Ride the Nightmare by Richard Matheson

the shack,” he told her.
    “Don’t hurt her,” she said instinctively.
    He jerked her around and shoved her toward the door. Helen felt a rush of dizzying shock as she found herself looking at the other man who was leaning against the shack, his left hand pressed against his shoulder, blood running between his fingers and down his wrist.
    “
Shut her up
,” she heard Adam order from behind her and she was suddenly conscious of Connie’s terrified crying.
    “Connie, don’t—” she pleaded. She pulled her daughter against her, shielding Connie’s eyes from the sight of the bleeding man. She almost carried her past him into the fetid chill of the shack. Pulling her to a chair, she sat down and lifted Connie onto her lap, pressing her close, brushing at her hair with short, trembling strokes. “Shhh, baby, shhh. It’s all right.”
    Outside, she heard the two men talking and she raised her face from where she’d had it buried in Connie’s hair.
    “—doctor,” she heard the wounded man finish.
    “Use your head,” Adam answered stiffly and the wounded man said something she didn’t hear except for the curse of pain.
    Suddenly, there was a sliding, scraping sound.
    Unaware of it, Helen pressed back slowly against the chair, the old wood creaking in the silence of the shack. She hardly heard Connie’s sobbing. All she could hear was the raking noise outside that was drawing closer and closer. She felt a chilling tingle up the back of her neck and her gaze, unblinking, held on the doorway.
    Abruptly, Adam appeared dragging Chris into the cabin, one hand twisted around the collar of Chris’s jacket. Her mouth opened as if to breathe but there was no breath in her. Air seemed to stifle in her lungs and in the heavy length of her body it seemed the only thing that lived was her heart.
    “Is he dead?” she heard the other man ask as he stumbled into the shack after Adam.
    “I don’t know,” Adam answered carelessly. He released his fingers and Chris’s head and shoulders thumped down on the floor. Helen couldn’t restrain the faint gagging sound in her throat. Adam glanced over at her, then turned to the wounded man.
    “Let’s see,” he said, drawing Steve’s hand off the wound. Helen twisted her gaze from the sight of the man’s blood-pulsing shoulder. She pressed her eyes to Connie’s head again, her arms tightening convulsively around her daughter’s body.
    “I gotta have a doctor,” she heard Steve insist.
    “And end up in the gas chamber?” Adam snapped.
    “I’m bleeding, damn it!”
    “Hold still.”
    There was a moment’s silence, then the sound of cloth being torn. Blotted out, in an instant, by Steve’s hoarse cry of pain. Helen glanced up instinctively and saw the torn, blood-pumping hole in his shoulder.
    “I need a doctor,” said Steve. There was a shakiness beneath the hard sound of his voice. Helen looked at Chris again. He didn’t move.
    “Come here. Sit down while I bandage it,” said Adam.
    Helen looked up, startled, and saw him leading Steve toward her. She shuddered as his eyes met hers and, hastily, she struggled to her feet, holding Connie against her. Connie started to look around but Helen pressed her head down to keep her from seeing.
    “It’s all right, baby,” she said. She edged away, watching Steve sink down heavily onto the chair, his face ashen, his teeth clenched together so rabidly she could see the bulge of his jawbone beneath his ears.
    “For Christ’s sake, hurry up,” he said.
    Turning, Helen moved over to where Chris was lying. She felt numb, almost dreamlike. The entire situation had such an air of unreality about it that, somehow, the dread in her could rise no higher. Simply, the mind would not accept more.
    She looked down intently at Chris’s pain-twisted face. There was an ugly, purplish welt across his forehead. She bit her lip and looked at his chest. At first she couldn’t see any movement and the horror she had repressed seemed to