Late at Night

by William Schoell

  To endure less silence.

  With Anton at her side she could endure just about anything.

  She thought again of Mrs. Plushing, of the ones who’d disappeared on the island, and shuddered. What if something like that happened to Anton? No—she wouldn’t let it. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Anton. Not him. The others could go to blazes—snooty Cynthia, haughty Andrea, condescending Lynn, all the others—but Anton must remain safe and sound and whole— for her.

  Feeling a little bit better now, she took her drink and sat down beside the pianist. Anton smiled down at her. “Hello, my pretty,” he said. He looked up at Ernie, who began walking over to the corridor leading to his room. “Well, Mr. Thesinger, do you think we should tell her? Should we tell Betty about the danger that all of us are in.”

  Betty’s hackles rose. Something was wrong.

  Ernie stood in thought for a moment, then said. “No. There’s no need to upset her.”

  “Why?” Betty asked. “What’s going on? You can tell me.”

  “Yes,” Anton agreed. “I think she should know. Everything. Our Betty is a brave one, aren’t you Betty?”

  What was going on? she wondered. Anton sounded so bitter, almost frightened. Surely his odd remarks, his sardonic delivery, the nasty way he looked at her, that had something to do with it. He was upset, that’s all. Surely he couldn’t be mad at her?

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, looking from Anton to Ernie and back again. “Is something wrong?”

  Anton chuckled and she didn’t like the sound of it. ” ‘Is something wrong? Is something wrong?’ ” she asks. “Poor deluded little fool.” He whirled on her, snarling. “Everything is wrong, you little—”

  “Anton!” Ernie’s voice was a command. Betty was grateful. She could tell that Anton had been building up to saying things they would both have regretted later. She reached out and held his hand. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help. I want to help.”

  Anton looked down at the hand covering his own as if he had discovered a slug or earthworm crawling across his fingers. He shrugged it off, fidgeting in his seat. “She wants to help,” he told Ernie.

  “There’s no point in upsetting everyone,” Ernie said. He looked squarely at Betty. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s had too much to drink.”

  “I can see,” Betty said calmly, her face scrunched up in motherly concern. She took Anton’s glass away from him. “Please, dear—I don’t want you to get sick. Are you sure you should be drinking this?”

  “ ‘Dear? Dear!‘ ” he said incredulously, mimicking the woman’s voice. “Did you hear that? She called me ‘dear.’ ”

  “Anton, there’s no need—”

  The pianist turned on her, his little victim, done to a turn, all ripe and rare and ready for him to sink his fangs into. “I am not your ‘dear’—”

  “Anton, we’ve been so close these past few hours, you don’t have to—if you’re upset—”

  “Shut up, you little cow. Close to you? I’d sooner be close to a pile of excrement.”

  Ernie kept saying, “Anton, Stop It!” He was trying to head him off, trying to keep him from uttering the terrible words that followed, and for that Betty was deeply grateful, truly grateful, but it was much too late. They just came pouring out, those awful things, those cutting words, the truth, the real truth, Anton Suffron’s real, true feelings for her.

  “You should be glad I even bothered to associate with you. You’re a—a worm of a woman, a nobody, a squat, homely piece of diseased tissue without a sole redeeming feature. It’s women like you—dogs, rodents— that make up the most useless, the must utterly hopeless segment of society. To think you would interpret my attentions as flirtation, as love; I’d sooner romance an orangutan. Look at you, sitting there whimpering —always that damned whimpering—your eyes red, those fat cheeks and teensy lips, your face white and bloated like a horrible little fish, a blow-fish— that’s it!” Anton stood up abruptly, began to lower the zipper on his pants. He pulled out his rather tiny penis and flapped it in Betty’s face. “Go on, little blowfish, isn’t this what you were after? A thrill to last you a lifetime. Go on—suck it, suck it, suck it. Blow me now, my little fish.”

  Ernie took two long steps and socked Anton in the jaw. The pianist plummeted to the floor, falling across where Betty’s legs would have been had she not jumped up from the couch seconds earlier and ran in tears towards the staircase.

  “Betty!” she heard Thesinger yelling after her. “He was drunk. Don’t listen to him. He’s a fool, an asshole.”

  No, she thought bitterly, her face turning crimson, her tears scorching her cheeks, I’m an asshole. Me, me, me, me, me!

  And she ran into her room and slammed the door behind her.

  Chapter 49

  Hans got up from the lower bunk bed and paused, steeling himself for what he’d see after he crossed the room to where Mrs. Plushing was lying. He had gotten hold of himself, wiped away the tears, and decided the only thing to do was to wait for Mr. Everson to get back and to hope— and pray—that his employer would know where there was a seaworthy boat on the island. There was nothing he could do for Mrs. Plushing. Nothing. He had pulled the covers up, made sure she was still breathing—she was making ragged, choking gasps now—checked her faint, fading pulse. Blood dripped down off the sides of the mattress, her blood, from all her terrible wounds. He had wrapped torn sheets, bandages around each tear in her flesh, but the blood came out, soaked through, ran down her limbs and onto the bed. He knew it was only a matter of moments before she might die. He thought of getting the others, but doubted they would know what to do any more than he had. He was afraid to leave for even a second, afraid he would return and find that something even worse had happened to the woman.

  What could be worse?

  He walked over slowly, studying her prostrate form, begging silently for her to recover. The red stains on the uppermost blanket were spreading, but had not yet completely soaked the material. Her condition was unchanged. Her head, if anything, seemed puffier, the outer skin almost translucent. He could see every vein, every capilary in her face. The skin looked so fragile he was afraid it would crumble like old parchment if he so much as touched it.

  Death. He was looking at death.

  A thought tripped lightly across the back of his brain, stopped, receded, came forward again, teasing him, taunting his memory. Finally, he caught it, held onto the thought, refusing to release it into his subconscious again. The content chilled him. What if Mrs. Plushing’s illness was contagious?

  He could not think of such things. Not now. Not yet. Not ever. Nothing could make him leave the dying woman’s side.

  Still, it hurt just to look at her.

  He went back to the bunk bed, sat down, put his face in his hands. He wondered idly where the girls and Eric had disappeared to. He could have used their company. He heard the voices filtering down the hall from the room beyond the kitchen. Anton’s. Thesinger’s. Mr. Everson was not back yet. He didn’t want to go in and see the others, didn’t want them to see that he’d been crying. “Show your weakness and they destroy you.” His father had told him that many years ago, and he still knew that it was true.

  Staring down at his feet without seeing, Hans did not notice the movement on the other side of the room. On the bed. He did not see the lifting, shifting motions underneath the sheet. Did not see the fingers digging out from underneath the covers. In a few seconds, Mrs. Plushing’s entire right arm was exposed.

  It was not connected to her body.

  Moving under its own power, the arm pulled itself down the length of the bed, trailing jagged red pieces of torn ligament and the towel that had been wrapped around it. It reached the end of the bed, then tumbled onto the floor and out of sight.

  Five minutes later Mrs. Plushing’s left foot, detached from the leg, thrust out from under the blanket of its own accord and squeezed into the aperture between the mattress and the
bottom of the bed.

  Hans got up, wondered where he might find a cigarette—anything to keep him from shaking-decided against smoking, sat down again.

  The right arm was slowly crawling along the baseboard perpendicular to the bed. It left a narrow smear of reddish fluid.

  Four minutes later Hans heard a strange plopping sound and got up to investigate.

  He looked down at Mrs. Plushing. Everything seemed to be all right. The stains in the blanket had gotten no larger. Perhaps the bleeding was slackening. The covers seemed a little loose on Mrs. Plushing’s right side. He leaned over and grabbed the end, meaning to tuck it under the woman’s shoulder. She should be kept as warm as possible.

  Something was wrong. There was too much-space. Space where there should have been substance. Space where there should have been—

  He lifted up the blanket. Her right arm was gone.

  He heard the same plopping sound again, pinpointed it, looked over to Mrs. Plushing’s left side. As he stood there watching, Mrs. Plushing’s left arm wrenched off her body, pulling away from the shoulder like a piece of candy at a taffy pull, the fleshy fibers stretching, parting, breaking with a moist wet snap.

  A low keening sound of horror and disbelief ushered forth from the handyman’s mouth. Mrs. Plushing’s arm was pulling itself up onto her chest, the fingers working, working, struggling to get over the twin mounds of the bosom, across the torso to the other side. Once there, the hand rose upwards in the air, the rest of the arm still laying on the bed. Hans backed away from the fingers that reached and stretched in the direction of his face.

  Something had wrapped itself around his ankle. He looked down and saw the other hand by his foot. It was exerting a tremendous pressure on his leg, trying to topple him to the floor. He lifted his leg, shook it furiously, screaming. The severed arm flew across the room and crashed onto the top of the dresser. He looked back to see where the other arm had gone. He gasped.

  The spot on the pillow where Mrs. Plushing’s head had been was empty. There was a large gaping hole at the top of her neck, discharging viscous fluid.

  Hans jumped at the sound of another harsh noise at the bottom of the bed. He looked, saw the woman’s right leg falling to the floor, skittering towards him under its own power. It was as if the pieces of her body were attached to invisible strings, manipulated by an unseen puppeteer. Their movements were jerky, hesitant, but surprisingly speedy. The right foot slid across the room, slamming painfully into Hans’ ankle. He tottered on his feet, tried to grab something to hold him up, fell hard onto the cold wooden floor. His shoulder ached; something felt broken. As he began to pick himself up, his head was grabbed from behind by five disembodied fingers. The left arm was hanging down behind his head, the fingers trying to dig into his eyes. He reached behind and got a grip of the lower half of the arm, tried to yank it off. The fingers clawed his face, drawing blood, the nails puncturing the flesh.

  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.