Nightmare At 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online Page A

stunk awful.
    And then you… you found…

    Swish

    I found them. Ma. And Pa. And the Lenottis. They was… Ohhh, I wanna…
    Leo! What about the set, Leo? What about it?
    Huh, what?
    The picture on the set. You said something about it.
    I, yeah… I…
    It was the letters, wasn't it, Leo?
    Yeah, yeah. Them letters. Them big crooked letters. They was up there. On the set. I seen them. And… and…
    What?
    One of the E's. It kinda… faded. It went away. And… and…
    What, Leo?
    The other letters. They come together. So… so there was only three.
    And it was a word.

    Swish swish swish

    Take him to his aunt, Sergeant.
    And the tube went black…
    All right, Leo. The sergeant'll take you ho-to your aunt's.
    I turned on the lights.
    All right, Leo.
    I turned on the light! Ma! MAMA!
    Click

5 – WITCH WAR
    Seven pretty little girls sitting in a row.
    Outside, night, pouring rain-war weather. Inside, toasty warm. Seven overalled little girls chatting. Plaque on the wall saying: P.G. CENTER. Sky clearing its throat with thunder, picking and dropping lint lightning from immeasurable shoulders. Rain hushing the world, bowing the trees, pocking earth. Square building, low, with one wall plastic. Inside, the buzzing talk of seven pretty little girls. "So I say to him-'Don't give me that, Mr. High and Mighty.' So he says, 'Oh yeah?' And I say, 'Yeah!' "
    "Honest, will I ever be glad when this thing's over. I saw the cutest hat on my last furlough. Oh, what I wouldn't give to wear it!"
    "You too? Don't I know it! You just can't get your hair right.
    Not in this weather. Why don't they let us get rid of it?" "Men! They make me sick." Seven gestures, seven postures, seven laughter’s ringing thin beneath thunder. Teeth showing in girl giggles. Hands tireless, painting pictures in the air.
    P.G. Centre. Girls. Seven of them. Pretty. Not one over sixteen. Curls. Pigtails. Bangs. Pouting little lips-smiling, frowning, shaping emotion on emotion. Sparkling young eyes- glittering, twinkling, narrowing, cold or warm.
    Seven healthy young bodies restive on wooden chairs. Smooth adolescent limbs. Girls-pretty girls-seven of them.
    An army of ugly shapeless men, stumbling in mud, struggling along the pitch black muddy road.
    Rain a torrent. Buckets of it thrown on each exhausted man. Sucking sound of great boots sinking into oozy yellow-brown mud, pulling loose. Mud dripping from heels and soles.
    Plodding men-hundreds of them-soaked, miserable, depleted. Young men bent over like old men. Jaws hanging loosely, mouth gasping at black wet air, tongues lolling, sunken eyes looking at nothing, betraying nothing.
    Rest.
    Men sink down in the mud, fall on their packs. Heads thrown back, mouths open, rain splashing on yellow teeth. Hands immobile-scrawny heaps of flesh and bone. Legs without motion-khaki lengths of worm-eaten wood. Hundreds of useless limbs fixed to hundreds of useless trunks.
    In back, ahead, beside, rumble trucks and tanks and tiny cars. Thick tires splattering mud. Fat treads sinking, tearing at mucky slime. Rain drumming wet fingers on metal and canvas.
    Lightning flashbulbs without pictures. Momentary burst of light. The face of war seen for a second-made of rusty guns and turning wheels and faces staring.
    Blackness. A night hand blotting out the brief storm glow. Windblown rain flitting over fields and roads, drenching trees and trucks. Rivulets of bubbly rain tearing scars from the earth. Thunder, lightning.
    A whistle. Dead men resurrected. Boots in sucking mud again-deeper, closer, nearer. Approach to a city that bars the way to a city that bars the way to a…
    An officer sat in the communication room of the P.G. Centre. He peered at the operator, who sat hunched over the control board, phones over his ears, writing down a message.
    The officer watched the operator. They are coming, he thought. Cold, wet and afraid they are marching at us. He shivered and shut his eyes.
    He opened them quickly. Visions fill his darkened