After Midnight

After Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: After Midnight Read Online Free PDF
Author: Richard Laymon
Tags: Fiction / Horror
seven or eight. It was a big house, and there were phones in nearly every room.
    The only answering machine was in the den.
    With me.
    After the fourth ring came clicks that meant the machine was responding.
    I kept creeping backward.
    Outside, the stranger arrived at the side of the pool. He stood up, put his hands on the concrete edge, and seemed to stare straight at me.
    I’m not big on distances. My guess, though—he was only twelve or fifteen feet away from the glass door. And I was on the other side of it, five or six feet back.
    More clicks from the machine.
    A man’s voice said, “Ah, you finally got yourself an answering machine. Hope it’s not because of me. But it probably is, huh? Who’s the guy you got to record the greeting for you?” A pause. “Never mind. It’s none of my business, I guess. Anyway, are you there? Judy? If you’re there, would you pick up? Please? I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but…I don’t want to lose you. I love you. Are you there? Please, talk to me.”
    He went silent.
    The man in the pool jumped, planted a foot on the edge, and climbed out.
    “The thing is, I’m not going to call again. I’m not going to beg you to change your mind. I’m not going to plead with you. I’ve got to hang on to a little of my dignity, you know?”
    The man started walking slowly toward the glass door.
    “So this’ll be it. The ball’s in your court. If you really want it to be over, fine. I’ll accept that. I’ll never bug you again. It’ll be adios, Tony. Forever. I don’t want that to happen, but hell…Are you there, Judy? It feels weird, talking to you this way. Would you please pick up, if you’re there?”
    The stranger arrived at the door and peered in.
    Could he see me?
    Could he hear the quick loud thudding of my heart?
    I stood motionless, staring at him. He had his arms raised like a guy who’s been ordered to “stick ’em up.” His open hands were pressed against the glass. So was his forehead. But his nose didn’t touch the glass. Neither did his chest or belly or legs. Nothing else touched except for the tip of his penis, which looked like a smooth and strange little face pushing against the glass to help him search for me.
    “Okay,” Tony said to the answering machine. “If that’s how you want it. Anyway, I’ve moved to a new place. I couldn’t stand being in the old apartment anymore, not after everything that’d happened there.” He sounded as if he were trying not to cry. “I’ll give you my number, and you can call me if you want to. If you don’t call, I’ll understand.”
    As Tony gave his new telephone number, the man outside took a step away from the door, reached down and grabbed the handle and jerked it.
    Snatching up the phone with one hand, I blurted, “Tony!”
    With my other hand, I slapped up the light switch.
    A lamp came on by the couch.
    The sudden brightness hurt my eyes, made me squint, obliterated my moonlit view of the stranger. The sliding door was now a mirror. It showed me a hollow, transparent version of the coffee table, the lamp, and me.
    I saw myself with the phone against my left ear. I stood crooked, still bent sideways to the right as if frozen in my reach for the light switch. My belt had come loose. The open robe seemed to split me down the middle. It still covered my left side from shoulder to thigh, but my entire right side was bare to the gaze of the stranger.
    If he was still there.
    He must’ve leaped back when the light first came on.
    Now he returned, looming out of the darkness just beyond the door and pressing his body against the glass.
    Tony was talking into my ear. I didn’t pay much attention, but he seemed to believe I was Judy.
    The stranger gaped in at me. With his body pressed to the door, the lamplight reached him. He looked awful—grotesquely flattened and spread out—like an alien creature trying to ooze through the glass.
    “HELLO!” I shouted into the phone. “POLICE! I
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