Richard Matheson: Hunted Past Reason

“Wrong,” she said, gasping for breath.

Bob hadn’t noticed what she carried. Suddenly she raised the flare and pulled its cord, igniting it. Lunging forward, she held it up to Doug’s face. He screamed in pain and lurched back, throwing up his arms to protect his face, the golak flying from his hand.

A look of remorseless fury on her face, Marian kept moving at him, pointing the hot white sparking of the flare at his face. Doug screamed again, then, tripping over the fallen chair, toppled backward, landing hard.

Marian held the flare pointed at his chest as he twisted and writhed on the floor, shrieking with pain.

Bob shifted the shotgun around so that he held the barrel in his hands. He swung at Doug’s head as hard as he could. The shotgun’s butt end struck Doug’s temple squarely and he crumpled to the floor. With a crazed sound, Bob snatched up the golak to kill him.

Marian shouted his name and he looked at her, his expression maddened.

“You’re not like him!” she cried.

He stared at her in silence, breathing hard. Then, exhaustedly, he placed the golak on the table. She ran to him and he held her tightly, eyes shut. “God,” he murmured. “Oh, dear God.”

Bob had almost finished lashing him to the bars on the Bronco roof when Doug’s eyelids fluttered. As Bob tightened the final knot, Doug stared at him. “What do you think you’re doing?” he muttered, his expression distorted by pain, his face and chest burned by the flare. Bob had tied him naked to the roof, his right shoulder bandaged tightly.

“I don’t think , I know ,” Bob told him. “Hunters tie their trophies to their car roofs, don’t they? You’re my trophy and I’m carrying you away from here. I doubt if we’ll get very far before a sheriff’s car stops us. But far enough to satisfy me.”

Doug twisted on the rooftop. “Cut me loose, you bastard. Or kill me. You’re entitled. I raped you and almost raped Marian, I killed that hunter. I deserve to die. Send me to the hell you’re sure I’m going to.”

“No,” Bob answered. “You have debts to pay on this side first. Later on, you’ll pay a second time.”

Doug replied through gritted teeth. “If they don’t execute me, Bobby boy,” he said, “I’ll get out somehow and kill you. You’d better hope they execute me because the next time—”

He broke off with a grunt of pain as Bob clutched at his hair and banged his head down on the Bronco top. “If there’s a next time,” he said, “I may not be able to stop myself from killing you.”

“What, and blacken your soul?” Doug said, drawing back his burned, blood-crusted lips in a deranged smile.

Bob answered, “ It might just be worth it.”

Stepping down, he got into the front seat of the Bronco next to Marian.

“Is it the only way?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m not going to kill him but this is what I want. It’s the least he deserves. It’s the least I deserve.” He made a sound of strained amusement. “Don’t worry, it isn’t going to last too long. As soon as we’re sighted…”

He sighed heavily.

“I should have gagged him, he may scream.” He grimaced angrily. “But that’s all right too, let him scream. Oh, Jesus Christ .”

She put her hand on his arm. “What?” she asked.

“Maybe he won after all,” Bob said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Much good my belief system did me,” he said. “I finally had to descend to his level to beat him.”

“You had no other choice, Bob,” she said. “Neither did I. It doesn’t mean we sank to his level.”

He thought about it; sighed. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

He glanced at her. “What made you think of that flare anyway?”

“I saw them in the Bronco when we first arrived on Sunday. It just… came to me.”

“You saved me, Marian.”

“We saved each other.” She squeezed his arm. “How are you, sweetheart? You’ve been through a horrible time, I know. How are you?”

His smile was one of weary satisfaction.

“ I’m alive, ” he said.