But despite the fact that we were exchanging flirtatious glances across the fire (at least mine were flirtatious; he probably just had smoke in his eyes), I was miles away from actually doing anything about it. Years of having your appearance poked at tended to make you quite insecure with the opposite sex.
I sighed and looked over at the dark waves crashing on the shore. I knew I was a little bit drunk from the “goonbag” wine but sitting around the fire and drinking with a bunch of teenagers was starting to feel stifling. I wanted to get up and explore. I wanted to check out the lighthouse.
I contemplated asking the twins or Ada and her new boytoy if they wanted to come along but one glance around the fire told me that these youngsters were better off staying close to the house. The last thing Uncle Al needed was a bunch of drunks heading off to the lighthouse in the middle of the night. They’d probably burn the whole thing down.
I got off the log and dusted off my butt. I leaned into Matt, trying not to draw attention to myself, and told him that I was going for a walk and would see them later.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned. I would have loved to ask what he of all people considered stupid but I didn’t. Instead I whispered to him to keep an eye on Ada. Thankfully, it seemed like something he could do.
I walked away from the fire and toward the ocean until the light from the flames was too weak to see by. I took out my iPhone and put it on the flashlight feature. It was a pretty pathetic beam of white light but it helped me make my way down the beach and over pieces of rogue driftwood. The lighthouse was visible in the wavering moonlight, waiting for me.
CHAPTER THREE
The walk there ended up being a lot more difficult than I thought. Because the lighthouse was situated on the top of a small cliff, it meant a near vertical climb on my hands and knees. I tried holding my iPhone in my mouth for a while until I decided I was better off letting my eyes adjust to the dark and have my night vision kick in.
With my hands soaking up the sea-sprayed grass and coarse dirt, I slowly found my way to the crest. On the other side, the cliff tapered off gently back into rolling dunes, and behind the lighthouse weedy ground led into a dark forest. It was windier up here and noisier as the waves crashed against the large rocks and boulders. Every once in a while the wind would catch the spray and shower it in my face.
The dark outline of the lighthouse building loomed in front of me. It was enough to make me pause and think for a second.
I knew I could be very impulsive in certain situations, even to the point where I would find myself acting while my brain was screaming for me not to. This was one of those situations. I was cold, the weather was turning for the worse, I had a few glasses of wine in me, it was late, no one knew where I was, and yet my main concern was trying to get into a creepy old lighthouse. As much as the reckless side of me felt compelled to explore it, the rational side knew it was probably the stupidest idea imaginable, even more so because I had this overall feeling of dread about the place.
I know I said earlier that it felt like it was waiting for me and that still held true. Whether it was destiny disguised as dread I didn’t know, but I truly wished that the small, responsible (dare I say “adult”), part of my brain would overpower me and steer me back to Uncle Al’s house.
But instead I decided to take out my camera. I put the strap around my neck and then switched on the video mode. A jarring, blue-white light lit up the ground in front of me. I took a deep breath and aimed the camera at the lighthouse. I flicked the recording switch on; might as well have something to show for my little exploration.
The lighthouse was only a few yards in front of me, bathed in the eerie electronic glow. The windows, for the most part, were all boarded up, though occasionally there was an unobstructed pane, broken or cracked from the corner. The building was impossibly immense up close, evoking a feeling of density. The white paint was peeling, with black glistening patches plaguing its pebbly form. It was probably mildew; in the dark it reminded me of bloodstains. I shivered at that thought and steadied the camera.
I raised it to the second story and scanned alongside it to the tower. The tip was concealed as the camera light was now only catching the fat strands of thick, incoming fog.
I started toward the front of the lighthouse where a few hardy windblown shrubs converged from the cliff’s flanks. I inspected the building. I wanted to get inside but had no clue how. The rusty door was locked shut with a lock I surely couldn’t pick.
“This is stupid,” I said out loud to myself. The sound of my own voice was comforting. It was stupid. I should have turned back.
Instead, I kept walking around. I walked as close to the building as possible, not trusting the surrounding ground, and then came around front. It looked like the cliff’s edge was a safe enough distance from the foundation, maybe fifteen feet. There were a few shrubs planted at the base of the tower and above them was a large round window. A single board had been placed across it. Above the ground floor window was another window, then another, and then another, until they reached the watchtower top.
I walked up to the window and saw that the board had been fastened from the inside. I knew what I had to do and was really excited I could do it.
I felt the board, testing its strength. It felt like it would fall off without much effort, which suited me perfectly.
“We have come to our first obstacle, a boarded window,” I said to the camera, turning it around so that it was filming my face, probably on extreme close-up. “However, this proves to be no challenge to Perry Palomino.”
I put the camera down on the ground, stacking it up against a rock so that it was filming me and stepped back. Feeling strength in my leg’s position and my body’s stance, I sprung forward, my body tilting at the exact angle, my arm extending until my palm met the board with precision. With a satisfying give, it flew off its anchors and into the back of the building, landing on the floor inside with an echoing clatter.
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.