Fear itself

10

While Nelson had been in the bedroom closet facing his demons, Simon had been in Nelson’s bathroom preparing to face his demon-singular. With every pass of Nelson’s electric clippers another piece of it had appeared in the mirror. Bzzz, there went the widow’s peak and the rest of the wavy silver hair. That much had been part of Plan B all along-Simon had come to identify so strongly with his handsome head of silver hair that cutting it off was the first thing that came to mind when he thought about disguising himself.

But then, bzzz, there went the two-day stubble and bzzz, there went the mustache, and Simon was reminded that it had been in order to disguise the long, cruel upper lip he’d inherited from the Childs side of the family that he’d grown the stash in the first place.

But a shaven head and face did not a demon make. It wasn’t until the eyebrows were gone that it really started to take shape. Even then the transformation into Grandfather Childs, who as a boy had suffered from an attack of scarlet fever so virulent it left him without a hair on his body, wasn’t complete until he’d finished the difficult task of clipping back the lashes.

Luckily Nelson had a pair of safety-tipped (what else?) nail scissors. Leaning over the sink until his face was within inches of the mirror, his eyes tearing like a soap opera queen, Simon clipped the lashes as close to the lids as possible, then leaned back, and voila, the piece de resistance. While he’d never thought of his pale blue eyes as cold, once the lashes were gone, they were positively reptilian.

Which would come in handy even after he finally left the shelter of Nelson’s house, Simon knew: not only wouldn’t the authorities be looking for a bald scalp, but no one would ever peer too long or too hard at the face under this chrome dome, not with eyes like these staring back at them.

They even made Simon uncomfortable. He turned away from the mirror, bending down to rummage through the catchall storage space under the sink until he found some witch hazel to use as aftershave-he didn’t want to spoil the effect by dousing himself with Nelson’s Old Spice.

He wasn’t surprised when Nelson refused to come out of the closet at first. Hey, the longer the better, thought Simon. Delayed gratification and all that. And once he saw that Nelson had fallen for the heavy-footsteps-down-the-hall-then-tiptoe-back-to-the-room ploy, he waited, still as a spider, to see if Nellie would actually try to lock the door.

What did surprise him was that Nelson had figured it out so quickly, before Simon could spring his own surprise. But Simon was nothing if not resourceful when it came to the game. He helped Nelson up, led him over to the bed, and let him weep for a few minutes, until Nelson had a few endorphins pumping.

Then, when he judged the time was right, he arranged the lighting and removed Nelson’s blindfold.