Late at Night (29 page)

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.”