Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories by Richard Matheson

sunlight filtered through the windows, piercing the gauzelike curtains, making gold patterns on the inlaid wooden floor. The walls were still creamy, the ceiling was as it was before. Yet there was this darkening, darkening…
    What?
      He pushed up and walked dizzily around the room. He forgot about Sally. He was in the dining room. He touched the table, he stared at the dark oak. He went into the kitchen. He stood by the sink and looked out the window.
      Far up the block, he saw her walking, stumbling. She must have been waiting for the bus. Now she couldn't wait any longer and she was walking away from the house, away from him.
      "I'll go after her," he muttered.
      No, he thought. No, I won't go after her like a…
      He forgot like what. He stared down at the sink. He felt drunk. Everything was fuzzy on the edges.
      She's washed the cups. The broken saucer was thrown away.

      He looked at the nick on his thumb. It was dried. He'd forgotten about it.
      He looked around suddenly as if someone had sneaked behind him. He stared at the wall. Something was rising. He felt it. It's not me. But it had to be; it had to be imagination.
    Imagination!
      He slammed a fist on the sink. I'll write. Write, write. Sit down and drain it all away in words; this feeling of anguish and terror and loneliness. Write it out of my system.
      He cried, "Yes!"
      He ran from the kitchen. He refused to accept the instinctive fear in himself. He ignored the menace that seemed to thicken the very air.
      A rug slipped. He kicked it aside. He sat down. The air hummed. He tore off the cover on the typewriter. He sat nervously, staring at the keyboard. The moment before attack. It was in the air. But it's my attack!-he thought triumphantly, my attack on stupidity and fear.
      He rolled a sheet into the typewriter. He tried to collect his throbbing thoughts. Write, the word called in his mind. Write- now.
      "Now!" he cried.
      He felt the desk lurch against his shins.
      The flaring pain knifed open his senses. He kicked the desk in automatic frenzy. More pain. He kicked again. The desk flung back at him. He screamed.
    He'd seen it move.
      He tried to back off, the anger torn from him. The typewriter keys moved under his hands. His eyes swept down. He couldn't tell whether he was moving the keys or whether they moved by themselves. He pulled hysterically, trying to dislodge his fingers but he couldn't. The keys were moving faster than his eye could see. They were a blur of motion. He felt them shredding his skin, peeling his fingers. They were raw. Blood started to ooze out.
      He cried out and pulled. He managed to jerk away his fingers and jump back in the chair.
      His belt buckle caught, the desk drawer came flying out. It slammed into his stomach. He yelled again. The pain was a black cloud pouring over his head.
      He threw down a hand to shove in the drawer. He saw the yellow pencils lying there. They glared. His hand slipped, it banged into the drawer.
      One of the pencils jabbed at him.
      He always kept the points sharp. It was like the bite of a snake. He snapped back his hand with a gasp of pain. The point was jammed under a nail. It was imbedded in raw, tender flesh. He cried out in fury and pain. He pulled at the pencil with his other hand. The point flew out and jabbed into his palm. He couldn't get rid of the pencil, it kept dragging over his hand. He pulled at it and it made black, jagged lines on his skin. It tore the skin open.
      He heaved the pencil across the room. It bounced on the wall. It seemed to jump as it fell on the eraser. It rolled over and was still.
      He lost his balance. The chair fell back with a rush. His head banged sharply against the floorboards. His out clutched hand grabbed at the window sill. Tiny splinters flashed into his skin like invisible needles. He howled in deathly fear. He kicked his legs. The mid-term papers showered down over him like the