They were closing in on him and he could not run fast enough. His muscles would not obey him, no matter how urgently he tried. It was because he was handcuffed—handcuffed to the treadmill they had put him on. He was blindfolded, too, and the handcuffs kept him from reaching his eyes. But he had to keep on—Cynthia was at the top of the climb; he had to reach her.
Only, of course, there is no top when you are on a treadmill.
He was terribly tired, but every time he slowed down the least little bit they hit him again. And he was required to count the steps, too, else he got no credit for it—ten thousand ninety-one, ten thousand ninety-two, ten thousand ninety-three, up and down, up and down—if he could only see where he was going.
He stumbled; they clipped him from behind and he fell forward on his face.
When he woke his face was pressed up against something hard and lumpy and cold. He shifted away from it and found that his whole body was stiff. His feet did not work as they should—he investigated by the uncertain light from the window and found that he had dragged the sheet half off the bed and had it tangled around his ankles.
The hard cold object was the steam radiator; he had been huddled in a heap against it. He was beginning to regain his orientation; he was in his own familiar bedroom. He must have walked in his sleep—he hadn’t pulled that stunt since he was a kid! Walked in his sleep, tripped, and smashed his head into the radiator. Must ’a’ knocked him silly, colder’n a coot—damn lucky he hadn’t killed himself.
He was beginning to pull himself together, and to crawl painfully to his feet, when he noticed the one unfamiliar thing in the room—the new big mirror. It brought the rest of his dream back with a rush; he leaped toward the bed. "Cynthia!"
But she was there where she belonged, safe and unharmed. She had not awakened at his outcry, of which he was glad; he did not want to frighten her. He tiptoed away from the bed and let himself quietly into the bathroom, closing the door behind him before he turned on the light.
A pretty sight! he mused. His nose had been bloodied; it had long since stopped bleeding and the blood had congealed. It made a gory mess of the front of his pajama jacket. Beside that, he had apparently lain with the right side of his face in the stuff—it had dried on, messily, making him appear much more damaged than he was, as he discovered when he bathed his face.
Actually, he did not seem to be much damaged, except that—Wow!—the whole right side of his body was stiff and sore—probably banged it and wrenched it when he fell, then caught cold in it. He wondered how long he had been out.
He took off the jacket, decided that it would be too much effort to try to wash it out then, rolled it into a ball and chucked it behind the toilet seat. He didn’t want Cyn to see it until he had had a chance to explain to her what had happened. "Why, Teddy, what in the world have you done to yourself?" "Nothing, kid, nothing at all—just ran into a radiator!"
That sounded worse than the old one about running into a door.
He was still groggy, groggier than he had thought—he had almost pitched on his head when he threw the jacket down, had been forced to steady himself by grabbing the top of the tank. And his ead was pounding like a Salvation Army drum. He fiddled around in the medicine cabinet, located some aspirin and took three tablets, then looked thoughtfully at the prescription box of Amytal Cynthia had obtained some months before. He had never needed anything of the sort before; he slept soundly—but this was a special case. Nightmares two nights running and now sleepwalking and damn near breaking his silly neck.
He took one of the capsules, thinking as he did so that the kid had something when she thought they needed a vacation—he felt all shot.
Clean pajamas were too hard to find without turning on the bedroom light—he slipped into bed, waited a moment to see if Cyn would stir, then closed his eyes and tried to relax. Inside of a few minutes the drugs began to take hold, the throbbing in his head eased up, and soon he was sound asleep. II
Sunlight in his face woke him up; he focused one eye on the clock on the dressing table and saw that it was past nine o’clock, whereupon he got out of bed hastily. It was, he found, not quite a bright thing to do—his right side gave him fits. Then he saw the brown stain under the radiator and recalled his accident.
Cautiously he turned his head and took a look at his wife. She was still sleeping quietly, showing no disposition to stir. That suited him; it would be better, he thought, to tell her what had happened after he had dosed her with orange juice. No point in scaring the kid.
He groped on his slippers, then hung his bathrobe around him, as his bare shoulders felt cold and the muscles were sore. His mouth tasted better after he had brushed his teeth; breakfast began to seem like a good idea.
His mind dwelt absent-mindedly on the past night, fingering his recollections rather than grasping them. These nightmares, he thought as he squeezed the oranges—not so good. Maybe not crazy, but definitely not so good, neurotic. Got to put a stop to ‘em. Man couldn’t work if he spent the night chasing butterflies, even if he didn’t fall over his feet and break his neck. Man had to have sleep— definitely.
He drank his own glass of juice, then carried the other into the bedroom. "Come on, bright eyes—reveille!" When she did not stir at once he began to sing. "Up with the buttercup, come on, get up, get up! Here comes the sun!"
Still she did not budge. He set the glass down carefully on the bedside table, sat down on the edge of the bed, and took her by the shoulder. "Wake up, kid! They’re movin’ hell—two loads have gone by already!"
She did not move. Her shoulder was cold.
"Cyn!" he yelled. "Cyn! Cyn!" he shook her violently.
She flopped lifelessly. He shook her arm. "Cyn darling— Oh, God!"
Presently the shock itself steadied him; he blew his fuses, so to speak, and was ready, with a sort of ashy dead calmness to do whatever might be necessary. He was convinced without knowing why, nor yet fully appreciating it, that she was dead. He could not find her pulse—perhaps he was too clumsy, he told himself, or perhaps it was too weak; all the while a chorus in the back of his mind shouted, "She’s dead ... dead ... dead—and you let her die!"
He placed an ear over her heart. It seemed that he could hear her heart beat, but he could not be sure; it might have been only the pounding of his own. He gave up presently and looked around for a small mirror.
He found what he wanted in Cynthia’s handbag, a little makeup glass. He polished it carefully on the sleeve of his robe and held it to her half-opened mouth.
It fogged faintly.
He took it away in a bemused fashion, not letting himself hope, polished it again, and put it back to her mouth. Again it fogged, lightly but definitely.
She was alive—she was alive!
He wondered a moment later why he could not see her clearly and discovered that his face was wet. He wiped his eyes and went on with what he had to do. There was that needle business—if he could find a needle. He did find one in a pin-cushion on her dressing table. He brought it back to the bed, took a pinch of skin on her forearm, said, "Excuse me, kid," in a whisper, and jabbed it in.
The puncture showed a drop of blood, then closed at once—alive. He wished for a fever hermometer, but they had none—they were both too healthy. But he did remember something he had read somewhere, something about the invention of the stethoscope. You rolled up a piece of paper—
He found one of suitable size and rolled it into a one-inch tube which he pushed against the bare skin just over her heart. He put his ear to the other end and listened.