“Peekaboo” (1979)

I got a kick out of this very short story by Bill Pronzini, although—perhaps because I’ve been reading Saki lately—it reminds me a little of Saki. That is, it’s all a bit of a joke, however macabre, and also it has some dependence on familiarity with horror fiction. When the man in the story starts recounting the history of the house he has just rented and moved into, we know there is only going to be trouble. A man who lived there for 40 years sounds something like Aleister Crowley or Jimmy Page. The first renter after him was murdered there within two weeks. But our man doesn’t believe in any of that and feels he can protect himself against anything. After all, he has a gun. More trouble—we know this is headed only for more trouble. Part of what makes it work is that Pronzini is foreshadowing within an inch of our lives. Our man wakes in the middle of the night. He doesn’t know what woke him, but he has an intense feeling that someone is in the house. He gets up, takes his flashlight and gun, and starts searching the place methodically, top to bottom. The story is short but these descriptive paragraphs—sweeping each room with the flashlight, then all lights on for further inspection—adequately slow things down and power up the suspense. As his search goes, he remembers a phrase from hide-and-seek games he played as a kid: Peekaboo, I see you. Hiding under the stair. I kept wanting to go for the extra rhyme, with “Hiding there.” The internet says Pronzini has it right, however, on that score, but insists on “chair” rather than “stair.” You may know more about this than me. Naturally our guy checks under the stair but there’s nothing there. Then it’s down to the cellar, where “the odors of dust and decaying wood and subterranean dampness dilated his nostrils.” I won’t tell you the ending because you already know it anyway. There’s plenty of time for “he’s not here, he’s not there,” but no time for what he or it is. Pronzini is having it both ways by making our guy a skeptic and withholding what he’s up against. It could be a home invader, after all. But that’s doubtful. Pronzini is better known for writing mysteries, but he’s good here with ratcheting suspense, evoking the sense of the uncanny, and snapping off a good one.

Realms of Darkness, ed. Mary Danby (out of print)
Story not available online.