Adermoor Cove Part 2: Love Hurts - 8. Chapter 8

Lane sat up in the chair.

He’d dreamed of his father again, only this time his father wasn’t trying to kill him, his mother had killed his father and he’d helped his mother to do it. Help me, Lane, she’d grunted, I can’t do it by myself - he’s too heavy.

And at the age of twelve he helped Nora throw his father down the stairs, and together they watched him tumble down the flight of stairs like a multi-limbed boulder.

Lane had never had this dream before.

Mom, what did you do to me?

He sat up, confused. It took him a moment, as always, to remember where he was. Speaking out loud, he went through the checklist. “I’m in Adermoor Cove, Maine, at the lighthouse my great-aunt whom I just met owns...”

The words died in his mouth as he looked at the bed. The empty bed. Ruffled sheets. Rumpled pillow. But his aunt was gone. He looked around stupidly as if he’d find her standing in the corner but of course she wasn’t there. He opened his mouth to scream for the nurse but then remembered the gun still underneath the bed.

Still be there…please still be there. He got down on his hands and knees. The gun was still there where he’d left it. He exhaled from relief and resisted the urge to kiss the gun’s muzzle.

He went down the stairs and found Nurse Dolores on the sofa, her head propped against the wall, fast asleep; her mouth hung open comically. Lane thought about waking her up but remembered she couldn’t help… not in this situation. Besides she’s not supposed to be sleeping on the fucking job, he thought. But then my idiot ass fell asleep too...

There was no time to search the whole house so he closed his eyes and reached out as she’d taught him to do. The darkness was close by... so close. And now he could smell it, that rotting corpse smell. It was coming from upstairs. He crept back up the stairs, being careful not to make a sound. He reached out once more, for his aunt. He felt a sort of vibrating pulse come from the door at the end of the hallway. The door to the tower. Suddenly, upon looking at it once more, the door was threatening.

Somehow he knew his aunt was up there...with the darkness. This was all too familiar for Lane. It was an exact repeat of what had happened back at the cabin.

He swallowed, gathered his courage, and turned the gun’s safety off. He couldn’t run this time. Wouldn’t run.

Like a cruel illusion, the hallway seemed to grow longer the closer he tried to get to the door. His tongue felt thick; his insides quaked with electricity. As he’d done at The Rainbow Beret, he kept the gun at his side. With trembling fingers, he opened the door and climbed the steps to the top of the tower, where beams of yellow light shone blindingly.

He held his hand up to block the glare. He reached the top.

The beacon was on, the spinning light illuminating the night. His aunt stood facing him, her back to the door leading out to the ramp. A strong night breeze blew her thick salt-and pepper hair from her face. Now she was standing completely upright he could see just how short and thin she was. They were almost exactly the same height. The bony ridges of her chest were visible against her paper-white flesh.

She stared at him with eyes black as night.

The darkness had infected her and given her the strength and immobility to climb up here. She opened her mouth and a low, guttural sound came out from deep inside her throat. Something inside moved, something with legs. A black insect the size of a golf ball crawled out, so fat it stretched Vanessa’s lips on the way out - Lane literally heard her jaw creak. It toppled to the floor of the tower and looked at Lane with its beady black eyes. It let out a single screech, its mandibles clicking intently, and scuttled towards him, legs clicking.

Lane was vaguely aware his stomach was trying to upend itself - he’d always had a phobia with bugs and anything that scuttled or slithered. He feared being bitten and pumped full of poison... and he knew these bugs were more poisonous than anything on Earth. Their poison was a plague that would infect and take over anyone it came in contact with. He stepped back smartly and held the gun with both hands. He zeroed on the insect and pulled the trigger. The first bullet missed, ricocheting off the floor and shattering a window; the second one blew off two if its legs but did not stop the creature’s charge. With another, blood-curdling trill, the insect launched itself through the air, directly at Lane.

It was just inches away when he pulled the trigger a third time. This time the bullet hit its mark, obliterating the insect, scattering its parts across the tower.

A howl - this time human - alerted him to another threat. He tried to aim the gun at his aunt but she was already somehow in front of him, moving with a limber grace that someone in her condition shouldn’t be capable of. Her arm arched through the air in a flash of movement. He felt the gun get knocked from his hands, scatter across the floor and somewhere out of sight.

Vanessa lunged at him, hands balled into fist, teeth flashing. Lane managed to grab her wrists and keep them away from her face, but she fought him with the ferocity of an animal. For a moment it seemed they danced madly around the tower, doing some mad version of the tango. There was no sense in trying to reach through to her: once the darkness took someone over there was nothing left of them in his experience.

With a scream of determination and rage, Lane backed his aunt into one of the glass doors. Glass shattered. She fell to the ground, snarling. Black gunk sprayed from her lips. Lane backed away, searching for the gun. He found it by the beacon and lunged for it. Before he could reach it, he heard his aunt let out another howl of madness. And then she was on his back, legs wrapping around his waist, fingers snagging in his hair, trying to pull it from his scalp. Her nails were literally digging through his scalp.

Where’s my psyche when you need it? he thought distantly, and backed up onto the ramp until his great-aunt slammed into it.

It was a desperate move.

The next thing he knew they were flipping over the ramp, into open air. For a stomach-lurching second he was plummeting towards his death. And then he reached out and grabbed the handle of the ramp with his good hand, almost yanking his arm out of his socket.

Now he hung hundreds of feet in the air with the ocean somewhere between him, and his aunt still clung to him, holding onto his legs. He managed to grab a hold of the ramp with his bad hand - but he couldn’t hold on for long, not with his aunt weighing him down. Already he could feel his fingers starting to slip, gravity trying to pull him down to his death.

Lane looked down at Vanessa. She looked back at him. Her beetle black eyes were full of hate.

“I wish we’d met sooner,” he said and kicked her in the face. Her hands released his legs. Still clinging to the side of the tower, he watched her plummet into darkness. He thought he might’ve heard the sickening thud of her body body hitting something solid but couldn’t be sure with the sounds of the sea and his own pounding heart in his ears.

It took all his strength to pull himself up over the ramp. He looked down at the edge of the cliff, and tried to spot his aunt’s body. She was nowhere in sight.

Somewhere he heard the piercing wails of sirens.

“Shit,” he said. He’d forgotten all about Dolores sleeping on the couch downstairs. Who knew what she might’ve heard or seen.

There was no sense in trying to run, so he went downstairs and stepped out onto the porch just in time to see two cops coming towards him, guns raised. One of the was the sexy one he’d bumped into at The Treasure Cove and then again at The Netted Eel. The other was female.

“Freeze!” she said.

Lane did as he was told. He turned around, got on his knees, and pressed himself down flat onto the porch with his arms folded behind his back. It seemed judgement for all the people he’d killed had caught up with him at last.