by Neil Gaiman
In the second, the man who had been asleep sat on a park bench, watching two teenage girls pass with schoolbooks pressed to their chests. The man stared at them, though they did not see him. His hands pressed into the flesh above his knees, bunching the cloth. Beside him, a pale and beautiful androgyne looked at his face and smiled.
In the third, only the man's face could be seen. Beside him, a white-skinned woman with skeins of multicolored hair pressed her cheek against his. They wore identical unfocused smiles. Around them, toads flew with butterfly wings, and the two schoolgirls scampered hand in hand through fields where van Gogh sunflowers grew with petals larger than the girls' heads.
In the fourth, the man sawed wood in a basement while a red-bearded giant watched him. Four steel manacles sat on top of a stack of lumber.
In the fifth, the man drove his car behind the two schoolgirls, who walked down the sidewalk without seeing him. In the car's backseat, a hooded man sat, chained by the wrist to a heavy book.
In the sixth, the man stood in the basement. Beside him, two crucified forms on a wall might have been shadows or stains. Before him, a wall opened on a green field. The schoolgirls, clad in white robes, ran through the grass toward a black-garbed smiling woman whose skin was the color of bone.
In the seventh and last, the man stood in a courtroom with his hands cuffed together before him. The lawyers, jury, and audience were all faceless manikins. The judge, a naked obese woman, raised an iron hook like a gavel, perhaps to strike the desk, perhaps to strike the accused man in the heart. He looked up at her, expecting the blow with something like resignation or hope.
"Hey!" said Confry. "This's whatsisname's, that death row guy's work, right?"
The bearded man glanced up. "Brilliant fuckin' deduction, dude. Fuckin' everybody's heard o' that fucker."
"Well. I like this better than Gacy's clowns."
"Fuckin' amateurs."
"Well, you have to admire the effort."
"Fuck," said the bearded man. "You'll see fuckin' shit in here by fuckin' pros you fuckin' never heard of--" He sighed. "Fuckin' amateurs."
Confry studied ajar that appeared to be filled with eyeballs, and decided he didn't get it. He almost respected a painting of a nude man sitting in a car seat with his decapitated head facedown in his lap, but he only liked it for the title, Auto-fellatio. There were a number of grotesque human-sized dolls made of leather, and an assortment of realistic body parts embedded in Lucite. His favorite effort was a group of forgettable portraits made strange by being framed in long bones tied together with hair, but he hesitated longest before a large skull and several smaller ones, displayed on red velvet with a sign saying, FAMILY GATHERING, BY NIMROD. He stared at that, thinking of Fan Man, then of Jan and the girls. How did three people you loved become an enemy and two strangers?
In the back of the room sat a large wooden crate labeled "Work in progress." Muffled moans came from within it. Confry jerked his thumb toward it and told the bearded man, "You guys should sponsor a haunted house. Kids'd love it."
"Yeah." The bearded man grinned. "It'd fuckin' slay 'em."
Confry was looking at a series of photographs when Hunter hurried into the art show. Confry said, "I studied this case when I was researching Dreams in Darkness. I thought I'd seen all the photos, but this--"
Hunter said, "We should get some supper before opening ceremonies."
"Oh. Sure." Confry followed.
Hunter said, "So, what do you think?"
"Your piece had a certain black charm."
"Thanks. Your overall impression?"
"Eh. Some interesting stuff."
"But?"
Confry shrugged. "Well, as usual with fannish shows, I can't say I'm impressed by the level of execution."
The bearded man at the door said, "Fuck. Most o' this shit's only worth lookin' at for the fuckin' quality of execution."
The hotel restaurant surprised him. The menu had a small selection of Hungarian specialties, and Hunter insisted on ordering the best red wine in the cellar. While they waited for their orders of chicken paprikas, a stout older man in a hunting vest approached their table. "Hey, Nimrod, bag anything good?"
Hunter nodded. "A big buck standing right by the side of the highway like God put him there for me. Smokey, this is Peter Confry, the writer."
"Oh, yeah. You write them killin' books."
Confry shrugged.
"They scare my ma, but she keeps on readin' 'em." Smokey peered at him. "You ain't eatin' here?"
Confry said, "Well, uh--"
Hunter said patiently, "The food's very good, as you well know."
"Could be any ol' thing." Smokey pulled a plastic baggie from his vest and unzipped the seal. "But I can vouch for this. Meat an' smoke, nothin' else, jus' like the good Lord intended."
Confry glanced at Hunter, who nodded as he took a bit of jerky. "Smokey's got a way with pork."
Confry accepted a piece and bit into it. "Good."
"Meat keeps you healthy," Smokey said. "Only kill your own, though. They put all kinds o' chemicals in livestock nowadays. I don't know what the world's comin' to."
"I hear you," Hunter said.
As Smokey walked away, Confry said, "I take it he doesn't eat from his collection."
Hunter shook his head. "Smokey's a natural cereal sort. We get all kinds."
Following a sip of his after-dinner Tokay, Confry said, "I should get to a phone to call my wife. Ex-wife. Ex-wife-to-be." He smiled. "God, separating's the shits."
"Anything urgent?" Hunter asked.
"Not really. Just wanted to hear my kids' voices."
"We'll have some time after opening ceremonies."
"All right."
"I know how you feel. My divorce was hell."
"Still bother you?"
"Not really. I see my family whenever I wish."
"I wish Jan was as understanding. The lawyers are still working out visiting rights."
Hunter aimed his fork at Confry's chest. "Sometimes you can't compromise without compromising yourself. I saw you understood that in Nicky's Pleasure."
"Well," said Confry. "She was crazy."
Hunter shook his head. "Driven. If her husband had understood that, he wouldn't have had to die. What did she want? A room of her own in which to pursue her own concerns? Is that so much?"
"But she was still crazy. I wanted to suggest they were both right and both wrong."
Hunter turned his fork toward his polecinta. "Who were your sympathies with? Really? The whining husband and the nagging kids? Or Nicky, who wanted to make something that was hers alone?"
"Well--"
"Be honest."
"Hey, Nicky wanted to make art out of dead things." As Confry finished the sentence, he thought of the art show and realized what had disturbed him. The concepts and techniques of construction might have been crude, but the materials were as perfect as Hollywood could demand.
Hunter said, "Something wrong?"
"Just a crazy idea. Maybe it'll turn into a story."
"Really?"
"You never know."
"Ah." Hunter cut into his dessert. "What you said about art out of dead things. That's a metaphor, right? So it's not relevant. Who do you feel for when you write? Honestly?"
Confry finished his Tokay, then smiled. "Honestly? Okay. I admit it, I love my monsters."
"I knew it!" Hunter slapped the table, rattling glassware.
"The monsters can do anything," said Confry, his meal and his suspicions forgotten. "Which means I, in turn, can do nothing at all. It's the greatest freedom, having characters act for you."
"Oh? Which is greater, the shadow or the substance?"
Confry laughed. "The shadow. The police don't get you for fiction, no matter how badly written."
"You're never tempted to act out the things you imagine?"
"Imagining them is the acting out."
After a sip of coffee, Hunt
er said, "You do a lot of research."
"Some."
"Ever interview a killer?"
Confry shook his head. "I read a lot. And I know enough about my own impulses to extrapolate, I like to think. Besides, real killers are pathetic."
"Oh?"
"Sure." He had made this argument before, so it came easily. "Your average killer's someone who's drunk or high who kills a friend, a neighbor, or a family member. Nothing interesting there. Hired killers tend to be simple people with little education. They don't have any real sense of the humanity of anyone who isn't part of their family, clan, business group, or"--he smiled at his cleverness-- "in the case of armies, nation. That's not very interesting either. Mass murderers and serial killers are the sorriest of the lot. They're stupid or ignorant and usually both, and they only succeed for as long as they do because they're so pathetic that no one suspects them. Usually they've been abused as kids. Look at the Wisconsin boys, Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. Once you learn a little about them, they're pitiful, not horrible." Confry sighed. "That's why I write about brilliant sociopaths and wealthy megalo-maniacs. Dracula's heirs. The stuff of fiction. Of fairly popular fiction, if you'll forgive a bit of immodesty."
Hunter sipped his wine. "You don't think people like that exist?"
"About the best you get is Ted Bundy. And he was a lying little weasel compensating for a failed personal life."
"Which is the failed life? The life in a world that couldn't understand him? Or the life that he made for himself in private with his prey?"
Confry set down his glass. "Hey, I can entertain that argument, but it really doesn't amuse me."
"Fine." Hunter smiled. "Bundy was a failure. He was caught. But what about the ones who aren't? Who knows how many they are, or how clever they may be?"
"How many miles of unexplored caves in Carlsbad?" Confry laughed.
"Seriously."
"Seriously? Well, sure, there are some who're never caught, but that's because they quit before the police get close. They get frightened, or find religion, or kill themselves. It doesn't change the profile."
"They must get caught?"
"They tend to get caught. You kill a few people, you're going to leave a trail."
"Really?" said Hunter. "This country expects to find people killed. Forty thousand automobile victims a year. Thirty thousand suicides. Twenty thousand fatal home accidents. How many of those were faked? Then there's missing people. How many of them--" Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Does this bother you?"
"What?"
"Talking about killing with a fan you don't know."
Confry made himself laugh. "Isn't that what most of my books are?"
Hunter smiled. "I knew you understood."
Confry knew then that he understood, too. If his understanding was wrong, he might look foolish. If his understanding was right, he could not stay in this hotel. "I should make that call before opening ceremonies. I noticed a gas station down the block."
"Damn, I wish there was more time. We start in a couple minutes."
Confry stood. "Tell you what. You get the bill. I'll run to the corner. Won't take five minutes." He looked around the room. Only a few attendees were still in the restaurant, and none of them were paying attention to him.
"You're determined?"
Confry began walking away. "It's important. Jan's expecting it. I'll be right back."
He felt as though every eye in the hotel rode upon his shoulders. That made him think about the jar of eyes, and the sounds from the crate, and the jerky he had eaten. He kept his face still. He had no idea whether he was walking too fast or too slowly or perfectly normally, but he knew he wasn't running, and, more importantly, no one was running after him.
At the front door, he felt something like hope and something like embarrassment. He wanted to turn and agree that the call could wait. An active imagination was an occupational hazard. Would he really go to the nearest phone, call the police, and tell them that most of the country's serial killers had gathered for a convention? The idea was insane, but when he thought about what he had seen and heard, he knew he would rather be paranoid than dead.
The night air, cool and moist, drove his doubts away. He strode across the well-lit sidewalk and headed for the parking lot. Someone walked toward the hotel, undoubtedly another member of the convention. Confry continued on, keeping his eyes averted, planning to run only when he was out of the parking lot lights and close to the street.
Something about the man's silhouette seemed familiar, familiar enough to draw Confry's gaze until he recognized Karl-with-a-K, the Commando-Wanna-be from the signing.
Karl-with-a-K said, "I came to hear you talk."
"That's great! I got to make a call, 'cause the phones are out here, but--"
Karl-with-a-K seized his arm, spinning him toward the hotel. Fan Man ran silently toward them, and Hunter walked behind him at a comfortable pace.
Confry said, "Please. Let me go. I don't know any of your names."
Karl-with-a-K said, "You know mine, Mr. Confry."
"I sign thousands of books, I--I don't remember anything that the police could use. I thought--" Confry swallowed. "I thought you liked my work."
Fan Man nodded several times. "That's why you're here."
Confry screamed, "Police! Help me! Police!" He stopped when he heard the others join in like a chorus of drunks or madmen. Karl-with-a-K shouted, "Eee-hah!" and Fan Man shouted, "Listen to this!" then screeched even louder than Confry had.
In the following silence, Hunter said, "Smokey's a state trooper. Even if someone came to investigate, they'd leave after he said a few of the boys had had a li'l too much to drink."
Confry said, "This is, ah, a joke. Some kind of hidden video show, right? Scare the scaremeister, am I right?"
Fan Man drew a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and opened one of its shorter blades. "I'll cut something off you if it'll make you feel better. I collect Peter Confry mementos."
Confry shook his head. "You--" He bit back the impulse to say, "--can't let me live," and finished, "--won't hurt me?"
Hunter said, "We don't want to hurt you."
Fan Man, pocketing his knife, said, "And we don't want anyone else to hurt you. We all agreed."
Hunter tapped Confry's chest. "We want you to write about us." He smiled. "Because no one will believe you. Isn't that right?"
Confry nodded, pursed his lips, then nodded again more slowly to show them he thought that was reasonable. "I'd do that. I'd love to do that. It'd be a great book. Sure. It's a deal."
"Good. Let's go inside."
"Oh. Sure." He looked at them, wondered how far he would get if he ran, and began to walk toward the hotel.
In front of the door, though he knew it was too late, he stopped. The others looked at him with something like kindness, and Hunter said, "Yes?"
"How do I know? That you know. That you can trust me?"
Hunter nodded. "It's simple, really."
"Simple," Karl-with-a-K agreed.
Hunter put a hand on Confry's shoulder, propelling him into the hotel. "When we disperse at the end of the convention, and you get left at the airport, you could go to the police and describe some of us well enough to catch us."
Confry said, "I wouldn't."
Hunter smiled. "But you couldn't hope to find all of us. And you know that any of us could find you, now, don't you?"
His throat was so dry that his tongue felt like a dead toad. He would remember that the next time he needed to describe a nagging awareness of an unconfirmed fear. He sat on a metal folding chair in the front row of the Rhett Butler Room and listened as Hunter took the stage. Fan Man sat on one side of him, and Karl-with-a-K, wearing a badge naming him. "The Neat Freak," sat on the other. The guards were not necessary. A hundred people or more filled the room. All of them knew he was not one of them.
Hunter told a joke. For Confry, the sentences did not parse. At the punch
line, "He used a scythe," he laughed with the audience. That seemed better than vomiting. When Hunter told the second rule of the convention, that no one was to do any collecting until the convention was over and everyone was at least two hundred miles away, he winked at Confry, and Confry grew calmer. He felt like a reporter on the front lines of battle. When this was over, he would go home, and though he would never tell anyone what had happened this weekend, he would tell Jan that he would do anything for her and the girls, even if that meant learning how he had failed them.
Hunter introduced a man in sunglasses as the guest of honor. Fan Man whispered, "Whoa, the Corinthian!" Several seats away, someone whispered loudly, "Fuckin' injury to fuckin' eye fetishist."
The man in sunglasses grinned and waved. He spoke briefly about opportunity, self-expression, and the satisfaction of pursuing a dream. As Confry tried not to wonder what someone would do to win the admiration of this crowd, Hunter took the stage again and introduced his favorite author, and America's, Peter Confry.
Fan Man chanted, "Speech, speech, speech, speech!"
Karl-with-a-K nudged Confry. "Go on, Mr. Confry. This is what I came for."
He walked awkwardly to the podium, clenched it in both hands, then waved to the crowd. Hunter indicated the microphone and whispered, "Say something. We'd appreciate it."
The crowd looked much like any other crowd, and his fear was much like his usual fear of speaking before any crowd. "Hi. Er. This is, er, an honor. I didn't, ah, prepare a speech, but, er, I'd like to say, ah, thank you." As the applause began, he added, "I'd also like to say, ah, I appreciate your trust. And, um, I won't let you down. I'll write a book about this weekend, but I know how to disguise people in fiction. Um, it'll be the best thing I've done. And it'll all be for you. It'll inspire me to keep writing better and better books, and that'll be our secret. Ah, thanks again."
As he turned toward his seat, Hunter spoke into the microphone. "Don't sit yet, Pete. A few of us got together to get you a present."
Half of the crowd smiled. The rest merely watched. Confry did not know which disturbed him more. He said, "You didn't have to."
"Oh, yes, we did."
An obese man in a skull cap topped with Batman ears wheeled the crate marked "Work in Progress" onto the stage. Whistling "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go," he and Karl-with-a-K pulled nails with a hammer and a crowbar.
As the side of the crate came away, a set of black-jeaned legs and another set in torn fishnets, both bound at the ankles with silver tape, kicked outward. Continued thrashing told Confry that the people were alive, and so did their muffled, desperate grunts. High on one of the stockinged legs, a gap in the netting revealed an inked cat's head caught in an eternal wink.
"Don't be shy," said Hunter. "You remember Ron and Keri from the bookstore?"
Karl and the man in the Batman cap dragged the Nice Young Couple out of the crate. They stared at Confry over wide bands of silver tape that sealed their mouths.
In the audience, several people shouted, "Hi, Ron and Keri!"
Hunter said, "Ron and Keri are from Mobile. They're big Confry fans. They told Grandma they'd be back by Sunday. Come Monday, someone'll start looking for them, and they'll find their car far from here, by a river at a roadside rest that's on their route home."