Camp Pleasant by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online Page A

graduated.”
    “What do you do the rest of the year?” Merv asked. “Work in a music store,” I said. “Uh-huh.” Merv nodded. “You have a girl?” I tossed my plate on the fire. “She’s dead,” I told him. “What happened?” he asked.
    “Auto accident,” I said. “Collision. She died the next morning.” “Oh, I’m sorry, Matt.”
    I grunted. “We were going to be married in a week when it happened,” I said.
    “Oh, no.” Merv looked pained.
    “Yep.” I nodded. “I was going to work in her father’s plant. Big executive type. We had all our furniture, a house picked out, a car—” I stopped and exhaled heavily. “That was the car she was killed in,” I said.
    We sat quietly, looking into the fire. “I’m sorry I made you talk about it, Matt,” he said then. “I guess I should talk about it more,” I answered. “That’s what they keep telling me.”
6.
    Sid met me in front of the dining hall when we got back from the hike. “Tony,” was all he said.
    “No,”
I said, fearing the worst. “What happened?” “He fell on top of a bottle and it broke. Cut his hand and wrist all to hell.”
    “Badly?”
    “He had to have six stitches.” “Oh … dear God! Where is he?”
    “The dispensary.”
    Tony was lying on a cot when I got there, turning comic book pages with his good hand. He didn’t see me at first and I stood looking at the bulky taped-down windings around his hand and wrist and the ones around his foot. I looked at the intent expression on his thin face as he followed The Batman through various exigencies of plot.
    “Hello, sad sack,” I finally said.
    He looked up quickly, smiled.
“Hi
, Matt. I cut myself.”
    “So I’ve been told,” I said. “Couldn’t leave you alone one day, could I?”
    “Aw,
gee
, Matt,” he said earnestly, “it wasn’t
my
fault. Some guy shoved me.”
    “Who?”
    “I dunno. Down at the store.”
    “Tony, Tony,” I said, “what are we going to do with you?”
    “Hey, Matt, will you tell the old lady nurse I can go swimmin’ this afternoon?”
    “No, Tony,” I shook my head wearily. “You cannot go swimmin’ this afternoon.”
    “Aw,
gee
, Matt!”
    As I stepped out of the dispensary cottage, I almost bumped into Ellen.
    “Hello,” I said.
    She smiled. “Hello, Matt.”
    “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”
    “Yes,” she answered, her smile a little less convincing now, “it has.”
    “How have you been?”
    “Oh … fine. How have
you
been?”
    “Swell.” I nodded, smiling, and we stood in awkward silence a moment.
    “Well….” she started, as if preparing to leave.
    “I was just in to see Tony Rocca,” I said hastily, not wanting her to go.
    “The little boy who cut himself?”
    I nodded. “He wants to go swimming,” I told her.
    She smiled, “They never have any sense at that age, do they?”
    “Never,” I said, smiling back.
    Another silence.
    “Well, I guess I’d better be getting along,” she said.
    I didn’t want her to go but all I could do was smile, say, “All right,” and step aside. I watched her walk away.
    Later I had a swim with Bob, during which we discussed Merv. “If you ever get a chance, ask him to come to your cabin some night and tell the kids horror stories,” Bob told me.
    “Maybe I will,” I said. “I’m running out of stories.”
    “Oh, Christ, Merv isn’t,” Bob said. “He makes them all up.” He chuckled to himself.
    “Maybe I’ll ask him tonight,” I said. “There’s a free bunk in the cabin by dint of T. Rocca’s indisposition.”
    “I heard about that,” Bob said. “He’s a little bastard, isn’t he?”
    “No,” I said, “just a lost soul.”
    We were silent then and, as Bob dived into the water to sidestroke around, I lay back in the lowering sunlight and stared up at the still blue of the sky, watching the cottony clouds move across my line of vision, feeling the cool water lap gently at my ankles, thinking of a beautiful girl I