As soon as they entered, Smythe put his glasses away and the moment he turned to Pickman, he felt a fist meet his cheek. Stumbling back from the sheer force behind it, he hit a wall and slowly dragging his back down, sat on his behind.
"You miserable imbecile!" the archaeologist spat on the floor, kicking the professor in a fit of rage, "If you hadn’t gone back, Ivan wouldn’t have ... You fucking moron! Why was this stupid piece of crap so important that you had to go back for it?"
He pulled
the cane out of Smythe’s hands and tried to
Annabella covered her head and Leah moved aside.
"No! Stop! Please, I beg of you!" shouted Smythe.
"Why? Huh? I don’t see you crying over Ivan’s death, but you’re begging me to stop for this thing?" he then tried smashing it into the stairway railing but to no effect.
"Please don’t! It was a gift!" yelled the man, reaching out for his cane.
" ... so what?" Pickman squinted his eyes.
"You wouldn’t understand ... "
"Yeah
... I probably wouldn’t," he tossed the cane aside and went up the stairs,
toward the workshop, "Come on you two, we have to barricade the windows.
With the whole forest trying to end us from the land side and that monstrosity
from the seaside, we better do whatever we can to prevent anything from coming
in. We just have to hold the
Leah and
Annabella went after him, leaving Smythe and his cane lying on the floor next
to the metal entrance door.
They made some more torches and were lucky enough to find some old furniture, a
The night was slow and everyone waited it out in silence, barely talking to each other at all. The outside was dark since the fire went out and it wasn’t like anyone dared get out the top to check things out, especially not Pickman who had avoided his death up there once before.
* * *
A soft knock on the door next to Smythe woke him up. He managed to get up and went closer to the door in order to be sure he heard right. Pressing his ear onto the door, he waited.
* knock, knock, knock *
It was a distinct human pattern. Nothing a tree or another strange being could copy. He decided to open the door after a long thought.
"Carter!?!?!?" he said out loud, then looked around.
"Don’t worry, they are gone," said Pam Carter.
"Carter ... how are you ... alive? Where were you?" Smythe was out of his mind.
"When I
went down to the shore to get water, the largest monster you can imagine pushed
me into the sea! It tried to wrap its long limbs around me, but I was lucky to
be clumsy and I fell instead.
When underwater, I opened my eyes and I saw it ... it looked like an octopus
but, then again ... it was too big to be an octopus, and it had some other
parts as well. Almost like the octopus part was just its head, while the rest
of it was shaped like a ... "
"Like what, Carter?" Smythe put his hands on the young man’s shoulders.
"Like a human, but huge and standing on the bottom of the sea. I couldn’t figure out where its face was, but it’s not like I had time to look ... I swam back to the surface as fast as I could, and then I stumbled upon it ... "
"Upon what?" Smythe’s eyes widened.
"A vessel ... a boat unlike any I’ve ever seen. It was just beneath the mansion in a hidden cave."
"Carter ... is that how you survived, how you got here?"
"Well ... yes and no. I did climb into the thing but I couldn’t start it no matter what I tried. I came here after things quieted down. I was so scared ... " said the young man and took a step into the lighthouse.
"Wait. One more question. How many people can that vessel hold?"
"Two ... three, maybe ... why?"
As soon as he answered, he realized why the question was brought up in the first place.
"HELP M—" Carter tried to scream, but Smythe put his white glove on the man’s mouth. Carter's voice was stopped and he looked down. A blade was piercing his stomach. Blood came out of it and spilled over the white satin.
"You ... are not ... " Smythe pushed him out and withdrew the blade, " ... Carter," he finished, closing the door.
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