Richard Matheson: Hunted Past Reason

He started across the floor, only, at the last moment, seeing that the large, moth-eaten rug was sagging in the middle. There had to be a hole in the floor.

“Here I come, lover!” Doug was in the hallway now.

As quickly as he could, Bob pulled the edge of the rug until it lay flat, hiding the hole that had to be beneath its center.

He moved around the rug as quickly as he could and moved to the end of the room. The bureau stood several feet from the wall; it looked enormously heavy. He moved behind it, staring toward the hallway door. His heartbeat pounded, drumlike, in his chest. If Doug would cross the rug, he thought.

Doug entered the room. “You in here, Bobby boy?” he asked. He peered across the shadowy room. “Oh, there you are, you little devil, hiding behind—what is that, a bureau?” His chuckle made Bob shudder. “Isn’t going to save you, baby. Nothing’s going to save you now.” His voice grew suddenly vicious. “You’re a dead man, Bobby. I am going to fuck your dead ass, then go up the hill and fuck—oh, no.” His tone abruptly lightened again. “I’ll fuck her, yeah, but not until we’re married. Won’t that be a kick in the head, Bobby boy?”

He started forward slowly, the golak in his hand.

“You notice that I haven’t got the bow and arrow. Might make bad evidence against me if they find that stupid hunter.”

He brandished the golak in front of him. “But this will do the trick.”

Step on the rug, Bob thought. Just step on the rug.

“Oh, this is going to be a ball,” Doug said. “First I kill you, then I fuck you. Doesn’t that sound yummy? Jesus, I am getting hard. I can hardly wait to jam it up your ass again.”

The rug, Bob thought. Cross the rug.

“This shouldn’t bother you too much,” Doug said. “A little pain and then you’ll be in paradise, schlepping around in a purple robe. Won’t that be a gas? While I’m down here, sliding my cock in and out of your hot ass.” He laughed. “Before it gets cold, of course.”

That’s it, Bob thought. The rug. Come right across the rug.

“If you feel the need to offer up a prayer, now’s the time to do it, Bobby boy. Because I’m gonna—oh, now, wait a second.”

Bob looked at him in sick dread as Doug stopped and looked down at the rug.

“You trying to fool me, Bobby boy? You clever bastard you. Oh, my.”

Bending over, Doug put down the golak and grabbed the edge of the rug. He yanked it hard across the floor, revealing the gaping hole. “Oh, nasty, nasty,” he scolded. “You meant for Dougie boy to go right through this hole, didn’t you?” His voice hardened as he picked up his golak. “Didn’t you, you stupid fuck?”

He started across the floor again, moving around the hole. “You really thought you could fool me, didn’t you? Well, that’ll make it all the more delicious hacking you to pieces… you stupid, fucking son of a bitch.”

Bob slung the chair leg at him, hitting him on the chest and knocking him back. Doug cried out in shock, then pain. He lost his footing for a few moments, staggering toward the hole. Fall! Bob’s mind screamed. Fall, you bastard!

Doug regained his balance now and rubbed his chest, grimacing. “You son of a bitch,” he muttered. “You really think you’re going to live? Oh, no. Oh, no. You’re going to die. In agony. I’ll make it last a long time, babe. A long time,” he repeated, his voice shaking. Slowly, he advanced on Bob, the golak raised to strike.

Where the strength came from, Bob never knew. Terror? Fear of dying? Determination to save Marian? No way of knowing.

All he knew was that—with a sudden, maniacal snarl—he shoved the bureau directly at Doug; he hadn’t realized that it was set on wheels. Shoved with such violence, it rolled quickly across the floor and struck Doug head on, knocking him back.

With a hollow cry of astonished dismay, Doug fell into the hole and disappeared. Bob heard the crash of his body in the room below. The bureau, too big to fall through the hole, sagged over on its edge, wheels still spinning.

At first, he couldn’t move. After all he’d been through, he could not believe that it was over, even more impossible to believe that he had won, that he had beaten Doug.

After several minutes of paralyzed debility, he found the strength to walk infirmly to the hole and looked down.

It was too dark below for him to see anything, and for several moments, he had the horrified apprehension that Doug wasn’t there, that he’d fallen on something soft and was already coming up again.

Then—miraculously it seemed—he remembered his flashlight and switched it on, pointing it downward through the hole.

Doug was lying on his back, eyes closed, a twisted expression of pain on his face. Bob tried to see if there was movement on his chest. He saw none. The fall had to have killed him.

At first, he cried out with a sense of rabid exultation. His tormentor was dead! Good! Good!

Then revulsion came, sadness, even guilt. All right, it had been self-defense; no doubt of that.

But he had never killed in his life, not even an animal. Now this.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he muttered, feeling nauseous. “Why did we ever come up here. Why?”

He took out the small bottle of vodka and drained it in a swallow. It didn’t help. It only made him cough.

What do I tell her? he wondered as he struggled up the hill. That I killed Doug? The details of the last three days swamped his mind. Where do I begin?

He gulped in air and belched dryly as he was forced to bend forward to make it up a rock-strewn slope. No matter, he thought. We have all the way back to Los Angeles for me to tell her all the details of Doug’s increasingly insane behavior since Sunday.

Then again, of course they’d have to stop at the first police or sheriff’s station they came to, let them know what happened. They probably wouldn’t be going back to Los Angeles after all. Not for a while at least. They’d probably have to come back here; there would likely be a forest ranger with the police or sheriff’s men. They’d have to find Doug’s body, later on search for the hunter’s corpse.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he drew out the note Doug had left him. Thank God he hadn’t left it behind. He couldn’t imagine why he’d taken it along. God knew, he’d never thought, for an instant, that he’d be using that note as evidence against Doug. What point was there in evidence now anyway? There couldn’t be a trial with Doug killed. But at least, the note would allay any suspicion against him for causing Doug’s death.

“Oh, God,” he said in an exhausted voice. All he wanted to do was go home with Marian and try to forget everything that had happened. Impossible, of course. There was no way of estimating how complicated and time-consuming the investigation would prove to be after he reported what had taken place. They probably wouldn’t be allowed to return to Los Angeles for some time; they might have to stay in a local motel until things were settled.

“Okay,” he muttered. Even that would be acceptable. A hot shower, cuts and bruises treated, splinters removed, a decent meal—and then a long sleep lying next to Marian. It sounded like heaven.

The hill seemed to get steeper now. Instead of straining up it, leaning forward, he was forced to climb, reaching ahead to pull himself upward, using bushes, boulders, scrub-growth trees. His breath grew more and more labored, his chest heaving with gasped-in breaths. No matter, he told himself. The cabin would be at the top of the hill. Marian. Safety.

Escape from the nightmare.

Reaching the top of the hill, he straightened up, panting, looking around for the cabin.