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 stra
nge 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? Woul
d 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.
Late at Night Page 1
