Jonathan Nasaw - Fear itself

Dorie drew her knees up and crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself for warmth. Got to figure this out. Last thing-what’s the last thing you remember? Musical clothes. Upstairs trying on clothes. Blue shirt-my blue denim. But why? Going out? No, somebody coming over. Who? Her memory inched forward. Doorbell rings. Big bald guy on the doorstep. Brown beret, easy grin, Pebble Beach sweatshirt, tragic plaid pants. And his name, his name is, his name is Pender, and he’s here because he’s here because he’s here because…

Then she had it, all of it. Carl, Kim, Mara, Wayne. A psychopath who preys on phobics, feeds on fear. Carl, Kim, Mara, Wayne, and now me. She moaned again and hugged herself tighter, tried to tell herself that this wasn’t happening, that it couldn’t be happening, because things like this just didn’t happen. Dreams happened, though-wake up, you big turkey. You know how to wake up-you just open your…

But her eyes were open. And people weren’t cold like this in dreams, all goose bumps and puckered nipples, and they weren’t sore, and they didn’t have pounding headaches. There was terror in dreams, but no pain-that’s what made them bearable. That and the fact that you could wake up from them.

Still cushioned by a lingering sense of disbelief, Dorie was trying to remember what had come next, after Pender, when she heard a click somewhere off in the darkness, and the masks appeared again, comedy and tragedy, white with a violet tinge, six or seven feet off the ground. Then another click, and an instant later they were gone. Black light, Dorie thought: he’s doing it with black light and Day-Glo. And instead of terror, she felt a surge of anger. He feeds off fear, does he? Well, fuck him, let him starve.

It didn’t take Simon long to figure out that the click of the wall switch controlling the black light was giving him away. Clad head to toe in black, silk socks to lightweight balaclava, like a stagehand in a Noh play, he’d been taking it slow, determined to avoid making the same mistakes he’d made with Wayne. Instead, of course, he found himself making all new mistakes. He’d used the black light setup only once before, for a sixty-three-year-old ailurophobe named Constance, and that had been nearly ten years ago; the basement had been crawling with cats (most of which had been dipped into a solution of fluorescent dye a few hours earlier and were still spitting mad), and Constance had been screaming bloody murder the whole time.

Dorie, though-Dorie hadn’t made a sound. Which didn’t make her initial reaction any less electrifying. Her sense of shock and horror was almost palpable; it touched someplace deep inside Simon, someplace deep and holy. He’d felt it in his mind, his bones, his bowels, his heart, and most of all he’d felt it in that mystery kundalini spot somewhere between the base of his cock and the base of his spine. The sensation was so intense, so exquisite, that it was almost painful, like being in love.

But the second time he’d clicked the black light on and off, her head had jerked to the right, following the sound of the wall switch. He was startled for a moment-she seemed to be staring right at him, her eyes glowing a pale, panther green in the infrared light of the night-vision goggles. He flipped up the eyepiece just to be sure-nope, black as pitch. She couldn’t see him, but she had definitely sensed his presence.

Pity, thought Simon. Still, we had ourselves a moment there, didn’t we, babe? Pure, intense, virginal fear-fleeting as it may be, there’s nothing to match it. But like virginity itself, when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Still, it might be possible to at least reclaim the element of surprise. Keeping the goggles trained on Dorie, sitting now with her knees drawn up and pressed together and her arms crossed over her breasts (modesty, thought Simon: how touching; how irrelevant), he flipped the wall switch on. She quivered, closed her eyes, ducked her head. He tiptoed across the room, silent on stockinged feet, knelt down (slowly, carefully, wary of the capricious creaking and popping to which his fifty-something joints were liable), and quietly unplugged the extension cord. Now all he had to do was wait for Dorie to raise her head, then plug the cord back in. No more clicks, no more warning.

He didn’t have to wait long. Up came her chin, up, up, up. Slowly she turned her head to the right, where she’d heard the click of the wall switch, then slowly, deliberately, she turned her head back until she was staring straight ahead, with those panther eyes wide, unblinking-it was almost as if she were daring him to try it again.

You got it, babe, thought Simon, slipping the plug noiselessly into the socket. The masks glowed to life, but he kept the goggles fixed on Dorie. Her entire body shuddered; her eyes rolled back in her head until only the whites were showing, eerily green, blank as marbles in the night-vision glow.

Simon stifled a groan, crept closer, closer, until he was close enough to smell her fear. She was squatting now, rocking on her heels, modesty abandoned. He wanted to throw his arms around her, hug her, strike her, suckle at her breast, bite her breast, own her fear. He wanted everything and at the same time he wanted nothing-nothing but this moment, frozen in time….

Now that she’d had a little more time to think, Dorie had changed her mind. Pender had said it was the fear he was after. If it’s fear he wants, she’d reasoned, then fear he gets. Don’t starve him, feed him; give him a little incentive to keep you alive, anyway. And sooner or later he’s bound to slip up. Then he’ll find out what a big, strong woman can-

Sooner: it was to be sooner. The masks appeared; she let the terror wash over her, let her eyes roll back in her head, fought the syncope by squatting, rocking on her heels, clenching and unclenching her fists. She sensed him drawing closer-he was a whisper of breath, a rustle of cloth in the silence, a warm, humansize hole in the blackness. A fragment of lyric started going through her mind: Closer. Come a little bit closer. Let me whisper-

Now: she sprang forward, flailing with both fists, swinging, missing, swinging again and again, striking something soft, then something hard and metallic. Her fingers closed around a…a camera…? he was wearing a camera on his-

No, goggles. Night vision. Of course. She yanked them off, swung them where his head had been. He ducked under the blow, came at her low, drove his head into her belly, knocking her backward. She drew her legs up, tried to kick him away, but he was too close, she didn’t have the leverage. She swung at him again; he grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the mattress.

Now he was on top of her, lying on her, his body pressed against her and his face only inches from hers. She sensed him lowering his head; she knew that he meant to kiss her. She willed herself to go limp, waited until she could feel his breath warm and coppery against her face, then brought her head up and forward with all the strength she could muster.

“He must have been a tiny little guy,” commented Pender. He and Sid were standing before the altar of the Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo, better known as the Carmel Mission, looking down at the sarcophagus of Father Junipero Serra, which was barely five feet long.

“And yet this simple, humble monk, this ‘tiny little guy,’ as you so eloquently phrased it, was responsible for the genocide of tens of thousands of California Indians.”

A family of tourists had entered the cool stone chapel and were gathering around the sarcophagus; Pender decided to egg Sid on. “Now, now, Sidney. Surely that’s a tad harsh.”

“One of the greatest mass murderers in the history of the Catholic Church,” said Sid. “Which is no mean company to keep. And now they’re talking about beatifying the evil little dwarf. I’m sorry, it just pisses me off.”