Fear Itself

by Jeff Gelb

  He leaned back. Yes, life’s good, his pose suggested.

  Movement outside his door drew his attention. There was a soft knock and the door opened halfway. Newland looked up from the manuscript of his soon-to-be-published second novel and chuckled at the timid expression on the face of his son, Clay.

  “Dad, say it for me, will ya? Say what our pirate says.”

  Squinting and snarling, Newland swung around and gestured for the boy to jump into his lap. To the boy’s expectant grin, he exclaimed, “I’m Greenbeard the Pirate, I am. I am. There’s never a man looked me ‘tween the eyes and seen a good day a’terwards.”

  Clapping his hands in delight, Clay squealed; his shoulders twitched with an involuntary shiver.

  “I want some more story about Greenbeard. Is he gonna have to kill somebody like last time?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Newland. “He hardly gets the blood cleaned off his sword before he’s got to run it through someone else.”

  He playfully thrust an imaginary sword into his son’s stomach. Clay howled a howl of total pleasure.

  “Lots and lots of blood,” he giggled. “Tell a long story, Daddy. Okay? Make it a long, long story. Okay?”

  “Have you eaten your breakfast? You can’t hear a Greenbeard story on an empty stomach, you know.”

  “I did eat breakfast. Mom fixed me Toaster Pops. Strawberry ones. And some milk.”

  Newland patted Clay’s stomach.

  “Good enough. So, let’s see. There was the time Greenbeard had taken over a cargo ship loaded with treasure, and he said to the captain: ‘We want that treasure, and we’ll have it, by thunder. Give it to us, or avast thee, you’ll be seein’ nothin’ but musketballs.’ “

  Frowning menacingly, Clay said, “I bet Greenbeard was gritting his teeth. Right, Dad?”

  “By the devil, he was. Just exactly the way you are.”

  Pleased, Clay beamed from ear to ear, though it made gritting his teeth difficult. Newland had to fight back a smile. As his mind slid along in search of the next scene, he heard his wife, Trisha, call out his name from downstairs.

  In a disappointed tone, Clay said, “Oh, shoot, it’s Mom.”

  “Must be pretty important to interrupt an episode of Greenbeard the Pirate,” said Newland.

  Clay nodded in agreement.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Trisha flashed a smile at New-land and said, “It’s Gwen. I thought you’d want to take the call right away—hot news, maybe?”

  Newland pulled her close. His wife of twelve years, Trisha had supported him every step of the way in pursuing his dream of becoming a writer, always there as both editor and cheerleader, yet wisely cautioning him not to quit his teaching job—not until the “breakout” book came along. She had the blackest hair and the biggest, brownest eyes he’d ever seen; and she remained, in his view, the most beautiful woman on the planet.

  “You’re hot news,” he whispered, kissing her ear and the hollow of her throat.

  “That’s what all the men say,” she whispered back seductively. Then pushed away slightly from him and added, “What’s going on upstairs? More pirate stories?”

  “Uh-huh. Granny Ruth would be proud of her legacy,” said Newland. He kissed his wife full on the mouth and felt the playfulness of her tongue. “Hey,” he pulled away, “save that for later. I better go see whether my agent is earning her commission.”

  His grandmother had helped put the demon in him long ago. The demon which demanded that he write. She had been the one who, when he was Clay’s age, read to him from the classics of children’s literature, her favorite writer—and soon his—being Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped and Treasure Island became the catechisms of his imaginative life. Dark adventure and easy violence the stuff which stuck in his mental filter. And maybe they would stick in Clay’s mental filter as well.

  Thanks, Granny Ruth.

  “Hi, Gwen. No, I can’t do Donahue, but maybe I could squeeze in the time for a spot on The Today Show.”

  His agent’s laugh was throaty and sexy, her voice well-traveled on phone lines exercising the glib and oily art of negotiating. He imagined her metallic-blonde hair and large, hoop earrings and frosted lips.

  “You jest, buster, but listen to me: if Sometimes Darkness takes off the way I think it may, you’ll be playing in a different league.”

  Her words had a pleasurable burn.

  “My ego thanks you—this isn’t some front for bad news is it?”

  He held his breath.

  “John, you know I always write when the balloons have to be burst. No, this is a good quickie. Sometimes Darkness will be in bookstores in three weeks, and I have you set to do a signing at your local Bookland a month from today—did you get the pre-print cover samples? I put them in the mail three or four days ago.”

  “No. How’s it look?”

  “Creepy. Yeah, a dynamite cover. Really, really creepy.”

  After he and his agent finished their business, he walked down to his mailbox. The Southern winter sun was bright and forceful, diminishing a slight chill. Granite Heights, the quiet subdivision he and Trisha loved, seemed to flow around him like the dream vision of some chamber of commerce. With slightly nervous fingers he tore open the manilla envelope—hope the hell this is better than what they slapped on Night Tracks—and unsheathed the cover samples.

  Yes, it was better than the cover on his first novel.

  Weeks later he would look back and realize when the nightmare started: with his first deep stare into the figure’s eyes. The artist’s conception was terrifyingly on target. Against a black background a heavyset man wearing a nurse’s white uniform cradled a large doll, the forehead evidencing a jagged crack running from the blond curls down to the unblinking, blue eyes. The man wore a reddish wig; his face was powdered and his lips were painted scarlet. And on his hands, plastic gloves.

  Newland’s heart swelled like a vicious bruise and beat so rapidly that he had to cough and sputter to catch his breath. And his only thought was: this is my monster. This was Maris Macready, the cross-dressing, child-killing psychopath who had grown from a dark seed in his imagination and blossomed grotesquely in the pages of Sometimes Darkness. But confined to Newland’s imagination and caged in Newland’s manuscript, the character had not seemed this repulsive—this real. It was as if the artist had somehow released the writer’s monstrous creation.

  To Newland it was such an obvious cliche, and yet … and yet as he returned to his house he felt cold, and Granite Heights, the model for the fictional subdivision in which Macready stalked his prey, seemed crouched and hushed as if protecting some secret evil. A secret known only to New-land.

  “But it’s a woman. Of course, it is. The nurse’s outfit. The little nurse’s cap. Why yes, she’s kind of on the heavy side, but not unpleasantly so. Favors my cousin, Julia, just a bit.”

  “Mother, no, look closer. See, it’s a man. The hair’s a wig. It’s a man dressed up like a nurse. That’s what the book’s about. This psycho guy who dresses like a nurse so kids won’t be scared of him, and he can approach them and kill them. I’ve read it—it’s a man. Trust me.”

  “Well, I never would have thought … oh, goodness.”

  “It’s a horror novel, Mother. The covers are supposed to be like this. Weird and scary so you’ll buy the book.”

  The woman frowned and looked over at Newland.

  Newland smiled sheepishly. He was seated at a folding table just outside Bookland in the Village Mall exactly four weeks from the morning he had first glimpsed the cover for Sometimes Darkness. And he felt uncomfortable there by the three-foot blowup of that cover and several stacks of his novel. More accurately, he felt rather like an imposter. Horror novelists such as King and Koontz and McCammon could rightfully have book signings—but John Newland? Who’s he?

  Before the first sprinkling of book buyers and requests for autographs arrived, Newland had a few minutes to reflect upon the weeks leading up to the signing
. He had shown the cover to Trisha who had said ‘Oh, my, it’s … vivid, isn’t it?” but he hadn’t shown it to Clay. He had admitted to Gwen that the cover “bothered” him, but couldn’t explain precisely why. She countered by claiming it was a “gangbusters” cover that had everyone talking about it. His concerns were not allayed, although his brother, Roger, who lived in Wichita, Kansas and was his biggest fan, had called a week ago to tell him that he had seen copies of the book and that he loved the cover. At home, Newland had slowed down on his third novel, had spent more time with Clay, marveling at his enjoyment of the Greenbeard tales.

  Newland had committed himself to do an interview with the Columbus, Georgia daily newspaper after the signing, his first interview beyond one he had given to the pissant rag sheet that passed as the Goldsmith, Alabama paper. And that had been just after his first novel was published.

  The signing.

  To Newland’s relief, it went well. A real ego boost. Though he didn’t keep count, he guessed that he signed 40 or 50 copies, a decent number if one weren’t aware that his pub-Usher had sent over 200. For the most part, people were great, treating him like a legitimate celebrity.

  There was, however, one somewhat troubling development. Twice during the two-hour signing Newland noticed a curious fellow in a khaki jumpsuit who paused in front of the blowup of the cover, staring at it as if mesmerized. With muscular arms and thinning, grayish hair greased down, the man possessed a menacing quality which was not difficult to account for. His jaw ticked and his eyes went milky when he approached the cover, but he did not buy a copy of the book; he had not brought a copy for Newland to sign—he did not, in fact, appear even to acknowledge the presence of the author. And when the signing concluded and Newland was making his way to the food court, he noticed the man again; he was seated on the wall of the fountain jotting something in a small, spiral notebook.

  Her name was Katie Doyle and she had magnificent red hair and green eyes and a smile filled with questions. They sat in plastic chairs at a plastic table with the aroma of pizza slices and burritos and french fries wafting over them. New-land rubbed at his elbows, not because of the interview, but rather because the sight of the man by the fountain had given him a shiver, an intense frisson, which had spread up his back and down his arms.

  But the pre-interview small talk and Doyle’s pretty face transported him into a pleasant, ego realm far removed from malicious strangers. Doyle switched on her portable tape recorder, and they talked about Newland’s childhood—to Doyle, a disappointingly normal one—and the influence of Granny Ruth and Newland’s reading in English and American literature. There was the usual litany of obligatory questions, including “Where do you get your ideas?” to which Newland replied with a practiced, devilish smile, “I write what I know.”

  Toward the end of the interview, Doyle shifted to Sometimes Darkness. “What’s behind it?” she asked.

  Newland raised his hands and wiggled his fingers, and in a bad imitation of Bela Lugosi, said, “Plastic gloves, my dear. Plastic gloves.” He elaborated, and there was a foray into the psychology of psychopaths and serial killers, and then the question.

  The question.

  It could have been that Doyle asked it because, in effect, the interview had been going too smoothly—it was a question designed, it seemed, to put a little “fierceness” in the evolving dialectic. And it worked.

  She had paused after exploring what Newland had to offer about the writing of Sometimes Darkness, and in her most serious tone she had said, “Doesn’t it worry you that some borderline personality, some guy with a kink in his brain might read your book and be ‘inspired’ to commit similar atrocities? I mean, what if your book triggers extremely violent behavior? Wouldn’t you feel, in a way, responsible?”

  The question hit him like a fist of thorns.

  He felt the flash of anger viscerally; his stomach tightened, and he laughed softly, nervously. But his smile was forced and did not fit his face; it was like a glove on the wrong hand. He shook his head as if to summon every ounce of denial he had at his disposal.

  “I can’t be responsible,” he began, “for every nut out there who might read my book and might be pushed over the edge into psychotic behavior. No writer should have to bear that kind of responsibility.”

  He stared at her, conscious that he had raised his voice. She nodded solicitously. Still intensely irritated—an intensity which surprised him—he found himself shifting his rhetorical strategy to accommodate her.

  “Look,” he said, “at the core of your question is the issue of censorship. And censorship, no matter what anyone else says, is a mindless force. Its passionate purpose is to make zombies out of us—it’s as simple as that. But yes, on the other hand, democracy demands a price, and as I see it, that price means tolerating a lot of horrible stuff I’d rather not see printed or not see showing at our local theaters. And maybe, I just don’t know, maybe some of what gets printed or shown to the public could provoke acts of violence. But you can’t tell the writer or maker of films to curtail his or her freedom of artistic expression—that price is much too high. It’s a price I won’t personally pay.”

  Newland blanked out the remainder of the interview. Later, he assumed that it had ended amicably enough; Doyle had not been out to get him, and, in fact, having space given to the interview in a paper with the circulation of the one in Columbus promised a salubrious effect upon his career.

  But at 3:00 a.m. the next morning Newland was wide awake framing different answers to “the question”—and some demons of doubt had entered the shadow side of his vision of reality. He stared at the seamless darkness of the bedroom ceiling; he was ashamed of himself for even entertaining the possibility that his book—his book—could touch off a volatile psyche. And yet. And yet, onto that darkness above him his demons of doubt projected two milky white, plastic gloves closing around the neck of a faceless child.

  By mid-morning, the image had dissolved and only a residue of his irritation oyer “the question” remained. In his study he reviewed his outline of the next chapter of his current novel; well into his second cup of coffee he focused his mental energy on the narrow task of putting words on the screen of his monitor. Trisha’s timing—or rather the timing of the event which forced her to have to interrupt him—couldn’t have been more unfortunate.

  She barged into his study without knocking, and, in an exasperated tone said, “Would you just look at this? This … this is the work of your Greenbeard the Pirate, aka your son, and he’s gotten himself into big trouble. I’ve already reprimanded him—your son, that is—but maybe I ought to reprimand you, too.”

  She wasn’t serious about the latter. Newland could see that. And his gorgeous wife couldn’t know what her mixed expression, one of anger and comic bewilderment and fear, touched within him. Nor could she have understood what effect the object she was holding out for him to see had upon him. The small, gray and white teddy bear had been gutted; whitish blood-stuffing leaked out like oatmeal.

  “What happened to Freddy?”

  That was all he could think to say.

  One hand on her hip, Trisha raised the mutilated bear a little higher and said, “He was murdered. With my best butcher knife. By your son in a fit of Greenbeard mania. And he’s been sentenced to no television for a week and told never … never ever to get into Mom’s kitchen utensil drawer again. Looks as if your Greenbeard stories were more stimulating than Clay could handle.”

  Newland could see that as she talked she lost some of her fear—she even laughed ever so softly at the teddy bear’s condition. But when Newland took the bear from her and surveyed where it had been cut—cut viciously—he found suddenly that he couldn’t swallow.

  In the days afterwards Newland began to imagine things. He began to imagine, for example, that Trisha was far more troubled about the teddy bear incident than she was letting on. Newland had had an obligatory talk with Clay—”You know better than this, son. I’m very disappoint
ed in you. Knives are very, very dangerous objects. You could have hurt yourself. Don’t you understand that Greenbeard isn’t real? Little boys shouldn’t ever try to act like Greenbeard. “— but he didn’t want to admit that his storytelling might have provoked Clay’s behavior. No, not that. Over Clay’s protests, Newland declared a moratorium on Greenbeard stories.

  But the wordless dialectic with Trisha continued. He imagined her thinking: What has he done to my son? There’s so much violence in our society, how can a small boy develop the proper interpersonal attitudes when his father writes about the horrors of our society for entertainment? This same father who tells stories of a terribly violent pirate—what could it lead to?

  Newland never asked his wife whether she was thinking such thoughts. He was afraid to. He noticed his fear, just as he suddenly noticed how difficult it had become for him to write anything. Anything. He also noticed the aversion he had developed to reading about or listening to news reports of murders. He avoided the daily newspaper and the nightly news religiously.

  What the hell’s going on with me?

  He wasn’t certain.

  He began taking long evening walks through the neighborhood, breathing in the brisk winter air, cursing the elements whenever rain prevented him from his brief sojourns. And what did he do on such walks?

  He thought.

  And he kept an eye out for … for strangers. He studied each house in the four-block area. In a matter of days, he knew much about the habits—the goings and comings—of his Granite Heights neighbors. Then one evening a frightening thought occurred to him.

  This is just exactly what Macready did. I’m acting like my child-killer.

  So Newland called a halt to his curious routine.

  He began spending his evenings watching basketball on ESPN. Trisha and Clay gave him wide berth. His computer gathered dust. He began to feel better. But just when the edge was starting to wear off his anxieties, he received a call from his brother, Roger.