"This is the dead of night." "It has nothing to do with time." "It can happen in sunshine or in moonlight, in the best of weather or the worst." "For the dead of night is a state of mind, that dark, unfathomed region of the human consciousness from which all the unknown terrors of our lives emerge." "The dead of night exists in all of us, and no one knows at what strange, unexpected moment it will make itself known." "And so tonight, for your entertainment, three tales: one of mystery, one of imagination and one of terror." "How'd did you get way out here?" "Well, I'll tell you why I came." "One of the fellows in town that buys eggs from you said he saw an old wreck of the car." "That it was in the barn, and so I figured maybe there's something left of it, you know, that I can put together." "Well, I got one, I don't think you'll thing much of it though." "I'm sure I'll never know how I got to a time and place no one else in the world remembers." "I only know it started on a Sunday morning in an old barn off the country road." "My name is Frank Cantrell." "When it happened I was a senior at Pointe College in Hylesburg, Illinois, my hometown." "Oh my God." "It's a Jordan, all right, and a Playboy." "A Jordan Playboy, I can't believe it." "How long is it been here?" "Happened in '26 as I recall." "What happened?" "This dude was racing a train out on the country road and he tried to beat it to the grade crossing, and he didn't make it." "The engine hit the rear wheel there and flipped her over killed both him and his girl." "Young folks too." "Not really older than you are." "How much?" "E-h," "I'll let you have it for $100.00." "Mister, you got a deal." "It's none of my business, but..." "what do you want it for?" "I'm gonna restore it." "Go on." "Make it run again?" "More than that I'm going to put it back just the way it was in 1926." "Well, she's all yours now." "And so she was, all mine." "Right real wheel and spare, hopeless wads of wire, spokes and twisted rims, the body caved in and the motor a mess." "I didn't mind it a bit." "I traded a Winton name plate and hubcaps plus the sacks and hood to a man in Fairfield, Connecticut for two Playboy wheels, and they arrived rusty, some of the spokes broken and loose, but just what I needed." "And I restored that car, sanded off every scrap of paint, took out every dent and bump, welded every tear and burnished ever weld." "It took a long time, but at last it was done: repainted." "Every nickel plated part restored, re-nickled and repaced." "The seats reupholstered." "Everything complete to the final missing part:" "a Jordan radiator cap, which i traded a Duesenberg floor mat." "Just for the fun of it I decided to put the old licence plates back on and even had the original ignition key in its old leather case;" "at least, I thought it was just for the fun of it." "Frank, you'll get a ticket using those old plates." "Oh, I'll be okay just this once, mom." "I'm only going to Creswell along the old country road." "The old country road?" "But why go that way?" "You can get there, to Creswell on the highway in less than 10 minutes." "I can't go that way, mom." "Why not?" "Llsten, look at this car, it's exactly the way it was in 1926." "I can't drive it on a four-lane highway." "Heck, back then this car was new that old road road was the highway." "I bet it was driven there many a time." "Anyway, that's where it has to be, and that's I'm going to take it tonight." "It was grand to drive along that old road with the top down, the summer air streaming over my face and through my hair, the air alive with the heavy fragrances of summer darkness." "I wasn't even thinking, just living and enjoying." "I don't know when it happened exactly, but the first evidence came when I saw those headlights moving toward me." "Holy mackerel, a Moon." "A Moon Roadster." "Woo." "A Hayne Speedster?" "Get a horse!" "I've read about time with a capital T but can't say I ever really knew what it meant." "However, that night as I left the old country road and drove into Creswell" "I thought maybe I was beginning to understand." "I remembered what someone had once said." "I think it was Einstein or somebody like that." "He compared time to a winding river, with all of us in a boat drifting alone between two high banks." "And we can't see the future just beyond the next curve or the past beyond the curves in back of us, but it's all still there as real as the moment around us, to which I now add my own theory." "That you can't drive into the past in modern car because there were no modern cars then." "And you can't drive in 1926 along a four-lane superhighway." "But my car and I, the way I felt about it anyway, were literally rejected that night by our own time." "Moving along that old road for the summer evening simply drifted into the time my Jordan belonged to." "Hey, that's my car!" "Hey!" "Hey, just what do you think you're doing?" "That's my car!" "Taking it on a stretch, you jerk." "What?" "Hey, wait a minute!" "Take it easy!" "What for?" "Of course, it was Vince driving like a fool, as usual." "It's a good thing you weren't hit, young man." "That Vincent is the wildest driver in the whole county." "One of these days he's going to kill himself and that girlfriend of his." "I wouldn't wonder." "Was that your car he took?" "Because it sure looked like his." "No, it was mine." "I just parked it here a few minutes ago, then I heard the people coming out of the theater, and then he's..." "Yes?" "Maybe he'll bring it back." "Why don't you go down to the station house and report it?" "Use our name if you like." "We saw the whole thing." "No, it's all right, I'm..." "sure he'll bring it back." "Thank you for your help." "I'm afraid we didn't give you much." "You change your mind though and decided to report it our name is Dorset." " Mr. Dorset." " Thank you." "Good night, young man." "Good night." "My grandmother used to live in Creswell." "I was a boy I used to visit her and play with the boy next door when he visited his grandparents." "Their name was Dorset." "I knew these peaople but they didn't know me." "Of course, how could they have?" "They wouldn't even meet me for another 40 years." "No, I would be 12 years then, and they would be in their 80s." "There was nothing I could do about the theft of my car." "Report it to the police, try to explain to them who I was and where they coud reach me, show them my driver's licence with the date on it?" "Somehow I knew my car wasn't coming back, so all I could do was walk and wonder what I was going to do now here in Creswell on a summer night in 1926," "30 years before I was born." "I knew that I shouldn't have gone there, but I couldn't help myself." "If I went up on that porch and rang the bell a man or a woman would answer it and maybe a 9-year-old boy sleepig upstairs would call down to ask who it was." "A 9-year-old boy, who one day was to become my father." "But I couldn't go up on that porch and ring that bell." "I knew that." "I was here by sufferance or accident." "I drifted into this time but had no right to intrude on it." "I'd spent the night in Creswell, a visitor from another time." "And just as mysteriously and unnoticeably as I had drifted there," "I was back again, back, where I belonged." "I met Helen McCauley when school started up in September." "She was i my economics class." "What's that?" "A sophomore, I learned, though I didn't remember seeing her around before, which, in a way, is the point of my story." " Hey!" " Hi." " Hi, grandma." "Have a good swim?" "Oh, beautiful." "You ready for a bite to eat?" "Oh, we sure are." "I'm famished." "Well, you just dig right in." "There's plenty for everybody." "Oh, don't worry, he will." " Honey, will you go get those other sandwiches up there?" " Sure." "Say, Frank, Ellen tells me you're interested in old cars." "Yeah, I restore them." "Oh, you got anything good going for you right now?" "Yeah, I'm working an old Duesenberg." "Oh, that sure is it good old car." "Yeah, it is, but it will never replace the one that was stolen." "Stolen?" "When was that?" "It'll be six months ago now." "Maybe 50 years." "What?" "Nothing." "What kind was it?" "Probably never heard of it." "It was an old Jordan Playboy." "Never heard of it?" "Kid, I've got one." "No." "Surprise." "And you thought I just brought you over so they could look at you." "Wait, you've got the a Jordan Playboy?" "It's not just ordinary Jordan." "Come on." "It's in the garage, I'll show you." "I don't say it's in running condition." "Far from it." "But it's a Jordan and a Playboy, and I've had it since I was 20 years old." "Beautiful." "Oh, Lord, that's a beautiful automobile." "Yes, it is." "It surely is, and I'm glad you think so." "You know, not many young people would appreciate it." "You know, there's an ols ad, one of the famous ads for the Jordan Playboy, an the headline reads, "Somewhere West of Laramie,"" "and it goes on to speak of, "this brawny, graceful thing."" ""That revels with the wandering wind." ""And roars like a Caproni biplane." "And roars like a Caproni biplane."" "Say, listen, Frank, do you think you could get this thing running?" "Oh, for sure." "I restored mine completely." "Well, then, I want you to have it." "It's all yours." "Oh no, I can't." "It's priceless." "On no, no, no, no..." "Now listen to me." "If you can get this car running and looking good again, all I want is the joy of driving it just one more time." "Mr. McCauley, what's the original paint job on this?" "Oh, it used to be a beautiful forest green." "I'm sorry, I was a..." "I just picturing you driving it around when the Jordan was new." "A car like this must be quite a temptation to open her up now and then." "Now and then?" "All the time." "Oh, if my parents had only known." "Do you know that he almost got us killed one night just before we were married?" "How?" "Foollishness." "Just plain foolishness." "We were racing the train" "We were racing?" "It was the thing to do in those days." "I don't remember being asked." "We almost beat it too." "We were actually a head of it." "We were actually ahead of it, and then we came to grade crossing." "No gates, just the crossroad going right across the tracks." "And I started to turn and in that last instant, in the very last fraction of a second I knew we couldn't make it." "We were just too late." "So, I didn't turn and we tore around the road beside that train." "The engineer leaning out of his cab, shaking his fist and cussing us out for all he was worth." "Where did that happen?" "Just outside the town coming home from Creswell." "Listen... did something delay you that night?" "I mean, just a few seconds, just long enough so that you knew you couldn't try and cross in front of that train?" "I don't know." "Like what?" "Like someone running out in front of your car and doing like this." "No, Frank, I'm afraid not." "Why?" "Oh, I just kind of figured that's the way it happened." "It's not important." "You know, I don't even remember why we were in Creswell that night." "There was no question now." "The licence plates were identical." "These are the Jordan's old plates?" "Yeah, that first ones that she ever had." "If you'd been killed that night Helen wouldn't be here." "Frank, we gotta get going." "Huh?" "We've got to get going, we're late." "Oh, Okay." "I'll get her running for you, Mr. McCauley, and fix her up just the way she was." "Give her a second chance, eh?" "Or a third." "I don't believe that the Jordan Playboy is anything more than metal, glass, rubber and paint formed into machine." "And yet, I can't stop myself from feeling that when that old Jordan was restored by me, given a second chance, as it were, it went back to the time and place that would give Vince McCauley and his girl a second chance too." "Because someone on the July evening in 1926 had dashed in front of their car, delaying them for two or three seconds." "I had intruded on that time just long enough for Vince McCauley to change his mind about trying to cross in front of that train, lived to marry the girl beside him and eventually have a granddaughter named Helen," "the girl I was one day going to marry." "And just like her grandparents did almost 50 years before, we'd leave on our honeymoon in the very same car, this brawny graceful thing which revels along with the wandering wind and roars like a Caproni biplane." "My beautiful Jordan Playboy." "Peter..." "Peter..." "It's all right." "It's all right." "Karel, please go back to work." "Don't speak now." "Shh." "Shh." "It's just a little..." " It bit my throat." " It's nothing." "No, God." "Listen to me." " I'm going to die." " Listen to me." " I'm going to die!" " We will not give in to superstitions!" "I'm going to die." "I'm going to die." " I'm going to die." " Alexis!" "Alexis!" "Whoa." "Cook, inside." "You, on your way!" "Put it on the desk, Karel." "It will do its work, Dr. Gheria." "For my wife, yes." "Sir?" "It will reassure her." "That is all I can expect of it." "Sir, you do not believe that it will stop it?" "I do not believe there is anything to stop apart from a venomous insect or a rodent." "Sir, we searched madam's room." "That will be all, Karel." "Yes, sir." "Sir?" "Marie and Cook wish to be discharged." "I've dissuaded them 'til now, but I don't know how long it'll last." "Oh, Karel?" "Yes, sir?" "Inform the servants that if they do not stop telling the townspeople what has occured here they will not have to seek discharge." "They will be freely granted it." "Yes, sir." "Oh." "Peter!" "Michael." "Michael." "Professor." "I knew you would come." "I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you." "Oh, what's wrong?" "Your letter only said that Alexis was not well." "Let us talk in the study." "I imagine you were surprised to see me answering the door." "Well, I did wonder where Karel was." "He's sleeping, poor fellow." "He's been doing the work of four." "All the other servants have left." "Why?" "Sit down." "Did you notice how empty the streets were?" "Yes, I did." "Where are all the people?" "Huddling, terror-stricken in their houses, I expect." "I don't understand." "Did you see all what is hanging on the windows and the doors?" "Michael, I'm on the brink of madness." "Alexis is being destroyed by a vampire." "What?" "Each day she sinks deeper." "I can't deal with it." "I simply can't deal with it." "Professor, sit..." "sit down, please." "You've been attacked as well?" "Michael, I just don't know what to do anymore." "I've had every inch of countryside searched, graveyards ransacked, crypts inspected." "Nothing." "Yet there is something... something which is draining us of life." "I can't see it." "I can't hear it." "I can't do anything." "How can I save her?" "God, how long has she been like this?" "Days and days." "Retrogression has been constant." "Michael?" "Yes?" "You'll be fine." "Just fine." "I don't understand why you didn't call me sooner, professor." "But never mind." "She'll be all right now." "Tonight we'll watch together." "This will help to keep us awake." "Thank you." "Professor, why don't you try to get some sleep?" "I will watch for a while." "It would do no good." "That's good." "I can scarcely taste it with that stench of garlic in the air." "Yes, my flesh reeks of it." "I do not know what will happen to this town until... this creature is discovered and destroyed." "The people are paralyzed with fear." "I just wonder... has it been anywhere else in the village." "It does not need to go anywhere else." "It can find everything that it craves within these walls." "Now, when Alexis and I are dead and it will go elsewhere, the people know that." "They're waiting." "What about Karel?" "Have you ever considered..." "No, no." "He's as terrified as we are." "He puts a cross around his neck." "He seals the windows and the door of his of his room with garlic." "Indeed, he has even... put one of these monsters to rest himself." "No, Karel will not endanger us." "I've..." "It seems impossible that men of science like us..." "How could science affect this horror?" "Science does not even believe in its existence." "If I was to get the topmost men of science into this room they would say," ""My friend, you are deluded..." "There is no such thing  as a Vampire."" "Michael?" "Michael?" "Karel?" "Karel?" "Karel?" "Karel, It's come again." "Oh, dear Lord." "Karel, it's... it's possible?" "We searched the graveyards, the cryprs." "Is it possible it's still in this house, in the attic, in the cellars?" "I don't know, sir." "I never thought of that sir." "Look, Karel, search!" "It's our last chance." "One more night she'll be gone!" "I'll look in here." "Doctor!" "Sleep well, my dear." "Your nightmare has ended," "or will it just begin when you learn that your lover is dead?" "Hello?" "Alma?" "Oh, hi." "How you doing?" "I'm fine." "Did you just get in?" "Yeah, a couple minutes ago." "Oh, how was the flight?" "It was okay." "Good." "Alma, what's wrong?" "Well, nothing is wrong." "Nothing." "I'm just..." "I'm little tired." "You didn't call your mother, did you?" "No." "Alma." "Please stop worrying about me." "That's a good one." "How am I supposed to do that after what we've been through?" "You mean since Bobby died?" "You know, I'll never understand you." "What is there to understand?" "I mean, you know, for the last two months if I so much as even hinted about he was gone, I mean you were just geting all over me." "I just wasn't ready to accept that then." "I never should have taken this trip." "Just stop worrying about me." "Not as long as you continue to keep seeing those phony psychics and spiritualists." "Do you understand?" "There won't be any need for that anymore." "Alma, call your mother, please." "If you don't, I will." "All right." "Now you promise me that you'll do it?" "Yes." "John, yes." "Okay, I'll call you tonight." "I command thee, Eurynomos, to do whatever I desire." "For thou art conjured by the name of the everlasting and living and true God, Paleoram." "Come fulfill my desire and persistent to the end in accordance with my will." "I conjure thee by him to whom all creacures are obedient, but the ineffable name Taragramitan by which name the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea is turned black, fire is quenched, the earth shudders and all of the host of things in heaven," "of things in earth, of things in hell do tremble and are not confounded." "Eurynomos, Prince of Death, return my son who drowned by accident." "I command thee!" "Return him to me now!" "Return my son to me!" "My son who drowned... by accident!" "I command thee!" "Hello?" "Is someone there?" "Who is there, please?" "Mommy...?" "Mommy, it's me." "Mommy...?" "Bobby?" "Mommy?" "It's you." "It's really you." "You're alive." "Mommy... please, I'm so cold." "Oh, God, I'm sorry." "Sure." "Bobby." "Bobby!" "Bobby." "Bobby, my love, I was so desolate without you, dear." "How desolate I was." "Bobby, I couldn't live without you." "Mommy, it's okay." " Stop crying." " Bobby..." "It's okay." "I'm back." "But how?" "How?" "Bobby, how?" "Where?" "Where were you?" "What happened to you?" "Tell me." "I... woke up and... remembered who I was and left their house." "I walked mile..." "miles and miles in the rain." "Whose house?" "What house?" "Where?" "What house?" "The name was Green or Breen." "I don't remember." "Please, mommy, it's so cold." "It is cold." "Just a minute." "God, it is cold." "Come on, I'll get those wet things off of you." "I'm going to take care of you, my Bobby." "Bobby's home." "I kept your room just the way you left it." "I never touched it." "Come on, it's right down here." "There." "Now, let's get the wet sweatshirt off of you." "Okay." "Now tell mommy, darling, exactly what happened." "Well..." "I remember water..." "cold water... and I couldn't breathe." "There were these people." "They found my lying on the sand, and... and they picked me up." "On the beach?" "Yeah." "I knew you didn't drown." "I knew it." "I knew it all along." "For the longest time, Bobby, I thought you were dead." "Dead?" "Bobby you're alive." "You're alive." "You're really alive." "By baby is alive." "Oh, you're so alive, Bobby." "You're alive, you're alive..." "I'm so hungry." "We're gonna give my Bobby anything Bobby wants." "I'm just glad that he's home." "In the morning we'll take you to Dr. Croswell, okay?" "Why?" "Oh, to be sure you're all right." "Tell me about those people." "You said the name was Green or Breen or something?" "I think so." "I'm gonna telephone them right away in the morning and find out Why they didn't call the police." "Oh, but they did, mom." "No, they didn't or the police would have phone us." "Us?" "Your father and I." "Where is he?" "He's on a business trip." "I can't wait for him to the telephone." "Oh boy." "He's not gonna believe me." "Okay, Bobby, now what would you like to eat?" "I don't know." "Oh, come on." "Some soup?" "Or cocoa?" "I know." "One of those sandwiches you love." "Oh, that is a good idea." "If I told your father about you eating tune fish at this hour..." "Mommy?" "What, darling?" "How many doors in the house?" "What?" "How many doors in the house?" "Well, that's a funny question." "I don't know." "I think you'd know as well as I do." "There's the front door, right?" "Then the garage door and the family room door." "That makes three." " Darling, are you sure that your..." " You said that I was a good boy, mummy?" "Of course you were a good boy." "And did you love me?" "Did I love you?" " I do love you, darling, from the bottom of my heart." " And were you nice to me, mommy?" "Why are you asking me these questions?" "Were you nice to me, mommy?" "Yes, of course I was." "Why was I in the water?" "Why did those people find me on the beach?" "I don't know." "I guess, you were playing on those rocks." "Was I allowed to do that, mommy?" "No, I told you not to." "You told me never to play on the rocks?" "Eat your sandwich, darling." "I don't want it." " You said you were hungry and is the..." " I don't want it!" "Okay." "You make a suggestion and then I'll make you whatever you'd like." "I want to play a game." "A game?" "Hide and seek." "You're tired." "Why don't we get some sleep and then in the morning" "I'll wake up and we'll play every game you like, all right?" "I want to play a game now!" "Bobby!" "Mom... mommy!" "You have to find me!" "Bobby, it's time to bed." "I want you in your room right now." "Bobby, where are you?" "This is no time for games." "You're cold, mommy!" "Bobby?" "Bobby, stop this!" "I want you to come right back here!" "Bobby, please, don't do this to mommy." "Bobby, for the last time." "My God." "Bobby, what are you doing?" "Aren't you glad the lights are out now, mommy?" "Does that make the game more fun?" "You're going to hurt yourself in the dark." "Let's play hide and seek now, mommy." "All right, this is it." "The game's over." "No more game playing." "Oh, yes, there will be, mommy." "Bobby, stop this!" "That's the way you used to talk to me, isn't it, mommy?" "Please, you're frightening me." "You could of..." "You could have hurt me before inside." "Don't you realize that?" "Oh, oh!" "You almost killed me!" "Mommy, you couldn't find me..." "Help me!" "Help me!" "Alma?" "Alma, Alma, what?" "John?" "John?" "Oh my god, what's wrong?" "Alma, what is it?" "God, John, he's back." "Bobby's back." "Bobby's dead, Alma." "No, no, no, he didn't drown." "Some people found him down the beach." "What are you talking about?" " He is alive!" " Alma, please." "No, he is alive." "Some people found him." "What are you trying to tell me?" "He didn't remember who he was until tonight." "Until tonight?" "Listen, John..." "What is it?" "There's something..." "What is it, Alma?" "I think..." "I think he's losing his mind." "I don't even recognize him." "I don't know..." "Do you know..." "Do you know what he just did?" "Do you know that planter at the top of the stairs?" "At the top of the stairs?" "He just pushed that down on me." " Pushed it down?" " Pushed it down on me!" "He just... he's... he now is running around upstairs in the dark." "In the dark?" "He insists on plaing some game." "Insist on plaing some game?" "Why are you repeating everything I say?" "!" "Repeating everything you say?" "Oh, I fooled you, didn't I?" "Oh, you're not very good at hide and seek, are you, mommy?" "So let's switch places now, and I'll find you." "Okay, mommy, I'm starting to count." "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!" "Ready or not, here I come!" "Better hide, mommy, I'm almost there!" "Is this where you are, mommy?" "Are you hiding in the kitchen?" "Am I hot or cold?" "Oh!" "Look what I found, a big, sharp knife." "But where is mommy?" "I know, maybe she's in the closet." "Yes, that would be a good place." "A closet is a good place to hide." "Isn't it, mommy?" "Isn't it?" "Wait, I think I hear you upstairs." "Ha!" "You fooled me, mommy!" "You made me think you were downstairs when you were upstairs all the time." "Well, here I come, ready or not." "Oh!" "Bobby knows you're in here, mommy." "He's going to find you." "You shouldn't have hidden like that, mommy." "Bobby didn't like that, so Bobby is gonna punish you." "Oh, what is this?" "Just what I need." "Bobby is gonna get you!" "Bobby's gonna get you, mommy." "I'm coming to get you, mommy!" "Fooled ya!" "Gotta get out of here." "Gotta get out of here." "No, it's not." "Surprise!" "You lied, mommy." "Bobby didn't drown by accident." "You knew that." "Bobby drowned himself to get away from you." "You see, Bobby didn't want to come back, mommy." "No, Bobby hates you, mommy, so he sent me instead."