryerson or his wife?

Not that anybody would say
he’d
had anything to do with it. It was Mitch’s idea, and Adam had taken the cage full of rats out there tonight. All he’d done was tell Mitch he’d seen the Ryersons leaving town, driving off toward Highway 1 about four o’clock. He hadn’t even known about the rats until after Adam got back. Mitch hadn’t said anything to him while they were shooting pool in the Sea Breeze earlier.

Mitch and Adam were still in there, playing Eight Ball for beers against a couple of fellows from the cannery. Cracking jokes, laughing it up, Adam hippety-hopping around like he had a stick up his ass and he was trying to shake it loose. It got on Hod’s nerves; that was why he’d up and left a couple of minutes ago. It was like something had happened to the two of them, changed them. Mitch especially. Sure, Ryerson had run Red down and then threatened to have Mitch arrested on account of his car getting shot up. But that wasn’t cause to go putting a bunch of filthy rats in the lighthouses, right there in the pantry with all their food—Jesus!—and maybe giving Ryerson or his wife some kind of disease. It just wasn’t right.

Sitting there on the front seat of his old Rambler, Hod thought maybe he ought to go out to the lighthouse, do something about those rats before it was too late. But hell, it was after ten now; chances were the Ryersons had come back long ago and it was already too late. And even if it wasn’t, what if he went out there and tried to do something, and they came back and caught him? They’d think he was the one who
brought
the goddamn rats, not that he was trying to get rid of them. Besides, what could he do? He wasn’t about to go up against seven or eight half-starved rats loose in a little pantry, maybe get bitten himself. He hated rats. He didn’t want anything to do with the buggers.