Chapter 40 - The Northern Lighthouse
The northern lighthouse stood like a blackened finger against the violet twilight sky. Built on a jagged tooth of granite two miles north of Port Haven, it had been automated in the late 1960s and abandoned completely by the Coast Guard fifteen years ago. Now, surrounded by grinding sheets of white pack ice that groaned like dying beasts under the force of the lake swells, it looked like a tomb.
I didn't take Thomas. The sheriff had the black sedans watched by every deputy in the county, and bringing a police convoy would have tipped off whoever was orchestrating the operation from Geneva.
Instead, it was just me, David, and Grace. Grace refused to stay behind. *"If they're planning on using me to make you surrender, Benny,"* she had said in the kitchen with eyes like flint, *"I'm going to be looking down the barrel of my own rifle when they try."*
We reached the base of the lighthouse via the old service causeway, our boots crunching over salt-crusted rocks and frozen spray. The wind here was a physical force, howling at forty knots, tearing the warmth from our skin.
The heavy steel door at the base of the lighthouse had been torched open. The fresh blue scorch marks on the rusted jamb were still dusted with unoxidized iron powder.
Inside, the spiraling stairwell echoed with the hum of a portable diesel generator. Thick black rubber cables snaked across the stone floor, disappearing down a narrow, rectangular trapdoor that led into the granite bedrock below sea level.
David drew a heavy crowbar from his belt. Grace leveled our grandfather’s old Winchester hunting rifle, her finger resting along the trigger guard.
"Watch the stairs above," I instructed softly. "If anyone comes down from the lantern room, you fire once into the ceiling. David and I are going into the sub-chamber."
"Benny," Grace said, catching my arm. Her grip was iron-tight, the softness of the girl who once let our father dictate her life completely gone. "Don't let them take what Elias died to keep safe. Whatever is down there, it belongs to this town, not to them."
May you like
I nodded, clicked on my tactical light, and swung my legs into the dark mouth of the lower hatch.
***
