As Connie grows more frightened of Arnold's escalating threats, she eventually allows her own imagination to run wild, to the point where she can neither think clearly anymore, nor even manage to use her own telephone to call the police.

The fright-inspiring actions of the fearsome Arnold, are foreshadowed early on, when he warns Connie, the night before, after first noticing her outside a drive-in restaurant: "Gonna get you, baby" (p. 2279). From then on, Arnold's quest to "get" Connie feels, to Connie and the reader, in its dangerous intensity, much like the predatory evilness of malevolent fairy tale characters, e.g., the Big Bad Wolf, or the evil stepmothers (and/or stepsisters) that fix on Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and other innocent young female characters as prey.

The shaggy-haired man who drives "a jalopy painted gold" (p. 2279) first notices Connie at a "drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out"...
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