Ride the Nightmare

“Outside.’

“No!“ She lurched up from the bed and caught his arm. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Honey, I’m not going to just stand here and risk your life and Connie’s,” he said. “He has a gun and—”

“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.

Chapter Two

A dry gasp tensed her throat as Chris’s ringers 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