Late at Night Read online

  Mostly he thought about Andrea. Had he said anything, done anything to turn her off? No, he didn’t think so. She was just weird—lovely, enchanting, quite personable when she wanted to be—but nonetheless weird. The question was: was she weird enough to make him turn away? It was really academic. As soon as this weekend was over he would never see her again. They’d return to their own worlds, and that would be that. Still, Boston was rather close to New York, just four or five hours away by train. If he said he’d be in touch … ?

  He tried to force his mind off the subject of Andrea Peters. She intrigued him, nothing more. Admit it, he said to himself, she intrigues you because you’re not used to such attractive women. He realized with the start that always comes with self-enlightenment that because of his shy, introverted nature he almost always dated women who were ordinary—and therefore less threatening—in looks, intelligence, and demeanor. Was that really true? Even Andrea wasn’t really the oversexed, swinger type, like that Cynthia Marcovicci. But neither was she quite like Betty Sanders. Poor Betty. Ernie had known quite a lot of Bettys, and while the women in his life had never been quite so plain or unprepossessing, they were more like Betty, for all the wrong reasons, than he would have liked to admit. Being with a plain person because you valued inner qualities like warmth, compassion, and goodness was one thing. Being with them because you weren’t threatened was another. Even fat, aging Gloria Bordette—she reminded him of no one so much as old-time movie star Mary Boland—was too “show bizzy“ and exciting for his comfort. Andrea seemed like nice, safe middle ground. Not too dull. Not too garish. A perfect in-between.

  There you go again. Back to thinking about Andrea.

  It was no use. He just couldn’t sleep, and he wasn’t alert enough to start working on the article. The bit with Andrea might make a nice sidebar—“strange vibrations” on Lammerty Island—but so far he hadn’t seen enough of the place to even work up a few atmospheric opening paragraphs. Damn it. Didn’t he bring along anything to read? He’d been in the middle of a really terrific Ross Macdonald mystery. He searched among his belongings, but realized with dismay that he’d forgotten to bring the book along. He had noticed bookshelves in the living room. Perhaps he could find something there. He put on shirt and trousers and slippers and stepped into the small hall that led to the lounge.

  Inside the living room, he turned on a small lamp near the bookshelves, and started scanning the titles. A real dry collection, he noted. Dry and dusty. There were ancient works by obscure, long-dead authors, and several collections of poetry. Works by Chaucer, Pope, and Bronte. A complete selection of Dickens’s novels. No, he wasn’t in the mood for Dickens, even if A Tale of Two Cities was one of his favorite books. What he needed was some good escapist literature, some nice trashy page-turner or literate horror story, maybe Sheldon or Koontz or James Herbert.

  There! On the bottom shelf he saw a pile of paperbacks, clumped one on top of the other, as if they didn’t really deserve to be placed upright and therefore become part of the bookcase’s prime material. There were some romance titles like Love’s Honor Lost—he couldn’t stomach the stuff. Westerns—was this Evanson’s pile? He knew the fellow had a weakness for Zane Grey. A couple of “Fletch” mysteries he had already read. A 1000-page bestseller about the sins and suffering of the Miami Beach jet set. Three lengthy historical sagas, part of a series of wealthy victims of the guillotine during the French Revolution. So far, nothing that really piqued his interest. Ah, wait a minute—what’s this? The last book was about a maniac loose in a nursing home and he’d already read it, but the next-to-the-last book looked as if it might have possibilities. It was called Late at Night, by Max Schumann. Typical “paperback original” stuff. The cover was a striking portrait of a young woman screaming her head off. Behind her was a very old mansion, with a light on in the second story window, a shadowy figure watching from within. Above the all-caps letters of the title, which were raised in the style of most modern paperbacks, was a glinting axe dripping with gore. Ernie chuckled. All the stock horror symbols: old house, screaming woman, bloody axe. He loved it.

  He quickly read the back cover copy. THEY OFFENDED THE FORCES OF EVIL, SO ONE BY ONE THEY DIED. Then, in smaller print: They had come to Hargity Island to investigate its reputation for being a focal point of occult forces. The Island had a macabre history of death and dismemberment, a hideous past full of horror and bloodshed Then Andrew Tennington, the man who hoped to write a book on the Island’s history, discovered another forbidden book, a secret tome that foretold the deaths of everyone on the island. And before he even knew what was happening, the terrible events described in the book began to come true, until nearly no one was left but Andrew—and a crazed maniacal killer who would stop at nothing to use the forces of Hargity Island for itself! Will Andrew be able to save himself before his own predicted murder takes place?

  Ernie felt a momentary chill. Talk about coincidences. A book about an island that sounded very much like this one, even a main character who had a vague resemblance to himself—although he was a magazine writer, not a book author. He flipped to the first page inside the cover. It was an explicit description of someone being murdered, taken from the body of the novel itself. This stuff gets more gruesome every day. Well, he was hooked. Wild horses couldn’t have made him put this one back. Someone from the group must have brought it along, though he couldn’t imagine why they would have put it there and not in their room. Maybe it was Lynn’s or John’s. He couldn’t picture old Gladys Horn-bee reading this sort of material.

  He went back to the storage room, took off all of his clothes except his underwear, and nestled under the covers of the cot. Opening the book, he settled in and started happily reading Max Schumann’s Late at Night.

  Chapter 17

  It is here! Someone has found it! It is in this very house!

  The necromancer, as it liked to refer to itself, looked just like an ordinary human being, and for most of its life that’s exactly what it had been. But when it had mastered the black arts, the science that was sorcery, it knew that it was far, far more than an ordinary person. When the necromancer practiced its magic, when it conjured spirits, spoke to the dead, or just lay back and let the thoughts and feelings flow into its mind, that’s when it was truly inhuman; it no longer referred to itself in such human terms as “he” or “she.” It was now a thing, an arcane, mysterious creature that was well above petty human laws and attitudes. The necromancer was almost a god.

  Something had happened just a few minutes ago. As it lay in its bed, a sharp tingle had made itself known, a warning jab that pulled the necromancer out of weary-pre-sleep and into the realm of full consciousness again. The object! The object the necromancer had become aware of earlier, the object it was determined to find; someone else had found the object, had touched it, held it, taken it someplace. Now it was the necromancer’s duty to get that object from this other person. Even if it meant killing him or her. What was the death of a mere mortal compared to the glorious realization of the necromancer’s dreams? This island alone could instill great power. The object, because of some odd mystical properties the nature of which the necromancer had yet to ascertain, could focus, channel the island’s power into an irresistible and unstoppable force. Truth be known, the necromancer could not yet quite imagine how it would use that power; only that anybody who had ever wronged the necromancer would pay, and pay dearly.

  These stupid unwitting idiots all around it. The necromancer had come onto the island with them —right out in the open—and they hadn’t even known. The necromancer had stood there and talked to them, chatted with them, eaten with them, and they hadn’t had the slightest idea of what it really was. They thought the necromancer was just like all the rest, the fools, but the necromancer knew it was much, much more.

  On this island the necromancer’s powers were intensified. The necromancer did not know-would probably never know—why it had been chosen to have such undreamed-of abilities.
Some were the product of years of study, night after night of trial and error. Others just seemed to be there, waiting for something to bring them out. Whatever the case, they belonged to the necromancer alone, and the necromancer knew how to use them. Even without the necromancer’s being aware of it, its powers were at work. They were responsible for its being alerted that someone had possession of that mystical object. The necromancer had to be very, very careful now. And clever. If necessary, the necromancer thought, and the thought bothered it not in the least. I will have to destroy every last person on this island.

  Except for myself, of course.

  The necromancer knew one thing that the others never even suspected.

  Death can be so pretty.

  Chapter 18

  Ernie was in the middle of the novel’s first chapter. The more he read, the more incredible it seemed. Who was this Max Schumann anyway? A mindreader? Was it some kind of joke? Late at Night looked like a regular book and was from a well-known, legitimate publisher. Whoever this Max Schumann was—there was no author’s bio—he seemed positively prescient.

  The island in the novel was definitely Lammerty. There was no mistaking it. The author described this very guest house as if he himself had slept there, and also made mention of the ship, aptly describing the feelings of terror it had apparently awakened in psychic Andrea; as well as the old Burrows house, the even older remnants of the original Pauling mansion, and all of the fact-based murders and deaths that had occurred there. So far, nothing strange. After all, Lammerty Island was famous in certain circles, and anyone could have done a little research and used the island for a novel’s location. He believed a couple of writers had already done so, so there was nothing unusual in that. It was just funny that he’d happened upon the novel while he was actually on the island where the story itself took place.

  But it was when the characters were introduced that things really began to get weird. Andrew Tennington shared quite a few of Ernie’s own characteristics. All right, many writers are inhibited, quiet; that’s why they write for a living instead of, say, going on the stage. But “Andrew” even looked like Ernie, and the description was a pretty thorough one. Andrew’s innermost thoughts—and there weren’t many of them, the book raced along at a speedy clip—were different from Ernie’s, which was some comfort. Anything else would have had Ernie climbing the walls.

  But the other characters! They had different names, but were the same people who were sleeping in the guest house this very minute, Ernie was sure of it. There was the gossip columnist, on her way out, trying to recapture her youth by taking a young man for a lover. The sexy TV actress, that was Cynthia, though Mr. Schumann named her Glynis. Lynn, and Ernie’s cousin John, were represented—very accurately, too. Alison Petrie the psychic, sounded suspiciously like Andrea Peters, the psychic. Alfred Sutter, a temperamental, extremely ugly concert pianist, had to be Schumann’s conception of Anton Suffron, and “plain, plump Esther Sonderson” was Betty Sanders to a tee. Even Everson’s servants, Margaret the cook, the two housekeepers, Hans and Eric, had their literary equivalents. It was absolutely uncanny.

  Ernie spent more time trying to figure the whole thing out than he did reading. Everson had told him that the details of the expedition hadn’t been fully confirmed until a couple of days before they left the mainland. Ernie knew enough about publishing to know that while they could on occasion rush out a paperback within a few weeks’ time, it was impossible to write, sell, edit and print—and distribute—an entire novel within the space of a few days. Even if “Max Schumann” was a friend of Everson’s, or someone in the party, or Everson himself, no way could he gave gotten Bellamme Books to come out with Late at Night in such a short space of time. But Ernie’d be damned if it didn’t look like someone had put together a speculative horror novel based on this very trip to Lammerty Island.

  That every person here—no more, no less—would be represented, described physically and characteristically, with such near-perfection, was simply incredible. Ernie knew it all had to be one wild, improbable, implausible, but nonetheless undeniable coincidence. That’s all that it possibly could be. The only other explanation he could think of—and it seemed senseless—was that John Everson read or wrote the book, or knew who wrote it, and for some reason gathered together people who would correspond to the characters in the novel. But that every character would have a real-life counterpart who also happened to know John or Lynn was simply unbelievable. And why bother getting them together in the first place? No, it all had to be an absurd coincidence, one of life’s bizarre happenstances, nothing more. Yet why had the book even been on the island, on that bookshelf where he could find it? He shivered— why did it have to be a horror novel? Couldn’t it have been a nice, safe romance or something? Alison Petrie and Andrew Tennington fall in love and uncover the mystery of Hargity—in the book it was called Hargity Island—while “Glenda Borrance“ (Glo Bordette) and the others have an orgy on the beach. Yes, that would have been so much nicer.

  He anxiously turned the pages, hoping to come upon obvious contradictions or fallacies that would immediately confirm that the book was an eerie coincidence and nothing more. But the more he read the more he was convinced that there was something strange and inexplicable going on. He yawned. God, he was getting tired, really tired in both body and mind, not just enervated as before. Funny, how suddenly this fatigue had come upon him. He wiped his eyes, but the blurriness wouldn’t go away. Then he read a passage that nearly brought him back to full alertness. “Why is there blood all over me?” she kept screaming. Mrs. Pelling said, “Over and over again: ‘Why is there blood all over me?’ The poor girl. But once we calmed her down and put her to bed, we looked her over and couldn’t find a single injury, not a mark upon her. Yet she was convinced she was bleeding.”

  The cook, “Mary Pelling,” was explaining to her employer and his guests why the housekeeper had had a fit earlier in the evening.

  “Says she saw something horrible in the mirror when she got out of the shower,” Mrs. Pelling said, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Oh, this is just too much,” Ernie said out loud. He was really getting a case of the creeps. He was afraid to read the next chapter. What if it described “Andrew’s” walk down the beach with “Alison.” This was crazy! How could anyone have guessed what was going to happen? Maybe this Max Schumann was a psychic like Andrea.

  But did that mean that the bloodshed and death promised on the back cover was also going to come true?

  Ernie couldn’t shake the numb, chilling feeling in his chest. The book had taken on a macabre, sinister quality. It was the setting, too. Lammerty Island’s scary reputation made him almost willing to believe that this book was an object sent from the spirit world, the astral plane, whatever they called it, to torment him. If he had picked up a book back in New York, discovered it took place in his building, his apartment, and that the main character was himself, it would have been frightening enough. But to have it happen on this island was enough to make his blood freeze.

  Relax, Thesinger, he told himself. You’re a sensible, rational person. Don’t let it throw you. There has to be a logical, rational explanation.

  But there was nothing logical or rational about it.

  He quickly skimmed the next couple of chapters. Yep—there was Andrew and Alison walking to the ship. It was written from Andrea’s point of view, and Ernie suddenly realized what she must have been going through back there. Had she really picked up the thoughts, the terror, from drowning strangers, the agony and horror of their underwater deaths? Was that what it was like for someone like Andrea? To spend your life picking up the most secret, horrible thoughts, without wanting to, your mind like a receiver that you simply couldn’t shut off? It was mind-boggling. He wasn’t sure if he believed in Andrea’s powers, but if she really meant what she said, what a strain, a constant strain, she must be under. It was a miracle she came off as normal as she did. He had to be more thoughtful in the fu
ture.

  He had to show this book to Andrea. Perhaps she could explain it. He wondered—had she ever mentioned being able to see into the future? Maybe she—or someone she knew—was “Max Schumann.” The eerie atmosphere surrounding the wrecked ship was fully exploited in the part describing “Alison’s” encounter with it.

  All right—this is it. Now Ernie was going to start the chapters which would describe what was going to happen after Andrew and Alison returned to the guest house. He was almost afraid to look. He was hoping what the author had come up with was so absurd that there was no way he could find it believable. As tired as he was feeling, he could not safely go to sleep until Late at Night no longer held its power over him.

  Chapter 19

  On the other side of the guest house, Joanne Nobele lay wide awake in bed, shivering with fear, smelling the odor of her own released urine. She was listening to the whispers now. Urgent, terrible whispers. The crying had stopped at last, about fifteen minutes ago, and she had felt such wonderful relief, such relief that she had wanted to get out of bed and wake Mrs. Plushing and tell her she wanted to leave Lammerty Island that very minute. Before then she hadn’t dared to get out of bed, hadn’t even dared to open her eyes, afraid she’d see the crying spirit if it decided to manifest itself, afraid she’d walk right into a cold wet blob of ectoplasm as it glided across the room to touch her.

  But then, just as she’d been building up her courage, she heard the new sound. Soft at first, almost unintelligible, then building in volume until it was like one of those stage whispers, loud enough for the whole audience to hear. Joanne had nearly screamed. She had tried to, several times, but always her throat closed up and her voice froze, and it was all she could do to keep from fainting and being at the mercy of whatever horrors there were loose in this house.