Richard Matheson - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

“Eddy?”

Suddenly, she caught her breath and shrank back and he knew that she remembered.

“Let me in or you’re in trouble,” he muttered. He could feel his legs begin to shake.

Julie lay motionless a few seconds, eyes fixed on his. Then she pushed to her feet and weaved unsteadily towards the door. Eddy turned for the alley. He strode down it nervously and started up the porch steps as she came outside.

“What do you want?” she whispered. She looked exciting, half asleep, her clothes and hair all mussed.

“Inside,” he said.

Julie stiffened. “No.”

“All right, come on,” he said, taking her hand roughly. “We’ll talk in my car.”

She walked with him to the car and, as he slid in beside her, he saw that she was shivering.

“I’ll turn on the heater,” he said. It sounded stupidly inane. He was here to threaten her, not comfort. Angrily, he started the engine and drove away from the curb.

“Where are we going?” Julie asked.

He didn’t know at first. Then, suddenly, he thought of the place outside of town where dating students always parked. It would be deserted at this hour. Eddy felt a swollen tingling in his body and he pressed down on the accelerator. Sixteen minutes later, the car was standing in the silent woods. A pale mist hung across the ground and seemed to lap at the doors.

Julie wasn’t shivering now; the inside of the car was hot.

“What is it?” she asked, faintly.

Impulsively, Eddy reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out the photographs. He threw them on her lap.

Julie didn’t make a sound. She just stared down at the photographs with frozen eyes, her fingers twitching as she held them.

“Just in c-ase you’re thinking of calling the police,” Eddy faltered. He clenched his teeth. Tell her! he thought savagely. In a dull, harsh voice, he told her everything he’d done the night before. Julie’s face grew pale and rigid as she listened. Her hands pressed tautly at each other. Outside, the mist appeared to rise around the windows like a chalky fluid. It surrounded them.

“You want money?” Julie whispered.

“Take off your clothes,” he said. It wasn’t his voice, it occurred to him. The sound of it was too malignant, too inhuman.

Then Julie whimpered and Eddy felt a surge of blinding fury boil upward in him. He jerked his hand back, saw it flail out in a blur of movement, heard the sound of it striking her on the mouth, felt the sting across his knuckles.

“Take them off!” His voice was deafening in the stifling closeness of the car. Eddy blinked and gasped for breath. He stared dizzily at Julie as, sobbing, she began to take her clothes off. There was a thread of blood trickling from a corner of her mouth. No, don’t, he heard a voice beg in his mind. Don’t do this. It faded quickly as he reached for her with alien hands.

When he got home at ten that morning there was blood and skin under his nails. The sight of it made him violently ill. He lay trembling on his bed, lips quivering, eyes staring at the ceiling. I’m through, he thought. He had the photographs. He didn’t have to see her any more. It would destroy him if he saw her any more. Already, his brain felt like rotting sponge, so bloated with corruption that the pressure of his skull caused endless overflow into his thoughts. Trying to sleep, he thought, instead, about the bruises on her lovely body, the ragged scratches, and the bite marks. He heard her screaming in his mind.

He would not see her any more.

Julie opened her eyes and saw tiny falling shadows on the wall. She turned her head and looked out through the window. It was beginning to snow. The whiteness of it reminded her of the morning Eddy had first shown her the photographs.

The photographs. That was what had woken her. She closed her eyes and concentrated. They were burning. She could see the prints and negatives scattered on the bottom of a large enamel pan-the kind used for developing film. Bright flames crackled on them and the enamel was smudging.

Julie held her breath. She pushed her mental gaze further- to scan the room that was lit by the flaming enamel pan-until it came to rest upon the broken thing that dangled and swayed, suspended from the closet hook.

She sighed. It hadn’t lasted very long. That was the trouble with a mind like Eddy’s. The very weakness which made it vulnerable to her soon broke it down. Julie opened her eyes, her ugly child’s face puckered in a smile. Well, there were others.

She stretched her scrawny body languidly. Posing at the window, the drugged Coke, the motel photographs-these were getting dull by now although that place in the woods was wonderful. Especially in the early morning with the mist outside, the car like an oven. That she’d keep for a while; and the violence of course. The rest would have to go. She’d think of something better next time.

Philip Harrison had never noticed the girl in his Physics class until that day—

Amelia arrived at her apartment at six-fourteen. Hanging her coat in the hall closet, she carried the small package into the living room and sat on the sofa. She nudged off her shoes while she unwrapped the package on her lap. The wooden box resembled a casket. Amelia raised its lid and smiled. It was the ugliest doll she’d ever seen. Seven inches long and carved from wood, it had a skeletal body and an oversized head. Its expression was maniacally fierce, its pointed teeth completely bared, its glaring eyes protuberant. It clutched an eight-inch spear in its right hand. A length of fine, gold chain was wrapped around its body from the shoulders to the knees. A tiny scroll was wedged between the doll and the inside wall of its box. Amelia picked it up and unrolled it. There was handwriting on it. This is He Who Kills, it began. He is a deadly hunter. Amelia smiled as she read the rest of the words. Arthur would be pleased.

The thought of Arthur made her turn to look at the telephone on the table beside her. After a while, she sighed and set the wooden box on the sofa. Lifting the telephone to her lap, she picked up the receiver and dialled a number.

Her mother answered.

“Hello, Mom,” Amelia said.

“Haven’t you left yet?” her mother asked.

Amelia steeled herself. “Mom, I know it’s Friday night—” she started.

She couldn’t finish. There was silence on the line. Amelia closed her eyes. Mom, please, she thought. She swallowed. “There’s this man,” she said. “His name is Arthur Breslow. He’s a high school teacher.”

“You aren’t coming,” her mother said.

Amelia shivered. “It’s his birthday,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked at the doll. “I sort of promised him we’d… spend the evening together.”

Her mother was silent. There aren’t any good movies playing tonight, anyway, Amelia’s mind continued. “We could go tomorrow night,” she said.

Her mother was silent.

“Mom?”

“Now even Friday night’s too much for you.”

“Mom, I see you two, three nights a week.”

“To visit,” said her mother. “When you have your own room here.”

“Mom, let’s not start on that again” Amelia said. I’m not a child, she thought. Stop treating me as though I were a child!

“How long have you been seeing him?” her mother asked.

“A month or so.”

“Without telling me,” her mother said.

“I had every intention of telling you.” Amelia’s head was starting to throb. I will not get a headache, she told herself. She looked at the doll. It seemed to be glaring at her. “He’s a nice man, Mom,” she said.