Strangers

Ichthyophobes were horrified by the prospect of encountering a fish, and pediophobes ran screaming at the sight of a doll. And Ernie's nyctophobia was certainly preferable to coitophobia (the fear of sexual intercourse), and not a fraction as debilitating as autophobia (the fear of oneself).
        Now, walking through the twilight, Faye tried to keep Ernie's mind off the descending darkness by telling him about the late author, John Cheever, winner of the National Book Award, who'd been gephyrophobic. Cheever had suffered from a crippling fear of crossing high bridges.
        Ernie listened with fascination, but he was no less aware of the onset of nightfall. As the shadows lengthened across the snow, his hand steadily tightened on her arm until it would have been painful if she had not been wearing a thick sweater and heavy coat.
        By the time they had gone seven blocks, they were too far from the house to have any hope of returning to it before full darkness settled on the land. Two-thirds of the sky was black already, and the other third was deep purple. The shadows had spread like spilt ink.
        The streetlamps had come on. Faye halted Ernie in a cone of light, giving him a brief reprieve. His eyes had a wild look, and his steaming exhalations rushed from him at a rate that indicated incipient panic.
        "Remember to control your breathing," Faye said.
        He nodded and began at once to take deeper, slower breaths.
        When all the light in the sky had been extinguished, she said, "Ready to go back?"
        "Ready," he said hollowly.
        They stepped out of the glow of the streetlamp, into darkness, heading back toward the house, and Ernie hissed between clenched teeth.
        What they were engaged upon, for the third time, was a dramatic therapeutic technique called "flooding," in which the phobic was encouraged to confront the thing he feared and to endure it long enough to break its hold on him. Flooding is based on the fact that panic attacks are self-limiting. The human body cannot sustain a very high level of panic indefinitely, cannot produce endless adrenaline, so the mind must adapt to, and make peace - or at least a truce - with what it fears. Unmodified flooding can be a cruel, barbaric method of cracking a phobia, for it puts the patient at risk of a breakdown. Dr. Fontelaine preferred a modified version of the technique involving three stages of confrontation with the source of fear.
        The first stage, in Ernie's case, was to put himself in darkness for fifteen minutes, but with Faye at his side for support and with lighted areas easily accessible. Now, each time they arrived at the lighted sidewalk beneath a streetlamp, they paused to let him gather his courage, then went on into the next patch of darkness.
        The second stage, which they would try in another week or two, after more sessions with the doctor, would involve driving to a place where there were no streetlamps, no easily reached lighted areas. There, they would walk together arm in arm across an unrelieved vista of darkness until Ernie could tolerate no more, at which time Faye would switch on a flashlight and give him a moment's respite.
        In the third stage of treatment, Ernie would go for a stroll alone in a completely dark area. After a few outings like that, he would almost certainly be cured.
        But he was not cured yet, and by the time they covered six blocks of the seven-block return journey to the house, Ernie was breathing like a well-run racehorse, and he bolted for the safety of the light inside. Not bad, though - six blocks. Better than before. At this rate, he would be cured in no time.
        As Faye followed him into the house, where Lucy was already helping him out of his coat, she tried to feel good about his progress to date. If this pace held, he would complete the third and final stage weeks - maybe even a couple of months - ahead of schedule. That was what worried Faye. His rapid improvement was amazing; it seemed too rapid and too amazing to be real. She wanted to believe the nightmare would be put behind them quickly, but the pace of his recuperation made her wonder if it was lasting. Striving always to think positive, Faye Block was nevertheless plagued by the instinctive and unnerving feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.
        
        Boston, Massachusetts.
        Inevitably, given his exotic background as a godson of Picasso