“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 some
where?” 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 cou
ld 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.
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