I turned and looked at the camera and mouthed my best out-of-synch Bruce Lee impression, “Movement number four: Dragon seeks path.”
Then, feeling like an idiot, I ran over to and scooped it up. I knew right then I would be showing this video to no one. Even though the objective was reached, my hand was stinging because I didn’t do everything correctly (it had been a year since my last lesson) and I was conscious of how big of a dork I was.
I put the camera back around my neck and poked my head inside. A wall of musty odor hit me, tickling my lungs into a coughing fit. I aimed the light into the darkness and saw the broken boards on the ground in an empty, circular room. A dripping noise came from the corner and there was an overall feeling of dampness. Near the back of the room there was a doorway but no door hung from its bare hinges. I could barely make out what was beyond that; it looked like it was the staircase that would lead to the top of the tower.
There was something strange about this place, something vaguely familiar. I racked my brain for any concrete recognition but came up short.
There was a heavy stillness to the air inside despite the wind that was now freely entering from the coast. It was strangely compelling and very otherworldly.
I put my hands on the windowsill and pulled myself up, my under-used pecs aching from my own weight. I swung my legs around clumsily and hopped down. My feet landed in a small puddle, spraying cold water onto my leggings. I immediately regretted coming inside.
The air here was thick. My breaths were coming in slower and sluggish, like fluid was entering my lungs. The pressure inside was different too, causing my ears to throb.
I shone the camera around me in a circle but the air swallowed up the light as if it was hungry. That analogy made me shiver. It was cold, too, and I hated the way the blackness felt behind my back, like a net waiting to drop. At that thought I spun around. No one was there, of course.
My chest thumped wildly. I breathed out slowly, deeply, and tried to steady my heart. I felt like I just had to come to this place, and now that I was here, reality was sinking in. This really was not the best idea, was it?
I pointed the camera around the room one more time, trying to take in the morbid scenery. I was about to say something witty about my soon-to-be cowardly exit when I heard a THUMP from above me.
My heart literally froze. My breath stopped with it.
I listened hard, as if I strained enough I would sprout super ears.
Another THUMP from upstairs. It came from the room right above my head. The urge to vomit traveled up my body, from my toes to my lips. It increased as the thumps followed a footstep pattern, as if someone was walking across the room and to the hallway.
My first thought wasn’t that it was a ghost or anything creepy like that, but something worse, something that could actually hurt you like a meth-addicted hobo or a rapist who used this lighthouse as his hideout. Or his rape palace.
I looked behind me at the window I came in through. No doubt the person, or thing, must have heard me break in, must have heard my lame ramblings to the camera. They knew I was here. The only choice I had was to go. But could I get to the window before I was caught?
With the footsteps continuing quietly above me, as if they knew I was listening, I carefully slinked my way back to the window.
I reached for the edge of it with my hand when an ominous shadow passed outside. It happened so quickly that I didn’t see what it was but it was human enough that I ducked and flattened myself against the wall.
I was fucked and I knew it. I had stupidly wandered into some epic rape palace run by meth-addicted hobos and bald men with beards who recently escaped nearby jails and had taken over this place for their torture sessions with hapless young women they found exploring the coast. Even worse, I was going to be the hapless woman who decided to infiltrate their headquarters.
In most movies, the heroine would poke her head over the windowsill to get a better glimpse of what was going on outside, but I knew if I did that, I’d be spotted right away.
So, despite the fact that the window represented freedom and a way out of this hell hole, I slowly moved away from it and scooted along the wall. The light from the camera danced around the room and I immediately knew that I was begging to be found. I switched it off with a click and was quickly engulfed in total darkness.
Of course, I knew that by turning off the light I was still letting people know where I was, but at least in the dark I could hide if I needed to. I started fishing around in my pockets to see if I had any weapons. I didn’t. I didn’t even have sharp nails. I hoped my karate “skills” worked well on adrenaline.
While trying to keep the urge to pass out at bay, I decided the best thing for me to do was to go out into the hallway. I was trapped in the dank room anyway, and I wasn’t brave enough to go through the only exit. The footsteps from up above had stopped, although I wasn’t sure when, and the hallway probably had another door or more windows to escape out of.
I inched as silently as possible to the doorframe and poked my head out into the hall. Naturally I couldn’t see anything except murky blackness, but after a while my eyes adjusted.
The air in the hallway felt even heavier than it had in the room and smelled like rotten kelp. I squinted at the staircase at the end of the short hall. Lo and behold, there were inky trails of seaweed in the hallway, leading up the stairs. It was like some kelp monster had gone up there, leaving its entrails behind.
Stop it! I yelled inside my head. I was freaking myself out even more and it needed to cease before my brain spiraled out of control. Only bad things could come of that. My main objective had to be getting out of there swiftly and safely and without losing my mind.
I took my eyes off the kelp and looked around the hallway. Dots of green and black danced before my eyes, making it hard for me to focus, but I eventually spotted what seemed to be a door into another part of the lighthouse.
I crept across the hallway, which was thankfully only a foot or two, and reached the door. My hands fumbled and hit the handle loudly. I winced and froze, keeping my breath quiet. When I didn’t hear anything after a few terrifying seconds, I carefully turned it and pulled. It barely moved.
I brought my hands up along the frame and came across a lock. I jiggled it silently but to no avail. Unless I magically had a lockcutter in my leggings, this door was not the way out tonight.
I felt tears of frustration rushing to my eyes and blinked quickly to keep them contained. I took my hand off the lock and took in a very deep breath, the type I was taught to use to ward off panic attacks. All my previous panic attacks seemed pretty frivolous compared to this. Impending death (or worse) was an honest-to-God real reason to panic.
I had only one option left: Go back into the room and climb out of the window as quickly as possible. Maybe if I did it fast enough, I could leap out into the night without being noticed, and even if I was noticed maybe my stubby little legs and screaming skills would be enough to keep any potential murderers at bay.
I steadied myself and closed my eyes. Pins and needles were literally flowing along my veins, revving my engines.
I turned on a dime and sprinted towards the room across from me.
BAM!
I ran right into someone.
Or something.
“Auuuggh!” I screamed.
I had hit them hard, my jaw clattering against my teeth as I flew backwards. There was a rattle, a metallic smashing sound. My head rocked against the cold ground. I didn’t even give myself time to register the pain.
I leaped to my feet and tried to run again, only to have my foot slip on a slimy patch and send my leg flying forward so that I was airborne once more.
This time I hit the ground even harder and immediately felt my body go limp. The blackness behind my eyes started spinning and my lids closed briefly. Thoughts of danger and harm seemed very far away and the room started to vibrate and hum, almost lulling me to sleep. Sleep seemed like a nice idea.
But sleep was not to be had. A bright light flashed in my face, interrupting the comforting haze behind my eyelids. I squinted uncomfortably and felt a pair of hands on my head. One felt gingerly along my neck, another brushed against my forehead.
Rapists are gentle these days, I thought absently, and raised my arm up against the light that bore down on me so relentlessly.
“Don’t move,” a gruff voice said from out of the darkness. It sounded vaguely panicked and a million miles away.
I obeyed and dropped my hand. Thankfully, the light moved off of my face and I was aware of something being placed on the ground beside me.
I felt hands on my face again. They were shaking slightly. I tried to open my eyes wider as more coherent thoughts entered my flustered head. The panic began to rise instinctively throughout my body. It intensified when I saw the outline of a man’s face above me. I tried to jerk away, but the man had one hand down on my shoulder pressing me down.
“Seriously, you might be really hurt. Please don’t move.”
I couldn’t see the guy’s face save for the outline, so I leaned back and closed my eyes and did an internal once over of my body. The back of my head throbbed with a dull ache, but other than that, the rest of me felt OK. From my fingers to my toes, my muscles were awake and primed and ready to be used.
“I’m OK,” I managed to say. I opened my eyes and tried to make eye contact with the faceless figure, aiming to where his eyes ought to be.
He took his hands off of me and backed off slightly. I slowly eased myself up and leaned forward. My head was definitely aching and the room was still spinning in the murky dark, but I didn’t feel like I had done any major damage.
Of course, that meant I didn’t have to worry about that and could instead focus on this potential rapist in the lighthouse.
I could see a lot better once my night vision kicked in. The man was crouched a foot or two away from me. I could only make out his outline, which was backlit by the moon coming through the window and from a light source on the floor. Upon further inspection it seemed to be coming from a video camera. Not like mine but like the ones filmmakers use. That tiny bit of information calmed my heart down by a few beats. Most lustful meth addicts didn’t have high-quality digital cameras.
“I’m so sorry,” the man said. I tried to read his voice but other than its deep, rough quality like his throat was lined with gravel, I had nothing. It was strangely comforting, though.
“I was upstairs,” he continued, “and I heard this crazy clatter from down here, and I thought maybe it was the cops or something. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I thought I could get out the way I came in, but I saw you there, and then I saw the window probably at the same time you saw the window, and I’m…I’m so sorry if…well, you’re obviously OK.”
I knew there were many things wrong with that incredibly long sentence but I didn’t have the brains to dissect it. The best I could do was:
“Who are you?”
The man didn’t say anything. His silhouette started to rock back and forth slightly.
“That depends on who you are,” he said simply.
Hell, even I didn’t know who I was right now. I shook my head.
“I asked you first.”
He sighed and reached back into his pocket. He fished out a business card and handed it to me. He picked up his camera and shone it on the black paper.