“No?” he asked, sounding surprised.
I looked behind at him, the light blinding me. “Are you serious? Of course, no.”
The beam moved with the shrug of his shoulders. “It would be more entertaining.”
“This isn’t supposed to be entertaining,” I said.
Dex was silent for a moment. “Then what is it?”
Standing at the foot of the staircase was not the place to have this conversation. I couldn’t believe he was concerned with making this “entertaining.”
“It’s scary,” I admitted.
“It’s supposed to be scary. That’s why we are here. For the show. Remember?”
“Yeah, but you said we were meant to come here.”
“Yes. To film the show. Get out of that little head of yours and think about the big picture here.”
I glared at him in the dark. “Well, I’m scared, OK?”
“So what? We need you to be scared.”
So what? What did he mean “so what?” I gave him the stink eye and with as much bitterness as I could muster said, “Why do I have to be? How come you aren’t afraid?”
“Because I find life to be scarier than death,” he replied matter-of-factly.
And with that, I heard the sound of a door creaking open from the second floor.
I froze and listened harder, heart pounding in my chest. Dex remained still too, his breath sucked in.
The sound continued a lot longer than seemed possible, like the door was revolving around on its hinges with no door frame. My eyes rolled around searching the staircase blindly.
The creaking sound eventually came to a stop. I looked at Dex, wanting more than ever to see if he held any fear in his eyes, but as usual, I only saw his light.
I bit my lip. I knew he would want me to go upstairs as planned but I didn’t know if I could, especially now. I stood staunchly, my face firm, and refused to move.
Dex reached out and pushed me lightly so my foot had to land on the first step to stabilize myself. I shook my head violently in protest and braced myself as he nudged me again, harder. I had no choice but to go to the second step.
Again, the movie Vertigo flashed through my head. I was Kim Novak refusing to go up the bell tower while an obsessed Jimmy Stewart forced my every step. What would Dex do when we were at the top? Would I fall out the window to my death?
I was suddenly afraid. Rather, I was suddenly afraid of Dex. Earlier he seemed to be on my side, but now he was practically forcing me to go up the staircase to the source of a sound that was obviously caused by someone or something that was inside the building with us. Something evil. Every bone in my body told me to get the hell out of there. But if I wanted to run, would he let me?
Maybe his handsome face and obscure charm were blinding me. It hit me again, with more urgency this time, that I didn’t know Dex at all. Beneath those deep eyes and high cheekbones he could be a complete psychopath. Actually, I was sure he was at least a partial psychopath. And an admitted liar to boot.
Would he stop me if I tried to get out of here, I thought madly. I had no doubt he would at least try. I cursed myself for being so immature, for thinking this man really cared about me, some young chunky girl he had just met. I had always seen the uncertainty stretched beneath his hooded lids; I had chosen to ignore this.
I guess while thinking this, I was staring him in absolute horror because the light came off of my scrunched face and Dex reached out to put his hand on my shoulder. I recoiled slightly from his touch. I couldn’t help it. Now, there were two things to be scared of and I knew at least one of them was able to hurt me.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Come with me.”
He squeezed past me until he was two steps ahead on the landing. He aimed the camera light forward with one hand and reached for my hand with the other. He squeezed it, though I felt no comfort in his grasp this time, and continued to walk up the stairs, pulling me up with him.
If I let myself go limp, would he drag me to the top, step by step?
I followed reluctantly, not about to start dragging my feet. The blackness and unknown nipped at my heels. I needed to feel the lack of fear that Dex seemed to have.
We got to the second floor to find both doors closed. From the sound we heard, and the fact we never heard a click of closure, I expected at least one of the doors to be wide open.
This was better somehow. Perhaps what I heard earlier was all in my head. After all, Dex never acknowledged the sound to me verbally. Maybe I was slowly going crazy. I kind of preferred that idea.
We stood there as the light bounced between both of the doors. I knew he was expecting me to choose a room to enter. I also knew he would make that decision in the end.
He aimed the camera at the room I could not get into last week. I took the key out of my pocket and turned it over it my hands, feeling the weight and reveling in what was known and real. This simple key was of this world. What it opened may not be.
Dex didn’t say anything. He was waiting. I could be stubborn and refuse. From the rigidness of his stance, I knew he was preparing for that.
I stepped toward the door and quickly inserted the key and turned the lock. I looked behind me at Dex, not the camera, which I could see was recording again.
“Nothing will happen to you,” he said, sounding certain.
Famous last words.
I turned the latch and pushed open the door. Dex’s light shone inside but revealed nothing except green dust particles floating in the blackness. I couldn’t see any furniture or walls. I couldn’t even see a ceiling; the light just penetrated blankly until it eventually faded off in the distance.
The room was freezing cold, too. The air flowed toward us fast and sharp, and smelled fresh, like the ocean after it rains.
Against all better judgment, I walked three steps into the room and stopped. I had stepped onto something soft and slippery. I peered down at my feet but the light didn’t extend that far.
I looked behind me at Dex.
For a second I thought my eyes had adjusted to the dark because I could kind of make out his silhouette as he remained in the doorway. Then I noticed the light on his camera slowly fading. The red recording light now flashed blue and yellow.
“What’s going on?” I yelled.
He turned the camera around and looked at it, the blue and yellow lights flashing on his face. I could see he was confused, if not scared like I was.
“I have no idea,” he said. He tapped the side of his camera, the noise sounding dull. Unlike the rest of the building there was a distinct lack of echo in this room.
Suddenly the hallway lit up with that brilliant white light. Dex shielded his eyes with his arms and stepped out into the hall, looking up the staircase where the light seemed to be coming from. My eyes burned from the light’s invasive reach. Dex’s body seemed to fade before my eyes. The light was that bright.
“It’s coming from the tower,” I heard him say, quietly and strangely muffled, like I was hearing him from underwater.
Then Dex did the unexplainable and walked out of my range of view and headed in the direction of the stairs and the direction of the light.
“Dex!” I screamed, but the words fell short of my mouth. I ran out of the room after him, my feet landing with a faint splash, as if the floor had become wet within the last few seconds, and burst into the blinding hallway.
I screamed for Dex again, not knowing where to turn. I looked back into the room I had left. It was still black where the light didn’t bleach it.
Then Dex’s voice came from up the staircase sounding so small and so far away. He was yelling, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying; it was just sounds without words.
I had two choices. I could make my way blindly to the left and head back down the stairs and get out of the building. Or I could go up the stairs toward Dex and the horrible light.
I knew what he would do. He would leave me. I decided to do the opposite of that.
I stormed onto the staircase, my feet tripping on the steps as I made my way up, and my arms blindly leaning on to the seeping walls for balance and support. Within seconds, I found myself on the next level but only saw more blinding light. I remembered a desk on this level, something worth exploring if things were relatively normal, but now I could only think about finding Dex and getting us both out of there. I didn’t know how it was possible for a light to cover every inch of shadow and blow out all detail to high heaven. I felt like I was running around on a strip of overexposed film.
I continued up the staircase, yelling for Dex the whole way. I couldn’t hear anything except my own ragged breath and screaming heartbeat. My ears felt like they were clogged with cotton balls, which disoriented me even more.
The top of the staircase led to more stairs, much like those you would find in a castle turret, and I kept going up, up and up. The stairs finally ended. I stepped wildly onto the landing and fell hard onto a cold, wood floor. My elbows caught the brunt of my fall, and I felt the immediate burn of scraped skin and a million splinters.
I slowly pushed myself up and brought my knees under me. Then the light, that horrible alien light, began to weaken. Details and shapes filled my eyes until the light had as much power as your average 150-watt bulb, and I could see exactly where I was.
I immediately wished I was blind again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
With the light now faded to a weak glow, I found myself on the top floor of the tower. The light was actually coming from the huge lighthouse bulb itself, a round satellite dish-type glass bulb perched delicately on top of a tall white wooden base. This was the infamous cursed light that failed to illuminate the shores for passing ships, year after dark year.
The circular room had tall walls that were glass from waist-level up and interspersed by rounded white metal beams.
The rest of the room was empty except for a single chair on the other side of the light. From my position on the ground I could see the feet of a person occupying the chair.
I wished I was staring at the bottoms of Dex’s black Fluevog boots with the swirl pattern at the laces. But this was not the case.
I was staring at a right foot clad in a yellow rubber boot, the very same I had seen in the armoire downstairs. The toes of the boot tapped in slow motion on the floor with a piece of kelp running down it. Motionless, I absorbed the details of the scene while deciding what to do next. I did not want to look up, get up, or move.
But I couldn’t keep lying on the floor either.
I watched the foot rise and fall soundlessly, as the piece of kelp swung subtly from side to side, sticking to the sides of the boots. I knew this wasn’t Dex. This was Old Roddy, the lighthouse keeper. I had no time to figure out whether Old Roddy was a ghost or a real person. Somehow the latter was scarier.
“Aren’t you going to get up?” a metallic, sick voice asked, seemingly from inside my head.
I pushed myself up onto my knees and looked up and around the light fixture.
I took in every detail.
A man sat on a wooden chair that splintered along the armrests. The man wore the same raincoat I had seen downstairs. It was done up halfway and a fuzzy woolen sweater poked its way out up until the neck. The hood covered the man’s head and I couldn’t see his face, though I could make out the white shine of jagged-looking teeth.