Ride the Nightmare (12 page)

He jerked open the door of the Ford and slid in, pulled the door shut again. Hastily, he slid the key into its socket and twisted it. The motor coughed, failed. Chris turned the key again, jerking out the choke, then shoving it in as the engine turned over. He pumped at the gas pedal until the engine sound flared. Quickly, he knocked the shift into
Drive
and the car jolted forward.

He glanced up into the rear-view mirror. He couldn’t see the shack; it was beyond that clump of trees. He felt an uncontrollable tensing in his stomach and chest—as if invisible elastic cords were binding him to his wife and child and, as he drove, the cords were
growing more and more taut until they threatened to tear his insides loose, leaving the better part of him behind. It seemed impossible to drive away like this knowing where they were—to leave them alone with men who would kill without hesitation. Yet there was nothing else to do—or, if there were, his tortured mind could not discover it. Rescue was beyond his means; he knew that. He was just a fallible man. Only blinding fury had enabled him to fight successfully with Adam before. There was no such life-giving strength in the fear that gripped him now.

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?”

“Yes.” For a second, Chris was startled that Willoughby knew her name. Then, he realized, Willoughby had been Helen’s doctor too before they were married.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked the doctor.

“She—fell,” said Chris, “We were out hiking in Latigo Canyon. And she fell.”

“Where is she?” asked Willoughby, quickly.

Chris cleared his throat. “She’s still out there,” he said.

“What?”

Chris felt the waves of dizziness coming over him again, the sense of nightmarish unreality. How could he possibly be standing here lying to this man, attempting to lure him to his possible death? Was he insane?

“She—I couldn’t move her,” Chris heard himself going on despite the horror he felt, “I was afraid to. She had a bad fall.”

Willoughby turned abruptly to the nurse’s desk and grabbed the telephone. He picked up the receiver and started to dial.

“Who are you calling?” asked Chris, unaware of the frightened thinness of his voice.

“Hospital,” said Willoughby. “We’ll get an ambulance out there right away.” He finished dialing and listened. “You should have done this,” he said grimly.

“No, you can’t,” Chris said. Everything was going wrong. Every second brought Helen and Connie closer to death.

Willoughby looked at him in surprise.

“You have to come with me,” said Chris.

“My dear man—”

“I said you—” Chris broke off as there was a clicking on the telephone, a faint voice.

“Emergency, please,” said Willoughby.

“
No
.” Chris hand shot out and depressed the cradle He held it down frozenly as if he were afraid that, if he released it, the connection would be re-established.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Willoughby stared at him incredulously.

“She doesn’t want an ambulance,” said Chris in a trembling voice. “She wants you. You have to come with me.”

Willoughby looked at the welted, blood-caked bruise on Chris’s temple, then met Chris’s gaze again.

“Come in my office, Mr. Martin,” he said.

“It’s not my head!” Chris snapped.

He glanced up at the wall clock and saw that it was almost quarter to one. A sob broke in his chest and, suddenly his right hand was clutching at the doctor’s wrist.

“
You’re coming with me
,” he said. He tried to sound authoritative but his voice was too ridden with terror.

Willoughby pulled back. “Let go of me, Mr. Martin,” he said.

The nurse caught at Chris’s arm and held him. “You’d better sit down,” she said, sounding coolly, maddeningly unruffled.

“No!” Chris jerked free of her and grabbed at Willoughby’s white jacket. “You’ve got to come with me!” he said.

“Mr. Martin!”

With a violent effort, Chris forced himself quiet. He clenched his teeth and let go of Willoughby’s jacket.

“Please,” he said, “Will you come with me? It’s a matter of life and death.”

Willoughby took his arm with a strength surprising for his age and build.

“Now, sit down,” he said, firmly, “We’ll take care of this. But there’s no time to—”

“Are you coming with me?”

“Your wife will be taken care of,” said Willoughby, “Just sit down and—”

“You’ve got to come with me now!” All the terror billowed up in Chris as he visualized Steve pointing the revolver at Helen, pulling the trigger, pointing it at Connie—

“Give me your gun,” he demanded, “Quickly.”

Willoughby and the nurse gaped at him.

“Oh,
God
!” With a sobbing cry, Chris whirled and jerked open the door. He lunged across the waiting room without seeing any of the patients. Behind him, Willoughby shouted, “Mr. Martin!” Then Chris was skidding to a halt at the end of the hall, pulling the door open, racing out into the parking lot.

Willoughby came running out and raised his arm.

“Mr. Martin!” he shouted, “Wait!”

Chris gunned the Ford across the parking lot and roared onto the street, only one thought left in his fear-crazed mind.

The gun at home.

Steve’s sounds of pain came regularly now. Every few seconds, he would make a throaty noise which was partially a grunt, more an involuntary whine. He slumped tensely in the chair, shoulders forward, eyes staring, apparently sightlessly, across the dim room of the shack. Whenever Adam made any kind of movement, however, the eyes shifted instantly, Steve’s fingers flexed on the revolver stock. Adam leaned against the opposite wall, watching him—waiting.

Helen and Connie were against another wall, sitting on the floor. Connie, her head in Helen’s lap, had fallen into a heavy, emotion-spent sleep. Helen kept stroking gently at her hair, her eyes fixed on Steve. If he lost consciousness, Adam would grab his gun, kill them and leave—probably steal a car or stop one on the road, kill the motorist, then head for Mexico.

She kept telling herself that she should be on her feet, ready to rush for Steve’s revolver in the event he fainted. She felt so tired though, so strengthless. If only she could rest; it seemed as if days had passed without rest. Her eyelids felt weighted.

Worse, it was impossible to retain specific dread any longer. It was so quiet in the shack except for the faint sounds Steve was making, the occasional squeak of the chair. Her mind could not hold on to tension, could not keep her muscles prepared to act in defense of her life and Connie’s. She was exhausted by fear, depleted by the savage pattern of shocks she’d been exposed to since the telephone first rang not even sixteen hours before. The realization of how little time had passed was startling.