The Light at Beacon Point

It was my first year at Meridian University when I impulsively signed up for the Outback Exploration Society. Our chosen destination was Beacon Point, a peak that locals in the farming valley below called ‘The Lantern’s Maw.’ They claimed that on clear nights, the summit glowed like a lighthouse, and if you listened carefully, you could hear a kind of music—like a distant festival, all drums and laughter, echoing off the rocks. I dismissed it all as folk tales, the kind of thing you tell freshmen to spook them. The trails were steep and treacherous, with no road for vehicles, so hauling a generator seemed absurd. We’d climb up in one day, eat a quick lunch, and be down before dark.

Our group was small: me, a wiry senior named Elias, and a trio of inseparable friends—Mara, Jake, and what I assumed was her buddy, though the third one never spoke much, just nodded along. They called him ‘Sable’ because of his dark moods and even darker jokes. Elias was our de facto leader, with a map that looked older than the college. He’d studied the summit from satellite images and aerial photos, but the summit was oddly blurry, as if the peak itself repelled clear resolution. We started at 4:00 AM, headlamps cutting through the mist, boots crunching on granite and pine needles. The air smelled of ozone, like before a thunderstorm.

The climb was brutal. Switchbacks that seemed to go on forever, scrambles over loose scree where one wrong move meant a long fall. By the time we reached the treeline, the sun was already high, and the summit loomed above us like a black tooth. We took a break on a ledge, and Mara shared her gum, joking that the ‘summit party’ must have been quiet that day. Sable stared at a cluster of old, rusted pitons hammered into the rock—never mentioned in any trail guide. He ran his fingers over them, and for a moment, his face went slack, as if he was listening to something we couldn’t hear. Jake shook his head, ‘Ignore him. He’s always like this.’ But I noticed Elias checking his compass, frowning as the needle spun lazily.

We pushed on, and the terrain became alien. The rock changed color, from grey to a deep obsidian, and the air grew colder despite the sun beating down. The summit plateau was surprisingly flat, like a tabletop, covered in a field of purple wildflowers that swayed without any wind. In the center stood a ring of standing stones, ancient and weathered, with a single flat altar stone at the midpoint. On that stone sat a small, battery-powered lantern, its light flickering weakly. That wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was the silence. The birds had vanished, the insects too, and our footsteps didn’t echo. Around the stones, the ground was littered with cigarette butts, bottle caps, and the charred remains of a bonfire. Someone had been here recently.

We set down our packs, and Elias pulled out his GPS, but the screen glitched, showing coordinates from a different continent. ‘We’ll just have a quick lunch and go,’ he said, but his voice was tight. I sat next to Mara, and she passed me a sandwich, but as I bit into it, I tasted ash. Meanwhile, Sable had wandered to the edge of the plateau, staring down at the valley below. ‘There’s a road down there,’ he said, pointing. I squinted, and sure enough, a thin ribbon of asphalt wound through the trees, with tiny dots that could have been vehicles. But there was no road up here, and no way to get up except the trails. ‘What kind of vehicles?’ Jake asked. Sable just shrugged.

Then we heard it. At first, it was like a low hum, a vibration you feel in your chest more than hear. The lantern on the altar stone flickered out. The wildflowers bent away from the stones, as if they were bowing. And then the music started—not from any speaker, but from the air itself. A driving, rhythmic beat, like drums and electric guitars, mixed with the roar of a crowd. The song was familiar, a hit from last year, but it sounded distorted, warped, as if being played through a faulty speaker. We all froze. Mara grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in. ‘Where is that coming from?’ she whispered. I pointed to the stones. The sound seemed to emanate from them, from the very rock.

Elias moved toward the altar stone, his hand reaching for the lantern. ‘There must be an audio system hidden in these stones,’ he said, but his voice was uncertain. As his fingers touched the metal, the music swelled, and the ground beneath our feet trembled. The light returned, but not from the lantern—from the stones themselves, each one glowing with a sickly orange light, like embers. The glow pulsed in time with the music, and I saw shadows dancing at the edges of my vision, not the heat shimmer, but actual silhouettes moving right behind us. I turned, and there was nothing, but I could feel hands brushing my pack, my shoulder.

I shouted, ‘Get off the plateau!’ and we scrambled for the trailhead. But the trail we’d come up was gone. In its place was a steep drop-off, a cliff that fell into blackness, no bottom visible. The music grew louder, and the glowing stones cast long, reaching shadows as if they were fingers stretching toward us. The sky, which had been clear, was now the color of bruise, and the sun was setting fast—we’d been up there for only twenty minutes, but it was already dusk. Elias fumbled for his headlamp, but the beam flickered and died. ‘This is impossible,’ he said, and for the first time, I heard fear crack his voice.

We huddled together, backs against the altar stone, as the music morphed into a cacophony of noise—laughter, screams, a baby crying, all layered over the beat. The shadows merged, forming a massive silhouette that towered over us, its head brushing the clouds. It had two glowing orange eyes, like the stones, and when it spoke, its voice was a thousand voices, speaking in a language we didn’t know, but we understood every word: ‘You should not have come.’

Suddenly, Sable stepped forward. He walked toward the silhouette, his hands raised in a placating gesture. he spoke, not in that alien tongue, but in English, his voice steady, ‘We are sorry. We didn’t know. Let us leave, and we will never return.’ The silhouette tilted its head, and the glow in its eyes dimmed. The music softened, becoming a distant hum. The stones flickered, and the trail reappeared, now bathed in the grey light of early morning. We were standing on the summit again, our packs at our feet, the lantern glowing softly. The sky was the pale blue of dawn, and the valley below was clear. We had never left.

We descended in silence, not speaking until we reached the base. As we walked back to the van, I looked up and saw the summit, sharp and clear, with no sign of the stones. But in my pack, I found a small, black obsidian shard, no bigger than my thumb, smooth as glass. I dropped it on the ground and walked away. I didn’t tell anyone about it. But Elias, while we were unloading, pulled me aside and showed me his own shard, identical to mine. Then Jake, and Mara, and even Sable. We all had one. They had been placed in our packs without our knowledge, while we were on the summit, or perhaps during the descent. We never spoke of it again, but I keep mine in a locked drawer, and at night, I sometimes hear faint drumming, and I know that Beacon Point is waiting for our return.