Lighthouse

Chapter 2

Rick put on his rain gear and ran for it. The sun was going to officially set in a few hours, however, because of the massive rain storm he saw coming his way, he needed to run to the lighthouse so he could turn the light on. Thankfully he didn't need to climb up all those steps to turn on the light or turn on the fog horn. There was a shed at the bottom that housed those controls.

It was 32 m (104 feet) tall and had windows along the way on two sides for eight windows in total. It was made of concrete and had a flying buttress design. Meaning there was a central tower that held the windows that held the stairs that went round and round and took up the entire core. There were three struts also made out of concrete that had struts from the central core out to these three struts.

He had been told the old lighthouse that was shorter and made from wood had been torn down along with its control housing.

That left the new lighthouse and his two story house meant to sleep three men in separate bedrooms that also had a small basement. There was the maintenance building that held the oil tanks and diesel fuel for the tiny generator that fed power to the tower. There was also a nice size work shop filled with work benches and a vast amount of parts and some equipment. There were also two small storage buildings that had been built during the time of the first lighthouse. These buildings held mostly survival gear and gear to possibly help any ships that ran aground.

It was referred to as Caribou Island. Except the true Caribou Island was a few miles to the northeast of this island. It was officially named Lighthouse Island. Rick had chuckled a little at that given that the island was rather small and didn't have much room for anything else.

Still there was a large area that had grass. His job wasn't just the lighthouse, it was all of the buildings on this island and that included the landscaping. Because of that he had a lawnmower and other equipment to keep the grounds up. That was all located in the basement or garage area, not that he had a car or anything else resembling it. Obviously he didn't need it.

He did know that a few miles to his west was a large reef area that went north and south. There was another one to his northeast. His island was rocky on the north and west sides. He had a sandy beach on the east and southeast sides. In the summer the beach was nice. It was just that the water was always cold and in winter you wouldn't last but a few short minutes before succumbing to hypothermia and dying. While he did have a swimsuit, there was no way he would be using it unless he wanted to freeze to death.

A quick look told him that the light was working so he went to the maintenance building. He had little doubt that he would be spending hours in this building working on that stupid generator. It had been nothing but trouble ever since he had arrived.

He also needed to keep track of how much oil and diesel fuel he had. He had two 500 gallon oil tanks used to power the generator for the light in the lighthouse. There was only a 50 gallon diesel tank for the diesel generator even though it didn't run all that often.

When that same generator didn't start after he entered his fears came to fruition. "You stupid piece of crap! Why can't you be like your big brother over there." Rick gestured to the lighthouse light generator. "Just because you're smaller isn't an excuse."

He'd already gone through the most obvious reasons yesterday; today would be the least obvious reasons. It was a good thing he was good with engines of all kinds. Ancient or new, it didn't matter. There was pretty much nothing he couldn't fix.

He had fuel and he had already changed the spark plugs, the engine oil, and the filter. He'd changed out the fuel filter and had checked all of the fuel lines. Now it was time for other things. He decided to begin with the starter itself.

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A while later he tried it again and it still refused to start. He moved to the batteries to see if they were sending enough power. The lighthouse generator had its own bank of batteries and so far that system hadn't given him any trouble.

"Enough power though it is a little low." It told him that one of the batteries in the bank wasn't putting out like it was supposed to but that would have to wait for a replacement that at the rate his delivery supply ship came might take months.

"So what the heck is your problem?" He got to work on other possible reasons just as the rain increased in intensity and he could even hear the wind hitting the building.

There were no trees or basically anything for the wind to pick up and hit any of the buildings with so he didn't need to worry about losing a building. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a storm that would force the water onto the island and try to swamp his little home, but that was unlikely.

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Rick was dirty and tired and hungry, not to mention thirsty since he had failed to bring anything with him. "Okay, please start." He was running out of reasons why it wouldn't start.

He pressed the button, heard it turn over, and run on the first try. "NOW THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!" Rick pumped his fist with his success. He let it run for three minutes or so then turned it off since it wasn't needed yet. He gave it a pat on his way out. "Good boy."

It was still raining heavily when he opened the door. He made sure his rain suit was nice and tight, stepped outside into it and closed the door behind him, and then started running for the main house.

"Jeez, this weather is not fit for man or beast. Not even sure the ducks are out in this mess." Rick shook himself and peeled his rain suit off; he hung it up in the mud room and then took off his boots. He found his clothes were wet in spots but he'd anticipated that.

He went to his chosen bedroom and stripped so he could take a shower. His bathroom had a window and he could hear the rain hitting it when he stepped out of the shower. He could also hear the wind howling. Thanks to not having any electricity in the main house he had to use oil lamps so his bathroom was a touch dark since it only had the one.

Going out into the bedroom he found the place darker than it should be. His lone lamp was working though the system wasn't working properly. Still naked, he went around to dust the various mirrors mounted high up on the walls until the last one was in place.

Now his bedroom was all lit up nicely. The one lamp shone onto a mirror on the far side which reflected it to the next mirror and so on until it ran out of mirrors. It was an easy way to light up the room using just the one lamp. It saved on lamp oil as well; he only had just so much of it.

Rick got dressed, turned down the flame on the lamp on his way out, and headed down the stairs to the main room. This room wasn't nearly as dark. Even so he spent a little time adjusting the mirrors to get them to work better. Then he went through a door to reach the kitchen.

He was no chef and was the first to admit it. Still he was good enough to feed himself. Since it was raining it meant he wouldn't be doing any grilling which was far easier for him.

He filled a pan with water and noticed that the pressure was down. It told him what he would be looking at tomorrow. Then he put it on the stove and lit it using a match. His stove and water heater were propane fired from his 500 gallon propane tank.

He was no stranger to peeling a potato but this time it didn't need to be peeled. It just needed a few tiny holes, then dropped into the water, and let the water work up to boiling.

His pantry wasn't empty since he'd had a supply run last week so he grabbed a can of green beans and opened them into another pan. Since grilling was out of the question it meant he needed a pan to fry his chicken in. First he dipped it in some melted butter then dragged it through some spices he had in a bag from last time and placed them in a small amount of olive oil.

While all that cooked he went back into his pantry and pulled out some peppermint sticks that were mostly sugar. Next he poured some milk into a glass pitcher, dumped his peppermint sticks into the milk, and placed it in the refrigerator that also ran on propane.

Then he took a peek at the peppermint ice cream in the freezer. He was right. He needed to make a new batch tomorrow since tonight he would use up what little was left.

He flipped his chicken, checked everything else, then went to get his four quart ice cream maker out. He went back into the pantry to get the rock salt out. He would break the block of ice into chips tomorrow just before starting to make ice cream.

He ate in peace if you could call listening to the rain pounding on his home and hearing the wind howling through something that was causing the sound. "It's a big one." He had been warned that storms could hit the area, though usually most of them came later in the year. He had learned that they were called Nor'easters and made a mess of shipping since very few ships were capable of handling them.

His lighthouse was right in the path that freighters would take from Duluth, Minnesota, Thunder Bay, Ontario and Houghton or Marquette, Wisconsin to get to the docks that led to the other lakes of the Great Lakes. If one hit his reefs on the west side that ship was a goner.

This was no Nor'easter, still it was a bad one for this time of year which was rare.

Rick cleaned up his mess after eating. He washed everything, dried it, and then wiped down his kitchen table. It was just him so he couldn't leave it to someone else to do the job. Besides if he left it dirty he couldn't use it again.

Since he didn't have a TV and his radio was meant only for work, even if it didn't reach all that far, it left him with only a few choices for what to do next. He wasn't interested in cleaning and while he did have a selection of books that he hadn't read, he chose to do some writing instead. Writing was just a hobby since it kept him busy and his mind occupied. Being alone meant he needed to keep himself entertained and since he hated solitaire it left him with writing something.

Since he was a sucker for science fiction he went back to that story and picked up where he had left off. He was naming it The Ones who Walk. Basically it was about a far away world called Omelas that had an annual summer festival in a utopian city whose prosperity depended on the perpetual misery of a single child. Naturally the child was about to have a champion to rescue it. Well two technically since it was a husband and wife. Their child had died shortly after birth; they were hurting and couldn't sit back and watch this child suffer for the good of the city.

"Crap!" Rick broke yet another pencil and went to reach for another one only to find that one was broken as well. He looked through his pencil holder only to find all of them needed to be sharpened.

"SHIT! I need more paper too. Damn it!" He tossed his broken pencil onto the kitchen table and leaned back, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "Just when I was getting to the good part." The husband and wife were about to put their plan into action. Even if it would make their god angry, and since their god was the sun they were really risking a lot. The festival included a different girl singing to their god and presenting offerings to it. It lasted for weeks.

It was all still in his head so he gathered up all of his pencils and went in search of his one and only pencil sharpener.

Pleased that he had six sharp #2 pencils and more paper, he was all set to go back to writing. Only he heard a loud crash."Now what?" He got up and went to a window that looked west since that was where the sound came from as best he could tell.

Unfortunately it was very dark and it was raining really hard so he couldn't see anything. Then the light from his lighthouse hit something. "BLOODY HELL!" He sprinted to his mud room where he quickly put on his boots, grabbed his rain coat and buckled it up, and grabbed his hat and strapped it into place. He picked up two lanterns and headed out the door. One was an area lantern and one was a bullseye lantern. He lit both of them and out the door he went.

He used one lantern to see where he was going so as not go too far and get into the rocks that were on this side. Once he was there he sit it down and used the bullseye lantern to look out with.

Another flash from his lighthouse light had him focusing in that area. He saw a ship; it was a big one and he noticed two things right away. One, it was sideways on the rocks and the waves were pounding it into the rocks. He was sure it was probably already split wide open and flooding. It was clearly a freighter. Second he noticed that it didn't have any lights on at all. Not a single one was showing. He moved his lantern to see up and down the ship. It was definitely a freighter, he could see the hull cargo covers, two of which looked damaged already.

Another sound behind him got his attention. He spun around and used his lantern to try and see it. A flash provided by his lighthouse light let him see it for a second. He used his lantern just in time to see his radio antenna that was easily taller than the lighthouse come crashing down to the ground, just missing his maintenance building and landing partly out to sea on the east side.

"OH, FUCK ME!" That was not what he needed. He had no other way of contacting anyone, certainly not in a storm. It was metal and constructed in the form of a triangle. It also had three tie down wires to help hold it in place. He could only guess that one of those wires had snapped and the wind and rain had been too much for it so it snapped the other two wires and came crashing down.

When he didn't check in they would send someone to find out why. But that wasn't going to happen until this system had passed and if, and this was a big if, the seas weren't too rough for them to make it across the reefs on the east side and make land.

He did have a light he could use to send signals if he saw them and could use it before they left and went back.

Rick turned back to look for the ship that was breaking up on his reef. He found it easily and it was still being shoved into the reefs and being ripped open. He was transfixed as he watched. He had never seen a ship being ripped apart and sinking.

"Where's the crew?" He started moving his lantern all around to try and spot them. "Life boats?" Ships did have them, though maybe this one didn't have too many. And why were the lights already off?

"Drugs!" It was the only answer Rick could think of that fit what little he knew. "Are they really that stupid to run dark?" Why hadn't they seen his light? He had turned it on early enough for them to see it and avoid all this.

There really wasn't a whole lot he could do to save the ship. He couldn't even call for Coast Guard ships to come look for survivors since he now had no radio. Helpless, he stood there for a while and watched.

The ship just stayed right there and kept getting smashed into the reefs and getting battered into more and more pieces. When it suddenly broke into two pieces he turned to head back after picking up his other lantern. That ship was doomed and he didn't see anyone to rescue. It was all going to have to wait for until daybreak.

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Rick was up before the sun was up. He had looked and had seen that the heavy rain had ended. It was just a light mist now. The sun wouldn't come out completely but it would be more than enough to see more than he had last night.

Breakfast would have to wait as he passed by the kitchen on his way to the mud room.

Now dressed for the rain he went out the door with both lanterns again just to be sure.

He was soon back where he'd been last night. Looking out with his lantern just as the sky started to lighten up showed that the ship was gone save for a few pieces of metal that were trapped in the rocks.

With the ship gone he was satisfied with that. His day was going to be busy as it was already. He needed to figure out how and if he even could get his radio antenna back up so he could talk to people.

Then a splash of color caught his attention. "Just clothes from the ship." Rick was ready to write it off. He didn't need clothes and certainly not ones that escaped from that ship.

Thankfully the light was getting better. He watched as a wave came in and hit the clothes but oddly enough they didn't move when the wave receded. He was intrigued but it was still just a bunch of clothes. Then the next wave revealed something else.

"Is that hair?" Rick moved his light to that spot. "HOLY FUCK!" He set his light down and began running until he reached the rocks where he had to focus on stepping carefully.

It was a body! He lifted the head so that when the next wave came in it didn't swamp the face. "It's a woman!" With her head still up he used his other hand to check for a pulse. As he did that a wave came in and he had to try again.

"Alive!" He worked at getting her in his arms so he could lift her up. The waves weren't making things easy for him.

Finally he had her in his arms. He cautiously turned around and stepped carefully inland. It wasn't until he reached the grassy area that he started walking faster, leaving his lantern behind.

His first obstacle was getting the door open. When he was in the mud room he had one more door to open after closing the first one.

Next came getting her up the stairs and into a bed. Once there he exposed a little more to see that it was indeed a woman. "Alive." And he didn't have a radio to call for help. It was up to him.

First he had to get those wet clothes off of her. That was when he saw that her pants were red with blood.

"Alive and injured." He left her where she was, just as she was, and flew downstairs for his first-aid kit. Thankfully it was a big one and had a lot in it.

Once he was back he set it on the floor, opened it, and got to work taking her pants off only to find that she was wearing two layers. "Naturally." Now he had to work at getting wet blue jeans off of her. He briefly considered cutting them off of her but didn't.