Chapter 27 Below
Below
It’s right around the witching hour and this is a perfect opportunity for me to investigate down below without Lir distracting me.
I leave the bulb running smoothly and go down to that empty entryway.
After using my hatchet to pry open the hidden lip of the trap door, it releases a gust of cold air from the sealed mechanical sarcophagus.
My stomach drops as I look down this dark passageway—alone.
Everything is easier to face with Lir by my side. What if he never returns? I shake my head, he promised. His words have to mean something, I need to believe him or else on my end for his sake, loving him has meant nothing. I owe him that much, to believe him.
Anyways, with or without him, I need to take a better look at this thing down here. If I get rescued or dragged out of here by that Admiral, I want to know more about what’s been happening here. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.
I venture down the stairs careful not to disturb anything.
I don’t want the spying military or militarized spies to come check in on us anytime soon.
Past the giant gears, I follow the cords on the ceiling by walking along a servicing catwalk.
Only darkness is below the creaking worn and uneven two-by-fours.
Cautiously my feet sweep forward, tiptoeing down the path which splits into a Y.
The boardwalk on the right breaks off into pitch black darkness, the planks crumbling into an abyss.
So obviously, I take the path on the left.
The wires lead to the giant antenna that has metal jutting in every direction.
Rather than a piece of electronics, it looks more like a very artistically liberal rendition of an upside down Yule tree covered in tinsel.
It looks so harsh and foreign against the backdrop of half crumbling rock walls all around us.
They must have blown this whole place in with dynamite before building the lighthouse.
The radio interference noises grow louder and with more variation in their rotating tones.
I hear the mechanical clicking and the whole thing moves.
I have to duck to not be knocked off my feet by its protruding limbs.
The tower is split into three levels and they move independently of each other as it adjusts to the new clicks and humming coming downstream of the machine.
Three clicks left turn top level, two clicks right turn bottom level, three clicks clockwise full rotation mid level, then back and forth with little adjustments.
Then, I hear the buzzing back towards the machine which presses raised dots into a copper roll.
Imprinting codes and keys that I desperately wish to understand.
Intently, I watch it react to those mechanical motions for awhile, none of it making any more sense to me.
I should have been an engineer, I should have been a mechanic, I should have been anything other than just a wife and maybe I’d know what the hell is going on.
I try to distinguish some sense of all these patterns while not pulling out every single hair on my head.
I remember on the radio one time something had come through, not just scrambled clatter, “We’re moving it to north of—” Which was then followed by two distinct numbers.
That’s it!
They’re sending longitude and latitude and coded messages through here and if we’re gearing up for another war, all the records in this place would be vital.
I slam my head against the rock wall. Fuck!
The tiny mechanical instruments react a little bit and a high pitch noise almost undetectable to the human ear extrudes from it.
The fine filaments of the antenna readjusting slightly to my outburst.
“No, no, no!” I wave my hands rapidly. “Don’t make anybody else come out here!
” I whisper, begging the earless mechanical creature.
It’s unbelievable sensitivity is probably how I was able to pick up on those whale noises in the radio room a few weeks ago.
It might be actually a few months now. Time has moved much quicker since he showed up.
Actually, it has moved completely differently since I dragged Lir from the rocks.
I wonder if this is what made the sound that made him crash into this place…
but, I don’t think just a few hums and clicks would be enough to confuse a sea God who can probably use echolocation like a whale.
Crouching, I slowly scoot back down the raised walk toward the dim light shining at the end of the hall where it reconnects to the stairs.
It makes my stomach sink looking down them, they still go lower into the dark unknown.
I shake my head and back away. If I believed the stairs above could go into Heaven, I don’t want to know where these lead.
That’s enough investigating for one day.
This time Lir isn’t waiting for me and I sense a deep dark hole in my chest where that feeling lives.
The wind is moving rapidly above and I should return to the bulb.
I am called to the light like all the sailors out there, like moths flocking to the glass.
That bright bulb looks dim now though after looking so long at Lir’s shining scales, they are like the sun and have become burned into my retinas so that all other lights just look spotted and dull.
After a small struggle, I hoist myself out of that deep dark hole.
Lir has been getting me to eat better and the meat on my bones drags behind me as I grip the lip and pull against gravity.
I have become stronger here from chopping wood, long hours, hauling rocks and pulling stranded mermen from the sea.
Even with this extra weight on my ass and beating in my chest, I’m strong enough to pull myself up on my own.
I am strong and this mysterious beast under here made of simply metal and rubber won’t scare me.
Yet, my hand still shakes holding the lamp as I climb back up to the bulb, as I look out at the empty rock, the empty sea.