Short Fiction
The Lone Sentry
A macabre reverie
The night was deathly still, so quiet I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. Not a breath of wind disturbed the ominous calm that had settled over the coast. The moonless sky was shrouded in murky clouds, casting the rocky cliffs and churning sea into impenetrable darkness.
Alone in the cramped lighthouse tower, I trimmed the lamp wick and stared out at the black waves crashing against the rocks far below, while the only sound was the hypnotic roar of the water that echoed the whirls and eddies of my own chaotic thoughts. Though the beacon was lit, no ships would be passing along this treacherous shore until daybreak.
I was used to solitude, having manned this isolated outpost for endless years, standing vigil through countless black nights. But this evening something sinister lurked in the stillness and I felt the presence of unseen eyes watching me, half-glimpsed spirits swirling in the shadows.
A sudden shriek of anguish rose above the sea’s drone. I froze, listening intently. Had it been some night bird, or something more ominous? The cry echoed once more, distant yet distinct. A prickling dread crept down my spine as I imagined some poor soul meeting their fate upon the rocks, and I longed to investigate, but could not abandon my post. The lamp must be tended, or passing ships would be drawn to their doom.
As the night crawled onward, the oppressive silence weighed heavily, interrupted only by the blast of wind racing through the tower and the screech of rusted metal. I paced the cramped confines restlessly, glancing out at the fathomless dark, while somewhere beyond the veil of blackness lurked the source of that baleful cry.
I took to muttering under my breath just to hear a human voice, no matter how small and afraid, but the hushed words were swallowed up by the void. Alone with the creaks and moans of the tower, I teetered on the precipice of madness.
Some time before the witching hour, the sea quieted abruptly. The silence was uncanny, like the held breath before a storm, while I felt unseen eyes on me once more, filled with malevolent intent. Holding my own breath, I listened for something beyond the sound of water dripping down the tower walls. Was that the scrape of claws on stone or just the skittering of rats?
The metallic click of the lantern room door made me jump, and I turned to see the entrance swing slowly inward, as if pushed by an invisible hand. The flame within my lamp guttered low as a chill breeze snuffed out the light, leaving only the dim glow of the heating wick. Shadows leapt and swooped along the walls like living things, as I staggered back, crossing myself in terrified protection from forces unknown.
Far below I heard the clank of metal, then tapping footsteps on the spiral staircase, that climbed steadily, each footfall magnified in the acute stillness, while my blood turned to ice as panic overwhelmed me. I cowered in the corner behind dusty barrels as the intruder approached. The lantern light had failed, yet the steps drew closer guided by some otherworldly senses.
Then…silence once more. The steps had ceased just outside the doorway. I saw nothing but inky blackness yet felt the presence of something watching me, as my heart hammered wildly in my chest and I held my breath, praying to remain hidden from this phantom’s sightless gaze.
A pale vapour drifted through the open doorway, amorphous and wraithlike. It hovered there, slowly coalescing into the shape of a man dressed in oilskins, his ghostly features obscured beneath a sou’wester hat. Water dripped from his form, splashing faintly on the floor, and in one skeletal hand he held a rusted lantern, flickering with unearthly St. Elmo’s fire. The phantom drifted toward the cold hearth at the chamber’s centre, regarding me with eyes that glowed like pale moons.
I shuddered uncontrollably, waves of shock and despair crashing down on me. It was him…the same apparition who had haunted me since that fateful night I had plucked his drowned body from the sea five winters ago. Each year on the anniversary he returned from some restless hell, drawn to the scene of his death. His ghost had cursed me then, and terror had stalked my dreams ever since, and now the dead man had come to claim my shattered soul at last….
The phantom raised a gnarled finger and beckoned to me and I rose as if compelled, drifting helplessly across the room, trapped in a nightmare. He pointed toward the open door where the winding staircase fell away into the abyss below, and again the shrieking cry rose from the darkness, distorted now into a chorus of anguished voices. With dreadful certainty I knew what the phantasm demanded…
As if in a trance I moved toward that gaping door, each step bringing me closer to the hungry void. All rational thought was crushed beneath the awful weight of doom. Closer…closer…now perched at the precipice between life and oblivion. The phantom lantern flared, casting my shadow out over that final threshold. One more step and all would be extinguished.
With the last of my strength I wrenched myself from the spectre’s thrall, throwing myself to the floor. The lantern shattered, plunging the tower into profound darkness as the wraith let out an unearthly wail, and I lay paralysed beneath the oppressive pall, praying for salvation or swift deliverance by death.
After an eternity, thin tendrils of light crept through the windows. Dawn’s warm glow pierced the gloaming and illuminated the now empty room. The phantom had retreated back to the underworld.
I rose slowly on trembling limbs, like a man resurrected. Staggering to the cracked glass, I threw open the shutters to greet the blessed dawn, while the new day’s light banished the shadows and with them, the horrors of the haunted night.
But each year as the anniversary approaches, my dreams are stalked by the faces of the drowned, beckoning me to join them in the cold abyss.
And I await with dread the phantom’s next return…
