Charles Williams - Hell Hath No Fury

I stood between two cars and peered out, looking up Main. A block and a half up the lights of the restaurant poured out into the night, but there was no one on the street. The constable would be inside, probably, drinking coffee. I ducked back and climbed into the Ford, reaching for the starter. The motor turned over slowly, as if the battery was weak. I jabbed it again, and it caught this time.

It’s all right, I thought. Driving out there will charge it up. I got it in gear and rolled out into the cross street, not turning on the lights until I was off the lot. Going over two blocks, I turned left and ran parallel to Main until I was in the edge of town, and then cut back and got on the highway. There was very little traffic. I met only two or three cars. I made the turnoff, feeling my stomach tighten up, and started uphill through the pines. As I passed the old farm I turned my head and looked towards the barn and wished I’d never heard of the money that was buried there.

After I crossed the bridge over the river and climbed up out of the bottom I slowed down, trying to remember all the details of the road. I had to be careful not to get too near. He’d hear the car. I stared intently ahead into the beam of light, watching the wall of timber going past on each side and disappearing into the blackness behind me. Then just after I was over the crest of the ridge and starting down I found what I wanted, a place where I could get the car off the road on firm ground and pine needles which wouldn’t show the tracks. I pulled off and cut the motor, leaving the key in the switch, and then turned off the lights.

Velvety, impenetrable blackness closed in around me. I got out and closed the door and held my hand up in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see it. It was like being blind. I groped my way back out to the road, and when I was out from under the trees it was a little better.

A sudden thought occurred to me. How would I ever find the car when I came back? In this ocean of blackness there was nothing to mark the place I’d driven off the road. I took out my handkerchief and dropped it beside the ruts. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see it very faintly, a tiny blur of gray.

It should be less than a quarter mile to the clearing. I turned and faced downhill, feeling the tightness in my chest and the rapid beating of my heart. For the first time I noticed the charged and sullen vacuum of the night itself. There were no stars, and the air had the hot, dead feel of a closed and sealed-off room. Not a leaf moved. There were no night sounds at all. Everything seemed to be waiting, holding its breath for an explosion that might come any minute. Then in a moment there was a growl of thunder somewhere off in the west. It wouldn’t be long.

I started downhill in the darkness, feeling my way and stumbling now and then in the ruts. Once I missed a turn and blundered off into the trees. Panic caught up with me for a minute. Suppose I lost the road? I’d never find my way out until daylight. And then the really horrible thought came sweeping over me. What if I lost it afterwards? If anyone saw me down here, or coming out of here, it could mean the electric chair. I cursed and tried to shake off the chill as I turned and stumbled back into the road.

How long had it been now? The road seemed to go on forever, winding down off the hill. Was I sure I was on the right one? I had to be. There wasn’t any other. But I should have come to the clearing before this. The thunder was growing nearer. I wanted to run, and cursed myself, knowing how stupid it was. It’s just the waiting, I thought. Once I get there I’ll be all right. And then I was out in the clearing.

The shack would be around to the right, less than fifty yards away. I felt my way cautiously along the faint traces of the road. A long roll of thunder growled and reverberated across the sky, sounding very near. In a moment there was a jagged flash of lightning and I saw the cabin in the greenish-yellow, unnatural light, and then in the quick fraction of a second before it was gone I caught a glimpse of the car standing near the porch. Breath swelled up in my chest, making it painfully tight. He was home. Then blackness rolled back over everything like a breaking sea, and thunder crashed over the clearing.

Temporarily blinded by the lightning flash, I couldn’t see anything now. It was like the bottom of a coal-mine. I groped my way ahead, moving in the direction I had seen the shack. Then it began to take shape, a dense pile of shadow a little nearer than the inky wall of trees behind it. I was very near the front porch. I could hardly breathe. The tension was almost unbearable. I located the door and stepped carefully up on to the porch, the rubber-soled shoes making no sound at all.

The bed, I thought—it’s just inside the door, on the right. All I have to do is step inside and turn and reach down, and before he gets his hand on that gun I’ll have mine on his throat and turn the blackmailing bastard off like a leaky faucet. I moved the other foot, easing it down like a cat. I was in the doorway, and then inside, and turning.

Everything fell apart at once and the night erupted into wildness. There was a sudden, brilliant flash of lightning which lit “up the inside of the shack like a flash-bulb going off, and then it was gone and the thunder crashed at the same time. It shook the house, and through the roar and rattle of it I heard the sharp report of the gun as he fired. I was turning, and diving towards the floor, and as the blackness rolled back over us I saw the orange spurt of flame as he shot again, and then I was conscious that woven into all this madness of sound there was one more and that it was a woman screaming without beginning or end or drawing breath or changing pitch, going on and on through the dying roll of thunder and the crashing echo of the gun and the meaty impact as we slammed into each other and fell to the floor together and then the sound of the gun again. He was under me and I was trying to locate the flailing hand which had the gun and get hold of it before he could put it against me somewhere and shoot, and then the scream did change at last as she put her feet out of the bed and on top of us and fell beyond us on the floor. He shifted under me and whirled me over until we were both lying on our sides, and I felt something under my ribs and knew he didn’t have the gun any more. He had let it slip out of his hand when I’d crashed into him, and now we were fighting on top of a loaded automatic with the safety off.

The scream was gone now, and I could hear the desperate sucking sound as she fought to get her breath, and the scrambling as she got up off the floor and ran out the back door into the timber just as the first drumming roar of the rain began, and then the two of us were alone, fighting silently on the floor near the edge of the bed. I located his face with my left hand and swung the right and felt the shock go up my arm as I landed on his jaw. He was clawing wildly for me and I hit him again, and this time he jerked a little and lay still. I shifted my hands down to his throat and began to tighten them to shut off the blackmail forever, right at its source, and then there was a voice somewhere inside me screaming over and over that something was wrong and I had to stop before it was too late. I didn’t get it for a moment, and then when I did the strength went out of me and I turned him loose, cursing with a futile sort of rage. I couldn’t do it now. Of course I couldn’t. How could I, with a witness to it before it even happened?

I got to my knees, and felt around on the floor until I found the gun. Moving my hand across it until I located the safety, I clicked it off, and put it in my pocket, and then got up with the breath roaring in my throat, still raging, knowing I couldn’t do it now and that I’d never get another chance, and that we were ruined, all on account of that crazy bitch of a woman, whoever she was, running around out there through the timber in the rain. She had seen me in the lightning flash, the same as he had, and if I killed him she could send me to the chair for it.