Fear (Gone 5)

“That’s one,” he said. Stood up, and started running again.

It was insanity, of course. Running blind. Running with his eyes closed. Running with absolutely no idea where his foot would land, running when maybe there was a wall or a branch or a wild animal just right there. Right there an inch from his nose.

That was his choice: to inch his way cautiously, try to avoid falling, but never get anywhere. Or to run, and maybe get somewhere, but maybe just run right off a cliff.

Yeah, that’s life, he thought, and as the wry smile formed he plowed into a bush that tripped him, tangled him, and threatened not to let him escape.

Finally he rolled free, stood up, and started running again, picking thorns out of his palms and arms as he went.

All his life Sam had feared the darkness. As a kid he’d lain in his bed at night, tensed against the assault of the unseen but well-imagined threat. But now in this ultimate darkness, it seemed to him that fear of the dark was fear of himself. Not a fear of what might be “out there,” but a fear of how he would react to what was out there. He had spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours in his life imagining how he would cope with whatever terrible thing his imagination had conjured up. It used to shame him, that incessant hero fantasy, that endless mental war-gaming for threats that never materialized. An endless series of scenarios in which Sam did not panic. Sam did not run away. Sam did not cry.

Because that, more than any monster, was what Sam had feared: that he was weak and cowardly. He had a terrible fear of being afraid.

And the only solution was to refuse to be afraid.

Easier said than done when the darkness was absolute, and nothing was foreseen, and there really were genuine, actual, terrible monsters lying in wait.

No night-light now. No Sammy sun. Just darkness so total it negated the very idea of sight.

Having thought about his fear did not lessen it. But continuing to run straight ahead did.

“So just don’t cry,” Sam said.

“I miss Howard,” Orc said. Dekka wasn’t exactly talkative. In fact, she’d barely said a word. Normally Orc didn’t talk all that much, either, but it wasn’t like there was anything to see. Or anything else to do.

Orc was walking in front with Dekka just behind him, following the sounds of his steps. The nice thing about being the way he was, Orc reflected, was that it was pretty hard for anything to trip him.

Most things he just plowed right through. And if it was a bush or a bumpy place or whatever he could warn Dekka.

In some ways it was a pleasant stroll. Nothing to see, hah, hah. But it wasn’t too hot or too cold. The only real problem was that they didn’t know where they were going.

“Sorry about Howard,” Dekka said, too late. “I know you were friends.”

“No one liked Howard.”

Dekka didn’t choose to disagree.

“Everyone just saw him as this guy who sold drugs and booze and all. But he was different sometimes.” Orc crushed a tin can under one foot and with his next step flattened the earth over what felt like a gopher hole.

“He liked me anyway,” Orc said.

Nothing from Dekka.

“You have lots of friends, so you probably don’t understand why Howard—”

“I don’t have a lot of friends,” Dekka interrupted. Her voice was still shaky. Whatever had happened to her back there, it must have been pretty bad. Because as far as Orc was concerned Dekka was a hard, hard girl. Howard always said that about her. Sometimes he would call Dekka names. Probably because Dekka had this way of looking at Howard, like her face would be down, but her eyes would be on him, like they were watching him through her own eyebrows, kind of. And from that direction all you saw were these cornrows and her broad forehead and those hard eyes.

“Sam,” Orc said.

“Yeah.” Dekka’s voice softened. “Sam.”

“Edilio.”

“We work together. We’re not really friends. How about you and Sinder? She likes you okay.”

The idea surprised Orc. “She’s nice to me,” he admitted. He thought it over a little more. “She’s pretty, too.”

“I wasn’t saying she liked you that way.”