The Keeper

A man stands at the base of his lighthouse on Cally Island, staring into the blanket of fog that hovers over the open water. His name is James McColley. With his left hand he rubs the crusted sleep out of his eye, and his right hand tightens its grip around a shovel. It’s a heavy thing, that shovel. Its sturdy wood handle weighs against the man’s weary shoulder. The head is wide and sharpened at its point; the cold steel rings in the his ear, ready to do its work. The shovel is his in the same way that the lighthouse is his; inherited, reluctantly. 

The man limps slowly down the curved stone steps and onto the beach. There is a figure laying in the sand. It is pale and naked. At first glance it looks human in its shape and its softness. If the man didn’t know better, he may have leaned his face in close to hear if it was breathing. He may have placed two fingers against its cold, damp throat and checked for a pulse. Instead the man plants his rubber boots three feet away from its head. He lifts the heavy shovel and lines it up above the figure’s throat. He does not hesitate and he does not close his eyes. He brings the shovel down, hard enough to cut clean through. 

When the lighthouse was first constructed in 1783, Bernard A. McColley was named keeper. Then after 1831 his son, Michael A. McColley, took up the post. In those days vessels of all kinds passed by in the distance; sailors and merchants reaching the furthest point on the map and bringing home riches and fame. There were rumours back then of young sailors being drawn into the water by haunted song. Beautiful and terrible creatures that were half man, half fish, leading whole ships to ruin against shallow rock. Rumours, they were; great folklore to write pub songs and fairytales. Nothing more than legends.

When the man, James McColley, was only a boy, his father had put a rifle in his hands and told him to watch closely. A woman had washed up on the beach, tangled in seaweed and golden hair. Her pale breasts heaved with laboured breaths, and her yellow finned tail thrashed wildly in the sand.

“Is she a mermaid?” the boy had asked in disbelief.

“This ain’t no fairytale, son.” The keeper of the lighthouse took the boy’s arms and helped him line up the gun against the porch railing. “Mermaids, sirens, whatever. Fuckin’ demons are what they are. They come swimmin’ from the depths of Hell. Nothin’ stops them but a bullet in the brains.”

“She don't look like a demon to me.”

“Just watch, son.”

After a few minutes the woman’s thrashing slowed and she fell into a steady rhythm, wiggling gently back and forth on the sand. She screeched in pain as her fish tail separated and morphed into two slim legs. Using her arms, she rose slowly to her knees and then onto her feet. She brushed the tangle of hair away from her face and took a shaky step, and then another, until she was walking confidently down the beach like any other woman in the village. She strode up to the curved stone steps and began making her way up towards the lighthouse. The boy’s finger rested on the rifle’s trigger, and his father’s cold, calloused hands rested over his.

“Keep watching,” the light house keeper whispered in his ear. 

The woman climbed the steps towards them, coming so close that the boy could look into her bulging, black eyes, and he could hear the gnarling of her jagged, rotting teeth. The stench of ocean and death radiated off of her skin as she reached her arms towards him. The boy closed his eyes and screamed as his father crushed his finger against the trigger and the shot cried out. The woman’s body crumpled and she tumbled backwards down the stone steps. A stream of blood began to pool beneath her and trickle into the sand. It was no human blood, it was thick like tar and black, so black, like the deepest, darkest crevasse in the sea. 

No one knows why on that day, March 2nd, 1910, the creatures began to climb out of the water and live among us. Keeping your head down as you walk along the street, it would be easy to pass by one of them without even noticing. Once you look into those soulless black eyes and witness that sharp, crooked smile, you’ll know for sure, but by that time it may be too late. They attack at all times of the day, picking off the smallest children in the school yard to be devoured. The bones of farm dogs and horses found miles from home, shredded and picked clean. James McColley had heard of a man on the mainland who had married one of them. The creature lived in his home for over a year and bore him a daughter, but directly after the birth she snapped the neck of the infant and ate it. The husband ran, but not fast enough. It was the priest that finally shot her dead and pushed her body off of the cliffs and into the waves. 

Now, James McColley, the fifth keeper of the lighthouse, stands on the beach and stares out at the wretched sea. He dips his shovel into the surf, letting the salt water wash away the black-tar blood. For years he used a rifle like his father, but there is only so much ammunition on a small island. He hasn’t seen a boat pass by in over 15 years; for all he knows, Cally Island could be the last living place on Earth. Now the rifle sits on a mantel in his kitchen, with two bullets left resting in its chamber. The man squints his eyes through the low sitting fog at another figure washing up in the distance.

He shakes his head and swings the shovel over his shoulder, pulling his boots out of the vacuum of wet sand.

The body lays face up in the sand. As the man approaches it, he is surprised by the how small it is. He stops a safe distance away and examines the tiny arms and legs. The legs of a human boy. The remains of a tattered shirt clings to the scrawny torso and his hair is short and patchy, as if it was cut roughly with kitchen scissors. The man takes his shovel and prods at the his side. To his surprise the child coughs abruptly and gargles up water, opening his eyes to reveal a startlingly grey-blue. The man drops to his knees with a cry and pulls the child close. 

James McColley has no trouble carrying the boy into the lighthouse and up the 137 spiralling steps to the second floor where the kitchen and bedroom are. He places the boy into his bed and wraps him in blankets. The boy could be no more than twelve. He is weak but alert, his eyes dart nervously around the room. The man holds his tongue, not wanting to overwhelm the boy. He has questions of course, where did the boy come from? What of the mainland? He itches for information but forces himself to give the boy space. He heads to the kitchen to prepare some food. 

“Are you hungry?” the man asks, holding out a tray with a sandwich and an apple. 

The boy shakes his head slowly. 

The man places the tray down on the night stand and smiles. “That’s fine, I’ll just leave this right here for you.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

The boy stares for a moment in the man’s eyes, and then shakes his head again. 

“Can you speak?”

Another shake. The boy squirms in the bed, his eyes are fearful and filling with tears. Slowly, he opens his mouth. It is completely empty. Red gaping holes take the place where his teeth used to be, and a small nub of flesh is left in place of his tongue. The wounds look infected and smells sour and rotten. The man’s stomach turns violently. He places a gentle hand on the boys shoulder. 

“I’m sorry. I won’t make you try to speak.”

The boy closes his mouth and wraps the blankets closer around him. 

An hour later the man comes back with a warm bowl of broth, a pencil and a sketchbook.

“Can you write?” the man asks, holding up the pencil for the boy to see. 

The boy slowly nods his head. 

“Okay, let’s start with you name.” The man opens the sketchbook to the first blank page and places it on the boys lap. “Can you write your name?”

The boy hesitantly takes the pencil and holds it against the paper. His hand trembles as he writes a slow M on the page. He stares at it for a long moment. Just when the man thinks that he will continue the boy drops the pencil and lets the sketchbook slide to the floor. He pulls himself into the covers and and turns away.

That night the man sleeps on a makeshift bed on the floor. His dreams are dark and troubled. He stands on the beach below the lighthouse, with the shovel discarded at his feet. The night is clear and the full moon shines down, casting a dazzling light across the dark water. He hears a sound carried on the wind like a heavenly choir. The voices rise, beautiful and sickeningly sweet; they pull him towards the waves. He walks into the water, no longer in control of his movements. He wades in past his waist, searching intently for the source of the music. The water rolls over his shoulders and he continues to move forward until his head is submerged and he feels something, like two firm hands, tug on his ankles.

He awakes the sound of a gun shot. He sits straight up on the floor and realized that the boy is not in the bed. He stands and rubs his eyes, rushing towards the kitchen. When he reaches the entrance he stops in his tracks. The boy is laying dead, his blood spreading quickly across the kitchen floor. The rifle lays beside him. On every surface of the kitchen and scattered across the floor, are the torn out pages of the man’s sketchbook. On each one of them, the same sentence is written over and over again. 

They are coming. They are coming. They are coming.

The man picks up the bloody rifle and heads to the window, opening its creaky shutters. He chokes down a scream as he stares down at the scene below him. A full moon illuminates the beach as hundreds of creatures crawl out of the ocean, screeching and rolling in the sand until their fish tails divide into human legs. They stumble over each other, all heading to the base of the lighthouse, pushing against each other and pounding against the stone walls. The man hears the wooden front door splinter and give in to the weight. Hundreds of foot steps pour into the lighthouse and begin marching up the spiralling stairs. He grips the rifle in his hands. The single bullet remains.