Someone Is Bleeding by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online

coupe trying to calm the hysterics of a young woman afraid of sex who had been attacked.
    Some people stopped and watched with callous curiosity while Peggy shook and groaned and gnashed her teeth and tried to claw away the flesh that had been touched by some vicious attacker.
    “Peggy, please, please . . .”
    I wanted to start the car and get away from those staring people. But I couldn’t let her tear at her own flesh.
    A long shuddering breath filled her. And she started to cry. Heartbroken crying, without strength or hope. I held her against me and stroked her hair.
    “All right, baby,” I said, “cry, cry.”
    “Dirty,” she moaned, “I’m dirty.”
    “No,” I said. “No, you’re not.”
    “I’m dirty,” she said, “dirty.”
    As soon as I could, I started the car and drove away from the curious people. I drove along the ocean for a while and then stopped at a drive-in. By that time she’d stopped crying and was sitting quietly, way on the other end of the seat, staring at her hands.
    I put my jacket over her to cover the torn dress and slip. I ordered coffee and made her drink it. She coughed on it but she drank it.
    It seemed to calm her a little. I stayed away from her. She wanted it that way, I knew. She almost pushed against the other door, crouching as if prepared to leap out should I make the remotest suggestion of an advance.
    “Tell me what happened. Peggy?”
    She shook her head.
    “It’ll help you if you can tell me.”
    Finally she did. And the visualization of what she said made me shiver.
    “Someone grabbed me.” she said. “I screamed for you but . . . but you didn’t answer.”
    “I was unconscious, Peggy.”
    For the first time she looked at me with something besides fear.
    “You were hit?” she asked.
    I bent over and told her to touch the dried blood on my head.
    “Oh,“ she said in momentary concern, “Davie . . .”
    Then she drew back.
    “Go on,” I said.
    “Some . . . some man put his hands on me. He clawed at me. He tore at my dress. I scratched him. I think I must have scratched his eyes out. Oh, God I hope I did. I hope he’s blind.”
    “Peggy, stop.”
    I saw the look of revulsion on her face. Because she had suddenly picked up her hands to look at them.
    She made a gagging sound. Then she started rubbing her fingers over her skirt. I saw what it was.
    Skin under her nails. The skin of the man who had tried to rape her.
    I got a pen knife from the glove compartment and cleaned her nails while she kept her head turned away, her eyes tightly shut. Her hands trembled in mine.
    “I think I’m . . . going to be sick,” she said.
    I felt sick myself, flicking those particles of someone’s skin on the floor. Someone who had terrorized the girl I loved. It was almost as if he were present with us. I thought vaguely of taking those particles to the police but then I just let them fall. I couldn’t stand putting them in an envelope.
    “Peggy.” I said, “do you think it was Steig?”
    She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she said she didn’t know. “If I’d had a gun,” she said, “a knife, a razor, anything . Oh God I’d have . . .”
    I felt the muscles of my stomach tighten. Until I told myself that she’d been driven half-mad with fear. And I pushed away the thought I was trying so hard to avoid. And came up with another one that had preyed on me since I was conscious again.
    “Peggy.”
    “What?”
    “Did he . . . ?”
    She closed her eyes.
    “If he had.” she said, “you wouldn’t have found me here. I’d be in the ocean.”
    My stomach kept throbbing as I drove up Wilshire. The thought of her being alone after this experience distressed me terribly. Worse than alone, alone with Albert. What if he made an advance this night?
    And then I thought, what if it were Albert who had attacked her in the first place?
    I didn’t know how to put the thought to her. I didn’t want to alarm her needlessly. She seemed set on going back to her room.