The tourists had left by then, leaving Charlie Copper to finish his day’s chores in peace.  They were summer people mostly and, apart from a few die-hard fanatics, were harmless in their visits to the oldest lighthouse in Connecticut’s history.  Mary, the gift shop girl, and Ted, the tour guide and resident aficionado on all things lighthouse had gone home an hour before, leaving Charlie to close up shop on his own.

In less than two hours, four people would be dead in Charlie’s living room.

He was beginning to dread the end of the day because that was when he would have to ascend the 232 stairs of the lighthouse tower and clean the windows in the lantern room.  It was only a little dread; small and intangible.  Nothing about that had bothered him before.  He had, after all, been doing this job for twenty-five years.  It was silly to dread something you’d been doing for a quarter century.  Charlie certainly thought so.  Which is usually why he had ignored this feeling for almost four months.  It’s why he never once let on to Mary or Ted that it bothered him.

The stairs were not the problem.  The spiral stone staircase was narrow and minimally carpeted in coarse fabric similar to a car mat.  It may have made him a little claustrophobic when he first started, having to walk up and around with no one within earshot if he should trip and break his leg on stairs that were really no more than concrete covered with sandpaper.  At forty-eight years old it wasn’t even the length of the climb that bothered him.  He was not winded when he arrived at the top nor was his heart rate even slightly elevated.

It was at the top, when he came to the circular room, when the minor dread turned to resignation of his fate.

The lantern room was actually a series of circles, one inside the other.  The first was the series of light bulbs.  The ring of eight powerful 200-watt monstrosities was blinding to anyone standing next to it.  Charlie would check each one individually, replacing any burnt out bulbs before moving on to the mirrors.   The mirrors were arranged in a semi-circle and would act as a spotlight would− reflecting and refocusing the light to a beam that would rotate as the mirror turned.  It was called a Fresnel lens.  Why this old lighthouse had not switched to newer technology (there really is no new technology in the field of lighthouse engineering) Charlie did not know.  This was a goldmine to the lighthouse aficionados who visited here because this was one of the only working lighthouse in the country that still used a Fresnel lens instead of a focused strobe.

Cleaning the mirrors was not a problem either; a little Windex and a rag and they would be spotless.

It was the actual window cleaning that was beginning to be a real fancy hassle, jeopardizing Charlie Copper’s love of what was once his favorite chore.  The windows were on every side of the circular room and it took him about an hour to wipe them all down.  He would be armed with his trusty Windex and a small stepladder kept by the chest that housed the other supplies.  The problem came, started really about a year ago to be honest, because Charlie was beginning to develop a little rheumatoid arthritis in his shoulders.  And standing on a stepladder, arms reaching high, trying to clean glass nearly eight feet tall, well, Charlie was no young man anymore.  Sometimes the pain in his shoulders would get so bad he couldn’t lift his elbow out while he brushed his teeth later that night.   He’d just stand there, elbow touching his ribs brushing his teeth like a soldier standing at attention.   Sometimes what used to take him forty-five minutes, was now taking him an hour and a half.   Sometimes he really fucking hated this part of the job.

It had once been his favorite part.  God’s honest truth.  He got to watch the sun set just behind the town of White Falls.  More specifically, watching it descend behind the roof of the white-washed chapel of First United Methodist, easily the tallest building in a town that boasted eleven hundred people in the tourist off season.  The brilliant reds and yellows, the crisp ambers, then the wispy violets came and darkened, darker deep blue came next as the sun nestled down just beyond the curve of the earth and final night came upon the town.  It was lovely.  It made Charlie feel special, like he was the only one privileged with such a view.

Then that Charlie would throw the switches, turning on all the lights and pull the lever at the base of the mirror system to start the machinery that rotated the light in a focused beam around and around.

It was a good job.  As good a job as Charlie could get considering he dropped out of high school and college was just not an option at the time.  With twenty-five years seniority as lighthouse superintendant  he still only made ten-dollars an hour.   Not a bad take considering he started at three-fifty an hour and had been living rent-free in the five-room guesthouse since 1989.  The lighthouse itself received a pension of three thousand dollars from The Connecticut Historical Committee for yearly repairs and maintenance, some of which went to the guests house.   He drove a 1994 GMC Jimmy and put maybe ten miles a week in it buying groceries or going to Scooter’s Pub and Grill in White Falls twice a week.

Today, however, he was particularly dreading cleaning those damned windows.  His shoulders were already aching and he hadn’t even begun to climb the stairs.  He was dusting the display cases in the museum.  They were the kind found in every small town’s museum.  The ones with cheesy black and white photos of some obscure town’s founding fathers or of the lighthouse while under construction.   One covered a scale model of the lighthouse with attached buildings.  Another showed authentic rusted iron doohickeys from the original inner workings of the machinery when it was constructed in 1849.  There were newspaper clippings from 1924 in which the article talked about the heroic former lighthouse superintendent who, elected as mayor, shut down the three speak-easies that “polluted the town with moral indecency”.   Wall photos of the Sharp’s Point lighthouse from different angles.  A local artist’s rendition of it in watercolors.  Originals sold for $49.95 and copies for $9.95.   Nothing in the museum concealed for a second that this was just another small town’s tourist trap, a monument that was more for the town’s sake than anything else.  He briefly dusted the shelf that held the ceramic models of the lighthouse, no one ever bought the fucking things, so it was important it didn’t look that way.

He put away the feather duster and briefly vacuumed the floor.  Not much traffic today so that chore could be skirted a little.  When done, he walked outside to the lighthouse tower.  That sense that this was going to be a sore and agonizing night hung over his head like a cartoon rain cloud.

He was about to go inside when a truck pulled into the small lot.  Charlie’s face soured for a moment because it was probably Mary being forgetful, having left her purse or her glasses, or even her stupid peach ChapStick in the shop some where’s.  God knew it happened before.  But that thought passed because whatever business came in that truck meant he could avoid the lantern house for that much longer.  In fact, if this meant his last chore could be avoided a little longer, Charlie would be gratefulto Mary and her forgetfulness.

It was a pick-up.  One of those older Chevys with four doors and all the trimmings.  It had shiny custom wheels and a vanity plate that read: MYTRCK right between where it said in smaller lettering, “Connecticut” and “The Constitution State.”

The truck could only have belonged to one person and he stepped out of the cab in the same dusty boots he always wore.

Billy Dunn looked haggard.  Looked bad considering he was star athlete of White Falls High.   The kid was seventeen, played football, baseball, wrestling, and did cross-country and found time to be a pretty decent student.  If anyone was going to escape this small town via scholarship it was going to be Billy Dunn.  Also known lovingly as Dunn is Done.  A nickname acquired due to athletic prowess and the fact that he single handedly took White Falls High to division one in wrestling the year before.  Billy was a good kid, Charlie thought, not overly bright (he sank every dollar he made into “pimping his ride” or what Charlie thought as putting lipstick on a pig) but overall he was a hard worker and his heart seemed to be in the right place.

Thing was, and this bothered Charlie, Billy Dunn looked fucking wrecked.  It was liked he’d aged ten years since Charlie saw him pick up Mary from work the week before.

Billy saw Charlie and said something that, all things being equal, would put an end to ay normalcy Charlie knew.

“I got Mary, some asshole bit her.”

“Huh?” was all Charlie could come up with.

“She doesn’t want to go to the clinic and the hospital is too far.”  Billy was talking rapidly, not really talking to Charlie as talking at him.

“Did you talk to the sheriff?”  was Charlie’s first question.  He was referring to Will Avery, the local lawman.

“I just got a fucking busy signal.”

“Who bit her?”  Charlie was walking closer to the truck and realized that, despite his feeling that Billy was pulling his leg (as some of the younger crowd tried to do time to time), Billy looked scared shitless.

“That alki Ben Hill, that’s who.  He came out of Scooter’s all silent and shit, stood still as can be on the corner, like he fell asleep standing, when we walked by . . . he lunged at us.  We were just going to get ice cream.  He tackled us both and−”

“Bit her?”

“Yeah.”

Ben Hill was a notorious drunk.  Every town has at least one and White Fall was no different.  Last year he had smashed his car into the fire hydrant on the corner of Polk and Marsh.  He had to do three months of community service for that little stunt and had his license suspended.  He stayed sober for maybe two weeks but then hit the bottle stronger than ever.  Never met a fifth of Beam he didn’t fall in love with, Charlie thought.

“Get her inside. I got a first aid kit ’round here somewhere.” Charlie said.

“She said you’d help her.  Her parents don’t have any insurance and with hospital visits being so steep . . .”

“I get it Billy,” Charlie put a hand up, cutting him off.  “We should get her inside.”

Billy went around the side of the pick-up, opened the door and that was when Charlie got his first look at Mary the gift shop girl.  She was pale.  Her eyes were open but flickered back and forth like she really didn’t know where she was.  She seemed drugged or in the grip of a fever dream.  Her blouse was stained red but in such a way that Charlie couldn’t immediately tell where the wound was.  And Charlie thought Billy looked wrecked . . . compared to Mary he looked like a Greek god.  Charlie hesitated for a moment because this girl couldn’t be the same Mary who’d left here only two hours ago.  Could she?

“Christ, Billy, she needs a doctor.”

“I know, I know.” Billy whispered.  “She kept saying to take her to you ’cause you’d know what to do.”

Charlie Copper was touch by that sentiment.  They’d talked, sure.  But he didn’t think he of all people would make such an impression on the girl.

He grabbed her arm, her skin was warm, almost hot to the touch, but very pale, and he and Billy half-carried her inside the keeper’s house where he lived.

“Set her on the couch.” Charlie said.

They got her situated and Charlie grabbed the first -aid kit from the hall closet.

“Where’d she get bit?” He asked, opening a small bottle of peroxide.

“He got her on the shoulder.  Here.” Billy pointed to a bloody patch of blouse next to her collar bone.  He added, “I knocked his fucking block off too.  Square in the jaw.  Asshole was so tanked he didn’t even feel it.  Tried to bite me too.”

“Didn’t get you?”

“Naw, we beat feet after that.  I didn’t want to scrap with a crazy drunk.  He might have pulled a knife or something.”

“Good thinking.”  Yep, Billy was a good kid.  Brighter than he looked anyway.

Charlie knelt on the floor next to the couch and slowly peeled away the blouse covering her shoulder to see the damage.

“Man, this is nasty.” he said to Billy.

Her wound, the bite mark, was swollen but looked like it had stopped bleeding.  No flesh was missing, teeth marks formed a jagged ring in the center of her trapezius.  It wasn’t a very deep wound but judging from her bloody clothes it had bleed in torrents.

“Ben Hill did this?” Charlie said incredulously.

“Yeah, no shit, right?”

“No shit.”  Charlie agreed.

The wound was oozing a bit of pus.  Charlie wasn’t an expert but nevertheless knew a wound, even if it was a bite, wouldn’t puss like this until long after the initial injury.  It meant infection and days without care.

“I don’t feel so hot.” Mary said.  Her eyes were milky yellow and didn’t seem to be able to focus.

“Hey,” Charlie said gently.  “It’s me, Charlie, you’re at my place.  I’m gonna take care of you now.”

“Hi Charlie.” She said his name dreamily like she was just awakening. “Fuckin’ tourist season, right?”

“Yeah, fuckin’ tourist season.”

Her eyes unfocused and closed.

He took this opportunity to pour some peroxide on the wound and then some anti-bacterial ointment.  He covered it all with a sheet of gauze and first-aid tape.  She barely made a sound through the entire ordeal.

“She needs a doctor.”  Charlie said for the second time.  “That looked bad.”

“Yeah, I know.  But I got Doc Garret’s answering machine too.  I’ve been freaking for the past hour; don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

“Yeah, I get it.  Did you call her parents?”

Billy looked at him for a moment.  A realization crossed his face and Charlie knew, no, Billy never even considered calling Mary Davis’ parents.

“Naw, I guess not.”

“Okay,” Charlie sighed, he pulled her phone out of her jeans’ pocket and spent a few moments navigating a strange cell phone before finding the listing labeled ‘Home’.  He let it ring.

And ring.

The phone on the other end seemed to pick up.  But all Charlie could hear was a scratching noise that sounded far away.  It sent a chill up his spine.  He couldn’t place it.

“Hello?” He asked.  “Anyone there?”

The scratching sound continued and Charlie’s face twisted in puzzlement when a brief but clear moan came from the other side.  It was a raspy, grunting sound but Charlie thought it had to be human.  Had to be.  If not then what on earth could it be?

He pulled the phone away from his ear suddenly as if a spider had just crawled out of it and tickled his ear.  He hit ‘End Call’.

“No one there.” He said.  It felt like a lie.

“Shit,” Billy replied.  “What the hell is going on?”

“You think I know?”  Charlie snorted.

Mary still asleep on the couch.  Her eyes were closed and while she groaned every now and then, neither Charlie nor Billy tried to wake her.

Light suddenly peered through the front window.  Headlights.  Another car pulled into the lot.

Charlie stood up and went outside.  Billy followed close behind.

The new car was a burnt sienna Volvo station wagon.  Charlie recognized it at once.

Ted, the tour guide of the lighthouse, stepped out of the driver’s side.  There were others in the Volvo but Charlie couldn’t see them.

“Charlie!”  He exclaimed.  “Did you get attacked?”

“No, I−”

“Don’t come any closer!”  Ted yelled as Charlie took a step toward him.  Charlie realized a gun was in Ted’s hand.

“Wow.”  Charlie put both his arms up like a cowboy reaching for the sky, his arthritis screamed at him.  A harsh fire rolled up his shoulders.  He winced to keep from crying out.

“What the hell, Ted?”

Ted had leveled a mean-looking revolver at him.

“Did anyone bite you?”  Ted demanded.

“No.” What? “Nobody bit me.  Don’t be an asshole.  Put the gun down.”

“How about you, son?” Ted turned the gun to Billy.

“No sir.” Billy hands were also raised like this was a stick-up.

Ted cautiously lowered the gun.  He whispered something to the passengers in his car and two other doors opened.  Charlie recognized Ted’s wife, Clara as she stepped out.  Their son, fourteen year old Howie, got out too.

They all looked terrified.

Charlie may not have finished high school but that didn’t mean he was a stupid man.  A dawning began in his mind, dots began to be connected and a bigger picture started forming.  Mary had been bit by the town drunk.  That was number one.  Ted here immediately asked (demanded at gunpoint really) if Charlie had been bit.  That was a scarier number two.  How these two events related was unclear to Charlie but he had enough sense to know that it could be very bad if Ted knew that Mary had been bitten.  He just did not know why.

“What’s going on?”  Charlie asked no one in particular.  He looked over Ted and then to Clara.

“Something bad happened.”  Clara said without elaborating.

“Was it Ben Hill?” Billy asked.  “Did he . . . do something?”

“Now son,” Ted’s voice went low.  It went to a dangerous place.  “When did you see Mr. Hill?”

“I saw him . . .uh,”  Billy looked nervously at Charlie, knowing that he might be about to out Mary.  Billy wasn’t stupid either.  Just careless.  “He attacked some people.  I saw him across the street and he lunged at them.  That’s what this is about, right?”

Ted relaxed a little.  He put the gun in his belt and sighed.  “Seems he ain’t the only one.”

“Come inside.”  Charlie said.  “Mary’s here too.  She had left her purse here and I had offered them coffee.  Invite’s still open.”

“We’d love to.” Clara said eagerly before her husband could answer.

Inside Mary was still as they’d left her; propped up on the sofa and asleep (passed out really but Ted didn’t need to know different).

Their son sat down next to her.  He did so at the far end after Charlie told him not to wake her.  He looked okay. Frazzled, but not scared.

“Long day for her.” Billy told Ted, who nodded as if he understood.

“Anyone else come up here before us?” Ted asked Charlie.

“What’s with the twenty questions bit?”  Charlie replied.  “First you wave a gun in my face and then at Billy Dunn here and you’re still being hostile after I’ve invited your family into my home.  Pretend that we’re still friends like we were four hours ago and tell me straight.”

Ted’s face flushed with embarrassment.  “I didn’t mean to scare you with the gun.”

“Well, ‘not meaning to’ don’t mean squat right now.”

“It’s just.”  Ted was having difficulty with his words.  “I think the town went crazy today.  People acting real off since I got home.”

“People sick?”  Charlie asked.

“There were a bunch of kids absent from school yesterday.”  Howie offered from the sofa.

“After I went home, me and Clara scooped up Howie and decided it’d be nice to go out to dinner.  So we piled in the car and drove to Glenn’s Grill to have ourselves a nice sit down.  It was all fine while we ate.  Nothing strange there.  It was just after I paid the check and we were getting ready to leave that in walks Freddy Wilcox.  And he’s doesn’t just walk in, no sir, he stumbles in.  My first thought was that Freddy was drunk to the nines.  Just plastered beyond hell.  But he’s got all this dried blood on his neck.  Looked like grease stains to me but he’d obviously been bleeding just a little while ago.

“So, he stumbles in and the hostess girl steps in front of him to get him seated.  She doesn’t see he’s been hurt and before she can say anything, Freddy grabs her.  He takes her to the floor, not tackling her, just like he grabbed her and followed her down.  She started to protest, brings her arm up even, and then Freddy takes a bite outta that arm.  Then she really did scream−”

“That poor, poor girl.”  Clara added.

“Was it Kendra?”  Billy asked.  “I know she hosts at Glenn’s.  Was it her?”

“Yeah.  It sure was.  She screamed so bad.  By then the entire place is on their feet.  Glenn himself came from ’round the bar with a Louisville Slugger in his hands and yells, ‘Get the fuck off her Fred!” But he ain’t listening and continues biting her fucking arm like a pitbull with lockjaw.  There was blood.  It was all dripping in Kendra’s face as she hollered.  So Glenn tees off.  Hits him in the shoulder with the bat.  Now Freddy slumps to one side.  His arm should have broke from that swing but he didn’t even notice.  Didn’t even blink at it.  Now I’m thinking he’s got on some harder drugs like that crack-cocaine or PCP.  Me and the family, we’re slowly backing up.  It’s just so horrible, you know?  Well, Freddy stops biting her arm and Kendra scrambles away and gets behind Glenn.  ‘You get the hell away you crazy asshole!’ she screams in that dainty voice she has.  And Glenn says that the sheriff is on his way and that Freddy had just committed assault and if he knew what was good for him, he’d just sit down and not cause any more trouble.  Well, as he said all that, Freddy got back to his feet.  Then the crazy jerk went after Glenn.  Can you believe that?”

“Not hardly.”  Charlie said.  This story was getting a touch fantastical for Charlie’s taste.  Freddy Wilcox wasn’t no drunk like the guy who bit Mary.  In fact, as far as Charlie knew, Freddy had been a straight shooter ever since he’d gotten that union job over in New Haven.  That had been, what, eight years ago.  Charlie was having trouble believing Freddy would just out of the blue attack a girl.

“What happened next?”  Billy asked.

“Well, the long and the short of it is that Glenn put him down.  Swung at his head this time and laid Freddy out on the floor.  Freddy went down hard.  Didn’t get up again, that’s the truth.  He was obviously dead as dog dirt.  Glenn got real messed up just then because he knew he’d just killed him and that we all saw him do it.  He addressed us all, his patrons, and said, ‘You saw it.  He was crazy.  You all saw!’  All hysterical like.   My heart went out to him because I knew he’d be going to trial for manslaughter or the such.  I overheard some fat guy next to us say to his wife that Freddy had told him just the day before that some homeless guy had bit him over in New Haven while he was walking to his car.  Sheriff Will Avery, showed up a minute or two later.  He detains everyone for questioning but doesn’t slap cuffs on Glenn.  He tells us to stay inside tonight because people have been getting attacked.  Just like this, he says.  Will Avery says that people have been acting strange and violent lately but wouldn’t say why.   Me and the family got out of there soon as we could.  We drove back home and−”

“Don’t say it.” Clara interrupted.  “They can’t know.  You’ll go to jail if you tell them.”

“Say what?” Charlie asked, more interested than ever.

“He’s got to know.”  Ted told her.  “He’s my friend and I think this is going to get much worse before it starts getting better.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”  Billy was getting angry.  This story wasn’t making sense to him either.

“You watch your language young man!”  Clara cuffed his shoulder with her backhand.      “Just tell it like it happened.  Don’t worry about what I’ll say.  They won’t put me on the stand against you.  They’ll know our history.”

“Okay, well . . . We got home and Clara was real upset about the whole ordeal so she went upstairs.  It was surreal, you know.  You never think in a million years you’re going to be witness to something like that.  No more had we got home when I see someone is in our backyard.  I look through the blinds and see it’s Ben Hill.”

Billy visibly shuttered.  “You’re kidding.”

“No, it was him alright.  Now, here I am real shook up after seeing what I saw and now the town drunk is in my back yard.  He’s just stumbling around Clara’s rosebushes.  He’s not saying anything, not even talking to himself.  So I go into the den and get my revolver.  I load it.  Just in case.  I only kept it for, well, target shooting and home defense.   Never thought I’d ever need it.  But I grabbed it none the same.  I know what compelled me to grab it.  He’s stumbling around looking an awful lot like Fred Wilcox.  My nerves were shot you know.  Holding it, I felt safe. I . . . I go outside.  Ben Hill looks gone.  Just gone.  Not on this planet anymore if you know what I mean.  He’s stumbling through the rosebushes not even registering that he’s in someone else’s backyard.  Our fence is pretty low, just over four feet, not hard to climb so I guess that’s how he got it.  I step out and yell, ‘Ben, what the hell do you think you’re doing?  You’re destroying my wife’s roses.’ And Ben turns to me and I see that it’s not really Ben.  It is.  But then again it isn’t.  He’s gone.  And I realize that he’s gone like Freddy was gone.   His eyes were white, milky, but he, sure as I’m breathing, could see me.  He starts walking toward me.  Real slow and determined.  Not running.  Just this drunken stumbling gait.  This asshole was zeroed in on me.  Determined.  Look, I’m telling the truth.  I just saw Freddy take a bite out of some girl’s arm.  He was manic.  Ben looked the same way.  Same drunken stagger, same lurching demeanor, same friggin’ eyes for Christ’s sake.  He had this wound on his wrist.  It was bandaged but poorly so.  Dried blood stained it.  I remembered that Freddy had that wound on his neck.  So I told Ben to stop.  I yelled at him to back off, to go home and I wouldn’t call the cops.  He didn’t hear any of it.

“I shot him.”

“You killed Ben Hill?”  Charlie asked.  “Clara’s right, I don’t need to hear this.”

“No.  And yes.  I mean to say is, I shot him in the chest.  Like they teach you at shooting ranges and such.  He didn’t go down.  He just jerked a bit, paused, and kept on shambling toward me.   I shot him again.  Still no dice.  The gun in my hand is a .38 special, it should be able to take down anyone after two shots, drugs or not.  Christ on a tricycle, it should have been able to stop a charging bull!  He’s still coming at me and this time I aim for his head because this is the last shot I got before I can turn and run into the house.  I’m already in the doorway at this point and I figure that if this doesn’t stop him, nothing will.  I aim for his head and fire.  The back of his skull blew apart.  His brains splattered across the birdhouse hung just under the awning.  This time he does go down.  And stays down.  Clara and Howie saw it happen.  The first two shots brought them downstairs and they saw me kill Ben Hill.”

Clara rubbed Ted’s shoulder as he told it.  He was visibly tearing now.

“After that I grabbed the rest of the bullets from the den, told Clara and Howie to pack a bag and we left.  I didn’t want to spend one second longer in that house than I had to.  We drove here right after.  This is outside town and I guess I figured I could wait out the storm here.”

His story was done.  Charlie could see that telling it had drained him.  The color was gone from his cheeks.  He looked ten years older than the thirty-six years he had under his belt.

“Man,” Billy said.  “I’m glad you killed him cause when he bit Mary I wanted to kill−” He stopped cold; realizing what he just said.

“What did you say?”  Ted suddenly was very much awake.  Whatever energy that telling the story might have taken out of him just moments before, it was back now.

“I mean . . . I just.”  Billy stumbled.

“She was bit?”  Ted asked accusingly.

“Don’t you touch her!” Billy screamed at Ted.  He jumped between Ted and the sofa. “Don’t you even think about it you god damn murderer!”

The pistol was out of Ted’s waistband before Charlie could blink.  “Don’t you get it?”  He said calmly to Billy.  “Both of them had been bitten.  Then they both went crazy.”

“She ain’t like that!”  Billy screamed.  He stood between Ted and the sofa where Mary slept.

Howie, sitting next to an unconscious Mary, looked up.  “Dad,” he said, “she has a bandage on her shoulder.  It’s like you said.  I think she got bit too.”

Charlie chose this moment to intervene.  He stepped in between Billy and Ted.  His hand lightly touched the revolver the Ted held in his hand, pushing it down while Ted was itching to bring it up.

“Think about what you’re saying,” Charlie spoke not two inches from Ted’s face.  “Think about it.” he said calmly.  “Freddy went crazy.  Okay, I believe you.  I believe it all.  I believe you had no choice in shooting Ben Hill.  I get it.  Him or you.  I get that.  But you ain’t gonna shoot some teenager sleeping on my sofa.  Get that?”

“Howie,”  Ted said.  His voice was low.  His gaze was not on Charlie but on the sleeping girl behind him. “Get away from her.”

The next moments got real clear to Charlie amidst the chaos that came.  It was Clara that screamed first.  She arched back, standing on her heels, and oh how she screamed.  Howie’s screams came next.  And Charlie witnessed the whole thing from right behind the sofa.

Mary woke up.

Her head lolled toward Howie.  Her mouth opened wide.  She lunged at him, her fat blue tongue fell out of her mouth like she was some sex-crazed lunatic.  That was when Clara screamed.  Howie only screamed a second later, when Mary pulled him out of sight from the rest of them.  It was, for an instant, as if she was some long lost lover reuniting with him after a long separation.  Fourteen-year-old Howie must have been enthralled to have been sitting next to Mary; a beautiful high school senior.  She must have represented the pinnacle of feminine beauty to him.  He must have thought that, by sitting next to her, he’d have a story to tell his friends.  But then she woke up and half pulled him, half pushed him down into the cushions of the sofa.  He screamed.

Charlie stood, stunned.

The boy’s cries quickly became gurgling pleas.  Ted shoved Charlie to the side.  His shoulder hit the pantry door with a sharp thud.

Billy still stood in front of Ted.  His hands were raised as if ready for a fight.  Ted cocked him in the head with the butt of the revolver and Billy went down clutching at his nose.

Clara screamed, “She’s biting him! She’s biting my Howie!”

Ted was on top of it.  He ran forward, gun pointed outward now, searching for a target.

Howie screamed again in a low guttural plea.  Mary, Charlie saw from just beyond the edge of the couch, was tearing out his throat with her teeth.

Ted ran up to the edge of the sofa, gun hand outstretched.

He put the muzzle to Mary’s temple.

And pulled the trigger.

Charlie had never seen a gun in action.  He’d never been to a shooting range nor had ever  handled one.  The sound was deafening in such close quarters.  It was a loud crack like slamming a textbook down on a hardwood table; it made his ears ring tonelessly, and made him jump back instinctively.

Mary’s head lurched back and then became a Jackson Pollack painting.  The entire side of her face disappeared into a spray of bone and blood and brain.

She collapsed atop Howie as dead as dead could be.

Howie, however was still screaming.   His neck was a bloody mess of ligaments and tendons and arteries.  He clawed at himself, wrapping his hands around his neck to stop the bleeding.  Charlie got to him first.  He placed both hands against his cricoid artery and pressed down.

“Jumping Jesus on a fucking merry-go-round.”  Ted said, the gun still hot in his fingers.

“He’s dead!”  Clara screamed.  “Oh my God, he’s dead!”

“Not yet,” Charlie yelled back at her.

Two quick events happened in close succession. The first was due to Billy, who’d just watched his girlfriend killed by Ted and in such a easy fashion that it was impossible for his reaction to be stopped.  His nose was bleeding from the pistol whipping Ted had just given him.  He did the only thing that is entirely logical for a seventeen-year-old male to do in the face of extreme violence; he attacked.

He launched his whole body at Ted, coming up from kneeling, and threw one shoulder into Ted’s gut and wrapped his arms around his waist.  Billy Dunn, a division one wrestler, took Ted, who outweighed him by a flabby thirty pounds, to the floor like he was a ragdoll.

Ted lurched in surprise but that was his only reaction before hitting the floor.

In one second, Billy went from the kneeling on the linoleum floor to being posted on top of Ted raining down punches.

“You sonovabitch!  You murdering bastard!”

Charlie only leaned over the sofa stunned.  He was holding Howie’s throat.  It felt hot and squishy like he’d just dipped his fingers in some squirmy alien mass, jagged torn flesh seemed to slither under his fingertips.  His hands had already been soaked up to the forearms with sticky blood like maple syrup.  He couldn’t worry about Billy and Ted, he couldn’t speak, he could only look in Howie’s eyes as the light began to fade from them.

Clara just kept screaming.  She made no attempt to help her husband or her son.  She just stood paralyzed in the kitchen wailing the perfect music for the trauma occurring all around her.

The second event was due to the gun that Ted still gripped.

It was only a matter of moments before that came into play.

At about the third punch that Ted caught to his face, he jammed its muzzle into Billy’s ribs.  For the first two punches Ted had had an almost dreamlike expression on his face.  An expression that said, to all witnesses, please punish me.  Please end me.

The third punch apparently woke Ted up, because the muzzle leveled and pressed against Billy’s side.

Billy didn’t feel it.  If he had, if he had felt the cold steel pressing against him, if it had been a motivator to stop his assault, well, maybe everything would have turned out okay.

Billy struck Ted again.

And Ted pulled the trigger.

Another deafening crack.

Billy’s face slackened.  The color went out of his cheeks and a grimace of pain curled his eyes back into his skull.

Then he simply slumped over.  There were no dying gasps on his part.  No sound escaped his lips.  He did not get a chance to say anything remotely redeemable about his character or his life.   He just slumped over and died.

Clara kept screaming her shrill fucking holler.  That bitch could not shut up.

Charlie kept his hands on Howie.  Blood spurted between his fingers and sprayed his shirt.  He could not allow his mind to wander even though Ted blew another teenager away with that fucking pistol.

Two people had been shot right in front of him.

He had to focus on the one who wasn’t dead.

Howie’s eyes rolled upward as if he were possessed and would begin talking in tongues.  Charlie was trying to stem the flow but he looked like a man trying to choke this poor kid to death.  Howie’s hand wrapped around his own and tried pulling, pushing, and finally prying.  Charlie pressed harder, trying to squeeze off the artery.  Trying to stop the blood.

Of course, it was Howie’s carotid artery that had been so brutally severed by Mary’s teeth.

Really, he didn’t stand much of a chance at all.

He slumped back, his grip on Charlie’s hands slackened and relented.  His head lulled almost between the cushions of the couch, his tongue hung limp in his open mouth.  His chest stopped heaving, stopped moving at all.  And his leg, which had been kicking at the floor, ceased to move.

Charlie stared at him, unable to pry his own hands off the dead boy’s neck.

“He’s dead!”  Clara shrieked.  “Oh my God, he’s dead!”  Then, her eyes focusing on Charlie, “You killed him!  You killed my Howie!”

Charlie turned and saw her face.  If she had been holding the gun he would be joining Howie and Billy and Mary in the afterlife.  Her mascara was running in rivulets down her cheeks.   Her faced was flushed, whether by her intense crying or her persistent tantrum of screams, it didn’t matter.

She was ready for more murder.

Ted was on his feet now, looking down at Billy, whom he’d just shot point-blank.  Billy was a just a boy too.  Just three years older than Howie.  How could he have just killed him like that?  Ted stared down at Billy and then over at Howie, brought there by his hysterical wife.

“He killed our boy, Teddy bear!”  Clara lamented, shedding not a tear for Billy.  “He killed our baby boy!”

Ted looked at Charlie.  His eyes were sunken and his cheeks were already forming bruises from the hits he’d taken.

“I was just trying to stop the bleeding.”  Charlie said, realizing how ridiculous that sounded.  Yeah, trying to stop the bleeding by choking the little fucker.

“Aren’t you going to do something,  Teddy bear?”  Clara cried.

“Is he really dead?”  Ted asked Charlie calmly.  Normally when someone is screaming, the tendency to scream back or scream forward is impossible to resist.  A regular Joe, when screamed at, his fist will clench, his heart will speed up, he will begin to mimic the panic felt by others both physically and mentally.  It is almost impossible not to react in a similar fashion.  This is, of course, how mobs and riots get their momentum.  Someone screams, someone reacts, and is goes round and round like an infection.

“Yeah.” Charlie whispered.  “He’s dead.”

“Teddy bear, do something right now!  He killed our Howie!  I watched him!”

“Shut up.”  Ted said.

“What−”

“I said shut the fuck up!”  Ted thundered back.

For the first time in what seemed like eons, Clara stopped her shrill screaming.  She even tried to composed herself; evening out the ruffles in her jeans which, very obviously, did not have any.

“How can you dare speak to me in such a manner?” She asked incredulously.

“Honey.” Ted’s gaze was locked with Charlie’s but he spoke to his wife.  “Shut up.  Not one. More. Word.”

Charlie did not want to be there.  A chain of events, the likes of which had a tendency to perpetuate violence, were long underway.

“There are three dead bodies.”  Charlie said.  “Is this what you meant when you said the town went crazy?”

Ted nodded.

“You’re the man with the gun.” Charlie said trying not to sound scared out of his mind.

Ted looked down at the shiny revolver in his hand as if he’d just now noticed it.  There were specks of Billy’s blood on the blue-steel finish.  More blood had splattered his striped polo shirt.

“We shouldn’t have come here.”  His voice was just above a whisper.

Charlie stayed silent.  He looked over at the corpses of Billy and Mary, then at Howie still form, slumped over the now bloody sofa like a doll.  His living room looked like the set of a slasher movie.   His eyes returned to Ted’s and he doubted very much that he would live through this night.

“We have to shoot him in the head.”  Ted said calmly, as if he were talking in his sleep.

It took Charlie a moment to realize Ted was not talking about him.  He was looking at Howie.

Charlie backed up a couple steps.  Clara was weeping relatively silently and did not seem to hear.

“Ted, you got to listen to me now.”  Charlie said.  “I think this isn’t all that bad.  I don’t think you’d get into too much trouble.  It was all self-defense.  Right?  Mary attacked Howie.  You had to do something.  No jury would convict a man defending his family.  Then Billy attacked you.  Again, self-defense.  I think we need to call the sheriff and get him up here.  He’ll know what to do.”

Charlie thought that all made pretty good sense.  He was scared shitless.  Numb, almost, to all this mayhem that had interrupted his evening.

Ted didn’t hear any of it.  Charlie realized what he was contemplating.  He was in the middle of an internal battle; trying to build up the courage to bring the gun up and shoot his only son in the head.  It did not really matter that Howie was dead.  Ted, after all had been talking crazy ever since he got here.  He’d admitted to killing Ben Hill just a few minutes prior.  It don’t matter what I say, Charlie thought,  When you kill three people in the same day they don’t give a hoot about self-defense.  They strap you down and prep the lethal injection.

But . . .

What if Ted was right?  What if Howie woke with whatever hellish type of crazy that had overcome Mary?  Or Ben Hill?

“Ted.  I don’t think you want to do that.”

“I don’t.  But I think I have to.  I don’t want him coming back.  It’s not right.”

Ted brought the gun up.

Mary shrieked before he could pull the trigger.

“Don’t you dare!”  She screamed at him.  She launched her whole body against him and got between him and the sofa.  “You will not shoot him!”  She hissed through clenched teeth.  Her finger poked him in the chest with each word.  “You have done enough craziness for one night.”

Ted lowered the gun.  “You don’t understand− ”

“I don’t understand? Here’s what I do understand mister!  You shot the town drunk in our backyard and then convinced me and Howie to flee with you so you wouldn’t go to jail.  Then when we get here.  This crazy bitch bites Howie and you kill her!  Then you kill her boyfriend just for good measure!  So how about this, why don’t you just kill me and Charlie and then there’ll be no witnesses at all and you can go be free and fuck whoever you want!”

Ted was visibly stunned.  There was no response quite adequate.  Charlie, while not understanding the history behind such venomous words, nevertheless realized that they cut him deeply.  Any fight Ted had in him, whether for good or for bad, left him then.

Charlie inched back.  The urge to get away from Ted, his wife, and the corpses that littered the living room of the only home he’d had for the past twenty years was overwhelming.  Part of him wanted to simply turn and run.  Another part wanted him to continue to try and bring rationality back into the room where it apparently had fled.

He saw the horrible drama play out before it did.  He realized, with a sense of stoic indifference, that Howie would indeed wake up.  Only, it wouldn’t be Howie, it would be some monster in Howie’s skin, come back to life.  He saw that Clara would be closest, with her back turned to him, and she would be the first thing he attacked.  He would attack his own mother with the same viciousness that Mary had attacked him.  Not out of hate or malice but because of a much more basic drive.

Hunger.

Charlie knew what Clara’s reaction would be; disbelief combined with the joy of seeing her only child no longer dead.  That would transform into terror when Howie’s teeth met her flesh.  Ted, for all his bravery, for all his rashness, would be unable to pull the trigger this time.  Not on his son and certainly not on his wife.  No man could be expected to do that.  No sir.

Charlie backed away to the front door.

Ted and Clara were locked in a spousal staring contest, the rules of which Charlie hadn’t the slightest clue.  Neither one noticed when Charlie opened the door.

Neither one saw when Howie’s eyes opened.  They were milky white with pale blue pupils and void of any life or emotion that eyes are expected to have.

Outside, standing in the gravel driveway, Charlie heard the first screams.

He walked across the parking lot.

A gunshot echoed from within the house, sounding a million miles away.

More screams.

The driveway and parking lot of the lighthouse was actually the end point of Ross Avenue which cut the town of White Falls in half and then became state highway 30 when it left the town limits.  One could, theoretically get on the 30 in New Haven and eventually arrive at Charlie’s doorstep in just over an hour.

The parking lot was deserted except for Ted’s Volvo,  Billy’s gaudy pick-up, and Charlie’s own Jimmy.

Charlie could see a group of people in the distance.  They were walking up the road toward the lighthouse though they were still more than a hundred yards away.  They weren’t walking normally.  They shambled. They dragged their feet, their arms barely swinging, their heads swaying from side to side.  They all looked drunk.

Another shot from inside the house.

The screaming stopped.

Charlie wanted to go home but that place did not exist anymore.

Ted stepped outside.

Charlie couldn’t look at him.  Apparently he’d been able to pull that trigger after all.

“I still have one bullet left.”  Ted whispered to him.

“Make it count.”  Was all Charlie could think to say.

He walked to the lighthouse tower.  There was a chore he’d been avoiding.  He thought that maybe the lighthouse could be a beacon again.  Not just some relic of the days before GPS and radar to guide sailors home.  But maybe that was right.  To guide.  The lighthouse is a guide for the lost and scared to find their way.  It wasn’t the lost and scared he was thinking of though.

It was the people who’d been bitten and wanted now to bite in return.  Maybe, just maybe, he could lead them away from the town.  Maybe the lighthouse really could become a beacon again.

He locked the door when he was inside.  As he did, he heard the last gunshot from Ted’s revolver crack the night air.

Charlie Copper walked up the 232 stairs to the lantern room.

He cleaned every window until it was streak-less.  He enjoyed it too.  It did not matter that he’d missed the sunset.  His shoulders barely bothered him at all.

When he finished, he turned the light on.

A beacon.  Like it used to be.

He sat in the lantern room with a perfect view.

And watched as the whole town came out to greet him.

—-

Chris Daruns currently lives with his girlfriend in Colorado.  He works as an EMT and has far too many weapons and survivalist books than is considered healthy.