The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online Page B

darkness came alive, a sabled aura of heat crawling on their twining limbs. Words were gone; communication had become a thing of groping pressures, a thing felt in their blood, in the liquid torments rising, sweetly fierce. Words were needless. Their bodies spoke a surer language.
    And when, too soon, it had ended and the night had fallen black and heavy on his mind, he slept, content, in the warm encirclement of her arms. And for the measure of a night there was peace, there was forgetfulness. For him.

C HAPTER
S IX
    He clung to the edge of the open cracker box, looking in with dazed, unbelieving eyes.
    They were ruined.
    He stared at the impossible sight—cobweb-gauzed, dirty, moldy, water-soaked crackers. He remembered now, too late, that the kitchen sink was directly overhead, that there was a faulty drainpipe on it, that water dripped into the cellar every time the sink was used.
    He couldn’t speak. There were no words terrible enough to express the mind-crazing shock he felt.
    He kept staring, mouth ajar, a vacuous look immobile on his face. I’ll die now, he thought. In a way, it was a peaceful outlook. But stabbing cramps of hunger crowded peace away, and thirst was starting to add an extra pain and dryness to his throat.
    His head shook fitfully. No, it was impossible, impossible that he should have come so far to have it end like this.
    “No,” he muttered, lips drawing back in a sudden grimace as he clambered over the edge. Holding on, he stretched out one leg and kicked a cracker edge. It broke damply at his touch, jagged shards of it falling to the bottom of the box.
    Reckless with an angry desperation, he let go of the edge and slid down the almost vertical glossiness of the wax paper, stopping with a neck-snapping jolt. Pushing up dizzily, he stood in the crumb-strewn box. He picked up one and it disintegrated wetly in his hands like dirtengrained mush. He picked it apart with his hands, searching for a clean piece. The smell of rot was thick in his nostrils. His cheek puffed out as a spasm shook his stomach.
    Dropping the rest of the scraps, he moved toward a completecracker, breathing through his mouth to avoid the odor, his bare feet squishing over the soaked, mold-fuzzed remains.
    Reaching the cracker, he tore off a crumbling fragment and broke it up. Scraping green mold from one of the pieces, he bit off part of it.
    He spat it out violently, gagging at the taste. Sucking in breath between his teeth, he stood shivering until the nausea had faded.
    Then abruptly his fists clenched and he took a punch at the cracker. His vision was blurred by tears, and he missed. With a snarled curse he swung again and punched out a spray of white crumbs.
    “Son-of-a-bitch!” he yelled, and he kicked the cracker to bits and kicked and flung the pieces in every direction like soggy rocks.
    He leaned weakly against the wax-paper walls, his face against its cool, crackling surface, his chest expanding and contracting with short, jerking breaths. Temper, temper, came the whispered admonition. Shut up, he answered it. Shut up, I’m dying.
    He felt a sharp-edged bulge against his forehead and shifted position irritably.
    Then it hit him.
    The other side of the wax paper. Any crumbs that had fallen there would have been protected.
    With an excited grunt he clawed at the wax paper, trying to tear it open. His fingers slipped on the glossy smoothness and he thudded down on one knee.
    He was getting up when the water hit him.
    A startled cry lurched in his throat as the first drop landed on his head, exploding into spray. The second drop smashed across his face with an icy, blinding impact. The third bounced in crystalline fragments off his right shoulder.
    With a gasp, he lunged backward across the box, tripping over a crumb. He pitched over onto the carpet of cold white mush, then shoved up quickly his robe coated with it, his hands caked with it. Across from him the drops kept crashing down in a torrent, filling the box