Harbour Lights

 The ferry terminal smelled of diesel, saltwater and stale cigarettes, the kind of smell that settles into your lungs and waits there like an unpaid debt. 

The ceiling fans turned lazily overhead, pushing the heat around without ever removing it. Somewhere beyond the grimy windows, chains clanged against steel masts in the harbour darkness.

“So your Rorschach test. You scored what? Ten out of ten?”

She laughed into her paper cup, though there was nothing funny in her eyes anymore.

“No. I scored shit. I was disappointed. Thought I had failed it. How many did you score, Frenchy?”

“Same.”

“They told me to stop and say what I saw. Said I wasn’t doing it right.”

“Well?”

“I said I am telling you what I see. An inky blotch. I couldn’t see shit.”

“Me neither.”

A pause.

“Oh no, wait. I saw a bat.”

“Yeah,” Frenchy muttered, staring out toward the black sea. “I saw the bat.”

The loudspeaker crackled overhead in some half-dead language nobody understood anymore. The sound echoed through the empty terminal like a priest mumbling last rites over a drowned congregation.

“So we can’t get back to the farm?”

“Nope.”

“Alright then.

 Nope. We is sane.”

“Well,” Frenchy shrugged, “as far as they’re concerned.”

A grin crawled slowly across his face. “But we know different depending on how many Margaritas go down that day.”

“Sublimely put, monsieur.”

Outside, the tide slapped against the rotting pilings beneath the dock. Thick black water. Oil-black. Grave-black. The kind of water that remembers bodies. Then quickly forgets.

“Now what?”

“We go back to the port and wait for the boat.”

“It’s an early sail. We may or may not get dropped at our desired destination.”

“Which is as yet unknown.”

“Maybe take the ferry.”

Neither of them moved.

Because deep down they already knew there was no ferry anymore. No destination. No return journey. People like them only travelled in circles, tighter and tighter spirals around the drain.

“Look,” Tiny fair, he  whispered. “Look down into the abyss. That’s where the nightwork goes to sleep.”

She glanced over the railing reluctantly.

Darkness moved beneath them.

Not water.

Something else.

Something patient. And then she saw him, his tortured, twisted expression..

“You ever speak of our guest,” the voice said softly, “and you’ll go down there to tuck her in.”

The harbour wind suddenly carried music from somewhere impossible. Tinny. Distorted. Like an old gramophone playing underwater.

“Sing,” he smiled. “Go on. Sing. Make her feel right at home.”

And then, absurdly, horribly,  shebegan singing into the night.

“Consider yourself… one of the family…”

The words drifted across the bay toward the anchored boats and the sleeping houses beyond the cliffs.

The woman,

“He is a man hunted by a writ of execution,” Frenchy murmured, “but tonight he is the hunter.”

Nobody spoke after that.

Because everyone understood the same terrible thing.

Predators only become gentle when they are exhausted.

And exhaustion never lasts.

The migraine arrived without warning.

The room tilted.

The harbour lights stretched into long wet smears across her vision.

“Oh, the sickness…” she whispered. “The head-spinning…”

“Another aura?”

“Yes… it’s going… but he’s still here…”

Frenchy immediately held her shoulders.

“Okay, okay, stay with me. I’m here. Stay in the present. Here. Don’t cry. Don’t be frightened…”

Her breathing quickened.

“He is not here,” Frenchy insisted. “He can’t hurt you anymore. "

But her eyes were fixed on something behind him.

Something standing near the harbour wall where the light couldn’t quite reach.

A silhouette.

Tall.

Motionless.

Watching.

“Did you see the woman this time?” Frenchy asked carefully. “Is it the same one? The one in the bay?”

She shook her head slowly.

“No…”

The word barely escaped her lips.

“It’s a different one.”

The fans overhead creaked.

The music stopped.

Even the sea seemed to hold its breath.

“The lady that was in the house,” she whispered.

Frenchy felt coldness spread through his stomach.

“The one who disappeared.”

The silhouette near the harbour wall seemed closer now.

Still watching.

Still unmoving.

Then came the final sentence, fragile as splintered glass.

“The missing woman, she was in the house (. .. )She is the one I heard screaming.”