Earthbound
Richard Matheson
Copyright
Earthbound
Copyright © 1989 by Richard Matheson
Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2011 by RosettaBooks, LLC
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher or the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in substantially different form in the United States under the pseudonym Logan Swanson in 1982.
Electronic edition published 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.
ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795315671
For Ruth Ann
Thou art my own, my darling and my wife
And when we pass into another life
Still thou art mine
—A.J. Munby,
Marriage
Contents
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Epilogue
THURSDAY
They reached the cottage a little after four that afternoon. David parked the car in front of it and he and Ellen sat in silence, looking at its faded clapboard siding, its torn, rusty screens and grime-streaked windows. Finally, David said, “I wonder if Roderick and Madeline are expecting us.”
Ellen responded with a faint noise but whether of amusement or distress—or both—David couldn’t tell. He turned to her and smiled consolingly. “You want to try some other place?” he asked.
She faced him in surprise. “But the realtor told us there was no other place,” she said.
“Not here, no.”
Her expression deepened. “Not in Logan Beach?”
“I mean—” David gestured aimlessly “—rather than stay where it’s unpleasant for you.” He managed another smile. “It would only be for the nights,” he said. “We’d spend the days here.”
Ellen nodded vaguely, looking at the cottage again. They couldn’t really spend the days here, David knew, if nothing else, it was too cold. Slumping back, he dropped his hands from the steering wheel and turned toward the muffled pounding of the surf. Odd that this place had survived when the other hadn’t; it was just as close to the water.
“A pity the other cottage was destroyed,” he said.
She answered quietly. “It is a pity.”
David looked at her, trying to appraise her expression. There was sorrow in it, certainly; disappointment. Was there, also, resignation? Reaching out, he squeezed her hands where they lay, held together, on her lap.
“I’m not trying to change the plan,” he said. “It’s just that … well, we’ve come a long way. It would be a shame to stay in a place that depressed us.”
She looked over worriedly. “Where would we go?” she asked.
“Oh—” He shrugged. “I’m sure there are places all along the Sound. We could—”
He stopped as Ellen shook her head determinedly. “No,” she said. “I’m sure this one’s all right. We haven’t even checked inside and, already, we’re condemning it.” She smiled. “Come on, let’s take a look.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Ellen opened the door on her side and got out.
David pushed out the door and stood, wincing at the cramped stiffness of his legs. He stretched, then shivered as the icy wind bit through his jacket.
As they neared the back of the cottage, David noticed a bank of high windows on its second story. ‘That must be the studio,” he said.
Ellen glanced up at the heavily draped windows.
“Must be quite a view from there,” David said. He shivered fitfully. “Wow, it’s cold!”
“I know.”
Something in her tone—defeat, despondence—made him look at her inquiringly. She noticed and forced a smile. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “A little terminal nostalgia, that’s all.” She looked around, attempting optimism. “Logan Beach hasn’t changed that much.”
“Except for our honeymoon haven being blown out to sea by a hurricane.”
“That is a disappointment” Ellen said. “I’d looked forward to seeing it again.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” he said. He didn’t look at her but, from the corners of his eyes, noted her questioning glance. “I mean—”
“What if it looked—different?” she supplied.
He nodded. “It’s best that we always recall it as it was”—in 1960, his mind appended; dear God, twenty-one years ago. The thrust of pain was sudden, unanticipated. Momentarily, his veneer of pretense seemed to fall away. With dogged will, he forced it back. Taking the realtor’s key from his jacket pocket, he slid it into the front door lock. The bottom of the door rubbed across frayed carpeting as he pushed it open.
“Shall I carry you across the threshold?”
“Can you?” She repressed a smile.
He glared at her in mock reproach. ‘The gall,” he said, “and me a two-hour-a-week weight lifter.” Bending over, he pressed his left arm behind her knees, his right against her lower back. “Allez-oop,” he said.
“No; honey.” Ellen’s smile grew, suddenly, awkward. I was only teasing.” She pulled away from him. “You’ll hurt your back.”
David straightened up.
“You don’t want to spend your second honeymoon in bed, do you?” she asked.
“That is exactly where I want to spend it.”
“A hospital bed?”
“Touché,” he said.
As they entered, David grimaced. “If possible,” he said, “it’s colder inside than out.”
Ellen smiled. “I’m sure a nice, big blaze in that fireplace would take the chill off.”
David nodded as he glanced around. “It’s not too bad,” he said. When Ellen didn’t respond, he looked at her. “Is it?”
“No, it’s nice,” she answered, without conviction.
He slipped an arm around her waist. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll find another place.” Ellen looked at him, confusedly. “You don’t like it here,” he told her.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. Come on, we’ll look for—”
“No.” She cut him off with such intensity that David was startled. “I mean—” She smiled self-consciously. “—We planned to spend the week at Logan Beach. It wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t.”
“I know, but—”
“I like it David; really. It’s just the cold that—there.” She pointed. “There’s the gas heater the realtor mentioned. We get that going in addition to the fireplace and it’ll be as cozy as—” She gestured undecidedly.
“Christmas at the morgue?” he said.
She made a reproving face and moved into the living room. David watched her for a few moments, then turned and shut the door, shivering. The air seemed to possess almost a tangible mass, he thought; he envisioned it seeping into his lungs like some sub-zero liquid. Clenching his teeth as though to set a barrier against it, he followed Ellen into the dim-lit, shadowy room.
The raised-hearth, stone fireplace was to his left, centered on the west wall. Above the cobbled slab of its mantelpiece hung a painting of a sailboat yawing sharply in a turbulent sea. David squinted; it was an original in oils. He passed his gaze across the built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace, the small, shade-covered windows above them. He looked at the furniture: the bulky sofa facing the fireplace, the armchairs, tables and lamps. They reminded him of furniture he’d seen illustrated in a 1937 Sears-Roebuck catalog borrowed from the research depa
rtment of MGM.
“It isn’t bad at all,” Ellen said.
David glanced at her. “You really think so?”
She smiled at him. “I like it”
“All right,” he said.
“Good, it’s settled then. Let’s look at the rest”
Something in her voice—a vestige of the eager, childlike quality he’d always loved—made him smile and put his arm around her. “Lead the way, Ellen Audrey,” he said.
They moved across the faded carpeting, by-passed the narrow, wall-flanked staircase and moved into the dining alcove, the ceiling of which was only a few inches higher than the top of David’s head. The niche-like room had a double window, nicely curtained; parquet flooring with a multicolored oval rug covering most of it; a circular maple table with four captain’s chairs around it a tarnished, copper light fixture suspended overhead; sind, to the right of the kitchen door, a sideboard with a dust-filmed mirror hanging on the wall above it.
“This is kind of nice,” Ellen said.
“Mmm-hmm.”
David pushed open the swinging door and followed Ellen into the kitchen.
“Oh, well, it’s nice and warm in here,” he said, looking at the steam which clouded from his lips.
“Open the door and let the cold out,” she suggested.
“Here’s the trouble,” David told her, crossing to the small refrigerator and pushing its door shut He saw the wire and plug coiled on top of it. “Drat” he said. “And, here, I wanted some ice cubes.”
“You can use my toes and fingers,” Ellen said.
Smiling, David twisted one of the stove knobs without effect. He turned it back into place and looked around at the sink and counters, the windows, above them, facing the Sound; the windowed, shade-drawn door, the yellow, wooden table-and-chair set in the center of the worn, linoleum-covered floor. “Let’s face it,” he said, “it’s the kitchen.”
“Or the freezer,” Ellen answered, turning with a shudder and returning to the dining alcove.
He found that he couldn’t move, a weight of enervation holding him immobile. They should never have come back to Logan Beach; it had been a vain fancy on his part. He wished that they were in Sherman Oaks, in their comfortable hillside home. It seemed absurd that Mark should be alone there, with them a continent away.
“Honey?”
Ellen had pushed the swinging door half open and was looking at him curiously. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“No, no I’m just—” he forced a smile and started toward her “—daydreaming.” He mustn’t ruin this for Ellen. “Hey, we haven’t looked upstairs yet.”
Ellen returned his smile. “Let’s take a look,” she said.
They crossed the dining alcove and made a right turn onto the shadowy staircase, Ellen going first As they started up the threadbare, carpeted steps, David looked at the assortment of small paintings hung along the stairwell, each of them a local coastal scene or seascape. ‘These must have been done by the same artist who did that painting over the fireplace,” he said. He stopped to examine one which depicted the beach around the cottage. He pointed at the upper left-hand corner of it. “There’s that mansion,” he said.
Ellen stopped and looked around. “What a view they must have, way up on the bluff like that,” she said.
“I wonder if the same people still live there,” David said. “Not that we’d know if we saw them.”
Halfway to the second floor was a landing with a door on its right David twisted the icy, brass knob and stepped inside the darkened room. “God,” he muttered. Ellen hissed and stopped beside him.
“This one is the worst of all,” she said.
David crossed the wooden floor, his footsteps sounding thinly hollow. Drawing back an edge of drape, he looked out. “Quite a view,” he said, impressed. “You can see—” He broke off as, in glancing back, he saw that Ellen was still by the doorway, arms crossed, teeth on edge. “Too cold?” he asked. She nodded jerkily.
The doughnut-sized curtain rings slid hissingly along their rod as David tugged the drape back, uncovering more than four feet of window. He looked around the huge room. It was empty except for a wooden work table standing near the east wall, its surface cross-hatched with palette knife scars and spangled by paint spots, plus a sagging couch pushed against the wall by which he stood; David glanced at the faded pine cone and needle design on its slipcover, the folded blanket at its foot. “I doubt if we’ll get much use from this room,” he said.
Ellen didn’t answer and he looked around. She was waiting for him on the staircase landing. Walking back, he left the studio and pulled the door almost shut. He put an arm around her shoulders as they started up the stairs again and Ellen shuddered. “You are cold,” David said.
“It caught up with me.”
They reached the second story landing and David opened the door in front of them, twitching at the shadowy image of himself and Ellen in the bathroom cabinet mirror. “There they are, folks,” he said, “that frolicsome duo—Gooseflesh and Shivers.” Ellen grunted, smiling wanly as he steered her to the left and opened the bedroom door. “Here we go,” he said.
Leading Ellen across the dimlit bedroom, he sat her on the uncovered mattress of the maple four-poster. A checkered black and orange comforter was hung across the foot rail and he slid it off, coughing at the dust as he shook it open. “House is, obviously, in constant use,” he said. He lay the comforter on Ellen’s shoulders and tucked it around her body and underneath her legs. “There.” Leaning over, he kissed the tip of her nose. “Like kissing a snowman,” he said. He patted her shoulder and looked around. “Hey,” he said, “just what you’ve always dreamed about—a fireplace in the bedroom.”
“Put me in and light me,” Ellen said, huddling, cringed, beneath the comforter.
David walked across the room and peered into the fireplace. “I do believe—” he said. He moved to the nearest window and raised its shade, returning to the fireplace to look inside again. “Yeah.” He set aside the screen and, picking up a brown-edged newspaper from the raised hearth, crumpled several of its pages and stuffed them underneath the block of charred driftwood. There was an old book of matches on the mantel and lighting one, he held the flame against the paper which ignited instantly. He straightened from the flaring blaze and put the screen in place, then turned. “How does it look?” he asked.
“Like heaven,” Ellen said.
Smiling, David moved back across the room and raised the shade of the dormer window. Looking down, he saw the car, the sight of it, suddenly, making him wish that they were in it, speeding back toward JFK where they could leave it at the rental agency and book passage on the first available flight to Los Angeles. He fought away the impulse, turned. Ellen was standing in front of the fireplace, the comforter held around her. David walked over and put an arm across her shoulders. “Better now?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Good.”
They gazed into the crackling flames a while before David spoke. “It’s going to work out fine, El,” he told her.
She smiled but it was not convincing to him. He patted her back. “I’ll get the luggage,” he said.
“Want some help?”
“No, no, I can manage. Concentrate on getting warm.”
She smiled. “All right.”
David left the bedroom with the feeling of a prisoner in flight.
The wind had nearly stopped now. It was as cold as ever but without the cleaving wind, in no way as unpleasant as it had been that afternoon. David felt almost comfortable as he drew up the lid of the woodbox behind the house. He started reaching in, then drew back his hand and peered inside. Wouldn’t do to die of a spider bite on our second honeymoon, he thought. Seeing nothing, he reached down into the box and hauled out several sawed-up lengths of driftwood.
Closing the kitchen door by leaning back against it, he crossed the dark room, shouldered open the swinging door and moved through the alcove to the living room.
Ellen was burning empty cracker boxes in the fireplace. Like him, she was dressed in bulky camping clothes.
“Sure you had enough to eat?” she asked as he dumped the wood on the hearth.
“Plenty.” David removed his jacket and tossed one of the driftwood sections on the fire, jabbing it into place with the poker. He left the screen off and they sat beside each other on the sofa, propping their feet on the hearth. He put his arm around Ellen’s shoulders and she leaned against him.
It had been a pleasant evening. Originally, they’d planned to eat in Port Jefferson, making no attempt to housekeep until the gas and electricity were turned on tomorrow. The prospect of a fifty-four-mile round trip over dark, unfamiliar roads seemed untenable however, particularly when there were enough fruit and crackers left over from a snack stop that afternoon. They had made a simple meal of these, sitting in front of the fire and chatting.
“I bet Linda and Bill would enjoy it here,” Ellen said.
“I’m sure they would,” he grunted in amusement. “Though I doubt if Bill would much enjoy driving twenty-seven miles over back country roads to a hospital.”
“No.” After several moments, Ellen’s smile faded. “I hope the baby isn’t born while we’re gone,” she said.
“You told her to keep her legs crossed till we got back, didn’t you?”
Ellen made no reply and, glancing over, David noted that her smile was one of wistful melancholy. He wondered if it troubled her to be the mother of a young woman shortly to become a mother herself. Not that Ellen ever indicated anything but pleasure at the thought; still, it was an unavoidable reminder of her age.
He settled back against the sofa cushion. The impetus of conversation seemed to have dissolved; probably, because of the silence and the somnific flickering of the fire. Fixing his gaze, he stared at the flames until darkness blotted in around him. It was as though he sat at one end of a long, black tunnel, at the other end of which the fire burned. Gradually, consciousness began to fade, the darkness penetrating to his mind. He hovered on the murky edge of sleep, doing nothing to avert the plunge. Weight suffused his eyelids, they started drooping.