MicroHorror

After two nights of parties and with her hangover in full swing Sarah hadn’t noticed that her second Yale lock was unlocked. She always enjoyed returning from the mainland–she was too timid for her cousins’ wild hen do. The lighthouse seemed older than before. The weather was apparently personifying her oncoming doom; the resilient wind rattled the bushes at the base of the tower, wrapping around her heavy mind. The words her cousins said as she left rang in her ears: “Ye cannae be too careful, hen, that escape from the asylum, they say he’ll look for solitude, Aire’s as much solitude as ye can git.”

Sarah flinched from the chill of the empty lighthouse–she was used to the Scottish highlands and she was used to her isolation here, but she wasn’t used to a cold house. Ambling up the long staircases she noticed cracks in the wall and spider webs for the first time. She wasn’t the type to worry herself, yet here she was, apprehensive, scared even. In her mind she blamed the DTs–slow down, girl, you’re too old for those youthful bingers.

The howl of the wind seemed to be making the walls reverberate, like they were fighting against Sarah, inhaling her anxieties. The pounding rain had started to cackle with the exterior of the building like the rasping of a dying lung. She didn’t notice the livery yellow glows in the dark of the shadow. Nor did she notice the dead pansies that had only been picked on Friday.

Once she reached her living quarters on the third floor Sarah went for the main light switch. It was dead. She tried her lamp–dead. Must be a power cut, she thought. Pondering this she blindly clambered to the fuse box on the second floor. The yellow eyes sparkled in anticipation. When the others had told her to be careful she had told them not to worry. Isolation to this extent is never compromised by anything worse than more isolation.

As Sarah flicked the fuses she heard the wurr from the generator start up; the lights came on, and a small figure bolted out from the corner, darting towards the big light upstairs. Frightened at first by the shock of this figure and by the break to her isolation, Sarah stood slack-jawed before chasing after the shadow. “What the hell are ye doing here?” she shouted, bounding up the stairs two at a time as a huge tremor shook the house, a knot of wind thrashing through the flimsy window frames and countless wall cracks.

“What the hell is going on?” Sarah demanded as she neared the top of the stairwell. The yellow eyes looked down on her, but she could tell even from her vantage point that this was just a small undernourished boy.

“Sorry, miss,” said the unusually high-pitched voice. “I was frightened by the storm and ran to find shelter.”

“Why were you hiding?” creaked Sarah as she edged towards the top of the stairs.

“Sorry, miss, I was scared and didn’t know what to do. Please, miss, don’t hurt me.” The boy whispered as a mischievous tint entered his yellow eyes. “Please, miss, I’m so scared, please don’t hurt me, I’m just a little boy.”

“I won’t hurt you. Come here; what’s your name, laddie?” Sarah asked as she reached the landing at the top of the lighthouse. She opened her arms to reassure the boy and share the warmth of a hug.

The boys face contorted into a leering snarl as the darks of his eyes dwindled to nothing, shrinking into the back of his head. “I have no name,” said the boy. “And nor do you, and nor does this place.”

With unhuman strength the boy hurled Sarah’s body over the rotten banister. Her body fell for half a lifetime before splattering onto the cold concrete below.

The lights returned to darkness. The lighthouse, as it always was, became empty, derelict, dead.