The Eyes of Darkness

In every repulsive detail, he was precisely like the hideous creature that stalked her nightmares.
    How could she have dreamed about this hideous creature just last night and then find it waiting for her here, today, only hours later?
    She stepped back from the cardboard box.
    The burning, scarlet eyes of the monstrous figure in the drawing seemed to follow her.
    She must have seen this lurid cover illustration when Danny had first brought the magazine into the house. The memory of it was fixed in her subconscious, festering, until she eventually incorporated it into her nightmares.
    That seemed to be the only logical explanation.
    But she knew it wasn't true.
    She had never seen this drawing before. When Danny had first begun collecting horror comics with his allowance, she had closely examined those books to decide whether or not they were harmful to him. But after she had made up her mind to let him read such stuff, she never thereafter even glanced at his purchases.
    Yet she had dreamed about the man in black.
    And here he was. Grinning at her.
    Curious about the story from which the illustration had been taken, Tina stepped to the box again to pluck out the graphic novel. It was thicker than a comic book and printed on slick paper.
    As her fingers touched the glossy cover, a bell rang.
    She flinched and gasped.
    The bell rang again, and she realized that someone was at the front door.
    Heart thumping, she went to the foyer.
    Through the fish-eye lens in the door, she saw a young, clean-cut man wearing a blue cap with an unidentifiable emblem on it. He was smiling, waiting to be acknowledged.
    She didn't open the door. "What do you want?"
    "Gas-company repair. We need to check our lines where they come into your house."
    Tina frowned. "On New Year's Day?"
    "Emergency crew," the repairman said through the closed door. "We're investigating a possible gas leak in the neighborhood."
    She hesitated, but then opened the door without removing the heavy-duty security chain. She studied him through the narrow gap. "Gas leak?"
    He smiled reassuringly. "There probably isn't any danger. We've lost some pressure in our lines, and we're trying to find the cause of it. No reason to evacuate people or panic or anything. But we're trying to check every house. Do you have a gas stove in the kitchen?"
    "No. Electric."
    "What about the heating system?"
    "Yes. There's a gas furnace."
    "Yeah. I think all the houses in this area have gas furnaces. I'd better have a look at it, check the fittings, the incoming feed, all that."
    She looked him over carefully. He was wearing a gas-company uniform, and he was carrying a large tool kit with the gas-company emblem on it.
    She said, "Can I see some identification?"
    "Sure." From his shirt pocket, he withdrew a laminated ID card with the gas-company seal, his picture, his name, and his physical statistics.
    Feeling slightly foolish, like an easily spooked old woman, Tina said, "I'm sorry. It's not that you strike me as a dangerous person or anything. I just—"
    "Hey, it's okay. Don't apologize. You did the right thing, asking for an ID. These days, you're crazy if you open your door without knowing exactly who's on the other side of it."
    She closed the door long enough to slip off the security chain. Then she opened it again and stepped back. "Come in."
    "Where's the furnace? In the garage?"
    Few Vegas houses had basements. "Yes. The garage."
    "If you want, I could just go in through the garage door."
    "No. That's all right. Come in."
    He stepped across the threshold.
    She closed and locked the door.
    "Nice place you've got here."
    "Thank you."
    "Cozy. Good sense of color. All these earth tones. I like that. It's a little bit like our house. My wife has a real good sense of color."
    "It's relaxing," Tina said.
    "Isn't it? So nice and natural."
    "The garage is this way," she said.
    He followed her past the kitchen, into the short hall, into the laundry room, and from there into the garage.
    Tina switched on the light. The darkness was dispelled, but shadows remained along the walls and in the corners.
    The garage was slightly musty, but Tina wasn't able to detect the odor of gas.
    "Doesn't smell like there's trouble here," she said.
    "You're probably right. But you never can tell. It could be an underground break on your property. Gas might be leaking under the concrete slab and building up down there, in which case it's possible you wouldn't detect it right away, but you'd still be sitting