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Authors: Richard Matheson

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BOOK: Duel
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“Just stay close to me,” you said, trying hard for a double meaning. “I'll take care of you.”
Primitive, but good enough for sixteen. She blushed more deeply.
The city towers flashed beneath. Far off, like a minute button on the fringes of spiderweb, you saw your machine. You eased the wheel forward; the tiny ship dipped down and began a long glide toward Earth. You kept your eyes on the control board with strict attention, wondering about this strange sense of excitement running pell-mell through your body, not knowing whether it presaged combat fatigue of one sort or another.
This was war. The city first. Hola!
The ship floated down to and hovered over the machine as you threw on the air brakes. Slowly, it sank to the roof like a butterfly settling on a flower.
You threw off the switch, heart pounding, all forgotten but the present danger. Grabbing the ray gun, you jumped out and ran to the edge of the roof.
Your machine was beyond the perimeter of the city. There were fields about. Your keen eyes flashed over the ground.
There was no sign of the enemy.
You hurried back to the ship. She was still sitting inside, watching
you. You turned the knob and the communicator system spilled out its endless drones of information. You stood impatiently until the announcer spoke your machine number and said the Rustons were within a mile of it.
You heard her drawn-in breath and noted the upward cast of frightened eyes in your direction. You turned off the set.
“Come, we'll go inside,” you said, holding the ray gun in a delightfully shaking hand. It was fun to be frightened. A fine sense of living dangerously. Wasn't that why you were here?
You helped her out. Her hand was cold. You squeezed it and gave her a half smile of confidence. Then, locking the door to the spacecar, to keep the foe out, you went down the stairs. As you entered the main room, your head was at once filled with the smooth hum of machinery.
Here, at this juncture of the adventure, you put down your ray gun and ammunition and explained the machinery to her. It is to be noted that you had no particular concern for the machinery as you spoke, being more aware of her proximity. Such charm, such youth, crying out for comfort.
You soon held her hand again. Then you had your arm around her lithesome waist and she was close. Something other than military defense planned itself in your mind.
Came the moment when she flicked up her drowsy lids and looked you smack-dab in the eye, as is the archaic literary passage. You found her violet eyes somewhat unbalancing. You drew her closer. The perfume of her rosy breath tied casual knots in your limbs. And yet there was still something holding you back.
Swish! Slap!
She stiffened and cried out.
The Rustons were at the walls!
You raced for the table upon which your ray gun rested. On the couch next to the table was your ammunition. You slung the case over
your shoulder. She ran up to you and, sternly, you handed her the preventive case. You felt like the self-assured General when he was in a grim mood.
“Keep the needles loaded and handy,” you said. “I may …”
The sentence died as another great slobbering Ruston slapped against the wall. The sound of its huge suckers slurped on the outside. They were searching for the machinery in the basement.
You checked the gun. It was ready.
“Stay here,” you muttered. “I have to go down.”
You didn't hear what she said. You dashed down the stairs and came bouncing out into the basement just as the first horror gushed over the edge of a window onto its metal floor like a stream of gravity-defying lava.
The row of blinking yellow eyes turned on you; your flesh crawled. The great brown-gold monstrosity began to scuttle across toward the machines with an oily squish. You almost froze in fear.
Then instinct came to the fore. You raised the gun quickly. A crackling, brilliantine-blue ray leaped from the muzzle, touched the scaly body and enveloped it. Screeching and the smell of frying oil filled the air. When the ray had dissipated, the dead Ruston lay black and smoking on the floor, its slime running across the welded seams.
You heard the sound of suckers behind. You whirled, blasted the second of the Rustons into greasy oblivion. Still another slid over the window edge and started toward you. Another burst from the gun and another scorched hulk lay twitching on the metal.
You swallowed a great lump of excitement in your throat, your head snapping around, your body leaping from side to side. In a second, two more of them were moving toward you. Two bursts of ray; one missed. The second monster was almost upon you before you burst it into flaming chunks as it reared up to plunge its black stingers in your chest.
You turned quickly, cried out in horror.
One Ruston was just slipping down the stairs, another swishing toward you, the long stingers aimed at your heart. You pressed the button. A scream caught in your throat.
You were out of pellets!
You leaped to the side and the Ruston fell forward. You tore open the case and fumbled with the pellets. One fell and shattered uselessly on the metal. Your hands were ice, they shook terribly. The blood pounded through your veins, your hair stood on end. You felt scared and amused.
The Ruston lunged again as you slid the pellet into the ray gun. You dodged again—not enough! The end of one stinger slashed through your tunic, laid open your arm. You felt the burning poison shoot into your system.
You pressed the button and the monster disappeared in a cloud of unguent smoke. The basement machinery was secure against attack—the Rustons had bypassed it.
You leaped for the stairway. You had to save the machines, save her, save yourself!
Your boots banged up the metal stairs. You lunged into the great room of machines and swept a glance around.
A gasp tore open your mouth. She was collapsed on a couch, sprawled, inert. A Ruston line of slime ran down the front of her swelling tunic.
You whirled and, as you did, the Ruston vanished into the machinery, pushing its scaly body through the gear spaces. The slime dropped from its body and watery jaws. The machine stopped, started again, the racked wheels groaning.
The city! You leaped to the machine's edge and shot a blast from the ray gun into it! The brilliantine-blue ray licked out, missed the Ruston. You fired again. The Ruston moved too fast, hid behind the wheels. You ran around the machine, kept on firing.
You glanced at her. How long did the poison take? They never said.
Already in your flesh, however, the burning had begun. You felt as if you were going up in flames, as if great pieces of your body were about to fall off.
You had to get an injection for yourself and her.
Still the Ruston eluded you. You had to stop and put another pellet in the gun. The interior began to whirl around you; you were overpoweringly dizzy. You pressed the button again and again. The ray darted into the machine.
You reeled around with a sob and tore open your collar. You could hardly breathe. The smell of the singed suet, of the rays, filled your head. You stumbled around the machine, shot out another ray at the fast-moving Ruston.
Then, finally, when you were about to keel over, you got a good target. You pressed the button, the Ruston was enveloped in flame, fell in molten bits beneath the machine, was swallowed up by the waste exhaust.
You dropped the ray gun and staggered over to her.
The hypodermics were on the table.
You tore open her tunic and jabbed a needle into her soft white shoulder, shudderingly injected the antidote into her veins. You stuck another into your own shoulder, felt the sudden coolness run through your flesh and your bloodstream.
You sank down beside her, breathing heavily and closing your eyes. The violence of activity had exhausted you. You felt as though you would have to rest a month after this. And, of course, you would.
She groaned. You opened your eyes and looked at her. Your heavy breathing began again, but this time you knew where the excitement was coming from. You kept looking at her. A warm heat lapped at your limbs, caressed your heart. Her eyes were on you.
“I …” you said.
Then all holding back was ended, all doubt undone. The city, the Rustons, the machines—the danger was over and forgotten. She ran a caressing hand over your cheek.
 
 
“And when next you opened your eyes,” finished the doctor, “you were back in this room.”
Rackley laughed, his head quivering on the pillow, his hands twitching in glee.
“But my dear doctor,” he laughed, “how fantastically clever of you to know everything. How
ever
do you do it, naughty man?”
The doctor looked down at the tall handsome man who lay on the bed, still shaking with breathless laughter.
“You forget,” he said, “I inject you. Quite natural that I should know what happens then.”
“Oh, quite! Quite!” cried Justin Rackley. “Oh, it was utterly, utterly fantastic. Imagine, me!” He ran strong fingers over the swelling biceps of his arm. “
Me,
a hero!”
He clapped his hands together and deep laughter rumbled in his chest, his white teeth flashed against the glowing tan of his face. The sheet slipped, revealing the broad suppleness of his chest, the tightly ridged stomach muscles.
“Oh, dear me,” he sighed. “Dear me, what
would
this dull existence be without your blessed injections to case our endless boredom?”
The doctor looked coldly at him, his strong white fingers tightening into a bloodless fist. The thought plunged a cruel knife into his brain—this is the end of our race, the sorry peak of Man's evolution. This is the final corruption.
Rackley yawned and stretched his arms. “I must rest.” He peered up at the doctor. “It was such a
fatiguing
dream.”
He began to giggle, his great blond head lolling on the pillow. His hands striking at the sheet as though he would die of amusement.
“Do tell me,” he gasped, “what on earth have you in those utterly delightful injections? I've asked you so often.”
The doctor picked up his plastic bag. “Merely a combination of chemicals designed to exacerbate the adrenals on one hand and, on the
other, to inhibit the higher brain centers. In short,” he finished, “a potpourri of intensification and reduction.”
“Oh, you always say that,” said Justin Rackley. “But it
is
delightful. Utterly, charmingly delightful. You will be back in a month for my next dream and my dream playback?”
The doctor blew out a weary gust of breath. “Yes,” he said, making no effort to veil his disgust. “I'll be back next month.”
“Thank heavens,” said Rackley. “I'm done with that awful Ruston dream for another five months. Ugh! It's so frightfully vile! I like the pleasanter dreams about mining and transporting ores from Mars and the Moon, and the adventures in food centers. They're so much nicer. But …” His lips twitched. “
Do
have more of those pretty young girls in them.”
His strong, weary body twisted in delight.
“Oh,
do
,” he murmured, his eyes shutting.
He sighed and turned slowly and exhaustedly onto his broad, muscular side.
 
The doctor walked through the deserted streets, his face tight with the old frustration. Why? Why? His mind kept repeating the word.
Why must we continue to sustain life in the cities? For what purpose? Why not let civilization in its last outpost die as it means to die? Why struggle to keep such men alive?
Hundreds, thousands of Justin Rackleys—well-kept animals, mechanically bred and fed and massaged into fair and handsome form. Mechanically restrained, too, from physically turning into the fat white slugs that, mentally, they already were and would bodily resemble if left untended. Or die.
Why not let them? Why visit them every month, fill their veins with hypnotic drugs and sit back and watch them, one by one, go bursting into their dream worlds to escape boredom? Must he endlessly send his suggestions into their loosened brainways, fly them to planets
and moons, crowd all forms of love and grand adventure into their mock-heroic dreams?
The doctor slumped tiredly and went into another dorm-building. More figures, strongly or beautifully made, passive on couches. More dream injections.
He made them, watched the figures stand and stumble to the wardrobes. Explorers' outfits this time, pith helmets and attractive shorts, snake boots and bared limbs. He stood at the window, saw them clamber into their autocars and drive away. He sat back and waited for them to return, knowing every move they would make, because he made them in his mind.
BOOK: Duel
12.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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