"The Beacon" is the first segment of the eleventh episode from the first season of the television seriesThe Twilight Zone.
Opening narration
Plot
The story opens with a young doctor named Dennis Barrows driving along a dirt road in wild backcountry. His car breaks down and he decides to walk to the nearest town. He encounters a barbed wire fence blocking the road with a sign on its front that reads: "Private Property – Keep Out." With no way to signal for help, Dr. Barrows decides to cross the fence anyway. He arrives at what looks like a painting of a coastal town. All the houses are dark, with the only light coming from a lighthouse, causing Dr. Barrows to think he may have stumbled upon a ghost town. Desperate, he bangs on the door of a general store. A light comes on and the shopkeeper says this is a small town with no telephone service or connections to a state legislature. A small boy named Teddy then comes to store on behalf of his mother, wishing to buy aspirin. After introducing himself as a doctor, Teddy quizzically responds with "what's a doctor?" Confused, Dr. Barrows listens to their odd conversation about the boy's ill sister. The boy offers their spare room to Dr. Barrows for the night, although the proprietor and his mother are both wary. Dr. Barrows offers to help the sick girl but the mother refuses. Suddenly, the lighthouse casts its light throughout the town and rests on the girl's bedroom. The mother and the boy are terribly upset. Teddy asks to talk to Dr. Barrows. He explains that his sister may die since the light picked her room and begs him to help. Dr. Barrows gives her medicine but Teddy explains that whenever the beacon picks someone to sacrifice it takes them. Dr. Barrows begs Teddy to take him to the beacon in order to reason with Seth, the owner of the lighthouse. The townspeople find out that Dr. Barrows made the girl well, but they feel that she still needs to be sacrificed. The proprietor and the mother find Dr. Barrows and Teddy at the lighthouse. The mother and Teddy leave while Dr. Barrows demands explanations of the proprietor who tells him that Seth is the founder of this town and the ancestor of all residents. When the town stopped being a waypoint for merchant ships, Seth kept the town's economy alive. Seth's spirit controls the lighthouse and it protects the town in exchange for doing what they are told. The proprietor explains that years ago, a person chosen to be sacrificed was spared and the town fell on hard times. Now the lighthouse wants a substitute or the hard times will come again. Dr. Barrows shouts that the residents of the town are all inbred crazies and seeks to flee, but is surrounded by a chanting mob demanding he atone for healing the little girl selected for sacrifice, or else the hard times will return. Dr. Barrows screams as the people converge on him as the lighthouse goes dark.
Censorship
The original broadcast had an opening scene where Dr. Barrows is talking to a state trooper about a minorcar crash. The trooper warns that this is a sparsely populated area of the state and automotive help may be hard to come by, but Dr. Barrows elects to continue on schedule. The DVD version omits that scene and the episode begins with Dr. Barrows coming upon the fenced-off dirt road after his car's engine overheats.
