Shiver

Prologue

For two weeks he’d been watching her. Every day, when he came in for lunch, he sat in the front of the restaurant, near the window, so she would be the one to take his order. Sometimes he hesitated over his selection of dessert, just so he could look at her a little longer.

Today he’d decided to make his move. Almost decided. The truth was, he couldn’t decide. He wasn’t sure what to say. He’d rehearsed a hundred possible approaches, but none was quite right.

She stepped up to the table, her apron rustling prettily, its lace frill catching bars of mote-dusted sun. Terror surged through him and receded, leaving the calm certainty that he would not do it today. Tomorrow, maybe. Yes. He would do it tomorrow.

“ ’Afternoon,” she said with a smile as she flipped open her notepad.

“Hello,” he answered, then instantly regretted it. “Hello” was all wrong-too formal-“hi” was what he’d meant to say. Dammit, he’d practiced saying “hi,” and now he’d blown it. She must think he was some kind of jerk. She must think-

“You come in here a lot, don’t you?” she asked.

His heart sped up. She was talking to him.

Making conversation. She’d never done that before. He didn’t know how to respond. He gave it his best shot.

“Uh-huh.” That wasn’t enough. “A lot,” he added.

He was making a fool of himself. She would start laughing at him in a minute, and then the other patrons would stare. Maybe they would laugh too. Laugh and point. He fought the urge to bolt from his chair and escape into the crisp winter sunlight.

“My name’s Kathy, by the way.”

He’d known her name, of course; it was embossed on the blouse of her uniform. He’d passed many hours late at night hugging his pillow and whispering that one word-“Kathy, Kathy, Kathy”-his voice husky with longing. But even so, he was stunned to hear it from her mouth, offered to him as a gift.

He knew he had to answer. What would a person say?

“That’s a very nice name,” he tried.

She giggled.

Her laughter cut him like glass. He was sure he’d messed up. And he knew why. He should have offered his own name in exchange for hers. That was what people did. They told one another their names.

“I like it,” she said.

“Huh?”

“My name. You said it was nice, and I said I like it. You know.”

“Oh. Yes.” He was trying to concentrate, but the images kept getting in his way-soundless heat-lightning flashes of her body entwined with his.

“Although I always liked my sister’s name better. Eleanor. Isn’t it nice, the way that just sort of flows?”

“Yes,” he said again.

Suddenly he wanted her to stop talking. He wanted her to go away. It was too hard, sitting here and fighting for calm with her breasts inches from his face, the smooth skin of her cleavage exposed in the vee of her blouse, the smell of her hair invading his nostrils and making it difficult to breathe.

“There’s a poem with that name in it,” she said. “I remember it from school. This guy who’s dreaming about his lost Eleanor.”

He blinked. She was thinking of “The Raven,” wasn’t she? Poe’s lost Lenore. Not Eleanor. Lenore.

Suddenly he felt superior. She was the one making mistakes now. He could laugh now, if he wanted to. Laugh at her ignorance.

He decided to do it today after all. To take the opportunity she’d provided him, while he was feeling strong.

“Listen,” he said quickly, rushing the words out before his confidence could evaporate, “I’ve been thinking of seeing that Robert Redford movie, Out of Africa, the one that’s up for all the Oscars. It’s playing at the Rivoli. And I…”

This was no good. He’d rehearsed these words, but they sounded wrong here, in front of her. False. Inept. His momentary illusion of superiority had vanished. So what if she didn’t know Edgar Allan Poe? She knew plenty of other things. She knew what it was like to be naked with another person. She knew how it felt to kiss open-mouthed, to share tongues. She knew about all the wet secret things that went on in the dark.

“Well, I thought… I thought if you wanted to…”

His fear was escalating. He felt sick. He could imagine himself throwing up right here in the middle of the restaurant-the bright splash of vomit on the floor-screams, then laughter- Kathy backing away with disgust in her eyes.

No. Come on. Stay in control.

“… on Saturday night… maybe we…” His voice trailed off. In his ears it was a whipped dog’s whimper.

She frowned. “This Saturday? Oh, jeez, I wish I could, but I can’t.”

Fear fisted over his heart. She was turning him down. Rejecting him. He’d known it was possible, but now it was real. She didn’t want him.

“Okay,” he said tersely, wanting only to end this conversation immediately.

“It’s just that I’ve got something planned.”

“Sure.”

“Look, maybe some other time…”

His chair scraped back. He was on his feet. He had to get out.

“You’re taking this all wrong,” she said.

“Just forget it, all right?”

She spread her hands. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

Oh, she was sorry for him now. Poor little baby-that was what she was thinking. Pathetic little half-man. How sad that such a miserable loser had deluded himself into believing that he could ever take her out on a date. How pitiful he must be in his lonely apartment with his face pressed to the pillow whispering her name.

He brushed past her, then turned.

“It’s lost Lenore,” he told her. “Not Eleanor. You stupid cunt.”

He slapped her hard across the face, and she fell to the floor in a graceless tangle of limbs, and then he was running out of the restaurant into the cold clear daylight before anyone could stop him.

At first it was only a fantasy. A pleasant daydream, unusually vivid. He would stop whatever he was doing and run the images like a filmstrip in his mind, filling in details one at a time, revising as he went.

Her eyes would be very wide, bright with fear-no, he couldn’t let her see him. A blindfold, then. Yes. He would sneak up on her from behind and knock her unconscious, then quickly blindfold her and bind her wrists with rope. Uh-uh. With tape. Heavy strapping tape. Better. Then he would put her in the front seat of his car… no, in the rear. Not seated, but stretched lengthwise. Perhaps her ankles ought to be taped too.

All right, start over. First knock her out, then blindfold her, then tape her wrists and ankles, and next…

The fantasy occupied his mind for months. Winter yielded to spring, and spring to summer. He changed jobs several times. He did not return to the restaurant. He kept expecting his daydreams to fade away, as other, similar reveries had gradually lost their power to move him in the past. But even when dry leaves scraped the sidewalks and Halloween pumpkins began grinning at him from shop windows, he remained haunted by the vivid pictures in his mind, as clear as movie close-ups, and by the sounds, soft and secret and erotic.

Her body slumped in a chair, tied down with clothesline, in the musty, cavernous basement of the abandoned factory. Her shoulders jerking as she came to. The sudden flush of panic in her cheeks, the squeals of protest muffled by the gag in her mouth. Her head whipsawing in a futile effort to shake off the blindfold. Her taped wrists twisting helplessly behind her back. The pop-pop-pop of bursting buttons as he peeled open her blouse. His hand on her breast, massaging gently, gently.

He wasn’t sure exactly when it occurred to him that he could actually do it, make it happen, make it real. In time with the idea he felt a thrill of dark pleasure, a slow, prickling current that started in his groin and radiated outward to set his body tingling.

Yes, he thought, I could do it. But I won’t. Too risky.

He was sure he would be the obvious suspect. After all, many people had seen him slap her.

But as time passed, he began to wonder. Who would connect an incident from last year with a kidnapping today? Besides, even if he were suspected, the police would have no proof; he would see to that. Nor would they have any means of tracking him down. He’d never told Kathy his name-how clever he’d been to avoid giving himself away like that-and the restaurant had no record of him that could be traced; he’d paid for all his meals in cash.

He really could pull it off. Kidnap her, take her to the old factory, and then… touch her body. Nothing more than that. He wouldn’t hurt her, that was for sure. Not much anyway. Maybe a little bit. But not like the animals. The animals were entirely different. The animals had nothing to do with this at all.

No, he would have his fun with her, and then he would let her go. And because she had been blindfolded the whole time, she would never know who had been with her in the dark.

It could work. It definitely could work.

He went over the same line of argument many times, and always concluded angrily that there was no point in considering the idea. Because even if he could get away with it-and he was pretty certain he could-even so, he wouldn’t try. The whole thing was crazy. Sure it was.

The jack-o’-lanterns vanished from the windows, replaced by papier-mache Pilgrims, then by Christmas trees. A full year had run its course since she’d humiliated him, and still he lay awake at night while in his thoughts she whimpered and squirmed.

A week before Christmas he found himself in an office-supplies store looking at rolls of strapping tape. In that moment he knew he really meant to do it. He bought a ten-yard roll and stashed it in the dark recesses of his closet like a guilty secret.

The next day he drove to the restaurant. He wondered if she still worked there. He almost hoped she didn’t. If she’d moved on to a new job, he would never be able to find her, and he would have to let go of the idea for good.

But when he studied the restaurant from across the street, he saw her at once, gliding past one of the front windows. She wore her hair differently now, but otherwise she was unchanged. Still an ignorant bitch who thought herself superior to him.

He watched the restaurant for several days, till he knew her schedule. Her shift began at seven in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon, when the early winter dusk was settling over the streets. She always left alone via a side door that opened on the parking lot where her car was kept. The lot was screened off from the street by a high brick wall. If he struck quickly, nobody would see.

He decided to do it next Tuesday. Over the weekend, while Christmas carolers went from door to door and street-corner Santas rang Salvation Army bells, he made his final preparations.

Monday night was hard. Fear cheated him of sleep. He paced his apartment, his thoughts confused. Did he honestly intend to go through with this plan of his? He’d never acted on any of his previous fantasies. Not the ones involving women, anyway. The animals… Why did he keep thinking about the animals? The animals were irrelevant.

The thing was, he wanted to do it so very badly. He could feel desire burning inside him like acid. Somehow he had to relieve that urge. He supposed he could masturbate-that might release the tension at least temporarily-or get hold of a cat and pretend it was her.

But he kept thinking of how she’d said she was sorry. The pity in her voice. The contempt in her eyes. The smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

Abruptly he stopped pacing. “I’ll do it,” he said aloud. The words sounded unreal, and he wasn’t sure he’d actually spoken. “I’ll do it,” he said again, defiantly this time. “I will.”

He knew he was serious this time. He had made his choice. And in making it, he saw that he had reached a turning point in his life. From this point on, he would not be an ordinary man.

Fresh-fallen snow glazed the asphalt, shining wetly in the twilight. He crouched in a pool of shadow near the side door of the restaurant, exhaling frost, waiting. In one gloved hand he held a length of steel pipe sheathed in foam rubber, a homemade blackjack. He rapped it slowly, rhythmically, against his open palm.

Though he intended to strike from behind, he’d taken precautions to ensure that she would not glimpse his face. He wore a black wool hat, pulled down over his forehead, and a black scarf, raised to cover his nose and mouth.

In the pockets of his coat he carried the roll of tape for her wrists and ankles, the wadded rag that would serve as a gag, and the strip of black velvet he would use as a blindfold.

He was ready.

One thought beat in his brain: It’s real this time.

Without warning the door creaked open and clanged shut, and there she was, a yard from him, her slim body tucked into a fur-collar coat, her feet clad in squishy rubber boots.

Don’t think. Do it. Now.

He sprang up behind her and brought the blackjack down on the back of her head. She staggered, lurching away from him, but didn’t fall.

No. That was wrong, all wrong. She was supposed to crumple on the ground at the first blow; that was how he’d always pictured it when he ran this scene over and over in his mind.

He tried to hit her again, but she spun out of his grasp and whirled on him, the first warbling note of a scream rising in her throat.

He smacked her in the mouth with the padded pipe. She went down. He fell on her. Her hands flew at his face, stripping off the scarf, and suddenly she was looking at him with recognition in her eyes.

She sees me, he thought in escalating terror. She can identify me now. It won’t do any good to blindfold her-

Sharp nails raked his cheeks. Blood, his blood, spattered the snow.

Fury seized him. She wasn’t supposed to fight back. In all his hundreds of fantasies, never once had she fought back. God damn her, she was ruining everything.

He slammed the blackjack down on her face. Bone cracked. The sound made him shiver. He remembered the kitten he’d put in the vise, the snap of its leg.

No, don’t think of that. Not the animals. This isn’t supposed to be like the animals.

But why shouldn’t he think of it? What made her better than an animal anyway? What gave her any greater right to live, after the way she’d treated him? The strays he’d collected and taken to the old factory-they’d never done anything to him at all, while this bitch had humiliated him and hurt him and made him bleed. And if he let her go, she would send him to jail.

She clawed him again. The pipe rose and fell. Her nose crunched wetly, like a snail. She writhed on her back, a child making a snow angel.

She didn’t look so smugly superior now, did she? She wasn’t laughing at him now. And she would never laugh again.

He delivered blow after blow with the pipe while she struggled under him, her head rolling, her back arching, her fingers moving blindly over his body. It felt like sex, like those secret things people did in the dark. Dimly he knew he was being intimate with her in a way he’d never expected.

Finally she lay still. He scrambled off her body, looking down at the crumpled shape on the ground. He almost fled, then hesitated. Slowly he unbuttoned her blouse and cupped her breast with a gloved hand. He squeezed, his fingers kneading the soft flesh still warm as if with life. He had never felt a woman’s body before, except in dreams.

“Sweet,” he breathed. “So sweet.”

He brushed a stray hair from her bloodied face. His mouth found hers. He planted a light kiss on her lips, then shyly pulled away.

“I love you, Kathy. Love you. Love you.”

It occurred to him that he could do whatever he liked with her, and she couldn’t stop him. He wanted to; he really did. But he was afraid to linger. At any moment someone else might enter the parking lot.

Reluctantly he abandoned her body and ran to his car. He pulled out of the lot and drove aimlessly till he was sure nobody was following him. Then he parked on a side street and sat behind the wheel, letting out long slow breaths till the windshield was filmed with fog.

He’d killed a woman. Not a fantasy creation, and not one of the animals either, but an actual human being. She’d been named Kathy, and she’d worked at a restaurant, and she’d had a sister named Eleanor, and she’d misquoted Edgar Allan Poe. Now she was a huddle of bloodied meat. And he had done it with his own hands.

Yes. He’d done it, all right.

And it had felt good.

Slowly he smiled. A year ago he’d been afraid of that woman. He’d been terrified to ask her out on a date, terrified that she would reject him, as indeed she had. He’d thought she had some sort of power over him.

Now he knew what true power was and who had it.

And he knew that he need never be afraid again.