Late at Night (14 page)

“All right.” He sat down on the bed to test its softness. “Too lumpy,” he muttered. “Glo would really hate it.”

“Now,”
she demanded. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Jerry looked up at her. Cyn could tell he was beginning to get the message. A certain light went on in his eyes, and his smile had become a leer. Probably wasn’t even conscious of it.

“You’ve been here before?” he asked.

She frowned. “What do you think, huh?” She bent down, giggled, tapped the tip of his nose with her finger.

“Then what are you going to show me?”

“You’ll find out. Why don’t we go upstairs, where the others won’t find us for a while? Then I’ll show you what I want you to see.”

He didn’t need any more encouragement than that. Cynthia knew men all right. The old cow might give him the money, and he might give her some action—but when he really wanted to get his rocks off he had to turn to other women. Younger women. Women like Cynthia.

They began ascending the wide sweeping staircase with its broad steps and wooden banister. Cynthia took note of the squishing sound their feet made, as if the carpet was wet. “It stinks in here,” Jerry said.

“I noticed.” But she wasn’t about to let that deter her. This boy was going to get it but good.

Third floor. More bedrooms. Was the odor slacking off, or were they only getting used to it? The windows along the staircase let in lots of light, but the place still had an eerie, somber quality to it.- Cynthia wanted to get this over with. The voices of the others down below were becoming less distinct the further up they went.

Fourth floor. More bedrooms, at least off the staircase. Who could tell what there might be at the end of the hall. On the upper floors the corridors ran side to side instead of front to back like on the first floor. The floor up here was uncarpeted; their footsteps on the hard wood surface made tapping sounds that echoed throughout the house. ”Shhh,” Cynthia said, a finger to her lips. “Walk softly.”

They went from dusty room to dusty room, but couldn’t find any that had furniture in it. “No rugs, no furniture. What did they do up here?” Cynthia asked in puzzlement. They should have stayed below where there had been nice, comfortable beds.

Jerry shrugged. “They probably decided to close off this floor. They probably only needed about a quarter of the rooms anyway. This
is
an awfully big place.”

“I’ll say.” She took his hand. “Come on—let’s try down here.”

In the last room she noticed that there was another doorway in the far wall which turned out to lead to yet another side-to-side corridor further back in the building. There was a whole new set of rooms, and it was much darker here, as the sun was on the other side of the mansion. There was still no furniture around, but this would have to do. Cynthia shut the door they’d come through and pulled Jerry down to the end of this second hallway. Jerry laughed. “Are you sure you don’t want to go up and explore the attic? We’ve come this far.”

What a tease,
Cynthia thought. “No, I don’t want to explore the attic. Besides. We don’t know how to get up there.” The stairs had ended on this, the fourth floor.

“There’s probably an entrance, a trap door or something, in one of the rooms. Maybe in the closet. Why don’t we—” Before he could finish, Cynthia untied the front of her blouse and let the material swing free to either side, revealing her substantial bosom.
“Here,”
she said.

Jerry’s leer was in place again. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”

“That and a whole lot more.”

And then Jerry’s mouth was clamped over hers, and his fingers were squeezing her breasts, and she knew she had been right all along—he wanted her just as much as she wanted him. All those people out there, her fans, thought she led a racy lifestyle, but they didn’t know, they couldn’t know, the long shooting days, the hours of memorizing scripts, the fear of being mobbed that kept her out of single bars, all the interviews, the photo-sessions—how could they know how lonely it left her, how bereft of time to meet people, to make love, to enjoy the presence, the company of a man? How could they know how lonely she was?

Jerry was working his hand into the back of her pants, rubbing her ass, sighing salaciously and digging his tongue into the back of her throat. She held him closer; felt giddying sensations as her breasts rubbed sensually against his chest, her mammaries against his pecs, her lips melded to his lips, their arms and legs blending together.

This is no cure for loneliness,
Cynthia thought,
but it sure is nice consolation.

Then her pants were down, off, thrown away. Jerry’s pants hung about his ankles, metal buckle jangling as he grunted and pumped. His lips worried at her neck, pressing sweet kisses into the skin. She felt a thrill inside her, unstoppable, building, building.

They collapsed onto the floor now, not heeding the cold wood, the dust, the grime. All that mattered was getting off, reaching that ultimate point, quickly,
quickly.
Jerry’s thrusts were frenzied; Cynthia was squealing out loud. Any moment now, any second …

And then from behind the wall where they were tangled together, something started knocking.

Chapter 26

The necromancer stood alone in the dark, listening to all the
sounds
that were surrounding it.
Who first? How shall I test my power this time? What shall I do? I can do anything!

Anything at all!

The necromancer wanted to test its strength, find out exactly what its limits were. It needed a way to show off its abilities.

And what better way than to
use
those who were now in the house, blissfully unaware of who was stalking them, unaware that they were pawns in a struggle they had no inkling of.

Yes.

Those useless, simpering fools would be the perfect guinea pigs, the perfect subjects for the necromancer to test its mettle on. The necromancer knew it was time to give its first full-scale performance. What had happened in the guest house the night before had been but a prelude, the opening movement to a veritable symphony of terror.

There could be no turning back.

The necromancer began summoning all the psychic energy around it, drawing all that energy to its body, absorbing it, controlling it, letting it build up stronger and stronger in its mind. Then —expelling it, shaping the very forces as they flew from its body, using those forces to disturb the tiny creatures: the rodents, the insects, the vermin infesting the walls and cellars of the house. The energy nipped and pecked at the minds of the little beasties, infuriating them, driving them to a passionate hunger and a savage anger that nothing, that no one, could stop.

Next the necromancer chose the creatures’ victims. It decided against killing those already in the house—for now. Instead it picked two others. They had been huddled out in the woods together, afraid to enter the mansion with the rest. But now, driven by curiosity and impatience, they had gone exploring, had descended into the passageways below the house where the vermin—the worms and rats and spiders—would be waiting patiently for them.

Footsteps! The necromancer opened its eyes.
Hurry. Hurry! You mustn’t be seen like this.

The door opened.

“Oh there you are,” someone said. “What are you doing in the dark?”

But it was too late. The forces had been set in motion, and the two sacrificial victims were doomed. Nothing could stop it from happening.

The necromancer was back to normal now, a human being just like any other.

The necromancer stepped out of the shadows, smiled. “Come in. This really is a
lovely
room in here.”

Chapter 27

“Let’s go back, Emily. I’m scared.”

Joanne Nobele looked back towards the beginning of the passageway, and wondered why she had ever been crazy enough to come down here. Emily was going onwards like a woman possessed, determined to see if the passage they were in led into the house where the others were. She’d been so scared before, that Emily, clinging to Joanne as if her life depended on it, time and again refusing Joanne’s suggestions that they go look for the others. Now look where they were. If there was anything creepier than that old house with its wicked, toothsome grin, this was it.

“Emily.
Wait up. I can’t walk as fast as you.”

“Hurry up!” the other girl scolded. “I can hardly wait to see the look on their faces when we pop out and go ‘boo.’ I think it’ll be a scream.”

Joanne caught up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen, Nancy Drew. My ankle hurts and my feet are tired. If you won’t go back with me, at least give me a minute to rest.”

“Scaredy cat.”

“Oh shut up. You were the one who was running around last night without any—” Then Joanne shut her mouth before she could say any more. Amazingly, Emily had not recalled a thing this morning about her encounter with the figure in the mirror. All that business of her screaming about blood, running around naked—it was as if it had never happened. Mrs. Plushing got Joanne to promise that she wouldn’t bring it up. “Why dredge up bad memories, and frighten the darling?” the old woman had said. Which was too bad, because Joanne, who was not yet convinced that what she had seen the night before was a mere hallucination, would have liked to have sat down with Emily and compared notes.

“What did you say?” Emily asked her.

“Oh never mind. But if you run off before I’m through resting, I swear I’ll go back without you.”

“
No!
”

Joanne could tell she had struck a nerve. Emily would do as she was told as long as she thought she’d be otherwise abandoned. She really did have a compulsion to see this through. Well, at least it was daylight, fat lot of good that did them down here in the dark with only two old torches to see them through.

It had all started as they stood at the end of the clearing, waiting to see if any horrible screams should tear out of the mansion once the others were inside. But no—apparently they’d gotten into the house all right, and were not in any danger. But time dragged on and on, they got restless, relaxing their guard, getting used to the location, getting bored. Emily had wanted to look around a bit. Joanne kept pushing Emily to go with her to the house. “What’s the use?” her friend had said. “As soon as we get there they’ll be coming out. And I won’t go into the place alone.”

But then Emily had walked a little ways into the woods and called out to Joanne, “Come quick,” and Joanne discovered that her friend had come upon a crumbling old gazebo sitting there squat and complacent in the middle of some tall clumps of weeds. In the center of the wooden structure there was a big hole with steps leading down. The door over the hole lay a few feet away, pulled off its hinges. “I bet this is a secret passage,” Emily said excitedly. “I just love secret passages, don’t you?” And suddenly she’d been a little girl again, determined to go down those steps into the darkness and find out where the passageway led. Going up and entering the maw of that strangely living house had been one thing; entering this hole yards away from the house was another. To Joanne’s mind, one was as bad as the other—maybe this was worse—but Emily’s mind was made up. “I’ll leave you alone in the woods,” she threatened. Joanne relented. It wasn’t so much that being alone in the clearing would be scary, but rather that it wouldn’t be much fun.

Still there had been other considerations. “We haven’t any light, Emily,” she pointed out. “How will we see our way?”

Emily was halfway down the wooden steps. “There’s a big wooden torch stuck on the wall,” she yelled. “I’ve got matches. I bet I can light it.”

And to Joanne’s dismay, she did. Later on they found another torch in a notch in the wall, which Emily lit and gave to her.

Then there was the matter of the safety of what they were about to do. “What if there’s a cave-in?” Joanne suggested. “We’ll be buried alive. That passage is ancient. It might not be safe to go in there.”

“Come on,” Emily had whined. “It’s probably just a little room under the gazebo.”

But no, it had turned out to be an underground passageway leading in the direction of the house. There had been a few small twists and turns—the floor rose or fell at intervals—but nothing to indicate that it was changing direction.
All we need,
Joanne said to herself,
is to wind up miles away at the other side of the island or, heaven help us, under the sea.

The floor of the passage was made of tightly packed dirt crunched down from years of travel. The sides were formed of a crusty, yellowish rock that had tiny cracks and crevices on its surface. Once Joanne looked closely at the rock and thought she could see some tiny undulating mass squirming in some of those crevices, but she quickly turned away and pretended both to herself and to Emily that she simply had not noticed.

There was a warm breeze blowing through the tunnel. Sometimes it was blowing against their faces, other times it was blowing in the opposite direction, pushing them gently, gently into the depths of the passage. It was for all the world like the breathing motions of a living animal, air in, air out, over and over again. Joanne realized with no small horror that it was like walking down a throat. She thought of mentioning this to Emily but knew the other girl, living out her fantasy of being a great adventurer, would
ssshh
her and tell her she was silly. Emily had once gone into some caverns with her cousins and fancied herself a seasoned spelunker.

The passage began to ascend. The air was hotter, and they heard moaning sounds as if they were entering the lair of a wheezing, gasping organism. “Let’s go back, Emily!” Joanne screamed, not afraid now to fully reveal her terror.
Anything
to convince her friend that it simply wasn’t safe to go on. What if there were ghosts down here? Terrible shuffling things like the one she’d thought she’d seen in her room last night. What if they appeared to her now, dragged her kicking and screaming into that house way above, making her a captive in some never-ending nightmare? “Emily.
Please.
Let’s go back.”