Amy took Maggie by the hand and led her up to the front door. John and I followed. Ted and Loretta both came to the door, for one morning the couple having reconciled in the face of the outside threat. Loretta threw her arms around her daughter and Ted threw his arms around them both.
I said, “Did Nymph appear here? Demanding you and Loretta pick which girl gets saved?”
Ted said, “No,” and Loretta shook her head.
Huh. So that had all been bullshit.
He said, “You get the son of a bitch?”
John said, “Let’s just say he won’t be coming back around. Not after he made such an ass of himself.”
“He what? Is he dead or not?”
“Yeah.”
Ted said to his daughter, “You hear that, honey? He’s all gone. The bad man is gone. You’re safe.”
She pulled away from her father. “No, he’s not! He’s right there!”
Maggie turned and pointed directly at me.
BOOK II
An Excerpt from Fear: Hell’s Parasite by Dr. Albert Marconi
To understand what occurred, we must ask ourselves a simple question, one which is surprisingly difficult to answer:
Why do we, as humans, have eyes?
Your natural response would be, “To see things, you doddering old fool,” but as an answer, that is incomplete to the point of being incorrect. Your eyes fool you on a daily basis because they, quite simply, were designed for a very specific (and for the most part, obsolete) purpose. Remember, the vast majority of species on this planet do not have sight and get along just fine without it; you have no evolutionary need to become aware of the world’s general appearance. You, as Homo sapiens, have eyes primarily so that you can find and kill other living beings.
The prey we hunted—gazelles and the like—have eyes mounted on the sides of their heads, so that they can see predators coming from all directions. Ours face forward and grant us depth perception, to measure the distance between ourselves and our fleeing dinner. The true, deadly purpose of human sight is also the reason the color red attracts our attention; it is the color of blood, the sight of which would have instantly sent up an internal thrill of alarm or elation, depending on the circumstance. Thus, today you see that hue screaming for your attention from stoplights, fire trucks, and fast-food logos—a calculated appeal to your hardwired bloodlust.
All of this is to say that our sight is very limited, precisely because it is skewed to serve a few specific functions, all of which are geared toward one singular goaclass="underline"
Survival.
Thus, data that is not immediately relevant to that mission is filtered and discarded—you may have “seen” a thousand automobiles on your commute to work this morning but you will be unable to bring a single one of them to mind—unless, of course, a particular vehicle had swerved into your lane and caused a near-death experience. It is literally a form of tunnel vision, the limits of which you are largely unaware of moment to moment. It is therefore not difficult to circumvent this sense we call vision; even the common flea can effectively vanish before our eyes merely by jumping. It does not take any special intelligence or talent to deceive us. We would do well to remember this.
Now, extend this concept to the way in which you “see” the world in a metaphorical sense; the internal idea you have of the universe as you would describe it to an inquisitive alien. Remember, the brain and consciousness also evolved with survival in mind, to the exclusion of all else. Thus, your mental perception of the universe suffers from this same tunnel vision—it is in no way geared toward producing an objective view of reality; it only produces a view of reality that will help you survive. You will “see” the universe that you need to see. This is not a metaphor; it is an indisputable, biological fact born out of necessity.
Whether you “see” the universe as pure or corrupt, peaceful or violent, just or unjust, is largely determined by what you need to believe in order to motivate yourself to continue living for another day. Your perception of reality is therefore also very easy for other beings to hijack for their purposes. Think of the relationship between a cult leader and his followers. He will isolate them and make them believe they are an island in a sea of depravity, that signs of an eminent apocalypse are all around them. If he is adept at his task, members of the flock will readily lay down their lives in defense against this phantom threat. Ask them why, and they will state that their fatalistic beliefs are merely the result of unbiased, objective observation of the world around them. They are telling the truth! They just do not grasp the fact that they do not believe based on what they observe; they observe based on what they have been tricked into believing.
And so it goes for all of us.
8. ATTACK OF THE FUCKROACHES
Me
John took a bite of a walnut and chocolate-chip pancake and said, “Assuming the little girl wasn’t just confused, what does Nymph gain by imitating you when he goes to kidnap her?”
I said, “Trying to find logic in anything They do is like asking what motivates glass to cut your mouth when you try to eat it.”
We were at Waffle House, which I felt was a big step down from Denny’s, which had been our comfort food refuge for years going back to high school. Our Denny’s had never reopened after it burned to the ground a few years ago during an event we refer to only as “The Incident.” Losing Denny’s was one of those things that I wouldn’t have thought would create a hole in my life, but it did (though still not as much as when all the stores in the area stopped carrying Mountain Dew Code Red last year). We’d worried that the Waffle House had gotten flooded out already, but not only was it open, but the waitress claimed the chain is so famous for staying open during disasters that FEMA has a “Waffle House Index.” They can actually judge the scale of a natural disaster by how many Waffle House locations have closed in the area.
Amy was nursing a cup of hot tea, and had made the comment that she was never going to eat waffles again.
I said, “Would you have preferred Taco Bill? I think they’re still open.”
“Can’t stand the smoke. And the only thing I like there is those frozen things. The Choco Taco.”
John said, “I wonder if there’s a porno by that name.”
Amy said, “And I disagree. About there being no logic. We need to find out exactly how and why it does what it does. Everything operates by rules. Everything has limits, everything has a weakness. You just have to understand them.”
I noticed that the three of us had in turn referred to Nymph as “he,” “they,” and “it.” I said, “Just to reduce confusion, let’s all agree to refer to Nymph as a person, even though we all know he was not actually a person and was some kind of, uh, swarm of bugs that serve something else. The ‘Master.’ For now, we’re going to refer to him as a man, just for simplicity’s sake.”
John said, “Well, he’s not even the problem at the moment, right? The more immediate issue is if Ted goes looking for more evidence and every sign points to you having kidnapped his child.”
I shushed John and gave a nervous look around. “Dude, we are in public right now.”
“We’re in Waffle House. Half the people here are probably murderers. So, if he can imitate anybody, why not turn himself into her mom, or dad? Wouldn’t that make the abduction easier? Going as you is no different from going as himself, you’re a stranger to her. Plus, look at you. No little girl is going to follow you anywhere. It’s a horrible disguise.”