Richard Matheson: Ride the Nightmare

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.

Abruptly, the motorcyclist roared out into the outside lane and put on speed. In another few seconds, he was pulling by the Ford and Chris could see the expression on his face. He was a teen-ager wearing a black jacket and a black, goggled helmet.

With an indrawn hiss, Chris jammed down the pedal and the Ford surged forward again. Lost: one precious minute.

He was just speeding into the Malibu area when he remembered the doctor Helen’s mother went to. They’d taken her to him once when she’d cut herself badly on a piece of glass. The doctor was close by. Chris’s gaze leaped ahead, searching for the turn-off. Just a little way now.

It was almost twenty-five minutes to one as he pulled into the small parking lot beside Dr. Arthur Willoughby’s office. He was out of the car before the fan blades had stopped turning. He raced across the lot, jumped onto the one-step porch and pulled open the door, lunged inside.

The waiting room was at the end of a short hallway. Chris’s footsteps sounded muffled on the carpeting as he half ran along it. Steve had to wait. He had to.

There were four people in the waiting room: an old lady, a workman in overalls, a mother and her small boy. They were sitting around the walls of the small room, the old lady on a couch, looking at a National Geographic Magazine, the workman playing with the cap in his hands, the little boy sitting on the edge of a chair swinging his feet back and forth, kicking the metal legs. When Chris came in, the boy looked up and stared. He watched Chris move across the room toward the partition of opaque glass that opened on the nurse’s anteroom.

“Stop kicking,” said the boy’s mother. She did not look up from her movie magazine,

Chris tapped on the partition with the nail of a forefinger. From the corner of his eye, he saw the old lady glance up at him. He drew in a quick breath and looked intently at the moving patch of shadow behind the glass. Come on, he thought. Come on! He bit his teeth together, reached forward to tap the glass again.

The shadow darkened, the partition was drawn aside.

”Yes?” asked the nurse. She was young, bleached blonde, her face so darkly tanned it made her lipstick color dull,

“Could I see Dr. Willoughby?” Chris asked her.

“About your head?” she asked.

“What?” Chris started. He’d forgotten. “No,” he said, “No.”

“Did you phone for an appointment?” asked the nurse.

“There was no time. I have to see him right away. Please… can I—?”

“I’m afraid there are several people ahead of you,” she told him.

“You don’t understand.” Chris was suddenly conscious of the fact that every patient in the waiting room was looking at him. He leaned in close, not noticing the way the nurse edged back a little.

“This is an emergency,” he said, “I’ve got to see him immediately.’

“I’m afraid I can’t—” the nurse began.

“Now,” he said, his voice flaring strickenly. “Look. Tell him that Mrs. Shaw’s son-in-law wants to see him.”

“Oh. Are you—?”

“Please! There’s no time!”

The nurse looked at him blankly, her lips twitching. Then, with a brief nod, she turned away. Abruptly, she turned back and reached forward to slide shut the partition. Chris stood there watching it move until it had thumped shut. He closed his eyes for a second. Helen. Connie. He thought about them in the shack with Steve. Forty-five minutes. He looked around the room with panicked eyes but there was no clock on the wall.

“What time is it?” he blurted to the man in overalls.

“What?” The man started, blinked up at Chris. “I—I don’t have a watch,” he said.

The old lady put down the National Geographic Magazine and, slowly, drew out the extending chain of her lapel watch. She picked at the face until she had opened the tiny round door on it. She squinted down. “It is just past twenty minutes until two o’clock,” she told him.

Chris felt a sudden traction in his stomach muscles. He made a faint, dazed sound.

“I beg your pardon,” said the old lady, “It is just past twenty minutes until one o’clock.”

“Thank you,” muttered Chris. He glanced at the little boy who was staring at him with a vacant expression, his shoes still thumping on the legs of the chair.

”Stop kicking,” said his mother, reading. There was no inflection in her voice.

Chris turned back and stared at the glass partition again. Inside, he heard a faint murmuring of voices. He recognized Dr. Willoughby’s voice. Oh, God, hurry up! he thought. He looked over at the door, his hand twitching empathically with his need to grab the knob, turn it, push inside. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, hissing a little as he touched the bruise. What was he going to tell the doctor, how could he get him away from the office? It was true, there was no answer. Everything was insanely impossible. And yet he had to make it possible—and in twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes!

He couldn’t help the indrawn sob in his breath. He stiffened reactively, then, on an impulse, grabbed the knob of the door and turned it.

Dr. Willoughby was just coming down the hall when Chris entered. He jerked up his head abruptly, an expression of stern surprise on his face.

“What is it Mr.—?”

“Martin. I’m—I’m Mrs. Shaw’s son-in-law if you—”

“Yes. Yes. I recall,” said Willoughby, “What’s the trouble. Your head?”

Chris swallowed quickly and glanced across Willoughby’s shoulder at the nurse. She was staring at him. “No,” he said, “It’s my wife.”

“Helen?”