Through a series of unforeseen circumstances I found myself living in a small town called Postern near the coast of Maine. After graduating from Colby College I had a job lined up with a small publishing company called Cadrick. I left everything behind and moved to Postern only to lose the job six months later. Cadrick had seen a considerable loss in revenue and was on the verge of bankruptcy. New hires were the first to go. I had student loans to repay and uprooting myself again was not an option. That’s how I ended up working in the Postern Public Library.
Maine was a beautiful state to be stranded in. Everywhere I looked I could see the bright orange, red, and yellow hues of the leaves. Having grown up on the west coast, I never really got to appreciate the seasons. That was part of what drew me eastward in the first place - that and my unquenchable wanderlust. There was something undeniably surreal about this town and it’s surrounding wilderness. In the days and weeks following my unemployment, I spent much of my spare time hiking through the woods, hoping to become lost in a hidden glen or find a crashing waterfall to rest beneath.
I had heard of secluded trail behind an abandoned sawmill located a few miles east of Postern. The road leading to the mill was overgrown and narrow making for a precarious drive. The air was especially frigid that day and the marine layer had settled deep inland forming a penetrating mist. After a point, the road became too treacherous to drive so I parked my car and continued on foot. The sawmill was nestled in a clearing in the woods partially enclosed by a rusty chain link fence. A single tall building rested in the center of the facility surrounded by a few dilapidated shacks. A rusty yellow backhoe with tires half buried in the dirt had clearly not seen use for some time. The place was ghostly quiet except for the occasional chirping bird in the distance. There were no sounds of spinning blades and no lumberjacks hauling logs.
I sat on a fallen log to catch my breath when I saw a man leaving the treeline and enter the sawmill grounds through a gap in the fence. I don’t know why my instinct told me to remain hidden but I listened. I ducked behind the cover of the log and peeked my head up just in time to see him disappear into a large barn shaped building. Something didn’t feel right and I knew I should probably just leave but I felt compelled to stay. I left the cover of the tree and crept over to the building where the man had entered. I pressed my back against the outer wall and leaned my head around the large opening. There was no sign of the man. Cautiously I entered the building. It was full of machinery that I had no names for. I scanned the room but it appeared to be empty. Perhaps my mind had been playing tricks on me. Without warning the large sawblade at the center of the room whirred to life. My legs nearly buckled at the sudden rush of adrenaline and my heart pounded against my chest. My stomach overturned as I heard footsteps clattering on the metal rafter above me. I didn’t stay to investigate further, instead I fled the premises and ran to my car.
The whole drive home I remember replaying the incident in my head but when I returned to my apartment the importance of what I had seen seemed to fade away. I wasn’t even sure I had seen anything out of the ordinary at all. By the time I laid down to sleep that evening I was convinced that it had all been a hallucination.
A few weeks later I was sitting at the front desk of the Postern Public Library with my nose buried in a history book. The library didn’t see a lot of patronage, which meant that on slower days I was the only employee. I didn’t hear the bell ring as the door opened. It was the way he moved in the corner of my vision that broke my concentration. It was the man the I had seen at the sawmill and the memories of that day came rushing back to me. I wanted to crawl under the desk and hide and hope he just left but I was transfixed. The man crossed the room without so much as a glance in my direction before disappearing behind the shelves. As I sat there frozen in fear, I realized I had no idea what this man looked like. Just moments ago he had passed in front of me but for some inexplicable reason, the image refused to form a solid memory. How had I even recognized him in the first place? I never got a close look at him in the forest. The compulsion to get another look at the stranger was so strong I felt as if I was being dragged from my chair. I searched up and down the rows of shelves but found no sign of him.
The library had been rebuilt nearly twenty years ago. According to the papers of the time, there had been a mysterious fire that destroyed most of the original building and its contents The basement had not been in use since the building had been rebuilt and I never had a reason to enter it. But now the door to it stood ajar revealing an old staircase going down. As I stood at the precipice I felt as if I was floating at the edge of a void and if I moved at all I would sucked into its dark recesses. I took a deep breath and shook away the image. The walls looked much older than the materials used to build the rest of the library. The bricks were charred and I wondered whether the basement had been renovated at all after the fire. I took a few steps down and was greeted by darkness. I took out my cell phone and opened the flashlight app and though the light did little to illuminate the stairway it was enough to guide my path down. The stairs groaned with each step and I was worried they might give way under the weight of my foot. I reached the floor below and shone my light around the room. I could see rows of shelves each lined with books. I paused and listened for a moment for signs that the man was down here but was greeted with silence.
I took a few steps deeper into the room and examined the rows of books. There was a thick coat of dust covering everything down there. A musty odor permeated the room and overpowered my senses. These books had been rotting here for far too long. I pulled a book from the shelf and blew away a layer of dust. Its wooden cover was bound in cracked leather making it seem more like a tome. I didn’t recognize the language it was written in but it looked ancient. I began turning the pages slowly at first and then with increasing purpose. I was overcome with the sense that the book was guiding my hand, showing me specific entries none of which I could read. And yet understanding began to seep into my thoughts as if the language was no longer a barrier. The pages flew by and I can’t say for certain that my hand had anything further to do with their motion. The book contained truth but it was a truth I wish I’d never known. Behind my eyes, in the space where nightmares dwell, I was consumed by an unrelenting madness. The world around me began to quake as if the fabric of reality was loosening at the seams. A series of loud thumps freed me from my mania and I was momentarily thankful for the reprieve. But then I realized that the tremor hadn’t stopped. A foreign wind whistled down the stairs and I heard the eerie cry of the hinges as the door began to swing shut. I dropped the tome and ran for the stairs just as the door slammed. I stumbled up the steps afraid that when I reached the top the door would be locked, trapping me down here. Without looking back I clenched my fist over the handle and pulled. The door flew open and I very nearly tumbled back down the stairs but I refused to loose my grip on the handle and hoisted myself up. I slammed the door shut and locked it behind me.
I couldn’t reconcile the events that day nor those in the woods but the more time passed, the more I was sure that nothing strange had happened. I hadn’t noticed the man enter the library so it stood to reason that I hadn’t noticed him leave. The horrors I felt in that basement faded from my mind like a dream upon waking and eventually I stopped thinking about them. A month later, I was taking a walk at the beach when the weather took a sudden turn. I was huddled under the cover of a public restroom awning checking the weather on my phone to see if the rain was going to let up at all when I saw him. He was walking along the shore seemingly unconcerned with the inclement downpour. I had to know what he was doing and so I stepped out onto the beach and followed him.
Pinkman’s Lighthouse was a landmark in Postern. The town wasn’t known for much, but on the rare occasion that a tourist happened through, they were often directed to the site. It wasn’t open to the public but it was something to look at. The strange man walked the winding path up the bluff, stepped over a broken fence and splashed toward the cylindrical building. The lighthouse was much taller than it seemed from afar - it must have been two or three stories high. The door, to my surprise, was unlocked. I slipped inside and followed the sound of the man’s footsteps up the stairs.
The staircase curved around the frame of the lighthouse until finally unfolding into a sizable open space. At the center of the room stood the massive rotating spotlight which served as a guide for ships nearing the shore. For a brief moment, the entire room was engulfed in a haunting white light as the bulb revolved. The beam swept the room revealing more than mere shadows could conceal. It was like the visual representation of a weak radio station being overtaken by a stronger signal. I was staring into a space between realities and what I saw threatened to splinter my psyche. There was a far away sensation that I recognized as horror but my consciousness and body were worlds apart. There were no words to describe what lay there in the cracks but in the span of what felt like mere seconds, I knew the true definition of insanity.
I don’t remember collapsing to the ground. I don’t remember crying. But there I found myself, curled in a ball, tears wetting my cheeks. I tried to push myself to a sitting position but my arms would not stop shaking. I stared out over the balcony towards the foggy sea as the light continued its revolution. I desperately wished I had never come here; to this lighthouse, to Postern. I wished I had never left my west coast home at all. And then I saw the man and I knew my misery was only just beginning.
The truth washed over me like a wave, drowning away any lingering doubt: he wasn’t a man at all. His body was merely an anchor, binding his true form to this world. I looked into his eyes and for the first time he looked into mine, only it wasn’t his eyes that noticed me, it was the beast that lay beyond. In all of my education I had not encountered words adequate enough to describe its visage. It was amorphous and yet somehow solid. It had no mouth and yet I saw rows of fangs. It had no eyes and yet it watched me with an alien curiosity. As I lay on the cold metal floor of the lighthouse, the beam of light seemed to spin faster and faster and with each gyration it illuminated the abomination. I yearned to avert my gaze but I was mesmerized by the strobe effect. I clawed at the ground, pleading my body to stand, but all I could do was crawl. The man stood perfectly still but the part of him that existed beyond reckoning crept toward me. It flickered closer and farther all at once as if the physical space between us was immaterial. I inched toward the edge of the balcony unsure of what I planned to do if I reached it. Maybe I thought I had a better chance surviving the thirty foot drop than I would with the anathema, but before I had a chance to decide, the beast’s outstretched appendage twisted around my leg and dragged me back. I pleaded for mercy and this time I remembered the tears.
The Visitor in Postern was written by Daniel Weinell and illustrated by Maribel Navarro.
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