Richard Matheson - Hunted Past Reason

“Listen,” he said. “I need your help.”

“You sure as hell look as though you could use somebody’s help,” the man responded, still making a face at Bob’s appearance.

“There’s a man chasing me,” Bob told him. “He intends to kill me with a bow and arrow—or a golak.”

The man’s expression made it clear that what he had just been told didn’t really register on his mind. “What?” he asked.

“A man is chasing me,” Bob said. “He means to kill me.”

“Why?” the man asked, still looking confused.

“That’s besides the point,” Bob told him urgently. “I need your protection.”

“My protection.” Now the man looked suddenly alarmed and cautious.

“I need your rifle to protect me. Don’t you understand?”

“My rifle?” The man’s seeming inability to understand what he was being told incensed Bob.

“Yes!” he cried. “I either need you to protect me or I need your rifle!”

“I’m not giving you my rifle,” the man said, sounding offended.

“Then protect me!” Bob said furiously. Was the man an idiot?

“From what?” the man demanded.

“I’ve already told you! There’s a man chasing me who means to—!”

“I know what you told me!” the man interrupted, suddenly angry himself. “How do I know what you’re telling me is true?”

“It is true, damnit!” Bob raged at him. “Do I look like I’m crazy?”

“You look worse than crazy, pal!” the man said; he seemed to be regaining confidence now.

“Goddamn it!” Bob abruptly struggled for composure. It was obvious that the more he ranted, the less the man would believe him. He noticed the man’s guarded look at his cudgel and threw it down.

“Listen to me,” he said. “My name is Robert Hansen. I’m here from Los Angeles. I came out here to backpack with a friend of mine—”

“A friend?” the man said suspiciously.

“I thought he was my friend.” Bob felt himself losing control of his temper again and fought to hold it in check. “He’s not my friend. He’s crazy. He’s chasing me—”

“I know; you told me,” the man said. Bob felt incredulous. The sound in the man’s voice was cynically dismissive now. He couldn’t believe what was happening. The man had a rifle, he could bring down Doug and end all this.

“Listen,” he said, as calmly as he could. “You have got to shoot this man before he can kill me.”

“What?” The man’s voice was querulous now, his expression unbelieving. “Shoot a perfect stranger? Are you nuts or something?”

“No, he’s nuts,” Bob snapped back. He was not going to be able to control his anger much longer, he knew. “Listen,” he said. “ Sell me your rifle then.”

“What?” The tone even more querulous, the expression incredulous.

“I’ll pay you any price you ask,” Bob told him. “I’m a writer, I have lots of money.”

“Writers don’t make money,” the man said contemptuously.

This is a fucking nightmare, Bob thought. The man didn’t understand any of this, was totally unwilling to help him.

Abruptly he grabbed the rifle by its barrel. “I’m sorry, I have to have this,” he said, his voice trembling.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man said, his tone aghast. “Are you nuts ?”

“I need to kill this man,” Bob said, teeth clenched. “It isn’t only me he’s after, it’s my wife as well.”

“Oh, well, you’re insane, man.” The hunter pulled back at the rifle. “You belong in a nuthouse.”

“Goddamn it, I need your rifle!” Bob screamed in his face.

They were wrestling for possession of the rifle, boots scraping and stumbling on the ground, when the buzzing sound streaked past Bob’s ear. The man’s cry was startled, like a child’s.

Imbedded in his neck, its bloody point protruding from behind, was an arrow.

Bob recoiled in shock, staring blankly at the man, whose expression was dazed, confused. “What the—?” he began to say.

The next instant, he had toppled backward, the rifle still grasped in his hands. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Bob whirled and stared into the forest. There was no sign of Doug. And yet he had to be there. Was that a movement in the distant brush?

Abruptly he twisted around and, dropping to his knees, tried to pull the rifle from the dead man’s hands. His grip had frozen on the rifle though. Bob pulled at it desperately.

Another buzzing sound, an arrow hitting the ground several inches away, head buried in the soil. Dear God! Bob thought. He pulled at the rifle in panicked anguish. He had to have it or he was finished!

Another buzzing sound, the arrow shooting past him to imbed itself beside the last one. Then Doug’s voice, shouting from the forest. “ Better run, Bob! You aren’t going to get that rifle!”

A burst of mindless terror drove Bob to his feet. He stumbled, almost pitched forward, then was able to regain his balance and break into a run for the nearest trees.

“That’s right, Bobby! Run like crazy! I’ll be with you in a little while!”

Bob lost all sense of time and direction as he fled through the woods, stumbling more than once, once falling across a tree root, gasping with pain. Ignoring the pain, he struggled to his feet and ran again, unthinking, stupefied, a brainless, fleeing animal.

Finally, he had to stop, he couldn’t find the breath to continue.

Panting, sweat running down his face, mouth hanging open, eyes staring sightlessly, he turned. He had to know if Doug was running after him.

There was no sign of Doug. Where was he? Beside him in the forest? Ahead of him?

He had to know. He simply had to know.

With what remaining strength he had, he managed to pull himself up into a tree that had branches he could step on starting close to the ground. He kept climbing, visualizing, as he did, Doug appearing just below, looking up with a grin as he notched his arrow into the bowstring, aimed, drew back the string, and shot an arrow into his heart.

Using his tiny binoculars, he looked down, surprised that he could see the dead hunter.

What else he saw made his skin crawl and his stomach almost lose its contents. He made a gagging sound, spit out wet pieces of rabbit, and stared at what Doug was doing: removing the arrow from the dead hunter’s throat, pulling it out from the front so the barbs of the arrowhead wouldn’t get caught in the man’s flesh.

As he watched, he saw Doug—teeth gritted with the effort—yanking at the arrow until it suddenly came free, its feathered end soaked with the hunter’s blood.

Doug poured some water on the feathers and the arrowhead, cleaned them off with his fingers, and slipped the arrow back into its quiver; the two other arrows were already there. The rifle was nowhere to be seen. Doug must have flung it off the cliff.

“No,” Bob murmured, his expression suddenly twisted, sickened.

Doug had taken the hunter’s boots in his hands and was dragging him to the slope that ended at the edge of the cliff.

“You son of a bitch,” he murmured weakly. “You goddamn son of a bitch.” Slip on the pine needles the way I did, he thought. Fall to your death.

But Doug seemed to know about the pine needles. He stopped dragging the dead hunter to the place where the pine needles became a problem and laid the body parallel to the edge and sat down close to it, pressing his boots against the hunter’s side.

With a sudden lunge of his boots, he shoved at the body violently. It rolled over and over, sliding on the pine needles until it reached the cliff edge.

Then it was gone.

Bob’s stomach convulsed and, opening his mouth wide, he vomited, gasping, groaning.