The Lighthouse: A Novel of Terror (5 page)

Alix noted the sign with interest. She wondered who Lang was, and what sort of artwork Lang’s Gallery exhibited. When she came into the village alone she would definitely stop in and find out.

The road dropped down to parallel the shoreline at sea level, and other buildings appeared ahead, some of them flanking the road, others visible among the pines and Douglas fir that wooded the slopes rising above the village to the east. One of the latter, near the road, had a large screened front porch that bore a banner advertising antiques, driftwood, and shells for sale. Antiques, Alix thought wryly, was probably a euphemism for junk. Not that she minded junk; junkshops were a favorite haunt of hers. That was another place she would have to stop in.

They were into the village proper now—two blocks long and deserted-looking, despite the sign on the outskirts that announced Hilliard’s population at three hundred and eleven. Mike’s Bar & Grill. A launderette. Hazel’s Beauty Salon and Bob’s Barber Shop, two halves of the same building. Hilliard General Store. Sea Breeze Tavern. The Seafood Grotto, a smallish restaurant built out over the bay on pilings. A-1 Marine Supply. A big cannery at the north end of the harbor, with its name painted in faded black on the sloping metal roof: South Coast Fisheries, Inc. They all seemed to be made of colorless native wood and stone, or of clapboard stripped of paint by the elements and scoured to a uniformly dull gray. Even the cannery and the long pier behind it, the boat slips that stood adjacent, and the two dozen or so fishing trawlers moored there, seemed to possess the same shabby, scrubbed gray appearance. The only buildings of much color were on the hillside. One was a whitewashed church, its steeple rising above the trees; the other was what looked to be a good-sized old schoolhouse painted red, with its bell tower intact. Beyond the Sea Breeze Tavern, an unpaved road led up that way; a wooden arrow at the intersection indicated that the two structures were the Hilliard Community Church and the Hilliard Town Hall.

As she turned onto the gravel parking area in front of A-I Marine, Jan stirred and spoke for the first time in twenty minutes—an occurrence she took as a positive sign. “Not much to it, is there.”

“No. It looks kind of . . . I don’t know, depressed.”

“It is. Hard times around here these days.”

“How come?”

“Commercial fishing is Hilliard’s life-support,” he said, “and the main catch is salmon. Chinook and coho, the big ones. But the salmon runs have been poor the past three years; the trolling season that ended earlier this month was the worst of them.”

“Why?”

“Dry winters, dry rivers and streams. Salmon are anadromous, remember? Thousands of them couldn’t get from the sea to their spawning grounds.”

“Can’t the fishermen go after other species?”

“They do. Groundfish, mostly, but they don’t fetch the same high price. And their boats have to be re-outfitted for that kind of fishing.”

“What’re groundfish?”

“Flounder, perch, lingcod,” Jan said. “They use lines and nets to haul them up off the ocean floor.”

He opened his door and stepped out into the chill wind; she followed suit. The air had a brackish, fishy smell that was not unpleasant. Gulls wheeled out over the cannery pier and boat slips, shrieking hungrily. A few men moved around out there; a late-arriving trawler was just putting into one of the berths. Across the road, on a flattish strip of raised land, two yelling boys chased each other among six or seven dilapidated trailers—a sort of makeshift trailer park, Alix thought. Otherwise, there was no activity anywhere in the vicinity.

She unlatched the rear door and helped Jan carry the empty propane cylinders into A-1 Marine. A taciturn man in overalls traded them full tanks, charged them what Jan grumbled was too much, and didn’t offer to help them take the full tanks out to the car. Friendly natives, she thought, and the thought depressed her. The whole village depressed her in a vague sort of way. Or maybe she was just reacting—overreacting?—to Jan’s moodiness.

They left the Ford where it was and walked down past the Seafood Grotto to the general store. Its interior was cavernous; opaque globes suspended from long metal conduit cast dim light over the rows of shelves, old-fashioned meat case, dark wood checkout counter, and the partitioned-off cubicle adjacent to it, near the door, that contained a barred window and a sign reading
U.S. Post Office, Hilliard, OR
. The look and smell of the place caused a bittersweet wave of nostalgia to wash over Alix. Her corner deli in New York’s Greenwich Village had had the same black-and-white linoleum squares, the same aromas. Now, thousands of miles and over a dozen years away, she could still conjure up the warmth and coziness that had made Greenberg’s a haven for the twenty-three-year-old artist who had been so eager to take on life in the big city. Eager, yet secretly so afraid....

“Help you, folks?”

The gruff, mannish voice came from a woman sitting on a stool behind the grocery counter. Her hair was short and gray, in a style that Alix automatically labeled “home chop job,” and she wore a heavy red-plaid flannel workshirt. The expression on her seamed, weathered face was neither welcoming nor unfriendly.

Alix rummaged in her purse for the list she’d made the night before. “Thanks, we have quite a few things to pick up. We’re the Ryersons, the new caretakers out at the lighthouse—”

“Take your time. When you fill a basket, bring it up and leave it on the counter.”

There was a stack of vari-colored plastic baskets on the floor next to the produce section; Alix picked one up. Jan had already wandered off toward a far comer of the store that appeared to be stocked with hardware and household goods. The woman behind the counter had picked up a magazine and was leafing through it; her disinterest struck Alix as odd. She didn’t seem to care what sort of people had moved into the vicinity, had chosen to live in isolation on Cape Despair. Well, maybe she was a friend of Seth Bonner’s. That might explain it. Or maybe she was just plain disinterested—the exact opposite of the stereotypical small-town busybody.

With her list in one hand and the basket in the other, Alix went down the first aisle to the left. That was where the bottled water was; she loaded the basket with that and took it up to the counter. The older woman didn’t even glance up from her magazine. Alix was surprised, and mildly amused, to see that it was Sunset, a publication whose offices were located in Menlo Park, Palo Alto’s neighbor to the north, and for which she occasionally did freelance illustrating.
Sunset
was a glossy paean to the refinements of living in the western U.S.—such refinements including an indulgence in gourmet food and wine, redwood decking and hot tubs in the backyard, and spacious homes with lots of cutely concealed storage space. The magazine’s presence in this backwater store was a contradiction that pleased Alix, as life’s inconsistencies often did.

She was loading a second basket with meat and poultry when the bell above the door jingled. Alix glanced that way. The woman who came in had stringy brown hair that hung to her shoulders, wore a soiled and stained quilted coat. Despite the bulkiness of the quilting, she looked painfully thin. She went to the grocery counter and began talking to the storekeeper in low tones. Alix couldn’t make out the words, only the rhythm. The thin woman had an accent. Texas, perhaps—someplace like that. Her voice faltered and trailed off; then the storekeeper spoke in gruff tones that carried to where Alix stood.

“I told you the other day. No more credit. You and Hod are two months behind.”

“I know that, Mrs. Hilliard.” The words were soft, helpless.

A pause. Then the Hilliard woman said, “Can you give me something on account? Twenty dollars?”

“Ten is all I have. . . . ”

“Oh, hell. What do you need?”

“Milk. Bread. Eggs—a dozen.”

“All right. That all?”

“We can get by on it. And I’m grateful—”

“Just give me the ten dollars, Della.”

The thin woman, Della, fumbled in the deep pocket of her coat and produced a pair of crumpled five-dollar bills. Alix’s basket was full again, so she moved toward the counter. At close range she could see that Della’s complexion was sallow, her fingernails nicotine-stained and bitten to the quick.

Mrs. Hilliard took the two five-dollar bills, rang open the old wooden cash register, and put them away. Then she said to Della, “Go pick out your groceries. And take some oranges, too—they’re cheap, and good nourishment.”

Within a few minutes, Della had finished gathering her meager groceries and was bagging them herself, under Mrs. Hilliard’s watchful eye. When she’d finished, the storekeeper held out the copy of Sunset to her.

“I’m done with it. You want it, you can have it.”

Della started to reach for it, then withdrew her hand and put it into her coat pocket. “Thank you, Mrs. Hilliard, but I don’t think I want it.”

“I won’t charge you for it.”

“It’s not that. I’d just rather not.” Delta picked up her grocery sack and quickly left the store.

Now what was all that about? Alix wondered. The woman wasn’t averse to buying food on credit, but she wouldn’t take a free magazine . . . ? Oh, of course—it would be painful looking at all that rich food, all that affluence, when times were bad.

Della, Alix decided, was a sensible woman.

Jan had emerged from the hardware section carrying a handful of tools, glass cleanser, and metal polish. He motioned at Alix’s list. “Help you with that?”

“Sure.”

She tore off the bottom half and handed it to him. The faintly surprised look on Mrs. Hilliard’s face made Alix smile. The woman might not be curious about their tenancy at the lighthouse, but their domestic arrangements seemed to hold a certain interest for her. Apparently the men in Hilliard didn’t share the household duties with their wives.

When the last item on the list had been crossed off, their purchases filled six large cardboard cartons. Jan took the first and went to move the car closer, while Alix counted out twenty-dollar bills into Mrs. Hilliard’s square, blunt-fingered hand. Just as she finished, the bell above the door tinkled again and two men—a lean one in a brown parka and a stockier one in a pea jacket similar to her own—came inside. A medium-sized dog—red, like an Irish setter, but obviously of mixed ancestry—followed them, circling and jumping up on its hind legs in an effort to get some attention. The men’s faces were ruddy from the cold, and they gave off a faint fishy odor. Fishermen, probably, already done with the day’s work.

“Pack of Camels, Lillian,” the lean one said.

The lines around Lillian Hilliard’s deep-set eyes had tightened. “Mitch Novotny, I told you before about that dog. Get him out of here.”

The man brushed limp brown hair off his forehead and smiled disarmingly. “Now, Lillian, Red’s not hurting anything.”

“Not yet, but any minute he’ll have that produce all over the floor. He’s too rambunctious for his own good. Yours, too.”

As if to prove her point, Red lunged against a bushel basket and sent potatoes flying in all directions.

Mitch rolled his eyes ceiling ward. “Okay, okay, you’re right as usual.” He snapped his fingers at the dog, then pointed toward the door. Red ran over there, and the stockier man held the door open so the animal could go out.

“Now, you pick up after your dog,” Mrs. Hilliard said. To the stocky man she added, “And you help him, Hod Barnett. Your wife was just in here wheedling more credit from me, so it’s the least you can do.”

The man called Hod Barnett—Della’s husband?—scowled but bent and began helping Mitch pick up the potatoes. Alix glanced at Lillian Hilliard and saw she was watching him with a smug expression that belied the compassion she had shown earlier for the woman. Probably enjoys dispensing charity because it gives her power over people, Alix thought.

When the two men were done Mitch turned back to the counter, counted out change for the cigarettes Mrs. Hilliard handed him. Then he and Hod went out past Jan, who was just returning.

Jan took the largest carton, and Alix followed him outside with a smaller one. The two fishermen were standing in the gravel parking area nearby, lighting cigarettes in cupped hands. They glanced at Jan and Alix, their expressions neither hostile nor accepting; rather, their looks were ones of apathy and indifference. The dog was once again frisking around, begging for attention, and Jan gave it a nervous look. He was afraid of dogs, the result of a childhood misadventure with a German shepherd in which he’d been painfully mauled. Where larger dogs were concerned, his fear was almost a phobia.

As Jan started to where the station wagon waited with its tailgate lowered, Mitch’s dog turned playfully and went after him, nipping at his heels. He pivoted in alarm and shook his leg, trying to push the animal away. The groceries shifted dangerously in the carton; he came near to losing his grip, staggered as he tried to maintain it. Red closed in again, teeth snapping at Jan’s calf.

Alix stifled a cry. But Mitch just laughed. “Hey, Red,” he called, “don’t bite that fella’s leg off.”

Jan half stumbled to the station wagon and thumped the carton down on the tailgate. The dog nipped at his leg again, this time catching the cloth of his jeans. Jan’s face was pale with fear. He swung around in reflex and kicked the dog solidly on its rump—not hard enough to hurt it, but hard enough to make it yip and scurry backward. It stood at a distance, tail down, eyes accusing.