Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
By Richard Matheson
Copyright 2002

Introduction by Stephen King
Stephen King, unrivaled master of the genre of horror, credits Richard Matheson for reinvigorating it after masters such as Robert Bloch abandoned it in the late 1950s. Without Richard Matheson, there would be no Stephen King.

It is remarkable that it is Matheson that King looks to and names as his inspiration. Not because Matheson is not worthy. He is one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived with extensive work in books, television and movies. It is remarkable because Matheson’s prose is delightfully honed. King’s prose is expansive and massive. No two writers could be more different in their style.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
A man who desperately fears flying, boards a DC 7 and prepares for takeoff. When they reach a cruising altitude, he looks out the window and sees a strange creature capering about on the wing with intent to do harm. He tries to convince the flight crew that there is something out there.

This finely told story was made into one of the most famous episodes of the Twilight Zone. It was a pleasure to read it as Matheson had laid it down in print for the first time all those years ago.

Dress of White Silk
A little girl lives with her grandma in the home where her mother died. When one of her friends comes to visit and pokes a little fun at her and her dead mom, our little heroine puts on a brutal fashion show for her tormentor.

Written in the patois of a six year old girl, Matheson tells a simple and inelegant tale of supernatural revenge with flair. Bravo! It was this story that, according to Ann Rice, inspired her to write horror.

Blood Son
This is the tale of a boy born to be a vampire. At a young age, he is drawn to all things that involve vampires. He disturbs his teacher and fellow classmates with lurid tales of vampirism told in class. He steals a vampire bat and allows it to drink his blood. His entire life is dedicated to achieving status of the undead.

Matheson is really the anti-Poe. Poe used lofty rhetoric and obscure words to weave his tales of terror. Matheson’s use of simple language and sparse prose is just as effective. Nowhere is that more evident than in this tale.

Through Channels
Police interview a teenager who has arrived home to find his parents and their friends dead. The friends had come over to watch television. But on the family television, instead of a test pattern, the word, “feed” is sometimes displayed. When the kid comes home to the carnage, he finds one of the e’s is gone, changing the word to past tense.

Here we see Matheson adopting the style of Isaac Asimov, driving his story almost entirely through dialogue. The tale is told through a series of tapes of the interviews the police conduct with the kid.

Witch War
A group of young, teenage girls use their magical powers to destroy an army of attacking men.

Matheson’s writing here is so sparse, that there is nary a complete sentence in the prose. Most of the narrative is sentence fragments and prepositional phrases. I’ll give him credit for trying an offbeat writing style, but the story didn’t work for me. I got the cold dispassion from the girls, but didn’t feel any sense of loss or injustice when the men, who were not developed in the narrative, died.

Mad House
A teacher becomes so bitter, angry, and depressed, that his rage is transferred from him to the inanimate objects within his home, making the most mundane and everyday tasks untenable and maddening.

All I can say is sometimes, I can relate. . . What a wonderful story.

Disappearing Act
A journal is found in a coffee house, three hours after its owner and writer left it there. It tells a story of a young man, in constant conflict with his wife about his inability to earn enough to support them. After a one night stand with a woman he meets in a bar, he chronicles the slow and random disappearance of all the people and places that make up his life.

Matheson’s tale is a first person narrative taken from a journal. He is able to tell his tale to its conclusion without providing a reader a clue as to why the man’s life is disappearing one person and place at time. The not knowing is always more satisfying than a ham handed explanation.

Legion of Plotters
A mild mannered tie salesman is driven slowly mad by life’s petty annoyances. The bus passenger who sits next to him daily and sniffs constantly, the nightly cries of the baby next door, the parties held by the neighbors upstairs, the cigarette smoke of restaurant patrons all add up to drive him toward madness. He starts to documents life’s little annoyances and grade them. He comes to the conclusion that the world is plotting against him.

I get the impression that little misbehaviors on the part of others really annoys Mr. Matheson. This story is much like Mad House. The focus on irritants by the main characters drive them to madness with sad results.

Long Distance Call
An old woman, bedridden and helpless at night, continues to receive strange phone calls during the wee hours. At first, there is just silence on the line. Then attempts at communication, with the person saying, “hello.” The woman demands that the phone company check out the line. When they do, our little old lady is shocked at where the calls are coming from. Late that night, she receives another call and her mystery caller informs her that he’ll be right over.

This is the stellar stuff of great black and white movies that used to entertain me as a child. This story is a little longer than some of Matheson’s material, but not a word is wasted. We know the voice is supernatural (after all, it’s a Matheson story), but Matheson’s ending was brilliantly conceived and written, letting us know what horror is to come, but not showing us.

I am troubled by this story because I know I’ve seen it on television, but don’t know where. There was a Twilight Zone episode called, “Long Distance Call,” but that was the one where the little boy with constantly fighting parents used the toy phone to call his dead grandmother. Great story, but it was not Matheson’s. I’ve Googled it, but can’t find it. I’d love to know where I saw this.

Slaughter House
The narrator tells how he and his bachelor brother purchase a large, old home that had stood vacant since they were kids. They restore it to its original state and settle into a comfortable existence. Over the fireplace stands a picture of a nameless beautiful woman that fascinates them. Soon, the younger brother becomes slothful, angry, and incommunicative. His brother fears he’s been overtaken by a malevolent spirit that resides in the home.

The story was ok, if not terribly original. What was remarkable about this story and what made it interesting to read was the writing style. The style here was a departure from Matheson’s sparse prose. The plot, the characters, and the style of writing were all reminiscent of the screenplays he cranked out for American International Films in the Poe adaptations and other scripts he authored for Roger Corman in the early 1960s.

Wet Straw
A man living alone in a boarding house has a recurring dream where he smells wet straw. Soon, the dream evolves into a recollection he and his now dead wife had when they were young, waiting out a rainstorm in a hayloft. His recollection of this seemingly romantic memory masks memories of the unfortunate conclusion of their marriage – and her life.

This story was suitable perhaps for grade schoolers. The twist, such as it was, was reminiscent of ghost stories kids tell each other.

Dance of the Dead
The setting is post apocalyptic Missouri and four teenagers are en route to a club in St. Louis to see a remarkable night show act with a horrifying star. Three of them are enthusiastic about getting to the show, using drugs to get into the right state of mind. The fourth has serious reservations about seeing this grisly show.

This was one of the darkest post-apocalyptic stories I’ve ever read. It brought to mind horrid images of the emaciated figures of the German concentration camps (though Matheson does not use that simile in his text). One of his finest efforts.

This story was made into an episode of the television show, Masters of Horror television series that aired on Showtime. The script was penned by Matheson’s son, Richard Christian Matheson, and was directed by horror legend, Tobe Hooper. Young Matheson expanded on ideas introduced by his father and revealed an imagination as dark and inspired as his father’s.

The Children of Noah
A holiday traveler in New England is stopped for speeding in a small Maine town. He is put in jail overnight until he can see the judge in the morning. He is told the next afternoon that the judge is sick, so they’ll have to go to the judge’s house for him to hear the case. The man is taken to the judge’s house, sentence is passed, and the visitor is invited to dinner.

Even the greats write stories that become dated. This story is dated. It may have surprised readers in the 1950s with its twist, but the twist, even though it was not telegraphed, came as no surprise to the modern reader who’s seen it many times before.

The Holiday Man
No one likes to work holidays, but one man has the horrific task of calculating holiday death tolls. What makes him so good at his vocation is that he makes the calculation before the holiday, and sees every one of them unfold before his eyes.

This is an example of Matheson being too sparse with his prose. The story idea is great and there is a gift in being able to tell a great tale with just a few words. This story, however, begged for more character development and more plot.

Old Haunts
A middle aged man returns to the boarding house in which he lived while attending college, hoping to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane. He rents the room and then begins roaming the area, seeing old haunts. He feels as if he’s being watched or followed. Instead of bringing back good memories, the trip instead has him reflecting on a life wasted. As he goes to sleep that night in his old room, a figure appears telling him he can’t come back and he needs to get gone.

This is obviously a supernatural midlife crisis. Each of us has returned to someplace formative in our lives, relived the memories there, and thought about how our lives might have been different had we seized different opportunities. Unfortunately for Matheson’s character, his younger self isn’t happy with the choices his older self made.

The Distributor
A new man moves into Joseph Alston’s neighborhood and promptly introduces himself to Alston as Theodore Gordon. At first, Gordon seems amicable enough. But soon, he starts to “redistribute” the belongings of his neighbors. When they complain, Gordon seizes control of the neighborhood through nefarious and prurient means.

Theodore Gordon must be a Democrat. . .

Crickets
A vacationing couple encounter a man who claims he’s decoded the language of crickets. These noisy nocturnal insects, he tells them, telegraph the names of the dead. He tells them that he’s heard his own name on the crickets’ list and he wants their help.

Crickets as psychopomps is an interesting concept. They are black like death. They haunt the night. I’ll never listen to a cricket again without wondering whose name they are chirping. Brilliant story!

First Anniversary
A man kicks off his first anniversary with his lovely bride by telling her she tastes sour. She is peeved. Then he quits tasting, smelling, and feeling her. It’s finally time for him to face some hard realities and she’s going to make him do it.

I knew it was a space alien – and it wasn’t. Matheson comes at marriage from an unlikely direction and creates an intriguing story.

The Likeness of Julie
A college student in is inexplicably attracted to the plain, childish looking girl who sits behind him in his literature class. He’s more than attracted to her. His emotions devolve into violent fantasies of rape and debasement. He hatches his plan of debauchery and asks her out. But whose idea is it really?

Definitely not one of Mr. Matheson’s most politically correct stories. But the woman gets the last laugh and we find that the poor college student, whom we come to loathe in the narrative, is actually the victim. Matheson stories have more twists than a hemp rope.

Prey
A woman buys a Zuni fetish doll for her boyfriend who likes to hunt. The doll is called He Who Kills and the package comes with a warning that the little gold chain must be kept on the doll to keep the Zuni spirit at bay. But when she is arguing with her mother on the phone, the doll is knocked over and the chain comes off. The woman fights for her life against a six inch tall Zuni hunter.

This is one of Matheson’s best known stories, made famous by the television horror movie, Trilogy of Terror which starred Karen Black in three different roles in three stories based on Matheson’s work. This segment, entitled Amelia, was the only one of the three in the movie given the screen treatment by Matheson himself. The story is average, but the transfer to film is brilliant. King gave it an update, using plastic toy soldiers in his story, Battleground from Night Shift. In the Nightmares and Dreamscapes television miniseries episode based on the King story, the doll appears briefly in a shot – King’s homage to his mentor.

Book to Movie: Duel (1971)

Book to Movie: Duel (1971)
Screenplay by Richard Matheson
Directed by Steven Spielberg

Before there was Jaws, before there was E.T., before there was Raiders of the Lost Ark, there was Duel. Steven Spielberg delivers a riveting chase story that was true to the vision of its author.

In 1971, Richard Matheson took his 30 page short story which appeared in Playboy Magazine earlier that year and retooled it into a full length feature screenplay. Dennis Weaver plays David Mann, the innocent salesman driving a 1970 Plymouth Valiant, pursued by a mechanized horror embodied in a tractor tanker rig driven by a nameless, faceless demon who has no other goal than killing him.

The movie moves forward just as the story. Mann innocently passes the slow moving tanker This starts a game of cat and mouse that starts as passing and cutting off each other and escalates to battle of man and machine (or Mann and machine) in a fight to the death.

Matheson pads his story some and gives us a few interludes that aren’t in the story. There’s a great scene when Mann stops at a roadside gas station that also serves as a snake ranch. Mann weaves and dodges on foot as the semi, which seems to be imbued with supernatural handling and acceleration, chases him while setting loose hundreds of snakes by smashing their cages. The scene is well written, well shot and well directed and really adds to the tension in the story.

Late in the movie, there is an interlude with a broken down school bus. The setup of the scene is a bit foolish. Mann inexplicably stops when the driver of a school bus flags him down. Why, after it has become abundantly clear that there is a 40 ton death machine bent on killing you, would you stop to help someone along side the road? Mann stops and agrees to use his 1970 Plymouth Valiant to try to push a school bus to the crest of a grade so he can coast down the hill and bump the engine.

As Mann pushes, his bumper gets stuck under the bus and his car is trapped. The truck returns. Weaver scrambles and works the car loose and takes off. The truck makes a U-turn and its menacing grille bears down on the bus and the school children standing around. You’re sure that the truck is going to kill them all just to terrify Mann. Instead, it takes a break from its maniacal pursuit to help out the driver and his charges.

Matheson pauses to develop his climax a little better in the screenplay than he does in the story. Early in the movie, Mann stops for gasoline. Keep in mind, this was in a time when an attendant pumped your gas, checked your tires, and looked under the hood. The pump jockey tells Mann he could use a new radiator hose. Mann puts off the repair. We who have read the story know what happens because of that moment of neglect.

The movie finale is wonderfully shot and quite dramatic. The tanker truck and the orange Plymouth Valiant plunge into a canyon and explode in an impressive display. Mann looks on impassively.

In Duel, the movie, Matheson achieves something rare: he took his written work and improved it on screen. I can’t think of any other writer who has done this. Stephen King never improved any of his own work by translating it to the screen. Others, such as Brian DePalma, did with Carrie, but King never accomplished on his own.

Nor is this the only instance where Matheson took one of his stories and improved it for the visual media. Many of his Twilight Zone scripts were superior to the stories upon which they were based. Matheson is a rare kind of writer who moves so easily between stories and scripts.

Matheson preserves the key psychological component of the story, which is of course the anonymous nature of the driver. Just as in his story, the only glimpse Mann ever gets of his nemesis is a nondescript arm and an obscure profile. The truck is gray, dingy, and menacing. Credit Spielberg and his crew for finding a truck that ugly and a gifted stunt driver and bringing Matheson’s 18 wheeled terror to life. It’s unnatural ability to accelerate and handle the twisting and turning curves that challenged Weaver’s Valiant just added to its menace and provides just a hint at something supernatural about Mann’s adversary.

The only bit of foolishness is the scene in the truck stop which is written well in the story, but falls flat on screen. Mann engages in excessive inner dialogue voiced over by Weaver. It’s tiresome and dull. Also, Weaver over acts in the scene. It was this scene that Matheson used in the story to build Mann’s paranoia. It seems as if he tried to lift the story directly from the page instead of rewriting it for the screen.

That one scene notwithstanding, Duel is a superb movie – every bit as enjoyable as the story. Matheson is one of the giants of screenwriting. Spielberg is one of the giants of the movie world. This union produced one great movie.

Duel: Terror Stories by Richard Matheson

Duel: Terror Stories by Richard Matheson
By Richard Matheson
Copyright 2002

An Appreciation by Ray Bradbury (Followed by some introspection and reflection by Brian Schwartz)
In this introduction, written in 1988, Bradbury recalls receiving fan mail from Richard Matheson, a young, aspiring writer with a few published stories to his credit. Bradbury does not recall what precisely he wrote back to the young writer, except to thank him for his compliments. Bradbury hopes he advised the young writer to write every day for the rest of his life.

He goes on to praise Matheson as one of the most important and prolific writers of his day, even if his work is not as well known as those as Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. Bradbury goes on to decree that Matheson is a mainstream writer and ridicules the New York critics who ridicule him, Matheson, Asimov, Stephen King, and countless others who write genre fiction.

Bradbury’s very short introduction to the book says so much and speaks to me as a person. First and foremost is that admonition that rings in my ears all the time and makes me feel guilty: WRITE EVERY DAY. I know I should. I wish I could. But the daily distraction of life, vocational and leisure, keep me from writing every day as I should. Once upon a time, just a few short years ago, I had a job that had me writing – writing creatively – every day. But that vocation and those circumstances have passed and alas, the reports I write at work and this blog represent my current output of written words.

The second point is Matheson’s lack of fame. Even casual fans of horror are sometimes not familiar with his work – or they don’t know they are enjoying his work. I remember seeing The Last Man On Earth as a child and, despite the pitiful cinematography and sound of the low budget move, being riveted to the story. Thank you very much Vincent Price for overcoming the cheap production values to bring Matheson’s tragic character to life, giving him depth, and making him sympathetic.

But it would not be until I was an adult that I would learn that this movie was not the product of some anonymous British or Italian screenwriter. The reason the poorly made movie was so good was because it had been penned by one of the masters of genre fiction.

As I read more ABOUT Matheson in some of Stephen King’s articles and books on the subject of genre fiction and writing, I came to realize that I had indeed enjoyed a great deal of Matheson’s work. The great Twilight Zone episodes such as Little Girl Lost, Third from the Sun, Steel, and others came from this man. Also, the American International Films (sort of an American version of Hammer Studios) movies where Matheson adapted Poe stories into full length motion pictures were a staple of my childhood. The movie Duel entertained me one late night in my early adolescence and I did not know that I was enjoying the great works of two masters of their respective fields – Richard Matheson and Stephen Spielberg.

Matheson’s credits on IMDB.com are as prolific as his list of published novels and short stories. Unlike Stephen King’s body of crossover work, there is a balance of original screenplays and screenplays based on his work. Matheson is not only prolific, he is versatile – perhaps more versatile than any writer in history in successfully crossing back and forth between story writing and screenwriting. I know of no other who does it so well.

Finally, there is that ability to easily work between fiction and horror – an ability matched only by Bradbury himself. Matheson wrote material that was pure science fiction, purely horror, and stories that blended both elements just as Bradbury did. King and Dean Koontz, the two most prolific genre writers of our day do the horror stuff as well as anyone. But when they cross over into science fiction or fantasy, the results are uneven.

Richard Matheson is one of the five most important writers of our time. It was he who inspired Stephen King. It was he who inspired George Romero and John Carpenter. It was he who gave the great Stephen Spielberg his first vehicle to tell a strange and terrifying tale. I would dare say that no other person has had such a profound influence on two distinct, but related writing formats. It’s a great shame that not more know that they have partaken of this man’s work and enjoyed it.

Duel
A salesman is traveling across a desolate part of California en route to San Francisco when he encounters a slow moving tanker truck on a two lane road. He passes the truck so he can maintain his speed and make his sales call in time. But the trucker has other plans. A chase ensues across the deserted highways as the man named Mann battles for his life in a road rage fight for his life.

Mechanized horror is hard to do because it is so easy for a writer to get caught up in the mechanics of the monster. Witness Stephen King’s The Mangler. It has been stated by a number of critics of the movie that what made the truck such a malevolent monster was the fact that you never saw the driver. This is true of the short story as well. There is no humanity in Mann’s adversary. Although Mann catches glimpses of the driver’s hand and a brief glimpse of his profile, he knows nothing about him or his seemingly mindless motivation to kill him. Furthermore, the machine has no humanity. When King wrote Christine, the evil car definitely had personality and motivation. Matheson’s truck, named Keller by the sign painted on the door, is like a serial killer; soulless and without motivation. A gripping tale.

This story was adapted to screen by Matheson and directed by Steven Spielberg. It starred Dennis Weaver as Mann.

The story was originally published in Playboy, April 1971

Third From the Sun
A scientist, sure that the planet is doomed to atomic extinction, prepares his family and their best friends to leave in a spaceship he has designed and built at the military base where he works. They ponder the moral implications of fleeing the planet rather than helping to save it.

This is an average short story. However, Rod Serling retooled it and made it into one of the most powerful Twilight Zone episodes ever. Instead of pondering the morality of their actions, the families instead deal with the tension of their plans being discovered and thwarted.

This story was originally published in Galaxy, October 1950.

Born of Man and Woman
An eight year old child, deformed and inhuman, is locked in a cellar by “its” parents and left to suffer out of sight and mind. He observes the outside world and comes to resent the neglect and abuse heaped upon it by its parents. He soon becomes resentful and resolves the next beating will be his last. . .

Exceptionally well crafted narrative! Matheson tells his story with simple, primitive, almost gutteral prose. The creature in the basement is truly amoral and dangerous!

Note: This story is spoofed to a degree in The Simpsons in a Treehouse of Horror episode when Bart is locked in the attic and forced to eat fish heads.

Born of Man and Woman was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, Summer 1950.

When the Waker Sleeps
In a future where all labor is mechanized and all but a few men are born to leisure, a group of soldiers fights a never ending battle against alien invaders always seeking to invade and destroy the machines that maintain man’s leisurely existence.

This story had a great twist. Matheson uses a second person narrative to tell the story, making the twist entirely plausible. I can’t recall ever reading a story told in second person. A well written gem of a story!

When the Waker Sleeps was originally published in Galaxy, December 1950.

Return
A scientist departs on a mission of time travel 500 years into the future. As he leaves, he promises his wife he will return in time for supper. But something goes wrong in the time machine just as he makes the jump. He arrives alive in the 25th century and finds an advanced race of humans eager to talk to him to compile information for their library. But he is only interested in finding a way to get back to his wife.

Love is brought to the fore of more Matheson stories than any horror writer I’ve read. Matheson plumbs the depths of his married characters here and other novels such as What Dreams May Come. This story is similar in that a couple deeply in love are separated by life, death, and time.

Return was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1951

Brother to the Machine
In a future where man and machine coexist in society, performing the same tasks, jobs, and duties side by side, one man has had enough. He walks away from his job. In a society driven by labor, the slacker becomes the object of a search and destroy mission. The man, a military strategist throws of f the dehumanizing life of constant work and tries to flee the city.

This story was much weaker than most of Matheson’s work. I get the metaphor of the military strategist and the robotic nature of his work plotting troop movements all day. But the character was woefully underdeveloped and the metaphor never really fleshed out.

Brother to the Machine was originally published in Worlds of If, November 1952.

F---
A time traveler from 1954 to the future finds there is another “F-word” not spoken in polite company. It’s a word that you and I use every day for a substance that the fortunate of us encounter several times a day – sometimes more often than we should. This substance becomes an abomination because of an environmental cataclysm. The time traveler deals with his future shock and his cultural crime.

This story is best described as a farce. The title is designed to put our minds in a prurient place. But the source of the profanity is just a few inches north of the source of prurience. It’s a mildly entertaining tale, but a clever idea.

F--- was originally published under the title, The Foodlegger in Thrilling Wonder Stories April 1952

Lover When You’re Near Me
A warehouse manager is sent to manage a shipping facility on an alien planet. All of his workers are dull witted males. The only female of the race known to him is his maid and caretaker who calls herself, “Lover.” He finds his predecessor’s journal and reads a chronicle of a man driven to near insanity. Through Lover’s constant attention, he soon finds out what drove his predecessor to near madness.

What I appreciate about Matheson’s sci-fi – as opposed to the likes of Robert Heinlein, is his focus on character and emotion rather than technology. Like much of Matheson’s work, emotion is at the fore in this story and come to sympathize with the hero and his desire to be left alone.

Lover When You're Near Me was originally published in Galaxy, May 1952

Shipshape Home
A woman is convinced that something just isn’t right with the apartment building she and her husband lives in. The rent is too low and the custodian is a strange looking fellow. When she investigates, she finds that there are rocket engines in the basement and a third eye in the back of the head of the custodian, she convinces her husband and her neighbors. But if you think their apartment building is an alien ship, you are wrong. . .

The twist, such as it is, is not well concealed. The story moves along nicely and its primary character is strong.

Shipshape Home was originally published in Galaxy, July 1952

SRL Ad
A college student answers and personal ad placed by a woman who claims to be from Venus. He becomes the subject of her ardor and, as is tradition, the wedding will be on her home planet.

Told through an exchange of letters, this is a deftly drafted piece of dark humor.

SRL Ad was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1952.

Death Ship
A rocket patrolling for planets to be candidates for human settlement finds a crashed rocket on one of those planets. When they board the derelict rocket, they find their own dead bodies in the crash. They struggle to understand the how and why of the situation.

This interesting tale was made into an episode of the Twilight Zone. It was a season four episode which was an hour long. Many of the longer Twilight Zones were dull, but this was one of the more intriguing and engaging.

Death Ship was originally published in Fantastic Story Magazine March 1953

The Last Day
A young man wakes up in an apartment full of drunken, stinking people on what is sure to be the last day of existence, for the Earth is moving toward the sun and soon it will be too hot for life to go on. He and another fellow decide elect to spend the final day with their families rather than in drunken acts of debauchery, so they head out into a world where civilization has collapsed. Their only goal is to get home. When he gets there, he spends those final moments with his mother whom he was at first reluctant to see.

This was less a story and more a character study of how people might react knowing that it was not only their last day, but everyone’s last day alive.

The Last Day was originally published in Amazing April/May 1953

Little Girl Lost
A man and a woman are awakened by the terrified screams of their daughter, sleeping in the living room on a fold out couch. Figuring that she was having a bad dream, her father goes to calm her down. When he gets there, he can hear her voice under the couch just as if the girl were sitting next to her talking. The only thing he can think to do is call his friend who is a physicist. His friend comes over and figures out where the girl has gone, but can not devise a solution. It is the family dog who finally figures things out.

It’s difficult for me to evaluate this story as a stand alone story for I have seen the compelling adaptation Matheson penned for the Twilight Zone. I can say as a parent whose child has been reported missing to the police, I can say that Matheson captures that emotion well in his prose. But, on the written page, the story is not nearly at riveting as the screen adaptation.

Little Girl Lost was originally published in Amazing, October/November 1953.

Trespass
A man returns home from a five month long business trip to find out that his wife is about three months pregnant. She swears that she has been with no other man and implores her to believe him. He is not as strong as Joseph and cannot get past his scientific knowledge of the coupling necessary for conception (at the time this story was written). While the couple struggles along in their badly damaged marriage, she develops a taste for broad education and devours books on world cultures, politics, and science. She also develops an incredible ability to recover from disease and injury. As the man watches these remarkable developments, he becomes convinced that his wife was the victim of an unspeakable act. He worries about the child that is coming. . .

Any well read reader of sci-fi knew where this story was going. However, as I read it, I reminded myself that Matheson was a pioneer in developing this type of alien impregnation story. He may not have been the first to write such as story (or perhaps he was), but he was one of the earliest and certainly refined the sub-genre with quality work such as this.

Trespass was originally published in Fantastic, September/October 1953.

Being
A man and a woman plan to travel across the U.S. from Los Angeles to New York to visit the woman’s family. They stop at a remote gas station for ethyl and water for their constantly overheating radiator. There, they are taken prisoner and kept in a zoo by a man who serves an alien being with an insatiable appetite.

As I read this story, the mental imagery unfolded in black and white. This story would have not fit into the Twilight Zone motif, but would have worked with the slightly campier and hard sci-fi oriented Outer Limits. There was a great deal of action for a Matheson sci-fi story which are usually more contemplative in nature. Oddly, Matheson never wrote for, nor were any of his stories adapted for The Outer Limits.

Being was originally published in Worlds of If, August 1954

The Test
In a future that uses geriatric extermination as a means of population control, a young man struggles to help his father study and practice for the test he will have to take to demonstrate that he still has the physical and mental stamina to participate in society. The father knows the test is beyond his ability, and reacts bitterly. The young man wrestles with anger with his father for being so unconcerned about his fate, and his feelings of guilt for looking forward to being free of the burden that is his father.

This story was a thinly veiled parable about the guilt that children and caregivers feel about the happiness they secretly feel when their charges finally pass. It’s real and it’s natural. I have felt it myself. So is the guilt.for feeling that way.

The Test was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1954

One for the Books
A janitor at a college wakes up one morning to find he can speak French fluently even though he knew nothing of the language the night before. Soon, he starts mysteriously acquiring knowledge about physics, biology, sociology and anthropology. He loses the ability to control when he speaks English and when he speaks French. He constantly blurts irrelevant information at inopportune times. He is summoned to appear before a panel of psychologists who probe his level of knowledge in various fields. Finally, he walks away from the panel and heads home. As he leaves the building, he finds the true purpose of his knowledge acquisition.

What struck me immediately about this story was how it started much like Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis with the strong declarative sentence. “When he woke up that morning, he could speak French.” Fred Elderman’s alienation is not so nearly dramatic as Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, but this is a great alienation story.

One for the Books was originally published in Galaxy, September 1955

Steel
In the 1990s, robots have replaced humans in the boxing ring. Robots duke it out while their owners collect the rewards. The owner of a decrepit boxer and his mechanic prepare their robot to fight a much newer and stronger opponent. Just before the fight, the robot breaks down. The owner decides to step into the ring and take on the robot.

I have seen the Twilight Zone episode too many times to read this story and watch events unfold as they did on that show. The Matheson's script was a better story than his story.