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Overview
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780060594626 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins |
Publication date: | 11/09/2004 |
Pages: | 304 |
Product dimensions: | 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.68(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
Night Visions
A Novel of Suspense
Chapter One
Night Terrors
Thursday
Her eyes open suddenly in the darkness. At first there is only panicked breathing and the tympani of a pounding heart. She struggles to lift her arms and legs but can't move. Car tires screech on the street below, and she turns her head toward the window. Moisture beads on the inside of the pane. She tries again to move, straining until her body rises like an anchor from deep waters. One at a time, her feet touch the floor, and she begins to feel safe. Sweat bleeds through both sides of her T-shirt.
The bedside clock reads 3:20.
That night, she isn't focused on the match. Her opponent, a beginner, hopes to win by brute force, but fencing is about refinement, strategy, precision. En garde. Relying on strength slows him down, and his body telegraphs each move. Once again, he overcommits to the attack, lunging too hard with little sense of timing or distance. Her right arm feels heavy, slow. She blinks twice, trying to ease the sting of her tired eyes. Foils clash around them, and she glances at a nearby duel. Each movement there seems choreographed, almost rhythmic.
Suddenly, she sees the metallic masks as cold and tortured. The fencers look like the faceless men who come for her in dreams. Coal-black eyes and bodies without shape. Her arm stiffens and her rhythm falters. A brute force punches through.
He scores a point.
"Gotcha, Sam." He smiles arrogantly through the wire mesh.
The masks return to normal.
Other than giving her a few bruises, he hasn't accomplished much in the last five minutes. Now, with this point, he can feel less embarrassed about losing to a woman. En garde. It's time to finish the match and go home. She attacks on his preparation, lunges, and parries for a quick point. Match.
"Damn!" He yanks off his mask and glares.
"Maybe next time, Jim." Samantha tries to sound encouraging but is too exhausted from her sleepless nights to really care.
"Yeah, yeah ... " He hesitates, and Samantha wonders if he is going to ask her out for a drink. Again. She has used a string of unimaginative excuses to dodge his advances in the last few months, and she senses his growing resentment about her lack of interest.
They shake hands, and instead of speaking, he turns abruptly.
She can't be bothered with his bruised ego, she thinks. He's a poor fencer and a sore loser. She walks to the locker room with her head down.
Samantha undresses slowly. Her white cotton T-shirt is damp and heavy with sweat. Standing before a full-length mirror, she notices the way the light seems to reflect off the crescent-shaped scar on her abdomen. Its pallor disrupts the brown planes of her skin.
An image suddenly appears. A blade slicing through her yellow shirt into the skin. Her attacker's hand steady, the motion even and smooth.
She blinks, moving her head quickly from side to side.
She pulls a loose gray sweatshirt over her head, then frees the back of her shoulder-length hair from the collar. She grabs the gym bag at her feet and looks again in the mirror. Her thin body seems frail in the reflection. Dark circles have formed underneath her deep brown eyes.
She leaves the club without saying good-bye to anyone.
A cold, steady wind pours honey-thick fog over the hills of San Francisco. Samantha wraps a thin coat around her body and hurries past the vacant shops and dark office buildings. Even in a city this large, the streets can feel empty. Shadows from trees and parking signs quiver under the yellow streetlights, and her footsteps ricochet against the brick and plaster walls. At times she changes the rhythm of her steps to hear the sounds shift. It makes her feel less alone.
Samantha parked near her favorite church in the city. It's a few blocks out of the way, but she likes listening to the choir that rehearses on Thursday evenings. In the vestibule, she picks up the program for Sunday Mass, then steps into the nave. Dozens of candles glow peacefully in front of an altar to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some of her white toes have turned flesh-colored from the hands and lips of the faithful. Her outstretched arms point downward.
Samantha has often considered lighting candles in a gesture of prayer but can't bring herself to worship. Instead, she sits in one of the back pews. It smells like dry leather and incense.
Inhaling deeply, she thinks about the long-ago Sunday mornings with her family. While Father slept, Mother would get her and Rachel ready for church. Then after dressing in their nicest outfits -- faces shiny with makeup and hair brushed back and clipped -- the sisters sprang into action. They pulled hair and tugged at clothes. They yelped and screeched while chasing each other through the house, dodging precariously close to end tables and floor lamps. Invariably someone fell. Invariably someone cried for Mother. A few scratches and quickly forgotten tears later, they were out the door at 8:40. Mother in the middle. One girl clinging to her right hand, the other to her left.
All of this while Father slept.
The brisk walk in the cool air never failed to restore peace. Mother smelled like orange blossoms and lilacs, and her long, soft dress moved in waves as she walked. Samantha remembers thinking she wanted to smell that way when she grew up. She wanted to take long strides and wink while smiling. A few minutes before Mass, they climbed up the wide marble stairs, dipped their fingers into a bowl of holy water, and slid into a hard wooden pew. They fidgeted and half-listened as the priest started muttering in Latin that couldn't drown out a chorus of crying babies. The mixture of colognes, perfumes, and sweat made her dizzy ...
Night VisionsA Novel of Suspense. Copyright © by Thomas Fahy. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
What People are Saying About This
“Intriguing, disturbing, compelling. I couldn’t put it down...What a fine debut!”
“[A] surrealistic tale… Looming behind each ghastly murder is the haunting refrain of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations.’ Chilling.”