Fear itself: a novel

by Jonathan Lewis Nasaw

  Just let go, she told herself—either you wake up or you don’t. And if you don’t, maybe you see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dorie found it easy to believe in the light—she just wasn’t so sure what came after. But whatever it is, she thought, sooner or later we all find out.

  Just let go.

  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.

  11

  “…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.

  “FBI,” he called.

  She was either unconvinced or frozen with fear.

  “Pl
ease, I think she’s stopped breathing.”

  That brought her out of it. Leaving the phone off the hook, Nurse Apple bustled over to help Pender roll Missy off him. He staggered to his feet, cradling his injured arm. There was no time to break anything gently. Letting the arm dangle—fuck, that hurt—he pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket with his left hand, flipped it open to show her his badge.

  “Pender, FBI. Simon Childs is a serial killer. There may be another victim still alive in the house—when the police get here, tell them I’ve gone after him.”

  Nurse Apple was already bending over Missy, preparing to begin CPR—she waved him away impatiently, half-listening. Then it dawned on her: serial killer, gone after him. “No, don’t—”

  Too late—he was gone. “No more private gigs,” she muttered, turning back to her patient. Pender, FBI, had just bugged out, leaving her alone with a serial killer who ran around bashing people with frying pans. “This time I mean it.”

  Dorie’s hope died with the battery that had powered the night-vision goggles; along with hope went courage; along with courage went the last of her strength. Wet, naked, thoroughly disoriented, she threw the goggles aside and sank down onto her haunches, shivering as much from despair as from the cold.

  Sooner or later, she told herself, Simon would come looking for her. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out that she’d unscrewed the lightbulbs—after that it would only be a matter of time. She remembered how peaceful she’d felt in that warm tub, how easy drowning had seemed back then. Now the universe had turned so ugly that she no longer believed in the light at the end of the tunnel—in any light, for that matter. Part of her wanted to go primal, to howl and tear out her hair, but she was too tired and beaten even for silent grieving.

  Never mind, she thought, leaning her bare back against the cold concrete wall—let him come. But even that weak note of defiance deserted her when she heard footsteps descending the wooden stairs; she covered her ears with her hands to block out the sound and shut her eyes against the sudden brightness of the flashlight beam shining down on her from above.

  And that was how Pender found her, squatting against the wall in the far corner of what had once been Grandfather Childs’s wine cellar, her hands pressed tightly over her ears.

  “Dorie,” he said gently, then, louder: “Dorie, it’s Ed Pender.”

  When there was still no response, he sat down beside her and waited. After thirty seconds or so she opened her eyes. “It is you,” she said. “I was afraid maybe I was dreaming.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Pender. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Dead Man Whispering

  1

  Simon Childs was no fool. He’d always understood that the fear game was inherently risky and, moreover, that the risk was potentially fatal, not because California was a death-penalty state, but because for Simon, imprisonment was simply not an option. For years he’d kept the huge leather satchel he called his getaway bag packed and ready, stuffed with cash, drugs, prescription and otherwise, fake ID and credit cards, and in the event it all went south, a little blue capsule that, Zap Strum had assured him, was the same formulation issued by the CIA to its operatives. Just bite down, Zap promised Simon—an instantaneous death is guaranteed.

  “What’s in it?” he’d asked.

  “Dunno.”

  “Will it be painless?”

  “Hard to say: nobody who’s actually taken one has ever lived long enough to tell anybody.”

  Despite Simon’s precautions, it wasn’t until he was in the Mercedes, driving north on Grizzly Rock with the satchel beside him on the passenger’s seat and what seemed like every emergency vehicle in Alameda County passing him in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens blaring, that it began to sink in: this is actually happening, buckaroo—this is Plan B for real.

  But not Plan B as he’d envisioned it. It was all happening too fast. Forget Mexico—they’d have a description of the Mercedes out before he made it to South San Francisco, much less south of the border. Which meant he had to get it off the road pronto. But where? And then what? And what about—

  No. He couldn’t allow himself to start thinking about Missy just yet. He felt so guilty about leaving her. Not that Pender had left him with any choice. Hiding behind her like that—what a coward. And of course if Pender hadn’t taken advantage of Missy’s disability by tricking her into letting him into the house, where he had no right to be, or if Pender hadn’t stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong in the first place…

  Pender, Pender, Pender—it all came down to Pender, didn’t it?

  For Simon, it was a calming revelation, even comforting somehow; he turned his attention back to his more immediate concern: getting this red-hot, highly conspicuous car off the road as soon as possible.

  2

  According to the Farmer’s Almanac, which Nelson Carpenter consulted every morning of his life, adjusting as always for a latitude of 37°50’ and allowing for daylight saving time, which still had another week to run, the sun would be setting at 6:23 P.M. on Friday, October 22.

  Nelson, once known as Nervous Nellie (a sobriquet that, given his first name, the cruelty of children, and the severity of his polyphobia, was probably inevitable), needed at least an hour to complete his preparations for nightfall. It wasn’t a large house, just a standard suburban colonial in Concord, California, the kind of place where horror movies (at least the horror movies Nelson and his former best friend Simon had been addicted to as adolescents) were never set, but still it took time to ready it for darkness. There were lights to be turned on (two in every room, in case a bulb burned out in one), blinds and curtains to be drawn, doors and windows to be locked. He also had to inspect and lock every closet, then look under every bed and examine every corner of the house where an intruder might conceivably be hiding, both before and after all entrances had been secured.

  So as soon as Nelson’s watch went off at 4:00 to remind him to watch Oprah, he reset the alarm for 5:23 and eagerly turned on the television. Phobias were the theme of today’s show; it was Dr. Phil’s contention that whatever the specific phobia, all phobics were afraid of the same thing: loss of control.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” muttered Nelson. Just then the front doorbell rang, throwing him into an agony of indecision. There was no chance he’d be opening the door, of course—he didn’t have many friends, but the few he did have would have known better than to show up at his doorstep without calling first. Nelson’s dilemma, rather, was whether to get up and look through the Securit-Eye peephole or simply hole up in the living room with Dr. Phil and wait for whoever it was to go away.

  Both options had their downsides. On the one hand, the prospect of peering through the peephole at an unannounced visitor was an intimidating one for a man with as overactive an imagination as Nelson Carpenter’s. On the other hand, it might be important—a police officer going door to door to warn residents about a chemical spill or an escaped convict, for instance. But on the other, other hand, it might be the convict himself.

  Nelson understood from years of behavioral therapy that what he needed to do at this point was evaluate the prospective threats. It was probably only a Witness or a kid selling magazine subscriptions—in which case there was nothing to be afraid of. And of the other possibilities, the prospect of a toxic cloud from a refinery fire was more realistic than the possibility of finding an escaped convict on the doorstep.

  So Nelson gathered up his courage (and it would be a mistake to think that severe phobics are lacking in courage: it took more nerve for Nelson to leave his house once a week than it would for most of us to bungee-jump off the Golden Gate Bridge), muted the television, tiptoed over to the door, and put his eye to the peephole.

  Oh, Mama! He gasped and drew his head back sharply. Toxic clouds, escaped convicts? Bring ’em on—there was nothing Nelson wouldn’t rather have seen through the fish-eye lens than what he saw, no monster that wouldn’t have been
more welcome at his door than the one standing there now. He tried to tell himself he might have been mistaken—after all, he hadn’t seen his childhood companion since the sixties—but in his bones, and by the fluttering of his heart and the tightening of his scrotum, Nelson knew better. This was it, this was what he’d really been afraid of all these years, this was the worst-case scenario.

  “Open the door, Nellie,” called Simon, when he saw the peephole darken. “Open the door, ol’ buddy.”

  “Go away.”

  “Is that any way to treat an old friend?” Nice and calm, Simon told himself—you owned the boy, you own the man.

  “We had a deal.”

  “Circumstances have changed.”

  “I’ll call the police. I’ll tell them about your grandfather—I’ll tell them everything.”

  “Yesterday’s news.”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  Manslaughter, thought Simon—then it occurred to him he could turn Nelson’s misconception to his own advantage. “There’s no bail, either—perhaps they’ll let us share a cell.”

  Simon waited for the click of a lock or the snick of a bolt, and was faintly surprised not to hear one. That should have done it, he thought; and maybe it had—although it had been quite a few years since he’d last seen Nelson paralyzed by fear, Simon had never forgotten what a moving sight it was.

  “Nellie…? Nellie, we both know you’re going to open this door; let’s just get it—”

  And for the first time in thirty years, the childhood friends were face-to-face. The pale young gentleman had aged, but his hair was still the same shade of washed-out blond, still too long—he’d always been afraid of barbers. “How did you find me?” he asked dully.