Red Light

I work at the Coast Guard station down in Narragansett, Rhode Island. As a first responder, I have to live on board the station several nights a week. My room is on the third floor, the top of the building besides the overlook. My only window faces towards the point where the lighthouse is and catches the light of the lighthouse, so every few seconds a faint, white light fills the window. I had turned the blinds down, so it wasn’t as bright and didn’t bother me when trying to sleep. This was how I lived on duty for the past several months. This night was different. I had forgotten to turn the blinds down and was lying in bed. I realized the blinds were open and climbed out of bed to shut them. As I approached the window, the light shifts to red. I stopped, confused. The next flash was white and I shook my head, thinking it was due to fatigue. I stepped closer and grasped the pull cord for the blinds. The light filled the window with red again.  I looked out the window at the lighthouse as the light dimmed and saw only white. I must have stood there for twenty minutes staring at the lighthouse, waiting for the red flash again. I shook my head and closed the blinds, shuffling back to my rack. Just as put my knee on the bed, the room filled with red light. I stopped and waited. Red. I pulled on my pants and a shirt, slid into my boots and grabbed my flashlight off my duty belt and headed up to the overlook at the top of the station building.

At the top of the stairs, I opened the door to the catwalk and walked out into the cool, crisp ocean air. From that viewpoint, I could see all the way up to Narragansett Beach to the east and the Harbor Refuge, the entrance to Point Judith Harbor, to the west. The lighthouse flashed white and I could see a fog bank rolling in from the south. It had enveloped Block Island, the white light flashing illuminating the droplets of moisture that made up the fog bank. The light flashed red again and the movement of the fog seemed to hasten. The red light seemed to highlight something in the fog, something I could not quite focus on. I strained my eyes to see, only making out a myriad of darkened shapes in the fog. Then the lighthouse flashed white and the shapes were gone, nothing but the dense fog across the calm sea. I climbed back down the ladder into the building, cold sweat dripping down my back as I entered my room and reached for my duty belt. I snapped it around my waist, fastening the keepers to my belt and the thigh rig into place. I headed down below to the second floor, skipping steps in a quickened pace to the duty officer's room. I knocked and entered simultaneously, only to find the room empty. The next room I entered, I found in the same state. All of the duty rooms were empty, every member of the duty section gone. I tried not to panic, my heart was beating and I could feel my anxiety spiking. I took a couple of deep breaths to slow my heart and steady my breathing before heading to the communications room. I spun the wheel of the safe, yanked the door open and retrieved the keys and flew down the stairs to the basement. A jingle of the keys, followed by the satisfying click of the heavy padlock opening let me inside the armory. The alarm panel beeped, but before I could enter the code all of the light in the office was extinguished. I drew my flashlight and the small armory exploded in white light when I turned it on. I loaded a pistol with a magazine of twelve rounds, racked the slide and holstered it. Two more magazines went into their pouches, two mags for the M-16 in my left cargo pocket, a third slammed into one of the rifles that got slung over my shoulder. I slammed the door shut, fumbling the lock back into place and stuffed the keys into my pocket. Red light filtered into the small window of the basement, but this time it remained lit. I ran up the stairs and around the corner, yanking open the doors to the front porch.

Dull, red light was the only illumination, even the streetlights were out. The fog had reached the shore, crawling up the rock wall that separated land from sea, the blood red light the only thing permeating the darkness and the fog alike. I unslung the rifle and readied it at my shoulder left hand gripping the flashlight along the fore-end. Strange shapes lumbered in the fog, moving at a snail's pace but with purpose and direction. I ran to the lighthouse, the stone beacon pulsing its bloody glow from above. I fumbled the keys in my hands, trying to find the right one for the tower. I shoved through the door, dropping the keys in my frenzy and bolted up the stairs. My flashlight pierces the red hue with its stark, white beam as I lunged up the metal steps, the echo deafening in the silence. I look down as I go, seeing the shapes enter the lighthouse from below and my heart makes a break for my throat. I swallow it down as I try to take aim. My hands are shaking, my vision blurs and I can’t focus on any particular one. Fuck it, I tell myself and sling it over my shoulder. I continue up the steps, my footfalls the only sound I hear beside the blood pounding in my head. I burst through at the top and am aghast at what lies before me. The large lens is coated in blood, so thick it appears as if it were painted. A steady drip from above is the only discernable source. It pools on the floor, my boots are slick with the substance. I stab the darkness above with the flashlight, only to see the ceiling is coated as well. I can hear the sound of footsteps below me, whatever the beacon has called forth is coming up after me, coming to the source. The light grows brighter, almost blinding, the red glow burns my eyes as I strain to see. From within, it appears to pulse like a heartbeat, the blood falls from the ceiling onto me, I can feel its warmth on my head and arms. The sounds from below are louder and my mind races to make a decision. Without a further thought, I draw my sidearm and grasp it, focusing down the sights onto the beating red light in front of me. I inhale deep, let it slow. Halfway through, I squeeze. Once. Twice. Three times. The sound is deafening. Twelve rounds of forty caliber hollow point explode from my hands, tearing into the lens and the beating light within. The windows shatter with a piercing shriek and an eruption of blood, glass and light discharges forth from the lens. The light sears my vision, the hot liquid splashes my face and hands as glass embeds itself into my flesh.

Everything goes black.

I awake with a scream as the sound of the reveille announcement comes through the speaker in my room. I’m drenched in sweat, heart pounding, my lungs gasping for air. A nightmare is all it was. I lay back down for a minute to collect myself. My alarm wakes me five minutes later and I jump in the shower. I pull on my pants, slip into my boots and begin to put on my shirt. The distinct smell of gunpowder fills my nostrils, stopping my heart in mid beat. I look down at my boots on the carpet and as I lift my foot, a bloody boot print is underneath. I stare in horror, trying to grasp what I see, then the sunlight fades from my window, replaced by a dull, red, light.

Image courtesy of Mike Gagne