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.