The shattered lighthouse grew as the light deepened still further into night. Even ruined and ravaged and torn at by wind and erosion and storms, it was a beacon to them, had a sense of life she could not ignore. There was something almost noble about it, something about the cold and the shadows of the trees and yet this place still existing that made her both sad and proud—an unexpected feeling. Had the biologist felt this way, if she had come here? Ghost Bird didn’t think so. The biologist would have seen everything that surrounded it first.

The lesser darkness between the lines of the island and sea had resolved into the wreckage of the dock, at a slight raised angle from the sea so the right half of it lay submerged, the shore to either side a human-made welter of broken concrete pilings and rocks. There was no hint of a beach, until a dull off-white grin became visible along the curve of the shore farther to the west.

No light came from the lighthouse, but raucous clusters of birds settling in for the night on the trees competed with the waves, their rude cries coming to her now over the wind. The trajectories of bats in the sky above seemed like something planned by a drunk navigator, their bodies obliterating stars in haphazard and unpredictable fashion.

“Do you feel like someone is watching us?” she whispered.

“No, I don’t.” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been talking to her the whole time, some effect of the wind and the salt air.

“I feel like someone is watching us.”

“Birds. Bats. Trees.” But said with too much dismissal. He didn’t believe it was just birds, bats, trees, either.

The gulping slosh under the dock as they lashed the rowboat to the pier, the lap-licking wash and retreat over the rocks below, the creak of the planks as they came up the causeway. The anonymous birds in the trees fell silent, but a throbbing series of croaks continued from various parts of the overgrown grounds of the lighthouse. Somewhere beyond that the deliberate footfalls of some medium-size mammal making its way through the underbrush. While above them the pale, almost luminous jagged spire of the lighthouse rose, framed by the dark sky and the stars arrayed around it as if it was the center of the universe.

“We’ll spend the night in the lighthouse, and then forage in the morning.” It was warmer here than on the sea, but still cold.

She knew it could not have escaped his notice—the worn little path through the long weeds, visible by the starlight. Only regular traffic or maintenance would cause the weeds not to grow there.

Control nodded, face unreadable in the darkness, and stooped to pick up a stick, brandished it. They had no guns—had long ago discarded their few modern supplies, acknowledgment of Area X’s strange effects, keeping just one flashlight. Turning on that flashlight now would have felt unwise and foolish. But she had a gutting knife, and she took that out.