Shadows Beneath the Lighthouse
Marcus sat at the small wooden desk in the lantern room, the lighthouse beam sweeping across the sea in a steady rhythm. He flipped through the journal of the previous keeper, his eyes lingering on passages that grew increasingly erratic—pages filled with desperate scrawls about shadows that moved, whispers that had no voice.
“They watch, but do not see,” read one entry. Another had a rough sketch of a shadow with limbs like branches, stretching far beyond what seemed natural. Marcus turned the page, only to find the next ripped out, leaving behind a jagged edge and dried spots that looked suspiciously like blood.
A shiver ran through him, but he shook it off. Just stories, he told himself. Stories from a mind that cracked under the isolation. He turned back to the beam, watching it sweep across the dark waters, when he caught a glimpse of movement below—something shifting among the rocks near the water’s edge.
He grabbed his flashlight and hurried down the spiral staircase, its metal frame clanging underfoot. As he reached the rocky shore, the beam from his flashlight swept over the waves, revealing nothing but the wind-driven spray. But then he saw it—a shadow slipping beneath the water’s surface, too large and too dark to belong to any animal he knew.
His breath caught, a memory flashing in his mind: a shadow that had stretched across the lantern room glass on a night not long after he first arrived. He stepped closer to the water’s edge, his pulse quickening as a voice—no more than a breath—seemed to rise from the crashing waves.
“You’re not alone...”
Marcus staggered back, his flashlight tumbling from his grip and plunging into the water. He stared into the darkness where the shadow had disappeared, and for the first time since arriving, a deep sense of dread settled in his gut. He was not sure if he had come to the lighthouse to keep the darkness at bay or if the darkness had been waiting for him all along.
The minutes dragged on as he stood on the rocky shore, his breath visible in the cold night air. He forced himself to turn back toward the lighthouse, its steady beam offering a fragile sense of security against the vast, hungry dark. His steps were heavy on the metal stairs as he climbed back up, the sound echoing through the narrow shaft, amplifying the isolation that pressed in around him.
He paused midway, catching his breath, and glanced out of one of the narrow windows that dotted the stairwell. Below, the ocean churned in a restless dance, the waves smashing against the jagged rocks that surrounded the lighthouse. For a moment, he thought he saw a figure standing on the rocks—tall, unmoving, its form blurred by the mist that rose from the sea. He blinked and looked again, but the shape had vanished, leaving only the dark, shifting water.
He hurried the rest of the way up, his pulse racing, and shut the lantern room door behind him with a metallic clang. The beam swept over the ocean, its steady rhythm a small comfort against the uncertainty that clung to the corners of his mind. He returned to the desk, the journal still open to the page with the ominous scribbles, and ran his fingers over the rough sketch of the shadow. He turned to the next page, hoping to find some explanation, but it was missing—ripped out, the jagged edges still flecked with those mysterious, rusty stains.
Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out his old navy-issued lighter, flicking it open to cast a small flame over the page. The light danced over the scrawled words, casting his own shadow against the walls of the lantern room. It stretched unnaturally long, twisting up the curved glass like the limbs in the journal’s drawing. He snapped the lighter shut, plunging the room back into darkness, the lighthouse beam providing the only light.
He tried to reason with himself. It had to be the isolation playing tricks on him. The wind, the waves, the way the light distorted everything around him—it all added up to a mind searching for patterns, filling the gaps with ghost stories. He glanced down at the journal again, catching a snippet from one of the last entries:
“It is in the light they hide, not the dark. But even the light can be fooled.”
A chill crawled up his spine, and Marcus snapped the journal shut. He moved to the window, staring out at the vast black sea. The lighthouse beam swept past again, briefly illuminating the rocks below. And there—just for a heartbeat—he thought he saw a face in the waves, pale and expressionless, staring back at him.
He stumbled away from the window, knocking into the desk and sending a stack of papers fluttering to the ground. He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to steady his breathing. He knew he needed to write this down, to document whatever was happening. But as he reached for a pen, his hands shook too much to hold it steady.
Marcus paced the lantern room, his thoughts spiraling. He had been at this post for only a few weeks—long enough to know the rhythms of the tides, the routine of the nightly watch. But now, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had become part of a different rhythm, one that pulsed beneath the surface of the ocean, beneath the layers of time that clung to this place.
The wind outside rose to a howl, the lighthouse beam cutting through the dark like a blade. Marcus clutched the edge of the desk, his knuckles white, listening to the strange quiet that seemed to follow each sweep of the beam. Then, faint and almost indistinguishable, he heard it—scraping, somewhere below, like something dragging against the stone.
He forced himself to move toward the stairs, the sound growing louder with each step downward. His footfalls echoed in the tight space, mingling with the soft, rhythmic tapping that seemed to come from the very walls themselves. He paused at the bottom, where the door to the lower storage room stood slightly ajar, the shadows inside deeper than the night beyond.
He hesitated, then nudged the door open with the toe of his boot, revealing the dark, empty room. He swept his hand along the wall until he found the light switch, and the bulb flickered to life, casting a weak yellow glow over the dusty shelves and the tools stacked against the wall. But the corner remained in shadow, darker than it should have been, like a black stain against the gray stone.
He took a cautious step forward, his breath fogging in the chill air. The shadows seemed to pulse, as if alive with their own breath. He reached out with a shaking hand, the tips of his fingers brushing the edge of the darkness—and then it moved, pulling away like a living thing, retreating into the deeper shadows of the room.
Marcus stumbled back, his head spinning. He slammed the storage room door shut, locking it with a trembling hand. He backed up against the wall, pressing his palms flat against the cold stone, trying to steady the frantic rhythm of his heart. Whatever it was—whatever they were—he knew now that they were more than shadows. They had a purpose, a presence that reached beyond the light.
He retreated back up the stairs, each step feeling like it took him further away from the safety of the light, even as he moved closer to the lantern room. By the time he reached the top, his hands were shaking so badly he could barely grip the railing. He cast a final glance down the dark spiral of the stairwell, half-expecting to see something climbing up behind him—something dark and shadowy, with limbs that bent the wrong way.
The door to the lantern room swung open, and Marcus fell inside, slamming it shut behind him. He leaned against it, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the taste of salt heavy on his tongue. He was alone in the light, but he knew, deep down, that the darkness outside was waiting. It was patient, relentless, and no beam of light would keep it at bay forever.
He turned back to the desk, to the open journal, the words blurring under his exhausted gaze. He picked up the pen, forcing his hand to steady, and began to write, his voice a whisper in the silence as he spoke the words aloud to himself:
“The shadows move. They hide in the light, and I think they are watching me. I am not alone here—not anymore.”
He pressed the pen down harder, the ink bleeding into the paper, but he couldn’t stop writing, couldn’t stop the thoughts from pouring out. And outside, the sea raged on, carrying with it the echoes of a whisper that rose from the waves, calling his name like a forgotten song.
-End-
© 2024 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.