F. Paul Wilson: Hosts

Sandy wondered what he did for a living. The clothes gave no clue other than the fact that he wasn't white collar. Clean hands, not overly callused, though his thumbnails seemed unusually long.

The train slowed then and about a third of the passengers rose as signs announcing FORTY-SECOND STREET / TIMES SQUARE started slipping past the windows. The generic pale male opened his eyes to check the stop, then closed them again. Mild brown eyes. Definitely a GPM—an infinitely interchangeable example of the species.

Not like me, he thought. With my blond hair, hazel eyes, thick glasses, this big nose, and acne scars left over from my pre-Accutane teenage years, anyone could pick me out of a lineup in a minute.

New riders replaced those debarking almost one for one, spreading through the car in search of seats. He saw a slim young woman move toward a double seat at the very front of the car, but the man in it, a scraggly-bearded Asian guy in a stained fatigue jacket, with wild hair and wilder eyes, had his gym bag and a boom box on the empty half and he brusquely waved her away.

Wisely, she didn't argue—he looked like the sort who was heavy into soliloquies—and went elsewhere in search of a seat. Sandy figured that was a potential blessing in disguise because she was moving toward the middle of the car, toward him.

Keep coming, he thought, wishing he were telepathic. I've got your seat—right here next to me.

She looked about twenty or so, all in black—sweater, tights, shoes, even the wire rims on her tiny funky glasses. She'd done one of those shoe-black dye jobs on her short, Winona Ryder-style hair, which made her pale face—not Winona Ryder's face, unfortunately, but still pretty—look all the paler.

Sandy slid to his left, leaving half of his butt off the edge of the seat to give her plenty of room. She took the bait and slipped in next to him. She didn't look at him, simply opened her book and began to read.

Instead of rejoicing, Sandy felt his insides tighten. What now? What to say?

Relax, he told himself. Just take a deep breath, figure out what you can about her, and see if you can find some common ground.

Easy to say, but so hard to do. At least for Sandy. He'd never done too well with women. He'd been to a couple of the campus counselors when he was a student and they'd both said the same thing: fear of rejection.

As if someone needed a Ph.D. to tell him that. Of course he feared rejection. Nobody in the whole damn world liked rejection, but that didn't seem to stop people from courting it by coming on to each other with the lamest, sappiest lines. So why did the mere possibility of rejection paralyze him? The counselors liked to tell him the why of the fear didn't matter so much as overcoming it.

Okay, he thought. Let's overcome this. What have we got here? We've got a book-reading Goth chick heading uptown on the 9 express. Got to be a student. Probably Barnard.

As the train lurched into motion again, he checked out her book: Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut.

Bingo. Film student. Columbia.

Okay. Here goes.

He wet his lips, swallowed, took that deep breath…

"Going for your film M.F.A., right?" he said.

And waited.

Nothing. She didn't turn her head, didn't even blink. She did move, but just to turn the page of her book. He might as well have used sign language on a blind person.

But he knew he hadn't imagined speaking, knew he must have been audible because the GPM opened one of his eyes for a two-second look his way, then closed it again. Reminded Sandy of Duffy, their family cat: a one-eyed glance—two would require too much energy—was the only acknowledgment that chunky old torn granted when someone new entered his presence.

So now what? He felt like he was back in high school after asking some girl if she wanted to dance and she'd just said no. That had happened only once but that once had been enough to stop him from ever asking anyone again. Should he retreat now? Slink away and hide his head? Or push it?

Push it.

He raised his voice. "I said, are you going for your film M.F.A.?"

She looked up, glanced at him with dark brown eyes for maybe a whole millisecond, then went back to her book.

"Yes," she said, but she spoke to the book.

"I like Hitchcock," he told her.

Again to the book: "Most people do."

This was going nowhere fast. Maybe she'd warm up if she knew he'd gone to Columbia, too.

"I graduated from the School of Journalism a couple of years ago."

"Congratulations."

That did it, Sandy, he thought. That broke the ice. She's really hot for you now. Shit, why didn't you just keep your mouth shut?

He racked his brain for another line. He'd already been given the cold shoulder; nothing left to lose now. He'd swum beyond his point of no return, so he had to keep going. She was either going to let him drown in a sea of rejection or send him a lifeboat.

He smiled. Just the kind of crappy imagery his journalism professors had tried to scour from his brain. One had even told him he wrote the most cliche-ridden prose he'd ever read. But what was the big deal about cliches? They served a purpose in journalism, especially tabloid journalism. Readers understood them, expected them, and probably felt something was missing if they didn't run across a couple.

The sudden blast of music from the front of the car cut off the thought. Sandy looked around and saw that the wild-haired guy in the fatigue jacket had turned on his boom box and cranked it up to full volume. It was pumping out a sixties tune Sandy half knew—"Time Has Come Today" by the Something-or-other Brothers.

Back to the film student. Maybe he should dazzle her by mentioning his great job at the city's most infamous weekly tabloid, The Light , where his degree from one of the country's great journalism programs landed him an entry-level position one step above the janitorial staff—except in pay. Or how he's been doing interviews at every other paper around the city trying to move up from The Light and no one's calling back. That'll impress her.

Oh, hell, go for gold and let her put you out of your misery.

"What's your name?"

Without missing a beat she said, "Lina Wertmuller."

Not just unfriendly, she thinks I'm an idiot. Well two can play that game.

Sandy stuck out his hand. "Glad to meet you, Lina. I'm Henry Louis Mencken, but you can call me H. L."

To Sandy's shock she lifted her head and laughed. He'd made a funny and she'd laughed . What a wonderful sound, even if he could barely hear it over the blasting music.

And then the name of the group behind the song came to him: the Chambers Brothers.

Suddenly—other sounds. Shouts, cries, screams, and people stumbling, scrambling past him in a mad rush toward the rear end of the car.

"It's time now!" cried a voice. "Yes, it's time."

Sandy turned and saw the Asian in the fatigue jacket standing before the door at the front end of the car. His black eyes were mad, endlessly, vacantly mad, and he clutched in each hand a black pistol that seemed too long and too thick in the barrel. Then Sandy realized they were equipped with silencers.

Oh, Christ, he thought, shock launching him to his feet, he's going to start shooting.

And then he saw the bodies and the blood and knew that the shooting had already begun. Images flashed through his instantly adrenalized brain as he turned to run—not everyone from the front of the car had made it to the rear; the first to be shot lay where they'd fallen…

… like the Korean guy, maybe Sandy's age, with rust-colored hair and a Nike swoosh on his cap, sprawled on the red-splattered floor, facing Sandy with his headphones still on his ears, blood leaking from his nose, and black eyes staring into the beyond…