Installment 11 of our featured novel “Relentless” is here! If you’ve missed the earlier installments and would like to join our readership, be sure to check out the novel’s home page HERE.

We are publishing the novel in small installments, so it takes only minutes to keep up with the story. Many years ago, we were fans of Stephen King’s installment-based publishing of “The Green Mile” over many months, so we are following in that vein as a feature on Moteventure.

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RELENTLESS – D.S. FACTOR

In the interest of caution, Abi decided to temporarily leave the main road, sidling her way across the narrow causeway which led to the Saylorwell Light. For many years, access to the lighthouse itself had been restricted to the Head Keeper and his family only. Eventually the children grew up and were college bound, leaving both Bertha and Henry “Wickie” Wellington alone to tend to the duties of running the lighthouse on a daily basis. As time began to take its toll on the Wellingtons’ health, the lighthouse began to fall into disrepair, ultimately coming under the county’s jurisdiction and management in the late nineties at the death of Bertha Wellington. After renovations and upgrades to the property, the lighthouse was opened to the public, instantly becoming a popular regional destination for New England tourists.

Pulling the Ford into a small culvert near the rear of the property that blocked its view from the main road, Abi slipped out of the vehicle and made her way past a rugged sign detailing the history of the site, finding herself moving off the path to seek refuge in what appeared to be a cellar attached to the old lighthouse. The doors jutted out at a forty-five-degree angle from the building. Several gardening tools flanked their right side – a rake, a dirt-encrusted spade, as well as a pair of well-worn gardening gloves. Ignoring these, Abi braced her foot against the left door, opened the right side, and descended the stone steps into the darkness, letting the door close loudly with a clamor.

Making her way down decaying cement steps one at a time in near blackness, Abi reached a heavy, arched door. Finding it slightly ajar, she eased the door back with an eerie creak, finding herself in the basement level of the lighthouse.

Stepping gingerly forward in anticipation of obstacles littering the floor, hands splayed out in front of her for navigation, Abi’s fingers eventually connected with a damp and somewhat slimy-feeling red brick and mortar wall. Odd as it seemed, her thoughts went immediately to the haunted houses she frequented with her high school girlfriends years before, particularly where grapes where peeled and used to simulate eyeballs. As close as she could discern, that is what the ragged surface inside the lighthouse felt like – that or some kind of clammy amphibian hidden away in the crannies of the room had found its way up to where she’d placed her hand.

Shaking off the sensation of slime and freakish creatures on the loose, Abi turned and immediately banged her head into something hard enough for fireworks to explode within her line of vision. Although under normal circumstances, she was a church-going, well-disciplined individual, before she could stop herself, she’d blurted an expletive several times after crying out.

Once the fireworks, and not to mention, the profanity, abated, Abi realized she’d stumbled into the wrought-iron railing of the spiral staircase that wound its way up to the main level of the lighthouse.

Carefully touching the expanding lump on her forehead, Abi winced and, like a blind man, swept her hands out in an arc in front of her until it struck the handrail leading up the staircase and out of the damp, musty cellar. Grasping the handhold, she stumbled slowly up crisscrossed metal stairs, her footfalls echoing loudly in the open space around her. Ascending the graceful curve of the staircase, Abi grimaced and transferred the excess slime accumulating on her hands to her jeans, convinced that even Spray-n-Wash wouldn’t be enough to save them when she finally was able to throw them in a washer.

Nearly halfway up to the main floor, it was at this point that a light seemingly powered by the sun burst into every corner of the room.

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