Ride the Nightmare

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.