Read Online Nightmare At 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard Matheson
Tags: General Interest
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his wrist, threw back his head with a whining gasp. *
He stood there, eyes clouded with pain, staring at the ceiling. He looked at the crack that ran in a crazy meandering line across the ceiling. Then he closed his eyes.
And began to sense something. Intangible. A sense of menace. He wondered about it. Why it's myself, of course, he answered then. It is the moral decrepitude of my own subconscious. It is bawling out to me, saying: You are to be punished for driving your poor wife away to her mother's arms. You are not a man. You are a-
"Oh, shut up," he said.
He washed his hands and face. He ran an inspecting finger over his chin. He needed a shave. He opened the cabinet door gingerly and took out his straight razor. He held it up and looked at it.
The handle has expanded. He told himself that quickly as the blade appeared to fall out of the handle wilfully. It made him shiver to see it flop out like that and glitter in the light from the cabinet light fixture.
He stared in repelled fascination at the bright steel. He touched the blade edge. So sharp, he thought. The slightest touch would sever flesh. What a hideous thing it was.
'It's my hand."
He said it involuntarily and shut the razor suddenly. It was his hand, it had to be. It couldn't have been the razor moving by itself. That was sick imagination.
But he didn't shave. He put the razor back in the cabinet with a vague sense of forestalling doom.
Don't care if we are expected to shave every day, he muttered. I'm not taking a chance on my hand slipping. I'd better get a safety razor anyway. This kind isn't for me, I'm too nervous.
Suddenly, impelled by those words, the picture of him eighteen years before flew into his brain.
He remembered a date he'd had with Sally. He remembered telling her he was so calm it was akin to being dead. Nothing bothers me, he'd said. And it was true, at the time. He remembered too telling her he didn't like coffee, that one cup kept him awake at night. That he didn't smoke, didn't like the taste or smell. I like to stay healthy, he'd said. He remembered the exact words.
"And now," he muttered at his lean and worn reflection.
Now he drank gallons of coffee a day. Until it sloshed like a black pool in his stomach and he couldn't sleep any more than he could fly. Now he smoked endless strings of finger-yellowing cigarettes until his throat felt raw and clogged, until he couldn't write in pencil because his hand shook so much.
But all that stimulation didn't help his writing any. Paper still remained blank in the typewriter. Words never came, plots died on him. Characters eluded him, mocking him with laughter from behind the veil of their non-creation.
And time passed. It flew by faster and faster, seeming to single him out for highest punishment. He-a man who had begun to value time so, neurotically that it overbalanced his life and made him sick to think of its passing.
As he brushed his teeth he tried to recall when this irrational temper had first begun to control him. But there was no way of tracing its course. Somewhere in mists that could not be pierced, it had started. With a word of petulance, an angry contraction of muscles. With a glare of unrecallable animosity.
And from there, like a swelling amoeba, it had gone its own perverted and downward course of evolution, reaching its present nadir in him; a taut embittered man who found his only solace in hating.
He spit out white froth and rinsed his mouth. As he put down the glass, it cracked and a barb of glass drove into his hand.
"Damn!" he yelled.
He spun on his heel and clenched his fist. It sprang open instantly as the sliver sank into his palm. He stood with tears on his cheeks, breathing heavily. He thought of Sally listening to him, hearing once more the audible evidence of his snapping nerves.
Stop it!-he ordered himself. You can never do anything until you rid yourself of this enervating temper.
He closed his eyes. For a moment he wondered why it seemed
He stood there, eyes clouded with pain, staring at the ceiling. He looked at the crack that ran in a crazy meandering line across the ceiling. Then he closed his eyes.
And began to sense something. Intangible. A sense of menace. He wondered about it. Why it's myself, of course, he answered then. It is the moral decrepitude of my own subconscious. It is bawling out to me, saying: You are to be punished for driving your poor wife away to her mother's arms. You are not a man. You are a-
"Oh, shut up," he said.
He washed his hands and face. He ran an inspecting finger over his chin. He needed a shave. He opened the cabinet door gingerly and took out his straight razor. He held it up and looked at it.
The handle has expanded. He told himself that quickly as the blade appeared to fall out of the handle wilfully. It made him shiver to see it flop out like that and glitter in the light from the cabinet light fixture.
He stared in repelled fascination at the bright steel. He touched the blade edge. So sharp, he thought. The slightest touch would sever flesh. What a hideous thing it was.
'It's my hand."
He said it involuntarily and shut the razor suddenly. It was his hand, it had to be. It couldn't have been the razor moving by itself. That was sick imagination.
But he didn't shave. He put the razor back in the cabinet with a vague sense of forestalling doom.
Don't care if we are expected to shave every day, he muttered. I'm not taking a chance on my hand slipping. I'd better get a safety razor anyway. This kind isn't for me, I'm too nervous.
Suddenly, impelled by those words, the picture of him eighteen years before flew into his brain.
He remembered a date he'd had with Sally. He remembered telling her he was so calm it was akin to being dead. Nothing bothers me, he'd said. And it was true, at the time. He remembered too telling her he didn't like coffee, that one cup kept him awake at night. That he didn't smoke, didn't like the taste or smell. I like to stay healthy, he'd said. He remembered the exact words.
"And now," he muttered at his lean and worn reflection.
Now he drank gallons of coffee a day. Until it sloshed like a black pool in his stomach and he couldn't sleep any more than he could fly. Now he smoked endless strings of finger-yellowing cigarettes until his throat felt raw and clogged, until he couldn't write in pencil because his hand shook so much.
But all that stimulation didn't help his writing any. Paper still remained blank in the typewriter. Words never came, plots died on him. Characters eluded him, mocking him with laughter from behind the veil of their non-creation.
And time passed. It flew by faster and faster, seeming to single him out for highest punishment. He-a man who had begun to value time so, neurotically that it overbalanced his life and made him sick to think of its passing.
As he brushed his teeth he tried to recall when this irrational temper had first begun to control him. But there was no way of tracing its course. Somewhere in mists that could not be pierced, it had started. With a word of petulance, an angry contraction of muscles. With a glare of unrecallable animosity.
And from there, like a swelling amoeba, it had gone its own perverted and downward course of evolution, reaching its present nadir in him; a taut embittered man who found his only solace in hating.
He spit out white froth and rinsed his mouth. As he put down the glass, it cracked and a barb of glass drove into his hand.
"Damn!" he yelled.
He spun on his heel and clenched his fist. It sprang open instantly as the sliver sank into his palm. He stood with tears on his cheeks, breathing heavily. He thought of Sally listening to him, hearing once more the audible evidence of his snapping nerves.
Stop it!-he ordered himself. You can never do anything until you rid yourself of this enervating temper.
He closed his eyes. For a moment he wondered why it seemed
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