Late at Night

by William Schoell

  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 li
quid 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. Noth
ing 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.