“Games Without Frontiers”

“Games Without Frontiers” is a Peter Gabriel song that follows Bret through a summer night drive and into a flashlight sighting at Buckley. Its militaristic pulse and whistled melody make the school’s darkness feel charged with menace; later, the song’s title returns amid a separate encounter, strengthening the book’s pattern of music as both emotional accompaniment and a frame for uncertainty.

The Last Night of Summer

On Labor Day in 1981, after leaving Matt’s guesthouse without saying goodbye, Bret drives through Encino and Sherman Oaks on the unofficial last night of summer. The suburban details—barbecue smoke, children jumping into pools, backyard radios, and quiet tree-lined streets—complicate the familiar image of glamorous Los Angeles. As Bret listens to “Games Without Frontiers” repeatedly, he heads toward Buckley rather than going straight home.

The song’s refrain and sound carry the drive into a different register. Bret describes its sliding guitar, synth bass, militaristic vocal cadence, and whistled melody as building an eerie atmosphere around the black night. The track is not merely background music: its repeated playback accompanies a directionless drive that ends at the school gates, where the familiar campus has become an unusually dark and empty place.

The Flashlight at Buckley

Buckley spans eighteen acres, but from the entrance on Stansbury Avenue Bret can see only the deserted parking lot, the bell towers, and a few buildings. The library and administration offices remain lit; most of the campus does not. Parked beside the entrance gates, Bret smokes a clove cigarette as the song continues to build. Its rhythm and atmosphere sharpen his attention to the darkness rather than dispelling it.

The scene turns when Bret notices movement in the stillness: a lone flashlight beam passes over the trees on the hillside beside the library. The song’s ominous soundscape and the isolated beam meet at the threshold of an unexplained sighting. The account establishes what Bret sees, but does not resolve who is carrying the flashlight or what the person is doing.

Recurrence and Sound

The song’s placement connects this moment to the narrative’s broader use of recorded sound. Elsewhere, Bret listens to a cassette whose wind, distant waves, and crackling fire gradually give way to voices issuing a frightening command. That recording makes sound itself a source of evidence and dread, in contrast to the familiar popular music that accompanies Bret’s drives and friendships.

The title “Games Without Frontiers” also resurfaces when Thom tackles Bret playfully at a gathering. The song playing on the projected video is Ultravox’s “Vienna,” not Gabriel’s track; the two songs belong to distinct moments. Together, these scenes show how music can frame radically different experiences: a dark, solitary approach to Buckley, an unexplained light on campus, and a shared moment of physical play whose emotional meanings remain partly unspoken.