Ride the Nightmare (2 page)

“A
gun
?”

“Of course he has a gun. What do you—?”

“But the police will be here any second now.”

“
Wait here
,” he ordered.

“Chris, don’t!”

As he moved across the hall, she caught his arm again. “Chris, you mustn’t!”

“Honey, let me go,” he said.

Helpless, she followed as he pulled away and walked into the kitchen. There, in the darkness, she heard him pulling out a drawer. She shivered violently at the sound of knife blades sliding against each other.

“Oh… God, why don’t we have a gun?” Chris muttered savagely.

Helen shivered again; this time not from fear but from something in his voice—a tone she’d never heard before. It was as if, abruptly, he had been transformed into a man she didn’t know. She drew back, staring at the dark shadow of him turning from the cupboard with something long and pointed in his right hand.

“Chris, no,” she said.

Then, suddenly, both of them had stopped moving and were standing frozenly, their heads turned toward the living room as they listened to the sound of the front door knob being turned from side to side.

A dry gasp tensed her throat as Chris’s fingers closed on her wrist and pulled her into the kitchen.

“Don’t make a sound,” he told her. His voice was the stranger’s voice again.

“Chris, we—”

“Shhhh!”

She bit her lower lip.

“Stay in here,” he whispered. “Don’t move.” He pushed her against the wall, one hand pressing at her shoulder.

“What are you going to do?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Just stay here.”

He stepped into the living room and stood there looking toward the front porch. The man had stepped in front of the windows now, his body framed against the light of the street lamp. Helen thought that he had his face pressed against one of the windows as though he was trying to see through the blinds. She had the hideous sensation that he was watching Chris.

“
Chris
,” she whispered.

As he stepped back into the kitchen, the shadow of the man stepped off the porch and disappeared.

“I told you to be quiet!” Chris said.

“But I have an idea.”

“What?”

“If the man saw you he’d know he made a mistake.”

“
What?
” The sharpness of his whisper made her flinch.

“Well, isn’t it true?” she asked. “If we turned on the light and—”

“Helen, he has a gun!” Chris said. “He’s not here to look at me!”

She bumped against the door jamb as he spoke. His voice was so harsh and alien.

“Now stay here,” he said, “and—”

He stopped instantly, his right hand clamping on her wrist. Helen felt a crawling on her scalp at the sound of fingernails scraping on the back living room screens.

“
Don’t move
,” Chris said.

Outside, she heard heels clicking on the patio, moving, it seemed, quite casually. I’m going to scream, she thought, and frantically pressed her lips together.

The clicking of the heels stopped and she felt Chris’s grip loosen. “Go in our bedroom,” he told her.

He pushed her from the kitchen and she found herself walking across the living room. She wanted to stay with Chris. Yet, at the same time, his remoteness seemed to drive her from him. She stumbled into the hall and stopped there, looking back toward the kitchen. Chris was not in sight.

Instinctively, she started back. Then she saw a movement by the kitchen door and knew that he was still inside.

She whirled at a sound. The man was trying to open a window in Connie’s room. She went in, recoiled against the wall, gaze fastening to the shadow at the back window. No, her mind begged, no, he can’t get in. He can’t.

On the bed, Connie muttered in her sleep. Helen dug every nail into her palms until the biting pain drove away the blackness that threatened to envelop her. Bracing herself, she pushed off from the wall and edged across the room, her eyes never leaving the window. She saw the man’s arms reach up, heard him tugging at the frame. Connie started fussing again. Oh, God, don’t wake up! She almost cried the words aloud. If only Chris would come, if only she could call him.

The man turned and walked away from the window.

Breath rushed from Helen’s lungs and she became conscious of a cold sweat trickling down her back and sides. Hurriedly, she leaned over the bed and, drawing a Kleenex from her bathrobe pocket, patted gently at the dew of perspiration across Connie’s forehead. Her trembling fingers brushed aside the soft hairs, then drew back the spread so that Connie had only a sheet and blanket over her.

Straightening up, she turned quickly toward the hall. She’d call the police again. What was the matter with them? Chris had told them he’d been threatened. Didn’t that mean anything to—?

In the kitchen, a window was broken in.

There was a cry of pain, then the sound of the door banging violently against the cupboard. As Helen rushed across the living room, there was another cry, then a scuffle of shoes on the linoleum. Her left slipper flew off but she kept on running.

“
God damn—!
” She heard the fury of the man’s voice. Another cry of pain, a rushing sound, then a loud crash as someone, colliding with the dishwasher, knocked it over. Helen lurched into the kitchen doorway and saw a figure near the doorway.

“
Chris?
” she gasped.

The figure recoiled a step. The man’s harsh voice surrounded her. “Put on the light,” he ordered.

“Don’t shoot!”

“The
light
!”

Her shaking hand felt along the wall until it touched the switch, then pushed it up.

He was short, lean. Helen stared at his white face, at the tangled black hair across his forehead. She looked at the revolver he was holding in his hand. As the man leaned back against the kitchen door to close it, she saw blood running across the hand and dripping to the linoleum in bright spots.

Chris’s groan made her glance over to where he was struggling up from the floor in a debris of broken dishes and silverware. She saw a red welt rising on the side of his jaw and a ragged scratch across his cheek as if he’d been struck with the pistol barrel.

She looked back at the man. He was standing by the booth now, a man dressed in a stained serge suit that had been sewn together in places; a man who had a young face yet something old and terrible in his eyes.

“So.” He panted as he spoke. “I found you, Chris. I found you.”

“You’re making a mistake!” said Helen. “Can’t you see he’s not the one you’re after! Our name is Martin!”

She shivered as the man’s pale blue eyes turned on her. His lips flexed back from yellowish teeth in what was more a grimace than a smile.

“Martin, hanh?” he said.

The burst of hope she felt lasted only a second, vanishing as hatred returned to the man’s expression. He looked over at Chris who was on his feet now, holding on to the sink.

“Thought you could change your name,” he said. “Thought that was all you had to do. Just change your name and we’d never find you.”

Chris caught his breath and Helen started at the shocked expression on his face.

“Yeah, that’s right,” said the man, still breathing hard, “
we
. You thought you saw the last of us, didn’t you? Thought you really pulled a fast one.”

“You’ve made a mistake,” Helen told him. “Don’t you—?”

“Shut up!”

Helen shrank back and the man forced the thin, mirthless smile back to his lips.

“Thought you’d never see us again, didn’t you, Chrissie boy? Thought you were safe and sound.”

“Chris—” said Helen.

Now the man leaned back against the booth. Holding the revolver loosely, he pushed himself up onto the table and let his legs swing idly above the floor.

“I been waiting a long time for this, Chrissie boy,” he said. “For a long time I figured you got away from us. Then I saw that picture in
Life
magazine, you know? That was a lucky break for me, wasn’t it?”

The photograph in
Life
had shown Chris with the Santa Monica Wildcats, the boy’s baseball team he sponsored. In an exhibition game, they had managed to beat the Hollywood Stars 7–5. Helen recalled that Chris hadn’t wanted to be in that picture.

“We’re going to Mexico but I had to stop and see you first, didn’t I, Chrissie boy?” said the man. “I been waiting a long time for this.”

“You better go,” said Helen. “The police are coming and—”

She broke off as the man’s face hardened and he raised his gun.

“No!” she gasped, one hand reaching out as though to stop him.

The man relaxed and the smile returned to his lips. He didn’t even look at Helen.

“Now you didn’t call the police, did you, Chrissie boy?” he said. “I know you wouldn’t do that because, if you did, you’d go to jail, wouldn’t you? And you don’t want to go to jail, do you?”

Helen looked over at Chris with sickened eyes. The room seemed to waver around her. “Chris, you
did
call the—”

All of it fell into a pattern then. Chris’s strange reaction to the call, his refusal to let her telephone the police, his telling her that they couldn’t go over to Bill Albert’s house, his plan to go outside with a knife and stop the man before she could find out that…

Helen felt herself trembling with a sickness of despair which welled up in her before she could control it. With a body-wracking sob, she turned away, one hand thrown across her eyes.

“
Stay right here
,” the man’s voice ordered and she stopped, leaning against the door jamb.

“Helen—” She heard Chris’s pleading voice.

“You mean you haven’t told her?” the man asked.

“Leave her alone.” Chris muttered.

“But I think she should know all about it, don’t you, Chrissie boy?” said the man. “I think every wife should know all about her husband. That wasn’t nice of you, not telling her about your wicked past.” He clucked mockingly. “Shame on you, Chrissie boy.”

Helen barely heard him. It was as if the shock of discovery had drained the powers of her senses. Through a blur of tears she saw the living room stir gelatinously. The sound of the man’s voice faltered, one moment fading into silence, the next, flaring in her eardrums. Of smell and taste there was nothing and her flesh seemed numb as she leaned against the door frame.

Now the man seemed to notice, for the first time, that he was bleeding.

“Stuck me in the arm, didn’t you, Chrissie boy?” he said, almost amusedly. “Well, we’ll make up for that, won’t we?”

Abruptly, Helen turned, her heart jolting in slow, heavy beats, remembering that the man had come to kill Chris. “Maybe my husband didn’t call the police,” she said, “but I did.”

The man glanced over. “Good try, lady,” he said. “Just shut your mouth and maybe you won’t get hurt.”

“I tell you the police are—”

“Helen, don’t.” The sound of Chris’s defeated voice made her stop.

Chris turned to the man.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Just leave my wife alone.”

“Now what’s the hurry, Chrissie boy?” asked the man. “We got plenty of time to chat—” his voice lowered. “Before I kill you.”

“No.”

The man turned again and looked at Helen.

“Lady, I told you to keep your mouth shut,” he said.

“Why do you want to kill him?” she asked in a shaking voice. “You—”

“Hold it.”

Helen stopped. Then, hearing what the man did, she began to tremble. The man looked past her into the living room.

“You know,” he said, “that sounds just like a little girl.”

The sound of Connie’s crying seemed to fill the house.

“So you got a little girl,” the man said.

Chris seemed to lean forward.

“A little girl,” said the man. “Now that’s real sweet.”

“I said I’d go with you,” said Chris.

“Yeah, that’s what you said, isn’t it?”

The man’s amiable tone degraded in an instant, his face became a mask of animosity. “And what if I don’t want you to come with me?” he said.

Helen glanced across her shoulder automatically. “Please, may I—?” she began, then broke off as the man slid off the table edge.

“Cliff, I’m warning you,” said Chris.

The man seemed to snarl but there was no sound. “You’re warning me,” he said. “That’s funny, Chrissie boy.” He glanced over toward the living room. “All these years,” he said, “I been trying to figure out a way to pay you back.” His frail chest shuddered with breath. “But I never could till now.”

“Cliff, I’m warning you—!” said Chris, his face whitening.

“Shut up!” flared the man. “You’re not warning anybody!”

Helen remained in the doorway as he edged toward her. She stared at him with unbelieving eyes.

“You’re not—?” she started faintly.

“Get out of my way,” said the man.

Chris took a step away from the sink. “You’re not going to touch my girl,” he said.

“I’m not, hanh?” The man’s voice broke stridently. “I’ll show you whether I am or not!” He bumped against Helen and turned quickly, his dark eyes probing at her. She smelled the sweetish odor of whiskey on his breath and shrank back with a grimace.

“Look out,” he muttered and tried to pass her. Helen lost her balance and fell toward him, hands clutching out for support.

“Get away—!” His voice exploded in her ear as he shoved at her.

It happened so quickly that the man had no chance to raise his gun before Chris was charging into him, clamping rigid fingers over his wrist. Helen went stumbling back into the living room, collided with the edge of the sofa and fell across its arm.

As she pushed up, she saw Chris and the man struggling in the kitchen. Chris was holding the man’s wrist away from himself, the man was trying to push the barrel end against Chris’s stomach. They slipped and twisted on the smooth linoleum, teeth clenched, lips
drawn back in frozen grimaces. Helen stood watching them, torn between her instinct to help Chris and her need to get Connie out of the house.

Suddenly, the man’s right foot kicked out and Chris lost balance. He started falling and lurched his trunk forward to regain equilibrium. The two of them went thudding against the booth. The table shifted on its pivot and Chris dropped off heavily onto the yellow booth, the man bent over him.