The Best of Richard Matheson

by Richard Matheson

Fred looked bleakly at the professor’s enthusiastic face. “It’s all right.”

  “Splendid! Shall we say four-thirty then? My offices?”

  “All right.”

  “And may I make a suggestion?” asked the professor. “I’d like you to tour the university—all of it.”

  When they separated, Fred went back down to the basement to put away his tools.

  At four twenty-five, he pushed open the heavy door to the Department of Psychological Sciences. He stood there, waiting patiently, one hand on the knob, until someone in the large group of faculty members saw him. Professor Fetlock disengaged himself from the group and hurried over.

  “Elderman,” he said, “come in, come in.”

  “Professor, has Doctor Boone said anything more?” Fred insisted. “I mean about—”

  “No, nothing. Never fear, we’ll get to it. But come along. I want you to—Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please!”

  Fred was introduced to them, standing in their midst, trying to look at ease when his heart and nerves were pulsing with a nervous dread.

  “And did you follow my suggestion,” Fetlock asked loudly, “and tour all the departments in the university?”

  “Yes . . . sir.”

  “Good, good.” Professor Fetlock nodded emphatically. “That should complete the picture then. Imagine it, ladies and gentlemen—the sum total of knowledge in our entire university—all in the head of this one man!”

  There were sounds of doubt from the faculty.

  “No, no, I’m serious!” claimed Fetlock. “The proof of the pudding is quite ample. Ask away!”

  Fred Elderman stood there in the momentary silence, thinking of what Professor Fetlock had said. The knowledge of an entire university in his head. That meant there was no more to be gotten here then.

  What now?

  Then the questions came—and the answers, dead-voiced and monotonous.

  “What will happen to the sun in fifteen million years?”

  “If the sun goes on radiating at its present rate for fifteen million years, its whole weight will be transformed into radiation.”

  “What is a root tone?”

  “In harmonic units, the constituent tones seem to have unequal harmonic values. Some seem to be more important and dominate the sounding unity. These roots are—”

  All the knowledge of an entire university in his head.

  “The five orders of Roman architecture.”

  “Tuscan, Doric, Corinthian, Ionic, Composite. Tuscan being a simplified Doric, Doric retaining the triglyphs, Corinthian characterized by—”

  No more knowledge there he didn’t possess. His brain crammed with it. Why?

  “Buffer capacity?”

  “The buffer capacity of a solution may be defined as dx/dpH where dx is the small amount of strong acid or—”

  Why?

  “A moment ago. French.”

  “Il n’y a qu’un instant.”

  Endless questions, increasingly excited until they were almost being shouted.

  “What is literature involved with?”

  “Literature is, of nature, involved with ideas because it deals with Man in society, which is to say that it deals with formulations, valuations and—”

  Why?

  “Rule for masthead lights on steam vessels?” A laugh.

  “A steam vessel when under way shall carry (a) on or in front of the foremast or, if a vessel without a foremast, then in the forepart of the vessel, a bright, white light so constructed as to—”

  No laughter. Questions.

  “How would a three-stage rocket take off?”

  “The three-stage rocket would take off vertically and be given a slight tilt in an easterly direction, Brennschluss taking place about—”

  “Who was Count Bernadotte?”

  “What are the by-products of oil?”

  “Which city is—?”

  “How can—?”

  “What is—?”

  “When did—?”

  And when it was over and he had answered every question they asked, there was a great, heavy silence. He stood trembling and yet numb, beginning to get a final knowledge.

  The phone rang then and made everyone start.

  Professor Fetlock answered it. “For you, Elderman.”

  Fred walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

  “Fred?” he heard Eva say.

  “Oui.”

  “What?”

  He twitched. “I’m sorry, Eva. I mean yes, it’s me.”

  He heard her swallowing on the other end of the line. “Fred, I . . . just wondered why you didn’t come home, so I called your office and Charlie said—”

  He told her about the meeting.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, will you be—home for supper?”

  The last knowledge was seeping, rising slowly.

  “I’ll try, Eva. I think so, yes.”

  “I been worried, Fred.”

  He smiled sadly. “Nothing to worry about, Eva.”

  Then the message sliced abruptly across his mind and he said, “Goodbye, Eva,” and dropped the receiver. “I have to go,” he told Fetlock and the others.

  He didn’t exactly hear what they said in return. The words, the transition from room to hall were blurred over by his sudden, concentrated need to get out on the campus.

  The questioning faces were gone and he was hurrying down the hall on driven feet, his action as his speech had been—unmotivated, beyond understanding. Something drew him on. He had spoken without knowing why; now he rushed down the long hallway without knowing why.

  He rushed across the lobby, gasping for breath. The message said, Come. It’s time. These things, these many things—who would want to know them? These endless facts about all earthly knowledge.

  Earthly knowledge . . .

  As he came half tripping, half running down the building steps into the early darkness, he saw the flickering bluish-white light in the sky. It was aiming over the trees, the buildings, straight at him.

  He stood petrified, staring at it, and knew exactly why he had acquired all the knowledge he had.

  The blue-white light bore directly at him with a piercing, whining hum. Across the dark campus, a young girl screamed.

  Life on the other planets, the last words crossed his mind, is not only possibility but high probability.

  Then the light hit him and bounced straight back up to its source, like lightning streaking in reverse from lightning rod to storm cloud, leaving him in awful blackness.

  —

  They found the old man wandering across the campus grass like a somnambulant mute. They spoke to him, but his tongue was still. Finally, they were obliged to look in his wallet, where they found his name and address and took him home.

  A year later, after learning to talk all over again, he said his first stumbling words. He said them one night to his wife when she found him in the bathroom holding a sponge in his hand.

  “Fred, what are you doing?”

  “I been squeezed,” he said.

  NOW DIE IN IT

  They were in the kitchen when the phone rang. Don was whipping cream. He stopped turning the rotary beater and looked over at his wife.

  “Get it, will you, honey?” he asked.

  “All right.”

  Betty walked into the dining room, drying her hands. She stopped by the phone table. “Don’t make it into butter now,” she called back.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Smiling a little, she picked up the receiver and pushed back her reddish-blonde hair with the earpiece.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Don Tyler there?” a man’s voice asked.

  “No,” she said, “You must have the wrong number.”


  The man laughed unpleasantly. “No, I guess not,” he said.

  “What number are you calling?” Betty asked.

  The man coughed loudly and Betty pulled the receiver away from her ear with a grimace.

  “Listen,” the man said, hoarsely, “I wanna talk to Don Tyler.”

  “I’m sorry but—”

  “You married to him?” interrupted the man.

  “Look here, if you—”

  “I said I wanna talk t’ Don.” The man’s voice rose in pitch and Betty heard a distinct break in it.

  “Hold the line,” she said, dumping the receiver unceremoniously on the table. She went back into the kitchen.

  “Man says he wants Don,” she said. “Don Tyler though.”

  “Oh?” Don grunted and started for the dining room. “Who is it?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Betty said, starting to put cream on the chocolate pudding.

  In the dining room she heard Don pick up the receiver and say hello. There was a moment’s silence. She smoothed the cream over the surface of the glossy pudding.

  “What!” Don’s sudden cry made her start. She put down the cream bowl and went to the doorway. She looked at Don standing in the half-dark dining room, his face in a patch of light from the living-room lamp. His face was taut.

  “Listen,” he was saying. “I don’t know what this is all about but—”

  The man must have interrupted him. Betty saw Don’s mouth twitch as he listened. His shoulders twisted.

  “You’re crazy!” he said suddenly, frowning. “I’ve never even been in Chicago!”

  From where she stood, Betty could hear the angry sound of the man’s voice over the phone. She moved into the dining room.

  “Look,” Don was explaining. “Look, get this straight, will you? My name is Martin, not Tyler. What are you—listen, I’m trying to tell you—”

  The man cut him off again. Don drew in a ragged breath and gritted his teeth.

  “Look,” he said, sounding half-frightened now. “If this is a joke, I—”

  Betty saw him wince as the phone clicked. He looked at the receiver incredulously, then put it down in its cradle and stared at it, his mouth slightly open.

  “Don, what is it?”

  He jumped at the sound of her voice. He turned and looked at her as she walked over and stood in front of him.

  “Don?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered.

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know, Betty,” he said, his voice on edge.

  “Well . . . what did he want?”

  His face was blank as he answered her.

  “He said he was going to kill me.”

  She picked up the towel with shaking fingers. “He said what?”

  He looked at her without answering and their eyes held for a long, silent moment. Then he repeated it in a flat voice.

  “But why, Don? Why?”

  He shook his head slowly and swallowed.

  “Do you think it’s a joke?” she asked.

  “He didn’t sound like he was joking.”

  In the kitchen the clock buzzed once for eight-thirty. “We’d better call the police,” Betty said.

  He drew in a shaky breath.

  “I guess so,” he said, his voice worried and uncertain.

  “Maybe it was one of the men from your office,” she said, “You know they’re always—”

  She saw from the bleak expression on his face that she was wrong. She stood there restively, clutching the towel with numbed fingers. It seemed as if all the sounds in the house had stopped, as if everything were waiting.

  “We’d better call the police,” she said, her voice rising a little.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, call them,” she said, nervously.

  He seemed to snap out of it. He patted her on the shoulder and managed a thin smile.

  “All right,” he said. “Clear up the dishes. I’ll call them.”

  At the kitchen door she turned back to face him. “You were never in Chicago, were you?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “I thought maybe you were there during the war.”

  “I was never there,” he said.

  She swallowed. “Well, be sure to tell them it’s a mistake,” she said. “Tell them the man asked for Tyler and your name is Martin. Don’t forget to—”

  “All right, Betty, all right.”

  “Sorry,” she murmured and went back into the kitchen.

  She heard his low voice in the dining room, then the receiver being put down. Footsteps; he came back into the kitchen.

  “What did they say?” she asked.

  “They said it was probably some crank.”

  “They’re coming over though, aren’t they?”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably! Don, for God’s sake—!” Her voice broke off in frightened exasperation.

  “They’ll come,” he said then.

  “That man said he was going to—”

  “They’ll come,” he interrupted, almost angrily.

  “I should hope so.”

  In the silence, he pulled down a towel from the rack and started drying glasses. She kept washing the dishes, rinsing them and standing them in the rack to dry.

  “Do you want any pudding?” she asked.

  He shook his head. She put the pudding bowl into the refrigerator, then turned, her hand still on the door handle and looked at him.

  “Haven’t you any idea who it might be?”

  “I said I didn’t,” he answered.

  Her mouth tightened. “Don’t wake up Billy,” she said, quietly.

  He turned to face the cabinet and put glasses on the shelf.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m nervous. It isn’t everyday that—” He broke off and started drying the dishes, wooden-like.

  “It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” she said. “As long as you say the police are coming.”

  “Yeah,” he said, without conviction.

  She went back to her work and the only sound in the kitchen was that of dishes, glass and silverware being handled. Outside, a cold November wind blew across the house.

  She gasped as Don put down a glass so hard it cracked. “What is it?” she asked.

  “I just thought,” he said, “that he might have been calling from the corner drug store.”

  She dried her hands automatically. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “What if the police don’t come in time?”

  She followed as he ran into the dining room. He started turning off the living room lamps and she turned and ran back, her nervous fingers pushing down the wall switch in the kitchen. The fluorescent tube went out and she stood there trembling in the dark kitchen until she heard him come back in.

  “Call the police again,” she said in a low, guarded voice as if the man were already lurking nearby.

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” he answered, “They—”

  “Try.”

  “Christ, the upstairs light!” he said.

  He ran out of the kitchen and she heard him jumping up the carpeted steps. She moved into the dining room, legs trembling. Upstairs she heard Don close the door to Billy’s room quietly. She hurried for the stairs.

  She was about to start up when, suddenly, she heard Don’s footsteps cease.

  Someone was ringing the front doorbell.

  —

  He came down the stairs.

  “Is it him? Do you think it’s him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” He stood beside her without moving.

  “What if Billy wakes up?”

  “What?”

  “He’ll cry if he wakes up. You know how
afraid he is of the dark.”

  “I’ll see who it is,” Don said.

  He moved silently across the living room rug and she followed a few feet, then stopped. He stood against the wall and looked out through the window curtains. Rays of light from the street lamp fell across the brick porch.

  “Can you see?” she asked as quietly as she could. “Is it him?”

  He took a heavy, shaking breath in the darkness. “It’s him.”

  She stood in the middle of the living room and it seemed as if all the heat in the house had suddenly disappeared. She shuddered.

  The doorbell kept ringing.

  “Maybe it’s the police,” she said nervously.

  “No. It’s not.”

  They stood there silently a moment and the buzzing stopped.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “If we opened the door, wouldn’t he—?” She heard the sound he made and didn’t finish. “Why should he make such a mistake with you? Why?”

  His breath sucked in. “Damn it,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  He was already moving for the front door—and her mind was seared by the sudden thought—it isn’t locked.

  She watched Don stoop and take off his shoes. He moved quietly into the front hall. She closed her eyes and listened tensely. Didn’t the man hear that slight clicking as Don turned the lock? Her throat moved convulsively. How did Don know it wasn’t a detective? Would a man intent on murder ring the doorbell of the man he intended to—

  Then she saw a dark figure standing at the front windows trying to look in, and froze where she stood.

  Don came back from the hall. “I think he—” he began to say.

  “Shhh!”

  He stiffened and, as if he knew, turned his head quickly toward the living room window. It was so still that Betty heard his dry swallow distinctively.

  Then the shadow moved away from the window and Betty realized that she’d been holding her breath. She let it escape, her chest shuddering as she exhaled.

  “I’d better get my gun,” Don said in a husky voice.

  She started then. “Your—?”

  “I hope it works. I haven’t cleaned it in a long time.”

  Don pushed by her. She heard him bounding up the stairs. She stood paralyzed.

  Upstairs, she heard Billy crying.