There was no staring at the stranger. There was something about his eyes, something dark which seemed to lurch violently behind them.
A dark chuckle came from the back seat.
“Silly talk? Silly?” asked the stranger. “Now what’s silly and what’s serious in the world today? Who can tell anymore?! Missiles and terrorists! Vampires and garlic! Famine and epidemics! Full moons and maniacs!”
The words rattled out of the dark man and chilled Alan more deeply than the cold blast of the heater fan. He looked away and tried to stop the shiver which raced up and down his backbone.
“Where’d you say you was going, Mister?” asked Grandpa as he slowly eased off the gas pedal.
“I didn’t say.”
“Well, how about saying—right now.”
“Do I detect hostility in your voice, sir? Or is it something else?” Again came the deep-throated, whispery chuckle.
Alan kept his gaze upon the white-on-white panorama ahead. But he was listening to every word being exchanged between the dark stranger and his grandfather, who was suddenly assuming the proportions of a champion. He listened but he could not turn around, he could not look back. There was a fear gripping him now. It was a gnarled spindly claw reaching up for him, out of the darkness of his mind, closing in on him with a terrible certainty.
Grandpa hit the brakes a little too hard, and even the 4-wheel drive of the Scout couldn’t keep it from sliding off to the right to gently slap a bank of plowed snow. Alan watched his grandfather as he turned and stared at the stranger.
“Listen, Mister, I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t find it very amusing like you seem to…and I don’t appreciate the way you’ve dealt with our hospitality.”
Grandpa glared at the man in the back seat and Alan could feel the courage burning behind the old man’s eyes. Just the sight of it gave Alan the strength to turn and face the stranger.
“Just trying to make conversation,” said the man in a velvety soft voice. It seemed to Alan that the stranger’s voice could change any time he wanted it to, could sound any way at all. The man in the mask was like a ventriloquist or a magician, maybe…
“Well, to be truthful with you, Mister,” Grandpa was saying, “I’m kinda tired of your ‘conversation,’ and I’d like you to climb out of here so my grandson and I can be on our way in peace.”
The eyes behind the mask flitted between Grandpa and Alan once, twice. “I see…” said the voice. “No more silly stuff, eh?”
The stranger leaned forward, putting a gloved hand on the back of Alan’s seat. The hand almost touched Alan’s parka and he pulled away. He knew he didn’t want the stranger touching him. More acid churned in his stomach.
“Very well,” said the dark man. “I’ll be leaving you for now…but one last thought, all right?”
“I’d rather not,” said Grandpa as the man squeezed out the open passenger’s door.
“But you will…” Another soft laugh as the stranger stood in the drifted snow alongside the road. The eyes behind the mask darted from Grandpa to Alan and back again. “You see, it’s just a short ride we’re all taking…and the night…well, the night is freezing fast.”
Grandpa’s eyes widened a bit as the words drifted slowly into the cab, cutting through the swirling, whipping cold wind. Then he gunned the gas pedal and the engine raced. “That’s enough of that crazy talk, Mister. Have a nice day!”
The Scout suddenly leaped forward in the snow with such force that Alan didn’t have to pull the door closed—it slammed shut from the force of the acceleration.
Looking back, Alan could see the stranger quickly dwindle to nothing more than a black speck on the white wall behind them.
“Of all the people to be helpful to, and I have to pick a danged nut!” Grandpa forced a smile to his face. He looked at Alan and tapped his arm playfully. “Nothing to worry about now, boy. He’s behind us and gone.”
Alan nodded. “He was creepy, wasn’t he?”
Grandpa grunted, kept looking at the snowed-up road.
“Who you figure he was?”
“Oh, just a nut, son. A kook. When you get older, you’ll realize that there’s lots of ‘funny’ people in the world. Some funnier than others.”
“You think he’ll still be out on the road when we go back?”
Grandpa looked at Alan and tried to smile. It was an effort and it didn’t look anything at all like a real smile.
“You were afraid of him, weren’t you boy?”
Alan nodded. “Weren’t you?”
Grandpa didn’t answer for an instant. He certainly looked scared. Then: “Well, kinda, I guess. But I’ve known about his type…almost been expecting him, you might say.”
“Really?” Alan didn’t understand what the old man meant.
Grandpa looked ahead. “Well, here’s the store…”
He eased the Scout into the half-plowed parking lot of Brampton, Iowa’s only full-scale shopping center. He ran into the Food-A-Rama for a pound of butter while Alan remained in the cab with the engine running, the heater fan wailing, and the doors locked. Looking out into the swirling snow, Alan could barely pick out single flakes anymore. Everything was blending into a furiously thick, white mist. The windows of the Scout were blank sheets of paper, he could see nothing beyond the glass.
Suddenly there was a dark shape at the driver’s side, and the latch rattled on the door handle. The lock flipped up and Grandpa appeared with a small brown paper bag in his hand. “Boy, it’s blowin’ up terrible out here! What a time that woman has to send us out!”
“It looks worse,” said Alan.
“Well, maybe not,” said Grandpa, slipping the vehicle into gear. “Night’s coming on. When it gets darker, the white-out won’t be as bad.”
They drove home along Route 28 which would eventually curve down and cross 14A. Alan fidgeted with the heater fan and the cab was finally starting to warm up a little bit.
“Grandpa, what did that man mean about ‘a short ride’ we’re all taking? And the night freezing fast?”
“I don’t rightly know what he meant, Alan. He was a kook, remember? He probably don’t know himself what he meant by it.”
“But you said you were kind of expecting him…”
“Oh, I was just thinking out loud. Didn’t mean a thing.” Grandpa pretended to be concentrating on the road.
“Well, he sure did make it sound scary, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I guess he did,” said Grandpa as he turned the wheel onto a crossing road. “Here we go, here’s 14A. Almost home, boy! I hope your grandmother’s got that woodstove hot!”
The Scout trundled along the snowed-up road until they reached a bright orange mailbox that marked the entrance to Grandpa’s farm. Alan exhaled slowly, and felt the relief spreading into his bones. He hadn’t wanted to say anything, but the white-white of the storm and the seeping cold had been bothering him, making him get a terrible headache, probably from squinting so much.
“What in—?” Grandpa eased off the accelerator as he saw the tall, thin figure standing in the snow-filled rut of the driveway.
“It’s him, Grandpa…” said Alan in whisper.
The dark man stepped aside as the Scout eased up to him. Angrily, Grandpa wound down the window and let the storm rush into the cab. He shouted past the wind at the stranger. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming up to my house!”
The eyes behind the ski mask seemed to grow darker, unblinking. “Didn’t have much choice,” said the chameleon-voice.
Grandpa unlocked the door and stepped out to face the man. “What do you mean by that?”
Soft laughter cut through the howl of the wind. “Come now! You know who I am…and why I’m here.”
Suddenly Grandpa’s face turned pale, his eyes became vacant and empty. He nodded his head quickly. “Yeah, I guess I do, but I never knew it to be like this…”
“There are countless ways,” said the stranger, who was no longer unknown to the o
ld man. “Now excuse me, and step aside…”
“What?!” Grandpa sounded shocked.
Alan didn’t know what was going on, but he could detect the terror in his grandfather’s throat, the trembling fear in his voice. Without realizing it, he was backing away from the Scout. His head was pounding like a jackhammer.
“Is it the woman?!” Grandpa was asking in a whisper.
The dark man shook his head.
Grandpa moaned loudly, letting it turn into words. “No! Not him! No, you can’t mean it!”
“Aneurysm…” said the terribly soft voice behind the mask.
Suddenly Grandpa grabbed the stranger by the shoulder and spun him around, facing him squarely. “No!” he shouted, his face twisted and ugly. “Me! Take me!”
“Can’t do it,” said the man.
“Grandpa, what’s the matter?!” Alan started to feel dizzy. The pounding in his head had become a raging fire. It hurt so bad he wanted to scream.
“Yes you can!” yelled Grandpa. “I know you can!”
Alan watched as Grandpa reached out and grabbed at the tall thin man’s ski mask. It seemed to come apart as he touched it, and fell away from beneath the droopy brimmed hat. For an instant, Alan could see—or at least he thought he saw—nothing beneath the mask. It was just an eye-blink of time, and then he saw, for another instant, the white angular lines, the dark hollows of the empty sockets.
But the snow was swirling and whipping, and Grandpa was suddenly wrestling with the man. Alan screamed as the man wrapped his long thin arms around his grandfather and they seemed to dance briefly around in the snow.
“Run, boy!” screamed Grandpa.
Alan turned toward the house, then looked back and he saw Grandpa collapsing into the snow. The tall, dark man was gone.
“Grandpa!” Alan ran to the old man’s side as he lay face up, his glazed eyes staring into the storm. “What happened, Grandpa! Oh Jeez…!”
“Get your grandmother…quick,” said the old man. “It’s my heart.”
“Don’t die, Grandpa…not now!” Alan was frantic and didn’t know what to do. He wanted to get help, but he didn’t want to leave his grandfather in the storm like this.
“No choice in it,” he said. “A deal’s a deal.”
Alan looked at his grandfather, suddenly puzzled. “What?”
Grandpa winced as a new pain lanced his chest. “Don’t matter now…” The old man closed his eyes and wheezed out a final breath.
Snowflakes danced across his face, mixing with the first tears, and Alan noticed that his headache, like the dark man, had vanished.
I used to go to a lot of conventions, especially back when I still thought I was a science fiction writer. For any of you who’ve never been to one, I should tell you the ones devoted to genre literature (sf, fantasy, horror, mystery, or romance) are usually held at big hotels in mid to large cities on just about any week-end of the year, and are populated by large groups of fans, fair representations of writers and artists, and a scattering of agents, editors, and other publishing/media types. In recent decades, many conventions have become celebrations of excess, brimming over into tangential interests other than books—such as board games, video games, television shows, films, costumery, and even music.
I used to enjoy them because it gave me a great excuse to travel and sample other cities in practically every state in the country; plus I really liked catching up with writer-friends I only saw at gatherings such as “the cons.” I also liked the opportunity to pitch new book ideas to any editor willing to listen and party hard at the same time.
But there’s only been one convention I have attended for close to twenty consecutive years that really means anything to me—a little one held every summer in Rhode Island called NECON. It has the highest percentage of professionals in attendance of any convention I’ve ever experienced, and it is also the most unassuming, laid-back gathering of ultra-bright, incredibly clever, funny people you’ll ever find. Elizabeth and I have more fun at NECON than any other professional function we ever attend.
And it was at one such NECON, back in the early Eighties that I met a young, resourceful, and very bright editor from New York named Peggy Nadramia. She had started her own magazine called Grue, and was doggedly producing it from her Hell’s Kitchen apartment.
She asked me if I could do a story for her and I had one currently making the rounds that hadn’t sold yet. I figured, hey, it may not be the most deathless prose I’ll ever type (based on the rejection slips it had thus far garnered…), so maybe I should send it off to Peggy because she wouldn’t dare reject it, and the story needs a home.
So I sent it; she didn’t reject it; and here it is…
Scott Fusina sat in his living room, thinking of the best way to kill himself.
It was Saturday afternoon and his television blathered on about a classic shoot-out between USC and Notre Dame. Scott was considering a classic shoot-out too; between the side of his head and the little .22 caliber he kept in the drawer of his night-table…
His thoughts rushed about madly, connected only by tenuous causes and effects. Trish, his wife, hated him, and was sleeping with another man. Deanna, his ten year-old daughter, also hated him because she believed he deserted her. And to complete the feminine conspiracy, his mother was totally disgusted with him, claiming that he was the prime cause of her angina.
Considering everything else, it was no surprise that his once-envied position as the top salesman at Providential Mutual Life was fading like the color in a cheap T-shirt. The thought of going out and hustling life insurance made him want to vomit. He just didn’t give a damn about his job or anything else in his life, not even his friends—who were lately treating him like he had leprosy.
He had heard that your married friends avoided you when you were going through a particularly nasty separation or divorce, and it was true. They did it because they unconsciously feared that what was happening to you might be infectious, that it might happen to them. And so they stayed away.
Nothing seemed to be important any longer. Nothing mattered, and he wondered whether pills might be easier than a gun. The thought of actually holding that cold metal up to his head and pulling the trigger…his thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, and for a silly instant he fantasized it being his wife and child coming to ask him to come home.
Such foolish dreaming was quelled as he opened the door to discover a more-than-middle-aged woman stationed outside the entrance to his second-floor apartment. He could not speak, and simply stared at her.
“Hello,” said the woman gingerly. “I’m Emma Dodson from the Sudbrook Park Neighborhood Association, and we would like to know if you would be interested in volunteering for our Block Watch Program.”
“Your what?” Scott was barely listening to her.
“Just temporarily, of course. We need some extra people to watch the streets tonight while the children go trick-or-treating in the Park.” That was what all the residents of the neighborhood called the little suburban enclave—“The Park.” Its tree-shaded streets were lined with 30-room mansions of a century past, many divided into fashionable apartments like the one he’d recently taken.
“Tonight?” Scott seemed stunned by the revelation. “Is tonight Halloween?”
Emma Dodson smiled. “Yes, it is, young man. Slipped your mind, did it? I’ll bet you even forgot to buy some goodies for the kids…”
“Oh…yes, I did forget…”
She looked at him quizzically, then brightened. “Aren’t you Marion’s boy?”
“Uh, yes, I am…do you know my mother?”
Emma smiled. “Oh yes. I remember her walking you around the Park in a stroller probably close to forty years ago. Time goes by, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, I guess it does…” Scott was barely aware of talking to her. His mind seemed filled with important thoughts.
There was a moment of awkward silence before Emma pressed him again. Would he be interested in t
aking up a station on a nearby street corner to help ensure that no harm came to the children of Sudbrook Park?
He heard himself saying yes, as though listening to a conversation in a distant room, and Emma handed him a photocopied map of the neighborhood, using a pencil to mark off the place where he would be expected to stand between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. that evening.
“You do have a flashlight, don’t you?” asked Emma.
“Yes, I think so…in my car, I think.”
She smiled, thanked him, and eased herself down the stairs to the sidewalk. Possession of a flashlight and having a mother who’d lived in Sudbrook Park was apparently enough of a qualification Scott was not a pervert or child molester, and good material for Trick-or-Treat Block Watching.
After a simple, microwave cooking-pouch dinner from Stouffer’s, Scott prepared for his evening’s responsibility. Actually, he was grateful for the assignment. It was helping to get his mind off his great problems, and as long as he felt as though he had something to do, suicide seemed like only a possibility, rather than a certainty. Not the most encouraging prognosis, he knew, but at least it was something, right?
Wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a light jacket, he looked younger than his forty-one years as he exited the apartment. Down the outside staircase on the side of the old house, he noted that it was already growing quite dark. His landlord, who lived on the first floor, had already turned on his porch light—a sign that trick-or-treaters would be welcome.
Scott did not need Emma Dodson’s map; he knew Sudbrook Park intimately. Walking to his assigned corner, memories of his youth in this neighborhood slowly crept back to stand like a waif at the doorway to his mind. It was a quiet residential area with streets vaulted by 100-year old poplar, oak, and chestnut trees. The gnarled giants towered over the Park’s Victorian houses, cloaking everything in the earthy colors of Autumn.
Autumn. His favorite time of the year.
Scott had been living in such a terrible depression for the last eight weeks that he had almost been oblivious to everything. So much so, the passing of the seasons had been like the footsteps of strangers beneath his windows.
Fearful Symmetries Page 7