Hunted Past Reason by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online

about it. It ain't gonna kill you.
    "I hope," he muttered. He frowned at himself. "Shut up," he said.
    He had to stop and empty his bladder again, then take another drink of water. The bottle was getting pretty empty, he saw. What if he got lost and ran out of water?
    "Oh, for God's sake, shut the hell up," he ordered himself. Drawing in a deep, he hoped, restoring breath, he continued walking.
    As he got into a rhythmic stride, he began to think about Doug.
    Was it really necessary for him to go on ahead and leave me behind? he wondered. After all, how much more difficult would it have been to set up camp if they'd gotten to the place together, wherever it was?
    This was their first day out too. Doug knew he was uneasy. He knew that Marian was uneasy. Was it really thoughtful of him to hurry on ahead to make camp? Or had there been something mean about it, something actually a little cruel under the circumstances?
    He thought about the few years they had known Doug and Nicole, then, limitedly, Doug by himself. They were never really close. They'd had a few laughs together but their personalities didn't really blend that well. Nicole was pleasant enough, very beautiful (she'd been a model), but a little cut off and remote. And, from the very start, she'd obviously been unhappy about her marriage to Doug. The death of Artie had really torn what threads were left intact in their relationship.
    What Doug and he had shared most in common was their knowledge and attitudes toward the motion picture and television business. They were both highly dissatisfied and frustrated by it, Doug more than him because, as relative as the pain was, actors did have it worse than writers. He could, at least, submerge his disappointments by writing a short story or a novel. Doug could only do a little theater that while creatively fulfilling involved no monetary satisfaction at all.
    In other words, Bob thought— in other words, had there always been an edge of envy, even resentment in Doug? And had he just demonstrated a small bit of that by leaving him behind in the woods?
    "The forest," he said. "The forest ."
    It wasn't any charming, sweet, endearing woods.
    It was BIG. Powerful. Unyielding. A massive, silent being that could and had swallowed men alive.
    That's a charming image, he thought.
    But he couldn't dispel it.
    Well, here's another goddamn thing he didn't tell me about, he thought.
    He stared glumly at the fast-moving stream in front of him. On its opposite shore, the path obviously continued.
    Now what? he thought. It was definitely getting darker and there was no way he could see to cross the stream: no fallen tree trunk, no stepping-stone boulders.
    "Well, what am I supposed to do now , Dougie boy?" he asked loudly.
    Breaking a tiny piece of twig off his staff, he tossed it into the stream and watched it be swept away by the bubbling, splashing current. Great, he thought, his face a mask of annoyance. Now I know it's moving fast. Thank you, Douglas, for that enlightening bit of woodlore. It changes everything.
    He drew in a quick, convulsive breath. This isn't funny, Bob, he told himself. What was he supposed to do, walk across the stream, get his boots and socks and trousers soaking wet? Screw that.
    "Well . . ." Grimacing, he started walking along the edge of the stream, hoping to find a narrower part of it.
    Up above, a wind was starting to blow in the high pines. Great, he thought, a storm.
    He shook that away with a scowl. Stop being a baby, he told himself. Doug got across the damn stream, so can I.
    For a while, he imagined Doug coming up with a rope from his pack, hurling one end of it across the stream, encircling a branch with it, and swinging across like Tarzan.
    "Not likely," he muttered, moving guardedly along the stream edge so he wouldn't stumble on a stone.
    About twenty yards down, he came across a tree trunk fallen across the stream. "Ah," he said. "Ah." You might have mentioned it to me, he said to Doug in his