A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers

Introduction

I was in the Skipton Sound Bar today and saw a vinyl copy of the Van Der Graaf Generator album "Pawn Hearts" on the wall. It is one of my favourite albums and side two is taken up with the piece "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers" and I thought with the desolate sound of the song that would be a great premise for a story.

This is it.

A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers

It happened.

They set the bombs off.

The world was in a permanent nuclear winter.

There were survivors, away from the land, in their towers with light.

The land was scorched, the seas were poisoned, marine life washed up on the shores ... dead.

No flora survived not even grass or weeds.

No insects, rodents, or any form of livestock.

The humans left looked to the towers with the lights in and saw them as salvation, but the keepers of the towers knew they could not let them, they were plagued, and the lighthouse keepers knew that if they came into contact with them, they would succumb to the plague.

They had limited supplies and knew that they were the last of humanity, and would eventually starve, or shoot themselves, but better that than the radioactive plague that had devastated the earth.

Their generators kept the lights burning, but that was only to signal that there was still some humanity left. They communicated by radio, but one by one lights went out and the lighthouse keepers were gone.

The plague never took any of them, but it was the plague that destroyed all life on Earth and was the end of the lighthouse keepers.