Jonathan Nasaw - Fear itself

No light, no tunnel. No hand over her face, no mask looming over her. Just the rapidly cooling water and a sense that she was alone in the dark again. So much for surrender; so much for letting go.

But the darkness was different this time around. Dorie knew its shape, its dimensions, knew where the light switch was, where the stairs were. And her hands were free-unaccountably, he’d left her hands free. Was it a trap? Only one way to find out: Dorie grabbed the rim of the tub and hauled herself up into a sitting position, sat shivering for a moment, hunched over, waiting for…

For what? For Simon to come back and finish her off? Quickly she leaned forward, untied the nylon cord looped around her ankles, tried to stand up, fell backward with a splash. On her second try she pulled herself up to a squatting position and climbed out of the tub crouched over, holding on to the rim tightly with both hands.

Even after Dorie regained her balance, it took an effort of will to let go of that rim-it was like pushing off into deep space. She became aware of the bathwater in her ears, tilted her head to the side, and began hopping from one foot to the other, arms crossed over her chest to minimize the flop factor. Once her ears were clear, she realized that she’d been all but deaf. Simon could have been sitting next to her in the dark all along; he could have been whistling “Dixie” for all she’d have known.

Dorie shuddered, forced herself to take that first step into the dark.

Missy screamed. Pender wheeled, threw up his right arm, caught the blow on the back of his forearm, just below the elbow. A cast-iron pan-a fucking frying pan. The nurse dropped the cage with a clatter. Pender found himself on the floor. The pain was blinding-the whole room seemed to be on fire with pain. He watched through the flames as Childs strode purposefully across the room to the fireplace and snatched up a gleaming brass poker.

Much better, thought Simon, slashing the air with the poker as if it were a rapier as he turned back to Pender. Mama Bear was too heavy, too slow, too awkward.

“Simon, no.” Missy trotted toward him, slippers flopping, hands flapping at her sides as if she were trying to take off. “Stop it, Simon.”

“Missy, you stay out of this.” Simon brandished the poker at her.

Missy flinched, but kept coming. “He’s nice, don’t hurt him.” She threw herself at her brother, wrapped her short arms around him, and held on for dear life as Pender lumbered to his feet, right arm hanging limply, gathering himself for a charge.

Simon shoved Missy roughly aside and flailed wildly with the poker as Pender came at him. Pender, a pretty fair two-way guard for the Cortland High Purple Tigers in his day, ducked under the awkward swing and caught Simon in the midsection with his left shoulder, hit him head up, ass down, and legs driving, just the way his coaches had taught him forty years earlier.

The poker went flying; they hit the floor together. Pender landed on his broken arm. He blacked out, or rather, whited out momentarily from the pain; when he regained his senses, Missy was lying on top of him, arms spread wide, shielding him with her body. Childs stood over them, brandishing the poker wildly, shouting at his sister to get off, to get out of the way.

Dorie walked slowly through the blackness, arms outstretched like a somnambulist. When she touched the wall, she turned left and felt her way along until she reached the newel post at the bottom of the steps. She felt around, found a light switch. She closed her eyes before turning on the lights, so as not to blind herself; when she opened them again, the first thing she noticed was Simon’s night-vision goggles hanging on a nail, only inches from her face.

Seeing them, it occurred to Dorie that even with the lights on, Simon would still have the upper hand; in the dark, however, the advantage would belong to whoever wore those goggles. She slipped them over her head carefully, mindful of her nose, adjusted the strap, flipped the power switch. Everything turned a hideous, bright, oobleck green. Quickly she turned off the basement lights. The intensity of the color faded; still, as a plein air painter, an aficionado of natural light, Dorie found the artificial, monochrome world of the goggles extremely unsettling, almost nauseating.

She left them on, though-the darkness was now her ally. To ensure the alliance, she flipped up the goggles, turned the light switch on, and circled the basement unscrewing every bulb she could find, until the room was black again. Then she flipped the goggles back down and went exploring, in search of two things. The first was a way out that didn’t involve following Simon Childs through the door at the top of the stairs; the second was a weapon of some sort, in case the first didn’t exist.

“…twenty-five hundred Grizzly Rock Road. And an ambulance. Hurry, please.”

Nurse Apple’s voice, cutting through the red-hot rage, brought Simon back to his senses. He found himself standing over Missy and Pender with the poker raised; he didn’t want to think about how close he’d come to smashing her fat, stupid skull with it. Thank God he hadn’t-but now there was no time to deal with Pender. Nine-one-one, once called, could not be uncalled. Five minutes. Wild, improbable schemes sprang into his head-kill them all, stab myself-intruders, bikers, a black gang. Four and a half minutes. Just grab Missy and run. But Missy was still hanging on to Pender with a death grip. Four minutes. Maybe just grab Missy and the getaway bag and run. Or maybe just the getaway bag. He who fights and runs away…

It was a little like being underwater, this all-green, nightscope world, a little like exploring a cave, a little like being inside one of those camera’s-eye scenes in a horror movie, and nothing at all like the brightly colored, safe, sunny life Dorie had constructed for herself over the years to keep the mask-monsters at bay.

The basement itself, save for the big room with the mattress and the tub, was a series of chambered caverns joined by low, thick-walled archways. It reminded Dorie of something out of Poe- The Cask of Amontillado, perhaps-but by now she was so far beyond being moved by imaginary fears that she never even flinched when she found the cardboard box containing Simon’s cache of masks near the bottom of the stairs.

Kabuki, its white glare and red frown even more lurid in shades of green, was on top. Dorie reached into the box, lifted it out with a sense of wonder, held it up like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull. Plaster-could it be that it was only paint and plaster and a droopy little rubber band cord? Strange as it felt to actually be holding a mask in her hands, the little tug of regret she experienced as she tossed it back into the box seemed even stranger. Dorie’s phobia had been an essential part of her identity, her sense of self, for so long that like a newly freed slave, she found herself wondering what life was going to be like without her chains.

Probably short, if you don’t get your ass in gear, she reminded herself, kicking the box under the stairs and turning away.

With Missy on top of him-and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she had saved his life-Pender couldn’t see where Childs had gone. It was enough, for the moment, that he had gone-then Pender remembered that Dorie might still be alive, might be somewhere in the house.

“It’s okay, honey-you can get off now,” he whispered urgently-whispered because her two hundred, two hundred fifty pounds were crushing the breath out of him. She felt like dead weight. He started to extricate himself one-handed, saw the nurse standing openmouthed, still holding the receiver. “Little help here,” he gasped.

She was terrified, hugely undecided. Pender couldn’t blame her-for all she knew he was a crazed intruder whom her employer had been trying to fend off with that frying pan.