“It often happened that the terrible things he imagined, the worst things, did not occur; the world gave a hitch and things went back to the way they had always been. When the girl climbed back into the car he was flooded with relief—it had happened again, no black hole had opened up for him.”

The opening section of the novel builds tension and sets a mood of fear and suspicion. Don’s sense of terror and uncertainty about his own mind supports Straub’s narrative goal.

“The mind was a trap—it was a cage that slammed down over you.”

Don’s uncertainty about what is real and what is imagined plays into the story’s mood and the theme of Terror: Maintaining A Community During A Panic. The word choice of trap, cage, and slammed underscore the narrative’s pace and mood.

“Shadows of parking meters stood out, purely black, on the sidewalk: for a moment he was certain there were more shadows than parking meters. All the shadows hovering over the street were intensely black.”

Again, the uncanny and supernatural dread are experienced by the protagonist. This sense of self-doubt supports the fear and suspicious mood of the novel.