PREDICTION OF HORROR

Ernie 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.

“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 the author was a psychic like Andrea.

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

Also by William Schoell:

SPAWN OF HELL

SHIVERS

A LEISURE BOOK

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 6 East 39th Street New York, NY 10016

Copyright ©1986 by William Schoell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

Printed in the United States of America

PART ONE

Arrival

Introduction

Lammerty Island is said to be haunted.

Lying off the coast of Maine in Casco Bay, it is a rocky crag about five miles long shaped somewhat like a horseshoe. There is a long, gravelly beach on one side; elsewhere the ocean sweeps up to jagged rocks and low cliffs, or swishes into the wet lands to form marshes. Once the island was home to various species of wildlife, and a colorful array of vegetation—but very little lives on Lammerty now. The animals and birds come, as do all untamed creatures, to sniff out and explore, to test the hospitality of the island. But they always leave in time, as if something about the place, some unnatural aura, warns them away, never to return.

The bloody history of the island undoubtedly began in the dark dawn of creation, but all but the last few hundred years have been lost to us. In the 1500s a group of pirates used the island to store their booty; considering their malevolent temperament and unbelievable greed, is it any wonder that more pirates are buried on Lammerty than treasure chests?

In 1670, the island’s inhabitants were slaughtered during the “Indian Wars,” mercilessly massacred by marauding tribes of “redskins.”

During the 1700s, the island had many owners, some of whom were smugglers, and who came to bad ends. In 1750 the main house, built over one hundred years ago, was burned to the ground as an act of revenge, resulting in three fiery deaths. During the War of Independence, sea skirmishes between colonial schooners and British privateers sent many a man to a watery grave off the shore of Lammerty. The redcoats often landed on the island, resulting in violent confrontations with the inhabitants.

During most of the 1800s, the island was divided between two owners, the Eleks and the Simonsons, who feuded bitterly for decades, neither agreeing to sell out to the other. “Accidents” and assaults eventually escalated into more than one murder on both sides.

A great deal of the island’s macabre history took place after 1860, when one Edmund Burrows took sole possession of Lammerty Island. He built a new main house, with separate servants’ quarters (both of which are standing to this day). It was in the servants’ quarters, in 1872, that housekeeper Mary Lou Winters committed a frightening act of self-multilation because Burrows’s handsome son had had his way with her, promising her the sun and stars for payment and paying her absolutely no mind thereafter.

In 1880, the schooner Mary Eliza was shipwrecked on the rocks off Lammerty Island, with loss of all hands—one of the worst sea disasters in the New England area. The Lammerty lighthouse was erected shortly thereafter, little comfort for the drowned crew. The lighthouse still stands, but has not been in use for many years.

Then around the turn of the century, Edmund Burrows went mad. During one Fourth of July weekend, he murdered his entire family and several guests from New York City. Pursuing his victims from his mansion to the servants’ quarters to the lighthouse, he stabbed and hacked at them, then sliced them up while still living into unrecognizable parcels of blood and flesh. Burrows then blew his brains out. The assorted remains were discovered in the cellar, providing sustenance for a hungry horde of rats.

But the violence and horror was not yet at an end. During Prohibition, Lammerty was used as a base by a 20th-century smuggler, one Theodore Langdon, who turned the servants’ quarters into a guesthouse and added secret passages to the mansion. Much blood was spilled in the gun battles between Langdon’s men and the authorities. Langdon’s alcoholic son took over after his father’s death. During one of his drunken orgies, the main house caught fire and seventeen people died screaming before it was brought under control by a downpour and a change in wind direction.

The guesthouse was converted to the island’s living quarters by Lammerty’s next owner, who committed suicide by flinging himself off the cliffs during low tide one quiet summer afternoon after learning that his business had gone bankrupt.

It is said that when the island’s last owner, Gladys Hornbee, was found dead in her bedroom on the island in 1983, her face was frozen in a look of screaming, perpetual terror, as if she had witnessed every horror in the universe at the moment of expiration.

Maniacs, pirates, fires, suicides, murders, blood feuds, shipwrecks, smugglers—Lammerty Island had it all.

Today the island is abandoned, overgrown, ignored. Through an inheritance, it has fallen into the hands of Lynn Overman, a young woman who is entirely familiar with the island’s morbid history. In occult circles, Lammerty Island is said to be a magical, mystical place, a place where demons can be summoned forth, and witches might fly across the horizon, where there are forces just waiting to be tapped—evil forces. Late at night it is said that ancient, alien things walk the ground, looking for soul-mates, screaming in frustration for lack of victims.

There are many spiritualists, psychics, self-pro-claimed witches, demonologists (real or charlatan) who would give anything for the chance to travel to Lammerty Island, to experience what no one has experienced before. To see. To Learn. To Communicate. All that psychic energy, all that astral force. Just waiting… .

Other people would like to see the island simply for its historical value, to look at a little wet slice of the past. To explore the old house, and peer with trepidation through the rotting timbers of the Mary Eliza, whose remains strangely resist the scourge of time and lie crumbling on the rocks to this day.

Still others would like to go to Lammerty Island for mere pleasure: rest, relaxation and fun. To them Lammerty Island promises solitude, peace and quiet, as well as peace of mind.

Yes, many people would like to go to Lammerty Island.

God help them when they get there!

Prologue

She sat across from him at a small table in the restaurant on Newbury Street. Outside it was a cool, wet Boston afternoon, and through the large windows looking out onto the street, she could see shoppers and passersby carrying umbrellas and packages. She had just been told that it was over, that they were through, no longer a couple, an item. And five minutes later she was still praying she had heard wrong.

“I‘m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you,” he was saying. “But you’ve been coming on too strong. It—it oppresses me.” His big, blue, beautiful eyes were wide with earnestness, feigning a need to articulate his feelings. “I think we had a good thing going, but it isn’t so good anymore. I can’t —can’t handle these freaky spells of yours, the strange changes that come over you. I thought I could. I thought—but I just can’t, honey. I just can’t.”

She dipped her fork aimlessly into the spaghetti, knowing full well that she could and would survive without him, but wishing just the same that things would stay just the way they were. Was this really happening to her? Her luck with men, with everything, was just terrible. And she never did anything—they even told her that. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything. She could recite their words by rote. I’m the one who can’t handle it. How many times had she heard the awful litany? What was she doing wrong? No, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was them, always them.

Bullshit!

“Can’t we just talk it through?” she protested, watching him casually lift up his wine glass, take several swallows. There, all gone. That was the giveaway. He was intense while talking, but otherwise quite relaxed. He had rehearsed all this, felt this way, for what must have been a very long time. He was pretending that he felt bad, that he would ache inside, that it was necessary, the “best thing,” but inside he felt nothing but an anxious desire to get rid of her. This lunch, hastily arranged, in a crowded public place where he hoped she wouldn’t make a scene. She wouldn’t—it was not her style. Most people got gold watches when something was ended. She got spaghetti and meatballs.

He dug into his salad, enjoying the food, while she sat listlessly, helplessly, feeling her appetite dwindle. Did he think she would take this so well that she would still be hungry? “Can’t we just talk it through?” she repeated. “Maybe if I explained it to you you wouldn’t find it all so ‘freaky.’ I’m really a very normal person.”

She could see the smirk on his face, the laugh held back, and wanted to slap him.

“I am,“ she insisted. “There are a lot of people like me, with special interests, special gifts. I’m not so unusual.”

“Baby, come on!“ He spoke while chewing; a rarity for him. “This is me you’re talking to. You’re—weird. A very nice person, but weird. You’re obsessed, fixated. You’re dragging me into a world I want no part of. It’s just not my scene. All those rituals, those silly ceremonies, the things you and your friends talk about. Your so-called ‘gifts.’ ” He was getting angry now. So he was jealous of her friends. “I’ve had it up to here.”

“It never bothered you before. You’re just using your distaste for my preoccupations as an excuse.” She could feel tears coming. No. Not in front of him! You’re a big girl! A grown woman. He isn’t worth it. You’ve lived without him, without a man, before. You were happy and fulfilled and will be again. At least the waiting would be over, the waiting for this moment that had finally arrived.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I didn’t let it bother me at first because you were attractive, lovely. So sweet, and nice to be with. You really have many fine qualities.” She felt like a schoolgirl in front of the principal. You’ve been a naughty girl, which is a shame, since you really have many fine qualities. “But I can’t handle the other shit; not any more. Maybe if I loved you …”

There, it was out. He Did Not Love her. Did you hear that, dearie? He doesn’t love you. Probably never did.

He skipped a beat, watching her eyes as her face looked down disconsolately at the plate. He resumed immediately, racing his words. “I’m very fond of you. Always will be. I think I even-loved you—for awhile. If I was in love, deeply, truly in love with someone, I could put up with anything. But I guess I’m not really in love. ‘Cause all this stuff you’re into bugs the hell outta me. I don’t love you enough to put up with it.”

This stuff. This stuff. She got up quickly from the table, overturning her wine glass. It looked as if there were bloodstains on the linen. “Wait a minute!” he called. But she was weaving her way between the damnably close tables that prolonged her humiliation, and out the door before he could call out again. The ultimate test: he did not follow her.

Out on the street she felt miserable, but free. Was she weird? Did it matter? What was the point in continuing the luncheon; everything had been said. He wanted out, so she’d give him his freedom. What more was there to say?

The rain had softened to a light drizzle. She took out a plastic scarf and tied it around her head, grateful she had worn her raincoat instead of the bright blue jacket she’d bought the other day. Instinctively she’d known this was to be their final get-together; appearances wouldn’t matter. She could have walked in all rouged and blonde and sexy, and the end result would have been the same. To hell with him!

Still, it hurt getting dumped.

As she made her way back to her apartment, she wondered what had finally prompted her to get up out of her chair and leave the restaurant. The realization this his mind was made up, that there’d be no second chances? Or his remarks about her “weird” activities, his insults directed at her, her interests, her friends? Her abilities? Could it be that that upset her more than the thought that she was being dumped? Maybe he’d been right. Maybe she was fixated. The trouble was, she was a believer and he was not. Well, screw him. Her gifts would never leave her, dump her, the way he had. They would sustain her throughout her lifetime. Of that she was sure.

Weird. Odd. Freaky. Strange. She’d been called all those and worse by better people than him. Sooner or later she’d meet a believer who would be a perfect romantic match. Out of her current crowd the prospects were few, if not non-existent. But someday … She did not believe in movie-star romances, but knew that someday someone would come along who would eagerly and easily share space with her, and despite the usual, normal difficulties, the occasional fights, it would be good, and it would be warm, and it would be beautiful.

Up in her apartment, she patted her cat hello and opened the window. She loved to listen to the rain. She stared at herself in the mirror, trying to reaffirm her attractiveness in her own mind. She walked from room to room, wondering what to do. It was Saturday, her day off. Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, lounge—she always called her living room her “lounge.” Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, lounge. He had probably already filled the vacancy—had several candidates lined up—but she was left alone, all alone, until … ? At least there was “nothing of his in her apartment; she wanted a clean break as much as he did. No! You. Will. Not. Cry.

Was there something she could do to ease the heartache? If only she could wipe away the next few weeks, wake up when all the pain was gone! Was there someone she could call? A shoulder to cry on, an understanding friend? Yes, what about —no, she was out of town for the weekend. Besides, the friend she had thought of calling was involved in a whirlwind affair with a handsome and eligible bachelor. Would her friend want someone to call her and talk about how awful it was to be dumped while she herself was on a romantic high? No. Anyway, who needed the inevitable pity and condescension?

Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, lounge. The grain of an idea was growing in her mind. She wondered: should she? Dare she? Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, lounge. She needed something to perk up her spirits, she needed to do something she had never done before. Why not? Didn’t she have a right? Especially now.

Bedroom. But what? Now that she had made up her mind to go ahead she had to decide on exactly what it was she was going to do? Kitchen. It had to be something that would take time, that would involve her totally, take her mind off of her depression. Bathroom. She stopped in her tracks, struck by the determined look on her face in the mirror. There was a smudge on the glass; she wiped it off with her fingers. It came to her in a flash. A query. An unspoken query about her own future. Lounge. Well, why not? Yes! that was it— that was it? It was one of the most dangerous … she would have to proceed with extreme caution. Hut she could do it if she tried.

Why not?

She knew she was taking a terrible risk. Of all the arcane arts, what she was about to attempt was considered one of the hardest and most foolhardy acts of all. She might not like what she would see. What if there was nothing to see? Would she be able to deal with what that meant? Would she?

If you’re going to go through with it, do it now. No more delays. Do it!

First she must decide upon the place. Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, lounge. That was easy. Bedroom. It would be more private that way. She could lie down while waiting. There was less noise from the street. Yes, the bedroom. Perfect.

She went over to the large wooden trunk to one side of the closet, and took out everything she would need. Candles, chalk, ancient leathery tome full of poems and instructions for old potions. Most of it would come from her own mind. And he had dared to scoff, that—that boy in the restaurant. Would he have laughed if he had seen what she was really capable of doing? Would he have laughed then? She placed all the objects in their proper place, began the incantation—merely a focal point, a way to center in on her powers— and tried to relax. Damn him. Damn them all!

She lay down on her bed. Relax, relax. She concentrated, prayed, got in touch with cosmic forces most people didn’t dare to dream of. She felt a tugging inside her, something pulling at her soul. (Or was that the spaghetti and meatballs?) She giggled. Part of her refused to believe that it would happen. Part of her didn’t want it to.

But the part of her that wanted to be successful won out in the end. Mystic forces combined with her own unnatural prowess, and doors in space opened, corridors of existence were warped and bent. She cried out in agony; something was wrenched unwillingly from her sanity. There was a rush of air, a twisting of nerve and synapse. Something screamed. She screamed. The world had a tear in it.

Finally, her strength recovered, she got off the bed and looked around.

Nothing appeared to have changed. She looked hesitantly at first, then desperately, for anything to indicate that something was different. But everything was the way it had been. The mystic objects that she’d placed around the room were gone, but that was to be expected. Everything else was just as it had been.

She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

But wait—on the night table. Something was there. Some object. She was certain it had not been there before. Positive. She reached out to grab it, feeling that she was already being called back, that the effects of the spell were ending. Too soon. Not soon enough. As her fingers closed around the object on the table, she noticed a shadow, a shadowy figure, standing off to one side. She could not get a clear look at it; already things were beginning to fade. She felt that tugging again. Had the figure been there all along? Probably. She had not noticed it until now, over there in the one dark corner of the room. It was approaching. She wondered who—or what— it could be. She felt a terrible, petrifying sense of danger. She forgot all about the object in her hand, her intention to look at it and to see what it was, what it might tell her. The figure was coming closer. She wanted to scream. Her heart was beating faster, the sound of it pounding in her ears. The figure raised an appendage; an arm, she imagined. She did scream. There was a sudden, sharp pain. Then blankness.

* * *

When she woke up it was nighttime.

She was completely exhausted. She was lying on her back and her fingers were wrapped around something. What is this? How did it get here? She had never seen it before.

Then she realized where it had come from, that she had failed to let go of it when everything had started fading away. For a moment she was thunderstruck with the implications, the possible repercussions, the meaning of it all.

But then she remembered something else.

The figure, that figure in the shadows, that had come out of the corner and approached her, approached her as inexorably as death.

And she knew, irrefutably, incontrovertibly, that somehow, in someway, back there, back then, she had stood on the very threshold of her own unlamented demise.

Chapter 1

The boat left the party of fourteen on Lammerty Island and headed back for the mainland. The skipper had been a joking, jovial man who spent much of the trip debunking the tall tales about ghosts and strange occurrences that revolved around the island. He would have made some members of the expedition feel a little better if he had stayed for dinner, after all; but he and his first mate—his eldest son, actually—had things to do in town and couldn’t wait.

He would return early Monday morning, he told them, for the trip back.

The party stood on the dock watching the boat go. Gloria Bordette was smoking like a chimney, one after the other, looking about anxiously for signs of friendly life. Her young lover, Jerry Hardington, looked as blasé and as beautiful as ever. He lifted up two heavy bags, both of which belonged to Gloria—his own stuff was in a knapsack on his back—and said somewhat petulantly, “Which way do we go?”

Lynn Overman spoke up at once. “Let’s see. That way, I think. I’ve only been here once before, when I was a little girl. We go up this path, over the little bump, and through those trees over there. See? You can see the top of the guest house from here.”

There was a burst of appreciative “ahs.”

“Beautiful. Just beautiful,” Betty Sanders sighed. “It’s paradise!” She shook her squat little body and took a deep breath and scrunched up her shoulders like a cat about to sleep after eating a canary.

“Let me take those, ma’am,” Hans Swenson said as he swooped down and took Betty’s suitcase and traveling bag in his enormous, weather-beaten paws. A big, tall Swede of forty-five, he would have been twenty-six-year-old Betty’s perfect man if only he drank less beer and had more hair.

If not quite paradise, Lammerty Island in springtime was indeed a sight to behold. On this particular day the sun was shining brightly overhead and there was a mild, pleasant breeze blowing in from the sea. If you squinted just a bit you could see the mainland, but the view out onto the immeasurable vastness of the Atlantic was more memorable. The island was basically flat, with some dips and rises here and there, cliffs along one side, and the small hill just before the guesthouse that Lynn had referred to as a “bump.” And it did look like a bump, a small nodule of dirt and weeds lying across the pathway. Most of the vegetation that could be found on the island was only just starting to reaffirm its existence since the frigid death of winter, but the visitors could hear the cawing, flapping sounds of. seagulls and other birds in the air overhead. On both sides of the dock were shattered outcroppings of jagged rock upon which the tides drummed their relentless beat. It was not warm today, and several members of the “expedition,” as they’d come to call themselves, were wishing they had worn sweaters and overcoats. Winter was supposed to be over, true, but this was an island in the middle of nowhere, not a condo in Miami or a beachfront in Malibu. An island. In the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. A deserted, presumably haunted island. The mind boggled.

They began the trek to the house. “Imagine, Lynn,” Cynthia Marcovicci, a very lovely, slender brunette of twenty-six kept saying over and over, “You own your own island! It’s so fantastic. I thought only millionaires owned their own islands.”

Lynn exchanged grins with the attractive middle-aged man walking along beside her. He was John Everson, her lawyer, and both knew only too well that one did not have to have a million dollars in order to own an island. Since he represented the estate of Gladys Hornbee, Lynn’s eccentric aunt, it had been Everson’s pleasure to tell Lynn that she had been left her aunt’s Atlantic retreat, and his regret to also inform her that the island was just about the only thing that the aunt had had left to pass on. “It’s in such an awkward location,” he had told her. “I don’t think anyone will want to buy it. But perhaps some weekend we can go out and look it over; you can decide what you want to do. Bring a group of friends, perhaps. The island has quite a history. You’re into all that stuff, aren’t you? You should find it fascinating.”

So Lynn, who could have used some money but got acres of rock and trees and pounding surf instead, found herself stuck with an island nobody wanted. She organized a group to go out for the weekend, as Everson had suggested, and when a time convenient for everyone finally arrived, she let the lawyer make all the arrangements. So here we are, she thought grimly. Actually, the fact that the island was notable in some circles as being a center of supernatural forces was about the only thing that kept her from not bothering with it. How could she ignore a piece of landscape that had such an incredible reputation?

“What do you think, Andrea?” she asked. “Is it as fantastic as Cynthia seems to think?” Andrea pulled her long, blond hair away from her eyes and gave her friend a hesitant smile. “I—I’m not sure. I keep getting these odd feelings.”

Anton Suffron, a homely but personable concert pianist from Rumania, rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut. He looked at the tall, mustachioed man standing next to him, but the fellow was too busy wiping his sunglasses to have any reaction to Andrea’s unstated premonitions of disaster. Anton made no secret of the fact that he found such hocus-pocus trying. “Let’s not queer the whole weekend already, Andrea dear,” he finally said in the droll monotone he kept in reserve for idiots. “I’m here to have fun, not to listen to you go on about ‘the spirits.’ ”

Andrea gave him a weary look. She’d heard it all before. “I was just answering Lynn’s question, Anton.” She looked at their hostess. “I’m sure it’s a lovely place, Lynn. I can’t help picking up vibrations, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a wonderful weekend.” She glared at Anton. “In spite of the presence of some people.” The caravan continued on its way. Anton again tried to start a conversation with the strapping young man beside him. The shades were back in place, giving him that distant, dispassionate appearance affected unconsciously by everyone who wore sunglasses. “What do you think of all this psychic stuff, Mr. Theiser?”

“Thesinger,” the man corrected. Anton shrugged.

Before the other could answer, Suffron said, “When we were introduced earlier I missed some information, probably due to Gloria’s babbling. Are you Lynn’s friend? Or Mr. Everson’s? I haven’t met you before, have I?”

Thesinger knew that Anton had once been romantically involved with Lynn Overman, and that he was still carrying the torch. The fact that Lynn was now involved with her lawyer didn’t prevent Anton from getting jealous over other males in the vicinity. To assure the pianist that he was no rival, he said quickly, “I’m an acquaintance of John Everson’s. He’s my cousin, actually. We’ve only met a few times before this. But I once mentioned to him that I’d love to do a piece on Lammerty Island.”

“A ‘piece’? Oh, you mean you’re a writer.”

Thesinger laughed. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Indubitably, my good fellow,” Anton smiled. “A fellow artist.” He looked wary for a second. “Just what it is you write?”

“Articles mostly. For geographical and historical magazines. I’m on assignment for American Archives now. John told me about this trip to the island and invited me along, suggested I do a write-up on its history. Actually being here in the flesh is really going to add something to the article.”

“I can imagine.”

There was a shout and those in the front of the procession turned around to see what the commotion was. Margaret Proust Plushing, the cook, was on her knees, making awful grunts and wearing a stricken expression. Hans Swenson dropped the suitcases and went to the woman’s aid. “She’s all right,” he yelled to the others up front. “Just tripped on a stone.”

“God in Heaven,” the woman swore as she was helped to her feet. “Just off the boat and already I’m breaking my ankle.”

“Is she okay?” Lynn called.

“I’m all right, dear,” Margaret yelled back. She balanced on one foot while she examined the other. “Nothing broken, thank goodness.” She was a plump woman in her sixties: apple cheeks, a fleshy, dimpled chin, short brown hair. Her expression was stern, but underneath she was warm and hearty.

“Come on, girls,” she said jauntily. “Forward march.” The two young ladies with her were Emily Seaver, a freckle-faced lass of twenty-two with blue eyes and braces, and Joanne Nobele, a nineteen-year-old of French descent with too much baby fat, but a lovely face beneath carefully coiffed blond tresses. They were the housekeepers. Margaret, the two girls, and Hans were all employees of John Everson’s, and usually worked at his enormous estate in New Bedford. When offered the chance to spend a weekend by the ocean, they’d all readily consented. Eric Thomas, a brooding, dark-haired man of thirty-eight with sullen eyes and sunken cheeks, was also along for the weekend. Eric was Everson’s chauffeur, and Hans was the handyman and gardener, but for the next two days they’d be doing whatever assorted tasks were required of them. Eric was not crazy about being stuck on an island, but he could use the extra money to pay assorted bar bills and gambling debts.

The group of fourteen trudged over hill and dale, their assorted bundles making the relatively short trip from deck to guest house seem like a month in the New York subway. The housekeepers groaned under the weight of the boxes Mrs. Plushing had ordered them to carry, boxes full of canned goods, liquor bottles, pots and pans, plates, glasses, and cutlery. Gloria waddled along in her sensible sneakers, her body fat tucked into ridiculously tight designer jeans, dangling her sunglasses in her hand and commenting on the freshness of the air and the beauty of the view.

Finally they stood in front of the guest house.

“Well, it isn’t the Hilton,” Gloria quipped, “but it will do.”

The guest house was rather spacious. Everyone would be quite comfortable, and the separate rooms would even afford a certain amount of privacy. The house had three floors, a gracious living room and dining area, a fairly large kitchen, and several small but attractive bedrooms. John Everson, Hans, and some other hired men had come out some days before to make sure that the lights were working, the water running, and everything else in order so the guests would have no nasty surprises. John had resisted taking a good look around the island at the time, figuring he’d save the main event for when everyone else was there. He and Hans were the only two of the party who had already seen the entire guest house.

John had already picked out bedrooms for everyone. The large room on the top floor with the big double bed was for him and Lynn, seeing as how she owned the island and he was sleeping with her … although the way their relationship had been going lately, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t wind up bunking down somewhere in the living room. As far as he knew, none of the others were romantically involved—besides Gloria and Jerry, of course—so he had to team up roommates, when necessary, with an eye to personality and not existing partnerships. Andrea Peters, the psychic, and Cynthia Marcovicci already seemed to know one another pretty well, and looked just a few years older than your typical college roommates; he put the two of them together in a bedroom on the second floor. Gloria Bordette and Jerry Hardington he placed in the room next to the one he was sharing with Lynn, hoping to limit the sound of creaking bedsprings to one floor.

There were two smaller bedrooms on the second floor, in which he placed Betty Sanders and Anton Suffron respectively. They would have to share a bathroom (each of the bedrooms on the third floor, and the larger bedroom on the second floor, had its own private bath), but he thought Betty would prefer that minor inconvenience to sleeping in the quarters he’d chosen for his writer-relative, Ernest Thesinger. John had put him in a small storage room on the first floor, in which Hans had placed a cot, a desk, and a typewriter.

He figured Ernie might want to stay up late typing, working on his article about the island, and this way he would have privacy and not keep everyone else awake. It was the least glamorous “boudoir” in the guest house, barring the servants’, but he suspected Ernie would think it was just perfect.

There were cramped, but functional, quarters for the servants past the kitchen and dining area. One large room that had a bed against one wall and a bunkbed against the other would be shared by Mrs. Plushing and the girls. Hans and Eric would share the room next door, one in the bed, the other in a sleeping bag. There was a separate bedroom back there, too.

After giving out the room assignments—during which Gloria “oohed” and ”ahhed“ and kept asking to be excused to the bathroom, would someone tell her where it was?—John escorted Lynn to the third floor, up the large, carpeted staircase, motioning Gloria and her handsome young companion to follow. Cynthia, Andrea, Anton, and Betty took up the rear. The others stayed behind on the first floor—the employees venturing forth into the kitchen and the environs beyond, and Ernie going in the opposite direction towards the storage room next to the lounge.

No one said it out loud. None could have said just why. But they were all thinking the same thing.

This place gives me the creeps.

Chapter 2

“What do you think of the room, Jerry?” Gloria asked as she ran over to the window and took some more of her deep breaths. ”Ahhh, the air is so clean and fresh. Not at all like the city.”

Jerry plopped down on the bed and bounced upon the mattress. It was soft and lumpy, the way he liked it. He knew Gloria would complain (she was always complaining) because she preferred hard mattresses, and would psych herself into a “simply wretched” backache even before she had slept in the bed. He watched his lover fly about the room, fussing here and there, touching the lace curtains on the window, picking up dusty bric-a-brac on the ancient wooden bureau, and poking furtively into the closet. “Hello, anybody in there?” She smiled and turned to Jerry, to see if he were smiling. He was.

“I think it’s nice,” he said. “Real nice.”

“How’s the bed? Hard like I like it?” She came racing over towards him, and he grimaced involuntarily. He hoped she wouldn’t make waves because the bed wasn’t hard, ask for another room, make a nuisance of herself, and embarrass the both of them. She surprised him. She reached out, bent over the bed, pressed down with one hand, said nothing. Then she sat on the bed, the weight of her body causing the springs to creak and leaving an indentation of no small size in the mattress when she arose. “Soft, isn’t it?” she said. “Well, that’s too bad. Can’t have everything, can we, dearie?” She grabbed his chin with her fingers, and shook his head affectionately. “Everything else is so nice, we can’t complain.”

He exhaled with relief when her back was turned. One crisis averted.

“Of course, I’ll get a simply wretched backache from it, but I’ll make an appointment with that lovely masseur in the health club on Tuesday, and I’ll be right as rain in no time. Come now, boy, we must unpack. What time did Mr. Everson say they’ll be serving dinner?” She rummaged through her suitcases, choosing one item, then another, throwing both back and settling on a third.

“He didn’t. He just said that that lady, the cook, would have something ready in an hour or so. Jesus, we just had lunch on the mainland before we took the boat over.”

“You know me,” she giggled. “Can’t go too long without sustenance. I’ll take the top two drawers in the dresser, all you’ll need is the bottom one. Come now, let’s get unpacked. Perhaps we can see some of the island before it’s nighttime.” She gave up trying to be orderly, simply took great handfuls of lingerie and accessories into her arms and threw them into the top drawer. She was a big woman, overweight, but still had a figure; large breasts, big hips, a round, protruding stomach that she squeezed into girdles. She was always moving, never stopping: hyperactive, talkative, cheery, and demanding. People who didn’t know her, judging her from her profession, figured she had to be a bitch. She was really very sweet, Jerry told them. Too sweet. Maybe that was her problem. Who had ever heard of a gossip columnist with a good heart?

Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes blue and bright, her mouth small and dainty. She wore her hair short and wavy; still dyed it her original, zesty brown, although friends told her: “You’re getting older now. You’d look more natural if you’d just let it go gray.” Old. Getting old. Older. Not she. She still had far too much to do.

Jerry helped her put some of her things away, then handed her her makeup kit and let her fix her face at the vanity while he unpacked the few things he’d brought with him in his knapsack. Books. Comb. Hairbrush. Toothbrush. Bare essentials. He traveled light. “I can’t understand how people can go away for an entire weekend with barely the clothes on their back,” Gloria said as she savagely brushed her hair (100 strokes a day). “I packed two whole suitcases and I’m already positive I must have left some—some essential something—behind. Oh, well. That’s men for you.”

Jerry put the last of his stuff in the bottom drawer, and threw his empty knapsack in the bottom of the walk-in closet. He closed the door, sat back down on the bed in the same spot as before, and waited for Gloria to finish. She did a little something to her lips and eyes, studied herself appraisingly in the mirror, frowned, and swiveled on the satin-covered seat of the vanity. “This is a nice place, isn’t it?” she said cheerily.

Jerry nodded. “We’ll see.”

“It won’t be so bad, dear.” She got up, patted his head on the way to the closet, and searched among the hangers for something suitable to change into. “I know Mr. Everson mentioned something about cocktails in the living room in half an hour. Cocktails. Cocktails.” She patted her lower lip with her finger. “What goes with cocktails?”

As she tried on various outfits, she explained again why she had wanted to come on this trip to Lammerty Island. “I have an interest in things supernatural, did I ever tell you that? Oh, I’m not a fanatic about it, but I have a definite interest. When my niece, Lynn—did I mention she was my niece?”

Jerry nodded. Why did she always seem to think he hadn’t heard what she was telling him? He knew that Gloria’s late husband had been the brother of Lynn’s father and of the old woman, Gladys Hornbee, who’d left Lynn Lammerty Island, and that Gladys and Gloria had never gotten along.

“Well, when my niece mentioned that she was going out to the island to look it over, I reminded her of all the stories, and asked if she’d like me along for protection. And I asked you along to protect me.“ She wiggled her body and giggled. “Now isn’t that just lovely? Maybe we’ll even see a ghost or two. I’ve always wanted to go to a haunted island.”

Jerry smirked. “Some of us have unusual ambitions.”

“Now, dear,” she scolded. “We’re going to have u wonderful, wonderful time. You won’t miss the bad old city and that silly rock concert you wanted to go to one little bit. Wait and see.”

She squeezed herself into a black dress with a deep bodice and a flowery pattern, grunting from the endeavor. She turned from side to side, surveying herself in the full-length mirror behind the closet door. She put her hands on her belly, trying to melt the pounds away. “Oh dear, I have put on weight, haven’t I? I’ll have to drop a ton starting Tuesday. Oh well, I suppose this will have to do for now.”

“Just stay away from signs that say ‘elephant crossing.’ You might be mistaken for someone’s mother.” He knew she was used to his affectionate teasing.

A pained expression on her face, Gloria suddenly looked upwards and wrung her hands in an exaggerated manner. ” ‘I’m fat,’ ” she quoted. ” ‘What man would look at me and say, “I want you”?’ ”

Jerry rolled his eyes and recited in an exasperated whisper: “Now Voyager. Warner Brothers. 1942. Bette Davis.”

Gloria smiled and congratulated him.

Chapter 3

Betty Sanders finished unpacking her suitcase and hung up her white cotton sweater in the wardrobe. The room was small and narrow, but charming. There was a dresser against one wall, above which hung a mirror with an attractive brown frame. She inspected her face, not really looking, just a quick glimpse to insure that she was still in one piece. She hated to look at herself, though her face was not unattractive. Her head was round and her hair set in a flattering, if old-fashioned, hairdo, the hair curling up at the sides and down in bangs over the forehead. Her mouth was small, her lips full, giving her a pouty expression. She had small hazel eyes, a small rounded nose, some freckles under her eyes, and now and then her bad skin broke out on the forehead.

She was not exactly fat, though she could have stood to lose ten pounds, but her body was wide and short, giving her that unpleasant squashed look peculiar to her body type. Her hands were big, with fingers thick as sausages. She always wore long-sleeved blouses and, whenever possible, lengthy skirts, to hide her chunky arms and legs; her appendages just collected fatty tissue. She sat down on the bed against the other wall and tried to decide what, it anything, she should change into. Instead her mind wandered— it had a habit of doing that—and she found herself staring at the yellowed wallpaper with its pattern of swans and flowers. She twisted on the bed and looked at the wall behind her. There was a painting on the bedboard: an old woman’s face. The woman looked as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Betty turned away.

She needed to pee. She got up and went to the door next to the wardrobe. Opening it, she saw one of those ancient bathrooms with the raised tub and the deep sink with two faucets. There was no shower. Oh well, she could adjust. Baths were time consuming, but relaxing. Then she saw that the door at the other end of the bathroom was wide open, and she heard movement beyond it, saw a quick flash of a male figure holding a coat hanger. Anton.

The pianist was whistling at the top of his lungs and taking his possessions one by one to the closet. Betty would have preferred the room with the closet: the wardrobe she had wasn’t big. And she was not crazy about having to share the bathroom with Mr. Suffron. “Insufferable Suffron” people called him. He was rather attractive, in a crude, ugly sort of way. What should I do? she wondered. Step into the bathroom and firmly close Anton’s door so I can have some privacy? Would he think it rude of me? Perhaps he had his door open because he planned to use the bathroom in a minute. Betty looked above the sink and saw that the medicine chest was open, that it was filling up with masculine things like shaving cream and hair lotion. She decided to go back, sit down, and wait until Anton was through.

Were the two ugly people being segregated, she wondered, given one bathroom between them? Probably the smallest rooms in the house. Everson had explained and apologized, but she wondered why the lawyer hadn’t put her in the room with Andrea or Cynthia—the pretty 6nes— and put one of them in here. Stop being bitter, she told herself. You’re here to have a good time. Lynn invited you out here because she likes you. You’re her very best friend. You have been ever since you roomed together in college. You have always wanted to come to this island, for oh so many reasons, and now that you are here don’t spoil it by becoming difficult.

Always on the defensive, aren’t you? she asked herself, a sad little smile playing across her face as she sat on the bed and smoothed the bedspread with the flat of her palm.

And who has more of a right? she reminded herself.

She wondered what her ugly-duckling counterpart thought of it all.

Chapter 4

If truth were known, Anton Suffron didn’t think much about anything.

It was not that Anton lacked intelligence, but that he had learned long ago to take each day as it came, to accept things, and, when things got rough, to hold out until tomorrow. It was not a profound philosophy, but it worked. Growing up poor in Bucharest had hardened him, made him ride with the slow periods, the early days of constant struggle, until he found himself with a successful career and a prestigious reputation as one of the foremost concert pianists in America. A weekend away from the piano wouldn’t kill him, but he’d miss it just the same.

Had the other door to the bathroom been opened and closed a moment ago? He should close his door—that Betty person might have wanted to use the toilet. He sensed that she was shy and retiring: his favorite kind of person, one he could lord it over, feel comfortable in the same room with. Because of his lack of good looks he had almost instinctively developed a charismatic, flamboyant personality that some would call obnoxious. Now, after so many years playing the role of underdog only too well, he found he couldn’t resist having fun with the quiet, unassuming types who reminded him of himself during his younger, less assertive days. Yes, Betty would make a good pawn.

He placed the rest of his toiletries in the medicine cabinet: toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant. He was scrupulous about his personal hygiene, and quite resentful of the way much handsomer men could attract women regardless of ”b.o.” and “halitosis” by virtue of their appearance. He had always figured he should hedge his bets. He turned the faucet on and splashed cold water on his face, ran his fingers through his hair. The thick black mane was his most impressive feature. It was his pride. It curled up at the back and was longish on the sides, and high and dark and lustrous on the top. Ah, if only he had the right kind of face to go with it. His was very long and very narrow; homely. His eyebrows sat atop protruding wedges of bone that stuck out over his eyes, the bushy, almost satanic tufts of hair blending together above the nape of the nose. His cheeks were hollow, and his lips, thick flaps of skin that puckered out in a permanent downwards sneer, the lower lip protruding below the upper. He had small eyes, but they were bright blue, and penetrating: his second most arresting feature. His teeth were crooked and yellow, his chin a tiny bump. He had once grown a beard and mustache, but it had only made it worse. His skin was pale and mottled, and very quick to burn in the sun.

When had he stopped caring about his appearance? If he ever had. When had he no longer worried about sweeping triumphantly into a room after a particularly magnificent performance, and sensing, almost seeing, the disappointment in the women’s eyes, how they lost some of that special glow once they’d seen him up close? People often told him that they fell in love with the way he played, but he knew what they were saying behind his back. “He plays so beautifully. It’s a shame he’s so homely.” People expected a maestro, a genius like him, to look as good as he sounded. But he simply couldn’t measure up. So he settled on being striking and arrogant and strong. This helped him cover up the disappointment he invariably felt when he noticed the fading promise in women’s eyes, and the almost relieved expression on their menfolk’s faces when they saw that, despite his enormous gifts, Anton Suffron would certainly be no competition.

Anton had also learned to dress to perfection.

Had he been crazy to come here? he asked himself, changing into a suit he had bought the other week in Paris. As far as Lynn was concerned, he and she were now good friends who had once been lovers; an odd story, that. Lynn was not beautiful, but she was attractive enough for him to have wondered what she ever saw in him. Didn’t she realize that he was still in love with her? That he had come along this weekend not merely because of his interest in the island, but because of his interest in her, his desire to win her back? This little weekend was going to be a very busy period for him. There were so many things he had to do.

And if things didn’t work out, there was always little Betty Sanders for him to amuse himself with. She was so—vulnerable, wasn’t she?

Anton wrapped the tie around his neck, knotted it, and smiled.

Chapter 5

In the larger bedroom down the hall, Cynthia Marcovicci and Andrea Peters were catching up on each other’s lives while they unpacked. The room they were in had two old-fashioned canopy beds placed against opposite walls, and in between them were two large windows with lovely lace curtains billowing silently in the breeze. The first thing the women had done was open the windows to let in some air.

They had been friends in college; Lynn had, in fact, introduced them to each other. They had eventually become closer to one another than either had ever been to Lynn. They had taken very different paths, however, and grown apart in the years since graduation. Now, at twenty-six, the only thing they seemed to have in common was their good looks.

Andrea opened a bottle of Cynthia’s perfume that she’d found in the cabinet and sniffed it. “Umm. This is nice stuff,” she said. “Expensive?”

Cyn peeked in, a blue cotton dress in her hand. “What’s that? The Leonine? Oh, it’s only forty dollars a bottle.”

Was she serious? Andrea assumed that she was, so said nothing. What had happened to the days when they’d hardly had money for a cup of coffee between them? Cynthia went back to the closet, dress in hand. “If you want to use some,” she offered, “be my guest. Only don’t touch my toothpaste. It’s special for sensitive teeth.”

Andrea laughed and said “okay.” She looked at her skinny row of supplies, and Cynthia’s wall of cosmetics and skin creams and hair sprays and lotions, and thought it looked like a counter at Bloomingdale’s compared to her wedge from Macy’s bargain basement. Well, there was nothing left to unpack. Andrea had no choice but to go back to the bedroom and wait for Cynthia to finish. She wanted to hear about Cyn’s glamorous life since college almost as much as she didn’t want to talk about her own. So far their conversation had centered on the island, on how well Lynn looked, on Lynn’s good catch—a lawyer, no less— with just a few asides about their current lifestyles. Andrea knew a lot about Cyn’s life already, from Lynn, from talk shows, from tabloids. How could her dull little life ever compare?

Cynthia came out of the bathroom five minutes later, dressed in a chic, crimson cocktail dress. Her clothes were so beautiful. Everything looked good with her long, wavy hair; she wore it draped over one side of her face and tucked behind the ear on the other in that sexy, coquettish way—a kind of style Andrea would never have dared to try. Cyn’s makeup was carefully applied, a little heavy for the surroundings, but not too garish. She had a pert, upturned nose, nice rounded cheekbones, a perfect chin, and exotic-looking brown eyes made striking through makeup. About five-feet-seven and becomingly slender, Cynthia looked even better now than she had in college days. “How do I look?” she asked, twirling around and laughing.

“Great,” Andrea said. And she meant it. She surprised herself by realizing that the shame she felt, because her own life was so drab compared to Cynthia’s, had not been caused by envy. She really was glad for Cynthia’s good fortune. “I don’t know who I’m getting dressed up for,” Cynthia said, putting on her earrings. “The lawyer’s taken, the blond stud is the property of Lynn’s elderly”— she stressed the word for comic effect—“aunt, and the pianist is not my type at all. Say, why was he getting on your case back there? Is he an old lover, hmmm?”

Andrea smirked. “Really, Cynthia. Anton’s been carrying the torch for Lynn for years now. They were rather intense for awhile—”

Cynthia laughed. “He must have inner beauty.”

“—and we’d double-date a lot, Lynn and Anton and me and—whoever. Anton’s always picking on me because …” She wondered if she should bother going ahead. She always got such strange reactions from people. “Well, remember how I used to be ‘into’ the paranormal when we were in college?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m into it again. Only a whole lot more. You might say I’m—well, I’m psychic.”

“Really?” Cynthia’s smile seemed to be genuine, not the strained grin people often wore after they’d heard Andrea’s confession. “I think I remember Lynn mentioning something about it. You mean, you think you may actually have some kind of, what do they call it, ‘gift’?”

Andrea nodded. “Don’t ask me why. I didn’t ask for it.”

“You mean you really meant it, that bit about feeling ‘strange vibrations,’ feelings, whatever you said on the dock?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Nothing definite. Just a kind of weird tingle.” »

Cynthia walked over to the window, looked down at the forest beyond. “Well, with all the weird things that have gone on here it isn’t surprising.”

Andrea sensed that Cyn was already losing interest; she often did. “Well, forget about my abilities,” she said, cocking her head, “and tell me all about your adventures in Hollywood.”

“Oh, Hollywood,” Cynthia said disdainfully, digging in her purse on the dresser for a cigarette. She found the pack, lit one. “Actually, I haven’t made it to Hollywood yet. Days of Eden is filmed in a studio in New York.” She frowned. That still sounded exciting to Andrea, but Cyn didn’t seem to impressed with her own career. “It’s a grind. I’ve been stuck on that soap for a year and a half waiting for the doors to open. I’m the ‘bad girl’ in the town of Eden, y’ know. The writer is this middle-aged hag who thinks kissing on the first date is sinful. I’m supposed to be such a disgusting character, but half the things I do on the show I’ve done in real life. And you wouldn’t believe the letters I get. I mean, those broads out there really think that show is for real.” She puffed furiously on the cigarette like an auditioning Tallulah Bankhead and continued. “They write to me: ‘Sarah Rose’—Sarah Rose McAvoy, that’s my character’s name—‘Sarah Rose, you are a disgusting jezebel, stealing that woman’s husband away. Sarah Rose, how dare you abort that baby, God will get you for that. Sarah Rose—’ ” She stopped in mid-sentence and threw her hands up in the air. “I get more letters than anybody else on the show, but they’re all hate mail. I mean, I’m scared to go out alone at night. I got this hot-shot publicist who guaranteed to turn me into a household name, and he’s got a good chance of doing it. He gets me booked on talk shows, gets me interviews in those supermarket scandal sheets—I’ve been linked to eight men, two women, and a horny German Shepherd —cameos on cop and comedy shows, but the real work never materializes. I mean, where are the movie deals, the offers to star in my own situation comedy? ’Morty,’ I said (Mortimer Stevens is my agent), ‘I’m sick of being a target for all these moronic, infuriated housewifes who think I steal men and kill babies.’ God!”

By this time Cynthia was down on the bed next to Andrea, still going a mile a minute. Nothing’s changed, Andrea thought, and it made her feel warm and needed inside. I feel like I’m nineteen again. Cynthia was sitting on the edge of her bed just like she used to do in school, pouring her heart out, totally self-involved, needing Andrea to talk to, to give her advice. There was something almost comforting about it. It was as if the years had just melted away, and they were kids again, still enacting the roles that had been assigned to them. Andrea was once again living vicariously through her more exciting friend.

Andrea realized she should never have worried about having to tell Cynthia about her dull life as a file clerk … a psychic file clerk perhaps, but still a file clerk.

As always, it was unlikely she’d get a word in edgewise, and as far as she was concerned that was just fine.

Now if only she could shake the feeling of foreboding that was surrounding her, almost as tangible and cold as wet, clammy skin, as if a corpse had crawled into the room and was holding onto her, its fetid breath whispering danger, danger in her ear.

Chapter 6

Upstairs in the “master” bedroom, Lynn Overman and John Everson had put away their belongings and were dressing for dinner. John stood in front of the dresser, examining himself in the larger mirror hanging on the wall behind it. Lynn sat on the bed beneath a white, frilly canopy putting on her stockings. Her legs were plump, she noted with dispassion. The things that had once upset her seemed meaningless now, now that she had someone to love her. John liked her legs, had said so, so they were good legs, nice to look at, in his eyes at least. Flaws and imperfections were no longer flaws and imperfections when the person you loved was oblivious to them. She lifted up the other leg, grabbed the second stocking in her hand. She heard voices from the next room, and they started her mind wandering in a different direction.

Looking over at her, John noticed the distant expression in her eyes. “What are you thinking about, dear?”

“Oh … nothing,” she lied. She had been thinking how ironic it was: a young woman and an old —older— man in this room, and an old woman and a young—younger— man in the next. She wondered if Aunt Gloria were as happy with her young man as she was with her old one. John’s age had been a deterrent at first, there was no denying that, but he had come along at just the point when she needed him.

At times she wondered if that was why she loved him: his timing. She dismissed those thoughts as being ultimately irrelevant. He was here and she was here, and that was all that mattered. Finished with her stockings, she stood up and said, “I wonder what kind of weekend this is going to be.”

“I was wondering the same thing myself,” John said, fixing his tie. He walked to the closet to get his suitjacket. “I don’t anticipate any problems, do you?”

“No, I guess not. It’s just that this place-well, it’s all right in the daytime, but I’m not especially looking forward to the dark.”

Everson laughed. “Are you and Andrea planning to hold any séances?”

“I’d be too frightened,” Lynn replied. “You never know what we might uncover.”

“Well, you’ve got a lot to choose from. Pirates, maniacs, drowned sailors … you name it. You could have yourselves quite a picnic.”

“I think I’ll forego that pleasure, thank you.” She stood up and began searching for a suitable piece of jewelry in the dresser. John now sat on the opposite side of the bed from where she’d been, and was bending down to pick up his shoes. He groaned a bit for effect as he squeezed one foot into the first shoe; a tight fit. He was such a dignified, staid-looking man that any attempt on his part to be comical or silly still startled Lynn.

His black hair was graying becomingly; it was cut short, but attractively styled. He had a broad, squarish face with a wide mouth, deep blue eyes, and a full lower lip that gave him a continuously determined look. She had always thought that he would look good with a mustache, but he resisted the idea. He was of medium height, slender and solid. At times he would puff himself up as if trying to summon some extra toughness or courage or virility, and it was at those moments when he seemed the most vulnerable and when Lynn loved him the most.

“I wonder what your employees think about their quarters,” Lynn asked. “Do you think Margaret will be able to cook up some of her wondrous dishes in that kitchen?”

“I don’t doubt it in the least,” he said. “Margaret is at her best during moments of adversity.”

Almost instinctively, Lynn went over to Everson’s side and embraced him. The guests could all wait. She would not let go.

As they fell down onto the bed locked together, Lynn’s foot overturned a blue bag that she had overlooked when unpacking. “Just a second,” she said, leaning over to collect the bag’s spilled contents. Noticing one particular item, she turned pale, and her smiling expression rapidly faded.

They made love, but her mind wasn’t on it.

Chapter 7

Downstairs in the storage room, Ernest Thesinger sat down on the cot they’d installed for him and took a good look around. The walls were gray brick, the ceiling low. He hoped it wouldn’t bring out his latent claustrophobia. They had put a battered old desk in one corner, a chair behind the desk, another more comfortable reading chair next to the bed. Everson had even supplied a typewriter, but Ernie had brought his own. There was one light in the ceiling and one of those floor lamps at the end of the cot where the pillow was. He had already unpacked; the typewriter, a nice, reliable, battered manual, was on the desk, along with the paper, pens, erasers, and other tools of his trade. He would have to use a small bathroom just outside the kitchen, so he had put his toiletries in there, and hung up some pants and things in the foyer closet. He left his shirts and underclothes in his suitcase, which he stored underneath the cot.

Lammerty Island, Ernest thought, here I am. He was sure that he could work up a viable piece about the place and its fascinating history. It was an interesting spot geographically, too, with picturesque flora and fauna and striking scenery. He had brought along his camera and plenty of film. He could approach the story from any number of angles; sell different pieces on the same basic subject to several magazines. Still, one had to be careful with that. As long as he sold to magazines that had different readerships it would be all right. Perhaps an article on the island’s occult speculation for one of the more esoteric journals. A photospread with a solid historical overview—no ghosts, goblins, or things that go bump in the night, but fact-based notes on real people and their place in the country’s scheme of things—for National Geographic. He could also incorporate some of the shots and data into another proposed piece on wildlife along the New England coastline and its islands. Yes, there were many possibilities.

The company seemed interesting, too. He didn’t know his cousin John well; the man could be a little distant, offputting. Was that what money did to people or was it all in Ernie’s mind? Yet, Everson seemed reasonably pleasant today, more so than before. The hostess, the new owner of Lammerty Island, Ms. Overman, was attractive and personable, though there was something strange, some mysterious hidden quality, about her that Ernie had yet to put his finger on. Or was that his writer’s imagination?

Cynthia was funny and sexy, if too self-centered for Ernie to appreciate anything other than her considerable sex appeal. The other young lady, Andrea Peters, was moody and bordered on the slightly wacky, with her psychic protestations. Most of the occult aficionados Ernie had met were terribly phony and boring individuals. Andrea, however, had a fresh loveliness about her, a certain charm underneath the cool exterior, that might make it a real pleasure for him to find out just how genuine she might be.

He didn’t quite know what to make of Gloria Bordette and her handsome, young (very young: what was he, twenty-five?) lover, but they were real characters, all right. She seemed likable enough, but he had an instinctive distrust of gossip writers, as if they were perverters of an art. Or was he just being narrow-minded? Jerry had that certain sullen arrogance of youth and good looks, but Ernie sensed an underlying shyness that made him seem stand-offish. He would have to reserve judgment on both of them.

Betty was sweet in that sad way of homely girls, and he found himself drawn to her, though not in a sexual or romantic fashion. She was really too quiet for him to have formed much of an opinion of her. The concert pianist Suffron was a bit—his mother would have said “snotty,” his father “highfalutin”—but there was an amusing glint in his eye, at the corner of his lips, as if to say, “Don’t worry, my snob act is just a put-on. Clever, isn’t it?” It took the sting out of his words and made you respond to him in a positive manner.

Yes, a motley crew, Ernie thought. Too bad he only wrote non-fiction. He might have …

Suddenly there was a commotion, a loud hue and cry, from out in the living room. Someone was yelling, carrying on. It sounded like one of the housekeepers. Ernie got up to investigate.

He walked out of his bedroom and down the short, narrow hallway which led to the rest of the first floor. When he walked into the living room he was greeted by a most unexpected vision.

Emily Seaver stood in the middle of the living room, completely naked. And she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Chapter 8

“What was all that screaming about?”

It was the number-one topic during dinner.

Although the dining room was fairly large, the table was a bit cramped for eight people. Margaret had used a pretty white tablecloth with a flowery design as well as good china. Crystal water goblets and wine glasses were next to the plates, and fine silverware was wrapped up in clean linen napkins. Nothing but the best would do for John Everson and company. As they sat poking through a spinach salad with strips of hardboiled egg and bacon, the island’s guests pumped one another for information on the housekeeper’s astonishing behavior.

“She was naked, you say? Stark naked?” There was a wild-eyed expression on Anton’s homely face.

“Sssshhh,” Cynthia whispered. “She might hear you.”

“It’s all right,” Andrea assured her. “They put the poor girl to bed. Apparently she’s still quite upset.”

“Upset over what?” Anton wanted to know. “One doesn’t stand in the middle of a living room stark naked screaming for no reason at all.”

Gloria looked up from her salad and wiped her lips daintily with her napkin. “Naked, did you say? My, this excursion is getting off to a lively start.” Jerry sat next to Gloria and she patted her lover’s hand. “And you thought this would be a dull weekend.” Jerry glared at her, his face reddening.

“Well, tell us already,” Cynthia hissed. “What was the housekeeper screaming about?” She stared directly at Ernie. “You were there, weren’t you?”

Ernest put down his water glass, swallowed, and paused for effect. Except for those of their hosts, all eyes were upon him. Lynn and Everson seemed to be mentally elsewhere. “I—I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said finally to a chorus of exasperated groans.

“Margaret suggested it was some sort of fit,” Betty said selfconsciously, fiddling with the top button of her frilly silk blouse. She obviously hated to call attention to herself, especially in large groups. Ernest remembered that she had been the first one down the stairs after he’d walked into the living room to see Emily’s amazing performance. “After I came down,” Betty explained, “Mrs. Plushing and the other housekeeper—Joanne, the French girl—and one of the men came out into the living room and tried to calm Emily down. She was naked, and screaming something awful. She kept rubbing her arms and chest as if there were something smeared on them, but I didn’t see anything at all. Nothing.” She shook her head for emphasis. “The men—Mr. Thesinger, and I think it was Hans—stayed in the living room while Mrs. Plushing and Joanne and I tried to get Emily dressed and into her room. She kept saying something, ‘I saw blood. I was bleeding. Blood all over me.’ Something like that.”

“ ‘There’s blood running down me. Why can’t you see it?’ ”

Margaret Proust Plushing stood in the kitchen doorway, a steaming dish of red cabbage in her hands. “That’s just what she said.” Margaret repeated deliberately: ” ‘There’s blood running down me, Mrs. Plushing. Why can’t you see it?’ ” Margaret came forward and put the dish down on one end of the table. “Poor deluded girl. She was having fits, hallucinations. That’s all I can make of it. Says she saw a strange face in the mirror when she came out of the shower, something, jumped out at her through the fog on the glass, and then suddenly all this blood was spurting out of her skin, just running down over her breasts and arms and stomach.”

“Bon appetit,” Anton said, raising his wine glass.

If Anton’s sarcastic remark had been meant to stop Mrs. Plushing, it did not have the desired effect. “She was out of her mind,” Margaret continued, her face grim and stony and concerned. “Didn’t know where to go, her right from her left. Just started screaming for help and running all over the place. It took three of us to get her settled, that’s for certain.”

Mr. Everson seemed to have at last been jogged out of his trance. “Will she be all right, Margaret?” he asked the cook. “Will Emily be all right? There won’t be a way off this island until Monday when the boat comes back.” Lynn looked up at the sound of his voice, startled, as if she’d been awakened from a deep sleep.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Margaret replied. “We put her to bed, gave her a sleeping pill.”

“What was all this about blood?” Lynn asked.

“There was none,” Margaret added firmly. “None whatsoever. She wasn’t bleeding at all. There were no injuries or marks anywhere on her body. We made sure of that. Now let me get you fine people the rest of your dinner.” She walked back into the kitchen, while John passed around the red cabbage.

Cynthia sat back in her chair and touched her lips. “What could have made her think she was bleeding?”

Gloria looked a little pale. “All this talk about blood at the dinner table,” she said. “Can’t we talk about something pleasant? Like wine.” She tapped her empty glass with a fingernail. “Or food?”

“Well, I guess all the stories are true,” Jerry began to say, idly scratching his arm and sighing. Gloria looked at him enthusiastically, glad that someone was finally changing the subject.

“I guess this place is haunted after all.”

“Oh, Jerry. Really.“ Gloria put her hand over her eyes.

“Well, the girl did say she saw something in the mirror,” Jerry argued. “A strange face or something. That sounds pretty spooky to me.”

Cynthia rubbed away the goosebumps on her arms. “And here I am hoping she was one of these religious whackos who develop—what do they call it?—stigmata, where they start to bleed like Jesus Christ. That might explain the blood she thought she saw. Usually it turns out that these religious fanatics who see things and have visions and talk to God are just repressed women who need a good—”

“I have an awful headache,” Lynn said, standing up suddenly. “I think I’m going to take a couple of aspirin and lie down for awhile.” She turned to John. “Tell Margaret to save me something for dinner. I’ll eat later.”

Her guests performed the obligatory motions, expression concern, and Lynn went up th® staircase to her room.

Everson emitted a heavy sigh and leaned forward on his elbows in a show of resignation. He offered no explanation for Lynn’s behavior. Muttering something about seeing what was holding up the rest of the dinner, he went into the kitchen.

“He and Lynn must have had an argument,” Cynthia said, unnecessarily, as that much was obvious to all of them.

“All that talk of blood and ghosts and faces in the mirror would give anyone a headache,” Gloria said, but the conversation had not affected her appetite. She scraped the last of the cabbage off her plate, and licked her lips. “Is this all we’re getting for dinner? Red cabbage? It was quite good, but I’m afraid I was expecting something a little more substantial.”

“I believe they’re have trouble in the kitchen,” Anton explained. And indeed, everyone could hear the raised voices of the lawyer and the cook coining from the adjacent chamber. Anton cocked his head—he was nearest the kitchen door—and tried to hear what they were saying. “Apparently,” he surmised, “the equipment in there is like something from the Dark Ages, and our poor Mrs. Plushing is having trouble with the roast.”

“Well, I hope John doesn’t take it out on the poor woman,” Gloria said. “It’s not her fault if this place was built around the turn of the century.”

“The 1860s actually,” Ernest smiled, thankful for the opportunity to add something to the conversation. He was by nature a quiet man, and easily overlooked unless he felt he had something to say. That would definitely be a problem with this flamboyant, prestigious crowd of actresses, concert pianists, and gossip columnists. “This was built for a family named Burrows in 1862,” he continued. “Originally all that stood was the first floor. It was servants quarters, nothing more. Burrows was a religious fanatic and something of a maverick. Not only would he not let his own servants sleep in the same house with him, he built their quarters at some distance from his mansion. Something about not wanting ‘inferiors’ living under the same roof. If an emergency arose late in the evening, one of his sons would have to run all the way to the servants’ house to rouse someone! Then in the 1920s the new owners, the Langdons, added two more floors, and built additions to the first floor, to make this a large guest house for visitors. Then when the main house—”

Jerry laughed. “You mean this isn’t the main house!”

“Oh no,” Ernie shook his head. “The main house was partially destroyed by a fire. It’s still standing, though, and from what I’ve heard is in good enough shape to be completely restored at some point. The fire occurred around 1931, and after that this house became the ‘main’ house. Lynn’s aunt bought the island in the fifties and stayed here in the summers every year until her death. I think John could confirm that.”

Ernie realized that Andrea was looking at him rather intently, so he paused for a moment, hoping to give her the chance to speak.

She did not disappoint him. “Wasn’t there another, earlier mansion—I mean a different one from the house that burned?”

Ernie sensed that Andrea already knew the answer to her question, but she was giving him the opportunity to impress the others with his knowledge, to have center stage for a change. He’d lost the limelight earlier as soon as the others had realized he really hadn’t known what had happened to Emily. “Yes, you’re right,” he said. “The original house was built in 1650 and was completely destroyed by a fire about a hundred years later. It seems that the people who had owned it were dispossessed and took revenge on the new owners—a minister and his wife—by burning their house down. While they were in it.”

Cynthia gulped. “Pleasant people.”

“Then the island came into the hands of Burrows, who later became the infamous mass murderer of Lammerty Island. He built a new mansion in a different spot. I suppose we can all traipse over and take a look at what’s left of it tomorrow.”

Ernie was about to continue with his history lesson, enjoying the luxury of being able to bask in everyone’s undivided attention, when the kitchen door swung open an an agitated-looking John Everson came wandering out. All eyes turned toward him. “I’m afraid, my friends, that the rest of dinner will be delayed while Mrs. Plushing masters the operation of our antediluvian stove. It seems Lynn’s aunt was an eccentric who liked the quaint old kitchen equipment and decided to leave it just the way it was.”

“I’m glad she wasn’t too eccentric,” Gloria chortled, “or we’d all wind up squatting in the woods.”

John smiled for the first time that evening. “No, luckily Mrs. Hornbee saw fit to install modern bathrooms, electric lights, and many other luxuries from our decadent society. Mrs. Plushing simply miscalculated the time it would take for her roast to cook. We might as well stay here and enjoy some more salad—perhaps have another drink some of us, hmmm—and in twenty minutes or so we can resume our dinner. Let me assure you that Mrs. Plushing’s cooking is well worth the wait.” Everson sat down with a flourish. His spirits seemed to have revived.

“Her red cabbage was certainly tasty,” Gloria said, “although I’m not quite sure why she brought it out if her pot roast wasn’t done.”

Cynthia had a ready answer. “She probably figured she’d better serve the meal in stages before we started eating one another!”

“This island ever have any cannibals?” Jerry asked Ernest in a stage whisper. “I don’t think so,” Ernie answered, smiling and shaking his head.

“Actually, Gloria,” Mr. Everson replied, “Margaret had assumed when she started bringing out the side dishes that her roast beef was done. She didn’t realize that on those old stoves it takes much longer to cook something than it would on a modern apparatus.”

Margaret came out at that moment, a harried expression on her face, a big bowl of extra salad in her hands. “Here, this should tide you over for awhile. I’m so sorry.” She looked at Mr. Everson. “Eric and Hans and Joanne are in the kitchen with their tongues hanging out.” Then to the others: “Joanne will be here in a moment with the rolls. I’ll bring in the wine. Eric will be out to make your drinks in a minute.” She bent down near Everson and whispered, “I told him he had better wash up and change first if he’s gonna come out here with you people.”

Everson stood and held up his hand. “Tell Eric to relax. He’s a chauffeur, not a bartender.”

“As long as he’s got nothing to do on this island, he might as well make himself useful.”

“Oh he will, don’t worry. In the meantime, I’ll make the drinks. Orders, please.”

Everson busied himself over at a table in the corner where glasses and assorted liquor bottles had been placed. Everyone was so hungry that the conversation automatically turned to food. Ernest sensed that no one was interested any more in hearing about the island’s history, so he sat back, nibbled his lettuce, and studied the others.

There was no doubt that for him the most intriguing personality was Andrea Peters. She was, like him, comparatively quiet, but not as painfully or awkwardly shy as Betty Sanders— that was something he did not like in a woman, or anyone else for that matter. Neither was Andrea the natural charismatic performer that Cynthia was, and for that he was also grateful. The soap-opera actress, while amusing and likable, was so intense and energetic, always “on camera,” that she made Ernie rather nervous. Anton’s droll delivery could become tiresome after awhile, and Ernie really had nothing in common with either Gloria or Jerry, and sensed the feeling was mutual. He hardly knew Lynn—and from her abrupt departure it was a certainty that he would not have the opportunity to get to know her better tonight. About his cousin John he knew all he ever needed or would want to know.

So if there were anyone whose attention he should court throughout this weekend, it was Andrea Peters. The psychic business he found a trifle distressing, but as long as she wasn’t a bore about it, he wouldn’t complain.

He was most impressed with Andrea’s subtle, natural quality. She was not exactly centerfold material, but there was an innocence about her, a feeling that she was not quite aware of how attractive she could be to certain men. Her looks were so pure and lovely and compelling that in the right light she was practically beautiful. Her hair was blond with an attractive glimmer and natural highlights, and fell down onto her shoulders in full, wavy tresses. She didn’t appear to be using much makeup, but it wasn’t always easy to tell. If she did wear any, she used it sparingly and with considerable skill. Her eyes seemed bright and large and brown and were probably touched up a bit—understandable, as they were her best features and she would want to emphasize them. Her nose was small, dainty. Her mouth was also small, but her lips turned up charmingly even when she sat in mild repose. She had a wonderful smile. Her teeth were a bit too large, but not unpleasantly so, and Ernie imagined that under the guidance of the right make up artist she could have modeled—though she wasn’t the usual bony, hollow-cheeked, half-starving type they seemed to go for. She was pretty. And he was interested. Now if only the feeling was mutual …

“Here we are!”

And Mrs. Plushing, her face beaming, came out with the roast—a big, delicious-looking hunk of tasty meat on a heavy blue platter. Soaking in its natural juices, the meat was rare and red and bloody. Ernie did not much care for meat, and hated rare meat most of all.

To him, it looked for all the world like a tiny human torso.

Chapter 9

An hour later they were sitting in the living room having after-dinner drinks and coffee. The dinner had been scrumptious and more than satisfying. Mrs. Plushing accepted compliments with an amusing mixture of pride and humility, then went to check on Emily, who was, she reported, “sleeping like a log.” She and the other servants ate their share of the supper at the kitchen table, then retired to their chambers or went for walks. “Stay close to the house,” Everson warned. “It’s dark outside and we don’t want anyone getting lost.”

Everson sat in the large, comfortable chair by the fireplace, a snifter of brandy in his hand, and urged Ernie to regale the others with morbid tales of the island’s grisly background. Ernie sat on the piano bench, holding a cup of tea in one hand and balancing a plate of cookies on his knee. Gloria, Jerry, and Anton sat on the sofa near the front window, sampling assorted liquers. Cynthia and Andrea were on opposite sides of the sofa, in small matching chairs with gray patterned upholstery and broad wooden legs. Betty Sanders sat alone on an ottoman next to a bookcase in the corner, sipping her black coffee and looking wide-eyed and lonely.

Ernie felt annoyed that Everson had put him on the spot; most of the people in the room knew all about the island’s history already, especially its bloodier moments. He recited some of the less familiar details, addressing his words to those who seemed most interested. Andrea looked as if she were trying to become absorbed in what he said, but she kept fidgeting, rubbing her eyes. She was either very tired, uncomfortable with the whole subject, or—God help him—getting “negative vibes.” Cynthia and Jerry were giving one another surreptitious glances. If Gloria were aware of their interest in one another, she was keeping it to herself. Her eyes never strayed from Ernie’s face for a second—it was as if there were nothing else on her mind than hearing each and every word of what he had to say. Betty also gave him her undivided attention, and he blessed her silently. It would have been so easy for her to drift off and stare elsewhere, letting the others carry the burden. Even Gloria might have only been paying attention to him to spare herself the humiliation of letting the others know that she was aware her lover was flirting with another, younger woman. Anton was polite enough to look up now and then and pretend he was listening, but it was clear that his mind was miles away.

And Everson, who had started it all, was staring into space—oblivious to Ernie, his guests, and just about everything else.

The worst thing was that no one interrupted Ernest with questions or flip remarks the way they had at the dinner table—it was as if he were giving a lecture. Those that were bothering to listen looked so serious, too. Any minute he expected one of them to raise a hand and ask if he or she could go to the bathroom. He paused a few times, hoping someone would speak up or change the subject, but instead everyone just sat there staring, waiting for him to resume.

So he told them how the island had been claimed by Charles Lammerty in 1625, who returned to England after selling it to Ezekial Pauling. Pauling then built the original mansion for his daughter and son-in-law, both of whom were killed during the Indian Wars. He reminded them that Edmund Burrows’s victims had been killed in different places all over the island, including the very room they were sitting in. And he talked about Winthrop North III, who had owned the island before Lynn’s aunt, and who had killed himself by jumping onto the rocks and smashing his body to pieces.

Finally Ernie stopped, got up, and said pleasantly, “I don’t really think we’re in the mood for a history lesson, are we? I know I’m not. I’m going to get myself a drink.” He smiled at everyone, then headed towards the dining room and that wonderful table of liquor. A nice strong scotch on the rocks would go perfectly just now.

Gloria let out a yawn so huge, long, and loud that it was almost vulgar. Ernie chuckled.

As he stood making his drink, he heard some scattered conversation begin in the living room. Good. He was plunking ice into the glass when Andrea came up to him, holding an empty goblet. Even better.

“Felt like you were in front of a classroom, didn’t you?” she said. He smiled and nodded, and she gave him an understanding grin. “Make me a gin and tonic, will you?”

He grabbed another glass and looked around for the gin. She was giving him the opportunity to get to know her better, to make suave, sophisticated small talk, and he was blowing it. She could have made her own drink, let him walk back into the living room alone; instead she had given him an excuse to stay for awhile and chat. So chat, he told himself. But as he picked up the gin and poured two ounces into her glass, absolutely nothing came to mind except for “there we go.” Suave, sophisticated small talk was simply not his strong point. “Do you like a lot of ice?” he asked. “Or just a little bit?”

“Lots,” Andrea said. “I like my drinks good and cold.”

“Me, too.” He grabbed up some ice cubes with the handy metal tongs and dropped a few into her gin and tonic. Why not pursue the topic she had already opened, his impromptu “lecture”? he asked himself. Handing her the drink, he said, “I’m afraid I’m not the greatest public speaker. John sort of roped me into giving that history lesson back there. I think most of us know all there is to know about the island anyway.”

“You’re probably the resident expert,” Andrea replied. “The rest of us seem to know Lammerty Island for its occult legends and old-wives’ tales rather than for its place in history. Oh sure, everyone knows about the murders, the deaths and shipwrecks. But I think you have a better, larger perspective of things. Sometime I’d like to find out more about this place from you.”

“Thanks. Anytime you’re interested. Just let me know.”

“Relax. I won’t ask for any more history lessons tonight.”

“Okay.” He thought that he really wouldn’t have minded giving Andrea private tutoring that night or any other.

Andrea sipped her drink and complimented him. “Good and icy.” She picked up a cocktail napkin from the table and put it under the glass. “Actually most of our little group think of Lammerty Island as just a good place to put up a vacation resort. Do you think that would be a good idea?”

“It might be the only way Lynn would ever make any money out of it.”

“Lots of people would come out of curiosity. More than would be frightened away, don’t you think?”

“No question about it. People are titillated by stories of ghosts and monsters, but they never really think they’d actually meet up with one. Here—or anywhere else for that matter.”

Andrea chuckled. “I suppose you’re right.” Her eyes lit up and she said, “You know what I’d really like to see as long as we’re here?”

“What’s that?”

“The remains of that ship, the Mary Eliza. I’ve always had a fascination with ghost ships. How about you?”

“I could do without the ghosts, but I’ve always been a frustrated sailor at heart. I’d like to see that ship myself. In fact, that’s one of the great mysteries of Lammerty Island. How the remains of the Mary Eliza have stayed intact—comparatively speaking—for all these decades. Especially when you consider the harsh weather and the frequent storms in this area. Of course, maybe it’s all been exaggerated. We may go out there and find nothing left but a few splinters.”

Andrea’s eyes were so bright one could almost see the lightbulb over her head. “Why don’t we take a walk out there and see if we can find it! Really! It’s not too dark out. There’s a full moon tonight anyway. We can get a couple of flashlights, take a look around.”

“Remember what John said.” He mimicked the lawyer’s voice. ” ‘Stay close to the house.’ We wouldn’t want to become the object of a search party.”

Andrea was not to be put off so easily. “Well, what are we supposed to do all night? It’s too early to go to bed, and frankly I think we’re all getting bored with each other’s company.” Ernie smirked, then laughed in agreement. “As long as there’s no quicksand and we stay near the shore, there shouldn’t be any problem. We’re not going to go into the woods or anything like that. We’ll stick straight to the shoreline and come right back if we don’t find anything.” She thought for a moment, then added, “Or even if we do.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ernie said. “Let me just finish my drink—”

“Do you think we should ask the others?”

“Do you want to?” Ernie hoped the answer was no.

“It would be the polite thing to do.”

Ernie nodded, not bothering to keep the disappointment off his face. “Let’s be polite then.”

They went back into the living room and told the rest of the party about their plans. No one seemed particularly enthused. John renewed his warning, but didn’t try to deter them. Gloria was tired; therefore, so was Jerry. Betty looked as if she might want to go, but sensed that three would definitely be a crowd, especially since no one else was interested. Anton muttered something about “wanting to read” and getting a “proper view” of the island during the daytime. And Cynthia, though she mulled it over in her mind for a minute, ultimately decided against joining them.

They got a flashlight from Everson and set out to explore the vast darkness of Lammerty Island.

PART TWO

Reverberations

Chapter 10

Everson stayed with his guests for about half an hour longer, making chitchat and pouring drinks. Everyone seemed a little tired; he most of all. Andrea and his cousin hadn’t fooled anyone with their talk of looking over the shoreline for the wreck of the Mary Eliza, He recognized “young love,” or at least “young sexual attraction,” when he saw it. Perhaps his cool, quiet cousin was a firebrand underneath, and he and the lovely psychic were already making love under the stars. Or perhaps they were just walking along, talking about this or that, skirting the issue that really mattered, their interest in each other.

Everson sighed, rose from his chair, and yawned. He excused himself, admitting that he really felt like bed and must forego his duties as host for the remainder of the evening. He had been putting off his confrontation with Lynn, but was as anxious as he imagined everyone else must be for things between him and her to mend before it put a damper on the rest of the weekend.

“I hope Lynn will be feeling better tomorrow,” Gloria said in that spirited way of hers. She was obviously feeling “no pain.” Her bland boyfriend sat at her side conversing with Cynthia, who sat in a chair across from him. Gloria seemed like a third wheel, determined to drink her way into oblivion—the oblivion meant for older people like her and himself, Everson thought ruefully. People who dared to love those much younger than themselves. Now, now, he told himself, quelch the bitterness before it festers. Bitterness is so unbecoming. An unfit emotion for a gentleman of his stature.

He said good night to the others, then made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. I should have asked Gloria to go for a walk, he thought. I don’t think I interest her physically any more than she interests me, but at least we would have had a lot to talk about. How did she deal with it? he wondered. Having a young lover, the insecurity of it all? How did she deal with Jerry’s probable infidelities?

But it would have been a serious breach of etiquette to ask her, he knew. Older people simply did not go around asking one another about their younger spouses or lovers. It simply wasn’t done. It would have served to remind the person you asked that they were decades, generations, ahead of the one they were in love with—and that one simply did not do. He could not even imagine what his reaction might be if Gloria were to open the subject up to him.

He had one thing to be grateful for, at least. His lover’s aunt could hardly look down on him as some kind of “dirty old man”—how he hated that term—when she herself was “robbing the cradle” —and he hated that term even more. Yes, it was too bad; he and Gloria—both embroiled in similar romantic circumstances—might have given one another loads of comfort and advice, common understanding, yet they were separated by a wall of propriety that was as real and solid as an actual battlement.

Everson saw that the lights were off in the bedroom. He felt momentary relief—it could all be avoided for one more evening. But the relief was fast replaced by anxiety. He and Lynn had to have it out before morning, before they were again surrounded by all the others, incapable of coming to terms in private. He supposed he should have gone up earlier, excused himself, and spoken to her while she was awake. But she had been so unreasonable before dinner. Thinking back, he found he was incapable of determining just when and how it had all gone wrong. Everything had been so perfect; the trip over, showing Lynn and the others their quarters, getting dressed for cocktails. They had made love while the others were still getting ready—fast, hurried love, but no less enjoyable because of it. What had happened afterwards?

He went over on cat’s feet to the bathroom and turned on the light switch. The light from the bathroom would give him enough illumination to see by without waking Lynn. He could tell from the slow rise and fall of her chest that she was sleeping, genuinely sleeping. He knew the rhythm of her sleep well enough now to know when she was faking.

He sat beside her on the bed and stroked her hair. She was a pretty girl— woman, he thought, reprimanding himself—she was adamant about that and he couldn’t blame her. Women often mistook his fatherly affection for condescension. She was pretty, but not beautiful. Her face was broad, her features large. Without her makeup her skin was bad, red and oily, with open pores. She was short—about five-three—and someone might unkindly observe that her body shape was squat. Yet her personality was light and airy and gentle and humorous and warm, so many, many things that he admired.

He tried tactfully to get her to care more about her appearance, but nothing seemed to work. She was addicted to cream-colored sweaters that seemed to fall apart while on her shoulders, long, unbecoming skirts, unflattering shades and fabrics. Her hair had two styles: long and greasy, falling in limp strands onto her shoulders; and even worse what he called the B-girl style, when she pinned it up and around her head like early Connie Francis. What made her failure to fix herself up even more appalling was that she was not really an unattractive person, not like that poor Betty Sanders downstairs, sitting like a bump on a log on the ottoman.

Yet somewhere along the way he had ceased to care about her appearance. She was a refreshing change from the women he had known before— the primping and preening heiresses, the bubble-headed debutantes, the oh-so-serious professional women who could match him step for step in the boardroom as well as the bedroom. While he knew it certainly wasn’t true of most lady executives, the ones he’d met were cold and defensive and un-feminine.

Lynn didn’t seem to be all that interested in his money. Maybe that was the problem. He hadn’t realized it at first, but she had another kind of interest, and it was one he cared for not at all.

And then he remembered.

That was what the fight had been about. She had made a remark, some remark, about the island, how it fit in with certain things, certain interests she had, and he had made the mistake of making fun of her. And then it had all begun— the accusals, the recriminations, the yelling and crying. Luckily, he had been able to quiet her down by reminding her of her responsibility to her guests, how if she kept on with her childish tirade the whole house would hear her and everyone would know her business. She had an abject horror of losing her privacy, a fear of public humiliation. But she had fumed about it, and mulled it over, and finally left the dinner table to go up and stew. Just as well. She might have started carrying on at the dinner table. Oh, she wouldn’t have gone so far as to break down or tell the others her business, but the sniping would have started, the dirty looks, sullen stares, gratuitous rejoinders. Yes, it was better that she had gone upstairs.

Everson undressed in the near-darkness, watching her chest rise and fall, fall and rise.

Oh Lynn, he thought, I could put up with everything else. The age difference. Your appearance. I’m just a tired old man who needs the life blood you have to offer in your strange and unusual way, the warmth and companionship you give to me in my declining and insecure years.

But Lynn, he thought, shutting off the bathroom light and making his way to bed, I’m not sure I can put up with your fantasies.

As Everson maneuvered his weary old bones onto the mattress, a chilling thought came to him out of nowhere: I am not going to leave this island. It was so strange and so sudden and so clear and direct that it left him frightened and bewildered.

Would he die on Lammerty Island, never see his home again?

He shut his eyes but sleep came very slowly.

Chapter 11

Out back, inside a three-sided, weather-beaten shack that had once been some kind of storage place, Hans and Eric were playing cards. They had put the boxes of equipment in there—cables, extra lightbulbs, screws, nuts and bolts, some of which had been bought out on the first trip over— and it was on two of those boxes that they sat, and on a third that the cards were spread out between them. It was a matter of constant irritation to Eric that Hans would never play for money—even with poker he played only for chips —but Hans knew all about Eric’s money troubles due to gambling, and was determined not to go that route himself, nor to encourage Eric in any way.

Eric flicked down a card and read it aloud. “Rummy,” he said in his trembling nasal twang. “Beat you again.”

Hans threw down his cards with a muttered oath. “It’s not my night,” he said. ”Awww, I’m tired anyway.”

“Wonder what everybody’s doin‘ in there,” Eric said. “Think they’re havin‘ an orgy?” Eric knew he scandalized his co-worker with such talk, but Hans had learned by now to pay Eric no mind when he made such remarks.

“Those two who went down the beach,” the swede said, “they haven’t come back yet.”

“Don’t worry. They ain’t lost. They’re probably fuckin’ in the bushes. They’ll come back with their clothes on backwards.”

Hans snorted and shook his head. “I just hope we don’t have to go look for them. I’m tired. I was up at four this morning, getting things ready.”

“I woulda helped ya, buddy, but I had a rough night.”

Hans did not try to keep the sour look off his face. “I know all about your rough nights.” He allowed himself a smile. “They’ll be the death of you yet.”

Eric uttered his most popular phrase. “But what a way to go, eh, sport?”

“I don’t like this place,” Hans said suddenly, looking around at the sea, over towards the ocean.

“I don’t like it either, but I seen worse.” Eric started sliding the collected deck of cards into the little cardboard box it came in. “I mean, it’s not too exciting. But in the daylight, it’ll be real pretty. Maybe if it’s warm enough we can go for a swim. Hey, wouldja like that, Hans old buddy? Huh? We can get to see that TV star, that Cynthia what’s-her-name, in a bikini. Would you like that, sport?”

“She’s too rich for my blood,” Hans replied. Eric laughed.

“Imagine owning an island,” Eric said, picking at his teeth with his fingernails, spitting on the ground. “Man, what a useless piece of property, eh? Out in the middle of nowhere. The boats don’t even go by here no more. Think it’s really got ghosts, Hans? Do you?” He chuckled. “You believe in all that shit, don’t ya?”

Hans got up to his feet, weary, aching for bed. “I don’t know what I believe any more. I believe I want some sleep.”

“Sleep. What you want is to catch another look at Emily runnin‘ round in her birthday suit. Wish I knew what the hell that was all about* Weird, man.”

Hans did not disagree. “Young girls—” He drew circles in the air around his head. “Sometimes.”

“Don’t I know it?” Eric snorted. “Do you think she really saw sumpin‘. Or was she havin‘—what do they call it—hallucinations?”

“Who knows?” Hans said. “Maybe being on this island, hearing all those stories. It gave her nightmares.”

“Shit. She wasn’t sleepin‘. She was takin’ a shower, man.” He started giggling, laughing at some unspoken joke. “Ah ha! I know what it was, you old devil. Bet you snuck up on her while she was in the shower for a look-see.” Hans held up his hands, wanting no part of Eric’s obscene suggestion. “Yeah, you snuck up on her, like that guy in that movie—what’s the name of it—when the girl gets chopped in the shower?”

Hans didn’t go to the movies. “I heard screaming. I was in my room. Margaret called me. I rushed out and saw her struggling with Emily. I tried to help. That was all there was.” That was that. Hans started to walk towards the house. “Are you coming? We must be up early.”

“Naw. I want to have a smoke first. I like it out here.”

“Okay. See you in the morning.”

“G’night.”

Eric lit a cigarette, and watched Hans go into the side entrance to the kitchen. There was a chilly breeze in the air, and the leaves on the trees were swaying delicately, and a pleasant island fragrance came in from the sea. Eric wondered where those two people were, the couple that had gone for a walk. Well, it wasn’t his problem. Some of the others were still up. He could see the lights around the corner from the living room, heard Anton’s deep voice now and then, and a kind of high-pitched giggle—the little fat one, probably. He supposed when those other two didn’t come back someone would wake him up out of a sound sleep and expect him to find the bodies. Shit. Oh well, it was too early for bed, he wasn’t that tired —was restless, in fact—so he might as well stay out here awhile longer.

Only maybe all those stories were working on his nerves, too. Maybe he was too—suggestive-like that silly girl who “saw something” and ran about screaming in the nude. But God damn it, out here alone in the dark it was as if the forest were closing in on him, as if the shadows held secrets and the tree branches were reaching fingers. Everything was so—silent and hushed and sinister. In fact, he was giving himself the creeps.

Five minutes later, Eric put out his cigarette and went to bed.

Chapter 12

Up in the room she was sharing with Andrea, Cynthia stood before the mirror sipping a vodka tonic and practicing provocative poses. She always did that when she got drunk, or high, or whatever it was she was. An uncommonly attractive woman, she was nonetheless unsure of her looks and, as the soaps’ best “bad” girl, wanted to make sure she gave them all their money’s worth and stayed up high in the ratings—both the Neilsens and the more personal ones.

Damn that Gloria for ruining her fun! The old cow! Cynthia and Jerry had been talking about movies and TV shows and hitting it off just swell until the old bag announced that she was feeling a little giddy and wanted to go to bed, and practically ordered Jerry to escort her to their room. She had just summoned him from the bottom of the stairs as if he were a little boy, impatient because he was taking too long saying good night to the others. She must be rich, the witch. Why else would Jerry put up with her?

Andrea had already snagged the only other good-looking man on the island—moon-lit strolls indeed! Mr. Thesinger was tall, mustachioed, and not at all bad to look at, although not quite the adonis Jerry was.

She closed her eyes, moved her body sinuously, and imagined Gloria’s kept boy making love to her. She felt those muscular, suntanned arms wrapping around her, felt herself enveloped in his six-foot body, his handsome face nuzzling her neck. She was a sucker for the blond beachboy type and always had been, and Jerry certainly fit the mold. Perfect rows of white teeth. Deepset blue eyes. A boyish face with even features, cleft chin, short-cropped hair he wore in a kind of old-fashioned fifties style. Yes, imagining herself in his arms was enough to drive her to distraction.

Then she imagined Jerry in Gloria’s arms and it was enough to drive her to drink.

She gulped down the rest of her vodka tonic, wondering if she should venture downstairs for another. She would have done so in an instant if she’d been sure that the living room was deserted, but she hadn’t heard anyone else come upstairs since she had announced her “retirement.” She’d left her wrist watch home. What was it, all of eight o’clock? Sickening.

No, she was not in the mood for Anton’s wry cynicism, nor could she deal with it if he attempted to make a pass at her. She didn’t know Betty Sanders .very well, and didn’t particularly want to know her better. She’d been a wallflower in college and would be a wallflower until the day she died if her bland behavior this evening and on the trip over was any indication. What did Lynn see in her? Lynn had mentioned that they’d shared common interests, but she couldn’t imagine what those interests might be. What was Lynn’s problem anyway? It wasn’t like her to retreat to her room when there was a party going on. Some party.

Cynthia felt a little chilly, and decided to change into a nightgown and get underneath the covers. Wouldn’t it be funny, she thought, if she were to dash upstairs in her sexiest nightie and knock on Glo—she liked to be called “Glo,” the old child-stealer—and Jerry’s door and ask if Jerry could come out to play. She giggled. He wanted her, she knew it. It was in his eyes, on his lips, everywhere. And Lord—did she want him. She knew her agent would have warned her about getting on Gloria Bordette’s bad side, but hell, everyone knew the old woman was on her way out. It wasn’t as if she was the only game in town, after all. These days gossip columnists were a dime a dozen, and Gloria Bordette was not one of the biggest. Not any more. Rumor had it she was going to be dropped when her contract ran out with The Daily Journal.

Cynthia suddenly felt a strange, almost chilling stab of compassion for the other woman. Now where did that come from? she wondered. Cynthia had worked too hard to worry about the rise and fall of other people’s fortunes. But digging into the dresser for her nightie she again felt that uncanny jab of sympathy—no, empathy—for Gloria, a woman at the end of her rope, looks-wise, career-wise, love-wise probably. Empathy, that was it. Cynthia did not feel sorry for Gloria so much as she worried about her own future, and whatever disappointment it might hold. Yes, she was smart enough to recognize her “sympathy” for what it had really been. Once “Glo” had been young and pretty, at the top of the heap. What had gone wrong? Time had caught up with her, she thought sullenly, that was all.

Sometimes, way down deep in the back of her mind, Cynthia knew that she thought more about herself than about everyone else combined, and it bothered her, worried her, made her afraid that she was some kind of monster—but she was more afraid to be any other way. That’s when they got you, she knew. And they always got you if you weren’t careful.

Snuggled up in bed, she wondered why her mind had taken such a morose turn. She was cold. She was horny. She wanted another drink. Where was Andrea? Cynthia was lonely, too. Wanted someone to talk at. She knew conversations with Cynthia Marcovicci were usually one-sided, but she also knew that Cynthia Marcovicci was interesting.

Screw Glo and her old lady problems, Cynthia told herself. Those kind of problems are a long way off for you. Maybe you’ll get lucky and die in your forties, anyway. It’s this place, it’s this awful island that’s doing it to you, making you feel grim and lonely and depressed. If she were back home in the city now. If she were back home in the city …

She’d be sitting in bed feeling lonely, an open script lying on her lap, a drink on the night table beside her.

She shook her head and made the bad thought go away.

Damn you, Andrea, she thought. Now you’ve got me doing it. You and all your weird talk. You’ve gone and made me think I’m picking up vibrations, all the blood and tears and violence of this horrible island. She didn’t know why, but she was convinced of it: Something bad was going to happen.

Chapter 13

The moon was very bright and it painted a bold white stripe across the water as Ernie and Andrea walked along the beach. The air was chilly, but the island’s humidity kept them from feeling too cold. Andrea had worn a sweater. Ernie thought of rolling down his sleeves, but never got around to it. He was too busy watching the sea breeze flowing through Andrea’s hair, watching for her infrequent smile to flash in his direction, hoping that he had her approval. On one side there was the water; on the other, the woods. Both seemed quite impenetrable. They had not bothered to turn on the flashlight they had brought as there was no need for it.

They were talking about inconsequential things —the threat of rain, the spooky blackness of the forest, the city of Boston where Andrea lived— one of Ernie’s favorite places—when Andrea suddenly fell silent. Ernie tried his best to keep up a one-sided conversation, chattering about his apartment in New York, his writing, the article assignment he’d been given on Lammerty Island. But he was running out of things to say. Finally he looked down at Andrea and asked, “Is something the matter?”

“I—” She hesitated, came to a dead stop. Ernie stood beside her, still and patient, waiting for her to explain. It came rushing out of her all at once. “Look, I’ve become very defensive about these things. People think I’m showing off or begging for attention, or that I’m whacked out or something. But I can’t help it. It’s me. It’s the way I am. I can’t do anything about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I—I get feelings. I pick up things. I’m psychic. Surely somebody must have told you.”

He nodded. In spite of his attitude towards such matters, he found himself wanting her to go on, to explain herself.

“It first started—these particular feelings I’ve been getting—the moment I set foot on the island, maybe earlier. They keep coming and going. I’ve tried to ignore them but it hasn’t been possible.”

Ernie reminded himself to be understanding, open-minded. “But this island’s history. All that bloodshed. It would be enough to give anyone premonitions of disaster, bad feelings. Without taking anything away from your psychic abilities, don’t you think that’s the likeliest explanation?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think it’s more than that. I’m not especially given to”— she said the words distastefully—” ‘intuitions’ or ‘premonitions.’ I only know what I hear and see in my mind.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“No! This is going to keep up all the time I’m here. There’s nothing I can do about it. Like you said, this island’s history—it was inevitable that I’d pick up the vibrations of some of what has gone on before.” They had started walking again. “I’ve learned not to let my abilities bother me; whenever I can, that is. I can deal with the things I feel. I can’t deal with the possibility—”

“Yes, go on. The possibility?”

“The possibility that all the psychic energy on this island, the accumulation of the force of all that violence and pain, can still be collecting somewhere, capable of doing harm, affecting those who are most sensitive, most vulnerable …”

“Come on now. I can buy everything else you said, and I want to respect your opinion. But what you’re suggesting now is the stuff of horror stories.”

“Maybe. That doesn’t make it impossible.”

“Who would be ‘most vulnerable’?” he asked. “Someone psychic like you?”

“Yes,” she said frankly. “As well as people whose powers are less developed, who may not even be aware that they have such powers. I think that poor girl—what was her name?”

“You don’t mean Emily, do you?”

“Yes, the one who had that fit. She might have been the very first victim. If you know the history of this island as well as you say you do, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“You’ve got me.”

“Come on,” she chided. “In 1872 a servant girl by the name of Mary Lou Winters, despondent because of her unrequited love for her employer’s son—Jeremy Burrows—tried to kill herself in that very same bathroom where Emily had her vision.”

Ernie’s memory was awakened. There had been something about that. “Yes, I think—”

Andrea rushed onward: “The whole incident was described in John Saisly’s book on Maine legends and stories. The girl tried to slash her wrists with a broken piece of glass, or maybe a piece of shattered mirror, but wasn’t able to go through with it. Oh, she drew blood, a great deal of blood, but she lost courage in the middle of it all. Out of anger and frustration, half-hysterical, she started slashing herself everywhere with the glass, while the blood ran down her arms from the cuts on her wrists. Her stomach, her breasts. She kept ripping at her body, then ran around the house screaming for help.”

“My God. That does sound familiar, doesn’t it?”

“I think that Emily was somehow affected by that event, something that happened over a hundred years ago. I know it sounds absurd—but look at what happened! She kept yelling about blood—only there wasn’t any. She saw a figure in the mirror, in that very same bathroom, and ran around as if she was possessed, exactly the way that poor girl did back in 1872. Coincidence? She saw something, Mr. Thesinger, something that no one else could see.”

“Why didn’t you mention all this at dinner? I knew about that servant girl’s suicide attempt, but not so many details.”

“Would you have mentioned it if you were me? And have the others frightened, and resenting me because of it? Or have Anton start passing his remarks? Psychics are hated, feared, disbelieved. It’s been the story of my life. I’ve learned to shut up about it unless somebody asks. I just thought you might like to know.”

“I do. I’m glad you told me. Very glad. Glad that you thought you could confide in me. I mean that.”

She smiled. “I know you do. And I appreciate it.”

“There’s just one thing that puzzles me.”

“What’s that?”

“Surely the accounts of the attempted suicide weren’t as detailed as all that. How do you know so much?”

She looked worried for a moment, confused. “I —I don’t know.” She looked at him helplessly. “I just know that it’s the truth. That’s the way it happened. I could almost see it happening. I wish I could be more specific, but that’s all that I can say.”

“Well, we have one thing to be grateful for. That servant girl in 1872 completely recovered. If Emily is going to enact her life story, at least we know how it will turn out.”

“That depends on who’s writing the script,” Andrea said. “Remember—several years later Mary Lou Winters was one of the people butchered by Edmund Burrows.”

Ernie was about to ask her how she could be sure of that—even the official records were hazy —when he saw a startled look come into her eyes. She was lifting her hand, pointing. Suddenly he realized with some surprise that it was foggy; they were surrounded by fog. It had sprung up around them unnoticed while they were talking and strolling. The sound of the water breaking onto the rocks, rolling up the beach, was strangely ominous.

“It’s there,” she said, still pointing. He followed her hand, trying to see through the fog all around them. And then he saw it—the prow of the boat jutting up out of the rocks about fifteen yards away. He saw a jagged gash in the wooden side of the ship, thought he could almost see movement inside the hole. Water, he supposed, moonlight glinting off the surface creating ripples and shadows that confounded his imagination. He shivered involuntarily.

“Shall we take a look?” he said, trying to strike a note of bravery in his voice.

“No,” she said sharply. “I—I don’t want to go any further. I want to go back. I think we should go back.”

“We’ve walked this far, we might as well—”

“Please, Mr. Thesinger.”

“Ernie, I told you.”

“Ernie—let’s go back.”

Silly woman, he thought, before he could stop himself, glad he had not said it out loud, glad she was not a mindreader. Or was she? One never knew. They’d come out all this way just to see the ship. There it was. The moon was out, they had a flashlight, they could see a bit of it at least. Still, there was this fog covering everything. Maybe they might as well return to the house. He hoped she wasn’t going to make a habit of “going freaky” on him; that he could do without quite nicely. He made one last stab. As long as they were out here …

“Do you want to stay here while I go take a better look? I won’t be gone long.”

“No!” she said. “I don’t think you should go over there, either. Don’t ask me why. I can’t tell you. Tomorrow. When it’s daylight.”

“Well—”

She was practically shouting. “I can’t stay here by myself and I won’t go back to the house without you. Please. We’ll look at it tomorrow, when it’s safe … when we can get our bearings. This fog.” She shrugged and gave him a plaintive look.

She was really quite petrified, he could tell that now. And part of her fear was being transferred to him. He realized that the thought of going on alone to see the ship did not appeal to him in the slightest; in fact, it frightened him. “All right. All right,” he said comfortingly. “We’ll go back right now. Actually, this place is starting to get to me, too.”

He wanted to put his arm around her protectively, and wondered if that’s what she wanted him to do. She looked cold, her sweater frail and flimsy. She might think he was getting fresh, though, so he kept his hands to himself. The fog was getting very thick now, and the air was much colder than before. They walked at a brisk pace, no conversation. Andrea looked ahead unswervingly. She never looked at her sides, at the woods or ocean, or even at her feet.

For his own part, Ernie didn’t begin to relax until he looked over his shoulder for the twenty-fifth time and could no longer see even the outline of the shipwrecked Mary Eliza.

Andrea didn’t relax until they could clearly see the lights from the guest house shining like a beacon across the beach.

Chapter 14

While Ernie and Andrea were walking back to the guesthouse, Joanne Nobele was trying her best to get to sleep. She had been awfully tired about an hour before, but she hated to go to sleep without brushing her teeth and fixing her hair, and Mrs. Plushing had been in the bathroom for what seemed like hours. Joanne had struggled to stay awake until it was her turn, and now that she was through putting in the curlers and rubbing the face cream into her flawless nineteen-year-old skin, she was distressed to find herself wide awake again.

In the bunk below her Emily was fast asleep, still tranquilized. She had woken up around nine to ask for a glass of water, too tired for anything else. After gulping down the liquid she’d gone right back to sleep again, cuddled in the nice, warm lower bunk that Joanne had wanted and still coveted for herself. It wasn’t normal sleeping up here near the ceiling, she thought from the upper bunk, but Emily had been put down below for convenience’s sake. Meanwhile, oblivious to it all, Mrs. Plushing snored contentedly in the comfortable bed across the room.

Joanne turned over on her back and tried to think of different boys, those she knew and actors she had only dreamt of. She smiled, hoping that as usual she’d eventually fall asleep while in the middle of a nice erotic reverie. Not too erotic—she was much too inexperienced for that.

What was that?

It sounded as if someone was crying, no—weeping would be the word. It had a muffled sound to it, as if it came from outside their room. Impossible. One thing she knew about both Eric and Hans was that neither was the crying type.

Then who could it be?

It wasn’t she, that was for certain. And she could still hear the raspy, breathing noises made by Mrs. Plushing; the woman was definitely still sleeping. Emily? The crying really wasn’t coming from the bunk below. Besides, Emily was dead to the world.

Just to make sure, Joanne leaned out over the edge of the bunk and pushed herself out as far as she could go without falling. She looked at Emily —there was enough moonlight streaming in through the window for her to see—but if the girl in the lower bunk had been the one weeping her body would surely have been shaking. All Joanne saw was the gentle rise and fall of her breast under the blanket; she heard those even breathing sounds, nothing more. Emily, too, was fast asleep.

So if no one in the room was crying, then who could it be?

Joanne searched desperately for a rational answer, something reasonable and comforting. Perhaps one of the other women, one of the guests. These old houses had funny pipes and drafts and things; the noise could be traveling down from a second- or third-story bedroom. Yes, that had to be the answer.

Only Joanne could have sworn that the crying was coming from somewhere in the very room she was in. She listened carefully, intently, trying to exactly determine the noise’s point of origin. She thought about getting out of bed, but thought better of it. She might wake Emily or Mrs. Plushing. Or worse.

She shuddered.

Perhaps the woman who was crying wasn’t really “in” the house at all. Perhaps she wasn’t even flesh and blood. Perhaps Joanne was hearing the anguished gasps and cries of a ghost.

And then she was sure of it.

The crying was coming from right inside this room, there could be no mistake.

Shivering uncontrollably, tears of fright streaming down her cheeks, Joanne stiffened underneath her blanket, and tried to scream. Nothing came out but a soft, pathetic whimper. She cried inside her mind: Emily. Mrs. P. Help! Help me! Bursting spots of black and white danced before her eyes. If there had been any mercy in the world she would have passed out then from fear. Anything would have been better than facing the unknown all by herself.

One thought ran over and over through her mind:

So far she’d only heard the ghost.

What would she do if she finally saw it?

Chapter 15

Andrea said good night quickly to Ernie, then darted up the stairs to the second floor and went into her room. She had almost forgotten about Cynthia, who was—surprise—already in bed and fast asleep. She made her way carefully across the room and turned on the bathroom light, then sat down on the edge of her twin bed and started to undress. It had subsided, at least, the uncanny fear that had risen up in her all at once out there on the beach. It had been such a powerful, overwhelming rush of panic, of abject terror. She knew this island would get to her if she let it. She just hadn’t been prepared for how hard it would fight.

She was convinced that if she and Ernie had stayed out there, had gone any closer to that boat, they would not have been seen alive again.

At first, she had felt the usual odd vibrations, the ill-ease she had expected and borne with ever since arrival. But then, as they neared the ship, it had gotten worse and worse. “All that energy, all that violence,” she had said, or something like it, but she had never really thought about what those words truly meant, the exact scope of what she was dealing with. The psychic vibrations were more tremendous than anything she had ever encountered before. But, she reminded herself, just because bad thoughts and negative energy were floating around, it didn’t mean that any harm could actually befall someone because of it. The problem was she couldn’t be sure of that.

The things she had seen, had felt, inside her mind. The depths of loneliness, bottomless agony, fathomless pain, the anguish of drowning men and women. She had absorbed their torment unwillingly, and wave after wave of psychic despair had rolled over her just as the ocean waves had covered the bodies of the sea dead, had sent them to their watery graves, to rot and decay and sink into the mud without a trace. All that she had felt, all that she had experienced. Would it be any different during the day? She had her doubts. Nighttime intensified the experience, partly because her own imagination worked overtime when it was dark out, but imagination alone could not account for all the sensations she had experienced while approaching that ship. It had been horrible, a living nightmare. If only she had been able to make Ernie understand—but she had seen it in his eyes. He was like all the others, all the other non-believers. He would only laugh, say one thing with his mouth, but mean another. Underneath, he would snicker, condescend. They always did.

And it was really too bad, she thought, feeling at last reasonably safe and sound up here in her room. Too bad, because Ernest Thesinger was an all-around nice guy, one of those rare birds who was gracious and thoughtful and pleasant and willing to listen.

Attractive, masculine, without being overbearingly macho, which he could easily have been, all six-foot-two of him, with those broad shoulders, that bushy mustache. He projected a quietly handsome image. His eyes were small and burned with intelligence. His mouth was sensitive, wide, with a full lower Up that gave him a contemplative look. His nose was a bit too fleshy, bulbous, but it fit his face, and its bulk was overshadowed by his mustache, which was full and long and nicely trimmed. His black hair was worn short, curling at the edges and in the back. She could picture him so perfectly in front of her, a man of strength and resonance, an artist. Thirty, maybe older. His big hands and arms could have held her so nicely. He would have been so warm  …

Well, you did it again, she thought. You really turned him off, didn’t you? He must have thought you had a screw loose. I wonder if Lynn ever has these problems. I know that Cynthia doesn’t. And why should she? Andrea thought with a bitterness that surprised her. A woman whose assets were as obvious as Cynthia’s could be flighty, fruity, psychic, and silly, but men would overlook anything in her case.

She lay down on the bed and nestled her head in the pillow. It was so soft, refreshingly cool against her face, a nice contrast to the warmth of the blanket. I won’t change for anyone, she said to herself determinedly. Not Ernest Thesinger, not Bob, not Steven, none of them. My “beaus. ” She giggled. None of them could take it, could they? Well, she thought, I am what I am and I can’t change it, and wouldn’t even if I could. But, Mr. Thesinger, if you think I’m through with you, you are very sadly mistaken.

As she did every night of her life since that fourteenth birthday when she had heard the first odd murmurings in her head and learned in the morning about her grandmother dying, she suppressed the thoughts and words and pictures bouncing around in her brain, a jumbled miasma of other people’s deeds and consciences, and let the weariness overtake her. She was not religious, but she could not resist saying one more silent prayer:

Lord, don’t let me die on this island.

Chapter 16

Ernie couldn’t sleep.

Normally he would write in the evening—he did his best work then—typing until as late as six in the morning before tumbling into bed satisfied. It would take him several days to change his sleep patterns—although he had to admit he felt pretty tired, what with getting up early to begin with so he’d make the boat on time; then the trip over, and that eerie walk with Andrea. He should have been able to fall asleep the minute his head hit the pillow but, while his body was exhausted, his mind kept working, working.

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 future.

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.

She could make out what the ghost was saying very clearly now. Why did you do this to me? I thought you loved me, Jeremy. I thought surely you loved me. Why don’t you love me anymore? The poor thing was pleading with him, whining as if he were in the room with her, whispering so no one would discover them. It was the keening and pleading of a young girl in love, disillusioned. A young girl used and abandoned.

In her terror, a thought started growing in the back of Joanne’s mind. Suppose she was to be possessed by the creature next, for she was sure that was what had happened to her friend Emily, still sleeping soundly in the bunk below. What if it should—God help her—enter her mind, force her to run about the way Emily had? What if, like Emily, she imagined herself to be bleeding from every orifice, wet, red blood pouring down her naked limbs like gushing water. No, she couldn’t stand to think of it. No. No. Only now did she fully realize what Emily must have gone through.

Why don’t you love me anymore? I thought you loved me!

The housekeeper’s nerves were at the breaking point. Scream, Joanne. Scream. Mrs. Plushing will get up and turn on the lights. Scream. Just open your mouth and scream!

Instead, she found herself opening her eyes.

Six feet away from the bed, hobbling pathetically across the room, was an apparition. It was a girl, no older than she was, naked, her eyes hollow and staring off into space. Blood was pouring out of the numerous jagged cuts in the flesh of her arms and stomach and breasts. Her face wore the most terrible, haunted, evil expressions that Joanne had ever seen on anyone. She looked quite dead, her skin dry and corpse-like, but she shambled towards the bunk bed jerkily, as if somehow animated from within.

Joanne felt her heart pounding. Her body shook violently as she waged an inner battle in a vain attempt to shake off her fear and call for help.

The bleeding woman was at the edge of the bed now, her body just below Joanne’s bunk and out of her sightline.

Was it the housekeeper’s imagination? Or did she feel the groan of the springs of the bed underneath, as if the ghost-creature was stepping onto the lower mattress. No, it couldn’t be. Emily would have woken, screamed. Joanne couldn’t see anything anymore. The whole thing must have been a hallucination created by her fear and by her overactive imagination.

Then a gnarled, bloodstained, long-nailed hand covered with a multitude of seeping sores poked up from below and grabbed hold of Joanne’s mattress, and the long dead servant girl began slowly, painfully, pulling herself up onto her bed.

Chapter 20

Ernie was flipping pages as fast as he could read, fascinated, resisting the morbid compulsion to flip to the end and see if “he” survived this imaginary (or was it?) adventure. What he’d read so far was enough to turn his hair white. There was some spooky stuff supposed to go on in the guest house that night, but he’d skipped over that rather quickly so he could see what was going to happen “tomorrow” before he fell asleep. The urge to put the book down, close his eyes, and go to sleep was nearly overwhelming. It was all he could do to keep his eyes focused on the page in front of him.

Grisly. Awful. Such goings on. According to Mr. Schumann, one of Everson’s male employees was going to be dispatched—the characters’ new names confused him and he forgot exactly which man it was—sometime tomorrow. And those poor housekeepers. They were going to expire in a particularly gruesome manner. He blinked a few limes, rubbed his eyes. He was too tired to concentrate well on the story. He’d just finished reading about somebody, one of the women, getting lost on the island, and he’d already forgotten which woman it was. He was not only blurry-eyed, but vague, disordered thoughts were invading his consciousness just as they did when he began to fall asleep; a mixed-up jumble of words, ideas, and pictures from a dozen different people, magazines, and articles. Flip to the end, he told himself. It is most important to find out how it all ends. In case, just in case it turns out to be true. Impossible, he scoffed. But he had his doubts. Indubitably, this had to be the scariest book that he had ever read, since it was made to order, exploiting his own personal fears. What else could you expect from a book in which you were the main character?

He read a little bit more, aghast at the fates in store for his companions. But he had to give up. He was just too tired. His eyes fell shut involuntarily. The book dropped out of his hands. In that mixed-up jumble of thoughts one thing came through loud and clear. According to Late at Night, one of the housekeepers was going to go through hell tonight.

“Andrew Tennington” had read the early portions of the book he had found—yes, that was in there, too, the bit about finding a book set on the very same island, a story within a story within a story—and then he had fallen asleep. Same thing’s happening to me, Ernie thought, drifting deeper and deeper into slumber. Right about now, this is when that horrible thing is pulling itself up onto the bunkbed where the terrified housekeeper is lying. Right about now, this is when the housekeeper sees the corpse-like horror getting into bed with her and opens her mouth and screams.

Ridiculous, Ernie thought, smiling in spite of his fear.

And that’s when—though he was too tired to rouse himself and investigate, too tired, almost unnaturally so, to do anything but lay there semiconscious—he heard the sound of a scream coming unmistakably from the servants’ quarters.

PART THREE

Morning

Chapter 21

The members of the Lammerty Island expedition were all down having breakfast by 10 o’clock that morning. Gloria was chipper and buoyant, talking about the wonderful seaside air and what it did for her beauty sleep, constantly chatting about how refreshed and fulfilled she felt. She seemed oblivious to the smirks some of the others wore when she talked about being “fulfilled.” Sitting next to her smearing jam on his English muffin, Jerry looked positively exhausted.

Lynn was more cheerful today. There was still an air of obvious tension between her and Everson, but she was clearly making an effort not to let whatever strain her relationship with the older man might be going through ruin the rest of the weekend. Everson was giving her all his attention, letting her hog the spotlight and play hostess. He was quite charming towards his younger lady love, so charming that the friction between the two of them seemed to be melting away as breakfast progressed.

Andrea had not slept well—how could she on this island—but she found her spirits reviving and her mind becoming more alert in spite of it.

That’s what a good breakfast and lively companions could do for you. Funny thing about Ernie, though; he seemed in a daze, had barely acknowledged her when she had said hello. And there she had been trying to be pleasant, trying to make up for the freakiness of the night before. Oh well, perhaps it was too late. Perhaps she had lost his attention for good. She wasn’t about to cry over it.

Cynthia sipped her coffee, wiped her lips with a napkin, and looked Andrea right in the eye. “Did you and Mr. Thesinger find what you were looking for last night?” From the lascivious grin on Cynthia’s mouth it was clear she was not referring to the shipwreck. Andrea ignored her friend’s innuendo and replied, “Yes. But I wouldn’t let Ernie get near it. It was too foggy out. We came right back.”

“Hmmm,” Cynthia said slyly to the rest of the table. “Did anyone hear the two of them come in? Was anyone still up at that hour?”

“Cynthia,” Andrea scolded, smiling in spite of herself. “It wasn’t that late. Everyone went to bed early and you know it. There was nobody up when we got back.”

“Then we have only your word for it that the two of you didn’t sleep on the beach and sneak in here to your beds at dawn.”

Andrea shook her head. She looked over at Ernie to see how he was reacting—she thought he’d be blushing bright red now—but he was still in that odd mood of his. He ate his food listlessly, did not join in the conversation. He really must be exhausted. Andrea knew she wouldn’t get any help from that corner. But before Cynthia could go on with her verbal badinage, Anton made a pronouncement.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m quite anxious to explore the island this afternoon. I’m particularly interested in seeing the ruins of the old house. The one that’s still standing, that is. Perhaps we can even go inside.”

Everson speared a sausage with his fork. “I don’t see why not. As long as we’re careful.”

There was a little cough from the end of the table, and Betty, red-faced from the exertion, said, “Anton and I were talking about it last night. We have a mutual love for haunted houses, things like that.” She looked down at her plate shyly. When nobody spoke, she added, “When I was a little girl I used to love going to the abandoned homes in the neighborhood. We had two or three of them. Huge monsters that nobody wanted to buy, just left to fall apart and fill up with weeds.” Each sentence was punctuated by a pained little smile, as if she was asking for approval before continuing. “I wasn’t very brave. Friends of mine used to enter through broken windows and look around, and when they told me it was safe they’d open the front door and let me in. I’d never go in unless I knew it was safe. I—”

“That’s how I felt about the water,” Cynthia said. “I still don’t think it’s safe.” She lit a cigarette, puffed, unconcerned about the discomfort the smoke might cause the others. Betty had not been through with her story, but that didn’t matter to Cynthia. Andrea was struck by the difference between Cynthia and Betty. Cynthia’s astonishing insensitivity; Betty’s crippling sensitivity. Cynthia rambled on about her first experiences with swimming and handsome lifeguards. Jerry listened with rapture to every word, while Gloria nibbled at her toast and said nothing. It was an effort for Betty to say something—everyone knew that—and here she’d built up her courage and Cynthia wouldn’t even let her finish. How much time had it taken Betty to pull herself together, to fortify herself to speak for so long? No one who hadn’t been shy in childhood as Andrea had been could ever conceive of what some people had to go through inside just to have the confidence to pass a simple remark.

Andrea tuned Cynthia out and looked over at Ernie again. What was the matter with him anyway? He had hardly said a word during the whole meal. She was tired, too, but not to the point of catatonia. He looked worse than exhausted—he looked disturbed, preoccupied by something terrible.

Cynthia was through with her swimming story. Anton and Lynn were now trying to convince Gloria to go with them on the walk to the main house, but Gloria was not at all enamored of the idea. “I’d much rather sit outside and feel that nice warm sun on my face. Walking through woods has never been my strong point. I’m much more the sitter type.”

“You could use the exercise,” Jerry said, not unkindly.

“We shouldn’t force her,” Cynthia said with surprising conviction. “If Glo doesn’t want to go she can stay and watch the fort. It’s just an old house anyway, Glo, you won’t be missing anything. Besides, think of all the bugs out there.”

“Bugs,” Jerry laughed. “That did it. Gloria has shit fits when she sees a cockroach.”

“Disgusting little creatures,” Gloria said as she suddenly squirmed in her seat. “Let’s not even talk about them. You say there are bugs out there in that jungle?” she asked Everson.

The lawyer smiled patiently. “There are usually bugs outdoors, Gloria. There’s nothing we can do about it. And it’s just a forest, not a jungle.”

“Well, I could have sworn I heard a bobcat screaming last night, out in the woods.”

“I heard a scream coming from right in this house,” Cynthia said, her eyes opening wide from the memory. “I thought I must have been dreaming.”

“I think I heard something, too,” Anton sniffed, scraping the last of his scrambled eggs from his plate. “Nearly startled the life out of me.”

“Awww,” Jerry quipped. “It was probably just Gloria finding a bug in her bed.” Gloria glared at him playfully and snickered.

Andrea did not remember the scream—how could she distinguish it from the inner screams within her own mind—but she noticed that Ernie had perked up a bit at the talk of it. “It came from the first floor, I’m sure of it,” Anton continued. “But when it stopped abruptly I figured one of the servants was playing a joke. It still was rather early if I recall. I meant to check my watch but it was on the dresser and I was too tired to get up and take a look.”

“Did you hear anything, Ernie?” Lynn asked the writer. He shook his head, mumbled, looked as if he hadn’t heard her. Then Mrs. Plushing came into the room, and Everson told her what some of the others had heard. As usual, Mrs. Plushing knew what had happened all right.

“Oh that. You heard it, did you? I’m so sorry, Mr. Everson, and all of you, for the disturbance.”

“Well, what was it, woman?” Everson snapped.

Margaret was used to his ways. “It was Joanne, this time. It seems she saw something last night, just like Emily did. Some kind of ghost. Of course, I told her it was nonsense. But she was scared out of her wits.”

Andrea looked over to see if Ernie had heard. It seemed the spirit of Mary Lou Winters was a restless one.

“Woke me up out of a sound sleep,” Margaret continued. “I turned on the light, and Joanne said the ghost disappeared. Some kind of dead girl, she said, all horrible-looking. Climbing to the top of her bunkbed. Anyway, she wouldn’t go back to sleep unless I let her get in bed with me. It’s a wonder I’m awake at all today, what with her shivering and moaning and stealing the covers for the rest of the night.”

“Well, is she all right?” Lynn asked.

“Oh yes, she’s fine now, miss. Emily was woken up, too, but she went right back to sleep without any trouble. Today both of the girls are convinced they just had some bad dreams, hallucinations, brought on by their own imaginations. Young girls, you know how they are.”

“I’m a grown man,” Anton said. “And even I’m starting to get goosebumps.”

The rest of the discussion was lost as Ernie suddenly jumped to his feet, a crazed and frightened expression in his eyes. He shouted “My God!” and took off to his room in a flash.

“What the lord is the matter with him?” Mrs. Plushing asked.

Chapter 22

The book? Where is the book?

Ernie had overturned the cot, ripped off the mattress, searched on the floor, in his baggage and in the trunk, in virtually every nook and cranny, but the novel was nowhere to be found. He had raced back outside to look at every title on the bookshelf, but Late at Night simply wasn’t there.

Could I have dreamt it all? he wondered.

He had been awakened by the sounds of the others climbing down the stairs for breakfast, by Mrs. Plushing’s whistling as she puttered around the dining room setting the table. He could smell coffee and bacon, and responded to those lovely aromas by getting out of bed. But he had been so tired, so doggone, unnaturally tired. There was something nagging at him in the back of his mind, something he couldn’t pinpoint, something he had to tell Andrea. But he simply could not remember what it was.

All through breakfast it had worried him. Then they’d started talking about a scream. Yes, he had heard a scream. Instinctively, before anyone had told him, he had known it was one of the housekeepers screaming, but he’d hadn’t known how he knew. Something started to come together in the deepest recesses of his brain, started to poke its way out into his conscious mind. Then Mrs. Plushing had come in to tell her story, and it had all come rushing back to him.

The book.

He had rushed in here to find it, to see if it was real, but it had disappeared. He had looked everywhere. Either someone had taken it or it had never existed. He might never know for certain. It was so hard to think in this mental fog even now he wasn’t sure if he had actually sat in bed reading it, or if he had dreamt the whole thing: finding it, falling asleep, hearing the scream. The scream, at least, had been legitimate. But as for everything else, who knows?

Yet for a moment there he had been so sure.

Perhaps he had only dreamed about the book; perhaps he’d experienced a psychic phenomena known as precognition. Maybe everyone in this island was in danger. Perhaps the book had been a warning in disguise. Or maybe last night there really had been a book: an omen, a prophecy, a warning in a tangible, physical form. Ernie would have to ask Andrea if such things could exist. Perhaps when its job had been over, the book had ceased to exist, returning to the netherland that had spawned it. The book, the substance or ectoplasm that formed it, had dissipated while he slept.

But why? Why would such a thing happen? Why would a warning take such a form? The book had seemed so real, so real in every sense.

There was no point telling the others about this until he had a chance to really think it over, to sort out fact and fiction and remember if there had actually been a book or not. The first thing he would do is get Andrea alone and tell her everything that had happened.

But something still bothered him. If that book had been for real, if it had actually provided a peek into the future, then that meant that there wasn’t much time. Ernie remembered only the vaguest details; nothing specific, no names or places. Just that the book was about him and his comrades and took place on this island. Just that it promised horrible fates for all of them.

Just that the slaughter would begin very soon.

Chapter 23

It took about twenty minutes to get to the main house, their little group stumbling over roots and through weedy patches, slapping at mosquitoes, and pointing collectively into the trees whenever a pleasant whistle would indicate the presence of a bird.

It was hot today—further inland there were fewer cooling breezes. Cynthia wished she hadn’t worn her hot pants. She also wore a flimsy pink blouse that was tied below her breasts. She was showing plenty of skin, and her legs and arms and stomach were rapidly turning into feeding grounds for carnivorous insects. She had one thing to be grateful for. Gloria had stayed behind. That gave her a chance to get to know Jerry better without the old cow hovering around them. It was now or never. That moose hung on tightly at all other times.

It was a sunny day and the island was truly beautiful. The path to the main house was now overgrown, home to thistles, orchids, and sundew —as well as millions upon millions of crawling, flying, and creeping bugs. Cynthia felt something light upon her neck and swatted it with her palm.

“Yechh, got it,” she said, looking at the black mess smeared across her hand. Jerry smiled in commiseration. “Wish I had some Raid,” he said. “Funny no one thought to bring some bug spray.”

“Who expected so many bugs this time of year?” Cynthia whined. “It’s not even summer time yet. Officially, that is.”

Anton laughed. “My dear, I’ve even seen flies in winter.” Cynthia smirked—I bet— and continued slapping her bare arms and waist, while Anton turned back to his companion Betty. Everyone was pairing off, Cynthia noticed. Andrea and Ernie were far ahead of the others, steering everyone in the right direction, or so they hoped, by making sure no one strayed off what was left of the passage—as if they knew which way to go more than the others did. They were deep in conversation even as they acted as trail guides. Something was brewing between those two, and Cynthia admitted to herself that she was jealous.

Lynn and John were talking together, too. Probably patching up whatever rips they’d made while quarreling. John was as stoical as usual, taking all the bugs and the weeds and sun in stride. Lynn seemed a tiny bit excited—this was her island after all, and she had never seen the old Burrows mansion—but was still more subdued than usual. The bugs didn’t seem to bother her.

The humidity was rising the more they went inland, however that was possible. Cynthia supposed it was just getting more humid the later it got, but to her it felt as if they were slowly walking into the core of a sun.

Anton and Betty were like two peas in a pod. Two homely peas. I’m glad they found each other, Cynthia thought cynically. She sensed that Anton’s tastes didn’t really run in his chubby date’s direction. He would like women he could carry on his arms like medals, busty, cosmetically perfect beauties he could show off as if they were the spoils of war. Betty, so desperate for human contact she’d think of Anton as a prize—well, he was a celebrity—was building herself up to a big letdown. Once they were off this island Anton wouldn’t see her for dust.

Why was Jerry so determined to avoid her today? Cynthia wondered. It was putting her in a bad mood, as if everything else wasn’t bad enough. Had Gloria started pulling a little on the purse strings, telling Jerry to watch his flank or get cut off without a penny? That was it probably. Gloria might have been a harmless old ninny to everyone else, but Cynthia found herself hating her more and more.

Christ, she said, slapping yet another bug on her arm—too late, she saw her own blood mixed in with the dark mush that was the insect—even those two silly housegirls behind me clinging to one another out of fright are having a better time than I am. Eric was a little too oily for her tastes, and Hans too old, but either of them would have been better traveling companions than Jerry. Beautiful but dull, that’s what he was. Why did they have to stay behind to fix the plumbing? Cynthia was beginning to think the others back in the guest house had had the right idea. She should have stayed to help Mrs. Plushing prepare the dinner, or sat out in the sun with a book and a gin and tonic like Gloria was doing. Instead she was in the middle of the jungle (Oh, “Glo, ” how right you had been!) on her way to look at some dilapidated ruin of a house that no one had been in, or had wanted to be in, for years.

Cynthia pretended to trip on a piece of exposed root. There were a lot of them, as if the ground were tainted and the trees wanted out. She conveniently fell against Jerry, right into his arms. She looked up into his startled face. “Good catch, handsome. This road is dangerous.” He helped her to her feet while she feigned a sprained ankle. “Oh. It’ll be okay. Really. I’m all right. I’ll just lean on Jerry. You don’t mind, do you? Let’s go on, everyone. Really, it’s all right.”

They were nearly at the house now; they could see it through the trees. And then they were out in the edge of an enormous clearing, looking up at what had to be the granddaddy of “haunted” mansions. They stared up in shock and wonderment, all ten of them, aghast at the sight that was meeting their eyes.

Her mouth wide open, Cynthia pulled away from Jerry and took a step backwards. There was nothing wrong with her leg now. She spoke for all of them as she gestured in the air with her hands and said:

“Jesus Christ! Let’s get out of here!”

Chapter 24

How could a house have a face?

That’s what Ernie was wondering. How could a house have a countenance complete with eyes and nose and wide grinning mouth that seemed to turn up in delight at every sick and secret thought of humankind. How could a house have a face?

For that’s what this one had. This decaying, crumbling house from the 19th century had a visage as evil and real as anything he had ever seen. Oh, there were no actual eyes, no lips, no teeth, no honest-to-goodness nostrils. But the features were there nonetheless. Strikingly evident. A freak of nature, of course. An accident. It was just the way the two large windows up front in the center had sort of caved in, the vines straggling across and over them like eyebrows on a sinister giant forehead. The moisture, the humidity, one could imagine the rate at which plants could grow in this kind of weather. There was a sort of jutting balcony which looked like nothing so much as a proboscis, and the rain water had discolored the front of the edifice to such a strange degree, in such a bizarre pattern, that it really looked as if the house had a terrible smiling maw. There were rotting teeth inside that mouth too, stumps, and the blast of air that came rushing at them from the house, then rushing away from them a few seconds later, then back, was like the hot, fetid breath of a slumbering monster.

That’s how a house could have a face.

It was much, much larger than the guest house, ten times the size. It had four floors, two wings, an attic. At one and the same time it seemed to beckon them and to say “Go away!” Like many houses built in the late 1800s, it was a strange mixture of different architectural styles, a visible metaphor for Edmund Burrows’s twisted mentality. The planes were all straight and flat, the dimensions broad—it sat on its piece of ground like an enormous squatting toad—but to it there had been affixed angular bumps and protuberances, bay windows, cracking cantilevers, cornices that seemed without point or purpose.

Ernie heard Cynthia’s frightened plea behind him. “Let’s get out of here!” And for just a moment he had felt the same way. But now his fear had been supplanted by a calm and steady fascination. It’s just a house, after all. Nothing here to be afraid of. We just have to watch out for unsteady walls, rotted staircases, unsound floors. That’s all.

“I don’t know what came over me,” Cynthia was saying. “Didn’t any of you feel it? For a moment I was—petrified. That house looked as if it were alive!”

The others all understood what she was talking about, and told her so. During the next few moments—everyone talking at once, nobody making sense—Ernie remembered Andrea and turned to see where she had gone. He had been telling her about the book, the scream. He had not remembered much more about it, but had tried to make her understand. She was receptive, but cool, not venturing an opinion. She had not seemed very concerned. Perhaps because she had so much else on her mind.

And now she was yards ahead of the others, making her way towards the house, disregarding whatever danger there might be. “Andrea,” he called. The others turned to him, followed along his sightline. There was some expression of dismay. “Don’t go alone.” Everson also called for Andrea to wait for the others, but she didn’t respond to either man. Ernie remembered her behavior near the boat the previous night, and felt some relief. If there was anything bad about this place Andrea would surely not go near it. He said to the others, “Come on. It must be safe. At least let’s look around the outside.”

Hesitantly, they started forward. All but the housekeepers. After their ordeals of the night before they apparently had had enough spooky stuff to last them a lifetime. The trip out in the daylight had been fun. Exploring a haunted house was quite another. They huddled together and stayed near the edge of the clearing, resisting the impulse to bolt back into the woods by themselves.

Ernie walked towards Andrea, wishing she would turn around so he could see her facial expression, shout out, do something to let him know she was all right and not in the throes of some nightmare. Funny, how he was beginning to take her powers for granted. All it took was one unexplainable situation—like finding that book, if he found that book—to turn one into a convert, or at least to give one a more open mind about such things. And Andrea hadn’t even proselytized.

The heat got more intense the closer he walked to the house. Where was that hot current coming from? The way it flowed over him, then seemed to retreat, was uncanny. It really was like the house was inhaling and exhaling. And the odor. Just terrible. Like sewage. He was a few steps away from Andrea now. He turned back to see how the others were progressing. Everyone seemed quite enthralled and terrified.

“Andrea?” he called out. “Are you all right?’.’

She looked over towards him, as if snapping out of a trance, just as he caught up with her. ”Wha—?” She blinked her eyes, shrugging away the confusion.

“Are you all right? You wouldn’t answer me. Any of us. I was afraid—”

“I’m fine,” she said abruptly. “It was just—” She stopped just as abruptly. Ernie sensed that she was about to say something about feeling vibrations, picking up psychic feelings, something she was afraid he’d express disapproval of. How could he make her understand that he was willing to listen now, always had been. But especially now after the strange occurrences of the evening before.

The others had caught up to them as he and Andrea stood before the impressive front entrance to the house. Up close you couldn’t see the “face” quite as clearly. It was still a ghastly structure, emitting a foul odor, an uncanny degree of warmth, and, if one listened carefully, strange, subdued noises coming out from the interior. “Well,” Everson said, looking up at the windows. “Anyone want to go inside? But remember—be careful. I don’t want anyone having any accidents.”

“Do you want to?” Ernie asked Andrea. She only nodded meekly, but nonetheless seemed anxious to explore. Cynthia, once again clinging to Jerry, was a little hesitant, but when Jerry moved with the others she went along without complaint. Lynn held on to Everson’s arm, looking wary, apprehensive, a trifle excited. Betty and Anton were an almost comical study in contrasts. Betty’s eyes were wide open, ablaze with awe and the pull of mystery. Anton’s countenance was screwed up in annoyance as if he’d discovered he’d stepped in horse manure.

“There’s the burned section,” Everson said, pointing towards the right, where one wing of the house was a blackened, sooty ruin. The outer brick walls were still standing, but there were large gaps in the facade that permitted one to see inside and witness the fire’s devastation. Here and there one could make out a recognizable piece of furniture, a top of a cabinet here, a hardbacked chair there, but mostly the east wing was just a charred wreck of rotted timbers, shattered stonework, and soggy piles of ashes. All four floors in the wing had fallen down atop each other. The group could hear the sounds of winged creatures, high out of sight in the uppermost reaches of the building, flying about as if in greeting.

“Well, let’s go inside,” Lynn said. “I wonder what kind of condition the main section and the west wing are in. Aunt Gladys always planned to restore the place one day—so did the previous owner—but neither of them ever got around to it. I bet there’s a lot of antiques inside. Nothing was ever removed, to my knowledge.”

They walked up the steps en masse. Everson had an old key to the mansion, but didn’t have to use it. The lock was rusted over and unmanageable in any case. The lawyer found that one good shove with his shoulders would get the door unstuck. It swung open, and there came a fresh, warm draft of fetid, stuffy air. “Something’s dead in there,” Anton said. “And it’s been dead a long time.”

The entrance opened into a long hall that ran the length of the building. It wasn’t as dark as they had expected; light came in through the windows as well as the doorway. To the right there was a lounge, or greeting room; to the left, a large library. Lynn walked briskly down the hall, her feet making whispers on the carpeted floor, and called, “Here—I think it’s a sewing room.” There came swishing sounds as white sheets were removed and the valuables uncovered. “Oh John. These things are just beautiful. I know there isn’t much room in the guest house, but how could my aunt have just left them here? Look at these, darling. Come see.”

And thus the party was quickly split into pairs. John and Lynn rhapsodized over the old sewing equipment, spinning wheels, and such, wondering how much they might bring if they were cleaned, restored, and polished. Andrea stood in the middle of the library, revolving slowly, absorbing the essence of the place, while Ernie looked through the mildewed, molding books, his eyes subconsciously searching for one mysterious, modern novel. Betty and Anton continued down the hall, discovering a very large first floor ballroom; the others could hear them laughing and playing, dancing around on the parquet floor as if it were the days of old and they were dressed in 19th century finery. Jerry and Cynthia announced that they were going upstairs to look at the other floors.

Ernie turned away from the bookshelves, his fingers thick with dirt and greenish slime. Most of the books had simply fallen apart in his hand; a treasure trove lost to him forever. Why had none of the previous owners taken more care with them? It was as if they had wanted nothing to do with the house, letting it just sit there to rot for all eternity. At the far end of the library there was a doorway that had once led into the east wing. Ernie could see the rubble beyond it. At least the wall separating wing from main section was still standing, protecting the house from further debilitation.

He saw Andrea in the center of the room, turning, turning, her eyes closed and her lips smiling. “Are you all right?” he said, taking her by the shoulders. He found her movements a little unsettling.

She stopped, looked up at him, and smiled as if at a long lost friend.

“Why Horatio,” she said, “You’ve come back.”

Chapter 25

Jerry and Cynthia were enjoying the upstairs. Cynthia’s feelings of anxiety had gone away. Now she felt like a kid again, exploring secret chambers filled with treasure, entering uncharted lands where her parents forbade her to go. Only there was no treasure here. Just a lot of old furniture covered with an awful lot of dust. Jerry seemed fascinated by it. Too fascinated. She would have to do something about that.

“Just look at this place,” Jerry said. “Have you ever seen anything like it? It’s like stepping into the past. Look at these old bedrooms. The canopies, the headboards. They don’t make stuff like this anymore.”

Standing in the first bedroom on the second floor was giving Cynthia ideas. “Jerry,” she purred. “Let’s see what the top floor is like.”

“All right.” He sat down on the bed to test its softness. “Too lumpy,” he muttered. “Glo would really hate it.”

“Now,” she demanded. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Jerry looked up at her. Cyn could tell he was beginning to get the message. A certain light went on in his eyes, and his smile had become a leer. Probably wasn’t even conscious of it.

“You’ve been here before?” he asked.

She frowned. “What do you think, huh?” She bent down, giggled, tapped the tip of his nose with her finger.

“Then what are you going to show me?”

“You’ll find out. Why don’t we go upstairs, where the others won’t find us for a while? Then I’ll show you what I want you to see.”

He didn’t need any more encouragement than that. Cynthia knew men all right. The old cow might give him the money, and he might give her some action—but when he really wanted to get his rocks off he had to turn to other women. Younger women. Women like Cynthia.

They began ascending the wide sweeping staircase with its broad steps and wooden banister. Cynthia took note of the squishing sound their feet made, as if the carpet was wet. “It stinks in here,” Jerry said.

“I noticed.” But she wasn’t about to let that deter her. This boy was going to get it but good.

Third floor. More bedrooms. Was the odor slacking off, or were they only getting used to it? The windows along the staircase let in lots of light, but the place still had an eerie, somber quality to it.- Cynthia wanted to get this over with. The voices of the others down below were becoming less distinct the further up they went.

Fourth floor. More bedrooms, at least off the staircase. Who could tell what there might be at the end of the hall. On the upper floors the corridors ran side to side instead of front to back like on the first floor. The floor up here was uncarpeted; their footsteps on the hard wood surface made tapping sounds that echoed throughout the house. ”Shhh,” Cynthia said, a finger to her lips. “Walk softly.”

They went from dusty room to dusty room, but couldn’t find any that had furniture in it. “No rugs, no furniture. What did they do up here?” Cynthia asked in puzzlement. They should have stayed below where there had been nice, comfortable beds.

Jerry shrugged. “They probably decided to close off this floor. They probably only needed about a quarter of the rooms anyway. This is an awfully big place.”

“I’ll say.” She took his hand. “Come on—let’s try down here.”

In the last room she noticed that there was another doorway in the far wall which turned out to lead to yet another side-to-side corridor further back in the building. There was a whole new set of rooms, and it was much darker here, as the sun was on the other side of the mansion. There was still no furniture around, but this would have to do. Cynthia shut the door they’d come through and pulled Jerry down to the end of this second hallway. Jerry laughed. “Are you sure you don’t want to go up and explore the attic? We’ve come this far.”

What a tease, Cynthia thought. “No, I don’t want to explore the attic. Besides. We don’t know how to get up there.” The stairs had ended on this, the fourth floor.

“There’s probably an entrance, a trap door or something, in one of the rooms. Maybe in the closet. Why don’t we—” Before he could finish, Cynthia untied the front of her blouse and let the material swing free to either side, revealing her substantial bosom. “Here,” she said.

Jerry’s leer was in place again. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”

“That and a whole lot more.”

And then Jerry’s mouth was clamped over hers, and his fingers were squeezing her breasts, and she knew she had been right all along—he wanted her just as much as she wanted him. All those people out there, her fans, thought she led a racy lifestyle, but they didn’t know, they couldn’t know, the long shooting days, the hours of memorizing scripts, the fear of being mobbed that kept her out of single bars, all the interviews, the photo-sessions—how could they know how lonely it left her, how bereft of time to meet people, to make love, to enjoy the presence, the company of a man? How could they know how lonely she was?

Jerry was working his hand into the back of her pants, rubbing her ass, sighing salaciously and digging his tongue into the back of her throat. She held him closer; felt giddying sensations as her breasts rubbed sensually against his chest, her mammaries against his pecs, her lips melded to his lips, their arms and legs blending together.

This is no cure for loneliness, Cynthia thought, but it sure is nice consolation.

Then her pants were down, off, thrown away. Jerry’s pants hung about his ankles, metal buckle jangling as he grunted and pumped. His lips worried at her neck, pressing sweet kisses into the skin. She felt a thrill inside her, unstoppable, building, building.

They collapsed onto the floor now, not heeding the cold wood, the dust, the grime. All that mattered was getting off, reaching that ultimate point, quickly, quickly. Jerry’s thrusts were frenzied; Cynthia was squealing out loud. Any moment now, any second …

And then from behind the wall where they were tangled together, something started knocking.

Chapter 26

The necromancer stood alone in the dark, listening to all the sounds that were surrounding it. Who first? How shall I test my power this time? What shall I do? I can do anything!

Anything at all!

The necromancer wanted to test its strength, find out exactly what its limits were. It needed a way to show off its abilities.

And what better way than to use those who were now in the house, blissfully unaware of who was stalking them, unaware that they were pawns in a struggle they had no inkling of.

Yes.

Those useless, simpering fools would be the perfect guinea pigs, the perfect subjects for the necromancer to test its mettle on. The necromancer knew it was time to give its first full-scale performance. What had happened in the guest house the night before had been but a prelude, the opening movement to a veritable symphony of terror.

There could be no turning back.

The necromancer began summoning all the psychic energy around it, drawing all that energy to its body, absorbing it, controlling it, letting it build up stronger and stronger in its mind. Then —expelling it, shaping the very forces as they flew from its body, using those forces to disturb the tiny creatures: the rodents, the insects, the vermin infesting the walls and cellars of the house. The energy nipped and pecked at the minds of the little beasties, infuriating them, driving them to a passionate hunger and a savage anger that nothing, that no one, could stop.

Next the necromancer chose the creatures’ victims. It decided against killing those already in the house—for now. Instead it picked two others. They had been huddled out in the woods together, afraid to enter the mansion with the rest. But now, driven by curiosity and impatience, they had gone exploring, had descended into the passageways below the house where the vermin—the worms and rats and spiders—would be waiting patiently for them.

Footsteps! The necromancer opened its eyes. Hurry. Hurry! You mustn’t be seen like this.

The door opened.

“Oh there you are,” someone said. “What are you doing in the dark?”

But it was too late. The forces had been set in motion, and the two sacrificial victims were doomed. Nothing could stop it from happening.

The necromancer was back to normal now, a human being just like any other.

The necromancer stepped out of the shadows, smiled. “Come in. This really is a lovely room in here.”

Chapter 27

“Let’s go back, Emily. I’m scared.”

Joanne Nobele looked back towards the beginning of the passageway, and wondered why she had ever been crazy enough to come down here. Emily was going onwards like a woman possessed, determined to see if the passage they were in led into the house where the others were. She’d been so scared before, that Emily, clinging to Joanne as if her life depended on it, time and again refusing Joanne’s suggestions that they go look for the others. Now look where they were. If there was anything creepier than that old house with its wicked, toothsome grin, this was it.

“Emily. Wait up. I can’t walk as fast as you.”

“Hurry up!” the other girl scolded. “I can hardly wait to see the look on their faces when we pop out and go ‘boo.’ I think it’ll be a scream.”

Joanne caught up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen, Nancy Drew. My ankle hurts and my feet are tired. If you won’t go back with me, at least give me a minute to rest.”

“Scaredy cat.”

“Oh shut up. You were the one who was running around last night without any—” Then Joanne shut her mouth before she could say any more. Amazingly, Emily had not recalled a thing this morning about her encounter with the figure in the mirror. All that business of her screaming about blood, running around naked—it was as if it had never happened. Mrs. Plushing got Joanne to promise that she wouldn’t bring it up. “Why dredge up bad memories, and frighten the darling?” the old woman had said. Which was too bad, because Joanne, who was not yet convinced that what she had seen the night before was a mere hallucination, would have liked to have sat down with Emily and compared notes.

“What did you say?” Emily asked her.

“Oh never mind. But if you run off before I’m through resting, I swear I’ll go back without you.”

“No!”

Joanne could tell she had struck a nerve. Emily would do as she was told as long as she thought she’d be otherwise abandoned. She really did have a compulsion to see this through. Well, at least it was daylight, fat lot of good that did them down here in the dark with only two old torches to see them through.

It had all started as they stood at the end of the clearing, waiting to see if any horrible screams should tear out of the mansion once the others were inside. But no—apparently they’d gotten into the house all right, and were not in any danger. But time dragged on and on, they got restless, relaxing their guard, getting used to the location, getting bored. Emily had wanted to look around a bit. Joanne kept pushing Emily to go with her to the house. “What’s the use?” her friend had said. “As soon as we get there they’ll be coming out. And I won’t go into the place alone.”

But then Emily had walked a little ways into the woods and called out to Joanne, “Come quick,” and Joanne discovered that her friend had come upon a crumbling old gazebo sitting there squat and complacent in the middle of some tall clumps of weeds. In the center of the wooden structure there was a big hole with steps leading down. The door over the hole lay a few feet away, pulled off its hinges. “I bet this is a secret passage,” Emily said excitedly. “I just love secret passages, don’t you?” And suddenly she’d been a little girl again, determined to go down those steps into the darkness and find out where the passageway led. Going up and entering the maw of that strangely living house had been one thing; entering this hole yards away from the house was another. To Joanne’s mind, one was as bad as the other—maybe this was worse—but Emily’s mind was made up. “I’ll leave you alone in the woods,” she threatened. Joanne relented. It wasn’t so much that being alone in the clearing would be scary, but rather that it wouldn’t be much fun.

Still there had been other considerations. “We haven’t any light, Emily,” she pointed out. “How will we see our way?”

Emily was halfway down the wooden steps. “There’s a big wooden torch stuck on the wall,” she yelled. “I’ve got matches. I bet I can light it.”

And to Joanne’s dismay, she did. Later on they found another torch in a notch in the wall, which Emily lit and gave to her.

Then there was the matter of the safety of what they were about to do. “What if there’s a cave-in?” Joanne suggested. “We’ll be buried alive. That passage is ancient. It might not be safe to go in there.”

“Come on,” Emily had whined. “It’s probably just a little room under the gazebo.”

But no, it had turned out to be an underground passageway leading in the direction of the house. There had been a few small twists and turns—the floor rose or fell at intervals—but nothing to indicate that it was changing direction. All we need, Joanne said to herself, is to wind up miles away at the other side of the island or, heaven help us, under the sea.

The floor of the passage was made of tightly packed dirt crunched down from years of travel. The sides were formed of a crusty, yellowish rock that had tiny cracks and crevices on its surface. Once Joanne looked closely at the rock and thought she could see some tiny undulating mass squirming in some of those crevices, but she quickly turned away and pretended both to herself and to Emily that she simply had not noticed.

There was a warm breeze blowing through the tunnel. Sometimes it was blowing against their faces, other times it was blowing in the opposite direction, pushing them gently, gently into the depths of the passage. It was for all the world like the breathing motions of a living animal, air in, air out, over and over again. Joanne realized with no small horror that it was like walking down a throat. She thought of mentioning this to Emily but knew the other girl, living out her fantasy of being a great adventurer, would ssshh her and tell her she was silly. Emily had once gone into some caverns with her cousins and fancied herself a seasoned spelunker.

The passage began to ascend. The air was hotter, and they heard moaning sounds as if they were entering the lair of a wheezing, gasping organism. “Let’s go back, Emily!” Joanne screamed, not afraid now to fully reveal her terror. Anything to convince her friend that it simply wasn’t safe to go on. What if there were ghosts down here? Terrible shuffling things like the one she’d thought she’d seen in her room last night. What if they appeared to her now, dragged her kicking and screaming into that house way above, making her a captive in some never-ending nightmare? “Emily. Please. Let’s go back.”

Emily seemed finally to hear her. “Shut up!” she said viciously. Her face looked surly, animalistic, alien. Joanne thought the girl was on the verge of actually snarling at her. “We’ve come this far,” Emily continued in a softer, more natural tone. “I think I see a chamber up ahead.” She looked into the darkness before them, holding the light up high. “Maybe a cavern. More likely the basement.” She looked back to Joanne and spoke to her as if she were a teacher instructing a slightly backward child. “We’ll find our way up from the basement and sneak through the house until we spot the others. And then…”

“Emily!” Joanne’s eyes had strayed to the tunnel wall again. Emily’s face had looked so strange for a minute there, it had scared her. She had turned away from Emily, and her eyes were caught by the tiny crevices again, the movement within them, and then she took a good hard look and felt sick deep down inside. The crevices were filled with little squiggling worms, their tiny white bodies rubbing and twisting and squirming through the collected mass of the others as if they were feasting maggots. “Emily. Do you see?”

Emily had seen and she seemed temporarily unnerved. Joanne didn’t know which would be worse, going back through the passage knowing they were surrounded on all sides by worms, or going ahead into the cellar to face whatever horrors were in there.

Emily made the choice for them by stepping forward.

“Wait for me,” Joanne said, terrified that her friend should leave her behind. Having someone else down there with her was the only thing holding her together. Without Emily, she was afraid her heart would just stop on her and she’d plummet dead to the passage floor.

Several yards beyond they did indeed step out into a rather large enclosure. It was a sub-basement with a dirt floor. Joanne felt relief. It looked harmless enough, just a vacant cellar with large mounds and small bumps of earth underfoot. Surely there’d be a staircase leading upwards, and they’d be out the front door in no time. She prayed that the others had not yet left. Emily could jump out and scare them; she would run to them and beg them to take her back to the guest house—or she would go alone, risk getting lost in the woods. Anything to get away from here.

But then she turned back to look behind her as they stepped out into the cellar. And in the light from the fiery torch she could see that the walls had come alive, that hundreds, thousands of the bugs, those slithering, sickening white worms, were dropping out of those crevices, filling up the tunnel and blocking off the exit.

“Emily!”

Emily was walking around the enclosure, looking for a way to get upstairs. She did not look happy. “Joanne, I can’t find—”

Some kind of flying bug flew into her face, mashing into her lips. Emily dropped the torch, and rubbed her mouth, spitting again and again on the ground. The torch had landed near one of the walls. Joanne looked at the section of wall illuminated by the torch’s light, and saw that it, too, was full of worms, squeezing out of their holes as if attracted by the fire.

Still, Joanne would not extinguish the flame. She would not stay down here in the dark.

“Something hit me,” Emily was saying. There was blood on her mouth, her fingers, smeared on her grotesquely. Joanne said helplessly: “This place—it’s full of them. We have to get out.”

Then something was in her hair, and Joanne was screaming, her hands up in the air trying to pull whatever it was out of the tangled locks. Emily was screaming, too. Little brown shapes were skittering across the ground, running towards them. There was some kind of grating in the far wall, she could see it now, and the little brown shapes were coming from in there.

Emily stepped back in alarm as one of the things scampered over her foot. Suddenly she was tangled in a bunch of wooden boxes, packing crates covered with cobwebs. The sticky webbing adhered to her face, her hair. Trying to untangle herself she began kicking the boxes aside, then tripped and fell on top of a large open one on the bottom.

The crate was full of thousands upon thousands of tiny, scattering spiders.

Emily tried to step back, to get away from the eight-legged creatures even now pouring out of the box by the hundreds, but it was too late. Even as she was trying to pull herself up off the ground, dozens of the arachnids were crawling all over her face, getting in her hair, popping into her mouth as she opened it wide to scream. Her vision was blocked by the things as they covered her eyeballs, eating through the eyelids to get at the round juicy morsels below. Her skin was on fire from a hundred little bites, and she felt the spiders wriggling up her sleeves and down the inside of her clothes. Within seconds, she was a shaking, frenzied mound of living organisms, entirely smothered in the devouring vermin as they feasted upon her. Within moments, the mound lay still on the cellar floor, still but for the voracious bugs as they dug into the skin of the girl and began eating their way down to the bones.

Joanne would have looked on this spectacle with horror were it not for the fact that she was too busy trying to stay alive herself. The brown things, rodents, were filling up the basement now, running to and fro as if driven into madness by a maniacal Pied Piper. There seemed to be no sense to their movements, as if they’d lost their equilibrium or had no idea of which direction to go. Joanne lowered her torch and could see that the floor was now a living carpet of writhing worms— perhaps they were responsible for the rodents’ strange behavior. Out from every hole in the house they came, the white squiggling larvae-like creatures, all of them moving with—Joanne suddenly realized—some determined purpose, as if by part of a grand design. From the tunnel behind her, from the floor, from the walls, they seemed to be gathering together at one specific spot.

Joanne’s blood froze as she realized what that one specific spot was.

It was the spot she was standing on.

There were worms on her shoes, worms on her legs, worms on her clothes, and worms on her arms. They were crawling up her jeans, sliding across her neck, burrowing into her skin wherever they touched. Joanne began to slap and scream, squashing as many of them as she could. But there were so many—too many. Before she knew it she was covered with them, and felt her whole body stinging from blistering, scabrous sores where the boring creatures had made entry into her very flesh.

There were worms eating her lips.

Joanne tumbled onto the ground, insensate from horror. As she fell she crushed scores of the worms under her body. Her hands and knees were sticking in an ungodly mash of gray and red viscous matter. If her eyes had been able to understand and accept what they were seeing, capable of sending messages to her brain, receiving them, she would have seen that there was no flesh anymore—only worms.

Now that the two young women were dead, the rats seemed to have recovered from the frenzy they’d been caught up in before. They were hungry, but there wasn’t enough left of the girls to provide a satisfactory repast—not at all. The spiders, still not satiated, turned on the worms and began to consume them. The rats, gathering by the grating in the wall, waited patiently for their turn to consume the spiders.

And when they were done, the bats would come down from their perches above, and put an end to the mangy, fattened rodents. Human flesh had been but one link in a strange and supernatural food chain.

The grisly bones of the two young women glistened in the flickering light of the torches.

Finally the torches went out, leaving the whole sub-basement sheathed in a cold and impenetrable darkness.

Chapter 28

“I don’t think you’re funny, that’s all!”

Ernie and Andrea walked out of the ballroom to see what the commotion was about at the end of the hall. Cynthia was kicking up a row about something. Jerry was standing next to her looking sore and disgruntled, and both of. them were addressing their verbal shouts and glowering stares at Anton. Betty stood off to one side, looking vaguely astonished. Lynn and Everson were coming down the front stairs from the second story, holding hands like school kids.

“Something the matter?” Everson asked as he reached the bottom of the staircase.

Cynthia looked at the lawyer impudently, both hands on her waist. “This—” she referred to Anton, “this two-bit ivory tickler played a really rotten trick on us.” She looked back at Anton. “I must have lost five years’ growth because of you.”

“What did he do?” asked Andrea. Ernie thought it better to keep out of it. He could tell Cynthia was the type who, if you didn’t take her side, would be your enemy for life.

“It’s all right, Cynthia,” Jerry protested.

“Let’s not go into it.” Ernie noticed that Jerry’s zipper was open, and wondered if it had any significance.

Cynthia ignored the beachboy and went right on explaining. “Jerry and I were upstairs.” Jerry seemed to be holding his breath. “Looking around.” Jerry exhaled. “We were on the fourth floor, the back hallway. Suddenly somebody started banging on the wall and making these spooky noises. I mean, it really freaked us. What could possibly be behind the wall, we thought, and on the fourth floor yet!”

Anton sighed dramatically and interrupted before she could go any further. Clearly he thought he could explain things better than she could.

“I went into the west wing on the first floor. There was an entrance to it through the ballroom. I discovered a narrow flight of winding stairs and being intrigued, followed it to the top. Apparently the wing has been walled off from the main section of the house on all but the first floor. I walked along a corridor on the fourth story until I came to a wall, a barrier. I knew the house was wider than that. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly heard these grunts and groans coming from the other side of the barrier, like two spirits in the throes—”

“That’s enough, mister,” Jerry said. “What are you-“

“Two spirits in the throes of what?” Ernie asked, amused by Jerry’s irritability and discomfort. He knew Cynthia could care less about their activities being uncovered, but Jerry was another matter.

“Oh never mind that,” Cynthia snapped. “We were necking, all right?”

“Necking,” Anton whooped. “Come now. You were much farther along than that.” Jerry lifted up a fist in Anton’s direction, but the pianist only found his actions amusing. Lynn and Everson looked uncomfortable with the subject, and started to walk out the front door, muttering something about needing some air. Betty’s face was blushing bright red. Andrea appeared to be bored with the antics.

“Irregardless,” Anton continued. “I wondered who could be making these noises, and wondering if there there a way into the main part of the house without having to go all the way back downstairs. So I knocked. Loudly. And called out. It’s as simple as that.”

“Bullshit!” Cynthia roared. “You knew who it was and you were trying to scare the daylights out of us. You were going whooo whooo and you know it! I could recognize your voice anywhere.”

“Talk about coitus interruptus,” Andrea jibed. Ernie was surprised at her bluntness. She poked her friend playfully in the ribs. “That’s what you get for making love in strange houses.”

“We were not making love!” Jerry whined, a dismayed expression on his face.

“Oh relax, Jerry,” Cynthia said, rolling her eyes towards heaven. “No one’s going to tell the Glo-worm on you. Come on. Let’s get out of this dump.”

“What was it like in the other wing, Anton?” Betty asked shyly. “I was worried when you disappeared like that.”

“Now, now, my dear. Anton Suffron is one man who can take care of himself. I am not at all threatened by imposing old houses, haunted or otherwise. Anyway, the other wing is more of the same. Lots of dirt, many rooms, rotting antique furniture. Dust, dust, dust. And the overpowering, omnipresent aroma of death, doom, and decay.”

Betty giggled, took his hand impulsively. Anton gave her a warm smile.

Or was it a sneer? Ernie wondered.

They gathered outside the entrance to the house, and shook off the dust and smell of the mansion like dogs expelling water. The sun was high in the sky now; it was noon or later. Everson started calling for the housekeepers, who were nowhere in sight. “Emily? Joanne? We’re going back now. Where are you?”

“Do you think they went back to the guest house?” Ernie asked.

Everson shrugged. “Would they have gone by themselves? Do you think they could have found their way back alone?”

“I don’t see why not. The trail may be overgrown, but if they were observant they could have followed it easily enough.”

Everson ran a hand through his hair, rubbed his brow with thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. “Let’s wait awhile and make sure they aren’t somewhere around here. You’re probably right. But I’d rather they didn’t have to go back alone if we left without them.”

The others began calling out the names of the girls while Ernie went around the side of the house, past the east wing and over to the back. When Andrea had freaked out on him again in the library, somehow he had expected stranger things to happen than Anton banging on the wall while Cyn and Jerry were making out. Before he’d had a chance to ask who “Horatio” was, to tell her what she’d said, Andrea was back to normal, taking him by the hand and chattering a mile a minute as she led him around the first floor.

The weeds were really high in the rear of the house, long green stalks the size of a small man’s body. He pushed his way in, calling for the girls, but it was clear there was no point in his investigating further. He took a look upwards at the back of the mansion. It was a sinister-looking thing, all right. Gave him the creeps when he was outdoors more than it did when he was inside.

He heard someone call out his name and saw that Andrea had followed his lead and gone round to the back from the other side. She waved to him, her hand barely visible above the overgrowth. Then she stepped back out of view altogether, heading toward the front. Ernie was just about to do the same when he looked at the bottom of the back wall and noticed a window or opening of some kind at ground level near the corner. Then he remembered: the house must have a basement. No one had thought to look down there. Still, did it matter? No one had gone into the attic either, had even bothered to look for the entrance to it. A half an hour in the hot, musty confines of that evil breathing house was all anyone could stand. Yet for some reason he thought there was something important about the cellar.

It kept nagging at him, a compulsion to investigate. He had the oddest feeling that the girls were down there. Ridiculous, he told himself. They were too scared to even go into the house, let alone go down into the basement. No one had seen them walk into the mansion in any case. But what if there was another entrance? Theodore Langford had built several secret passages, and there might have been a few even before the bootlegger took possession of the house. The girls had found one of those passages, he was sure of it.

But how could he know that?

It came back to him in a flash.

The book.

There had been something about two young woman getting trapped in the basement, getting —Oh My God! No, it couldn’t be true, couldn’t be real. He had dreamt it all, that had to be it. The book. Everything. Nothing but his imagination. It simply could not have been real.

He didn’t remember what the protagonist—his literary counterpart—had done once it was mentioned that the housekeepers in the novel were missing, but he knew that nothing had happened to “him” so early in the story. He was safe enough. A part of his mind kept shouting—are you crazy? you’re acting as if that book was for real, as if it actually was a prediction of forthcoming events in real life—but he couldn’t afford to take chances. He had to find out for sure.

The others were gathering at the end of the house, peering around the corner to look for him. “Are you coming?” Cynthia shouted impatiently. “We’d like to go back to the house.”

Bitch. “Look, give me a minute,” he called. “I want to check something out.” He started running towards the others. “Has anyone got a flashlight of some kind. I just have this feeling …”

Lynn was digging in her purse. Everson flapped a hand to his forehead. “I knew I should have brought one along. Luckily there was enough light inside the mansion.”

“Ah ha!” Lynn held up a silver sliver. “I found one. A pen light. Will that do?” It seemed she had everything but the kitchen sink in her shoulder bag.

“Good enough.” He grabbed it and ran back around the corner, ignoring the others’ pleas for an explanation.

The window opened with one good shove. The glass was cracked and some of it fell out as he pushed the frame up on its hinges. He gingerly slid through the opening, dropped to the ground, stood up quickly. He heard squealing sounds from the darkness. Rats. Smelled like them, too.

He tried to concentrate, to remember exactly what he had read in—what was it called?— Late At Night, but most of it eluded him. Only three things came through clearly. Housekeepers. Basement. Death.

This was the basement, all right. There was a stone floor and brick walls—he could make out that much in the light from Lynn’s pen—and the whole place was so cluttered with boxes and covered furniture that you could hardly take a step without walking into something.

This was only one room, he thought. Judging from the dimensions of the place he was in, it certainly did not run the width and breadth of the mansion, or even just the house’s main section. That meant there were probably other rooms, other cellars, maybe even subcellars or crawl spaces deep underground, for him to look into. He might be able to cut down on the time if he called the girls’ names out loud. Feeling just a little bit foolish, he started yelling: “Joanne. Emily. Joanne.”

No answer. He moved towards the right, hoping he could find a door. Might as well look around while he was down here.

Stumbling across and around the dust- and sheet-covered bric-a-brac he finally got to the far wall and started looking for an entrance to another room or a staircase to a level below. He shined the light across the brickface, searching carefully for any seams or cracks which would indicate an opening of some kind. Ah—there it was. A narrow, not very high wooden door slightly recessed in the wall.

He opened the door. Two rats came hurling up a staircase behind it. He jumped back, startled, then laughed at his nervousness. The rats were probably more scared than he was.

He started down the stairwell, somehow knowing this was it, the right way to go. The odor as he descended was indescribably foul and noxious. He was halfway down when he raised the light to study the ceiling of the chamber he was entering. He saw eyes glowing back at him, saw skittish movement up in the beams supporting the cellar above. Bats. What were they doing down here? They were supposed to be up in the attic, weren’t they? Everything on this island was confused.

He reached the bottom of the stairs. The bats shifted in their places nervously, but otherwise stayed put, for which he was grateful. This sub-basement was more like a cavern than a room; maybe that’s what had attracted the bats.

He called out the names of the girls, but there was no answer.

He noticed that his feet made squishy sounds with each step he took; there was some kind of grayish mush spread out in different places on the moist dirt ground. His light hit upon a grating in the wall. He assumed it was a conduit for water in case the chamber got flooded. He could hear more rats scurrying back into the darkness, and saw the wiggling rears of little worms as they burrowed back into their hiding spots. There was a pile of boxes over in one corner, tumbled this way and that in disarray as if someone had walked into them. One box, flat on the ground, seemed half-full with a squirming mass. Ernie wanted to get a closer look, but couldn’t overcome his revulsion.

And then he saw the skeletons.

Two of them, bones picked clean, not a scrap or shred of meat or clothing anywhere. Lying in the dirt, they looked as if they had been there for years. Ernie bent down for a closer look.

Skeletons. Two of them.

Ernie put his hand to his mouth, and tried to chase away the horrible thoughts revolving in his brain.

Something told him these skeletons were not nearly as old as they looked.

PART FOUR

Afternoon

Chapter 29

“I think we’d better go out and look for them,” Everson was saying. “Mrs. Plushing is half out of her mind with worry. Frankly, I’m a little concerned myself. I’ve never thought of Joanne and Emily as the kind of flibbertigibbets who’d play a joke like this.”

The group was gathered in the guest house living room. Everyone was there but Anton and Gloria; Hans and Eric, who were repairing something outside; Mrs. Plushing, preparing dinner unassisted; and the two missing girls. The others had eaten a hasty lunch, coffee and sandwiches, then moved into the lounge. Lynn sat on the piano bench, and Everson stood at her side, discussing the problem with the group. Though he was outwardly calm, Everson’s eyes betrayed a creeping anxiety, as if the girls’ disappearance was only the beginning of their troubles.

Ernie sat on the sofa next to Andrea and Cynthia. He wanted to open his mouth and tell everyone that somehow he sensed he had found the girls already, but there was nothing he could say to make his story sound believable. Two skeletons picked clean were all that remained of Joanne and Emily? Preposterous, they would say. And he wouldn’t have blamed them. They’d ask him how he knew this, and he would tell them that he remembered reading it in a book the night before, although it was all a little foggy. And they would say, What book? Where is it? And he would have to stare at them blankly and admit that he didn’t know where it was, wasn’t sure it had ever even existed, or if it was just the result of a fever in his brain.

He desperately needed to talk about this with Andrea. The whole trip back from the old house she’d been discussing the mansion with Betty and Anton, as if she didn’t want to hear any more of what he had to say. Her behavior in the library had been so strange, that odd remark about “Horatio.” That was something else he had to get to the bottom of.

“No one remembers seeing the girls after we got out of the house?” Everson was asking. “No one heard or saw anything?”

“Have you asked Hans and Eric?” Cynthia said, biting the nails of her right hand with dogged intensity.

“Yes, yes.” Everson waved away the suggestion with his arm. “They were here all afternoon. Saw nothing. Same for Gloria.”

“They must have gotten lost,” Andrea said, shivering. “Poor things. Out there alone. And it’ll be getting dark soon.”

“That’s why I suggest we get moving while there’s still some light. The girls must have wandered off the path at some point. They’re probably all right. Given enough time they’d probably make it back safely on their own. But it’s getting later and they might have lost track of the time.”

Ernie stood up. “How many in each search party?” he asked his cousin. “Or should we all concentrate on the path to the old house?”

“Really,” Cynthia said with impatience, “aren’t we all being a bit serious about this? I mean, the girls decided to go off and do a little exploring, so what? So they’re dawdling a little to get out of peeling the potatoes for Mrs. P. Big deal. They’ll come back. We’re all acting as if its three in the morning on Saturday night and they haven’t come home from the prom yet. Give it awhile.”

Everson paused, although there was clearly something on his mind. Finally he sighed and said, “You may have a point, Cynthia, but my feeling is, why take chances? If we are to believe what Mrs. Plushing has told us, Joanne and Emily can be very suggestible, excitable, emotional young women, appearances to the contrary. Who knows what trouble they might have gotten into?”

Be all right, Ernie found himself ordering the housekeepers. Be all right. Let those skeletons belong to somebody else. Come home safe and sound. And alive. Please. Please. In the sane, rational portion of his brain, he sided with Cynthia. Mystical books that foretold death and then vanished did not exist in the real world. People were not skeletonized in mere hours in the real world. But in the dark recesses of his mind a question kept forming, and though he tried to shake it away, to dispel it, it simply would not disappear. Who says that this is the real world anymore? It was beginning to be more like a nightmare. And though he told himself he was letting the place’s reputation, the eerie atmosphere of the island, get the better of him, he still couldn’t shake the spectre of dread and paranoia that he felt. The house hadn’t really breathed, he knew that. It was just an illusion, that was all. The girls were not dead; they were just lost, playing, exploring. That was all. Now if he could only convince himself of that.

He put the somber thoughts out of his mind and again paid attention to what was going on. Everson was dividing them up into search teams, handing out flashlights. Ernie and Andrea would go together. Lynn and Everson. Cynthia and Jerry. Betty could help Mrs. Plushing with the supper.

And then Gloria and Anton came back into the room.

“Did you get any sun today?” Lynn asked pleasantly.

Gloria wore a scowl on her face that was nearly indescribable. Her cheeks were bright red underneath her makeup, and her eyes were close to popping from their sockets. She ignored Lynn’s question and said, “I want to go on this search party, too. I want to go with Cynthia. Yes, that’s right, dear. You and I will make a lovely pair, don’t you think, Cyn darling? You and I, out alone in the woods. We have so much to talk about.”

Jerry’s face was blank. Cynthia looked quite pale.

Sensing a volcano about to erupt, Everson continued handing out the flashlights, assigning areas to the different couples.

“Glo, why don’t you go with Jerry?” Cynthia suggested, rising to her feet.

“I’d rather stay here. I think this is a waste of time anyway.”

Over at the bottom of the stairs, Anton stood with his arms crossed, a devious smile on his face. Ernie had no trouble determining that the pianist had told Gloria all about Cynthia’s rendezvous with Jerry.

Glo would not desist. “I think Jerry is too tired to go traipsing in the woods, aren’t you, Jerry? No, Cynthia, I think you and I will take a walk together. I think that would be a very good idea.”

“Well, I don’t want to go for a walk,” Cynthia snapped. “You go. You look as if you could use the exercise.”

Gloria stepped forward and slapped Cynthia across the face. The strike was so hard and so well-executed that it nearly took the younger woman’s head off. Gloria stood there shaking with fury, momentarily triumphant, steeling herself for a retaliatory blow. Cynthia rubbed her cheek and glared at Anton. “Anton! You shit!” she screamed.

Anton smiled.

Always one to avoid awkward social situations, Everson hustled Lynn out the door and told the others to follow at their convenience. Andrea chose to play the role of peacemaker. “Listen, guys—this is not the time.”

Gloria was livid. “Shut up!” Ernie studied Jerry’s face but, whatever the man might have been thinking or feeling, his countenance was a calm and immutable mask. Was there a touch of panic on the corner of his lips, a strange near-hysteria about the eyes, or was the face itself still and inscrutable?

Ernie went over to Andrea and touched her shoulder. “Listen. Let them work it out themselves. It’s starting to get dark.”

Andrea hesitated. “I guess you’re right. It’s more important to find the girls.”

Cynthia had already chosen to ignore the whole thing. Cowed into submission by Gloria’s savage blow, she was over at the bar fixing herself a drink. Gloria was looking at Jerry now. “You—you miserable ingrate,” she said. “Here. With her. On this island. After all I’ve done.” Then she brushed past Andrea and Ernie, sobbing and shaking, and ran out of the house to the beach.

Andrea was alarmed. “She’s so upset. We’d better go after her.”

“Leave her.” The sound of Jerry’s voice was startling after such a long period of silence. “She needs to be alone now.” He gave a hoarse and nervous laugh. “This has happened before. I’ll go get her later.” Whether he was worried about losing the relationship or a source of income was unclear.

Ernie put his arm on Andrea’s shoulder again and pushed her gently towards the door. Cynthia stood at the bar, sipping a martini. Jerry remained at his spot near the couch.

Anton, the insufferable, had gone back up the stairs.

Chapter 30

Ernie and Andrea had been “assigned” the area to the rear and left of the guest house, just in case the housekeepers had managed to make it back all right by themselves, then decided to do some exploring elsewhere. There were some trees in the area, a thick forest beginning about half a mile inland, but mostly there were rocky patches and fields of tall white weeds, and a beaten old path that led down to the water on a wildly winding route. It was getting chilly again, and the wind was strong, but so far there was no sign of fog. As they walked, Ernie told Andrea about her behavior in the library back in the old house. She didn’t remember anything. “I do remember coming out of a reverie at one point,” she said. “You were looking at me funny, shaking me awake. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. You looked at me and said, ‘You’ve come back, Horatio.’ Something like that.”

“Funny. Horatio was the name of Edmund Burrows’s other son. For a few moments I must have picked up the thoughts and feelings of someone who lived in the house with him when he was alive. It must have been a very emotional moment for them. Someone who cared for Horatio very much and was overjoyed—and surprised—to see him again. Perhaps his father’s— fanaticism—drove him away at some point in his life. Strong emotional moments never die, they say. It could have been any number of people talking through me.”

“Even a man?” Ernie asked.

“Yes. Spirits aren’t choosy. I guess once you pass over your sex becomes irrelevant.”

“Doesn’t sound like much fun. I thought there was such a thing as sex after death. Sex between astral bodies and all that.”

Andrea smiled. “Yes, I’ve heard of that, too. What I meant is that, when a spirit wants to get a message across to the land of the living, the medium through which it chooses to speak could be either male or female. It wouldn’t make any difference.”

They stood above the water’s edge in a patch of flowering shad bushes, watching the breakers hit the rocks several yards below them and dissipate once more into the churning blue waters of the sea. The rocks were covered with lichen, moss, and black algae. There were some gulls nearby, gliding above the promontory. Ernie thought be saw something for a moment, out there riding in the waves, but when he blinked his eyes it was gone. “We never did get to see the ship in the daytime,” he reminded her.

“I know. But there’s always tomorrow.” She sighed. “I could stand here and look at the ocean forever.”

“Me, too.” Ernie pulled at the edges of his mustache, a habit he engaged in unconsciously when perplexed. “Y’know, I expected to see a lot more animal life while I was here. These islands are supposed to have eider ducks, sandpipers, even deer; some of them, at least. All this one’s got is gulls and mosquitos. Oh yes—bats and rodents, too.”

“Ugh. Spare me. Where did you see them?”

“Uh. In the basement of the old house.” He raced ahead. “Some of the coastal islands also have minks, otters, squirrels. Moles, snakes. And frogs.”

“Now, now, little Ernie.” She spoke to him as if he was a five-year-old, teasing him. “Maybe you’ll see some frogs before the weekend’s over.”

He laughed. “Well, I guess we’d better get on with our searching. I’d like to find the girls before we need to use these flashlights.”

“Right.” Idly, Andrea flicked the switch on her flashlight, but there was no reaction. “Great. This one doesn’t even work.”

“Don’t worry. Mine does.”

They walked away from the cliff’s edge, retracing their steps on the path back to the guest house. Now and then they stopped and looked into the woods and called the girls’ names. No one answered. “Did you think about what I told you this morning?” Ernie asked. “About the book?” Before Andrea could answer he told her about finding the skeletons, about his odd intuition concerning them. Andrea just stared at him, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to make of it,” she said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard of, or experienced, before. My God—those poor girls.”

“Don’t you have any ideas?” He knew his voice was raised, angry, but he couldn’t help himself. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her.

“You’re the one who’s into all this psychic phenomena. So help me. Tell me if I’m going crazy. You’ve never heard of anything like it? Books appearing out of nowhere, books that seem to record or affect events, the future? Why am I convinced those girls are dead? I read in the book what would happen to them—that’s why. That book existed—I know it did! Either that or I’m ready for the loony bin.”

Andrea put out her hand and touched his face. “Please, Ernie. Let’s talk this through together. Try to figure it out. Getting angry, upset, won’t do any good—you know that.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“There must be some explanation for all this. Why didn’t you tell the others about the book?”

“Oh sure! What would they have said? Can you imagine what they would have thought if I told them what I think happened to the girls? Great idea, Andrea.”

“Listen! Somebody had to bring that book here with them. Someone must know where it came from, didn’t you think of that? Keep those skeletons to yourself, yes, but by all means ask the others about the book. It’s a start, isn’t it?”

“I guess you’re right. Only—”

“Only what?”

“I keep getting this feeling that the book doesn’t—didn’t—‘belong’ to anybody. Like it was there for me to find; for some reason, some purpose. Like I’m going to see blank faces when I mention it. Blank looks, like yours. It just doesn’t make any sense. I am a rational, sane, logical man. Show it to me and I’ll believe it. Mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus, that was never my style. Now I’m actually believing in—”

“Believing in?”

“The occult. The supernatural. I don’t know. Then again, maybe I did dream it all.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No. That book was real. I found it. I held it in my hands. I read it. Last night. It freaked me out and it’s still freaking me out. Everything I read in there has either already happened or is starting to come true. Joanne’s encounter with Mary Lou’s spirit. The girls disappearing. It’s all starting to come back to me.”

“What happens next?” Andrea asked with some trepidation.

Ernie looked down at the ground, kneading his forehead with his fingers. “Let’s see. Uh—the. character who resembles Gloria Bordette runs off in a huff, which Gloria did, and—something happens to her. Something awful. I can’t remember. We have got to find that book. It may be the only way of stopping whatever’s supposed to happen from happening.”

“Okay,” Andrea said with determination. “That book has to be somewhere on this godforsaken island.

“Let’s go look for it!”

Chapter 31

The necromancer was finally alone. No one had even noticed when it had snuck out of the house. The necromancer would return before anyone got suspicious. Return, and have a good excuse for the absence.

This was the perfect place to be alone. Most of the others were inside the guest house or out searching for those housekeepers, those dead housekeepers. The necromancer laughed. The first full-scale test had been a smashing success. There was hardly anything left of those girls. Hardly anything left at all.

But still the necromancer was worried. Still there was no sign of the object it sought. It had scanned the island psychically time and time again, but the object always eluded it, as if someone or something was “scrambling” the waves of the object’s aura. Time was running out. If necessary, the necromancer would destroy all the others in order to keep from going back, from leaving this island, from returning to the mainland. If the necromancer could not have the mystical object, nobody could. They would all die. And die horribly. Just for getting in its way.

It stood in the distance, surrounded by the shadowy shapes of tools and boxes and gardening equipment, breathing deeply in and out, bringing on the state of trance. In this state, the necromancer could do whatever it chose. It could manipulate the island’s forces to its own ends. It could tap into the vast psychic buildup which was even now surrounding all of them.

It could kill.

The trance was coming. Slowly. Slowly. It could feel the power building up inside it. Enough power to scan the island once again. It was becoming something more than human. Slowly the energy filled the necromancer’s body, slowly it began to transform-

But wait! Someone was coming. Someone was walking out here, coming closer. The fool!

Too late the necromancer realized that it had been seen in mid-transformation, just about to enter full trance. That must not be! The person approaching had seen it, had almost seen the necromancer’s full inhuman form.

Quickly, before the other person could be sure of what their eyes had really seen, the necromancer returned to normal. It was better this way. It could not use its powers—but there were other methods.

“Hello. Who’s that?”

It stepped out of the dark where the person could see it. Unbeknownst to the one who approached, the necromancer had grabbed a hard wood and metal implement from the wall of the surrounding shed. The person came closer, unaware of what was to happen, so wonderfully unaware… .

* * *

Eric had done a neat job of losing Hans out in the woods, pretending he had “heard something,” running off to check it out. Ha! What a laugh. What Eric really wanted to check out was the extra liquor supply he had secreted in the storage shed. Who wanted to be out looking for the brats, as he referred to them, when you could be having a snort or two? The girls were okay, he was sure of that; just out playing around somewhere getting out of work the same way he was. Let old reliable Hans do the looking. He was going to relax.

Shit! There was somebody in the workshed. Who was it? The girls, perhaps? Good—then he could have a drink and play hero at the same time. No, it was somebody else. Hard to make them out in the gloom in back of the shed. It was playing tricks with his eyes. Whoever it was couldn’t really look like what he thought he was seeing. “Hello,” he called. “Who’s that?”

The person stepped out in front of Eric. “Oh, you,” Eric said, “How ya doin‘? Is there anything I can help you with?” Strange. Eric didn’t know what this individual could be doing out here— and that funny look on the face …

Eric noticed the glint of metal a second too late.

He tried to step back, get out of its way, instead tripped on a rod under his feet. It had to be the end of the rake. He lifted an arm to ward off the blow. No good.

Suddenly his hand wasn’t there any more. Just a bleeding stump, discharging gallons of his precious bodily fluids. His bowels opened out of shock and his pants were soaked with urine.

Then the axe came down a second time and chopped his head in half.

Chapter 32

Jerry Hardington felt sick to his stomach.

It always happened when he had a fight with Gloria. He’d think about what it would be like if he lost her, if she was no longer a part of his life, and it made him ill, absolutely nauseous.

He knew no one would ever believe it, but he loved her. Old. Fat. Her career on the decline. For he knew he was Gloria’s only source of pride and achievement. She’d taken this starving, lonely, struggling young pretty boy out of his series of sleazy hotels and furnished rooms, and saved him from despair and desperation. He had been one of the thousands of Manhattan’s hopeful young actors, one of the less talented ones. His dream had been at the point of expiration that night Gloria met him at that party, made it clear that she found him attractive. She had introduced him to countless talent scouts and agents and producers, all to no avail. Pretty faces were, quite literally, a dime a dozen. But she had tried her best. Little did she realize that what she had done for him was so much more important. She’d made him feel wanted and needed for other than physical reasons, though she certainly got her pound of flesh and offered no apology for it. But she knew and accepted his many faults and loved him in spite of them. She recognized the shy interior underneath the cocky exterior. His world was a lot less lonely after meeting her. In some small way, she had made him feel important.

So there he was, walking down the beach, tears in his eyes, knowing he had hurt her once again. He recalled the last time it had happened. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” he had told her. “Sometimes I just—I just have to cut loose. I have to remember what it feels like to be with somebody my own age. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. You’re the only person I’ve ever been committed to. The only person I ever will be.”

And he had meant every word. He knew that Gloria believed most of what he said some of the time, some of what he said most of the time, and all of what he said none of the time. She still believed her chief appeal for him was her financial support, but she was wrong. Dead wrong. Gloria Bordette was the only person he really cared about. Sure, he’d be out on a financial limb if she broke with him, but that was secondary. Most of all he needed her emotional support.

He could see her footprints in the sand, erratic, winding this way and that. He could picture her running all the way, her heart beating furiously, tears streaming down her face, feeling old and useless, unwanted and ugly. And he hated himself for having made her feel that way.

He had tried his best to stay out of Cynthia’s clutches, but knew he couldn’t lay all the blame on her. He hadn’t tried as hard as he might have. Gloria had accepted that he might now and then have an occasional encounter with a sweet young thing, but she was right—he should not have done it here. Damn that Anton! Jerry was going to break the pianist’s fingers for this. Not because Anton had gotten him in trouble, but because he’d caused Gloria pain. For that Anton was going to suffer.

Jerry would make things right for Gloria. He had to. Life without her would be meaningless. She needed him, too, although she would never admit it. At the end of the year her contract was up, and everyone knew that she would be replaced by that young hotshot, Harold Benson, as the Daily Journal’s show-biz writer. Offers, decent offers, for employment were few and far between. Gloria didn’t know what she’d do once she lost her job. She had invested wisely, had enough to live on probably for the rest of her life, but without her work she might as well just dry up and die.

Jerry was going to see to it that she never felt like an outdated commodity. He’d be there for her to lean on, every step of the way.

How far had she gone? he wondered. Halfway down the beach he could still make out her footprints, and others’ as well. He didn’t remember if Everson had told anyone to search for the girls in this direction. Perhaps some of these footprints had been made by that writer fellow and the lady psychic the night before.

Glo. Glo, honey. Where the hell are you?

He stopped and got his bearings. The guest house was far behind him now. Out of sight. The woods at this point had retreated inland, sprouting up about thirty yards to his left. The beach began to narrow, a thin strip along the water dotted with large jutting rocks. There was a wide field filled with bushes and weeds between beach and forest. About fifteen yards ahead, the field ended and the ground to his left began to rise steadily, forming a low cliff, and the beach ended abruptly, turning into a treacherous collection of massive boulders. It was upon those boulders that the wreck of the Mary Eliza had been squatting for 100-odd years. He could see it clearly, a deserted, oddly menacing husk sitting on the rocky surface, blending into its surroundings, the weatherbeaten old timbers and the stony outcrop-pings below it difficult to distinguish from one another. It gave him a disquieting feeling, for it looked like the carcass of some long dead and enormous marine animal. He could imagine ghostly, hungry predators hiding among its innards, feasting on the decaying flesh.

Jerry looked past the remains of the ship and noticed that the cliff wall appeared to be dotted with small openings. Caves? They were like pores in the skin of some crusty mammal. He called out Gloria’s name again, but heard no answer. Surely she would have known better than to go beyond this point, no matter how upset she might have been. Glo was not the suicidal type, was she? Jerry’s strong young voice reverberated across the sandy expanse, bouncing off the cliff wall, echoing through the bowels of the ship, into the cave openings and whatever lay beyond. No answer. Well, Gloria could not have been foolish enough to enter the wrecked ship or one of the holes in the cliff. Still, he had not passed her on the beach.

About fifty feet from where the rocks began, the trail of footprints veered abruptly from the water’s edge and into the soft gravel he now stood in. It was impossible to tell which way she might have gone. The rocks. Up there into the woods. Was she even now on top of the cliff, somewhere in that brushy, almost impenetrable blur of green, unaware of how close she might be to the edge? Jerry shivered. “Gloria. Gloria. Where are you? Please answer me!”

He thought for a moment about continuing his walk along the shore, climbing across the boulders at the bottom of the cliff. But the tides were rushing in; soon everything would be under water. And it was getting dark.

He stared at the ship. The cliff. The caves. Surely Gloria hadn’t been stupid enough to wander into one of those foreboding areas?

Or had she?

Chapter 33

Gloria, in the meantime, had come to the same conclusion that her lover had, that walking along the shoreline past where the beach ended would be a risky proposition. The sun was low in the sky, but there was still enough light, and she wanted to be off alone by herself for awhile, away from the others, from Cynthia, Anton, and especially Jerry. She wouldn’t, couldn’t part with him but she was angry, very angry. And hurt. She wasn’t ready to hear his excuses, his lies. She just wanted to be off by herself for awhile where no one could ever find her.

At the point where the beach met the cliff, she had decided to walk along the edge of the woods and see if she could find a pathway to the top of the hill. To her delight, just a few feet inside the forest, she had accidentally stumbled upon an old track leading upwards and inland. There would be no problem finding her way back, as the path was very distinct. Apparently it had suffered such extreme use over the decades that nothing would grow in the dirt and rock anymore. Just as well. She did not fancy getting lost in the middle of nowhere. Bad enough those girls had run off without telling anyone.

She heard stirrings in the forest around her, birds cawing up in the trees, bugs flying, jumping and chirping. She had sprayed herself while sunbathing on the dock in the morning, so most of the mosquitoes left her alone. She wondered where the island’s animal life could be. She heard it—or thought she did—but so far hadn’t seen anything more exotic than a gull.

She had to stop and rest for a moment. She kept forgetting she wasn’t a school girl any longer, although she didn’t know how she could forget, what with all the reminders. She stood still, breathing in, breathing out, afraid she might collapse or have a heart attack in the middle of this wilderness. That would not do at all! Gloria Bordette, you may be on your way out, but there’s still a lot of life left in you. You are going to get a look at the view from the top of this cliff. She knew it would be breathtaking. She couldn’t delay too long, though; she wouldn’t see much if it were dark, and worse, she’d have trouble getting back down again, even if the path remained as good as it had been so far.

Her heart was beating more normally, and she had her wind back. Time to continue. Though she must remember that while she was currently possessed of childish curiosity and enthusiasm, she did not have the childish heart or body to match. Careful, careful, she reminded herself. Mustn’t rush.

She had been walking for another five minutes when she spotted it through the tops of the trees; a tall, white structure, the very peak of it glinting in the last rays of the setting sun. What could it be up there? Glass? A mirror?

No, a window. She realized with a small thrill that she was looking at a lighthouse.

Of course, where else would it be but on the highest promontory, able to shed its beam of light across the water, illuminating the sea for the ships upon it to see by. She knew the lighthouse was no longer in operation, had been closed down years ago, when the shipping lanes had bypassed the island. She hoped it wasn’t locked, though. She would love to climb to the top and look out at the ocean. There was still enough light, but she had to hurry.

Ten minutes later she rounded a bend in the pathway, stepped out of the trees and bushes, and stood in a clearing upon which stood the deserted lighthouse. It was magnificent. Over one hundred feet high. Made of solid granite. Although its surface was patchy, discolored, and flecked, there was a proud dignity about it, as if it was the island’s sentinel, the focal point of all its energy and force.

The door stood open. Preparing herself, Gloria stepped across the foyer and entered the building.

The lowest chamber was a messy, odorous room filled with old papers of various types and sizes, dilapidated chairs and tables, and a lot of wooden boxes. There was a grayish slime running down the walls, and it was from this that came the awful stench. Gloria held her nose, but was determined to see it through. Let the others think they were such great explorers. She had found this lighthouse all by herself, and would be the first to look around it. She saw the winding wooden stairs leading up to the chambers above. Should she? Yes. It looked safe enough.

The second room was much like the first. There were a couple of cots placed against the walls. Apparently the lighthouse keepers had used this for their living quarters. A potbelly stove in the middle of the room. A cupboard full of ancient pots and pans, lots of dust, and an enormous spider web. Gloria began choking on all the dust her feet had kicked up. Everything was coated with layers of it. The grayish slime ran down the walls on this floor, too. And something else. Something reddish and wet.

Gloria, driven by a subconscious fascination, reached out and touched the reddish stain on the wall. Blood. It was as if it had spattered against the wall, gushing out from a dozen horrible wounds.

And it was still wet. She saw the reddish stain on her fingertips. But how was it possible? Unless a violent act had occurred here within the past hour or so?

Gloria shivered. Those missing girls?

Then she remembered that the lighthouse had been the scene of one or two murders during that maniac’s spree in 1900. But any blood spilled that night would certainly have dried by now, have turned brown and faded away. This blood on the walls, on her fingers, was fresh.

Frightened, perplexed, she nonetheless decided to walk up to the lantern room and look out upon the sea.

She was back on the stairs walking upwards, when she heard the door in the main room far below her slam shut of its own volition.

The wind. It had to be the wind.

But there had been no wind today. Nothing strong enough to shut a heavy iron door that had rusted stuck in an open position for so many years.

Her mind began racing, imagining that she was not alone in the lighthouse, that someone was even now walking slowly up the stairs, cutting off her exit, forcing her to continue to the top where she would face whatever was coming up to greet her alone. Nonsense, she told herself. There’s nothing down there. Get a grip on yourself, girl.

And then she heard the footsteps on the bottom of the stairs.

Chapter 34

At the dinner table, two seats were conspicuously  empty. Gloria was still among the missing, and Jerry had not returned from looking for her. The others had returned from the search for the housekeepers without success. And Hans had reported that Eric had also disappeared. Everson sat at the end of the table, pale and distraught, wondering what was happening. When Betty Sanders walked in from the kitchen, holding a steaming bowl of beef stew, and explained that Mrs. Plushing was feeling ill and could therefore not serve supper, he just about started to cry.

“It seems my whole staff is falling apart,” he laughed humorlessly.

Cynthia looked at the unappetizing mass of stew Betty had deposited on her plate and stood up abruptly. “I don’t feel very hungry,” she said. Her mouth was screwed up in a parody of queasy distress.

“Are you all right?” Lynn asked, concerned.

“Yes. Just a little tired.”

Ernie watched Cynthia walk away from the table and go into the living room. From his vantage point at the far end only he could see Cynthia turn and walk out the front door instead of head upstairs to her bedroom. He said nothing. Across the table from him Andrea looked perturbed at Cynthia’s exit, but he gave her a reassuring nod. They could still proceed with their plan.

Betty finished dishing out the stew and sat down with the others, exhaling dramatically. Ernie could tell she got some pleasure out of being the center of attention, if only by default. Everson asked her what was wrong with Mrs. Plushing.

“She’s just a little peaked,” Betty said, holding her forkful of stew before her mouth, then engulfing and swallowing it quickly. “Tired, I guess. She said she felt dizzy, nauseous. She probably just has a little stomach virus. She’ll probably feel much better in the morning.” It was clear Betty wanted to go on talking for awhile now that she had their attention, but she had run out of things to say.

The table chatter consisted of theories as to where the housekeepers had gone to and what they were doing. Ernie wondered what they would say when and if he was to voice his own theory. They’d look at him as if he were mad.

He and Andrea had both agreed to finish their dinners quickly, and to turn down dessert, so they could search the house for the book while the others were occupied. If they failed to find it, Ernie planned to come right out and ask the others about the book. He couldn’t be absolutely certain, but Ernie suspected that Andrea was coming around to believing him. Which was good, because he was scarcely able to believe it all himself.

As Betty got up to go and get the dessert, Andrea excused herself, pretending to head for the bathroom. A few minutes later, Betty came out bearing a huge chocolate cake, which elicited oohs and ahhs despite the somberness of the occasion. “Too many calories for me,” Ernie said, patting his stomach, and got up from his chair.

“You’re as fit as a fiddle,” Everson told him.

“Perhaps. But I still want to lose a pound or two.” Ernie indicated the cake. “Out of sight, out of mind.” He excused himself and walked away from the table. So far so good. Andrea was waiting for him upstairs.

They started with the “master” bedroom, going quickly through Lynn’s and Everson’s belongings. The suitcases. The closets. The drawers. “I feel like a cat burglar,” Andrea complained.

“Look, if you’re not up to this,” Ernie said, “I’ll understand. This is my problem. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”

“Nonsense. If it concerns this island, and all of us who are on it, then it certainly concerns me, too.”

“But going through people’s things. I shouldn’t have let you help me with this.”

“It will go much faster this way. Besides, if this book actually does exist, I certainly want to see it. I’m intrigued, Ernie. Very much so.” She lifted supplies of socks and underwear, saw nothing underneath. “We must be careful to put everything right back where it was.”

Ernie knew Andrea was trying to keep things light to keep him from becoming morose and preoccupied by it all. What else could she do? Still, if she only knew how seriously all this had affected him. How could she know what he was going through? His experience had been as alien to her as her whole way of life was to him.

When she was through, Andrea sat on the bed waiting for Ernie to finish checking the bathroom. When he came out she asked, “Where next?”

“Glo and Jerry’s,” he whispered.

“They’re not at dinner,” she reminded him. “They might come back at any moment.”

“Then let’s hurry. Besides, it won’t take the others that long to eat that cake.”

“I wish I could have had some,” Andrea sighed, but he knew she didn’t really mind what she was doing.

They finished with the second room, and went on to the rooms on the floor below. It seemed a hopeless task. If someone had stolen or hidden the book, they wouldn’t have left it out in the open. And there were lots of storage closets and who knew how many other places to search. Out-of-the-way spots could be searched at leisure, after hours. But the bedrooms had to be checked while they were unoccupied.

They went through Anton’s room, and Betty’s room, but found nothing. They could tell that downstairs the others had left the table and were having drinks, discussing what to do about the ones who’d disappeared. Ernie shuddered. The housekeepers. Eric. Gloria. Then Jerry. Even Cynthia had been gone for quite awhile now. What was happening to everybody? Surely most of them would walk back in the front door before the night was up. And he had nearly convinced himself that those skeletons he’d found must have been a hundred years old at least.

Then why was he searching so frantically for the book?

They went into the room Andrea shared with Cynthia. Before he realized what he was saying, Ernie told Andrea to “look through Cynthia’s things.” He realized with something of a start that he still didn’t quite trust Ms. Peters. He wanted to go through her possessions personally to make sure she wasn’t hiding anything. It hit Andrea at the same time. “You don’t think I’ve got the book, do you?” she said as he began rummaging through one of the suitcases, hers, if he remembered correctly. He looked up, feeling the awkwardness of the moment intensely. “Of course not. But someone might have hidden it among your things. I’m only trying to be thorough.”

She looked at him angrily for a moment, then relented. “Oh, I guess I can’t blame you, can I? What do you know about me? Nothing. You probably think I’m some sort of Wicked Witch of the West. Can’t blame you for thinking I would have something to do with this—this mess.”

Ernie came over to her as she sat down dejectedly on her bed. “Andrea. I—I’m sorry. This has got me so upset. I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”

“It’s all right,” she said. She waved him away. “No, really. If I were you I wouldn’t trust anybody either. You seem to have had some kind of psychic or occult experience. I can’t wonder that you’d think twice about trusting me.”

“Andrea. I took you into my confidence, didn’t I? Who else could I turn to with this?”

“I know,” she said, smiling. “And I’m really not upset. I’m a little tired, weary. Why don’t you search the room and I’ll relax for a minute?” He took her hand in his own and squeezed it, impulsively placing his other hand on her forehead, her hair, stroking her tenderly. He pulled away after a moment, embarrassed. Andrea said nothing.

Ernie directed his attention to the dresser. “You know what frightens me more than the thought of not finding this book?” he asked, flipping through a batch of paperbacks that Cynthia had put in the top drawer.

“What?”

“Finding it.”

He put the books back in the drawer and went over to the window. He exhaled and folded his arms across his chest. “Am I crazy?” he asked rhetorically. He made up his mind to forget all about the book, forget it had ever existed, if the housekeepers and the others came back safely. Then there would be nothing to fear.

But what if they didn’t come back? What if they were already dead?

He looked over at Andrea. Her eyes were closed and she was leaning back in the pillow. Sleeping?

What would happen to him, to Andrea, that’s what he had to know. Forewarned is forearmed. Or was it impossible to change your fate? Fate, he snickered. No such thing. There’s only good luck and bad luck. And coincidence.

Even so. He wanted to get his hands on that book. To find out who would by dying next, and just how much time he had before it was his turn.

Chapter 35

“Jerry. Jerry. Where are you?”

Cynthia walked along the shoreline, wondering if she’d come upon Jerry only to find that Gloria was with him and ready for another confrontation. Her face still stung from the last slap the old bag had given her. Still, she wanted to have a chance to talk to him, to talk to both of them if need be, to undo the damage done by that insufferable fool Anton. She’d get even with that ugly bastard if it was the last thing she ever did.

She thought over what she would say if she ever found them. It was getting so dark out now. She felt like she’d been walking for hours, for miles, along the beach, but it couldn’t have been that long. She would tell “gossiping Glo” that she and Jerry had really not done anything. Anton had interrupted them before they’d actually had intercourse, and she knew that Gloria wouldn’t get upset by a little harmless necking and fondling, would she? She was sure that Anton had exaggerated the whole incident, made it sound a hundred times worse than it actually had been. She’d explain it thusly to Gloria when she saw her. Not because she cared about the old cow, but because she sensed that Jerry honestly cared for the woman, and was dependent on her in more ways than one.

She scolded herself. Do you think you’re to blame for what happened? she asked herself. You’re believing your own publicity, darling. The best “bad girl” on the soaps, the evil seductress wrecking homes, destroying marriages. For pete’s sake, Jerry was a grown man with a mind of his own. He could have shrugged her off at any time if he’d really wanted to. She was sure he fooled around with other women, anyway. So why should she blame herself?

In any case, she wanted to set things right, to ask Jerry how he was feeling, to make sure he wasn’t upset, or mad at her. And if Gloria was there, she’d try and make the old woman listen to reason. If not, at least she could help Jerry look for her. There but for the grace of God … Cut the bullshit, she told herself. You are not the pitying kind, so don’t pretend you are.

It was then that she saw Jerry. He was sitting on one of the rocks at the end of the beach wearing a sullen expression. Cynthia could see the shipwreck a few yards from where he sat, but there was no sign of Glo Bordette. “Hey, handsome,” she yelled, steeling herself for the encounter. What if he despised her?

Jerry turned around, startled out of his reverie. “Oh, hello.” There was a cautious tone in his voice.

Cynthia hunkered down beside him on a patch of sand that curled through the rocks until there were too many rocks for it to curl through. “Did you find her? Did you find Glo?”

“Uh uh.” He looked around hopelessly, up at the cliffs, at the sea. “I don’t know where she is.” The silence which followed was terrible. The sound of the crashing waves brought forth visions of James Mason, or Joan Crawford, walking steadfastly into the sea out of heartbreak.

“Look,” Cynthia leveled, “I’m sorry about what happened. Maybe I should have left you alone.” She waited to see his reaction. Seeing none, she continued. “I can tell you really care about Gloria, and I’m sorry she had to get hurt.”

He finally sensed what she was driving at. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said, shaking his head. “I blame that—that bastard with the face only a mother could love.”

Cynthia got up. The position she was in was not comfortable for her knees. “Anton. Yes. First practical jokes and now this. Telling on us that way.” She dropped the sand she had scooped up in her hand and smiled evilly. “I think we should team up and get even with Mr. Suffron. Really get back at him. And I mean low.”

Jerry smiled for the first time since Cynthia had found him. “Count me in.” The smile faded quickly. He was really upset about Gloria.

“Where did you look?” Cynthia asked. “You don’t think she’d have done anything rash, do you?”

Panic flared in Jerry’s eyes. Apparently he’d never even considered it. “No,” he said quickly. “She’s just pissed off, being dramatic. You know how she is. Went off somewhere to brood. She’ll be back. I don’t know where else to look for her, though. Hope she isn’t lost.”

“Think she went into that old ship?” Cynthia queried. “It looks interesting, don’t you think?” She tried to keep the lilt, that certain intonation, out of her voice, tried to keep him from thinking that she was coining on to him again. “I think I’m going to go take a look.” She tried to sound possessed of intellectual curiosity, not wanting him to think she’d attack him the minute they were out of sight. “Come on. Let’s take a look before it’s nighttime. C’mon. Glo will be back at the house by the time we get back. You wait and see.”

Jerry got up and went with her. It was clear to Cyn that he was not hoping for more romantic adventures with her, but thought there was a possibility Gloria was holing up in the wreck. Together the two of them carefully traversed the rocks—which grew in size the closer they got to the ship—that lay between them and the Mary Eliza. To Cynthia, it was just a curious object, a battered ruin that promised casual fun and a way to pass the time on this dreary old island. Jerry saw it only as a hiding place. Neither of them gave a thought to the many drowned souls who’d died the night the ship crashed upon the rocks in the worst thunderstorm of 1880. The ship had nearly cracked in half, and the waves had been so huge people clinging to the sinking vessel had been swept off dozens at a time.

The tide was coming in. The pools between the barnacle-encrusted boulders were getting higher. The water broke over the rocks and across their feet, threatening to snatch them off the boulders and throw them into the sea. Their sneakers were sopping wet by the time they reached the ship, and when they turned back to see how far away the beach was, all they could see was water and the tops of the rocks. They were being slowly surrounded by water on all sides. Fear dug into Cynthia’s stomach as she wondered if they’d get back without drowning or breaking their necks.

“Guess this wasn’t such a hot idea,” she said apologetically.

Jerry was undaunted. “Let me just take a quick peek inside. See if anything’s in here.” Cynthia knew he meant anyone. But she was sure the obese matron he was in love with would never have dragged herself out here, even with the tide low and the sun hanging high in the sky. Yet— love did strange things to people.

There was a huge gaping hole in the hull of the craft, fully 20 feet high and 30 feet across. The schooner itself was almost 160 feet long from stem to stern. Jerry and Cynthia walked inside, their feet crunching against shattered debris. There was an odd smell in the place, like a musty mixture of seaweed and urine. They were standing in the cargo hold amid piles of empty boxes and crates. Anything of value had long since been taken away. There was a whistling sound—the air rushing through all the holes and crevices in the ship; it almost sounded like people keening. Unless she was deliberately hiding, ducking down behind some large piece of flotsam, it was clear that Gloria was not inside. “If this ship piled up on the rocks a century ago, how come so much of it is still here?” Cynthia asked incredulously.

Jerry shrugged. “Beats me. That’s Lammerty Island for you. Nothing dies here.” He tapped the side of the ship. “Not even wood.”

To their right was a series of step-like protuberances leading upwards to the deck above. Living quarters for the sailors probably. “Listen, ” Jerry said. “Do you hear that? There’s someone up there.” It sounded as if someone was moaning, crying out, someone in terrible pain.

Cynthia was scared. Had the old battleaxe actually managed to get this far, managed to drag herself up those tortured old steps for who knows what purpose? What if it wasn’t Gloria up there making those noises?

Cynthia felt Jerry grab her hand. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going to take a look.”

As they began to ascend to the upper levels of the ship, neither of them noticed that the water outside had completed covered the rocks and was even now seeping into the gutted opening of the Mary Eliza.

Chapter 36

Gloria knelt in the very top chamber of the abandoned lighthouse and listened to the footsteps coming slowly up the stairs. As soon as she had reached the lantern room, she had slammed the trapdoor shut and bolted it from inside, then pressed her body down against the door in an effort to keep out whoever it was who was following her up the stairs. Her reasoning was at war with her imagination. Part of her wanted to believe, did believe that it was only Jerry or somebody else come looking for her. After all, she’d been gone for some time now and it was getting dark. Part of her wanted to pull the door open with one frantic motion and run down to greet the person coming towards her.

But another part of her mind sensed, knew, accepted—if such a thing was possible—that the thing coming up the stairs meant her harm. She couldn’t say why or how she knew this, not for sure. Perhaps it was the silence of the person on the stairs, the slow, deliberate pacing of their footsteps. Jerry or one of the others would have been calling her name, would have been shouting out for her, rather than waiting for an answer that might never come.

Then again, Jerry knew how stubborn she could be, knew that she might not reply if he called. If it was one of the others, maybe they were just exploring, testing each step, walking up slowly and carefully, saving their breath.

Yes, that was it. She pulled her body off the door and put her hands on the lock. She was being childish, overreacting to some intangible feeling of dread.

She had almost opened the door when she realized how cold it had become. And how dark. She could hear her heart beating. And over the sound of her heart she heard the rasping noises being made by the thing on the stairs. Was it someone playing a joke? She didn’t think so. She had often heard, read about, people knowing they were in great danger, knowing they were in the presence of evil, but until this moment she hadn’t really comprehended it, hadn’t understood.

The thing below was evil. And it was almost at the door.

There was a scratching sound. Fingernails scraping against the bottom of the door.

The door moved slightly upwards, shaken from without, rising, rising. The bolt held. Gloria stifled a scream. One hand went into her mouth, between clenched teeth.

Then she jumped back in horror as the thing began beating on the door, as the door began to shake, to quiver, as with each pounding, merciless blow it almost jumped right off its hinges.

It was going to beat the door in. Gloria was certain of it. And she was equally certain that it was no ordinary person below that door. An ordinary person could not do to a trapdoor what this thing was doing.

There was a terrible cracking sound, a metallic wrench, and with one loud, explosive motion, the door burst upwards into the chamber. Gloria jumped back out of its way just in time. She screamed, her entire body shivering in fear. She wanted to close her eyes, to shut out the horror, but could not. She could only back up and watch as the thing on the stairs advanced into the room.

She walked into something. The lantern. It was a French lantern with fifteen reflectors, twenty-one inches in diameter, individual lights arranged in two circular rows.

Suddenly the light was turned on.

Gloria was blinded, burned. Then the lantern went out as suddenly as it had gone on. Through the haze, Glo could barely make out the figure climbing towards her.

It was a man. Sort of. A crazy hybrid amalgam of human and demon, a devil in human form. It looked like a man, walked like a man, but the eyes were bright with madness, and the skin was burnt and blackened, and the mouth was open and showing scores of yellowed, sharp-fanged teeth among which a vivid red tongue was snaking. One thought tore across Gloria’s mind. Edmund Burrows. The Maniac. The maniac who slaughtered all those people in 1900. He’s still alive. He’s come back. And he wants to take my life.

The man/demon stepped into the room. Thoughts of blood, screaming ran through Gloria’s mind. A twisted, scattered jumble of all she had read about this monster bounced back and forth in her brain. What he did to his victims, how he killed them, what he did to their bodies afterwards. Gloria had visions of obscene mutilation, dismemberment, torment no one should have to know about, let alone endure.

But she was lucky. This was not Edmund Burrows, but only a materialization of his memory, a physical replica brought together out of the psychic ebbs and currents flowing across the island, shaped and given substance by the mind of someone who was just as sick and evil as the late Edmund Burrows had been those many years before.

Too frozen with terror to defend herself, Gloria could only sob and whimper as the manifestation stepped forward, grabbed her in his arms, and lifted her bodily off the floor. There was a sickening moment when she knew what was going to happen to her, a terrible realization that she would never know why.

And a terrible stab in her heart when for one sane second she wondered what would become of Jerry.

The lantern room was shaped like a polygon. There were sixteen windows, forty-four by twenty-four inches, and three-eighth of an inch thick. Suddenly Glo was being thrown headfirst through one of those windows, starting the grisly descent to the rocks at the bottom of the cliff so many feet below. The cold rush of air contrasted with the hot feel of the blood flowing from the cuts and scrapes her flesh had endured from the flying shards of shattered glass. One arm had been nearly severed. Her head was pounding with horror and agony and excitation. She was flying, flying, whirling through the air—look at me! You earthbound fools. I’m immortal—It was a dream, that was all, a beautiful dream of freedom and flying.

And then her body smashed into the rocks below and her beautiful dream was over.

Halfway across the island, the necromancer smiled.

Chapter 37

Nothing.

They had found nothing. There hadn’t been a trace of the paperback novel anywhere in any of the guest rooms. As they walked down the second-floor hall to the staircase, Ernie whispered new instructions. “When we get downstairs, I’ll go into my room and search it thoroughly again. Perhaps someone borrowed the book and brought it back while we were out.”

Andrea looked a little impatient. Or was it a trick of the light? “I still think you should tell them—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Not just yet. I’m not sure what I’m dealing with here.” They paused at the top of the stairs, careful to keep their voices low so that the people in the lounge couldn’t hear them. “I want-to see if I can find the book, make sure it really exists, before I tell everyone else about it.” He rubbed his face and looked heavenward. “They’ll probably think I’m mad.”

“You don’t have to tell them all you’ve told me,” Andrea insisted. “Just tell them you were reading an interesting novel, and you can’t find it, and you wondered if anyone had seen it. That’s all. Simple, isn’t it? And while you’re doing the talking, I’ll watch the others carefully for some sign of a reaction.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s the only way.”

“All right. But first, let’s look a little bit longer. Whoever has the book may not give it up willingly. But if we find it…” His voice trailed off.

“Let’s not forget that this book could easily fit into a purse or a pocketbook,” Andrea said. “Or even the large jacket in a man’s suitcoat. Anybody could have concealed it on their person. This searching the house from top to bottom may be a waste of time.”

“Maybe it’s all a waste of time.” The sound of tinkling ice cubes in tall glasses, conversation, trickled up the stairs from below.

“No, Ernie. I believe you. I really do. It’s not just your honest face,” she smiled, and he couldn’t help but respond in kind, if only briefly. “There’s something in the air,” she continued. “I can sense it. I sense the presence of a disruptive element. It could be the book, it could be whomever it belongs to. I don’t know. But one thing I am sure of. We’re all in terrible danger.”

Ernie wanted to ask her exactly what she meant, how she knew. But her bearing, her evident self-confidence, intimidated him. He was beginning to be in awe of her. Or was it just that lie wasn’t sure if she was really a gifted psychic— which would be impressive enough—or a self-deluding, dangerous mental case. Which would also be impressive, but rather disillusioning.

“We have to try and go into the servant’s quarters when we have the chance,” he said. “One of us can pretend to go to the bathroom again, then duck into the rooms in back.”

“What about the cook?” Andrea reminded him. “She’s taken sick. And she was sharing a room with the girls.”

“Damn. I forgot. That’s one whole room we won’t be able to go into. And if Hans is in the room he shared with Eric, we might as well forget the whole thing.”

“One step at a time,” she said. As they started down the staircase, she giggled softly at her inadvertant pun.

Downstairs there was a visible tension in the air. Gloria and Jerry had yet to come back, the housekeepers were still missing, and Ever son was asking Hans over and over again if he knew where Eric had disappeared to. The others weren’t aware that instead of going to her room, Cynthia had walked out the door, but this wasn’t the time to tell them.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Everson. As I told you, the last time I saw Eric we were searching the west end of the island. I recall Eric said that he thought he had heard something and wanted to see what it was. We decided to split up so we could cover more territory.” Hans shrugged. “You know Eric. He is—well—” The Swede was obviously not comfortable telling on a fellow employee, but “his sense of duty got the better of him. “—he’s not very responsible, sir. If you want my honest opinion—”

“That would help!” Everson snapped.

“I think he went off drinking somewhere and passed out in the bushes.”

Hans could hardly be accused of covering for Eric, but Everson seemed to be of the dubious opinion that the Swede was protecting the chauffeur, as well as the housekeepers. “For pete’s sake, John,” Lynn protested, “there isn’t some sort of conspiracy among the ‘workers’ going on. If Hans says he doesn’t know where they are then I’m sure he doesn’t know.”

“I’m only ask—”

“You’re grilling him, and it isn’t necessary.” She smashed the stub of her cigarette angrily into the nearest ashtray and turned her back on the lawyer. There seemed to be a fragile thread holding their relationship together, and the least little snap would tear the thread in two.

Everson turned to his employee. “Hans. I’m sorry. I’m so overwrought, worried about those girls. This is so unlike them. Eric, yes. He is irresponsible and I’ve accepted it long ago. But Emily. Joanne. What could they be up to?”

Hans only shook his head. “I’ll keep searching all night if I have to.”

“This whole thing is becoming a little alarming,” Anton said. He was perched on the settee, his smirk in place, holding his chest and head up in a manner that made him seem bird-like. “It’s getting quite dark out, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, and there are several people out there, some of whom might well be injured or incapacitated.”

Anton’s manner irritated Ernie no end. “Will you help us go out and look for them?”

Anton remained unruffled. “I have nothing else to do, dear fellow.” He bowed from the waist with it .sweeping gesture. “Lead on.”

Ernie realized that he had put himself in a spot. There was something else he wanted to search for before he went looking for the missing staff and guests. He looked over in Andrea’s direction, but she was gone. Good girl, he thought, she was going to look in the servants’ quarters while Hans and the others were milling about out here. Then he could hear her voice coming from the kitchen. She must have stopped to chat with Betty, who was still in there doing the dishes.

“All right,” Ernie said. “Should we go in teams as before? Or should we separate?”

Everson waved his arm limply as if to discount both suggestions. “Ernie, no. You people are our guests. Hans and I will do the searching. We’ll go where the girls were seen last. The house. They probably wandered around and lost track of the time.” He looked at the swede. “Hans, half of the flashlights we have aren’t working. Go out in the shed and see if you can find some more batteries.”

“All right, sir. But I must tell you that the area near the mansion has already been searched.”

“But no one went back inside the house. That’s what I intend to do.” He addressed the other two men in the room. “You fellows can stay here until we get back. If we think we need you, we’ll let you know.”

Ernie stepped forward. “John, it will be a lot easier if we go with you. That house is big, remember? At least let Anton and me look elsewhere on the island.”

Anton grunted. “We’ll probably bump smack into those star-crossed lovers, Glo and Jerry.”

Everson groaned. “Darn. I forgot about them.”

“Relax,” Anton continued. “They’re undoubtedly having a nice, long chat, reassessing their relationship and all that. They’ll come back when they’re good and ready. I wouldn’t worry about them. Those May-December romances, you know.”

If Everson had heard the last remark, or if Anton was embarrassed that he had made it, neither made it evident. Lynn, however, smoking a freshly lit cigarette over in the corner, gave the pianist a glowering stare.

“Hans, look for the batteries.” The Swede nodded to his employer and headed out to the storage shed.

Lynn puffed furiously on her cigarette as if fortifying herself, then made her way over to Anton’s side. “Of course, you conveniently forgot to mention that Glo and Jerry wouldn’t have run off at all if you had learned to mind your business.” It was clear that there were a lot of hurts between the two, a lot of sensitive areas and sore spots left over from their old relationship. “But no, you have to run and tell Gloria the bad news the first chance you get.”

Everson saw a scene arising, and tried to head it off, the diplomat in him surfacing. “Lynn. Not now. Let’s not get into—”

“She’s my aunt!” she screamed. “And I love her. And I won’t have her hurt by this slimy, two-bit”—she held her hands out, searching for the right word—“asshole who loves to play with people’s feelings as if they were—as if they were dirt.”

Anton’s face wore a scornful look, but on the outside he was calm. “You’re overreacting,” he said. “Shamelessly. Your aunt can take care of herself, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve been friends with Glo for years, remember? She introduced you to me. I thought she should know how ‘faithful’ her boring little playmate really is. You’ve been acting strange ever since we landed on the island, Lynn, and whatever’s bothering you has affected your judgment.”

“Ooooohhhh,” Lynn made her hands into fists and squealed out her anger. “I could just—”

The kitchen door swung open and Betty was there, wiping her hands on an apron tied around her waist. She looked so worried, so distraught, that for a moment Ernie thought she had rushed out in Anton’s defense. Anton looked towards her with a smile on his face, all beneficence, all charm, like a praying mantis catching sight of a tidbit. ”Betty.”

She continued wiping her hands and looked at the others in turn. “Mrs. Plushing,” she said. “I—I’m terribly worried about her.” Immediately she had Everson’s and Lynn’s undivided attention. “Her fever is getting higher. She’s burning up.”

“My God.” Lynn stubbed out another cigarette, put her hand over her mouth.

“We brought medicine, extra blankets,” Everson said. “In case of an emergency. Hans will show you where they are.” As if on cue the Swede walked in carrying a pair of flashlights. “We remembered everything but batteries,” the handyman explained. “But I found these and they seem to be working.”

“Never mind that now,” Everson said. “Take Betty out and show her where the thermometer and medicines we brought along are stored. In the small black case, I believe. Do you mind nursing Mrs. Plushing for a while?” he asked Betty. She was still wiping her hands, which by now were as dry as the Sahara. “Just until I return?”

“I can do it,” Lynn said. “Betty’s ‘a guest.’ ”

Betty was quick to contradict her. “I don’t mind. Really I don’t.”

Lynn was in no mood to argue. “Suit yourself.”

Everson took the two flashlights. The Swede went by himself to get the medical supplies, instructing Betty to wait until he returned.

“Some trip this is turning out to be,” Everson muttered.

Lynn swiveled, faced him. “What did you say?”

Everson paused, then lost all decorum. “You heard me.” His tone was hostile.

Lynn addressed no one in particular. “Next he’ll be blaming me. You wait. He’ll say this trip was my idea and all my ideas are stupid.”

“Lynn, for heaven’s sake.” Everson was switching the flashlights off and on, checking to see if they’d stay lit for a reasonable period.

She pressed on. “You were the one who suggested this trip. I’ve always hated this island and that awful old woman who lived here. She spent her money on obscure, ridiculous institutions all her life, and what was left was eaten up by that private nurse of hers. And what does she leave me, this godforsaken—”

“I thought you were excited about owning this place, about having access to, what did you call It?”

Lynn’s eyes flared as if Everson was about to enter forbidden territory, to say something she did not want the others to hear. “Never mind,” she shouted. Ernie sensed that she was showing the others a rare side of herself. All the tension— the missing housekeepers, Everson’s manner, and whatever strain there had been between the two of them before—was just too much for the woman. For just a second, she looked a little mad. “I wish we had never come here. It was a mistake.”

“You won’t get any argument from me on that,” Everson growled. During all this Anton was looking on, his face amused, his eyes mildly contemptuous. Betty was still in the doorway, wringing her hands. She looked as if she was about to cry. The strain of it all was getting to her, too. Suddenly Ernie realized that Betty was crying, that long wet streams of tears were running down over her chubby cheeks. She was clearly an extremely sensitive woman, a fragile chipmunk who overreacted to emotional situations.

“Why, Betty, dear, what ever is the matter?” Anton purred, gliding over to where she stood and taking her hands in his own.

“It’s nothing, Betty,” Lynn assured the woman. “John and I fight all the time. Everything will be all right.”

Betty looked at them, her eyes and nose red, her flesh pale. “I—I’m so frightened,” she stuttered. “This island. The girls disappearing. Mrs. Plushing getting sick. And you and John fighting. It’s as if this island is making us all fall apart.”

Anton chose that moment to shrug off the condescending, overly charming manner he had been using on the woman. “Oh, come now—that’s the stuff of moronic horror films. This island isn’t doing anything to us.” His sharp tone brought a fresh flood of silent tears. “Stop whimpering,” he ordered. Then, in a calmer, softer voice, the one he’d used before, he said, “Please, dear. You’ll only make matters worse. Everything is going to be all right. We’re all just a little overwrought.” Slowly, carefully, he soothed the little chipmunk back into his control, and even managed to get Betty to smile, a tentative one at first, then a big, toothy, infatuated grin. “I’ll—I’ll be all right,” she said.

Lynn made a silent diagnosis. “I’ll go upstairs and get you a valium.”

Ernie had been on the verge of sneaking into his room to check for the book, when Andrea came running into the lounge from the kitchen. “Mrs. Plushing is terribly ill. She keeps asking for Hans to come see her.” She and Ernie exchanged anxious glances.

“Did someone mention me?” The Swede appeared behind Andrea, holding a black Boston bag. “I found the medical supplies, Mr. Everson.”

Suddenly the air was full of a series of horrible screeches; high-pitched wails of agony and terror. Everyone knew where they were coming from. “My God!” Everson exclaimed. “What can be wrong with the woman!”

The lawyer led Hans and Betty into Mrs. Plushing’s room. Anton went to fix himself a drink. Ernie was about to follow the others, when Andrea grabbed him and motioned him to follow her into his room. He closed the door to the makeshift bedroom and asked her what was up.

“I was being melodramatic before; I’m not any longer. We are all in terrible danger.”

“Did you look for the book?” he asked.

She was visibly annoyed with the interruption, but answered. “Yes. I went through everything in Han’s and Eric’s room—and then snuck into the women’s quarters while Mrs. Plushing was sleeping. I had finished searching when Mrs. Plushing started murmuring in her sleep. She’s burning with fever, Ernie, and she kept asking to see Hans. Said she had something important to tell him.”

“I don’t see how that means that we’re all in danger.”

“It’s not that,” Andrea told him. “There’s a— a presence—on this island. A distinct, individual presence that’s evil and strong and getting stronger all the time.”

Ernie tried to suppress his impatient sigh but it escaped before he could do so. Andrea gave him a livid glare, and started for the door. “Oh damn you! You’re all alike. You come to me with a ridiculous story about a precognitive book that anyone else would commit you for, and I bother to listen—and yes—to believe. But when I want to tell you what’s bothering me, you stand there sanctimoniously and have the gall to—”

He grabbed her, thinking of the icy barrier he had witnessed between Lynn and his cousin, not wanting that same barrier to form between him and Andrea. He did the first thing that came to mind. No amount of apologizing or conversation might get to the woman the way she was feeling, but if he could shock her out of her indignation …

And that was why he found himself crushing her in his arms, and pressing his lips down on top of hers. She struggled for a second, but only a second, and for a moment he was afraid he’d made a terrible mistake, that he’d come on like a macho peabrain reducing to a sex object a woman who was trying to be taken seriously by someone she’d befriended. He braced himself for the slaps, the accusations, the belittlement that was sure to follow.

Instead, he felt Andrea giving in, then taking over, pulling him closer and pushing her tongue into his mouth. They couldn’t have held each other any tighter. He heard Andrea moaning, sighing. And then, when they seemed to be running out of air, and not before, he let her go and looked down to see her reaction firsthand.

Andrea was smiling, out of breath. “If I’d known it was that easy to get you to kiss me I would have gotten angry a lot sooner.”

The words rushed out of him. “Please. I didn’t do that to shut you up. It was my way of—of telling you that I care about you and your feelings and I feel like a shit because I did what I did back there. I should have listened to you. Please—I’m a reactionary, square, conventional shithead of a man who’s freaked out by all this supernatural stuff. And it will—it will take time. I want time, Andrea.”

“I don’t care what your motives were,” she said. “I’m only glad you finally got around to doing it. The kiss, I mean. And as for the other, well—I know how hard it is for most people to understand.”

“You were right, of course. I let you help me out, you listened to me and believed me, and,” he swung his foot out, kicking his suitcase, “look what I go and do.”

“Forget it.” She sat down on the bed. “Will you listen to me now?”

“Yes. Go ahead.” He sat down on the bed In side her, prepared to become engrossed in her every utterance.

“Like I said earlier, there are bound to be many psychic currents, many—how can I phrase it?— auras on an island like this; on any space that’s been inhabited, and has had any kind of history, especially one as melodramatic as this. Violence, torment, anguish; these are strong emotions, emotions which, some people think, can live on longer than calmer, softer emotions.”

“Hate is stronger than love. An old theme of horror stories.”

She nodded. “Anyway, whether these currents are just electromagnetic energy from the brain, energy that never dies converted to psychic energy, or if there are actual souls or spirits floating around us—well, no one really knows. But in any case, I’ve felt these currents, spirits, energy sources, ever since I landed on the island. They’re concentrated here.”

“Don’t you feel these currents all the time wherever you are?”

“Yes, to some extent, although I’ve learned, while I’m wide awake at least, to tune them out. I have to, for my sanity’s sake. But in a town or city, just walking around, there are so many living people surrounding me, that their sheer vitality and consciousness just overwhelms any psychic energy that might be floating around. Here on the island it’s different. There are only a few of us, alive.

“And, Ernie,” she said grimly, “we’re outnumbered.”

Ernie leaned back on the bed and struggled to find the right words. “What do you mean? You think the spirits of the dead people here are out to harm those of us who are living?”

She shook her head violently. “No. Not at all. It’s always been said ghosts don’t hurt people. Only the living can hurt people. And that’s what the problem is. I’ve sensed something troubling me ever since we landed, and I’ve finally realized what it is. Psychically, he or she was trying to hide from me, but I’ve broken through due to sheer persistence. There’s another psychic on the island, one potentially more powerful than I am. Someone who’s using the psychic currents on the island for his or her own devices. It’s either someone who was on the island all along, or someone who came to the island with us.”

“You mean, one of us? Someone we know?”

“Yes, probably. And I just don’t know who it could be. Lynn, Betty, Gloria, even Anton— though he’d be loath to admit it—they all share an interest in psychic phenomena and the supernatural. But if any of them have advanced beyond the curiosity stage, to become actual practitioners, they kept it a secret from me.”

“What about Everson? Jerry? One of the others.”

“No. I don’t think so, but I just can’t be sure. Anyway, you’re in the clear. I would have sensed it about you a long time ago.”

“That’s good, but you haven’t told me how this places us all in danger.”

“Don’t you see? This person—whoever it is— is… I hesitate to say ‘evil,’ it’s so corny—but that’s what it comes down to. They’re playing with dangerous forces.”

“It sounds like witchcraft, black magic.”

“Some people might call it that, but to me it’s science. That’s why I’ve always been interested In the paranormal and the supernatural. One deals with the human mind, the other with ‘ghosts.’ But to my way of thinking, they’re two sides of the same coin, and can both be explained scientifically. I believe they’re aspects of a science so advanced it’s beyond the understanding of most of us, beyond even my understanding. A psychic person—what some would call a witch—is merely a person who can use the powers of his or her own brain more so than the rest of us can. Telekinesis, precognition—it’s all brain power; nothing spooky about it.”

“What about foretelling the future? I’m sorry, but I can’t believe in fate.”

Andrea spoke deliberately. “Some say that history repeats itself, that time is a circle, that we’ve all done this before and will do it again. Our lives are not so much preordained as lived over again.”

“Depressing. You mean a child who dies at ten is doomed to keep dying at that age, never living out his lifespan. I can’t see it.”

“I never said it made sense, or that it was true. It’s just one theory out of a hundred that might explain precognition. Another theory is that precognitive individuals are subconsciously picking up the thoughts and feelings of those around them, or those whose future they wish to predict. They simply make educated, speculative guesses, from information which appears to them in dreams, visions, what have you. That’s why most psychics are wrong a lot of the time. Sometimes their speculations come true; sometimes not.”

“I could deal with that theory a lot better than the other one.”

“Now, as for the psychic who’s with us on this island, and as to why I think he or she is dangerous. I can’t put it into words. I’m psychic, and I know—in part at least—what my companion is up to. And Ernie, I’m convinced now that those girls—the housekeepers—that they’re dead.”

A vision of two bare white skeletons flashed through Ernie’s mind and he swallowed.

“And I think this psychic killed them, that he or she used the forces of the island, channeled them, to somehow bring about the deaths of those girls. You might be surprised to learn that I don’t have a wild imagination. This never even crossed my mind until a little while ago. It’s not a guess or a feeling. I know it. I’ve read this other psychic’s mind.”

“You couldn’t possibly be wrong?”

She shook her head sadly, her eyes full of fear and regret. “There’s a slim chance. For their sake, I hope so. But I don’t think I’m wrong.”

“But why? What did those girls ever do to anyone? The poor kids.”

“I don’t know. It’s easy to call our friend malevolent, maybe even psychotic, but even psychotics have their reasons. They might not make sense to anyone else, but there’s a twisted inner logic to what they do. I think our friend has killed those girls and intends to kill the rest of us. And I think your book is involved in it all. I have an impression of it now, for the first time, even though the psychic is trying to block it. Either he or he has the book in his or her possession, or is looking for it, too, and trying to keep me from finding it first. I think that’s what it must be. Perhaps in some insane way, this person is trying to—eliminate the competition?”

“But whoever it is must know you’re the only other psychic around; you make no secret of it.”

“Yes, but while that would make me extra-sensitive to his powers, more vulnerable in some ways; because I’m a seasoned pro at this I’ll also be harder to get rid of—through psychic means, at least. I have a theory that those two housekeepers—well, one or both of them had some small degree of psychic ability—most of us do in one form or another—only, they probably didn’t even know it. That’s why they had those awful experiences, saw and heard what they did. Either the psychic currents themselves were attracted to them because of their sensitivity, or else our friend was able to exploit that sensitivity, to test his powers, by making those girls undergo what they did. It will be easier for him to destroy sensitive, imaginative, easily frightened people, people with phobias and fears and neuroses. Believers. People who don’t believe, who aren’t afraid of the dark, frightened of ‘ghosts,’ may not be as susceptible to a psychic attack or manifestation.”

Ernie felt a little ill. This was clearly not the time for him to start believing in the supernatural paranormal, whatever they wanted to call it. Yet, while part of him remained distant from it all, wondering if Andrea was pulling his leg, or was in the throes of some bizarre self-delusion, he found that he couldn’t entirely discount her story. And he was becoming rather petrified.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“We tell the others. We try to get off the island. We look after Mrs. Plushing—she may not have an ‘ordinary’ fever, if you understand what I mean. Not the way she’s been carrying on. And we round up everyone we can.”

“Gloria. Jerry.”

“And Cynthia. They’re still out there. It will be easier to dispose of us if we’re alone, isolated, separated. I don’t know why our antagonist is doing this. But we can’t just sit around like lambs to the slaughter. Something must be done. The first thing is to find that book!”

“If we mention it to everyone the way you suggested I do, won’t our friend be alerted?”

“He or she already knows, believe me.”

Suddenly Andrea stiffened, her eyes becoming dull and spacey. “Oh, God,” she muttered, barely loud enough for Ernie to hear. “It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“That energy I spoke of. It’s shifting, gathering, for some purpose, some evil purpose …” She spoke as if entranced.

He shook her. “Andrea, tell me. Snap out of it.”

“Oh God, Ernie. Someone—someone’s going to die.”

Involuntarily, he looked around the room, ready to jump at the slightest sound or movement.

“And there’s nothing—nothing— I can do to stop it. And when they’re through, they’ll turn that energy on me, try to murder me.”

“Andrea—you’ll be all right. I’m here, Andrea.”

“We’ve got to find that book, fight back somehow.”

“We will. We’ll look for it right now.”

Andrea turned her face towards him. She seemed to be back to her old self, albeit more terrified and anxious than before. “So far, our friend has been using his powers in regards to me defensively, trying to keep me from sensing him, from sensing what he was doing. But now—he might think of me as too much of a threat.” She gritted her teeth, as if from sudden pain. “Oh, Ernie, I can feel them dying. What if he decides to turn that power on me—I’m not sure …”

“Who, Andrea? Who’s dying?”

“Cynthia and Jerry. Out at the ship,” she said. “I can see them.” And then she keeled over on the bed.

Chapter 38

Cynthia’s sneakers padded along the musty, wet floor of the drafty corridor, making slapping sounds that were comforting compared to all the other noises made by the rotting old ship. “Can’t you go a little slower?” she called out to Jerry, who was striding madly down the narrow hallway like a man possessed, calling out the name of his paramour, looking in each cabin. He was convinced that Gloria was on board, hiding and sniveling somewhere in the shadows. “This is crazy,” Cynthia whined. “She isn’t here, Jerry. She would have answered you.”

Jerry stopped at the base of the stairwell, and turned to face his companion. He looked awful.

“Can you imagine Gloria climbing up here and walking around in this creepy place?” she said. “She’s not in here, Jerry. We’re wasting time, and it’s getting dark, and the water out there is rising.”

He held up his hand placatingly. “All right, all right. We’ll go, we’ll go. It’s just that I could have sworn that I heard voices.”

“Voices, he says.” She stood there with her hands on her hips and smirked. “This is an old ship, Jerry, full of holes and creaking beams and all kinds of shit. Of course it makes noises. The wind, the wood settling, the water pounding on the sides. What do you expect?”

“Didn’t it sound like voices to you, too, though?”

“That was … just an illusion. I knew nobody was really up here.”

Jerry hung his shoulders in defeat, wiped his eyes. Was he crying? Cynthia went over and put her hand on his shoulder. “She’s probably back at the house waiting for us. We’ll go in separately, so she won’t get any ideas. I know. I’ll go in through the side door to the kitchen. Everyone thinks I’m in bed anyway.”

Jerry merely nodded and they began walking back the way they’d come. Now, when their pace was a little less frantic, they had time to really take in their surroundings. It was pretty dark within the ship, but enough light filtered in from a hundred different cracks and openings for them to see their way pretty clearly. The walls were surprisingly well-preserved, though streaked with water stains and a dark, crusty substance that emitted a powerful odor. Everything in the cabins had just been swept away; now and then they had found some shattered chest or metal object, but otherwise the ship was empty. Cynthia was relieved to see there were no skeletons lying about. “The bodies are at the bottom of the sea,” Jerry told her. “The survivors must have died a long time ago, but I doubt if they were buried on the island.”

Why was the trip back down the corridor taking so much longer? Even accounting for their more leisurely pace, Cynthia was sure they should have reached the way down to the cargo hold by now. “Did we make a wrong turn somewhere?” she asked, knowing it was impossible, but not too sure of anything anymore.

“No. We’re almost there.”

Jerry began coughing at the same time that Cynthia noticed the ship was filling up with smoke. No, it wasn’t smoke, it was fog, or smog, and it was as thick and warm as steam. Cynthia could almost taste it on her tongue, feel it going down her throat and filling up her lungs. “Where did this come from?” she shrieked, trying to wave the fog away with her hands. Jerry couldn’t stop coughing. It was as if a living thing were trying to push itself down into his stomach. He doubled over, began to gag.

“Jerry?” Cynthia grabbed him around the waist, tried to keep him from falling to the floor. Through the fog, the walls seemed to close in on them. She pulled him, down, down the hall, hoping to find the exit. She smashed into a wall, dropping her burden. “Jerry! Get up!” Jerry stumbled about on his hands and knees, finally clenching her ankle in his fist. Cynthia tottered. “Stop that!” She felt him pulling himself up, grabbing her legs, waist, clothing. She held onto him, and together they fell into a larger room that looked like it might have at one time been an officer’s quarters.

The fog wasn’t as thick in here. Cynthia pushed Jerry over towards a porthole in the far wall, hoping he could get a few deep breaths. There was something unusual and acrid about the fog. But it wasn’t smoke—there was no burning odor anywhere, and it didn’t sting the eyes. Just as she managed to get Jerry to the porthole, she realized how futile her actions were. If this same fog was coming into the ship from the outside, Jerry wouldn’t be able to get a fresh breath.

She was amazed to see that the sky outside was clear! The brilliant waters below sparkled in the sunset and there wasn’t a bit of fog in sight.

Then where was the fog coming from? Surely not from inside the ship?

Suddenly Cynthia heard a cracking sound, a splintering noise, as if someone was smashing wood apart. She looked down—something was pushing up the floorboards of the cabin!

And then she heard the voices.

Jerry had stopped coughing and was aware of them, too. The whimpering sounds he’d heard before had been transformed into a virtual chorus of husky, demonic chanting. Before their eyes the floor of the cabin just a few feet away from where they stood transfixed began to crack and separate into fragments. Cynthia could have sworn she saw eyes, deep-red eyes, boring into her from the space below. Then, with an astonishing, ear-splitting bellow, the middle of the floor burst upwards in a welter of wood chips and pieces, and there was an enormous hole in the center of the room.

The floorboards by the porthole where they stood began to buckle, to shatter. With horror, Cynthia realized they were both beginning to slide into the pit. Jerry held onto her, though whether he was trying to keep her from slipping or save himself was probably something even he wasn’t sure of. Scrabbling for something to anchor herself to, Cynthia could only see what was in the hole from the corner of her eye.

People. There were people down there. Dozens of them, milling about in the foggy putrid darkness as if waiting in some hellish anteroom, a purgatory for lost souls. And all of them were looking upwards, eyes supernaturally red, glowing, their expectant faces lit up in maniacal hunger as if waiting for food to drop among them. Cynthia felt madness overtaking her. Part of her mind, a part already fading, sought rationed answers, human explanations, for what was happening. But in a lost corner of her brain she already knew that there was no earthly explanation for what was happening.

She heard someone screaming—terrible, heartrending, ear-shattering screaming—and realized it was Jerry. He was at the cracked edge of the pit, about to fall in. She looked down at her waist and saw that his hand was still wrapped around her, holding on, about to drag her down with him into the abyss. She started squealing, hitting his arm, scratching his hand with her fingernails and drawing blood, but he wouldn’t let go.

She pounded on his back, tore his hair, dug into his cheeks with her nails, but nothing would make him release his hold on her. She had finally found some kind of foothold, her sneakers wedging into a crevice in the floorboard below her, but she’d lose that foothold—and her life—if his 160-pound weight tumbled off into the yawning pit before them. “Jerry! Jerry!” All thought of saving him, getting him onto safer ground, was lost. She only wanted to save herself. Finally, her hands wet and dripping with blood, she managed to pull his arm off of her. His face was blank, frozen.

He did not even cry out as he lost his balance and plummeted into the ghostly horrors below.

Cynthia’s scream followed him down. It was cut off abruptly when she saw what transpired after Jerry hit the ground. In a second they were upon him, covering his body, and bending down to tear away whole chunks of him in their mouths. Cynthia gagged; a stream of Jerry’s blood, spritzing out from his throat, rose into the air, and they were drinking it as if it were water from a fountain. She closed her eyes, but the tearing, rending, chewing sounds would not go away. She threw up, her vomit anointing the gobbling creatures below her.

She was losing her grip, her sanity, her foothold. Her turn was next.

She managed to pull herself back, back, hoping she could reach the porthole and hold onto it for dear life. Everything that was happening seemed to have the amber quality of a dream, a nightmare; she felt spacey, wondering if it was the terror that was doing it to her or if she was on the verge of waking up. Please, let it be a dream, an awful dream. But everything felt so vivid, so real —the blood on her hands, the wood beneath her feet, and, worst of all, the hideous noises from below. Tears ran down her cheeks. The urine running down her legs collected in a little puddle around her sneakers.

She reached the porthole. If only she could squeeze through, jump out, swim away. It seemed so hopeless. But at least she was safe from the pit for the time being. Safe, safe, safe. Part of her wished she could just drop dead right then and there so the awful ordeal would be over.

She heard a harsh, grating sound, like a snarling dog. She looked back over towards the hole. There was a face hanging over the edge.

It was Jerry’s face.

There was blood all over it, and a lot of it was missing—the nose, one of the eyes, an ear—but it was Jerry all right. One half-eaten arm grabbed the floorboards and kept him from falling in again. Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself up onto the tiny platform that Cynthia stood upon. How did he escape? she was wondering, how did he get away ? She bent down, planning to grab his hand, to pull him back up with her where it was safe.

But Jerry hadn’t escaped.

She was just about to touch his hand—mottled, gnarled, and crusty with drying gore—when she saw the look in his eyes. He was leering. She was wondering how he had managed to climb up out of the hole, and then she saw …

His stomach had been ripped open. And his chest—it was just a cavity. He’d been gutted, his insides torn away and stuffed into their greedy little jaws. He couldn’t possibly be alive, couldn’t possibly have managed to make his way up here. One of his legs was missing …

“They want you,” Jerry growled. “Down there.” His hand closed over her wrist.

And with one terrible yank, Cynthia found herself falling down down down to the grisly climax of an unimaginable horror.

PART FIVE

Night

Chapter 39

John Everson was lost. Hopelessly lost.

He had spent the last fifteen minutes refusing to accept the inevitable, that he had somewhere along the way wandered off the old path to the mansion and stumbled across a completely different route which led somewhere else entirely. The flashlight didn’t help—there were no special “landmarks” and the surroundings all looked the same no matter where he turned. Gnarled branches, clinging weeds, towering trees. The forest was silent, damp, and oppressive. At least the afternoon’s mosquitoes had miraculously disappeared.

Back at the guest house, he and a few of the others had looked in on Mrs. Plushing, but there was nothing anyone could do except feed her aspirin and orange juice and hope her fever went down. She had stopped her hysterical, delirious screeching moments after it had begun. Betty was too overwrought by then to be of much help, so he had put Hans in charge. The cook, in her delirium, had kept calling out for the handyman. It was as if she had something to tell him, but couldn’t do it so long as anyone else was in the room. Everson knew that Hans and Mrs. Plushing were good friends. Leaving the woman in the Swede’s capable hands, he had gone back to the lounge to prepare for his trip to the mansion.

Lynn had come back downstairs by then with a tranquilizer for Betty. The plump young woman was trembling, close to hysteria. Everson had never realized what a Nervous Nellie Betty was, or he would never have allowed her to come. Lynn decided to take her friend upstairs and put her to bed. Ernie and Andrea had disappeared, and Anton, over in the corner enjoying his fourth or fifth martini, was clearly in no mood to accompany Everson.

So alone the lawyer had set out to search for Joanne and Emily.

This trip was rapidly turning into a disaster. He only hoped he could get everything under control before it was too late, before anyone got hurt. If the housekeepers thought they would get off with a mere reprimand they were very sadly mistaken. And Lynn—her childish behavior was inexcusable. Served him right for taking up with such a young and immature woman. A baby. That he was a distinguished older person carrying on in public with a woman years his junior did not sit well with him. Lonely widower or not, he should have known better.

But despite his practicality, his love of order, everything in its place, neat, tidy, and categorized, he had to accept that it was taking far, far too long for him to reach his destination. As much as it pained him to admit it, he was walking on the wrong path and had been doing so for at least a quarter of an hour. He hated the thought of going back, of all that wasted time—there was no guarantee he would recognize the point where he’d gone off the original path even if he fell on it —and wondered if it might be better to continue along the path he was on. The girls might have been sidetracked just as he had been. Perhaps he might find them if he continued in the very direction he was going. Yes. Yes, that’s what he would do.

The possibility that he might not be able to find his way back to the guest house never even occurred to him.

The moon was out tonight. It was so bright that he toyed with the idea of turning off the flashlight. No, there would still be dark shadows among the low hanging branches, under the leaves. Better leave it on. It had gotten dark awfully fast. He supposed Lynn would attribute the mere setting of the sun to some act of supernatural force. She and Andrea. Even her aunt. All of them. Crazy as loons.

Everson rounded a curve and suddenly found himself in a very large clearing. For a moment he thought he had been on the right path all along. But then he realized with a small sinking feeling that the clearing was empty—there was no house sitting in the middle of it. Then where on earth could he be?

He called out the girls’ names. He had begun to assume that one or both of them must have tripped and broken their ankles, or fallen into a well or hole of some sort. They might have even gone into some of the caves on the island, in which case their bodies might never be recovered. Everson flashed his light around the clearing, playing it across the trees and bushes that encircled the enclosure. Funny, the silence of the place was striking. He was used to hearing insects, crickets, chirping and buzzing and humming all night. Instead nothing.

He walked to the middle of the clearing. It seemed much darker out there for some reason. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching him, and blamed it on the strain and tension of the day. Wait until I get my hands on Eric, he said to himself. He should be out here doing this, not me. Damn him. I’ll fire him if it’s the last—

And then he saw the hole in the ground.

It was a foundation, he could tell. The foundation of the original mansion, the one that had burned to the ground in 1750. It was blackened at the edges, and some of the lower sections of the structure had fallen into the cellar. The foundation itself was a cornucopia of thick and ungainly weeds. They were of many different colors and unusual shapes; a botanist’s nightmare. It was like a bizarre, alien hothouse full of a sinister overgrowth, the stems and reeds and roots and tendrils pushing out obscenely from a maw stretched wide open in the ground.

Could the girls have stumbled in, been knocked unconscious at the bottom of the hole?

He walked to the edge of the embankment surrounding the remnants of the house, peered over the rim of the foundation. The whole place was emitting a terrible odor.

Just as he was about to turn away, something wrapped itself around his ankle and pulled him in.

Chapter 40

Hans Swenson was worried.

Mrs. Plushing had been something of a mother to him for all the years he’d worked for Mr. Everson. She’d been a friend, a good friend. And now here she was sick and delirious and miserable and there was nothing he could do for her. When he’d first started the job he’d had for the past seventeen years, she had been a godsend, someone who took the time out to listen to and understand him. Someone who had the same values, shared the same ideas, a proud working-class woman who saw him not as a failure, a loser, a dirt-stained foreigner doomed to forever fix and dig and grovel for those above him, but a simple, proud, hardworking man who had nothing to regret or apologize for.

After a hard day’s work, he had sat in the kitchen, talked to her, about the home of his youth, the people he knew. They swapped stories about simple people and special places, about goals and ideals that made sense in a senseless era. They understood one another. And Mrs. Plushing would always make him an extra-special dinner, a tenderly and carefully prepared meal that was just as fine and polished as anything that she prepared for Mr. Everson’s fancily dressed guests. Big wedges of homemade apple pie—his favorite. Beef stew, heaping with tasty mounds of potatoes and onions. Cheesecake, her specialty. She never showed him any disdain or condescension. And for the simplest favor-bringing her a cut flower, fixing a bent spoon-she would show him the greatest gratitude. They thought alike, those two. And now she was sick, maybe dying, and there was nothing he could do.

Hans had come in with the others, seen how bad Mrs. Plushing had looked, and been shocked. Everyone had been. It had been too much for Betty. In just the space of a few small hours, Mrs. Plushing’s condition had rapidly deteriorated. A slight fever, some dizziness, and nausea had turned into a burning temperature and a condition that was totally incapacitating. Her forehead was so hot if you held your hand there too long you’d feel as if your own flesh was burning. Hans tried time and time again to take her temperature, to determine just how bad her fever was—as if he needed a thermometer to tell—but she kept dropping the thermometer out of her mouth, starting her muttering over again. “Hans-Hans. Bring Hans to me. I must—I must tell him. Must tell him.”

He had bent down, asked her what was wrong, but she did not seem to know if he was there or not. “Hans—must speak to Hans.”

When Everson and the others had left, leaving him in charge, Hans had gone through the medical kit looking for something to help Mrs. Plushing get better. Betty had given her aspirin just a while ago, so he ignored it and the other cold and headache and flu pills and looked in vain for something that might help her snap back to normal. He knew nothing about medicine; he never got sick. If only he could stop her forehead from burning.

Cool cloths. That was what she needed. A nice cold compress on her forehead would work wonders. He went into the bathroom, soaked a wash cloth in ice cold water, rinsed it out, and brought it dripping back to the room. He placed it carefully above her eyes and below the hairline. There was something lying on her brow, and he picked it off, holding it in his fingers. Hair—was it hair? Yes, it seemed to be. The same gray color as Mrs. Plushing’s. Where had that come from? he wondered.

“Hans—Hans,” the woman was muttering again. He bent down beside her and spoke softly. “I’m here, Mrs. Plushing.” He had always called her Mrs. Plushing, not Maggie or Margaret or Mrs. P, and always would. “It’s Hans. I’m listening, Mrs. Plushing. What is it you have to tell me?”

At last he seemed to be getting through to her. Maybe she had eaten something, accidentally swallowed—or what did they call it—overdosed some medicine or something. Perhaps that’s what she wanted to tell him. “Hans—is that you? It is you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Mrs. Plushing. I’m here. Hans is here.”

“Hans—I must tell you—” And then she had trouble breathing, her chest rising and falling rapidly while she puffed air in and out of her lungs. Finally, she stopped; her breathing became more regular, and she closed her eyes. Hans cursed silently to himself. He couldn’t begin to help her if she didn’t tell him what was wrong. Their employee had suggested that she had caught a chill from the island, had a virus or something like that. He knew a virus was just a glorified cold. But could a cold do this? He forced himself to take a good close look at her face. It seemed disrespectful; he’d never been this near to her before, inspecting, probing. But it had to be done. Her cheeks were puffy, swollen, and so were her eyes. They were bloodshot, and a sticky fluid issued from them. Her nose was running and he wiped her nostrils carefully with a tissue. Her lips were dry and cracked; a white substance like pus seemed to be filling in the cracks like mortar between bricks.

Something fell from her head and tumbled across her face, resting at the side of her mouth. Hans picked it up, inspected it.

More hair.

He leaned over further and looked at the top of her head, wondering where the hair was coming from. There was a small mound of gray locks lying on the pillow behind her head. He brushed them away, alarmed. He looked up and saw that the back of Mrs. Plushing’s head was nearly bald. The woman’s hair was falling out!

Now he was really alarmed. No cold or virus would do this to the woman. Not so quickly. Something was seriously wrong with Mrs. Plushing and they were stuck on this island, away from civilization, without a doctor around for miles. He would have to find that good-for-nothing Eric; they’d take the boat, row to the mainland or to another, occupied island, if necessary, and bring a doctor back. They couldn’t take her with them. She was too sick to be taken from her bed. A voyage in a shaky boat—assuming they could find one—on a damp night on a cold ocean would be the worst thing for her. Besides, there was no guarantee they would ever make it safely to another body of land.

If he couldn’t find Eric, he would have to do it alone. But first, he had to find out if there was any kind of vessel, rowboat, canoe, secreted somewhere on the island. He felt helpless, frustrated. Who would look after Mrs. Plushing in the meantime?

“Hans—Hans—you have to watch out.”

Mrs. Plushing’s voice pulled him out of his reverie. “I’m here, Mrs. Plushing. What is it? Tell me. Please tell me.”

“Be careful. I saw—I saw it’s face.”

She was awake now, sitting up in bed, her face red and swollen and ugly.

“Hans,” she screamed, her body shaking, her eyes bulging out of her sockets, saliva and pus running down her chin from her cracked and bleeding lips.

“I saw the demon’s face!”

Chapter 41

“Andrea! Andrea!”

Ernie had been trying unsuccessfully for over a minute to get Andrea to wake up. She’d muttered something about Cynthia and Jerry being in danger, something about the Mary Eliza, and had then fainted on the bed. He shook her, and slapped her cheeks, and was just about to run and get help, when her eyes opened, forming small sleepy slits, and she began to move her arms and legs.

Ernie coaxed her back into the conscious world. Hearing his voice seemed to revive her. Finally she was fully awake, if a little dopey, and sitting up on the bed. Her face was death white, and she looked as if she might be in shock. But from what? Ernie wondered. Nothing’s happened to us. Nothing’s happened in here at all.

“Oh Ernie,” she said, holding her hands against her stomach, shaking her head back and forth.

“What is it, Andrea? Are you sick? Tell me what happened.”

Her eyes widened with understanding. “I was attacked. And my body, my mind, protected itself. Just shut itself off.”

“You mentioned something about Jerry and Cynthia. Out at the old ship.”

Her face turned quite literally green. Ernie could tell he’d dredged up an unpleasant memory. “Let’s not talk about that,” she said. Ernie was about to change the subject, when she continued. “They were killed. Gloria, too. In separate incidents. Our friend”—she still referred to the other, hidden psychic on the island as “our friend”— “used the power of the island, focused through a mystic object—that book, probably—to destroy them.” She looked up at Ernie, a desperate panic in her eyes. “Imagine seeing the most horrible hallucination of your life. Then imagine that ( hose hallucinations have the power to hurt you, just as if they were real Imagine someone making nightmares tangible, ghostly figures that, for once, can reach out and kill you. Then you might know what our friend is capable of. He or she can—create—physical manifestations, optical illusions, that are three-dimensional. That are capable of tearing a person apart.”

“Andrea—stop. I—I can’t deal with this.” Before she could react, he added, “I believe you, okay. I honestly believe you. But damn it, it’s too much for me. I don’t mind telling you you’re scaring me shitless.”

“Good. Because people who are scared don’t take chances.”

“Look, I—”

“Go, Ernie,” she ordered. “Go and let me rest, Give me a few minutes. I want to see if I can home in on that book of yours.”

“It’s not ‘my’ book, for Christ’s—”

“You know what I mean,” she yelled. ”Please. I lust need to rest awhile. I’ll be all right. Go out and fix yourself a drink.”

“That’s the best advice I’ve had in a long time.” He bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and she took his hand, squeezed it, and smiled. “I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute.”

He turned out the light and closed the door behind him. He was rather startled by the sudden realization that he’d do almost anything to protect the woman. She was sweet, kind. Even all her psychic hocus-pocus was becoming endearing to him. He realized that he was being slightly condescending. But perhaps that was better than admitting that everything she was saying was absolutely true. Then he would have to accept that someone among them was a murderer, a diabolical maniac who would kill and kill again. He’d come to Lammerty Island to do research for a harmless little article, not to play a role in Friday the 13th Part 47.

Out in the living room Anton was feeling no pain.

“Hello, dear fellow,” the pianist said, raising his glass. Ernie ignored him. Drunks always got on his nerves.

Ernie fixed himself a nice stiff drink and drank fully half of it before lowering his glass. Anton was studying him, amused. Ernie glared back and said, “What happened to everyone else? Frighten them off?”

A very dark, very sinister look crossed Anton’s face, but only for an instant. It was replaced by the silly grin and vacuous expression of before. “Mrs. P. is still sick,” he said, “but at least she’s stopped screaming. Delirium, that’s all. Poor Betty has been put to bed by our hostess. It seems the strain of the trip has been too much for our Miss Sanders.” He burped, coughed into his mouth. “Lynn is upstairs pouting, and the handyman—what’s his name—is inside attending to the cook. The cook and the handyman. Quite a combination if I say so myself.”

“And cousin John?” Done with his first drink, Ernie fixed himself another.

“Went tottering off into the great wilds of Borneo to search for the two little housegirls. I don’t doubt he’s boffing them in the bushes at this very minute. The lech. First Lynn, then the house children. What’s next for our favorite solicitor? Babies perhaps?”

Ernie ignored the man’s inane ramblings. “Damn. Someone should have gone with him. Why didn’t you tell John I was in my room?”

“Really,” the pianist huffed, as if offended. “You mean you wanted him to come knocking on your door while you were alone in there with our beauteous local ‘sensitive?’ Tell me,” he lowered his voice conspiratorially, “just how sensitive is she?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ernie said. “We were just talking.” Anton chortled and sat down heavily on the sofa, spilling part of his drink in his lap. He flicked away what he could of the liquid, and said, “If you say so, chum.”

“Why didn’t you go with—oh, never mind.” Ernie drank his second drink slowly. It wouldn’t do him or anyone else any good if he wound up in the condition Anton was in, although he knew that part of Anton’s dopiness was mere theatrics. The man loved letting his hair down and acting silly at the slightest provocation.

The door to the storage room Ernie slept in opened and Andrea stepped out, looking more alert than she had been all night. “Andrea, are you all right?” Anton, who’d been nodding off, or pretending to, on the sofa, looked up and took an interest once the young woman appeared.

“I’m all right,” she said. “How are you? Look, I didn’t mean to scare you in there, it’s just that—”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Ernie said, lifting his glass in a mock salute.

She nodded. “I’m glad you understand.”

“How about you?” He indicated his drink.

“Nothing for me, thanks. I need a clear head. Maybe later.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Listen. I think I have a fix on that book of yours. I mean on the book.”

Ernie was instantly galvanized. “Where?”

“It’s still in the house. Upstairs. I can—I can feel it. It’s too difficult to explain, but if we go upstairs I might be able to pinpoint it exactly.”

“Then let’s go.”

Anton leaned over the edge of the couch and yawned. “Don’t tell me you two are going to spend the night in his room reading.”

“Shut up, Anton,” Andrea said in a calm, no nonsense voice.

Anton feigned indifference. “It’s your libido, my dear.”

“Come on,” Andrea said, taking Ernie’s hand and leading him to the staircase. His curiosity piqued, Anton stood up—straighter on his feet than one would have expected—and walked in their direction. “Where are you two going? You’re up to something and I want to know what it is.”

“It doesn’t concern you, Anton.”

“Suffron, stay out of this.”

He looked at both of them in turn. “Don’t order me about. I’m not that inebriated, I assure you.” His tone was steady, too, and menacing. Ernie suspected Anton was one of these people who could let liquor affect him if he wanted to, but could easily shake off those same effects if it suited his purpose. “Neither of you own this house. If you can go upstairs, so can I.”

Andrea sighed. “We don’t have time to play games. Come with us if you want to.”

“Are you sure?” Ernie asked. “Remember— ‘our friend.’ ” He nodded his head in Anton’s direction meaningfully.

“It’s a possibility,” she admitted. “But if he is the one, he’ll find we’re not sitting ducks the way the others were.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out,” Ernie said. He followed Andrea up the staircase, and Anton followed him.

The necromancer smiled. The book. She’s found the book. I can tell. I thought she was the one hiding it from me, but I was wrong. She’s been trying to break through the barrier, too—and has succeeded. Well, it will do her no good. In a very short while I’ll have the book, right where I want it. In my hands. And if the bitch thought I was powerful before, if she thought I used the powers of the book aptly when I didn’t even know where it was, wait until she hands it over to me and I blow her and her friend and everyone left alive on this island to kingdom come.

Soon. Soon! The necromancer could hardly subdue its excitement.

Soon this game will be over. And I will be the one and only winner.

The necromancer controlled itself, calmed itself down.

And waited. Soon!

Chapter 42

Andrea proceeded to walk up to the second floor, pause on the landing, then walk up to the third floor with renewed determination. Once there, without stopping, without knocking, she marched right into the “master bedroom” and over to Lynn’s bed. Lynn was laying down, eyes open. The lamp on the night table was on and she was at first surprised, and then annoyed, at the interruption.

“What’s going on? What do you want, Andrea?”

Lynn looked past her friend and saw Ernie, then Anton, and was not amused. “What do you want? John isn’t here.”

“We’re not looking for John,” Andrea said. She bent down, thrust out her right arm, and started searching for something under the bed. “Andrea!” Lynn’s voice rose in stridency and anger. “What the hell—”

Andrea stood up suddenly. “This is what we were looking for.” She turned to Ernie. “It was stuck on the underside of the box spring with masking tape.” She pulled off the thin strips of adhesive and handed the book to Ernie. ”Late at Night. This is what we’re looking for, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ernie said cautiously. So, it was real, had been real, all along. A chilling sensation ran up and down his spine.

It was the same book, same cover, same type face, same everything. He began to flip through it, looking for the sections that he hadn’t already covered the night before.

“What is that?” Lynn wanted to know. “What was it doing under my bed?”

“Some women have men under their beds,” Anton said. “Other women have books.”

“I don’t know what it was doing there,” Andrea replied. “Maybe you can tell us.”

“Some stupid paperback novel,” Lynn exclaimed. “Who cares? I still don’t know what’s going on.”

Anton stepped over to the bedside and sat down next to Lynn. “Yes, why all this fuss about some cheap paperback? Curiouser and curiouser.” Lynn gave him a dirty look, then got up off the bed and stood over by the window. “Answer me, someone!”

“Ernie found this book last night in the bookshelf downstairs. By morning it had disappeared. I was able to tune in on the aura it emitted and traced it to this room. Something was blocking the book’s emissions before—or should I say someone—but once I had penetrated the psychic barricade it was a simple matter to find it.”

Ernie felt slightly apprehensive. How did he know Andrea had “traced” the book? She had found it so quickly that it seemed possible that she had planted it under Lynn’s bed herself. No, you have to stop thinking like that. You have to trust the woman. He felt three pairs of eyes boring into him; Andrea had left it up to him to fill in the rest.

He expelled the air in his lungs, rubbed his forehead, then forged ahead. “This book—it’s a story about this island, about an expedition. It’s the story of a young woman and her lawyer friend who bring some associates to the island. One by one people start disappearing—and dying.”

“Preposterous,” Anton said. “These silly trash novels. What they won’t think of next. Do you expect us to be frightened or something?”

“The characters in this novel—are us.”

Lynn was raising no objections. Ernie suspected she knew more than she was telling. Could she be the “friend” Andrea had warned him about? Anton, on the other hand, tried to grab the book from Ernie’s hands and kept harping on how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Ernie turned to the page that first introduced Anton’s literary counterpart. “Read this,” Ernie said. “It’s the description of a famous concert pianist who is a member of the party. See if it doesn’t sound like you.”

Anton took the book. It was not a flattering description. Anton’s nostrils flared and his face reddened slightly, but he seemed to recognize himself. He began flipping pages rapidly, stopping now and then to read a paragraph or two, pacing the short length of the room twenty times a minute. Lynn had dropped all protestations and stood by the window, looking pale and nervous. Ernie and Andrea watched Anton, wondering what his final reaction might be.

“This is uncanny, impossible,” Anton thundered. “Who could have written this book? We’re all in here. Every one of us.” He looked at their hostess. “Lynn. You and John. In the book you’re called Linda Bauman and Joseph Edwards, but it’s still the two of you. The house, this house, is described exactly as it is.”

“Other people have been to this island,” Lynn said quietly. “Anyone could have written a novel set on Lammerty Island.”

Ernie jumped in, mentioning all the possibilities and improbabilities that he had considered and rejected the night before. “You’ll have to read it yourself and see what we mean. The book is about what’s happening on this island this very minute. The story in that book is now taking place. We are the cast of characters. Everything in that book has come true, or might come true, before the night is up.”

“Speaking of which,” Andrea said, taking the book from Anton, “shouldn’t we see what is going to transpire? At least according to,” she read the cover, ” ‘Mr. Schumann’?” She stopped short for a second, as if startled by the name, recognizing something.

“What is it?” Ernie asked.

“No—nothing,” Andrea said, shaking off whatever had upset her and beginning to flip through the book. At one point she started reading. Anton and Ernie watched her, her lips moving furiously, her body trembling. “My God —my God. Ernie—you were right! Anton—this is incredible. Horrifying.”

Anton and Ernie exchanged incredulous glances. For once they were too shaken to snap at each other.

“My Lord.” Andrea looked up from the pages for a moment, white-faced and frightened. “The visions, the feelings I had downstairs, of what was happening to Jerry and Cynthia. This book describes it. If that really happened to them— and I know it did—God help them. God help them.”

Ernie couldn’t stand still any longer. He took the book from her, and began scanning the pages past the point where she had been. “I have to find out what happened to the others. The housekeepers. Gloria. Eric. The middle of the booklet’s see—”

Lynn spoke up at last. “I can’t believe you three, standing around like children. As if you could really predict the future by reading some idiotic book. I think you’ve all gone crazy. Absolutely crazy.”

“Don’t sit there and pretend to us,” Anton bellowed. “That book is an outrage, an—an abomination. An invasion of privacy. The work of the devil.” He started moving slowly, threateningly towards Lynn, his body quivering, eyes wide and full of menace. “You little witch. You invited me, all of us, on this trip. And now we find —that. You know what’s going on, you and your decrepit old lover.”

“Shut up! I don’t know anything about that book. You come bursting in here, accusing me.”

Andrea took Ernie’s arm. “Let her see it. Once she reads it herself she’ll—”

Lynn spat out her words. “I’m not interested. I thought you were a friend of mine. I thought you and Anton were both friends of mine. But I see I was wrong. You’re all against me. Even John—”

“Here!” Ernie shouted. “John has gone searching for the housekeepers—yes, that’s it!” He read out loud: ” ‘Edwards realized that he had taken the wrong path, and was heading away from the old mansion and towards the other end of the island.’ ”

He flipped the page, anxious to see what was going to happen. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought. Can I really believe this book is magical? That it dictates or has somehow recorded our future actions? Yet he kept reading, silently, ignoring the battle occurring on the other side of the room.

Anton was inches away from Lynn. “You’d better tell us what that book is, who wrote it, and what it’s doing here,” he said. “Or I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yes, drunk. And bound to get drunker. After reading that book.”

Lynn saw a scapegoat. She pointed to Andrea. “She found it. She probably put it there under the bed. To place me under suspicion. Andrea’s the psychic, the freaky one, we all know that.”

“Come on, Lynn—you’ve been going on about witchcraft and the supernatural ever since the very first day I met you,” Anton argued. “You may not have. Andrea’s psychic powers, but you share the same interests. You’re practically a fanatic on the subject. Worse even than Andrea. I wouldn’t put it past you to have planned this entire trip just so you could work some spell on us, or use this island for some demonic purpose. Is the season right? Is it the right day of the week? Are the planets in conjunction?” He looked at Andrea, who was hanging on his every word, alarmed and showing it. “She used to bore me silly with all that stuff. She’s gone through a dozen boyfriends and it’s no wonder. We all get sick of her—”

“I dumped you, Anton,” Lynn shouted, near tears. “Have you forgotten? And you’ve never gotten over it, have you?”

“ Why did you ‘dump’ me? Because I wouldn’t put up with your ridiculous—”

“Stop it!” Andrea’s voice was so loud and forceful that even Ernie paused in his reading to see what she had to say. Andrea went over to Lynn and took her by the shoulders. She looked for a minute as if she were about to tear their hostess’s arms off. “Lynn,” she said, slowly, deliberately. “You never told me you’d become that interested in the supernatural, Lynn. Never. Now I want an honest answer. Are you behind the things—the things that have been happening here? The disappearances, the deaths. Lynn—”

“Leave me alone.”

Anton was getting jumpier by the minute. “What deaths?”

Andrea shook Lynn back and forth. “Are you the one, Lynn? Is it you? Tell me, tell me or so help me, I’ll—”

Andrea was saved from further violence by the sound of Ernie’s verbal reactions to the section of the book he was reading. “God—according to this, John is the next one who’s going to die!”

Lynn pulled away from Andrea, her face twisted with confusion and fear. “John? Something’s going to happen to John. What, Ernie?

Tell me what!”

Ernie turned to her and was about to answer her question … when all the lights went out!

Chapter 43

It worked!

Get the book. Get the book now while everyone’s confused. Get the book. A bump. An outcry. Someone toppling over. Careful, careful— the lights won’t stay out for long; it’s taxing to drain away the electrical energy this way. You don’t want to be caught among them when the lights go on, not this way.

Someone’s touching you; shake them away, knock them over. Don’t let them stop you.

Got it! Yes, this is it, I can tell. This is the book at long last.

Now, over this way, past that shadow—rush them—don’t let anyone get in your way; just take the book, hide it where no one can find it. Even if they question me, search me, they won’t be able to find the book.

It’s a strain; if you drop your guard the lights will go on too soon—hurry, hurry—keep your mind on the lights while you run, run, run, run…

You’ve got the book you’ve got the book you’ve got the book you’ve got the book …

Now I’m going to make them all pay.

All of them.

* * *

The lights came back on.

Andrea was lying on the floor, rubbing her elbow and grimacing.

Lynn was leaning back against the wall, white as a sheet, her body shivering.

Anton had somehow gotten over to the bathroom door in the darkness.

Ernie stood in the center of the room, where he had been before the lights had gone out.

His hands were empty.

Anton was the nearest to Andrea. “Are you all right, my dear?” He gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet.

“No thanks to you,” she said. “You knocked me right to the ground, Anton. Where were you running to anyway?”

“I wasn’t running anywhere. I thought I was heading for the door, and some light, but apparently my inner radar wasn’t functioning too well.”

“Well somebody hit me. I landed right on my damn elbow.”

“Somebody touched me,” Lynn said. “Someone brushed past me. I felt them—only for a moment.”

“What are you raving about?” Anton snapped. “You look as if someone just ravaged you.”

“No. You don’t understand. There was something—funny—about them, something about their skin, a funny odor. I sensed something …”

“Leave the ‘sensing’ to Andrea, will you? Wonder what caused that blackout?” he asked. “Do you think the entire house was affected?” No one knew.

When they had collected themselves, Ernie looked at each one individually and said only four distinct words. “Who has the book?”

Anton looked down at the carpet. “It must have dropped to the floor.”

“You heard me. Which of you has the book?”

Andrea walked over to his side. “It’s gone?”

“Yes, it’s gone. Convenient for the lights to go out, wasn’t it? Someone took the book while the lights were out, and if I had a suspicious mind— which I do—I’d almost think the lights went out on purpose.”

“Come now, man,” Anton protested. “We were all standing here in plain view. None of us turned out any light switches or pulled any plugs. I didn’t see anyone sneak down to fiddle with the fuse box either, did you?”

“There are other ways of making lights go out,” Andrea said.

“Spells, I suppose,” Anton countered contemptuously.

Ernie got their attention again. “Listen. I don’t care about spells or plugs or fuseboxes. All I know is that the book is gone, and someone in this room is responsible. Now I want that book back and I want it now.”

“How do you know you didn’t put it somewhere?” Anton said. “Your pocket? Back under the bed? Why accuse us? You and Andrea were the ones who were so interested in it before.”

“Someone tore it right out of my hands,” Eric said. “The lights went out, we were milling around trying to find the light switch, bumping into one another—then suddenly I felt someone grab the book and pull it out of my hand. One of you. It had to be.”

Andrea looked tired. She sighed and said, “Ernie, it might have been somebody else. Anyone could have snuck in here and taken the book while the lights were out.”

“It would have been a neat trick.”

“I know that. But it’s not impossible. We’re dealing with forces—”

“Oh damn!” Ernie cut her off. “We’re all at one another’s throats.” He sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. “It’s a wonder any of us can keep our sanity. This whole business—it’s just crazy. I don’t know what to make of it. If what it says in that book is true, half of us are already dead. The housekeepers—eaten alive. Cynthia and Jerry, torn apart. Gloria dashed to pieces on the rocks. Eric—hacked to bits. God, I must be going crazy. Can I actually believe things like that can happen to people in this day and age? A grown man believing that ghosts, monsters, can tear people limb from limb.”

“You read all that in that book?” Lynn asked. She seemed on the verge of hysteria.

“We’ve been trying to tell you,” Andrea said. “The characters in that book, for some reason beyond our comprehension, are exact duplicates of you, me, everyone on this island. The situation, the relationships, the people—exactly the same.”

“But you’ve no proof,” Lynn challenged. “Where are the bodies? How do we know any of those things actually came to pass? Just because those people are missing …”

“That’s your answer right there,” Anton said.

Lynn walked over to him. “No, it isn’t. I won’t believe anyone is dead until I see their bodies.”

“Believe me, you wouldn’t want to,” Ernie said. “Their ends were distinctly unpleasant.”

“Ernie!” Andrea gave him a desperate look. “The book would have told us who ‘our friend’ is. We could have tried to stop them from hurting anyone else. Now it’s too late.”

“ ‘Our friend’?” Anton queried. “I’ve heard that somewhere before. Just what is she talking about?”

Ernie explained. “Andrea thinks someone on the island, one of us probably, is behind these deaths. Someone is using the island’s supernatural, or psychic, forces to kill people.”

“She or he can make thoughts come to life, turn thought into reality,” Andrea continued. “She or he can create physical manifestations that can kill, that can strangle or stab or tear you to pieces just as if they were real and tangible.”

“All this metaphysical stuff is wearing me out,” Anton sighed. “It’s beyond me, I admit it. I don’t know about all this psychic mumbo-jumbo. I just want to know if someone is really killing us all off or not. And I want to know why and how I can save myself. The rest of us, I mean. And if that book can tell us, I want that book. If none of us have it, perhaps someone else came in and grabbed it as Andrea suggested. Who else is in the house with us?”

Andrea tapped her lower lip. “Mrs. Plushing, right?”

“Hans is with her,” Anton said. “That makes two.”

“Betty,” Lynn offered. “She’s in her room.”

“Three. And we can’t discount the others.” Anton scratched his face. “You say that Eric’s counterpart is killed in the book, but we don’t know for a fact that he really is dead. He—or any of the other so-called disappearees could be wandering this house, could be hiding the book again this very minute.”

“The others are dead,“ Andrea said with grim finality.

“Whatever. Mrs. Plushing may not be that sick, if she’s sick at all. If she is sick, Hans could have left her side at any time without her even knowing it. And Betty has been by herself for the past hour or so. Any of them might have come up here and—” Anton strode purposefully to the door, opened it, looked out into the hall.

Ernie laughed. “You don’t think they’d still be hanging around, do you, Anton?”

“Wait a minute.” Andrea bit her lip and looked at Ernie. “Even if the door had been open, one of us might have shut it during the commotion to make it look as if there’d been an intruder.”

“Clever. A regular Sherlock Holmes, this one.” Anton closed the door again and walked back to his former spot. “You know who I think is behind this? Not Lynn — surprise, surprise — not me, perish forbid, or any of us in this room. Not Betty or Hans or the ones who’ve disappeared. Everson. This is his room, too; the book was found under his bed; Lynn doesn’t know how it got there, or so she says. Everson has been here before, might have had time to arrange a lot of nasty surprises for all of us, including that book. Maybe he’s a madman obsessed with justice, and has invited us all here to pay for some heinous crimes which we got away with years ago, cooking up elaborate, fitting punishments for us, and fooling us—some of us, at least—into thinking the ‘supernatural forces’ of Lammerty Island are responsible.”

“Ten Little Indians, ” Andrea whispered.

Lynn was not amused. “Stop it, Anton. John isn’t responsible for any of this.” She turned to Ernie and implored him, “Tell me what the book said about John. Please. You were about to. Before the lights. I have to know what’s going to happen to John. He’s going to be all right, isn’t he? Please tell me. I couldn’t bear it if he—”

Ernie swore. “My God. John. When the lights went out I’d just read about how he—or his counterpart—had come upon the foundation of the Pauling house. Something grabbed him—” He looked at Lynn. “I … don’t know what happened after that.”

“I thought you didn’t believe, Lynn,” Anton said.

Lynn ignored him. “I’m going to look for him.” She went into her closet, got out a coat, and began sticking her arms into the sleeves. “I’ll prove you’re wrong. John won’t even be there— where you said he was. He’s all right. He’ll come back. I’ll bring him back.” Lynn was in tears.

“We don’t know where the old foundation is,” Ernie said. “He was supposed to go to the Burrows House.”

Lynn’s mind was made up. “I’ll find him. And I’ll bring him back.”

“Listen—let me go look for him.”

“Ernie.“ Andrea grabbed him by the shoulder, squeezed his hand in hers. “Don’t go. Out there. I’m scared. I need you here.”

Anton frowned. “Touching. Well, I’m not leaving this house. The only time bad things happen to people on this island is when they go off by themselves.”

“Lynn,” Andrea pleaded. “Stay here. Or let’s all go together.”

“Not me,” Anton said.

Lynn’s mind was set. “I’ll go alone.” With a flick of her head, Lynn was out the bedroom door and racing down the stairs. Ernie tried to follow, but Andrea prevented it. “Please, Ernie!”

“I can’t let her go out there alone! She’s your friend, for Christ’s sake.”

Andrea looked as if she were carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. She pulled away from him, sat down on the bed. “I’m not so sure of that.”

“What do you mean? You don’t mean that she’s ‘our friend,’ do you?”

Andrea shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I know one thing for sure. We’ve both been friends for years, lived in the same city, and she’s never mentioned her psychic powers. Never mentioned it to me, of all people.

“She’s not telling us everything she knows.”

Chapter 44

Everson tried to pull away from the foundation, shaking his leg frantically in an effort to disengage whatever was holding his ankle. It was too late. He was wrenched through the surrounding underbrush and fell head over heels into the overstuffed hole. Sputtering, outraged, still half-hoping it was Eric or one of the girls playing a joke on him, he tried in vain to find a foothold amidst the vines and weeds and flowers which had come together to form a mat fully several feet above the bottom of the foundation. It was on this botanical cushion that he was struggling, thrashing wildly through the plant life like a man bouncing helplessly on a trampoline.

It was impossible to stand in this underbrush, although Everson gave it the old college try. He made an attempt to pull himself to his feet by holding on to the long-stemmed grasses growing up out of the hole, but succeeded only in slicing his palms open. The edges of the grasses were razor sharp. Within seconds, his hands were drenched with blood. He tried to lift himself up by throwing himself on the prickly vines growing at the edge of the foundation, but his arms and legs were punctured by the enormous thorns that covered the vines. He fell back on the “mat” and lay there gasping, his face contorted from the pain in his torn and bleeding limbs.

“Have to get out, must get out of here,” he kept muttering, reassured by the sound of his own voice. It seemed a ridiculous predicament to him, held captive by plants, but he would not entertain the notion that “sinister forces” were at work. Obviously his ankle had got caught on one of those vines. The more he had pulled, the more the vine had tightened.

But the pressure around his ankle had felt so much like fingers.

He waited until he had regained his wind, until his heart had stopped its pounding. He wondered if the girls had fallen in here—it certainly seemed difficult to get out once you were in. He looked around the enclosure but saw no one else. But the plant growth was so thick down here that it would be hard to catch sight of another victim unless they were moving about as he had been doing.

Still, just to be on the safe side, he called out the housekeeper’s names. Surely both of them hadn’t fallen in. In any case, the weeds were like cushions and it was unlikely they’d have been knocked unconscious. They would have been crying out for help; and even if they’d fallen asleep at some point, surely his fall into the hole, his voice yelling out, would have awakened them.

It was so dark down here. The rays of the moon seemed to be absorbed and neutralized as soon as they entered the hole. Well, time to try again, he told himself. He paused to investigate the cuts in his palms, the puncture wounds in his arms and legs, but the bleeding seemed to have already slackened. The wounds hurt like hell. He managed to rise to his knees without reaching out for one of the malicious bushes. He had enough painful injuries as it was.

He was about to try and stand up, hoping he could climb up the side of the embankment in a reasonably vertical position, when he felt a sudden, agonizing stab directly above his left ankle. The shock of it pulled him back down to a sitting position. “What the—!” It felt as if someone had shoved a fork into his leg. Pulling up his pants, he saw that a bluish-green vine was lying across the bottom of his leg, digging under his trousers. On the tip of the vine there was a small reddish flower, and in the center of this flower there were three long pistil-like growths which had attached themselves to his skin. Like needles, the pistils were inserted into his flesh. The whole surrounding area was swollen and turning blue. Everson looked at the vine and saw that it was slowly turning red in color.

The vine was sucking out his blood!

He tried to remain calm. Surely there was some other explanation. There were no man-eating plants in this part of the world. His face was hot, feverish, dripping with sweat. He stared and stared at the spot above his ankle, trying to see clearly in the dim light, seeing the pistils disappearing under the surface of the skin, bright red now, engorged with blood, his blood. He had to stop it. Grabbing the flower in his hand, he gave it a good wrench, but nothing happened. He pulled the vine, but the pistils were too deeply embedded in his flesh. Besides, pulling them out might only make it worse.

He decided to attack the vine itself, and holding it up in both hands, tried his best to tear it in two. It was no use. The vine was firm, rubberish, like insulated wire, impossible to rip apart. And meanwhile the swollen spot above his ankle had grown to twice its original size. He was beginning to feel weak and dizzy. He saw spots before his eyes.

Just as he was about to give the flower another wrench, he felt that same horrendous pain as before, only this time digging into his right arm. He had. scarcely finished ascertaining that another plant had attached itself to this appendage, when he felt another terrible jab on his thigh. This time the pistils were sticking right through the material of his clothes. He was shaking now, moaning out loud in misery, on the verge of completely losing the control he’d fought so hard to retain all of his life. Calm, stay calm, that’s your only way out of this.

And then one of the flowers reached out of nowhere and pushed itself into his cheek.

He clapped a hand to the side of his face, wanting to pull out the pistils, but afraid his flesh would tear off with them. The plant would not let go of his skin. He could feel the blood being drained out of his cheek, felt the numbness, the tissue beginning to swell. He felt more stabs of pain: left leg, left arm, forehead, calf, forearm. They were coming at him from all sides, these horrible, vampiric plant forms, stealing away his life’s blood. He was reduced to a jibbering, quivering mess, screaming and flopping about like a fish in a fisherman’s net, his body being tossed and pulled in all directions by the greedy sucking monstrosities attached to his body. Caught like a hospital patient tied to dozens of intravenous tubes, he could only lay back helplessly while his blood was thoroughly drained.

The vines began to tighten as Everson’s body shriveled, an empty vessel devoid of life. It was as if each vine wanted to capture that last drop, that last delicious taste of fluid before the others could. The vines began to pull against each other, snapping the lawyer’s body taut until it hung three feet above the mat, outstretched and rigid. Tension showed in the vibrating arms and legs of the victim, the limbs strained to the breaking point.

Slowly, inevitably, the limbs began to separate; muscles popped, sinews stretched and broke, tissue began to tear. Somewhat like a horse thief drawn and quartered in days of old, John Everson was shredded into six messy but bloodless segments.

Chapter 45

“Another one of these and I’ll forget all about this island, that book, and everything in it.”

Anton drank down another in a long line of martinis, put down the empty glass and smiled. He was sitting on the sofa in the lounge, and had brought the bottle of gin, the bottle of vermouth, the ice bucket, and the jar of olives over with him and placed them on the glass table.

“Is that wise, Anton?” Ernie said. “Don’t you think we should all keep our wits about us considering the circumstances?”

“To hell with the circumstances. I need another drink. And if you were smart you’d have one, too. If we’re going to die, we’re going to die, and we might as well go out with a smile on our lips. Besides, when it comes my turn to face these— these psychic .forces, or whatever they are, I’ll be much more prepared to deal with them if I’m a little bit blitzed.”

Pacing back and forth across the room, Ernie looked up and said, “I think the best way of facing this situation is stone-cold sober. Drunk you won’t have a chance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the pianist scoffed. “A drunk mind can deal with the horrifying, the terrible, the unreal, much more capably than the sober mind. A sober man can be driven out of his wits. A drunk man can only be shocked into sobriety. Ah, yes,” he sighed, holding up his new martini. “I can face anything with a pitcherful of these.”

Ernie smiled wryly. “I’m beginning to think you’re right.”

Anton was impressed. “Why, thank you.”

Ernie finally sat down over by the window, wondering how Andrea was doing. She had insisted they go back downstairs, then had decided to lay down in Ernie’s room again in the hopes of getting another fix on the stolen novel. Anton had begun tanking up again almost immediately, and Ernie—in spite of his dire warnings—was more than tempted to join him. But he wanted a clear head. Now most of all he needed one.

So he sat down, determined to protect Andrea from whatever was out there, with his life if need be. He was beginning to believe her, to totally accept all that she had told him, although part of him clung to the notion that it was only because it was dark out, because it was night, because they were on a spooky island and strange things were happening. Back home, in the cold light of day, he would have dismissed Andrea’s theories without a second thought. Yet here, now, in this awful quiet, this solemn darkness, he found himself embracing her theories wholeheartedly.

Even Anton was silent now, and Ernie found himself wishing the man would start yakking again, anything to shatter the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. No, be honest with yourself, you want Anton to talk because it will keep you from brooding, from questioning all this too closely, to stop you from wondering if Andrea, or Everson, or someone, is playing you for a fool.

Most of all he didn’t want to think about what a coward he was. He didn’t want to think about Lynn out there alone, about how he had let her go —about how he was glad that Andrea had held him, begged him to stay. It was still bugging him. He tried to pretend it was a lot of macho nonsense: the man rushing to the aid of the lady in distress—in this case, Lynn—who had pleaded with him to tell her what would happen to her lover. How could have he told her? How could he have told her what he’d read in that book? Bloodsucking vines? Malevolent plants?

How could he have told her that when she found her lover—if she found her lover—she’d find him in pieces?

So it didn’t take much urging on Andrea’s part for him to give up all thoughts of accompanying their hostess in her nightmarish quest. He didn’t know which repulsed him more: the thought of finding John’s corpse, of seeing it that way; the thought of becoming a victim himself of the same forces that had claimed the life of John Everson; or the thought of Lynn’s horror-stricken face as she gazed at the torn remnants of her lover’s broken body.

God, he was dying for a drink. He saw Anton sucking on an olive and was tempted to ask the pianist to make him a martini. He resisted the impulse.

Ever since they’d come downstairs he’d had the urge to do one of two things. The spirit was willing, but the flesh … the flesh was tired. He thought of looking through the house again for the book, searching the individual rooms as they did before, in the hope that whoever stole it had hidden it close by. His second urge was to check on Hans and Mrs. Plushing. He did neither of these things because he didn’t want to leave Andrea alone for a second. He would have stayed in his room with her, but she had insisted that she needed absolute privacy for the utmost concentration. No one could get in or out of that room, not Anton, not anyone, without first going past him, and he intended to make sure it stayed that way. Also in the back of his mind was the idea that the book—assuming it was indeed some sort of focal point for the island’s psychic forces-could also attract supernatural energy to the one who possessed it. He was rather glad it was temporarily out of his hands.

He wondered if he should ask Anton to check in on the cook and the handyman, but decided not to bother. Anton was going nowhere, that much was obvious.

Something else was bothering him. On their way downstairs they’d checked Betty’s room to see if she was all right, but it had been empty. He was hoping desperately that the poor woman had gone downstairs to help Hans with Mrs. Plushing, and not become one more victim of the island’s malevolent forces. He had to find out for certain.

Steeling himself for what he was sure would be a nasty rejoinder, he got up the nerve to ask Anton if he would go into the servants’ quarters and report back on who was there and what condition they were in.

The reply was not unexpected. “And why me, good fellow? You seem perfectly capable of looking into that miserable little sickroom yourself. I don’t like being near ill people, Thesinger. I might as well make that clear. I have always been extremely susceptible to other people’s germs.”

You are a germ, Ernie thought.

“No, I’m going to stay right where I am and keep my martinis nice and dry. Why don’t you be a good boy and see how the other half is doing yourself?”

“Because I don’t want to leave Andrea unguarded. She’s in a vulnerable position—”

“Come, come! Has she got you believing all that rubbish? All that woman is doing is catching up on her beauty sleep. Besides, if you need someone so desperately to protect her, what do you think I’ll be doing while you’re out of the room? I can look after her, I assure you.”

“Anton. I’m not leaving this room.”

“What? You don’t trust me? Is that it? What do you think I’ll do—molest the poor girl while your back is turned?”

The argument was brought to a halt when the front door flew open and a large, heavy figure moved brusquely in through the door.

“Hans! Where have you been?”

The handyman did not look happy. “Looking for a boat, Mr. Thesinger.”

“A boat?” Anton exclaimed. “What for? Planning to leave us?”

“Mrs. Plushing is sick. Very sick. I must get a doctor for her. Betty is in there watching her now and—”

“Thank goodness.” Ernie could breathe a little easier. “We didn’t know where she was.”

“She’s in watching Mrs. Plushing,” Hans continued. “I went to her room and asked if she would take over for me while I looked outside for a boat.”

“Did you find one?”

Hans shook his head morosely. “No. I looked everywhere. Up and down the shore. The shed out back. I found nothing.”

“What? No raft, no lifeboat?” Anton seemed anxious to subject the Swede to his teasing. “Perhaps we could pile into the Mary Eliza and sail her back to the mainland.”

“Don’t make jokes,” Hans said with a growl. “Mrs. Plushing being sick is not a laughing matter.” He gave Anton a long, dirty look, then stomped out of the room, the sound of his clomping boots receding steadily down the corridor.

“I wouldn’t want to see him when he’s mad,” Anton said. “Should have offered him a martini.”

“Oh will you shut up, Suffron. Take things seriously for a change.”

One moment Anton was sitting there looking stupid. The next he was sitting upright on the sofa, like a puma on the verge of pouncing. His manner transformed so abruptly that Ernie was completely startled. “Seriously? You want me to take things seriously.” Anton smashed his drink down on the table with such force that for a moment Ernie thought both glass and table would shatter. Anton was so angry he was literally quaking. “I read that—that infernal book of yours, Mr. Thesinger. I skimmed through it, very briefly, admittedly, but I managed to read the most interesting passages. I’m making jokes, sure—but I’m terrified. Aren’t you? Not because I believe the explanation conjured up by that— that self-appointed witch in your bedroom, but because I do believe that something, or someone, is out to get us all.” He was raving now, wild-eyed. “It’s a conspiracy. A conspiracy with us as its victims, Mr. Thesinger.” He looked around as if seeking an exit. “That book—there’s no other explanation. None. That pianist in Late at Night was me, is me. I can’t understand it.

“Let me ask you one question, my friend, and I want an honest answer from you.”

“What is it, Anton?”

“Did you read, did you find out, what happened, what’s supposed to happen to you?”

Ernie looked at the pianist, wondering what he was driving at. Had Anton managed to peek at the final chapters during those few minutes he’d had the book? The rest of them had concentrated on the sections describing what was supposed to have happened that day and “now”—early in the evening. “I never got to the end,” he finally replied. “I don’t know what’s to become of my counterpart, ‘Andrew Tennington.’ I don’t know if he lives or dies.”

“I don’t know what happens to you, either,” Anton admitted. “But I did come across the passage describing what was going to happen to me. Yes, Mr. Thesinger. I know how it comes out —for me.

“And I don’t mind telling you it isn’t pleasant.” Anton put his face in his hands, his body trembling. He looked up after a few moments, a study in abject human misery. “Mr. Thesinger. Help me. Please!”

Chapter 46

They’ll never find it. Never. No one will think of looking for the book there. It’s mine for the taking. Once I’m through with all of them, I can pick it up at my leisure. The book is mine the book is mine the book is mine the book is mine the book …

All around them, around the others on the island, there was the maelstrom. Fear. Terror. Disbelief. But through it all the necromancer, hidden beneath its odious human mask, would stay calm, would walk among them unbeknownst and lead them all astray.

Soon now. The last few remaining victims would rush headlong to their fates, and there would be no one left alive to interfere.

The necromancer stood amidst the turmoil, pretending, always pretending, giving its last great farewell performance for the dirty, frightened masses. The necromancer thought back to what it had once been, before it had developed its uncanny powers, before it had been transformed into what it was today.

Once the necromancer had been a mere human, like all the rest of them, a mere pathetic piece of flotsam buffeted by the winds and tides of humans far more powerful than itself. Then, in that miserable human form, seeking a release from its torment, seeking a way to become less vulnerable, it had come upon the dark arts, chanced to delve deeper into their mysteries and learn how to summon magical forces beyond all comprehension. And then: slowly, carefully, it had learned how to use those forces for its own ends. Somewhere along the way it had turned into the being it was now.

Now there was no more pain, no more torment. All those who had caused the necromancer suffering would pay and pay dearly. No one would get in its way.

They would all pay now for what had gone before.

When Hans got back to Mrs. Plushing’s room, he could scarcely believe his eyes.

Betty was at the foot of the bed, her hand in her mouth, looking helplessly at the horrifying specter in front of her. Mrs. Plushing’s condition had deteriorated incredibly in the past half hour. Hans took one look at Betty and knew the poor girl was near the breaking point. Betty looked over at him and he could read her eyes: I don’t know what to do.

Only a doctor would know what to do, and there wasn’t one available. Hans stood near the top of the bed and looked down at the pathetic figure lying there. Mrs. Plushing’s hair was almost all gone now; her wrinkled scalp was covered only with a few white wisps of cottony curls. There were open sores dotting her scalp and face, awful-looking lesions from which ran an odorous yellow fluid. The face had swollen to almost twice its original size. The lips had puffed up monstrously, curling under themselves and exuding the same whitish pus. The eyes were tiny craters surrounded by flesh. Hans looked away from the face, and studied the rest of her body. Unaccountably, there were red stains—lines, really-dissecting her body crossways every few inches. Was she bleeding?

Hans looked at Betty, who was trembling, on the edge of hysteria. He pointed at the red stains on the blankets, his eyebrows raised in puzzlement. Betty flapped her mouth open and shut, raising her hand and trying to gesticulate an answer. She settled for shaking her head back and forth. She didn’t know where the stains had come from, why they were there. Then she bent over to one side and retched, her heavy body heaving and her throat emitting wracking coughs. Hans went to her side, trying to help.

Betty stood up abruptly, held him at arm’s length. She was white-faced, trembling. “No, I’m all right. It’s just—I’ve been standing here watching her get sick—sicker and sicker, and there’s nothing I can do. What’s wrong with her? She was just a little dizzy before, a little tired. That’s all. And now?”

Betty didn’t have to say anything more. The pitiful sight of the wasted woman on the bed was eloquent enough.

Hans stepped away from Betty, who was trying to wipe away the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. He knew he should wait for Mr. Everson to get back, but he also knew his employer would be just as helpless in this situation as he himself was. He grabbed the top of the covers under Mrs. Plushing’s neck, and prepared to pull them down. He glanced at her face for a second, reassured by the breathing sounds she made that she was still alive. For a moment his eyes passed over her eyes, those little black pools sunken beneath those folds of swollen flesh. The eyes seemed—agitated, alert. Was Mrs. Plushing somehow conscious, aware of what was happening to her, but unable to communicate, unable to tell them what it was that might have affected her this way? He hoped for the woman’s sake that she was unable to understand what was happening to her, even though he knew that consciousness would be the first sign that she was on the road to recovery. If only the swellings, the sores, could disappear first. And her hair—what would she do when she saw what had happened to her hair? The eyes, though; Hans could not shake the feeling that Mrs. Plushing was trying to tell him something. The eyes did not follow his movements, did not move around, gave no appearance of being capable of actually focusing on anything. Yet—they spoke volumes. The eyes were full of terror, a numbing, mind-snapping kind of terror that had struck the woman dumb. But the eyes could not speak, could not tell Hans what had done this to her. He was left to his own devices.

He held the ends of the blankets firmly, then yanked them down and off the woman’s body. The red stains were darker on the sheet underneath. Hans reached out to touch the reddish fluid, which he now was sure was blood, but thought better of it at the last second. He took the sheet and braced himself, preparing to fully expose the woman’s body.

Before he could pull the sheet down, Betty whimpered loudly and ran out of the room. It was just as well; he didn’t need her getting hysterical on him.

The sheet was pulled down and piled at the bottom of the mattress.

Mrs. Plushing was dressed in pajamas and a blue bathrobe. Her clothes were soaking red with blood. For a second Hans’ heart literally ceased to beat. He was looking down at a corpse. Mrs. Plushing’s limbs had all been severed; lying in the bed was a collection of fragments. Hans turned away, stifling a scream by biting down hard on his lip.

He had to have been mistaken. He forced himself to take a closer look.

Yes, he had been mistaken. On closer inspection, he saw that the woman’s body parts were mercifully still attached to one another. But at each joint, at every point where the different bones connected there was a circle of dripping gore. Carefully, Hans opened her robe; then pulled up the sleeves and legs of the pajamas to expose the sick woman’s flesh. For some reason, deep, livid wounds had erupted at the spots where her appendages joined her trunk—as well as at the knees, ankles, waist, and elbows. The wounds were so deep that at some points the bone was exposed. The injuries were circular, running entirely around each body part, dividing Mrs. Plushing into sections. It was as if the fibers of flesh were being pulled apart, torn and shredded as she lay there.

Hans heard a kind of scratching sound. He looked down at her left ankle, lifted the leg. The wound did not yet run around the whole ankle, but even as Hans watched, the slit was extending right in front of his eyes, as if an invisible surgeon was standing there slicing the flesh with a scalpel. He carefully studied the other wounds, knowing that she was in more danger of dying from loss of blood—the mattress was soaked with the woman’s blood and body fluids—than from catching a chill because her body was exposed. In each case it was the same; something was tearing the flesh where her body parts connected. As he watched, the cuts got deeper and deeper, wider and wider. He could see muscles, individual fibers, of skin beginning to pull apart, separate. If it kept up eventually she would indeed become just a bedful of body parts.

Feeling utterly helpless for the first time in his long life, Hans started crying, pulling his hair, gnashing his teeth in fear and terror. He chewed on his fingers, oblivious to the pain, the taste of his own blood. This could not be happening— what he was seeing in front of his own eyes was an impossibility. There were no diseases that could do this. Mrs. Plushing had not been cut with knives, scissors—it was her own body turning against her.

Fighting against madness, Hans raised his head towards the ceiling and screamed.

Chapter 47

Lynn Overman raced back to the guest house and wondered at what point everything had started to go wrong.

This is all my fault, all my fault, she repeated to herself over and over again, knowing that no one would deny it. She had to go and fool with the very forces of nature, and now she—and everyone on the island—was paying the price.

It’s all your fault, Bob, she thought, all your fault for having dumped me on that awful day in the restaurant in Boston.

But she knew she couldn’t really blame Bob for what had happened. It was her fault, and hers alone. No one else could bear the responsibility.

And now, because of her, John Everson was probably dead.

Flashlight in . hand, she’d gone through the woods, following ancient paths that had led nowhere, dodging tree branches and prickly thorns and pushing her way through foot-high weeds. But she couldn’t find her way to the old Foundation. She was tired and scared; lonely and depressed.

Oh, John, John. I’ve failed you.

She stopped for a moment, resting, letting misery wash over her. Why did it have to end up this way? An afternoon’s amusement had turned into … into a nightmare. And she had involved a lot of innocent people. Inadvertently perhaps, but in the long run did that really make a difference?

She should have known better.

It was true, it was all true, what Anton had said up in the master bedroom. She had gone from occult enthusiast to active practitioner; nothing serious, of course, just a few minor spells. But she had become so obsessed with it, so completely carried away, that her friends—especially those who did not share her interest—had become alienated. One boyfriend after another, except Anton —no matter how much he said to the contrary. Who knows? Perhaps if she had stuck it out with Anton in time even he would have been turned off by her interest in the supernatural. He certainly seemed impatient with the whole subject.

How often had she intended to share her new knowledge, her obsession, with Andrea. Andrea, her old friend who lived only a few blocks from her in Boston. But she held back, wanting to keep her new interests, her new friends who shared those interests, to herself. She realized she had always been jealous of Andrea. She did not want her obsession to turn into an area of competition between them; she knew she would lose. So, although Andrea had once confessed, after they’d graduated college, that she was more than a believer—she was a genuine psychic, something she had not even shared with Cynthia—Lynn had not returned the favor.

Lynn had known for some time now that she and John were not going to make it as a couple. But she hadn’t been in any hurry to end it; let the ball drop when it may. But if he was dead, really dead—and she refused to completely accept that no matter what the evidence might be—she would feel a definite loss, and a guilt she would carry with her always.

It all started the day when she’d lunched with Bob on Newberry Street, the day he’d told her they were through. She remembered running out of the restaurant, going home, feeling lost and alone and miserable, not wanting to go on unless she had some assurance that it was worth it, some indication that real love and purpose might at last come her way.

So bored, lonely, haunted and driven by forces she had no control over, Lynn had cast that spell, never daring to dream it might actually work. She had said all the right things, concentrated, worked her little magic, and voila—it had happened; she had stepped into the future, one year into the future to be exact. She had wanted to see something, anything, in that room—one year hence—that would indicate future happiness. Instead she had seen nothing, just the same old bed, posters, furnishings, nothing to indicate her life had changed; but nothing that made it clear that it had not changed either. The only thing in the room that was different was the object she’d seen lying on the night table. She’d picked it up, wanting to see what it was. Her attention had been diverted by the figure standing off to one side in the shadows. To this day she wondered if it had been someone who had been—would be—in that room on that day one year in the future, or something else, some person or thing coming out of the ether, the astral plane between dimensions.

She wouldn’t know for another six months, when that day arrived. Perhaps that other figure had only been herself, her future self.

Anyway, distracted by that shadowy, menacing figure, she had held on to that object without thinking, had brought it back to her own time with her. She knew then that it had automatically become a mystical object, source of great power to anyone daring enough to use it— but it had frightened her. She was wary of it. Without stopping to give it more than a perfunctory inspection, she had put it away. She had resisted the thought of hiding it, placing it under lock and key, like the precious object it was, afraid someone would take it to be a valuable. Instead, she left it right out in the open like the “purloined letter,” sure that no one would give it the slightest notice.

And that had been her undoing.

It all comes back to get you in the end. What had one of her occult instructors told her? ” When you mess around with the universal order of things, the very fabric of nature, you start in motion actions and reactions that are awesome and terrible to contemplate. One should think carefully before interfering with life’s natural progression.”

If only she had listened.

If only she had let go of that object before returning to her own time.

If only she had let go of the book.

Chapter 48

Betty sped down the narrow hallway between the servants’ quarters and the kitchen, trembling and crying and half out of her mind. She had seen quite enough in Mrs. Plushing’s room, enough to last her a lifetime. There had been nothing more that she could have done.

She darted through the kitchen, out the door and past the dining room table. People. The others were all in the lounge, drinking and talking while Mrs. Plushing bled to death. What did they care? What did any of them care?

Betty was surprised to see only the two men. Where was everyone else? Lynn? Andrea?

Anton spotted her and patted the space next to where he was sitting. It was obvious that he’d had a great deal to drink. Ernie was standing over the pianist, his hand on the other’s shoulder. They must have been whispering, talking about her, laughing at her. Stop that, she told herself. Anton likes you, really likes you, he’s told you so. Why must you think that everyone hates you? Still, after all she’d been through, it wasn’t easy trusting people.

She said hello to the two men, but declined Anton’s invitation. Instead she went to the bar and made herself a cocktail. A nice, sweet concoction with lots of sticky grenadine and two or three cherries. What would one call this? She wondered if she should ask the fellows, but the two of them seemed so solemn, Anton’s joviality so forced. Suppose neither of them answered her and she had to put up with the silence that came afterwards?

The silence. The awful silence. She had had her fill in it in school, at home. Parents who ignored her, siblings who resented her, friends who only used her, boys that never called, girls who neglected to send invitations, phones that never rang, teachers who looked through her. Silence. All her life, silence. Worst was the silence that issued from her own mouth.

She wiped away a tear from her cheek—silly goose, feeling sorry for yourself when an important, dignified man like Anton has been at your side practically all day; a world-famous concert pianist. She sipped her drink and smiled. Why, Anton had been saying such flattering things, wonderful things about her. And Anton had been seen with some of the most glamorous women in the world—but they‘d been too shallow, he’d said, too self-absorbed. He needed somebody different, somebody who could really care about him. Betty knew this was only the beginning of a beautiful romance. She sensed, knew deep down, that after a proper interval he would ask her to marry him. She had never been one for marriage and babies, the whole bit, but she had a desperate need to be wanted by someone, to share her life with someone else. To be less lonely.

To endure less silence.

With Anton at her side she could endure just about anything.

She thought again of Mrs. Plushing, of the ones who’d disappeared on the island, and shuddered. What if something like that happened to Anton? No—she wouldn’t let it. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Anton. Not him. The others could go to blazes—snooty Cynthia, haughty Andrea, condescending Lynn, all the others—but Anton must remain safe and sound and whole— for her.

Feeling a little bit better now, she took her drink and sat down beside the pianist. Anton smiled down at her. “Hello, my pretty,” he said. He looked up at Ernie, who began walking over to the corridor leading to his room. “Well, Mr. Thesinger, do you think we should tell her? Should we tell Betty about the danger that all of us are in.”

Betty’s hackles rose. Something was wrong.

Ernie stood in thought for a moment, then said. “No. There’s no need to upset her.”

“Why?” Betty asked. “What’s going on? You can tell me.”

“Yes,” Anton agreed. “I think she should know. Everything. Our Betty is a brave one, aren’t you Betty?”

What was going on? she wondered. Anton sounded so bitter, almost frightened. Surely his odd remarks, his sardonic delivery, the nasty way he looked at her, that had something to do with it. He was upset, that’s all. Surely he couldn’t be mad at her?

“What are you talking about?” she asked, looking from Anton to Ernie and back again. “Is something wrong?”

Anton chuckled and she didn’t like the sound of it. ” ‘Is something wrong? Is something wrong?’ ” she asks. “Poor deluded little fool.” He whirled on her, snarling. “Everything is wrong, you little—”

“Anton!” Ernie’s voice was a command. Betty was grateful. She could tell that Anton had been building up to saying things they would both have regretted later. She reached out and held his hand. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help. I want to help.”

Anton looked down at the hand covering his own as if he had discovered a slug or earthworm crawling across his fingers. He shrugged it off, fidgeting in his seat. “She wants to help,” he told Ernie.

“There’s no point in upsetting everyone,” Ernie said. He looked squarely at Betty. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s had too much to drink.”

“I can see,” Betty said calmly, her face scrunched up in motherly concern. She took Anton’s glass away from him. “Please, dear—I don’t want you to get sick. Are you sure you should be drinking this?”

“ ‘Dear? Dear!‘ ” he said incredulously, mimicking the woman’s voice. “Did you hear that? She called me ‘dear.’ ”

“Anton, there’s no need—”

The pianist turned on her, his little victim, done to a turn, all ripe and rare and ready for him to sink his fangs into. “I am not your ‘dear’—”

“Anton, we’ve been so close these past few hours, you don’t have to—if you’re upset—”

“Shut up, you little cow. Close to you? I’d sooner be close to a pile of excrement.”

Ernie kept saying, “Anton, Stop It!” He was trying to head him off, trying to keep him from uttering the terrible words that followed, and for that Betty was deeply grateful, truly grateful, but it was much too late. They just came pouring out, those awful things, those cutting words, the truth, the real truth, Anton Suffron’s real, true feelings for her.

“You should be glad I even bothered to associate with you. You’re a—a worm of a woman, a nobody, a squat, homely piece of diseased tissue without a sole redeeming feature. It’s women like you—dogs, rodents— that make up the most useless, the must utterly hopeless segment of society. To think you would interpret my attentions as flirtation, as love; I’d sooner romance an orangutan. Look at you, sitting there whimpering —always that damned whimpering—your eyes red, those fat cheeks and teensy lips, your face white and bloated like a horrible little fish, a blow-fish— that’s it!” Anton stood up abruptly, began to lower the zipper on his pants. He pulled out his rather tiny penis and flapped it in Betty’s face. “Go on, little blowfish, isn’t this what you were after? A thrill to last you a lifetime. Go on—suck it, suck it, suck it. Blow me now, my little fish.”

Ernie took two long steps and socked Anton in the jaw. The pianist plummeted to the floor, falling across where Betty’s legs would have been had she not jumped up from the couch seconds earlier and ran in tears towards the staircase.

“Betty!” she heard Thesinger yelling after her. “He was drunk. Don’t listen to him. He’s a fool, an asshole.”

No, she thought bitterly, her face turning crimson, her tears scorching her cheeks, I’m an asshole. Me, me, me, me, me!

And she ran into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Chapter 49

Hans got up from the lower bunk bed and paused, steeling himself for what he’d see after he crossed the room to where Mrs. Plushing was lying. He had gotten hold of himself, wiped away the tears, and decided the only thing to do was to wait for Mr. Everson to get back and to hope— and pray—that his employer would know where there was a seaworthy boat on the island. There was nothing he could do for Mrs. Plushing. Nothing. He had pulled the covers up, made sure she was still breathing—she was making ragged, choking gasps now—checked her faint, fading pulse. Blood dripped down off the sides of the mattress, her blood, from all her terrible wounds. He had wrapped torn sheets, bandages around each tear in her flesh, but the blood came out, soaked through, ran down her limbs and onto the bed. He knew it was only a matter of moments before she might die. He thought of getting the others, but doubted they would know what to do any more than he had. He was afraid to leave for even a second, afraid he would return and find that something even worse had happened to the woman.

What could be worse?

He walked over slowly, studying her prostrate form, begging silently for her to recover. The red stains on the uppermost blanket were spreading, but had not yet completely soaked the material. Her condition was unchanged. Her head, if anything, seemed puffier, the outer skin almost translucent. He could see every vein, every capilary in her face. The skin looked so fragile he was afraid it would crumble like old parchment if he so much as touched it.

Death. He was looking at death.

A thought tripped lightly across the back of his brain, stopped, receded, came forward again, teasing him, taunting his memory. Finally, he caught it, held onto the thought, refusing to release it into his subconscious again. The content chilled him. What if Mrs. Plushing’s illness was contagious?

He could not think of such things. Not now. Not yet. Not ever. Nothing could make him leave the dying woman’s side.

Still, it hurt just to look at her.

He went back to the bunk bed, sat down, put his face in his hands. He wondered idly where the girls and Eric had disappeared to. He could have used their company. He heard the voices filtering down the hall from the room beyond the kitchen. Anton’s. Thesinger’s. Mr. Everson was not back yet. He didn’t want to go in and see the others, didn’t want them to see that he’d been crying. “Show your weakness and they destroy you.” His father had told him that many years ago, and he still knew that it was true.

Staring down at his feet without seeing, Hans did not notice the movement on the other side of the room. On the bed. He did not see the lifting, shifting motions underneath the sheet. Did not see the fingers digging out from underneath the covers. In a few seconds, Mrs. Plushing’s entire right arm was exposed.

It was not connected to her body.

Moving under its own power, the arm pulled itself down the length of the bed, trailing jagged red pieces of torn ligament and the towel that had been wrapped around it. It reached the end of the bed, then tumbled onto the floor and out of sight.

Five minutes later Mrs. Plushing’s left foot, detached from the leg, thrust out from under the blanket of its own accord and squeezed into the aperture between the mattress and the bottom of the bed.

Hans got up, wondered where he might find a cigarette—anything to keep him from shaking-decided against smoking, sat down again.

The right arm was slowly crawling along the baseboard perpendicular to the bed. It left a narrow smear of reddish fluid.

Four minutes later Hans heard a strange plopping sound and got up to investigate.

He looked down at Mrs. Plushing. Everything seemed to be all right. The stains in the blanket had gotten no larger. Perhaps the bleeding was slackening. The covers seemed a little loose on Mrs. Plushing’s right side. He leaned over and grabbed the end, meaning to tuck it under the woman’s shoulder. She should be kept as warm as possible.

Something was wrong. There was too much-space. Space where there should have been substance. Space where there should have been—

He lifted up the blanket. Her right arm was gone.

He heard the same plopping sound again, pinpointed it, looked over to Mrs. Plushing’s left side. As he stood there watching, Mrs. Plushing’s left arm wrenched off her body, pulling away from the shoulder like a piece of candy at a taffy pull, the fleshy fibers stretching, parting, breaking with a moist wet snap.

A low keening sound of horror and disbelief ushered forth from the handyman’s mouth. Mrs. Plushing’s arm was pulling itself up onto her chest, the fingers working, working, struggling to get over the twin mounds of the bosom, across the torso to the other side. Once there, the hand rose upwards in the air, the rest of the arm still laying on the bed. Hans backed away from the fingers that reached and stretched in the direction of his face.

Something had wrapped itself around his ankle. He looked down and saw the other hand by his foot. It was exerting a tremendous pressure on his leg, trying to topple him to the floor. He lifted his leg, shook it furiously, screaming. The severed arm flew across the room and crashed onto the top of the dresser. He looked back to see where the other arm had gone. He gasped.

The spot on the pillow where Mrs. Plushing’s head had been was empty. There was a large gaping hole at the top of her neck, discharging viscous fluid.

Hans jumped at the sound of another harsh noise at the bottom of the bed. He looked, saw the woman’s right leg falling to the floor, skittering towards him under its own power. It was as if the pieces of her body were attached to invisible strings, manipulated by an unseen puppeteer. Their movements were jerky, hesitant, but surprisingly speedy. The right foot slid across the room, slamming painfully into Hans’ ankle. He tottered on his feet, tried to grab something to hold him up, fell hard onto the cold wooden floor. His shoulder ached; something felt broken. As he began to pick himself up, his head was grabbed from behind by five disembodied fingers. The left arm was hanging down behind his head, the fingers trying to dig into his eyes. He reached behind and got a grip of the lower half of the arm, tried to yank it off. The fingers clawed his face, drawing blood, the nails puncturing the flesh.

Hans pulled as hard as he could and the arm went flying towards the bunk bed.

He got to his feet, tried to collect what remained of his sanity, wondering why it felt like there was no air in the room. He tried to shake off the persistent dizziness, the nausea. He had to get out of the room, lock the door behind him. He didn’t understand what had happened to Mrs. Plushing’s body, but he knew he could not fight it. He looked carefully around the room but none of the detached body parts were in sight. He took one last look at the gaping hole in her neck, swallowed the rising bile in his throat, and started for the door.

From underneath the bed rolled Mrs. Plushing’s puffed, misshapen head.

The head lay directly in Hans’ path, as if trying to bar him from leaving. It was larger than it had been before, completely hairless, unrecognizable as Mrs. Plushing’s, unrecognizable as once having belonged to a woman. Hans stood transfixed, unable to tear his eyes away. That couldn’t be what was left of his friend, of the woman who’d been so wonderful to him for all these years.

It seemed disrespectful to leave the head lying there. The least he could do for the woman was pick it up, put it back on the pillow.

What are you waiting for? he asked himself. It’s just a head. It can’t hurt you. Pick it up, or walk to one side of it and get out of the room. He started to bend down, hands open to receive. He remembered the forceful blow from the severed leg, the raking nails of the severed hand. It can’t hurt you? He forced himself to bend down, further down, his arms outstretched and ready to pick up the loathsome object.

Before he could touch it, the head swiveled round on the floor, mouth upraised, and bit down with agonizing strength on Han’s vulnerable right hand. He stood up, pulling away. Three of his fingers were missing.

The head spit out the chewed remains of his fingers, and grinned.

Hans ignored the horrible pain radiating from the dripping ends of his fingers, and started for the door. The head, anticipating his movements, rolled at a dizzying speed and cut him off. Hans screamed, sure this was some nightmare, refusing to believe that this could be happening to him. He resisted the urge to lift his foot and kick the head out of his way. That was once Mrs. Plushing. The head sat there on the ripped pieces of the cook’s upper neck like a dog on its haunches, snarling and spitting and daring him to step over the threshold. Hans moved forward, ready to jump over the head, ready to run screaming for his life.

Somehow the head managed to sink its teeth into Han’s right calf. The pain was excruciating. Hans jumped about on one leg, hollering and crying, unable to bear the feel of those jaws sinking in deeper and deeper into his leg.

The teeth released their grip, then sunk in again, a better, deeper grip.

Hans’ blood mingled with the saliva and whitish liquid dripping from the head’s mouth. He screamed and screamed, flailing about, knocking into a chair, the dresser, smashing things onto the floor. He lifted his leg and shook it fiercely, determined to remove the terrible ornament attached to it. Through the blood and the pain and the tears he tried to think of the best course of action. Thrashing around the way he was doing was accomplishing nothing. Through the encroaching madness in his fevered brain, he saw a possible solution. He bent the upraised leg at the knee, twisted it just so, and began to shove it again and again against the wall. Instead of his leg bearing the brunt of the impact, the head took all the punishment. Good. Good. Frantic and half out of his mind, Hans beat the head against the wall over and over again. The teeth would not release the grip. He summoned every bit of strength that he had left, and without any thought of what damage he might do to his own body, he smashed the head repeatedly against the sharp corner of the dresser. Now it was having some effect. The fibrous, flaking, crusty skin began to rip and tear, the skull shattered, and a yellowish fluid gushed out of the wound. Hans would not stop until the thing let go, until it stopped moving. Still the head hung on, the mouth emitting the most horrible growling noises. It would not die.

Harder, harder, he crushed the head against the bureau. Do Not Stop Until It Is Dead. God forgive him; he was determined to survive at any cost. The head began to squeal, a high-pitched wail of frustration and determination. The teeth chomped down to the bone.

Hans ignored the pain as best he could, and hobbled over to the night table next to Mrs. Plushing’s deathbed. He pulled out the drawer, throwing the contents onto the blanket. Quick. Quick. Find something. Anything. Something sharp. His fingers found, gripped, pulled out a needle. A nice, sharp needle. He lifted his leg up onto the bed so he could get at it better. He prepared to thrust the needle into the head.

But the face was different this time. Recognizable. It was his beloved Mrs. Plushing again. She had let go of his leg, what was left of it, and was looking at him piteously.

The mouth moved. “It’s me, Hans,” she said. “Mrs. Plushing. You wouldn’t hurt me, would you?”

There was a moment during which Hans paused, weighing his decision.

Then he stuck the needle savagely into the woman’s eyeballs.

White stuff came out, spattering his hands. While the head squealed in agony, he grabbed a chair, lifted it high in the air, and brought it down on the head with a force he’d never known he possessed.

The head burst.

Blood and brain matter, unidentifiable substances, poured out, splattering across his clothes. He closed his eyes, sickened beyond words.

He opened his eyes, afraid to see the messy horror laying on the bed.

There was nothing there.

He looked down at his leg. There was no injury.

He looked at his hand. The three fingers were intact.

He put down the chair, inhaling huge quantities of precious oxygen. Let it be a nightmare, he prayed. Please let it all have been a nightmare.

There was no sign of Mrs. Plushing—any part of her—in the room.

He walked out, trembling, and went to the bathroom. Once there, he turned on the cold faucet all the way and held his head under the water. It’s over, he thought. Whatever it is, whatever it was, whatever happened. It’s over.

He turned off the water, pulled a towel off the rack, began to dry his face.

He saw something red on his wrist. Felt pain.

A line, a hairline scratch, was forming on his wrist, encircling it.

There was another line going around his neck.

One each at his elbows.

He smashed the mirror with his fist, took the sharpest, biggest piece of broken glass, and thrust it into his throat.

He died gurgling on his own blood.

Chapter 50

“You blasted idiot, Anton. What the hell made you do a thing like that!” Ernie was fuming, absolutely incensed at what the man had done to Betty. That poor woman was upstairs in tears, and all because Suffron didn’t have the sensitivity of a petrified dog turd.

Anton was back at the makeshift bar, opening another bottle of gin. “Oh will you shut up!” the pianist snapped. “I am tired of you, tired of your self-righteous attitude, your insistence on running to the aid of defenseless females. I am sick of the whole lot of you. Sick and tired—”

Ernie turned away, tuning out. There was no reasoning with Anton now. His drunkenness had gone beyond mere theatricality; he was now completely inebriated. The fact that the man was still on his feet was testament to his amazing constitution; most people would have passed out by now. Anton was running on pure nervous energy.

“I refuse to buckle under in this, our hour of need,” Anton ranted. “They’re all gone. They’re all dead. All accept you and me. Well, I SHALL NOT DIE, I TELL YOU. I am immortal, a genius. I cannot die. In a few minutes,” he said, “after I fortify myself with a few more martinis, I shall march out that door to meet my maker. And I will spit in his eye.”

“Quiet down, Anton. I think somebody’s calling from the servants’ quarters.”

“To hell with them. They’re servants, aren’t they? Let them come here and serve us. I will not run at the beckoning of the little people.” He drained his glass, started fixing another cocktail. “I shall march out that door, wander through the night as I’m supposed to do in that damnable book of yours—”

“It’s not my book.”

“—and I will defy the gods. I will not try to escape the fate in store for me. And you know why? Because I think it’s all a crock. Nothing’s going to happen. There’s an explanation for everything. Everything. I don’t believe it. Not a word of it. Not anymore. I’m going to walk out that door—and nothing’s going to happen to me.”

Ernie could have sworn there was some commotion in the other part of the house, but Anton was talking so loudly … Well, whatever it was, he was sure Hans would have everything under control. It sounded as if someone was banging on the wall in here, yelling.

“Anton, will you shut—”

“Not a damn thing is going to happen.”

Forgetting the noises he’d heard, Ernie decided to torment his companion. “Tell me something, Anton. Just what is it that’s supposed to happen to you, hmmm? Why don’t you tell me just what you read in that book?”

Anton glared at him stupidly. “No.” He was a petulant youngster now. “No. And you can’t make me. I won’t tell you.”

“Now, it can’t be all that bad.”

“No. You already tried to make me tell you once tonight. When I was—”

“Crying? Yes. I remember that.”

“When I was upset. You tried to get me to tell you. I didn’t then and I won’t now.”

“It must have been something pretty awful.”

Ernie could see Anton thinking about it, and he was glad the man was being disturbed, becoming frightened again. He had that certain look in his eyes. For a second Ernie thought Anton would be scared back into sobriety. Then the look faded, the bad thoughts were tucked away, and Anton lifted his glass and began drinking.

“You miserable, disgusting drunk,” Ernie said.

The door to his room opened; Ernie heard footsteps. Andrea appeared, taut and pale, but otherwise refreshed.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes. What was all the racket out here?”

“Anton. Anton inhaling martinis and exhaling his nasty temperament on me and Betty.”

Andrea cocked her head querulously at the sound of the woman’s name. Ernie explained. “She’s up in her room now, in tears. Seems she thought that Anton cared for her, as if Anton could possibly care for anyone but himself. Well, he made sure that she knew what the story was, in the coldest, cruelest way possible.”

“You really stink, Anton, you know that?” Andrea moved towards the bar. “Is there any liquor left?”

“Maybe a little. Better hurry before Anton gets it.”

Andrea poured some scotch in a glass and drank it straight. “He didn’t tell her about the book, did he?”

“I prevented that. No need to frighten her anymore than she already is.” He moved close to the woman and spoke softly. “What are we going to do?”

Andrea held her drink in both hands as if warming the liquid. “We’re going to sit tight. Stay inside this house, and hope that nothing else happens. In the morning, in the daylight, we’ll look for the others. If we can’t find them, we’ll leave. One way or another. If we have to build a raft.”

“Yes. I guess that’s all we can do. Did you get —a fix—on the book?” He hoped she hadn’t; he’d had his fill of that awful manuscript.

Before she could answer the front door was opened and Lynn Overman was standing in the foyer.

“Thank God,” Andrea said, closing her eyes. She opened her eyes and moved towards her friend. “Thank God you’re all right.”

Ernie was about to speak, to apologize for not accompanying the woman, when Anton began to giggle dementedly like a psychotic five-year-old. ”Hahahahahah heeee. There—she proves it. Our hostess has gone out into the night, the terrible dark night on this horrible old island, and returned. Returned! Safe and sound. So much for your stupid book, and Andrea’s silly theories. There’s no danger. There never was any danger. Lynn, my darling, come to me. Come have a martini with your boy, your own boy, and tell us how you escaped so narrowly from the very jaws of death.” When she showed no signs of moving towards him, the pianist got to his feet and began a shaky journey across the room. “Give us a kiss, my dear.” His thick lips made obscene kissing noises. “A kiss and all will be well with the world. One kiss, my darling.”

Lynn moved aside before Anton could reach her. “Stop it, Anton. I’m not in the mood for your childish behavior. Besides—” She paused, took off her jacket, flung it over the back of the sofa. “I’m not so sure that Andrea’s theories are silly. I’m not so sure we’re not in danger. In fact, I’ve become convinced that we are.”

Ernie jumped in before anyone could interrupt him. “What did you find? What did you see out there? What changed your mind?”

Lynn walked over to the fireplace and stood there, facing the other three like a senator about to take questions from the press. “Nothing changed my mind. I didn’t find John. I don’t know what’s become of him. But I suspect—well, you’ve read the book. I haven’t. I should have, but I didn’t want to. I might as well come clean with all of you.

“I know where the book came from.”

The others could only stand there and stare at her.

It all poured out of her, and she was glad that she had decided to tell them what had happened. Anton was skeptical as always, but Ernie, and especially Andrea, seemed to accept what she said right from the first. She told them about how she’d cast a spell, that horrible spell, so she could peek into the future, her future. All because she had been dumped by yet another man, all because she had been lonely and wicked and foolish.

“When I got back from the restaurant,” she said, “I was in such despair. So confused. I didn’t want to go on. I thought of calling you, Andrea— but you were out of town, with that fellow you were seeing. Even if you had been in Boston I wouldn’t have called. I didn’t want to mess up your happiness with my misery.”

Andrea frowned. “What are friends for, Lynn? Besides, I broke up with that fellow two weeks later.” She smiled at Ernie. “He was a little too dull for my tastes.”

“Anyway,” Lynn continued, “I decided to go ahead with something I’d thought about a long time, ever since I came across it in an old book. It would only work if you had some special, intrinsic power of your own, and I know now that I do, although I was never and will never be as powerful as you, Andrea.”

The psychic smiled sadly. “Consider yourself lucky.”

“I remembered thinking: what if I wake up-after casting the spell—and there’s nothing there, just blankness, or the room has been transformed, taken over by somebody else? Would it mean that I had moved out during the year to come, or that I had died? I was so afraid. But nothing could have stopped me.”

“What were you hoping to see?” Ernie asked quietly.

“Something, anything, some sign that my life was better, happier. Maybe I just wanted to see a man’s clothes in the closet, a man who really loved me lying on the bed. I know that’s silly, pre-feminist thinking, but I’ve been so lonely all my life. Maybe I just wanted to see some sign that my life was a little more interesting than before. Working in an office all these years, I get so scared. Wondering what will become of me. I know we’re supposed to be lucky, those of us who are young, but I think of the future and instead of seeing glorious possibilities, unlimited chances for happiness, I just see years and years of misery instead. Stretching endlessly. One day I’ll be old and what was it for? Who will care? Who will love me? Why bother?”

“We all feel that way sometimes,” Ernie said. “All of us.”

“Do we? Does everyone feel that way? Not everyone, I think. But I wasn’t content with just waiting to see what happened. I wanted to look a year into the future. The spell wouldn’t take me to wherever I might be a year hence, but would move me forward in time—temporarily—while I remained in the same location. I never dreamed it would actually work. But it did.”

“And the book?” Andrea asked. “What about the book?”

Lynn clasped her hands together, and sighed, wondering where to begin. “The book. The book … is my punishment.”

“Punishment? For what?”

“For doing what I did, Andrea. For moving through the barriers of time. For daring to break through the cosmic wall that separates one second from another. I did it, you know. I really did. And for everything, there is a price.”

“Nonsense,” Anton muttered. “You never left your room and you never left your time, you silly twit. You got up, saw nothing, and went back to sleep. Only an idiot like you would think she had traveled to the future. Lord.”

“Oh shut up, Anton. I don’t care if you believe me or not. But you wanted to know where that impossible novel came from and I’m telling you. I brought it back with me from one year—now about six months—in the future. It was there on the night table, whether you believe it or not.”

Ernie shook his head and tried to understand. “Are you sure, Lynn? I’m trying so hard to accept this, to comprehend it, and if Andrea says it’s possible, I guess it is. But you said you didn’t get a good look at the book. How do we know it’s the same one?”

“Once I returned to my own time,” Lynn said with infinite patience, “I realized that I was still holding the book. I looked at it. Late at Night, a suspense story, a horror novel. I was freaked out, because I knew I had never bought that book, knew it hadn’t been on the night table before. Such irony. A whole year would go by and the only significant thing I would do is pick up another paperback novel. I’m ravenous, you know. I read all those horror things, suspense stories, mysteries. It looked just like the sort of thing I would buy. But I didn’t read it, didn’t even read the cover copy, or anything inside. It frightened me. It was out of its place, that book, out of the scheme of things.”

“You never went through it, never read a word?”

“No. Imagine what I would have done if I had, if I had discovered it was a novel about here, about us … if what you say is true. I’m glad I didn’t read it. I was going to hide it, lock it up, but I was hoping that it would just disappear, y’know, go back to its own time, while I was out, or sleeping or something. I didn’t want to hide it away for some reason. I just slipped it in the bookshelf with the rest of my trashy paperbacks. I hoped one afternoon I’d look and it would be gone.”

“Then how did it get here?” Andrea wanted to know.

“John came to my apartment one evening—funny, I did have a new man in my life, but John wasn’t the type to sleep over, to leave his things there. Anyway, he came to take me out to dinner, help me pack up for the weekend. I had bought some new books, put them on my shelf with the others. I asked John to pack them for me, and he did, only he took about twenty novels instead of the six I’d bought, put them all in my little suitcase. When we got here—I saw that Late at Night was one of them. I didn’t want it in the room with me, but I didn’t want it to be … alone, I guess. I took the whole pile of books and put them on the bookshelf over there.”

“Where I found it,” Ernie said.

“And read it,” Andrea finished.

“It’s almost as if it had a life of its own,” Lynn suggested, “as if it was meant to be here on this island. And now that I know what the book is about …”

“But that’s the big question,” Ernie argued. “Why is that book about us, about Lammerty Island? It still doesn’t make any sense. Your story—and I don’t say I reject it—is, well, preposterous enough, but there’s just too much else that’s inexplicable. I can accept some things. I can accept that you might have bought another book sometime during the year, a book called Late at Night with a setting such as this island; I can accept that on that particular afternoon in the future you would have set it down on the night table and that when you stepped into the future, that particular afternoon, you saw it on the night table. I can even accept your somehow being able to bring it back with you when you returned to your own time. But—and this is the million-dollar question for which there seems to be no answer—why is that book about us, about what’s happening tonight?”

Andrea didn’t waste any time coming up with an explanation. “I can think of only one reason. One of us must have written it. One of us will write it, if we survive, after we have left the island.”

“And it will be written, sold, published, printed, and distributed to bookstores in the space of six months? Andrea, I’m a writer. Books are hardly ever produced that quickly.”

“But is it impossible, Ernie? That’s what I’m asking. Tell me it’s impossible for a book to be written, and everything else you said, in only six months. Publishers rushed out books on Son of Sam and the Jim Jones cult, that Guyana massacre business, in less time than that. Paperback publishers. Is it really impossible?”

“No, I guess not. And Lynn, naturally being curious about it, might well have a copy of it on her night table in Boston six months from now. Yes, yes—I’m beginning to think you may be right.”

“You know,” Andrea said, “in all the hysteria earlier I forgot to mention that I checked the copyright date for Late at Night. It was for this year, which it would have to be if it’s supposed to be published in six months time. But it doesn’t really prove anything either way.”

“Did you happen to check the date of first printing?” Ernie asked her. She shook her head no. “Damn! That’s the first thing I should have done, but I was so upset … It would really have told us what was up.”

They heard from Anton after a prolonged silence. “You mean—” he sat down on the sofa, his face turning green. “That book might well come true. All of it. I might actually die … that way?”

“Maybe not,” Ernie said. ”Late at Night is fiction, after all. And novelists are known to exaggerate when they base their stories on real life events.”

“We’re being punished, I know it,” Lynn cried out. “I’m being punished. For doing what I did. If I hadn’t interfered, none of this would have happened. That book would have been just a piece of fiction. But now it’s coming true. The forces on this island are making it come true.”

“Not forces,” Andrea argued. “One force. One person. I’ve already established it. I just don’t know who it is.”

“Then I was right,” Lynn said. “I sensed that at least two individuals were trying to find the book psychically. When you stormed into my bedroom I knew you were one of them. I was trying to block the book’s emissions. That’s why I’ve been so confused, so preoccupied since we arrived.”

“Then it was you.”

“Yes, Andrea. But I’m not the one doing those awful things you accused me of. For a moment, I was afraid it might have been you.”

“Now that I think of it,” Ernie said. “I do remember in the book there was some mention of an evil—what did they call him? No, they referred to it as an ‘it,’ the necromancer. An evil person, sex unknown, who was committing all these atrocities on the island.”

Andrea whirled on him. “Who was it? Did you find out?”

“I never got that far.”

“Next time we get our hands on that book we’re going to look at the last page first and work our way backwards. Speaking of which—”

But she was cut off by Anton, who had risen from the couch and was slowly advancing on Lynn, as he had done once before up in her room. “You bitch. You rotten piece of slime. You’re behind this. All of it. You wrote that stupid book and now you’re doing everything you can—you and Everson—to make your sleazy horror tale come true. What do you think? You’ll make it sell better if we all conveniently kick the bucket? Well, I’m not playing.”

“Anton,” Andrea said. “She’s leveled with us. I’m sure she’s not the—what did you call it, Ernie —the necromancer—”

“I’m sure she is. She’s the one behind all this. Even if her story is true, it doesn’t clear her of the other charges. Besides, she hasn’t explained what the book was doing taped to the bottom of her mattress.”

“I noticed that the books had been disturbed,” Lynn said. “The books on the shelf over there. I saw that Late at Night was missing. I didn’t want anyone to have it. I was afraid they’d be in danger.”

“So you leave it right out in the open where anyone—”

“Please, please,” she screamed, holding her hands over her ears. “I feel bad enough about it as it is. While Ernie was in the bathroom I went into the storage room and looked for the book, just on the chance that he had taken it during the night. I couldn’t find it in my room so I knew that John didn’t have it. I would have searched all of your rooms, but I found it right off the bat. And hid it.”

“You’re the one,” Anton ranted. “You’re responsible for everything.”

“I’m not. I’m not. Indirectly I am, I admit it. I brought the book back. But these disappearances, these killings you say you read about in the novel—I know nothing about them.”

“Enough, Anton,” Andrea warned, going to her friend’s side, and holding her, trying to calm the woman down. “Leave her alone.”

Lynn huddled in the warmth of the other woman’s arms, her shoulders heaving, tears dripping down her face. “I’m so—ryyy-yyy. I ddddin’t m-mm-mean a-a-any harm. I just, I just—”

Andrea stroked Lynn’s hair. “It’s all right now. Everything will be all right.”

Anton stared at the tender tableau for a few seconds, then turned away in disgust. “Bah! How you two coddle that woman. After all she’s done. She should be horsewhipped, the fool, tarred and feathered, instead of being soothed and hugged and comforted. Disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting, Anton,” Ernie told him. “Why don’t you go in the kitchen and make yourself some coffee? Believe me, you need it.”

“Coffee? Coffee can’t make me regurgitate, Thesinger. I’m perfectly happy the way I am. In fact, I’m so happy I’m going to take a walk outside.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Bah! I can’t believe any of this, this nonsense, trips to the future and paperback novels and—”

“Anton. You read the book yourself.”

“And your girlfriend explained it. One of us— you probably, you’re the only writer in this crowd, and I wouldn’t get caught dead reading such drivel, let alone writing it—will write that novel once we leave the island, fictionalizing most of it, as you yourself suggested. And that, my friend, is that.”

Ernie admitted to himself that this whole “step into the future” story of Lynn’s—as crazy as it was—might be the only thing that would explain how such a book as Late at Night could have been written. It mimicked their actions, described each of them and what they did, because it was written after the fact. But still …

“Enough of this,” Anton proclaimed with a flourish. “I’m going to see what the rest of this crew is up to. Let’s see, if I hurry I might be able to catch Gloria—or ‘Glo,’ as she prefers to be called—slapping Cynthia again. Or I might sneak up on ‘Cyn’—that’s Cynthia, for the uninitiated— and Jerry as they’re about to reach orgasm. And I mustn’t forget Everson and the two little ’housies‘ in the bushes.”

Lynn’s head shot up. “Stop it, you foul-mouthed, asinine—”

“Keep your head, darling. You may lose it before the night is over. You came to no harm,” he said as he took a jaunty, if apprehensive step towards the door. “I’m sure that I, too, shall be perfectly safe. There’s a nip in the air, but this sweater should be enough, don’t you think?”

“Anton,” Ernie warned, “whatever you read in the book. It might come true.”

Anton stopped for a moment, considering Ernie’s words. But he waved his hand back and forth in dismissal. “No. Impossible. It was silly of me to even imagine—oh, well, I’m off. A bit of refreshing air—”

He stumbled out the door, humming at the top of his lungs.

“Should we let him go?” Ernie asked the two women.

“No,” Andrea said. “But are any of us really up to stopping him?”

Lynn pulled away from Andrea and wiped her eyes. “Let him go. He’s so sure of himself. He’s stubborn and stupid—and he’ll only fight you if you try to bring him back. A nasty drunk, that’s what he is. Leave him be. It will be better for all of us.” She blew her nose into a handkerchief she’d pulled from her pocket. “I’m going upstairs to lie down. There’s nothing any of us can do for John and the others at this hour, in this darkness.”

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Andrea told her. “None of us should be alone. We should sit down, talk this out. Try to make some sense of it.”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried that? I can’t—I can’t think about it any more. I need to be alone. At least for a little while.” She moved towards the bottom of the stairs, then turned and faced them. “How is Mrs. Plushing? Any better?”

“I don’t know,” Andrea replied. “We’ll check in on her right now. Are you sure you don’t want me to come up with you?”

Lynn shook her head. “No. No, thank you. I’ll be all right. I need to rest. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

In the morning, Ernie thought, we’re going to be putting our heads together and figuring out how to get off this crazy island.

Andrea watched Lynn go slowly up the stairs, then turned to Ernie and pulled him to the other side of the room out of earshot. “I’ve been trying to tell you. I think I know where the book is.”

“Where!”

Andrea backed away. “No. No, I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you, Ernie. You’ll go chasing after it and place yourself in danger. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“Listen, Andrea, if we’re in danger from some nut case on this island, wouldn’t we be better off if we knew who it was?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have any idea who it might be?”

“I’ve eliminated you; Lynn—I think; myself, of course. I get no feelings at all when I try to lock in or John, Eric, the housekeepers, Cynthia, Gloria, Jerry—oh God, so many. They all must be dead. There’s just nothing there.”

Ernie ignored the horrifying implications of her body count and said, “Well, who does that leave? Anton. Hans. Mrs. Plushing. Betty.”

Andrea shut her eyes, concentrating. “I can’t get a fix on Mrs. Plushing, or Hans, but I’m sure it’s only temporary. They’re right in the house, after all, so I’m sure they’re okay. Out of the other two, I’d have to say Anton. But I can’t be positive. This fiend is diabolical and clever. He or she might be one of the others, one of those I think is dead, using their power to hide their presence, their life force, from me. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m not really sure about Lynn. She might have told us what she did just to throw us off the track.”

“Would she know how to create these psychic manifestations you’ve been talking about?”

Andrea nodded. “Yes. After all she’s told us tonight, there’s no doubt in my mind that she could do it. In fact, the more I think about it…”

Ernie could see she was having a hard time dealing with the possibility of her friend’s betrayal. “What about Anton? Or Betty?”

“Neither of them have the knowledge, the ability, they’d need,” she explained. “But then again, I didn’t know that Lynn had it and look how she surprised me.”

“Then we’re right back where we started from.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked down at her face imploringly. “I’ve got to get that book. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”

“You can’t guarantee that, Ernie. The book may not tell us everything. I’m afraid to let you go out there by yourself, and I—I’m afraid to go out there with you. The funny thing is—this necromancer—could attack us anywhere really, but the thought of being out there in the dark, away from the lights, the warmth …”

“Then stay here.”

She looked miserable. “I’m a coward.”

“We both are. I mean, neither of us are.” He kissed her hard on the mouth, felt her respond, felt her arms encircling him and pulling him closer. He pulled out of the kiss, breathless, smiling.

“I’ll be all right. Just tell me where it is.”

She moved away from him, stalling. “No, I can’t let you do it. We’ll just stay right here until morning.”

“Andrea! For the sake of my sanity I’ve got to see the rest of that book before the night is up. Don’t do this to me.”

“All right. All right. Go then and kill yourself. It’s in the old house. I got a much clearer fix. It’s in the library, that library we were in on the first floor. The middle bookshelf against the wall with the windows has a cabinet below. Open the cabinet. The book will be inside on the shelf.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Andrea. Lynn could have put the book there while she was out. Nobody else left the house.”

“Anton could be putting it there now. Remember what I said earlier about precognition? I might have been picking up his intentions, Ernie. In fact, I think he’s ‘our friend.’ I think Anton is the necromancer. I can sense it, I can sense that ‘our friend’ is no longer in this house.”

“Are you sure it’s Anton?”

“No, I just know it in my gut, Ernie.”

Ernie took one of the flashlights and checked to make sure it was working. He talked rapidly, nervously, to cover up his fear while he got his jacket from his room and donned it. “I still can’t imagine which of us wrote—or is going to write-Late at Night. I know I’m a writer, but it’s really not my sort of thing at all. Even to make Lynn’s story come true I wouldn’t do it. Besides, why would I call myself ‘Max Schumann’?”

Andrea had a funny look on her face. “I think I know who Max Schumann is, and it isn’t you.”

“Who, then?”

“Please. I’d rather not say.”

“Well, it isn’t important. Are you sure you’ll be safe here all alone?”

“I’m not alone; it’s you I’m worried about. I’ll go wake up Lynn and Betty and we’ll talk about our old college professors.” She kissed him warmly on the cheek.

And then he was gone.

PART SIX

Late at Night

Chapter 51

Unbelievable. This whole thing is unbelievable.

Ernie followed the beam of the flashlight, pretty sure that he had located the path they’d taken that afternoon to the old house. He remembered that he and Andrea had led the others, watching to make sure they didn’t veer off in another direction when they came to those spots in the trail that were overgrown. Even though neither of them had ever been on the island before, the boy scout-campfire girl training had paid off. But this was nighttime, and even though the moonlight was so vivid he almost didn’t need the flashlight, it was going to be much more difficult to find his way. At least this time he had his memory to rely on.

While he walked, looking this way and that for signs of danger, he wondered if there was really anything to be frightened about. Was he really so sure that terrible things were happening in Lammerty Island? He only had Andrea’s word for it. Cynthia and Jerry might not have even entered the Mary Eliza, let alone died in it. He knew there was a lighthouse on the island, but he didn’t know that Gloria had gone into it to meet her death, as the book said she—or her counterpart—would. He had no proof of anything. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of these vanishing acts. True, one or more of the others might have injured themselves, gotten lost, certainly, might even have been killed in a fall, or died in quicksand, for all he knew. But the rest? How could he have just accepted it all so quickly? Wasn’t he a rational man, a logical creature who accepted only what his eyes could see, what his mind could understand?

Once he had been that creature—but now?

He knew that his feelings for Andrea made all the difference. Had he not liked her, been attracted to and protective of her, he might not have accepted all this, all her stories, so easily. Yet he had also believed Lynn, believed that somehow, some way, she had crossed through the dimensions of time and space and seen her own future. But how was it possible? He did not care overly much for their hostess, so he had certainly not believed her out of love or infatuation. She had just been so … convincing. He shook his head as he walked, pushing through low-hanging branches, stopping now and then to make sure he had not strayed from the path as his cousin had presumably done.

If he came upon an old foundation with plants in it he would scream.

And these deaths, these grisly deaths—if they were partly in the victim’s mind, then what really killed the victim? The forces of the island? The necromancer’s brain power? The latter, he supposed. Yet if they were torn apart in their minds were they also torn apart in reality? According to Andrea, they were. The manifestations had shape and form and substance and could tear out a throat or rip off a limb just as a strong living being could. Yet he imagined that if the necromancer wanted to, he—Ernie thought of the necromancer in masculine terms for he truly believed that he was Anton—could create realistic visions in a person’s mind that would destroy them, stop their heart beat, drive them mad, as thoroughly as any physical threat to their well-being could.

There was always the possibility—and this truly chilled him—that Andrea was playing games with him, with all of them. That she and Lynn were the only supernatural practitioners on the island and Andrea was the necromancer. Perhaps the book itself was only an hallucination that had been planted in their minds. Or maybe Lynn was the killer, and by leaving Andrea alone in that house for all intents and purposes, he was playing right into their hostess’s hands.

If Lynn killed Andrea, he would kill Lynn. It was as simple as that.

Without realizing it, he had been searching a long time for someone like Andrea to share his life with. If someone had asked him—why her? what qualities does she have that attract you so? he would not have been able to answer. He and Andrea might not have had much in common, but there was a special rapport between them which was undeniable. He spent so much time alone at his desk, in the library, writing letters and typing manuscripts, deprived so often of simple human companionship. The people he met when he went out in the field were often nice, friendly—but they were temporary acquaintances, relationships which would last only until the next assignment when he had to go someplace else to look at something different or interview somebody new. If Andrea could give his life some stability—after all that had gone on, he had to laugh at that—a focal point, an anchor, a base, and if he could do the same for her—wouldn’t it be wonderful?

He had no close friends. Not really. Maybe Andrea could become the most important friend he’d ever have.

He was in sight of the house now. God, it was hideous, truly ugly. The moon seemed to reflect off the windows, the “eyes” in the structure’s face, and Ernie felt as if the house was looking at him.

He stepped out into the clearing and started walking across the field.

Something jumped out of the bushes, barring his way.

It was Anton.

The pianist looked not quite human, his face stretched down and his mouth open in a grotesque, disfiguring scowl that would have made Ernie laugh had he not been so frightened. Anton held his hands up, fingers curled, waving his arms at Ernie as if putting a hex on him. He said nothing, just glared, advancing on Ernie, pushing him back, back, to where he’d entered the clearing. The moonlight danced into Anton’s eyes and turned his fade the color of a dead fish’s belly.

Ernie wondered: Is this where it happens? Is this where the demons come out of nowhere, come out of nothing, and rend me into little pieces? He was about to speak, to reason—or plead—with Anton, to talk to him before he could give in to the urge to jump forward and smash the pianist’s face in, when he felt his feet sinking down into something and realized they’d walked onto a mushy, grassless patch of ground to the right of where the trail opened into the clearing. He pulled his shoe out with a clopping sound, steeling himself for Anton’s attack, wondering what form it might take.

Instead of hurling psychic forces and weaving spells, Anton was busy scraping the mud off his shoes.

“Oh shit! What a mess.” He looked up at Ernie. “Scared you, didn’t I?”

Ernie was still on his guard; he wouldn’t let the slimy bastard fool him.

“Oh relax, Thesinger. I was just trying to have some fun with you. You don’t really believe all this nonsense we’ve been hearing all evening, do you?”

Ernie couldn’t help it; he felt himself relaxing, start breathing again. He moved forward, trying to get out of the mud, sinking deeper. He moved back in the direction Anton had been herding him, and finally found dry ground. “Over here, Anton,” he said. “The ground is solid over here.”

Stupid old Anton. Ernie should have known Anton would pull a stunt like this.

Or had he just come from hiding the book in the mansion as Andrea had suggested he might do?

No, Anton was just too dumb, too foolish, too drunk. Ernie just couldn’t see him as an all-powerful practicioner of the Dark Arts. He might have had the old-fashioned flamboyance for it, but that was all. Anton was a joke, nothing more. At least Ernie hoped he was nothing more.

Anton began moving over to where Ernie stood. “Solid ground, you say? Good.” Funny, Anton seemed to be getting a little panicky, overreacting. One could always clean one’s shoes, after all. And it wasn’t as if they were in quicksand; it was just a little mud. Still, Anton’s eyes were blazing as if he’d remembered some awful thing, as if he was in some terrible predicament and the next few seconds would determine the rest of his life. Ernie chuckled. That man was so overdramatic.

“Mud. Mustn’t stand in mud. It says it will happen in mud. The book. In mud.”

Just as Ernie realized what it was that Anton was panicking over, the very thing the pianist had been fearing came to pass. There was a splintering, cracking sound from over head, and Ernie saw that a tree—a small one as compared to most of the others, but not a lightweight sapling by any means—began to fall over towards the ground.

“Anton! Get out of the way!”

There was no way to reach him in time. Ernie had to back up just to make sure the tree wouldn’t come down on top of him. Anton seemed to be hurrying, trying his best to get out of the falling tree’s path, but suddenly he tripped. The pianist screamed and fell down to his knees. Putting his hands out flat on the muddy ground, he tried to push himself up to his feet again.

The upper section of the tree—the one with all the branches and leaves—sped over the pianist’s head and missed him, crashing with a bouncy flourish to the ground a few feet away.

The trunk of the tree landed directly on top of Suffron’s outstretched hands.

The sound of Anton’s agonized screech would sound in Ernie’s ears for the rest of his life.

Ernie felt sick to his stomach. Why, the man’s hands must have been crushed into pulp by the impact! All that weight just grinding down. Anton shimmied back and forth on his knees, trying to pull his arms out; hard to believe he was still conscious. Too late Ernie realized what would happen. Transfixed, wanting to turn away but knowing that he couldn’t, he watched as Anton wrenched his arms out from under the tree and fell back onto the ground.

Anton had no hands anymore. Just bloody stumps.

My God! The thought ran through Ernie’s mind: a more diabolical ending for the man could not have been conceived. The man’s hands. The man’s life. His work and career. All ruined in an instant!

Ernie tried to hold down the churning contents of his stomach—getting sick now would only cost him precious time—and began to move over to where the pianist lay screaming. He had to put a tourniquet, strips of his shirt if need be, around those arms, had to keep him warm … God, where were they going to get a doctor? Hadn’t Hans said they needed one for Mrs. Plushing? But there was no boat… worry about that later… for now, make sure you—

Ernie never got to Anton in time. If he had, he might have been able to pull him away, or perhaps just died alongside him. He’d never know which.

Another tree began to topple. There was no wind. No earthquake. No reason for it to happen. But snapping and cracking and groaning with fury, the huge trunk smashed away everything in its path on its heavy journey downwards.

Anton looked upwards. It took a second for what he saw to register on his brain, but beneath the agony, the fear, the horror, and the shock, the pianist fully understood what was about to occur. He began to scream louder, knowing what was happening, knowing that nothing could prevent it. He lifted his pathetic twisted limbs in the air, those handless horrible limbs, as if they could protect him, as if even with hands he could have caught the falling tree and saved him from what was about to transpire.

Ernie threw his arms up over his eyes, then looked through his fingers—unable to turn away, as if frozen by the blind, unreasoning hope that nothing more could happen, that Anton would be spared, and the tree would shift and land in a completely different direction.

The tree came down thunderously and the sky roared. The trunk landed directly atop Anton’s head.

Ernie was violently sick all over the ground.

Chapter 52

Andrea paced back and forth in the living room, wondering if Ernie would be all right. She listened to the sounds of the island night, hoping that somehow they would all find a way out of this. She walked over to the bar, debating whether or not to make another drink, something to calm her nerves; decided against it. She sat down on the couch, got up, went over to the piano and fiddled aimlessly with the keys, sat down on the piano bench, got up, went back to the couch. This inactivity was driving her crazy. She should have gone with Ernie. She should never have let him go out there by himself.

But she had to admit it: she was a frightened little girl, a child still afraid of the dark. The thought of going out into the night, walking through that barely penetrable forest, going into the waiting maw of that awful old house—it was too much for her. And Anton was out there-Anton, whom she suspected of being the necromancer. She had let Ernie walk blindly to his doom. Up against the necromancer he would be completely helpless.

How could she have let him go alone?

Feeling hemmed in by the terrible guilt, she tried to shrug off the dizziness, the fatigue that she’d been fighting all night long. That was it-she was just so tired, too tired, to accompany Ernie to the mansion. She tried to console herself with the idea that had she been more alert she would have let nothing make her stay behind. But she wasn’t sure if that was true. Perhaps she was only rationalizing.

He’s the best thing you’ve come across in a long time, she told herself. Ernest Thesinger is a nice, decent, caring man. An intelligent man. An attractive man. What more could you possibly want? He’s overcome his own prejudices and misconceptions and allowed himself to understand, to accept you, to get close to you. Few men you’ve known have done that, you idiot. He’s somebody you could see yourself falling in love with—in time. And he feels that way about you, you know it. He’s something special, something you’ve wanted for a long time, a nice, independent, but sensitive man to share your life with. And look what you go and do.

You let him go out alone into something that he had no defense against.

She knew that Ernie was bewildered by all that had gone on, that he could only grasp the very edges of all that she had told him. She had tried to keep things simple, uncomplicated, using layman’s terms like “supernatural” and “astral” and words that had long ago ceased to have any real meaning for people like her. And he had tried so hard to open his mind and absorb all that she had told him.

If he died, if anything happened to him, she swore this: she would kill whoever was responsible.

She was frightened by such thoughts. She had always known that she had a dark side, a dark, hidden abscess in her soul that contained all the terrible impulses, all the foul and desperate compulsions that the human mind could think of. She always had to fight to keep her power in check, within limits. Or she might do what Lynn-stupid Lynn—had done, might fool around with cosmic awareness and bring trouble down on her head. Or she might become what the necromancer was—an inhuman horror without scruples, conscience, or logic. The necromancer—Anton, whoever it was—was playing with all of them, teasing them, exhibiting a sick and scabrous imagination, a fertile mind full of demonic fury.

Oh Ernie, why didn’t I go with you? It’s just that I’m so tired, so scared. Earlier she had seemed to sense that the final battle would take place right here in this house; perhaps her subconscious had wanted to send Ernie away, far away, so he’d be out of danger when the time came? When it was just her against the necromancer in a battle to the death?

She stood up, fighting the weariness, sure that the unnatural fatigue was the necromancer’s doing. She was going to gather all the others together. She could protect them better—assuming she was able to protect them at all—if they were in the same room. Cut the bull, she told herself, you just want some company. She often had trouble distinguishing where a realistic assessment of her powers ended and conveniently obtuse expectations began.

First things first. She had promised Lynn she would see how Mrs. Plushing was coming along. Maybe Hans would like some relief, a chance to go out and have a smoke. He’d appreciate her looking after the woman for awhile. That would be one way of filling up the time until Ernie-God, please—came back safe and sound.

She walked through the kitchen and entered the narrow hall leading to Mrs. Plushing’s room. When she was through in there she’d have a good talk with Lynn. They both had even more in common now than they had in college: psychic prowess, man trouble, guilts and regrets. So much.

There was a funny almondish odor permeating the corridor. She couldn’t place it. The door to Mrs. Plushing’s room was open and she peeked inside, not wishing to disturb anyone.

The bed was empty. The room was empty. Neither Mrs. Plushing nor Hans were inside. Curious. She checked the room next door—Hans and Eric’s room—and it was the same story. Empty. There was no way the two of them could have gotten past her—unless they had gone out the side door in the kitchen. But why would they? Hans might have gone outside, but surely Mrs. Plushing wouldn’t have gone with him if she had been so sick. Wait a minute—the bathroom. The cook must have gotten out of bed and gone to the bathroom.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a wet, dark sticky liquid drying on the floor outside the bathroom. The liquid had apparently flowed out from under the bathroom door, which was ajar. She gave it a gentle push, and it swung inwards. She looked down at the floor and saw a wide, coagulating pool of human blood.

God, it’s all true, all of it is true.

Get ahold of yourself. Perhaps Mrs. Plushing injured herself, perhaps she’s wandering about somewhere and needs your help. But there was so much blood—whoever had lost that much blood couldn’t possibly be alive. Andrea realized that her shoes were stepping in the gruesome fluid, and she backed out of the bathroom, bile bubbling up from inside her stomach.

She had to get help. But who? Who could possibly help her now?

She ran into the kitchen, saw the door leading out into the darkness. Mrs. Plushing might have stumbled outside. Perhaps Hans was out there-he could help her look for the woman. She ran to the door, looked out the window—don’t go out there—couldn’t see more than a few feet into the night. Should she open the door, go outside, look for the old woman, look for Hans?

Don’t go out there.

No. No, she mustn’t step outside. The dark was her enemy.

She ran into the living room and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. She would get Betty, Lynn, make sure they were all right. God—what if they were gone, too? What if they were gone and she was alone in the house? It would serve her right for sending Ernie out into the night all by himself.

She knocked once on Betty’s door, opened it.

The room was empty.

But Betty was up here, had to be. She had never come downstairs.

She felt a cold breeze washing over her, noticed the curtain flapping over by the window. The window was open. She walked over, looked out. No—Betty could not have gone out this way; she was not an acrobat. Unless she jumped or was pushed by something. Dreading what she might find, Andrea looked down at the ground but could not see anything. She walked back across the room, closed the door, trying to keep from screaming out in panic.

Upstairs. Go upstairs. Lynn is up there. Lynn will be up there. Now go.

She walked up to the third floor. She stood before the door to the master bedroom, trembling. If she opened that door, if Lynn was missing …

Suddenly she had a mental vision: something was happening out there, out by the old house. She felt a flash, saw it in her mind—a tree falling, a man screaming, such pain, such terrible pain— Ernie? No, thank goodness, it wasn’t Ernie. She tried desperately to get a fix on Anton, like a futuristic space doctor trying to get a “life reading” while bending over a prostrate form with a little metal object—but there was nothing, no feeling, nothing at all. No vital signs, Jim. Anton was dead. In the space of a few heartbeats she mourned for him as much as she ever would.

Then if Anton wasn’t the necromancer?

The door to Lynn’s room began to open.

Chapter 53

The necromancer smiled.

Everything was working so perfectly.

Anton—that smirking, obnoxious fool—was lying dead in the clearing. The bodies of the handyman and Mrs. Plushing had been dragged away and brought to the Burrows mansion to join Eric’s fragments, and Anton’s remains would soon follow. Let the bodies of the others stay where they had died and rot into nothingness. Glo’s remains had already been washed out to sea. Cyn’s and Jerry’s would be forever lost among the debris in the bowels of the Mary Eliza. And Everson’s had already been absorbed and completely covered by the plant growth in the Pauling house’s foundation. The skeletons of those pathetic girls would remain right where they were, in the subcellar of the Burrow’s house.

The necromancer had taken away the bloody bodies of Hans and Mrs. Plushing so that no one else in the house would be alerted to the danger they were in. An unnecessary precaution—that fool girl seemed to know everything that was going on. Well, her meddling would soon be put to an end. The book was safely hidden away, where it could be snatched up at the necromancer’s leisure. The other one, Thesinger, would never find it. Unless …

Unless she had told him where to look.

Yes, it was possible. The two women who were left alive would have to wait until later, the necromancer decided. Now it had something more important to do. Protect the book. At all costs. It must head back to the old house and dispose of Thesinger before he could learn too much.

The necromancer changed back into its human form … wouldn’t do to let anyone see it like that … and then prepared to insure that the book remained forever in its possession.

The game was almost over.

Ernie knew now without a shadow of a doubt that everything, every word he had read in the book, every word he’d heard from Andrea’s lips, had been true, true, true. Against all reason, all logic, he was genuinely trapped in a nightmare more hideous than anything he had endured during his slumbering hours. Fighting back the nausea, the terrible dizziness that threatened to engulf him, he took one more look at the remains of Anton’s body and turned away. There was nothing anyone could do for the man, that much was clear.

Ernie searched inside his mind and tried to find a reasonable explanation for all that had happened, still not wanting to fully admit that the impossible was possible, the unreal real. But there was no such explanation. Trees did not topple out of nowhere for no reason. There hadn’t even been any wind in the clearing, nothing. Trees did not topple and kill a person only a short while after that person read about his being killed by falling trees in a novel!

Everything was true. Everything had to be true. Lynn’s story. Andrea’s story. Everything true.

All the others were dead except Hans, Mrs. Plushing, and Betty, as far as he knew. Also Lynn and Andrea.

Anton had not been the necromancer, that much was certain. And if it wasn’t him …

Andrea was in the same house with the necromancer.

Ernie knew he had to get that book.

He ran across the field, his heart beating like a trip hammer. What was going to happen to him? he wondered. Surely the necromancer wouldn’t make it so easy? Would lightning soar down from the sky, scorching him to a crisp? Would the earth open up and swallow him? Would birds swoop down from the heavens and peck him to pieces? Stop it! he told himself. It won’t do any good to think that way. Just get into that house and get that book.

The front door was only a few yards away. Hurry. Hurry.

He felt like he was a character in one of those movies where the Anti-Christ came to earth in human form and killed off everyone in his way. He didn’t believe in Anti-Christs, and until a while ago hadn’t believed that any of this could happen. But Andrea had told him to think of it all in scientific terms. This necromancer had access to a science so advanced it seemed like sorcery.

The power of his mind could tap the energy of emotions and events that had happened years ago on this very island. And that energy could kill.

What did the necromancer have in store for him? Ernie wondered.

He was at the front door. He pulled it open. It did not resist as he had expected it to. Was the necromancer’s attention somewhere else? Was Andrea going to die next? No! He must not let that happen!

The library. Get to the library.

He turned right, found himself in the room he and Andrea had entered earlier in the day. The room of dusty books, volumes of history and literature that would fall apart if handled too brusquely.

He could hear Andrea’s voice. “The middle bookshelf against the wall with the windows has a cabinet below. Open the cabinet. The book will be inside on the shelf.” For a moment he swore he could actually hear her, that she was communicating with him psychically, that she was with him. And he felt less lonely, less frightened. Andrea would protect him. She wouldn’t let him down.

The middle bookshelf against the wall with the windows. There. The upper shelves were nearly empty; he had looked this one over before. Ernie bent down to the cabinet below the shelves. He took a deep breath, opened the door. Nothing jumped out. Nothing happened. There were no snakes or lizards or monsters inside.

Only a paperback novel entitled Late at Night.

At last. He picked it up. It was the same book all right.

He resisted the impulse to put the book in his pocket and run all the way back to the guest house. He had to see, he had to know all the answers right now. He opened the book, flipped towards the back, looking for his name, “Andrew Tennington,” looking for Andrea’s counterpart, too. He had to make sure they would survive.

He had to know the name of the necromancer.

Wait a minute. This was it.

He read: Andrew was bending down in front of the cabinet thumbing through the book when he heard a footstep.

Just then, Ernie heard a footstep. Someone was in the room with him.

Something was walking across the room from the hall, sneaking up behind him.

Something was walking across the room from the hall, sneaking up behind him.

“It’s really happening!” Andrew thought.

It’s really happening, Ernie thought. He could not move, could not turn around. He was frozen by fear.

“My God!”

“My God!”

Up on the wall above Andrew’s head, there was the shadow of an axe.

Ernie looked up from the book. The outline of an axe was on the wall above his head, lifting, lifting. Almost fatalistically, resignedly, he looked back at the printed page and read:

And the axe came down and with one fell swoop sliced Andrew’s head from his shoulders.

Ernie’s head flew through the air, rolling across the tattered green rug in the library and coming to a stop against a small brown table in the far corner of the room.

Betty Sanders dropped the red dripping axe on the floor, and waited for her one, her only, true antagonist to arrive.

Chapter 54

Lynn Overman had stepped out of her room a few minutes ago and had seen Andrea standing in the hallway, transfixed, her mind concentrating on something far, far away. Lynn had not disturbed her. But now, a look of shock and anger and disbelief had broken out on Andrea’s face. Lynn went over to her, reached out a tentative hand. “What is it, Andrea? What’s happened?”

Andrea put her hands over her lips. Her eyes were flooding, overflowing, thick streams of tears ran down over her face.

“Anton was killed a while ago,” she whispered. “And I forged a psychic link with Ernie, to make sure he was going to be safe. But he’s been murdered. I just felt it. Ernie’s dead. Oh God-now Ernie’s dead, too.”

She lifted up her hands, made fists, and began to pummel Lynn all over—hitting her in the face, on the arms, the shoulders. Lynn began to scream, tried to pull away. “Andrea! Stop! Why are you doing this? Leave me alone!”

“It was you. All your fault. If you hadn’t fooled around with that terrible spell—none of this would have happened. But no—like a petulant child with a new toy you had to abuse your power, not caring what disaster you might cause. I hate you. I HATE YOU.”

Lynn was crying also, stunned by her old friend’s outrage and accusals. “I didn’t mean any harm, Andrea. Please leave me alone.”

Out of breath, trembling, Andrea stopped her assault, and let the tears overwhelm her. “Dead. That good, decent man is dead. And oh God, I felt it. I felt it.”

“I didn’t kill him. I didn’t touch him.”

“I know you didn’t.” She stood still for a moment, trying to bring her rage, her desolation, under control. “The killer, the necromancer, is at the old house. She’s waiting for me. She’s finally dropped her guard, let me see her face.”

“Who is it?”

“Betty.”

“Betty!

“Yes, it seems you weren’t the only one who’s been practicing up in the dark arts all these years since graduation.”

“I mentioned my interests to Betty once,” Lynn said tonelessly. “But she said the whole business was too scary for her to want to get involved in.”

“Obviously Betty overcame her fear, and kept it to herself, more so than you did. You gave her the idea; she took off with it in her own fashion. I think she thought she might find a way to get back at everyone who laughed at her, who used her, who failed to return her love and affection. Well, she’s going to learn that there is a price for everything. Just like you did.” Andrea began walking towards the staircase, a determined, infuriated look on her face. She would mourn Ernest Thesinger later.

Now … now she would avenge him.

“Don’t go,” Lynn called after her. “Don’t leave me alone. I’m frightened.”

The only answer Lynn received was the sight of Andrea’s shoulders receding step by step down the staircase.

Chapter 55

Andrea moved across the threshold into the old house. She was surrounded by darkness and despair. There was no sight of her adversary—yet. The air in the house was cold tonight, ice cold, not hot as it had been this afternoon, yet Andrea still felt as if she were stifling. She had been wrong that the final battle would take place in the guest house, fatally wrong. In spite of that, she felt strangely calm, confident, as if she had been waiting for this day her entire life, waiting for something to test the limits and the range of her powers. It was as if she had sent a doppelganger forth to do battle, while she herself waited at home for the outcome, seeing and feeling through the duplicate’s eyes, but not really being there.

There was no way she could have avoided this confrontation. If she had not gone to Betty, Betty would have come to her. Perhaps not physically; perhaps she would have sent something in her stead, some pleasant little nightmare meant to bend Andrea’s mind in shapes and configurations no human brain was ever meant to go in. Andrea did not need to be near Betty to fight her either, but she wanted it that way. It would be easier—no, it would be more satisfying —if Andrea could see the look on Betty’s face.

Andrea stepped into the library where she knew her foe was waiting. She braced herself. She was sure Betty would have placed Ernie’s remains where she could see them—the first strike in their emerging war, a bold psychological blow that might cripple Andrea emotionally and therefore completely, before the battle had even begun.

But no. There was nothing there. Ernie had been moved. Andrea gave silent thanks to whatever gods were listening.

Betty stepped out of the shadows.

“Hello, Andrea.”

Andrea stood facing her, about ten feet away. “Why did you do it, Betty?”

Betty didn’t answer. Instead she lifted her hand.

“I could see Anton, after what he did to you, what he said to you. I could understand your hating him, although I can’t approve of what you did. But why Ernie?” She felt the tears welling up again, fought successfully to control them. “Why the others? What did they ever do to you?”

The hand was changing, growing, evolving. It was no longer human.

Andrea stepped back, appalled by what she was seeing, yet somehow relieved.

Betty’s form was transmuting into something else. A creature with claws and teeth, with crusty dark flesh and deep red eyes.

Andrea had been warned at the very beginning, been warned by her teachers in the psychic field. “Beware of travelers in the nether regions. Not all of them are human.” Call them devils, call them demons, Andrea knew that many believed in the existence of other lifeforms on what humans referred to as the astral plane, that higher level into which souls were said to ascend, in which intangible shapes and forms could float about unbridled by earthly constrictions. She was looking at someone, something, that also traveled through the endless space of the nether world. Another being, a non-human creature from an alternate dimension.

At least she wanted to believe that’s what had happened. Wanted to believe that Betty was still the same sweet innocent that she had always been, but that she had been possessed, taken over, by something far more powerful and experienced that she, something giving vent to her hurts and frustrations, someone who got revenge whereas Betty would only have whimpered. Perhaps Betty was not even aware that she had picked up this unholy traveler. Andrea could hear herself explaining it to Ernie, knowing he preferred good, rational, scientific explanations to supernatural balderdash.

“It’s another lifeform, not a devil, not a demon. A lifeform that lives on planes normally closed to the human species. Betty tapped into that plane, drew the creature out, sucked it into her. Perhaps she knew what she was doing and did it willingly, providing a host body for this parasite if it gave her the power she was craving. Perhaps Betty is culpable for all that has transpired. Perhaps not. Perhaps part of her knows part of the time, yet does nothing. Perhaps she doesn’t really care. I guess we’ll never really know for sure.”

She could see Ernie’s perplexed expression, see him nodding, trying to understand.

Ernie.

Andrea was renewed with the onrush of anger as if a thousand quarts of adrenaline had been pumped into her system. This terrible creature would pay for what it had done to them, to Ernie, to Betty perhaps. It would pay.

It stood there in the dark, glistening, emitting a putrid fragrance. The limbs were scaly, the back slightly hunched. It opened its mouth and snarled. It still had Betty’s face—though now it was grotesque, inhuman—and it began to step closer, closer to Andrea, its long-clawed hands outstretched.

This was how Betty had gotten around so quickly, gotten out of her room by the window, dragged those heavy bodies around. The creature was huge, muscular, strong. It could tear Andrea apart with very little effort.

Andrea knew if she was to defeat it it would have to be on a psychic level.

She held back.

What if Betty, the real Betty, was still in there somewhere, guilty only of having fooled with forces beyond her understanding, as Lynn had done? If Andrea destroyed the creature, she might also destroy her friend. Somehow she had to send the thing back where it came from without hurting its host.

But then she heard a voice in her mind and knew that it no longer mattered. She heard Betty’s voice, the real, true Betty, and what the woman said was enough to chill her down to the bone.

“I know what you’re thinking. But this is me, Andrea. Betty Sanders. I know what I’m doing and have known all along. I tried to keep my actions as the necromancer separate from my everyday existence, as if they were dreams only, not real occurrences. I didn’t want to admit to myself what I was capable of doing. For awhile it was as if I had a split personality. But, Andrea, deep down I always knew what my evil side did— and I did nothing to prevent it.”

Betty was not the innocent victim. The other-dimensional creature was. It had been called forth, enslaved by Betty, forced to a subliminal existence until Betty summoned it forth to do her bidding, to add its power to her own. Betty was really the one and only necromancer.

The voice in Andrea’s brain continued: “I had to pretend, playact, and at times I almost believed it. I was really falling for Anton, you know. But after what he said, I knew not even he would be spared. I reveled in his death agony, Andrea. Reveled in it. He paid … he paid for what he did.

“I had such fun, Andrea. I showed myself—my demonic self—to poor Mrs. Plushing. But she was so sick—too sick to tell anyone, though she tried to. My human side was repulsed by what I did. It was so messy … I had to leave the room before it began. I have such a vivid imagination. Always have. Even I don’t know quite where the imagination, the hallucinations, ended, and reality began.

“All I know is I had fun closing my eyes and killing them all, making them dead just by wishing it. Fun.”

“Why are you doing this, Betty?”

The creature was moving forward, slowly, carefully.

“I sensed the presence of the mystical object, the book, as soon as I stepped onto the boat that took us over here. Lynn must have had it in her luggage. It’s a very special book, as I’m sure you know. I’ve read Lynn’s mind and now understand where it came from. There are great forces on this island, Andrea, the life energies of souls trapped, dying, screaming for help. Those energies can never die; they exist for all time. I have become one with this creature I called from the void as magicians in the days of old called demons—what they thought were demons—from the pit. It has great knowledge, this creature, great power. With its aid, I will gather the psychic forces of the island, through the focal point, the book—and then all the psychic forces in the world.

“There won’t be any silence anymore. No one will hurt me. Whatever I want I can have just by thinking it. Unlimited power. Think of it, Andrea. Unlimited. I’ll do what I please with the world, and the world’s sole obsession will be to satisfy me.”

Andrea prepared herself. Betty was utterly mad. And she remembered what a professor had once told her. Madness is the only true strength.

The creature rushed her. Andrea got out of its way, ran towards the hall. She felt images, sights and sounds, invading her mind. So, Betty was going to fight on a psychic level, too. Andrea tried to fight it all off, each wave of the mental assault. She saw her dead parents standing out in the hall looking at her beseechingly, and her heart wanted to run to them and embrace them. She saw a child at her feet, begging for food, affection. She saw a huge wave of black water rushing down the corridor about to engulf her.

Not there, Andrea. None of it is really there.

Snakes, she was covered with writhing, twisting, biting snakes. She closed her eyes, opened them. The snakes were gone.

There were rats skittering across her feet; she felt herself falling, falling, down a long tunnel, the hall had changed into an endless pit.

Andrea concentrated. The pit was gone.

Only the rats were real.

Betty was using every power at her disposal.

Andrea felt something grab the upper part of her right arm. She felt burning, aching pain. The claws, the clawed fingers had gotten her. The Betty-creature had caught up with Andrea while she’d been fighting off the psychic attack, kicking away the scurrying rats at her feet.

Andrea looked up into that innocent-horrible face. She reached into her jacket pocket, got out the scissors she had thought to bring—stabbed the creature again and again in the face.

Betty howled, dropped Andrea’s arm, backed off.

The very walls of the house were beginning to crack, to topple. Was it real? Was it hallucination? Andrea didn’t know. The floors were buckling, and she saw hawks and eagles and bugs and bats and horrible zombie-like creatures shuffling through a fetid mist. There were loud, ear-splitting screams coming from everywhere, echoing through each chamber of the house.

She saw Ernie bending before the cabinet. Ernie, where she had told him to go.

Ernie was going to die again, right before her eyes. Betty was going to torment her, show Andrea how she had made Ernest Thesinger die.

No! Fight it. You must fight back.

Andrea turned away, squeezed shut her eyes, tried to separate illusion from reality.

There! The mists, the cracking walls, the false image of Ernest Thesinger, the flood and bugs and pleading relatives were gone. All that remained were the Betty-creature and a few rats, skittering in terror, delirious with freedom, around her feet. They would not harm her if she kept Betty too busy to send them against her. If Betty could tap into the psychic forces of the island, so could she. Keep them at bay.

It was Betty who presented the most danger. Concentrate on Betty.

The shambling horror, half-woman, half-monster, opened its mouth and emitted a serpentine hiss. The fangs in the mouth glistened with mucus. It moved forward, injured and enraged, the wounds in its face dripping a repulsive greenish slime. Andrea saw the torn portions of Betty’s scissors-ravaged face, flaps of skin hanging down, and was glad at what she’d done.

But that was only the beginning.

The thing reached out its clawed hands again, seeking to rend and tear. Andrea backed away, her fingers scrambling in her pocket for the other weapons she had brought along. A small container of lighter fluid dropped into her hand. She took it out, aimed the nozzle at the Betty-creature, and squeezed the container. The oily liquid shot out, squirting in Betty’s eyes, on the tattered remnants of her clothes which hung on the mottled gray skin of the creature she had blended with.

Betty’s eyes lit up in alarm. Too late—it saw what Andrea was doing.

Andrea got out the book of matches. Struck one. Sent it hurtling at Betty.

Betty raised up her arms to cover her face. The match hit. Everywhere the fluid was, it burned. Betty’s clothes went up in flames, her face smoked. Andrea smelled burning flesh and gagged. Betty rolled around and around on the floor, trying to extinguish the fire. The fire ignited the carpet, raced across the floor, and burst into full glory as it enveloped the drapes.

The old wood of the house would go up very easily. The whole mansion would burn down to the ground.

Blackened, sizzling, the Betty-creature raised its evil head off the floor, and cried, “Help me. Please, Andrea, help me.” Andrea was no longer looking at a hybrid monstrosity, but at a feeble human female, her old friend, Betty, harmless Betty, sweet Betty, Betty-on-fire. Do not be fooled, Andrea thought. As long as she was thinking, breathing, Betty was still dangerous.

Andrea felt Betty’s mind reaching out, seeking up, down, around. If I must die, her mind was saying, I will take you with me, bitch.

The house was going to be consumed by the flames; there would be another terrible conflagration—but Andrea still had time to make it out the front door, just a few feet, a few seconds, away. The walls had caught fire, and the whole library was ablaze. Smoke began to irritate her eyes, enter her lungs. Betty’s body was lost in the haze. First this room would go—then the others on this floor, then the ones above. The house was doomed.

Coughing and wheezing, Andrea sped toward the front door and safety.

I’ll take you with me, bitch.

There was a tremendous vibration that shook the whole house, coming up from deep in the earth and rocking the mansion on its foundation. Immediately after, there came the thunderous boom of an incredibly powerful explosion that blew the house right off the surface of the island and out of existence. The old house was no more.

Epilogue

Lynn Overman stepped out of the shower in her apartment on Hereford Street and began to dry her body with a fluffy blue towel. Her skin felt cool, tingling, clean. She wiped with a desperate fastidiousness, afraid if she stopped for an instant the thoughts would intrude, the terrible thoughts she’d been having all day.

“I suppose it will be like this for the rest of your life,” she said out loud. She looked at herself in the mirror, put on her bathrobe, and went out into the living room. She sat down on the sofa and wondered what she could do today to keep busy, to keep from brooding. But even if she tried to think of some mind- and memory-numbing activity, the thoughts came flooding back over her and she was back on the dock at Lammerty Island almost a year and a half ago.

They’d found her there screaming, in shock, crying for all the others. Strangely, she had been able to pack her bags, to put all her possessions neatly away and wait quietly on the dock until the man came to pick them up. Only there had been no one to pick up except for her. She was hysterical, overcome by the trauma of the weekend. She’d spent all day and all night Sunday alone on the island. She’d heard the explosion, seen the fire lighting up the sky for miles around. She knew then that the terrible battle between Andrea and Betty had ended in tragedy for both, for all of them—but her. It was as if the island knew she owned it, and had protected its new mistress from harm.

The skipper of the boat had smelled the smoke, saw the ashes floating in the air and covering everything, acres of land, and gone to see for himself. “I heard the boom last night,” he had said, “Didn’t know it had come from here!” He shook Lynn by the shoulders. “Were the others in the house? Answer me for God’s sake!” But she had only looked at him and wept. During the voyage to the mainland she had done nothing but moan and sob. They put her in a hospital for awhile. By the time they were ready to question her, they already knew all the answers.

Or thought they did.

Apparently there had been a cavern filled with natural gas situated directly underneath the Burrow’s mansion. As no bodies or living souls were found anywhere on the island, it was assumed that the others had been inside the old house, that somehow a fire had started, and when it hit the leakage from the cavern seeping into the subcellars of the mansion—boom! Everyone had perished. The fire had been so hot, the explosion so severe, that there was absolutely no chance of ever recovering any bodies.

Lynn just nodded her head. “Yes. I guess everyone else was inside the house. I just remember an explosion. Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes.”

She did not tell them anything about necromancers, books, monster, demons, or murders. If she did, she knew that they would never let her out of the hospital.

But when the dreams, the nightmares, started a few days after her release, she decided to seek professional help. She told her psychologist everything. After five months of therapy, he had all but convinced her that her friends had died in an explosion, and that there had been no necromancer, no murders, no book. And most especially, no trip into the future.

When the day came, the day in which she had supposedly arrived in the future from a year in the past, she stayed in her bedroom all afternoon —and nothing happened. She had not brought that book into the house—who was left to write it now? she had no intention of doing so—and she had not seen a phantom image of herself reaching out from the misty past to grab it off the night-table.

There. She was satisfied. She had been a sick girl, a very sick woman. Delusions. She had not been psychic, only psychotic.

But she was well now. Her friends were dead-killed in a tragic explosion—and she was alive, and that was that. She had been lucky that she had stayed in the guest house that fateful night, though she couldn’t quite remember why she had done so. Probably she had been in her room recovering from a fight with John. She remembered that they had been quarreling that weekend.

And so here she was, a whole year after that same fateful day, the day she was supposed to have arrived in the future. Two years had gone by since she’d made her time trip, and she knew that she was safe, that nothing had ever happened, that there were no demons or maniacs and that the shadowy figure she had thought she’d seen in her bedroom on her journey ahead had never existed, and would never, could never possibly, do her any harm.

It was two p.m. It was around that time that she had sat down on her bed, said those magic words, prepared herself to—

Stop it, she told herself. You had been a silly, deluded person then, a fool. But you’re better now. This day should no longer have any special significance for you. Nothing happened last year —and that was the year you supposedly entered the future—so certainly nothing will happen this year. How could it? That whole trip into the future had been nothing but a fantasy, a ridiculous, childish fantasy.

The door bell rang.

Lynn made sure she was properly covered in her robe, and peeked through the peephole. It was a woman. Something familiar about her. An old friend from somewhere? Even talking to a saleslady would be better than spending the afternoon brooding.

Lynn opened the door. “Hello?”

“May I come in, Lynn? I have to talk to you.”

Lynn’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. She took one good look at the face of the woman in the hall, and felt as if all her carefully structured sanity would come tumbling down in pieces.

Lynn took the chain off the door with trembling hands, stepped back, and let the woman in.

Andrea Peters stepped into the apartment and made herself at home.

“How—how can you be alive? They—they searched the island. The explosion … Everyone was killed.”

Andrea sat down on the sofa, smoothed her skirt. She looked wonderful—with a new hairstyle and bright, fashionable clothes. “Not everyone,” she said. “I managed to get out and away from the house before Betty blew the roof off.”

“The cavern of natural gas …”

“I suppose it was underneath the house, all right. Yes—I’ve read newspaper accounts of the ‘Lammerty Island Tragedy.’ But whether it was the gas or Betty’s—peculiar talents—which blew up the house—or both—I suppose we’ll never know.”

“Where have you been all these months? Why didn’t you let me know you were alive?”

Andrea studied her fingernails and shifted in her seat. “Because I didn’t know I was alive, Lynn dear.” She leaned forward to clarify. “I didn’t know who I was. The shockwaves from the explosion knocked the senses out of me. Total amnesia. Somehow I got down to the shore, dove into the water—probably in an effort to escape from the terrible heat. I was a little burned, you know. And out of my head. I don’t know how I stayed alive—pure force of will, I suppose. But the next thing I knew I was being picked up by the tides and carried back to the island. It rained all that day, Sunday, do you remember? I pulled myself off of the rocks and sought shelter. I huddled in the derelict, the Mary Eliza, must have just passed out and slept there for days. The people who searched the island didn’t do much of a job. They assumed everyone had died in the mansion. I don’t doubt they went around calling out names, but I never heard them, and they never came into the ship.”

“How did you get off the island?”

“A week later, two or three weeks later, I don’t remember, I had gone through the food in the guest house, eaten berries and grass, anything to survive. I couldn’t take the loneliness, the isolation, not knowing who I was. I swam out into the sea in an attempt to end my life. I figured I’d just swim until I was too tired to stay afloat. I read later that officials came over to investigate the explosion, but I must have been asleep in the ship when they came. I slept most of the time. I was in horrible pain. I ate in the house, but slept in the wreck. I was quite mad. A little wild thing trying to survive on her own.

“A trawler came upon me in the water. I had swung for quite a distance. It was a calm sea that day and I’ve always been a good swimmer. They pulled me into the boat and for some reason I made up a story. I was afraid to tell them I didn’t know who I was, afraid to ask for help. I said my skiff had overturned. If they noticed the healing burns on my skin they said nothing. They dropped me off at the nearest port—and I went on my way, pretending I had only to call someone and I’d be fine. I wandered around for awhile in a daze, then started hitching rides. I had gone all the way to Idaho when something snapped in my brain and I realized I was an amnesiac and that I had once had a life, an identity, and that I desperately needed help. I walked into the police station in Boise, began to cry and scream, and collapsed. I woke up in a hospital some miles away, and I stayed there for months. At the end of those months I had progressed enough to remember my name and where I lived. But nothing else.”

“I don’t understand,” Lynn interrupted. “If you went into the guest house, why didn’t you look through the rooms, through the clothes, the possessions, to see if you could find an I.D., something that would tell you who you were?”

“That’s just it. Nothing I did makes sense. Nothing is rational. Before she died, Betty told me she was going to ‘take me with her.’ But in those last seconds she must have known I’d gotten out of the house, that the explosion wouldn’t kill me. So she did something else. She did something to my mind. Perhaps the amnesia was all her fault too—I don’t know. But I do know that she worked a spell in her last breathing moment that made me disoriented, disorganized, unable to do anything to help myself. Otherwise, I would have found out who I was and gotten home to Boston much, much quicker than I did.”

Lynn stood there and tried to take it all in. It was just incredible. And all the talk about “Betty” and “spells”—that was something the old Lynn would have welcomed, but the new Lynn did not like or understand. Part of her wanted to rush over to Andrea and hug her, welcome her back to the land of the living and thank God for keeping her alive. But there was something in Andrea’s manner and tone of voice, something disturbing in her very presence, and what it represented, that made her hang back. For lack of anything else to say, Lynn stuttered “I—I’ll go m-make us some tea. Would you like that? Okay? I’ll only be a minute.”

When she came out of the kitchen with the tea tray, cups, saucers, teapot, and cookies, Andrea was gone.

“Andrea?” Perhaps she was in the bathroom.

She walked down the hallway, heard movement in her bedroom. Now what would she be doing in there?

“Andrea?”

Andrea was against the far wall, near the closet, in the area of the bedroom that was always darkest. Lynn stepped across the threshold and looked across the room. “Andrea? The tea is ready. What are you doing?”

Something was wrong. Out of place.

Involuntarily, Lynn’s eyes went down to the top of the night table. No.

Something had been put there.

It was the object. The book. A copy of Late at Night was on the top of the night table, in the exact same position that it had been in when …

Andrea spoke. “Yes, Lynn. That’s the book. You see, you made a mistake. You didn’t go one year into the future. You went two. ”

Lynn froze, felt tears approaching. “NO NO NO. I thought I was safe, thought I had only imagined …”

“While I was in the hospital,” Andrea continued, “I did a lot of writing. For therapy. I wrote down my dreams, Lynn. In a narrative form. My counselor read them. She said they were weird, the stuff of horror stories. I didn’t know what to do with all my jottings—there was enough for a book. I didn’t know where it all came from—nightmares, I supposed—but it seemed so very vivid. When I got out of the hospital, I fixed it up, made some changes, sent it to an agent. A literary agent. The first publisher bought it, Lynn. Said it would make a great paperback original. I decided to publish it under the pen name Max Schumann. Maxine is my middle name. My mother’s maiden name is Schumann.”

“Please. I don’t want to hear any more.”

“But it wasn’t until the book came from the printer, when I got my author’s copies, that I remembered. Everything. I had not survived an explosion on Lammerty Island, I had survived much worse. Everything in the book was true! It was the cover that did it; seeing the cover, holding the book in my hands, it all came back to me in a flash.

“And I remembered why subconsciously I had never wanted to see you again, why I never let you know I was alive. Because I remembered Ernest Thesinger, and what your stupidity did to him.”

“That’s not fair,” Lynn shouted. “It was Betty. Betty was the one who killed him. And the others.”

Andrea shook her head. “Betty’s greed for power was ignited by the presence of the book on the island. A book for the future—it was mystical, magical, a focal point for psychic forces. Betty might never have done anything had it not been for the book.”

Andrea was in a cold, calm rage now, her eyes two burning black pools of hatred.

“I sent Ernie after the book. Because of your meddling in things no human being should meddle in, Ernie is dead. You and that damnable book.”

Suddenly it was two years “ago” and Lynn was stepping into her room from out of the past, blending with her future self. She was looking down at the night table, sensing a sinister presence to her right.

Andrea was on her right.

And then Lynn looked up and saw Andrea taking the scissors from her shoulder bag.

Lynn screamed.

“All Your Damn Fault!”

And with each word the sharp metal implement stabbed downwards into Lynn’s writhing body. From each wound flowed out enormous quantities of deep red blood. The scissors flicked open, shut—cutting, slicing.

Lynn’s body collapsed in a grisly heap on the bedroom floor.

Calmly, Andrea stepped over the body, entered the bathroom, and washed the blood off the scissors. She knew she had passed beyond sanity, that Betty Sanders was still getting even with her from the grave. But she did not care. Lynn had paid—as all who fooled with the cosmic scheme must pay. Ernest Thesinger had been fully avenged.

She looked back into the bedroom. Blood was soaking into the carpet, spreading out in a widening puddle around Lynn Overman’s body. Andrea felt nothing. She looked at the night table, but the book she’d put there was gone, taken away by the Lynn of the past.

Which had come first? she wondered. It was such a paradox. If the book had not been written, none of the story told within might have ever occurred. And if events had not transpired the way they had on Lammerty Island, the book would not have been written.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? To ponder such things too long was to court madness. Was it possible that the future could affect the past? How was it that the book had been there for Lynn to find when she went into the future? If she had not gone into the future, Andrea would have never written the book.

There was, could be, no answer. Mysteries within mysteries. The world kept turning, time kept moving—backwards, forwards, sideways, who ever knew?—and there was no answer.

Andrea left the apartment and made her way down to the sidewalk. It was a nice, sunny day, the sky clear and a cool wind blowing. Sooner or later they’d find the body, and she would have to tell them what had happened. No one would believe her. If she kept her mouth shut, she might get away with it.

Then again, she had her book to consider, Late at Night. Might it not sell better if she was a notorious figure?

As everyone knew—murder was good for business.

Table of Contents

PART ONE Arrival

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

PART TWO Reverberations

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

PART THREE Morning

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

PART FOUR Afternoon

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

PART FIVE Night

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

PART SIX Late at Night

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Epilogue