the pitch-black bedroom, Shearman Waxx said again, “Doom.”
The temptation was great to believe that I had passed from the dream of the library into a dream of blindness and had not yet come awake.
As a writer, I succeed by deceiving readers into accepting that the story I’m telling is as true as their lives, that what happens to my characters should intellectually and emotionally involve them no less than they should be concerned about their real-world neighbors. But I have never been good at self -deception.
I was awake, all right, and Waxx stood or crouched, or roamed, somewhere in the bedroom.
My first impulse was to scream like a little girl. Fortunately, I repressed the urge. Waxx was one of those critics with crocodile genes; he would find most delicious any prey that was saturated with the pheromones of fear.
My nightstand—like the one on the farther side of the bed—was an antique Chinese chest with numerous small drawers of differentsizes. In the top drawer closest to me, I kept a flashlight, which allowed me to find my way to the bathroom at night without switching on a lamp and waking Penny.
Each evening, before going to bed, I pulled this drawer partway out of the nightstand, so I could get the flashlight without making a disturbance. I am an incompetent handyman but a considerate husband.
Now I groped in the darkness, found the open drawer, and reached into it. The flashlight wasn’t there.
I knew I had not misplaced it earlier. Waxx must have removed it before he woke me.
Penny also kept a flashlight in a drawer of her nightstand. Most likely Waxx had confiscated that one, as well.
Evidently, he had a flashlight of his own, with which he had stealthily prowled the room as we slept. If I wanted one, I would have to take his away from him.
Although I fully understood the wisdom of owning a gun, I didn’t keep one in the house. Penny had been raised in a virtual armory and had no objection to firearms. But I had a covenant with Death to spare others as once I had been spared.
I assumed Shearman Waxx possessed a gun—as well as a butcher knife, a switchblade, an axe, a chain saw, a power drill with an assortment of bits, and a wood chipper.
Within reach, I had a couple of pillows and a bedside lamp.
As far as I could tell, Penny still slept. I saw no value in waking her at once.
Until Waxx switched on his light and revealed his position, he and I were equally blind. Because I knew the bedroom so much better than he did, the darkness counted slightly to my advantage.
He had heard me sit up in bed and gasp for breath when I broke out of my dream. But the noises I’d made might as likely have beenthose of a man thrashing at the sheets and turning over in his troubled sleep.
The first doom seemed to me to have been spoken in the lightless aisles of the dream library, and Waxx could not be sure that I heard him say it the second time.
Letting out a soft groan, then murmuring wordlessly, I pretended to be negotiating a nightmare. Using this anxious muttering as cover, I eased off the bed and, falling silent, crouched beside it.
Breathing through my open mouth, I made no slightest sound. If I decided to move, I felt confident that my pajamas were too soft to betray me with a rustle.
Although silent to the intruder’s ears, I was not quiet to my own. My heart knocked like a savage fist upon all the doors of my defenses, chasing out my expectations of civilization and letting in the fear of anarchy and barbaric violence.
If Waxx made subtle sounds, I was not certain that I could hear them above this inner drumming. The rhythmic pressure waves of hard-pumped blood raised surf sounds in the nautilus turns of my inner ears.
The longer Waxx waited to speak again, the more I wondered what his game might be. I had no doubt that he had come here to harm us. That he wanted first to terrorize us seemed obvious, as well. But his boldness, the risks he took, and his eerie patience in the dark
The temptation was great to believe that I had passed from the dream of the library into a dream of blindness and had not yet come awake.
As a writer, I succeed by deceiving readers into accepting that the story I’m telling is as true as their lives, that what happens to my characters should intellectually and emotionally involve them no less than they should be concerned about their real-world neighbors. But I have never been good at self -deception.
I was awake, all right, and Waxx stood or crouched, or roamed, somewhere in the bedroom.
My first impulse was to scream like a little girl. Fortunately, I repressed the urge. Waxx was one of those critics with crocodile genes; he would find most delicious any prey that was saturated with the pheromones of fear.
My nightstand—like the one on the farther side of the bed—was an antique Chinese chest with numerous small drawers of differentsizes. In the top drawer closest to me, I kept a flashlight, which allowed me to find my way to the bathroom at night without switching on a lamp and waking Penny.
Each evening, before going to bed, I pulled this drawer partway out of the nightstand, so I could get the flashlight without making a disturbance. I am an incompetent handyman but a considerate husband.
Now I groped in the darkness, found the open drawer, and reached into it. The flashlight wasn’t there.
I knew I had not misplaced it earlier. Waxx must have removed it before he woke me.
Penny also kept a flashlight in a drawer of her nightstand. Most likely Waxx had confiscated that one, as well.
Evidently, he had a flashlight of his own, with which he had stealthily prowled the room as we slept. If I wanted one, I would have to take his away from him.
Although I fully understood the wisdom of owning a gun, I didn’t keep one in the house. Penny had been raised in a virtual armory and had no objection to firearms. But I had a covenant with Death to spare others as once I had been spared.
I assumed Shearman Waxx possessed a gun—as well as a butcher knife, a switchblade, an axe, a chain saw, a power drill with an assortment of bits, and a wood chipper.
Within reach, I had a couple of pillows and a bedside lamp.
As far as I could tell, Penny still slept. I saw no value in waking her at once.
Until Waxx switched on his light and revealed his position, he and I were equally blind. Because I knew the bedroom so much better than he did, the darkness counted slightly to my advantage.
He had heard me sit up in bed and gasp for breath when I broke out of my dream. But the noises I’d made might as likely have beenthose of a man thrashing at the sheets and turning over in his troubled sleep.
The first doom seemed to me to have been spoken in the lightless aisles of the dream library, and Waxx could not be sure that I heard him say it the second time.
Letting out a soft groan, then murmuring wordlessly, I pretended to be negotiating a nightmare. Using this anxious muttering as cover, I eased off the bed and, falling silent, crouched beside it.
Breathing through my open mouth, I made no slightest sound. If I decided to move, I felt confident that my pajamas were too soft to betray me with a rustle.
Although silent to the intruder’s ears, I was not quiet to my own. My heart knocked like a savage fist upon all the doors of my defenses, chasing out my expectations of civilization and letting in the fear of anarchy and barbaric violence.
If Waxx made subtle sounds, I was not certain that I could hear them above this inner drumming. The rhythmic pressure waves of hard-pumped blood raised surf sounds in the nautilus turns of my inner ears.
The longer Waxx waited to speak again, the more I wondered what his game might be. I had no doubt that he had come here to harm us. That he wanted first to terrorize us seemed obvious, as well. But his boldness, the risks he took, and his eerie patience in the dark
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