Ride the Nightmare

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.

Helen ran at him but his left shoe, kicking out, glanced off her shoulder stunningly and she reeled back against the stove, gasping as her side rammed against one of the control knobs.

In her bedroom, Connie called, “Mommy?” in a frightened voice. Helen aimed instinctively toward her, then back again.

The man was forcing down the grip that Chris still had on his wrist. He had the advantage of gravity, his right leg pinning Chris against the booth, the weight of his body adding to his strength. As Helen pushed away from the stove, she saw Chris throw a pleading look across the man’s shoulder.

She rushed at the man again, catching at his suit, but he twisted way from her. The pistol was only inches from Chris’s forehead now. Desperately, he tried to free himself, his body lurching spasmodically, but the man’s leg held him pinned. Again, Helen grabbed the man’s arm, again his left foot shot out. almost knocking her legs from under her. She staggered backward with a gasp.

“Helen, the knife!”

She stiffened, looking blankly at Chris’s straining face.

Her eyes fled down across the floor and picked out the white-handled carving knife he’d held before. Mechanically, she started for it, hardly aware of the glass splinter that gouged into the sole of her bare foot.

“No, you don’t!” cried the man.

Whirling, Helen was just in time to see his body flung backward from the booth as Chris, one knee raised, shoved him away. The man went flailing across the floor. He crashed against the toppled dishwasher and fell across it, the revolver flying from his fingers and sliding underneath the stove. Helen shrank against the wall as Chris came running at the man.

The man shot out his hand and grabbed the carving knife. Lunging upward, he tried to drive it into Chris’s chest. Chris flung up his arm and deflected the stab. The man drew back his arm again and Chris jumped forward, grabbing at his wrist with both hands. For a few seconds, the two of them stood immobile, trembling. Then, abruptly, the man’s arm seemed to crumple, the knife was arcing downward, the blade tip turning in, and all sound had disappeared in the man’s choking gasp.

For a moment he looked at Chris in dumb astonishment. Then he lowered his eyes and gaped down at his own hand still clutching the handle of the knife that was buried in his chest.

“You goddam—” he started in a dull, flat voice.

Then he twisted around and his white face came falling toward Helen. She felt his bony fingers clutching at her breasts, her stomach, sliding down her legs. She heard his chin thud on the floor, his forehead pressing on the hem of her robe.

She couldn’t move She stared down at the motionless figure, her mouth open, watching the scarlet thread that was beginning to extend itself across the floor.

Chris fell on his knees beside the man, rolling him onto his side so that one pale blue eye stared upward. His hand slid under the man’s coat and held a moment. Then his face was raised to Helen, his voice faint against the crying of their child.

Dead, he whispered.

Chapter Three

The sound of his voice seemed to release her. Gagging, she stumbled toward the sink, almost falling as the weight of the man’s head held back the bottom of her robe. She jerked herself free and heard the man’s head thump on the door.

She lost her supper then. Chris came over and put his hand against her forehead but she twisted away. He stood beside her helplessly.

When it was over. Helen leaned against the sink panting weakly. Her hand reached automatically for the faucet and the rush of water began to clean the sink.

In the bedroom, Connie was screaming. Chris said, “I’ll go to her,” and turned away.

“No.” Pulling down a dish towel, Helen dried herself, not even looking at him as she started for the door. Her stomach muscles tensed again as she saw the man’s blood running across the linoleum. She walked past the body quickly, drying her eyes with the towel. She tried not to think. Her baby was crying, that was all that mattered.

Connie was sitting up in bed.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Helen asked, hardly recognizing her voice.

“Mommy!”

As she sank down on the bed, Helen realized how exhausted she felt. She put her arms around Connie and kissed her cheek.

“It’s all right, baby” she murmured. She smoothed back the hair from Connie’s forehead. “It’s all right. Mommy’s here.”

“Mommy—Mommy.

“Yes, sweetheart.”

She held her child in the darkness and whispered comfort to her even though she knew that she was living in a comfortless world.

When Connie had gone back to sleep, Helen went into the bathroom to wash. The face she saw in the mirror was not a pleasant one.

As she was drying herself, she became conscious of her bare foot and remembered the sliver of glass she’d stepped on. Sitting down on the edge of the bathtub, she looked at the bottom of her foot

The sliver was a small one. She had to get a pair of tweezers from the medicine cabinet before she could remove it. Pressing out the blood, she cleaned the tiny gash with alcohol. She didn’t bother to bandage it.

She sat there with her eyes shut, knowing that she’d have to go back to the kitchen. All she wanted to do was get into bed and stay there, She’d never felt so tired in her life.

She tried to visualize performing as a wife and mother the next day but it was impossible. The continuity of her life seemed to have ceased in that moment when she realized that, for more than seven years, she’d loved only part of a man.

Helen stood and left the bathroom. In the living room, she found her slipper and eased her foot into it. She noticed that the kitchen light was out and wondered if Chris had gone. As she did, he came in by the front door, shut it behind himself and locked it

“No one seems to have heard anything,” he said. “It’s lucky Grace and Jack are gone.” Grace and Jack were their neighbors on the left.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s lucky “

“I didn’t mean it that way.” he said.

Helen let herself down onto the sofa and leaned back heavily It was so quiet in the house she could hear the humming of the electric clock in the kitchen. Chris stayed by the door, watching her.

“Well… ?” she finally asked.

His shoulders slumped, “It’s up to you,” he said.

“Why me?”

He made no reply.

“No, it isn’t up to me,” she said, “I don’t fit in anywhere.”

“Helen, that isn’t so!”

“Isn’t it?”

“Do you think I enjoyed keeping it from you all these years?”

“I’m sure it doesn’t matter.”

“But it does!” he cried. “It made me miserable to—!”