Fear itself

6

Simon, sitting in the comfy chair, had watched the news. Nelson, lying at Simon’s feet with his back to the TV, head pillowed on his arms and his ears stuffed with cotton balls, had watched Simon-for fifty-five boring, soul-deadening minutes, though it had been obvious that Simon had stopped paying any attention after the lead story.

Around seven o’clock, Nelson tried clearing his throat-no reaction. He sat up, half expecting a blow or a kick, but Simon didn’t seem to notice. He removed the cotton from his ears, then took the remote from Simon’s unresisting fingers, pointed it behind him, and switched off the TV without turning around. (Nelson’s viewing was always carefully planned, and he never surfed: sometimes it seemed to him as if there were an unwritten rule that in any given time slot, there had to be at least one channel showing a program about deadly snakes.)

Simon shook his head like a man coming out of a trance; he seemed to notice Nelson for the first time. “You think there’s an afterlife, Nellie?”

“Are you talking about heaven and hell, or about…” Nelson couldn’t bring himself to say the word ghosts. He never said witches, either, or ghouls or spooks or vampires, lest he somehow call them into being. He knew it was only foolish superstition; he also knew that superstition was mankind’s only defense against the supernatural.

“Heaven and hell.”

“Heaven, I’m hoping for; hell I’m sure about. I’ve been living there most of my life. Why?”

“Missy’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Nelson. He’d liked Missy, spoiled brat though she was. But he wasn’t surprised-the way Simon always talked about her, she’d been dying since Nelson had met her. “Her heart?”

“That’s what they’re saying.”

“It was on the news?”

Simon ignored the question. “Where’s the nearest phone?”

“Upstairs-there’s only the one.”

“In the entire house?”

Nelson explained his reasoning as he led Simon up to the bedroom. Originally there’d been a wall phone in the kitchen, but the very first night he’d moved in, Nelson found himself lying awake thinking about a story Simon had told him at one of the earliest Horror Club meetings, the one about the woman who gets a call from a slasher, and the police tell her if he calls again, keep him on the phone and we’ll trace it. He does, and they do-the story ends with the woman learning that the call is coming from her own house, from the downstairs extension. Run, the cop screams over the phone, get out of the house-but of course it’s too late. Next morning, Nelson told Simon, he’d called Pac Bell to have the kitchen phone removed, jack and all.

“I’m extremely flattered,” said Simon, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Did it ever occur to you to buy a cordless?”

“You kidding? Those things give you cancer.”

“Nellie, your continued survival is living proof that Darwin was wrong. Put that cotton back in your ears and wait in the bathroom…No-leave the door open so I can see what you’re up to.”

“Zap, it’s Simon….

“Yes, I know I’m all over the news. Don’t believe everything you hear….

“Yes, well, I hope you understand that if they do, I’ll flip you like a half-cooked hamburger….

“I thought you would. Now, here’s what I need. This FBI man, this E. L. Pender-I want all the information you can get for me….

“Like where he lives to start with, who his friends are, is he married? does he have a lover? that sort of thing. Ultimately, I’d like to find out what he fears, but I know that’s not likely to be-

“No, not feels, fears-what he’s afraid of…

“Okay, just Google him to start with. If I need you to hack the FBI site, I’ll let you-

“That’s your problem, Strummy old boy. My problem is, he killed my sister, and-

“Of course that’s not what they’re saying. Trust me on this, though-Missy’s dead and Pender’s to blame,” asserted Simon, with utter conviction. He then went on to embellish what he knew in his heart to be the righteous truth, in order to sound more convincing: Pender had tricked Missy into letting him into the house without a warrant, then attacked Simon; Missy tried to stop him, and there was a scuffle; Simon was forced to flee, but Missy had been alive when he left the house; the struggle with Pender had probably overtaxed her poor heart. By the time Simon had finished, the details of the embellishment had been imbued with the authority of his emotional investment: for a sociopath, there was no other truth.

“So how long and how much?” he concluded.

“No, I’ll call you. And don’t even think about-

“I know you wouldn’t. But a man in my position can’t be too-

“Okay, I’ll call you later.”

As he replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned back to Nelson, Simon felt more like himself again. Except for the unaccustomed pangs of grief, of course, but it didn’t take Simon long to discover that grief, unlike guilt or self-doubt or boredom, was bearable, even welcome. It sharpened the senses and focused the mind.

And suddenly Simon realized why he’d been drawn here, of all places, in his time of grief.

“Nelson?” he called.

Nelson stuck his head out of the bathroom. “Yes, Simon?”

“I think it’s time for a game.”