Nightmare At 20,000 Feet

by Richard Matheson

  The room was quiet. He sat tensely, waiting for any signs of militance. I am your teacher, he told himself, I am to be obeyed, I am…

  The concept died. He drifted away again. What were students or a girl asking about mid-term papers? What was anything?

  He glanced at his watch. In a few minutes the train would pull into Centralia. She would change to the main line express to Indianapolis. Then up to Detroit and her mother. Gone.

  Gone. He tried to visualize the word, put it into living terms. But the thought of the house without her was almost beyond his means. Because it wasn't the house without her; it was something else.

  He began to think of what John had said.

  Was it possible? He was in a mood to accept the incredible. It was incredible that she had left him. Why not extend the impossibilities that were happening to him?

  All right then, he thought angrily. The house is alive. I've given it this life with deadly outpourings of wrath. I hope to God that when I get back there and enter the door, the roof collapses. I hope the walls buckle and I'm crushed to pulp by the crushing weight of plaster and wood and brick. That's what I want. Some agency to do away with me. I cannot drive myself to it. If only a gun would commit my suicide for me. Or gas blow its deadly fumes at me for the asking or a razor slice my flesh upon request.

  The door opened. He glanced up. Dr. Ramsay stood there, face drawn into a mask of indignation. Behind him in the hall Chris could see the girl, her face streaked with tears.

  "A moment, Neal," Ramsay said sharply and stepped back into the hall again.

  Chris sat at the desk staring at the door. He felt suddenly very tired, exhausted. He felt as if getting up and moving into the hall was more than he could possibly manage. He glanced at the class. A few of them were trying to repress smiles.

  "For tomorrow you will finish the reading of King Lear," he said. Some of them groaned.

  Ramsay appeared in the doorway again, his cheeks pink.

  "Are you coming, Neal?" he asked loudly.

  Chris felt himself tighten with anger as he walked across the room and out into the hall. The girl lowered her eyes. She stood beside Dr. Ramsay's portly frame.

  "What's this I hear, Neal?" Ramsay asked.

  That's right, Chris thought. Don't ever call me professor. I'll never be one, will I? You'll see to that, you bastard.

  "I don't understand," he said, as coolly as possible.

  "Miss Forbes here claims you ejected her from class for no reason at all."

  "Then Miss Forbes is lying quite stupidly," he said. Let me hold this anger, he thought. Don't let it flood loose. He shook with holding it back.

  The girl gasped and took out her handkerchief again. Ramsay turned and patted her shoulder.

  "Go in my office, child. Wait for me."

  She turned away slowly. Politician!-cried Neal's mind. How easy it is for you to be popular with them. You don't have to deal with their bungling minds.

  Miss Forbes turned the corner and Ramsay looked back.

  "Your explanation had better be good," he said. "I'm getting a little weary, Neal, of your behaviour."

  Chris didn't speak. Why am I standing here?-he suddenly wondered. Why, in all the world, am I standing in this dim lit hall and, voluntarily, listening to this pompous boor berate me?

  "I'm waiting, Neal."

  Chris tightened. "I told you she was lying," he said quietly.

  "I choose to believe otherwise," said Dr. Ramsay, his voice trembling.

  A shudder ran through Chris. His head moved forward and he spoke slowly, teeth clenched.

  "You can believe anything you damn well please."

  Ramsay's mouth twitched.

  "I think it's time you appeared before the board," he muttered.

  "Fine!" said Chris loudly. Ramsay made a move to close the classroom door. Chris gave it a kick and it banged against the wall. A girl gasped.

  "What's the matter?" Chris yelled. "Don't you want your students to hear me tell you off? Don't you even want them to suspect that you're a dolt, a windbag, an ass!"

  Ramsay raised shaking fists before his chest. His lips trembled violently.

  "This will do, Neal!" he cried.

  Chris reached out and shoved the heavy man aside, snarling, "Oh, get out of my way!"

  He started away. The hall fled past him. He heard the bell ring. It sounded as though it rang in another existence. The building throbbed with life; students poured from classrooms.

  "Neal!" called Dr. Ramsay.

  He kept walking. Oh, God, let me out of here, I'm suffocating, he thought. My hat, my briefcase. Leave them. Get out of here. Dizzily he descended the stairs surrounded by milling students. They swirled about him like an unidentifiable tide. His brain was far from them.

  Staring ahead dully he walked along the first floor hall. He turned and went out the door and down the porch steps to the campus sidewalk. He paid no attention to the students who stared at his ruffled blond hair, his mussed clothes. He kept walking. I've done it, he thought belligerently. I've made the break. I'm free!

  I'm sick.

  All the way down to Main Street and out on the bus he kept renewing his stores of anger. He went over those few moments in the hallway again and again. He summoned up the vision of Ramsay's stolid face, repeated his words. He kept himself taut and furious. I'm glad, he told himself forcibly. Everything is solved. Sally has left me. Good. My job is done. Good. Now I'm free to do as I like. A strained and angry joy pounded through him. He felt alone, a stranger in the world and glad of it.

  At his stop, he got off the bus and walked determinedly toward the house pretending to ignore the pain he felt at approaching it. It's just an empty house, he thought. Nothing more. Despite all puerile theories, it is nothing but a house.

  Then, when he went in, he found her sitting on the couch.

  He almost staggered as if someone had struck him. He stood dumbly, staring at her. She had her hands tightly clasped. She was looking at him.

  He swallowed.

  "Well," he managed to say.

  "I…" Her throat contracted. "Well…"

  "Well what!" he said quickly and loudly to hide the shaking in his voice.

  She stood up. "Chris, please. Won't you… ask me to stay?" She looked at him like a little girl, pleading.

  The look enraged him. All his day dreams shattered; he saw the growing thing of new ideas ground under foot.

  "Ask you to stay!" he yelled at her. "By God, I'll ask you nothing!"

  "Chris! Don't!"

  She's buckling, cried his mind. She's cracking. Get her now. Get her out of here. Drive her from these walls!

  "Chris," she sobbed, "be kind. Please be kind."

  "Kind!"

  He almost choked on the word. He felt a wild heat coursing his body.

  "Have you been kind? Driving me crazy, into a pit of despair. I can't get out. Do you understand? Never. Never! Do you understand that! I'll never write. I can't write! You drained it out of me! You killed it! Understand that? Killed it!"

  She backed away toward the dining room. He followed her, hands shaking at his sides, feeling that she had driven him to this confession and hating her the more for it.

  "Chris," she murmured in fright.

  It seemed as if his rage grew cell-like, swelling him with fury until he was nothing of bone and blood but a hating accusation made flesh.

  "I don't want you!" he yelled. "You're right, I don't want you! Get out of here!"

  Her eyes were wide, her mouth an open wound. Suddenly she ran past him, eyes glistening with tears. She fled through the front doorway.

  He went to the window and watched her running down the block, her dark brown hair streaming behind her.

  Dizzy suddenly, lie sank down on the couch and closed his eyes. He dug his nails into his palms. Oh God, I am sick, his mind churned.

  He twitched and looked around stupidly. What was it? This feeling that he was sinking into the couch, into the floorboards,
dissolving in the air, joining the molecules of the house. He whimpered softly, looking around. His head ached; he pressed a palm against his forehead.

  "What?" he muttered. "What?"

  He stood up. As though there were fumes he tried to smell them. As though it were a sound he tried to hear it. He turned around to see it. As though there were something with depth and length and width; something menacing.

  He wavered, fell back on the couch. He stared around. There was nothing, all intangible. It might only be in the mind. The furniture lay as it did before. The sunlight filtered through the windows, piercing the gauzelike curtains, making gold patterns on the inlaid wooden floor. The walls were still creamy, the ceiling was as it was before. Yet there was this darkening, darkening…

  What?

  He pushed up and walked dizzily around the room. He forgot about Sally. He was in the dining room. He touched the table, he stared at the dark oak. He went into the kitchen. He stood by the sink and looked out the window.

  Far up the block, he saw her walking, stumbling. She must have been waiting for the bus. Now she couldn't wait any longer and she was walking away from the house, away from him.

  "I'll go after her," he muttered.

  No, he thought. No, I won't go after her like a…

  He forgot like what. He stared down at the sink. He felt drunk. Everything was fuzzy on the edges.

  She's washed the cups. The broken saucer was thrown away.

  He looked at the nick on his thumb. It was dried. He'd forgotten about it.

  He looked around suddenly as if someone had sneaked behind him. He stared at the wall. Something was rising. He felt it. It's not me. But it had to be; it had to be imagination.

  Imagination!

  He slammed a fist on the sink. I'll write. Write, write. Sit down and drain it all away in words; this feeling of anguish and terror and loneliness. Write it out of my system.

  He cried, "Yes!"

  He ran from the kitchen. He refused to accept the instinctive fear in himself. He ignored the menace that seemed to thicken the very air.

  A rug slipped. He kicked it aside. He sat down. The air hummed. He tore off the cover on the typewriter. He sat nervously, staring at the keyboard. The moment before attack. It was in the air. But it's my attack!-he thought triumphantly, my attack on stupidity and fear.

  He rolled a sheet into the typewriter. He tried to collect his throbbing thoughts. Write, the word called in his mind. Write- now.

  "Now!" he cried.

  He felt the desk lurch against his shins.

  The flaring pain knifed open his senses. He kicked the desk in automatic frenzy. More pain. He kicked again. The desk flung back at him. He screamed.

  He'd seen it move.

  He tried to back off, the anger torn from him. The typewriter keys moved under his hands. His eyes swept down. He couldn't tell whether he was moving the keys or whether they moved by themselves. He pulled hysterically, trying to dislodge his fingers but he couldn't. The keys were moving faster than his eye could see. They were a blur of motion. He felt them shredding his skin, peeling his fingers. They were raw. Blood started to ooze out.

  He cried out and pulled. He managed to jerk away his fingers and jump back in the chair.

  His belt buckle caught, the desk drawer came flying out. It slammed into his stomach. He yelled again. The pain was a black cloud pouring over his head.

  He threw down a hand to shove in the drawer. He saw the yellow pencils lying there. They glared. His hand slipped, it banged into the drawer.

  One of the pencils jabbed at him.

  He always kept the points sharp. It was like the bite of a snake. He snapped back his hand with a gasp of pain. The point was jammed under a nail. It was imbedded in raw, tender flesh. He cried out in fury and pain. He pulled at the pencil with his other hand. The point flew out and jabbed into his palm. He couldn't get rid of the pencil, it kept dragging over his hand. He pulled at it and it made black, jagged lines on his skin. It tore the skin open.

  He heaved the pencil across the room. It bounced on the wall. It seemed to jump as it fell on the eraser. It rolled over and was still.

  He lost his balance. The chair fell back with a rush. His head banged sharply against the floorboards. His out clutched hand grabbed at the window sill. Tiny splinters flashed into his skin like invisible needles. He howled in deathly fear. He kicked his legs. The mid-term papers showered down over him like the beating wings of insane bird flocks.

  The chair snapped up again on its springs. The heavy wheels rolled over his raw, bloody hands. He drew them back with a shriek. He reared a leg and kicked the chair over violently. It crashed on the side against the mantelpiece. The wheels spun and chattered like a swarm of furious insects.

  He jumped up. He lost his balance and fell again, crashing against the window sill. The curtains fell on him like a python. The rods snapped. They flew down and struck him across the scalp. He felt warm blood trickle across his forehead. He thrashed about on the floor. The curtains seemed to writhe around him like serpents. He screamed again. He tore at them wildly. His eyes were terror-stricken.

  He threw them off and lurched up suddenly, staggering around for balance. The pain in his hands assailed him. He looked at them. They were like raw butcher meat, skin hanging down in shreds. He had to bandage them. He turned toward the bathroom.

  At his first step the rug slid from under him, the rug he had kicked aside. He felt himself rush through the air. He reached down his hands instinctively to block the fall.

  The white pain made his body leap. One finger snapped. Splinters shot into his raw fingers, he felt a burning pain in one ankle.

  He tried to scramble up but the floor was like ice under him. He was deadly silent. His heart thudded in his chest. He tried to rise again. He fell, hissing with pain.

  The bookshelf loomed over him. He cried out and flung up an arm. The case came crashing down on him. The top shelf drove into his skull. Black waves dashed over him, a sharp blade of pain drove into his head. Books showered over him. He rolled on his side with a groan. He tried to crawl out from underneath. He shoved the books aside weakly and they fell open. He felt the page edges slicing into his fingers like razor blades.

  The pain cleared his head. He sat up and hurled the books aside. He kicked the bookcase back against the wall. The back fell off it and it crashed down.

  He rose up, the room spinning before his eyes. He staggered into the wall, tried to hold on. The wall shifted under his hands it seemed. He couldn't hold on. He slipped to his knees, pushed up again.

  "Bandage myself," he muttered hoarsely.

  The words filled his brain. He staggered up through the quivering dining room, into the bathroom.

  He stopped. No! Get out of the house! He knew it was not his will that brought him in there.

  He tried to turn but he slipped on the tiles and cracked his elbow against the edge of the bathtub. A shooting pain barbed into his upper arm. The arm went numb. He sprawled on the floor, writhing in pain. The walls clouded; they welled around him like a blank shroud.

  He sat up, breath tearing at his throat. He pushed himself up with a gasp. His arm shot out, he pulled open the cabinet door. It flew open against his cheek, tearing a jagged rip in the soft flesh.

  His head snapped back. The crack in the ceiling looked like a wide idiot smile on a blank, white face. He lowered his head, whimpering in fright. He tried to back away.

  His hand reached out. For iodine, for gauze!-his mind cried.

  His hand came out with the razor.

  It flopped in his hand like a new caught fish. His other hand reached in. For iodine, for gauze!-shrieked his mind.

  His hand came out with dental floss. It flooded out of the tube like an endless white worm. It coiled around his throat and shoulders. It choked him.

  The long shiny blade slipped from its sheath.

  He could not stop his hand. It drew the razor heavily across his chest. It slit open the shirt. I
t sliced a valley through his chest. Blood spurted out.

  He tried to hurl away the razor. It stuck to his hand. It slashed at him, at his arms and hands and legs and body.

  At his throat.

  A scream of utter horror flooded from his lips. He ran from the bathroom, staggering wildly into the living room.

  "Sally!" he screamed, "Sally, Sally, Sally…"

  The razor touched his throat. The room went black. Pain. Life ebbing away into the night. Silence over all the world.

  The next day Dr. Morton came.

  He called the police.

  And later the coroner wrote in his report:

  Died of self-inflicted wounds.

  7 – DISAPPEARING ACT

  These entries are from a school notebook which was found two weeks ago in a Brooklyn candy store. Next to it on the counter was a half finished cup of coffee. The owner of the store said no one had been there for three hours prior to the time he first noticed the book.

  Saturday morning early

  I shouldn't be writing this. What if Mary found it? Then what? The end, that's what, five years out the window.But I have to put it down. I've been writing too long. There's no peace unless I put things on paper. I have to get them out and simplify my mind. But it's so hard to make things simple and so easy to make them complicated.

  Thinking back through the months.

  Where did it start? An argument of course. There must have been a thousand of them since we married. And always the same one, that's the horror.

  Money.

  "It's not a question of confidence in your writing," Mary will say. "It's a question of bills and are we or aren't we going to pay them?"

  "Bills for what?" I'll say. "For necessities? No. For things we don't even need."

  "Don't need!" And off we go. God, how impossible life is without money. Nothing can overcome it, it's everything when it's anything. How can I write in peace with endless worries of money, money, money? The television set, the refrigerator, the washer-none of them paid for yet. And the bed she wants…