Ride the Nightmare

by Richard Matheson

  “Mommy.”

  “I have to help Daddy, sweetheart.”

  Connie turned and looked down at her father. Her breath seemed to stop. She stood motionless, lips parted, staring at him. Helen kneeled beside him quickly and ran a trembling hand over his cheek.

  “Chris?” she murmured.

  He didn’t move. Helen looked around and saw a bottle of water on the table. She pushed up and started for it. Connie caught onto her.

  “I have to get some water,” Helen told her, “Daddy needs—”

  “Mommy, don’t—”

  “Stand by Daddy,” Helen told her. “Be my brave girl now.” She backed off slowly, raising her hand as Connie started after her. “Just stay there,” she said. She glanced across her shoulder at Adam who was pressing a handkerchief against Steve’s shoulder.

  “Your slip,” he said.

  Helen twitched and stared at him.

  “Your slip,” he repeated. He started to turn and she drew back. Connie made a frightened sound.

  “All right, all right,” Helen said. Shivering, she turned away and bent over. Drawing up her skirt, she pulled quickly at her half slip until it fell around her ankles. She stepped out of it and picked it up. Adam grabbed it from her outstretched fingers and, turning back, started tearing it into strips. Quickly, Helen moved to the table and picked up the bottle of water. She carried it back to Chris and kneeled beside him again. Opening the bottle, she pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and poured some water over it. She began patting it against Chris’s temples and cheeks.

  “That’ll hold it,” she heard Adam say behind her.

  “No, it’s still bleeding too much.” Steve sounded a little frightened. “I gotta have a doctor, Adam.”

  “Damn it, use your head!” snapped Adam, “We’ve wasted enough time. We have money now. We’ve got to clear out.”

  “You wouldn’t be so damn sure if it was you,” said Steve. There was almost a whining in his voice now.

  “Look you want a doctor, go get one. I’m going to Mexico.”

  Helen glanced across her shoulder and saw the two men looking at each other.

  “What about—?” She saw Steve’s head jerk slightly toward her and she felt a sudden, cold depression in her stomach.

  “There’s no room,” said Adam, flatly.

  Helen stared at him, her heartbeat suddenly jolting. She couldn’t take her eyes off Adam’s expressionless face. When he turned to look at her, she kept gaping at him.

  “No,” she whispered. She couldn’t hear herself. She reached out and pulled Connie against her. “No, please.” Her fingers clamped on Connie’s arm. “Please.”

  Steve groaned. “I’ve gotta have a doctor,” he muttered.

  “Later,” said Adam, his eyes on Helen. He reached into his coat pocket. Helen felt a scream rising in her throat. The room seemed to wheel around her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “No, not later!”

  It was as if Steve’s voice came from miles away. Cringing back, Connie tight against her, Helen looked dumbly at him, at the pistol he was pointing at Adam’s back.

  Adam looked around. “What are you—?” He stared at Steve incredulously.

  “Get your hand out of your pocket,” Steve told him.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’m getting a doctor.”

  “Sure you’ll get a doctor—but later!” said Adam, “We have to get out of here! Don’t you understand? We’ve been—”

  “I want him now!” Steve’s chest rose and fell unsteadily. He blinked and leaned back dizzily against the chair. “Don’t move,” he ordered, “Don’t move or I’ll—”

  “You’re a fool,” Adam said.

  Steve pressed his lips together and tried to push himself up. His legs vibrated beneath the weight and he fell back with a muffled grunt.

  He glanced at Helen. “Get over here,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  “Get over here.”

  Helen stood up and pushed Connie away from herself. “Stay by Daddy,” she said. Connie started to object but Helen cut her off sharply. “You have to stay by Daddy,” she said.

  “Get over here, lady.” There was a half-mindless drone in Steve’s voice now.

  Helen moved toward him. He swallowed and grunted.

  “Take the rod out of his pocket.”

  “You’re out of your mind!” Adam shouted at him.

  “Take his rod.”

  “His—?”

  “Gun, gun! Take it!”

  “Yes.” Helen edged over slowly until she was standing behind Adam. Carefully, her hand trembling, she reached toward his side coat pocket.

  “Hurry up!”

  Her hand twitched and bumped against Adam’s side. Swallowing, she pressed her lips together and slid her hand into the pocket. He stirred a little and Steve muttered, “Watch it.”

  Helen’s fingers touched the cool, oily surface of the revolver. A sudden tension filled her. Did she dare try to shoot at Steve? She inhaled quickly, raggedly. What if she missed? She’d never fired a gun in her life. Was it possible that she could fire it while it was still inside the pocket? Otherwise, in trying to jerk it free, it might catch on the pocket lining.

  “Get it out, damn it!”

  There was no time, no time! With a faint, hopeless sob, Helen drew the revolver out of the pocket and stepped back. For a moment, Adam’s body stood between her and Steve. Now! cried her mind—but her muscles would not obey. Nervously, she moved over to the table and put down the gun. She couldn’t take the chance. If she missed, Connie would be killed in seconds, Chris would be killed.

  “You’re gonna get me a doctor,” Steve said.

  At first she didn’t realize he was talking to her and she started back toward Connie.

  “I said you’re getting me a doctor!”

  She stopped and looked back at him. “Me?”

  “Get in your car and—”

  “For Christ’s sake, will you—?” Adam started.

  “Shut up!” Steve shrilled. “I’m not dyin’ on the road for you!”

  “You won’t die on the road, damn it! We’ll stop as soon as—”

  “I said shut up!” The gun shook in his grip as he pointed it at Adam.

  “Oh… Christ,” said Adam, tightly.

  “Go, get a doctor,” Steve said to Helen.

  Helen backed off toward Connie. She felt her daughter move up into the shelter of her arm.

  “How?” she asked, “I can’t—”

  “I don’t care how!” Steve interrupted, “Just get him here!”

  As Helen stared at him, his lips flared back abruptly from yellowish teeth and he extended the pistol shakily.

  “Go on!” he said.

  She nodded jerkily and began leading Connie toward the doorway.

  “She stays,” said Steve.

  Helen looked at him with unbelieving eyes. “No,” she murmured.

  “Let go of her.”

  Helen found herself shaking her head fitfully. “No,” she said, “I won’t.”

  “Maybe you’d like her killed right now!” he threatened.

  Helen pushed Connie behind her. “I won’t leave her,” she said in a low, shaking voice, “If you’re going to kill us you’ll have to do it now.” She drew in a rasping breath. “I won’t leave her,” she said.

  Steve’s fingers tensed on the trigger, then eased. He stared at Helen with a dull, almost animal-like confusion.

  “Kill her!” snapped Adam. “You’re wasting time! She’ll never get you a doctor!”

  “By God, then he will,” muttered Steve. He pushed up with a groan and stumbled away from the table. Abruptly, he whirled and pulled Adam’s revolver off the table, sliding it into his trouser pocket. He walked erratically across the room, eyes almost slitted from the pain, his lips drawn back, breath hissing from his mouth. He brushed by Helen and staggered over to Chris. He jabbed the tip of his right shoe against Ch
ris’s side.

  “Get up,” he said.

  “You’re wasting time,” said Adam, tensely.

  “Then I’ll waste it!” snapped Steve. He rammed his shoe tip against Chris’s side. “Get up!” he said. Helen winced and closed her eyes a moment.

  “Get up, damn you!” With a rasping whine, he bent over and picked up the water bottle. He tilted it over and the water poured down heavily, splattering off Chris’s face. Chris twitched and grunted, his arms and legs retracting spasmodically.

  “Look, we’ll stop at a doctor’s, then,” Adam said.

  “Sure,” sneered Steve. “We’ll just walk into his waiting room and sit down with the other patients.”

  Adam’s face tightened angrily. He looked around as if seeking some escape. When he saw that there wasn’t any, his expression grew angrier yet, color pulsed into his cheeks.

  Now Chris was breathing more rapidly. His eyes still closed, he reached up one hand and pressed it to the bruise on his head.

  “Get up!” Steve told him.

  Chris opened his eyes. They closed a moment, then fluttered open once more. He stared up dazedly at Steve. Then he pushed up on one elbow and looked around. “Honey…” he mumbled.

  “Chris.” Helen spoke his name automatically as their eyes met. He looked, with alarm, at her and Connie.

  “Get up, get up.” Steve nudged him fiercely with his shoe. Chris gasped and his gaze jumped around. He sat up dizzily, then pulled his legs in slowly and stood. He wavered there, blinking his eyes, trying to focus them properly. He started to move toward Helen but Steve pushed the gun against his side and stopped him.

  “By God, you better move right or I’ll blow you guts out,” he said, thickly.

  Chris looked at him without expression, still not fully conscious.

  “You’re gonna get me a doctor,” Steve told him.

  “Doctor?”

  Steve glanced at Adam. “Where are the car keys?” he asked.

  “At the bottom of the canyon with the car.”

  “Their car,” growled Steve.

  Adam stared at him coldly for several seconds. Then he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the ring of keys. He tossed it so they fell on the floor at Steve’s feet. “You’re going to regret this,” he said.

  Steve ignored him and stepped back from the keys.

  “Pick ’em up,” he told Chris.

  Chris bent over slowly and picked them up, almost falling as he did.

  “Now listen to me,” Steve told him, wheezingly, “I killed two men already, see? And I’d kill your wife and kid in a minute too. You understand me?”

  Chris glanced over at Helen involuntarily. Connie was shivering against her.

  “You bring the cops and you don’t have a wife and kid anymore,” said Steve, “You have a couple o’ corpses. Understand?”

  “How—how do I—?” Chris began.

  “How do ya know I won’t kill ’em anyway?” Steve broke in. “You don’t know. But if ya don’t get me that doctor, you’re all dead right now. Understand?”

  Steve suddenly closed his eyes and there was clicking sound in his throat. Adam tensed and seemed to lean forward. Then Steve’s eyes opened again, his body twitching as if he were starting out of a doze.

  “Go on,” he told Chris.

  Helen braced herself. “Let him take my girl,” she said.

  Steve looked at her as if he were drugged.

  “Sure why not?” said Adam, “Let ’em all go. We’ll just sit here and wait for the cops to—”

  “He goes alone,” said Steve, stumbling back toward the chair.

  “Isn’t it enough I stay?” Helen asked, “Please. I’ll be—”

  “He goes alone.” Steve waved Adam back and sank down on the chair with a groan. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and looked at Chris who was still standing in the same place, looking at his wife and child.

  “Get out o’ here,” he said, “You have 45 minutes.”

  Chris’s face tightened. Then, slowly, he moved over to Helen and Connie and put his arms around them.

  “I’ll come back,” he murmured.

  Helen shook her head. “They won’t let us go,” she said, “Not now.”

  His fingers tightened convulsively on her arm. “Please don’t give up,” he begged, “For Connie’s sake—”

  “You’d better go,” she interrupted.

  Chris swallowed and looked at her helplessly. Then he leaned over and kissed Connie’s forehead.

  “I’ll be back for you,” he whispered to her, “Don’t be afraid, baby. Daddy will come for you. Do what Mommy says and—”

  “Get out!” raged Steve.

  “Please let him take her!” Helen begged.

  “I said get out!”

  Chris turned hurriedly and headed for the door.

  “Steve, for Christ’s sake, don’t do it!” said Adam. “We can stop at a doctor’s place but if you let him go we’ll never get out of here!”

  Steve looked at him unsteadily.

  “I’m not goin’ anywhere like this,” he said.

  “He’s the one that shot you! Are you going to—?”

  “Shut up!”

  “I’ll get you a doctor then!”

  Steve laughed breathlessly. “Sure, I’ll let you leave me here,” he said.

  “Damn it!” Adam clenched his teeth and started forward, then stopped as Steve pointed the gun at his chest.

  “You’re putting us right in the gas chamber,” he said.

  “He’ll be back,” said Steve. He looked at Helen and Connie and his grip tightened slowly on the pistol.

  “He’ll be back,” he said again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Chris stopped walking and looked back at the cabin, a wave of premonition passing over him. Suddenly, there seemed no escape, no answer. Go back, he thought; stay with them. Nothing he did could change the situation now except that one more human being might die if he brought a doctor.

  He shuddered violently. And it was his doing. Because of him, Connie was in there facing death, because of him Helen was in there. And he was free. The irony was perfect. He drove nails into his palms until the pain made him wince. His doing.

  He looked around desperately, somewhere, deep in his mind, a wild idea gathering. He saw himself brandishing a heavy stick charging into the cabin, swinging wildly, getting Steve before he could fire his revolver, getting Adam. Before the thought had reached even the periphery of decision, he had discarded it bitterly. Anything like that would only destroy his wife and child that much sooner. There was only one thing he could do. What he’d been told.

  Forty-five minutes.

  Chris whirled and started running toward the car. How much time had elapsed? Five minutes, six? How could he possibly get to a doctor and bring him back in a little over half an hour? Again, he stopped and looked back, his head throbbing painfully. Could he call back, plead for more time? No, Steve would never give it to him. He should be in the car now, speeding off. Chris turned and sprinted around the curve, every jolting stride like a spiked club against his brain.

  He jerked open the door of the Ford and slid in, pulled the door shut again. Hastily, he slid the key into its socket and twisted it. The motor coughed, failed. Chris turned the key again, jerking out the choke, then shoving it in as the engine turned over. He pumped at the gas pedal until the engine sound flared. Quickly, he knocked the shift into Drive and the car jolted forward.

  He glanced up into the rear-view mirror. He couldn’t see the shack; it was beyond that clump of trees. He felt an uncontrollable tensing in his stomach and chest—as if invisible elastic cords were binding him to his wife and child and, as he drove, the cords were growing more and more taut until they threatened to tear his insides loose, leaving the better part of him behind. It seemed impossible to drive away like this knowing where they were—to leave them alone with men who would kill without hesitation. Yet there was nothing else to do—or, if
there were, his tortured mind could not discover it. Rescue was beyond his means; he knew that. He was just a fallible man. Only blinding fury had enabled him to fight successfully with Adam before. There was no such life-giving strength in the fear that gripped him now.

  He turned the car onto the canyon road and accelerated as much as he could. Thirty-five miles an hour was the limit because of the sharply narrow curves. Chris glanced at the dashboard clock. It was twenty after twelve. How much time was left?

  His mind raced ahead. There was no chance at all of getting to their own doctor in Santa Monica. He’d have to stop at the first one he came to. That would be in Malibu; far enough as it was. Chris pressed down instinctively on the gas pedal and the Ford tilted squeakingly around a curve. To his left was only space, far below, a rock-strewn valley. Chris tried to go faster but it was not possible. On the next curve the wheels of the car left the concrete and skidded onto the shoulder, casting up gouts of sandy earth.

  Nine minutes later he was braking at the canyon entrance, waiting for a truck to pass on the highway, then shooting across to the southbound lane and turning in. He drove the pedal to the floor and the Ford started gaining speed, the dashboard needle quivering past forty, fifty, sixty. Wind hissed and whistled past the windows as he drove. If I’m stopped, he thought, it’s over.

  You don’t have a wife and kid, Steve’s words echoed in his mind. You have a couple o’ corpses.

  Chris looked up at the mirror automatically—and suddenly tightened.

  Behind, in the distance, a motorcyclist was following him. Chris pressed his lips together and eased his foot from the pedal. If it was a state patrolman, there was no chance of slowing down enough to fool him.

  Chris couldn’t take his eyes from the mirror as the figure came closer and closer. He felt his heartbeat like a piston at his chest wall. The figure on motorcycle was dressed in black, he stayed in the same lane, coming closer. Chris felt a heavy sinking in his stomach. I’ll have to tell him, he thought. The officer would call in, the police would come, they’d surround the cabin and Connie and Helen would be shot to death. A vision of the entire sequence flashed across Chris’s mind. He sat frozenly, waiting for it to begin.