Francis Nevins - Night and Fear

For a minute everything hung suspended. Only she knew what was coming. The music crashed and pounded. The circling figures swam around. The lights blazed down.

Then suddenly a different noise crept into the music. A trumpet or a horn was getting too loud and going off-key. First, the music submerged it, but it kept coming to the surface again. Then it climbed above and, in turn, submerged the music. It was like a foghorn now, deep and steady. The music stopped. The long-drawn eerie hoot went on and on, surging through the night outside.

A group of lights went out, leaving a circle of darkness on the floor below where they’d been. Then another circuit went out, leaving still another circle of shadows. The dancers scattered in all directions, not knowing which way to go.

A hollow voice kept trumpeting, “Lights out! Lights out!”

“Come on over against the wall,” he said, “while we can still see how to get there.” He took her by the arm and started to pull her after him.

The last circuit of light overhead died just as they reached the wall, but there were still two solitary bulbs burning, one at each end, over the exits.

She watched his face tensely, while she still could, in the feeble glimmer that was left. She didn’t like the way he looked. His eyes kept opening and closing, as though he were suffering.

He hadn’t let go of her hand. She tried to withdraw it, but he held onto it tightly.

“Stand here by me,” he whispered, “so I won’t lose you. Here, perfectly still against the wall.”

The light at the upper end had gone out now. There was only one left in the entire place, an automatic night-light that they couldn’t disconnect in time. Somebody was climbing a chair to it. She couldn’t see his face any more, just his eyes, shining like little wet pebbles in the dark.

He was shaking. She could feel it through his hand.

“You don’t hear the bombs,” she heard him say in a smothered undertone, as if he’d forgotten where he was.

“What was that?” she caught him up.

That brought him back for a minute. “I’ve been through this before. Not here — some place else — where it was real.”

“And then you went home and killed someone,” she said to herself, unheard.

Suddenly, in the final instant before the last light went out, she saw something. Her free hand went to her throat, in an instinctive protective gesture. Why was he looking at her neck like that?

The last stubborn light went out and the darkness became complete. Almost smothering, it was so dense. The blackout was in full swing.

She was limp against the wall. She might have toppled over if it hadn’t been for his taut grip on her hand.

She was helpless now, caught in the very trap she’d tried to arrange for him. She should have gone to the telephone while she still had the chance. There was a pay booth in the rear. She had seen it while they were dancing, but it was too late now.

She could hear his breathing beside her. He was breathing hard. The siren had stopped now and there was that awful, hushed, waiting silence that was even worse. It was oppressive, like a sense of doom. An occasional foot scraped restlessly, or some girl gave a nervous giggle, but for the most part they could have been alone in a vast empty cave.

He couldn’t do it right here. Or could he? She wondered. Then she thought, “Yes, he could, if he covered my mouth quickly enough.” What was that Terry had said? They died in sudden, swift silence.

She started violently away from the wall and choked back a scream. “What was that? I felt something touch the side of my neck.”

“It was just my hand. I put it up against the wall, to lean against it.”

She shuddered and tried to relax again. Then he spoke again.

“Let’s go downstairs, shall we? I can hardly breathe up here.”

This was it, coming now.

“We’re not supposed to go out while the blackout is on.”

“Just down to the street door. We can stand there till it’s over. We’re right near the stairs. I saw where they were before the lights went out.”

He began to pull her again. If there wasn’t any actual violence in the pull, there was a sort of undulating pressure that she couldn’t hold out against. Her feet couldn’t get a grip on the glossy floor and she tottered unwillingly after him.

They passed a few other couples standing silently against the wall and she wanted to reach out and grasp at them — call out to them to help her.

“I wanted to find out,” she thought ruefully. “Now I’m going to find out!”

There was a swish as he pushed aside a swinging glass door and then they were outside at the head of the stairs. There were a few couples out there, too, sitting on the steps, so it was postponed another minute or two. He picked his way down through them, still holding her hand. “Hold onto the rail,” he whispered, “so you don’t miss a step going down.”

She kept trying to pull back, away from him, but he seemed not to notice or else he purposely disregarded it.

He pushed aside a second glass door, and they were in the open street-doorway now, cut off from all the others inside.

It was deathly still all around them. In the distance a warden’s voice could be heard, shouting a warning to some householder, but it had a far-off sound, blocks away.

She was starting to lose her head. “Wait a minute, I want to go in again. Let me go in again — just for a minute...”

He kept her there by flattening the hinged door against its frame with one hand, so that she couldn’t swing it open.

His voice was treacherously reassuring. “Don’t be frightened. I know it’s scary, but isn’t it better down here in the fresh air? Let’s just walk down a little way, and back. Close up against the building. Nobody’ll see us.”

He urged her forward. She took a step or two after him, off-balance. The doorway slipped behind them, already swallowed up in the dark.

She didn’t see the little alley in time, until it had already opened up beside them. He must have known it was there all along or he couldn’t have recognized it so immediately in the darkness.

Suddenly his lethargy of movement was gone and he was all quick, remorseless action. The careless hand on her shoulder put on pressure, twirled her aside, thrust her headlong into the gap. He came in after her, sealing up her escape, for the alley was so narrow the buildings pressed against her.

The hand that had been on her wrist all along let go at last, clamped itself to her mouth instead, stifling the scream that was just beginning to form. The other hand reached for her neck, around toward the back.

Something snapped back there with a violent wrench, hurting her as it did — and the necklace of gold, which she’d forgotten she was wearing, was ripped away and disappeared into his pocket.

“Gee, I had to work hard for that!” he grunted resentfully, and gave her a violent fling of release that sent her sprawling to the ground.

And that was all. It was over. He gave a quick turn on his heel and darted away, just as the all-clear sounded and the lights began to pepper on again.

She picked herself up dazedly. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “Just a cheap thief,” she thought wryly. “Only after a necklace, worth maybe twenty-five dollars. All that terror for that!”

The lights were coming on more and more fully every minute. The windows of the dance hall overhead flared up suddenly in a rosy-orange glow, some of it spilling down the walls into the narrow alley where he’d flung her, lighting up its recesses by reflection.

As she turned to look behind her, to see if she had dropped anything to the ground, she stifled a scream and flattened against the wall.