“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.”
Late at Night Page 15
