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Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Way Down Deep 
by Rie Sheridan Rose 

The old lighthouse had always been there—at least as long as any of the kids remembered. Brenda stood with her fists on her hips. Arms akimbo, they called it—she just liked the way it made her feel. Powerful. Important.

Eyes narrowed, she glowered at Billy Preston. Her heart was pounding. “Take it back!”

Billy shrugged, a smirk on his rugged face. “Why? It’s true.”

Brenda shoved the bigger boy, making him stagger back a step. “It is NOT! I’m not scared of that place.” She thrust a hand behind her, pointing in the general direction of the lighthouse.

The other kids stood in a loose ring around the pair, shuffling nervous feet at the thought of the lighthouse. Brenda saw several surreptitious glances at the towering building. It looked ominous in the waning sunlight, hulking like a giant on the top of the cliff.

“Prove it,” Billy growled. “If you’re so tough.”

“Fine!”

Before she could think better of it, Brenda stalked up the steps and grabbed the handle of the door, praying that it wouldn’t open.

But it did. Why was it unlocked? Weren’t the adults worried there would be vandalism?

Steeling herself with a deep breath and squared shoulders, Brenda took one look back, lifted her chin, and stepped through the door.

The interior was brighter than Brenda expected, lit by staggered windows spiraling up the exterior wall. Sundown was still an hour or two away, so she had time to look around a little before it got too dark to see.

One hand atop the handrail, she started up the staircase. It curled around three stories past bare interior landings to end at a trapdoor. She pushed it open with care, peeking into another empty room containing only the copper reflectors of the decommissioned light.

“That’s disappointing,” she murmured aloud.

Letting the trapdoor close, she started back down the staircase. She continued past the landing with the door to the exterior, frowning as she did so. Why was there a staircase down?

Lighthouses didn’t usually delve underground, did they? Why would they? Maybe a storm shelter, or a root cellar?

Lost in her musing, she didn’t realize she had descended lower than the top of her head below the entryway. The stairs continued down with no ending in sight. The darkness surged in around her, deepening with every step down.

She scrunched up her face, straining to see beneath her. Soon, she had to feel her way down step by step as she clutched the handrail in a death-grip. After what seemed like hours, she almost stumbled as her questing foot found the ground was closer than she expected. She must have reached the bottom.

Wishing she had her phone with her—her mom had confiscated it because she got a C in Calculus last week—she stepped forward, feeling her way step by step. Putting her hands out in front of her, she gasped as she came in contact with a cold metal door. It seemed odd that a door would be this deep underground…

The door had a Camelot-style door handle, with a thumb lever on top of a vertical pull. She pressed down on the lever, and the door cracked open. She really shouldn’t go any further alone.

But she’d never been one to play it safe.

She jerked open the door and stepped into the revealed room lurking behind it.

“Ah, there you are,” purred a deep voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Brenda’s eyes widened as she took in the scene before her. An enormous desk sat in front of her, backlit by a flickering reddish light. Sitting in a chair behind the desk was a bulky figure dressed in a dark suit and a pair of pince-nez perched atop a Roman nose.

“W-who are you?”

“We’ll go over everything in time, sweetie. For now, welcome to Hell.”

.

Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Author Rie Sheridan Rose:

Overheard in Hell:
Dark Poetry

Poems exploring hell and damnation. Tales of sorrow, vengeance, betrayal, and redemption. Ghosts, ghouls, and demons stalk these pages. Don’t read in a lonely house…in a darkened room by a single candle…

…unless you like the touch of an icy finger up your spine.

Available on Amazon!