The Lighthouse

I woke up to find her snuggled against me, as always, but this time her usual T-shirt was absent. I didn't mind one bit, as she felt really good. Yes, we were both technically still married. Yes, her husband had wrongly accused her of being a cheater. Yes, I had condemned Dani for cheating, though she was the one who left. None of that stopped us, and we didn't feel bad about it at all. It was surprisingly intimate and calm, like the kind of sex couples have after a few years together. We just clicked, in more ways than one.

"Well, I've finally confirmed his suspicions. I'm still technically married and I've had sex with another man," she remarked later, as she still clung to me.

She sounded serious, but I still had to snort.

"Really, Nina? I think we can both consider ourselves divorced. In my mind, marriage is not about a certificate, it is a promise to each other. I think we can safely say both of our spouses broke that promise. I don't feel bound by it anymore."

"I agree, but my lovely murderous husband might not."

"No doubt, but who cares? He decided he wanted to murder me days ago."

"He cares, and at some point, he will explain his point of view in detail, I'm afraid."

I just sighed and held her closer while I still could. She seemed more than fine with that.

We only spent a few days in the basement apartment, its heavy walls giving a sense of protection that was probably false, but the time was very intense. I completely fell in love with her, but didn't dare tell her, as our time was limited and I wasn't sure about her true feelings. I didn't want to press her or take advantage of the extreme situation we were in.

Whenever we were able to block out the peril that loomed over us, the time we spent in our underground prison was the most passionate, intense and romantic experience I ever had, and I was sure the same was true for her. We never talked about the future, though, as we knew we might not have one. The food wasn't anything to write home about, and there wasn't much of it. We assumed he had no food at all. He, or we, would have to do something and I guessed it would happen soon.

We were checking the door once again when we heard the first bang. It was as subtle as a hand grenade. We both jumped a bit. We knew this would come, but it was still bad news. The madman was coming.

"Will it hold?" Nina asked unnecessarily, relying on my clairvoyant abilities.

I just shrugged. "I have no idea." I saw the hinges slowly giving way under the barrage of hammering. "Probably not."

"Shit," she observed and I couldn't have agreed more.

He had obviously found some heavy object and was using it as a battering ram. The door was sturdy, but it was also old and rusty. We watched it slowly give up the fight.

"Let's go upstairs for this."

"Why upstairs, Nina?"

"I might die today, but I sure as fuck won't die down there."

I just nodded. It wasn't logical, but I had to agree. We might end up dried and hanging from the ceiling, but that damn crypt wasn't going to be the last thing I'd see.

As we hurried up the stairs, we heard the door finally break down and could hear him laughing behind us.

"I can seeeeee you! I seeee you!" he mocked, and it sounded like a maniacal version of hide and seek. Then he laughed again, and I thought I would really hate being killed by such a nutjob. It was a bit insulting.

At first, we ran up the stairs until we realized he took his time. Crazy or not, I had to admit he was right. We all knew where we'd eventually meet and we all had plenty of time to get there.

"It still feels wrong not to run," Nina remarked.

"True, but I'm tired already. It won't matter soon anyway. We all know how this is going to end."

"Oh no, Tom. This is our life we're fighting for. Our future. Our own happy ending. We might lose, but we won't lose without a good fight."

Wow, she should have been some kind of motivational coach. I immediately felt better and more determined. I even rated our chances of surviving this higher, maybe even as high as one percent.

We finally reached the maintenance platform below the lantern room, where I had spent a few restless days.

"Let's block the stairs with our bodies," I proposed. It wasn't really a good plan, but it was the only one we had. She didn't look convinced, but obviously came to the same conclusion.

We stood next to each other, blocking the gap in the railing where the stairs ended. He looked up at us and grinned. Standing higher gave us a slight advantage, but it wasn't much and he knew it. He was carrying some kind of stick that he waved in our direction. Of course, being a true madman, he had obligations. One was to laugh at the most inappropriate times, like this one.

"You will make a nice addition to my collection," he announced, and I wasn't sure if that included Nina.

"Go away. Our marriage is over," Nina tried to convince him. I didn't expect him to just nod and walk away, and sure enough, he didn't.

"Yeah, sure, so you can continue to cheat on me with him. You remember our vows, my dear wife? You swore. Until death do us part. Remember?"

"I married a different man."

I was expecting a fight to the death, not an argument about marriage vows, but I wasn't about to interrupt them. It gave me a few more minutes to stay alive, a state I definitely preferred.

"What are you talking about? I'm your husband."

"No, I didn't marry a crazy serial killer."

Surprisingly, he seemed genuinely surprised.

"Serial killer? Me? No, no, you don't get away with that. You know and I know that you killed them. Stop trying to pretend that you didn't."

"I didn't even know them and I certainly didn't kill them."

"Oh, but you did! You surely did, as surely as you cheated on me with them. I had to finish what you started, you gave me no choice. I had to keep our marriage pure, since you wouldn't. I won't be cuckolded. You're mine. Those men had to go, like this one here."

Nina rudely interrupted their marital conversation by leaping forward, grabbing his stick and jerking hard. The unexpected force made him stumble forward. I used the opportunity to try to kick his head, but I missed and just grazed his ear, which must have hurt a lot but didn't have the desired effect of sending him downwards. The unexpectedly missing resistance made me stumble forward, too, and I landed on top of him. He quickly grabbed a handrail support or we would have both slid down the whole staircase to the next landing. I had the fleeting thought that he would make a great slide.

He tried to throw me off him, which would have sent me downwards alone, but I managed to grab his jacket and hold on for dear life. As fights to the death go, this was as undignified as possible. It felt like a schoolyard brawl. Nina jumped down and tried to stomp on his hand, but missed and hit his forearm. He didn't even flinch; he just started to growl like an animal, which was a bit unsettling.

He could only use one hand, as he had to use the other to hold onto the handrail support. His free arm was hurt by Nina's kick. She used the opportunity to snatch his stick, but couldn't beat him, as I was still sitting on top of him. I disentangled myself and managed to climb upwards, not even trying to miss his face with my right boot.

After a lot of chaos, the situation was basically the same. Nina and I were standing on the platform, Dr. Nuts was climbing towards us. The only difference was that we had the stick this time. Looking at it, I saw it wasn't much, but it was the only weapon around, which is always the best one to use. Its only advantage was that we had it, and he didn't.

I looked at her, asking nonverbally if I should take it.

"Tennis," she just answered and I nodded. It was strange to imagine that woman, who I only knew under such dreadful circumstances, had once played tennis. I tried to imagine her in a short white dress but failed.

"I'd love to see that."

"You will," she grinned, but I was sure she was very aware of our evidently limited chances of survival.

"Okay, kids. That hurt. Enough of these games," the panting giant said in his admittedly impressive low voice. "This has to end now." So far, I agreed with him. "Nina, you need to decide. Come back to me. Be my wife again. I will give you only one chance, and you must choose now. Kill him and your life will be spared. I will forgive you this one more time, but no more. This is the last time."

He sounded sincere. I knew she would hate living with him, but if she chose him and killed me, she would at least survive and might find a chance to escape later. It was a tempting offer and probably the logical choice for her. She hardly knew me. If she chose me, it would mean almost certain death. Why should she sacrifice her life for a guy she just met?

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "I hate you. You heard that? Not dislike, hate. Pure hate. You're not even a human being anymore. You are a monster."

I admit I didn't really admire the guy. We started on the wrong foot and it just got worse afterwards. But I saw his surprise and hurt, and they were clearly genuine. In his own somewhat warped reality, he had always tried to do the right thing and still his wife said those hurtful words. It was clear that the really loved her in his very own, hopefully unique, way.

"But Nina..." he started, suddenly sounding like a little boy, despite the rumbling voice.

"Just shut up, okay? Consider this a divorce. We're done. Finito." Her words were sharp and hard, like daggers aimed at the giant's heart, and I could almost see them strike home. Note to self: do not make this woman angry.

He looked pensive now, troubled, even. It was his turn to have his world shaken, and he didn't seem to like it any better than I had. After several seconds, he came to a decision.

"So be it," he said, pulling a gun from his jacket.

"Oh, fuck," Nina and I said simultaneously. Neither of us expected that, but even if we had, it would have changed nothing. I was still dismayed, and given his other advantages, using a gun seemed somehow unfair.

"Till death do us part," he solemnly said and raised the gun.

"Yeah, whatever," a female voice behind him said.

Surprised, he turned around, only to be hit by something hard in the side of his head. He dropped like a stone, revealing the smallish person standing behind him. Dani. Really? I had assumed she was dead.

"I have to say, that was really impressive. You were really willing to die for each other. Wow. You and I never had that strength, that commitment, did we, Tom? I mean, we had a good marriage in the beginning, but never anything close to that."

She was standing there, cool as fuck, leaning on her folding shovel I knew so well. My inability to find the right words for a conversation had never stopped her before, and it didn't now. She went right on.

"I hope I will find that someday. If we'd had it, I hope I wouldn't have done what I did. I'm really sorry for that, Tom. You didn't deserve it, but I think if our marriage wasn't already weak, it wouldn't have happened. Maybe I just subconsciously wanted out and Mike was just a sign. I don't know," she mused as if we were all sitting in a Victorian drawing room calmly discussing the neighbor's new puppy or something, over a nice cup of tea.

"You must be Dani," Nina said, equally calm and courteous, extending a ladylike hand over the giant who had tried to kill us. "I'm Nina."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Dani responded in kind. "Sorry, my hand doesn't quite reach."

"Urgh..." the fallen lunatic contributed and tried to raise the gun towards us again, desperately whimpering something that might have been "Nina."

"Will you please shut the fuck up? We're trying to have an important conversation here," Dani demanded and hit him with the shovel again. This time, she hit him on the neck and she did so with the edge. I winced when I saw the resulting gash and the large amount of blood pouring out, but both women seemed quite calm. As he was dying, he finally let go of the gun and it clattered against the metal grids of the stairway as it fell.

"Now, where were we? Oh, yes, an out-affair. Yes, that might be true." Nina was amazingly unfazed about the demise of her husband and his last word. I knew first hand that she wasn't an unfeeling woman, but I guessed living as a serial killer's prisoner had managed to weaken her empathy for him. "Tom told me what happened. It certainly sounded like you were looking for an out-affair."

"Yeah, probably," Dani mused while the guy was bleeding to death between us. "I'll always regret the way I did it, though. Hell, my stupidity almost killed me. And don't doubt that I have buyer's remorse in spades."

"How did you manage to survive anyway?" I asked.

"A local picked me up and took me to the village. Sheer luck. He was the only one on that route for weeks, he said. Then you didn't appear. I wanted to apologize. Then I started to worry. Then I started to panic. I tried to convince the villagers to join me and look for you. They wouldn't because of the weather, even before I mentioned where I wanted to go. None of them wanted to go this direction, so I went alone. They lent me a car so I drove for most of the distance, until the road ends. It's not that far from there."

"Wow, I'm impressed. Thank you," I said.

"Finding you here was easy. The weather is a lot better now and the lighthouse is the only place where you could have been. I saw this lummox here breaking through the door and knew he probably didn't just want to say hello. I just followed him up the stairs and there you were. Right where the trouble was, as usual," she said, grinning.

I remembered why I once fell in love with her.

"Thank you, by the way. You saved our lives," Nina said.

"No big deal," she dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand. "Just glad I had my trusty shovel with me. I hope it comes clean." She looked dubiously at the blood-stained tool for a moment. She shook her head slightly and continued more seriously. "I hope you can forgive me, Tom. I hope you can forget my recent insanity. Think about what we had in the beginning. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

She smiled tentatively. She obviously had something in mind, but I had no idea what. She could not possibly hope for a reconciliation, could she? I wasn't sure she even knew what she wanted and why she did what she did.

Our new house's living room was cozy, a nice fire was burning, we were sipping cups of tea. This was as comfortable as life could possibly get. No hiking trips, no snowy landscape, not a single maniacal serial killer. And the glass-topped table in front of us held nothing but our tea cups. My wife was by my side, and all was good in my life.

"What are you thinking of?" she inquired with one of her winsome smiles.

"Our escape from hell," I replied, admiring her as she relaxed in her favorite chair.

"God, that man, I still can't believe that actually happened. I'm so glad he's dead. I still have nightmares about him from time to time."

"He's dead, Nina. You're safe at home, and free of him forever."

"True," she said and lovingly patted my hand. "I do feel a bit sorry for Dani."

"I do too, now and again. She did save our lives and I will never forget that. But she chose to cheat and leave me for another guy. It's not our fault she regretted it later and he turned out to be a dud."

"Right. Not everyone won, but we sure did."

Many thanks to the usual suspects, namely Blackrandi for her grammar magic and George Anderson for generally improving the story, which is sometimes bordering on co-authoring.