Late at Night by William Schoell Page A

use them. Even without the necromancer’s being aware of it, its powers were at work. They were responsible for its being alerted that someone had possession of that mystical object. The necromancer had to be very, very careful now. And clever. If necessary, the necromancer thought, and the thought bothered it not in the least. I will have to destroy every last person on this island.
    Except for myself, of course.
    The necromancer knew one thing that the others never even suspected.
    Death can be so pretty.

 
    Chapter 18
    Ernie was in the middle of the novel’s first chapter. The more he read, the more incredible it seemed. Who was this Max Schumann anyway? A mindreader? Was it some kind of joke? Late at Night looked like a regular book and was from a well-known, legitimate publisher. Whoever this Max Schumann was—there was no author’s bio—he seemed positively prescient.
    The island in the novel was definitely Lammerty. There was no mistaking it. The author described this very guest house as if he himself had slept there, and also made mention of the ship, aptly describing the feelings of terror it had apparently awakened in psychic Andrea; as well as the old Burrows house, the even older remnants of the original Pauling mansion, and all of the fact-based murders and deaths that had occurred there. So far, nothing strange. After all, Lammerty Island was famous in certain circles, and anyone could have done a little research and used the island for a novel’s location. He believed a couple of writers had already done so, so there was nothing unusual in that. It was just funny that he’d happened upon the novel while he was actually on the island where the story itself took place.
    But it was when the characters were introduced that things really began to get weird. Andrew Tennington shared quite a few of Ernie’s own characteristics. All right, many writers are inhibited, quiet; that’s why they write for a living instead of, say, going on the stage. But “Andrew” even looked like Ernie, and the description was a pretty thorough one. Andrew’s innermost thoughts—and there weren’t many of them, the book raced along at a speedy clip—were different from Ernie’s, which was some comfort. Anything else would have had Ernie climbing the walls.
    But the other characters! They had different names, but were the same people who were sleeping in the guest house this very minute, Ernie was sure of it. There was the gossip columnist, on her way out, trying to recapture her youth by taking a young man for a lover. The sexy TV actress, that was Cynthia, though Mr. Schumann named her Glynis. Lynn, and Ernie’s cousin John, were represented—very accurately, too. Alison Petrie the psychic, sounded suspiciously like Andrea Peters, the psychic. Alfred Sutter, a temperamental, extremely ugly concert pianist, had to be Schumann’s conception of Anton Suffron, and “plain, plump Esther Sonderson” was Betty Sanders to a tee. Even Everson’s servants, Margaret the cook, the two housekeepers, Hans and Eric, had their literary equivalents. It was absolutely uncanny.
    Ernie spent more time trying to figure the whole thing out than he did reading. Everson had told him that the details of the expedition hadn’t been fully confirmed until a couple of days before they left the mainland. Ernie knew enough about publishing to know that while they could on occasion rush out a paperback within a few weeks’ time, it was impossible to write, sell, edit and print—and distribute—an entire novel within the space of a few days. Even if “Max Schumann” was a friend of Everson’s, or someone in the party, or Everson himself, no way could he gave gotten Bellamme Books to come out with Late at Night in such a short space of time. But Ernie’d be damned if it didn’t look like someone had put together a speculative horror novel based on this very trip to Lammerty Island.
    That every person here—no more, no less—would be