Steel (24 page)

I couldn't say a word. Was it me or was I prevented from speaking because I
had
, after all, broken that rule of time travel?

How long I stood there, a mute statue called
wordless love
, I had no idea. It must have been long enough to disturb her though. “Why are you staring at me?” she asked.

Because I love you, damn it!
yelled my brain. But my tongue, my voice? Still paralyzed.

Then Adeline said one thing I will always remember, always cherish.

“Are you all right?” she asked. Concerned. Loving. I will never forget that.

Her words were disfigured in a moment by the Italian girl snapping, “Get outta here, old man! We'll call a cop!”

That did it. The moment was lost. Without a word—completely unavailable to me anyway—I turned and walked away. Cursing myself inwardly.
For Christ's sake, go back and tell her what she has to hear! If you don't, that poor, speechless sap in the window will never say boo. And all will be lost. As always, dammit! As bloody
always!

*   *   *

I don't remember how I got back to Flatbush Avenue. Not a step of it. I know I must have passed the police station, the Edison store. Not a glimmer of recollection. Only one thing remembered. Sitting on one of the steps to our old apartment.

And seeing myself walk by.

My immediate inclination was to shrink back in startled avoidance. Not that much of a problem since he had already passed me by.

How do I describe my feelings at that moment? There was a fascination, no doubt of that. But also discomfort, even dismay. Why? Think of it. You—eighty-two—looking at your fifteen-year-old self walking by. Moments of distress at the duplicate reality.
Two of you
, one fifteen, one eighty-two. How could the confused sensation be allied? No way. I had to just accept the anomaly.

Then it struck me: I had a choice. There were no hard-and-fast rules controlling time travel. I was free to act as I chose.
I could alter anything at will.

So I stood quickly and hurried after myself. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? It
is
crazy. The whole experience was crazy. With one exception.

It happened.

So there I was, my old self striding confidently (willfully at any rate) after my young self. “Richard!” I called, suddenly remembering that the gang at the Y called me “Swanee.” Would he respond to that nickname more readily? Probably not.

He didn't turn, kept walking. I recognized his stride, smiling as I remembered how my mother described it as loose and wobbly. It was that.

I called his name again. This time he heard me and stopped to look around. I approached him—and let me tell you about the uncanny encounter of standing inches from your own younger self. The feeling goes beyond description. It was, at once, thrilling and frightening.

“What is it?” he asked. Not too politely. Who was this old guy and what did he want?

I tried to start what I meant to say, suffering an abrupt dread that I was about to face the same dumbstruck inability to speak that I had experienced in front of Adeline. I fought it off. I would not let it happen again! “I want,” I began, then faltered. “I want to help you,” I blurted.

“Is this some kind of charity?” my fifteen-year-old self asked suspiciously.

I felt a tremor of amusement. I'd always had a skeptical nature. I had to smile. My show of diversion didn't please him. He turned away. “No, don't,” I said abruptly.

He turned back. “Listen,
sir
,” he said. The
sir
did not sound at all polite.

“I want to speak to you about Adeline,” I said.

He stared at me. “
Who?
” he asked. He sounded far more aggravated than curious.

Mentally, I jumped back in my own time. Had this ever happened to me when I was fifteen? I was sure it hadn't. This was something else. Something else entirely. I was transcending time travel.

Which strengthened my resolve to say, “The girl who lives across the street from you. The one you look at from the window of your mother's bedroom.” There. I'd said it. Time was changed.

My fifteen-year-old-self was looking at me with deep suspicion written on his face. He didn't speak.

“You have to speak to her,” I told him.

“What are you, a detective or something?” he replied.

I, my dubious teenage self, replied.

“No,” I said, amused again.

He didn't react well to that amusement either.

“Listen, mister,” he began.

“No,” I interrupted him. “
You
listen. Adeline—”

“
How do you know her name?
” he demanded. He was really suspicious of me now. Was it all going wrong?

I couldn't let it go wrong. So, mistakenly or not, I countered him. “You don't know her name, do you? You don't know anything about her.”

“
Listen
, mister,” he started again.

“No,
you
listen, son!” I broke in again. (Of course, he wasn't my son, he was
me.
) “You have to speak to her. Stop staring out the window and go to her when she's sitting on her porch. Get to know her. Tell her you love her. That you want to spend the rest of your life with her. Don't make the same mistake
I
did! You've got to—”

“
Mister!
” he cried, cutting me off. “I don't know what you're talking about! All I know is you've lived your life! Now let me live mine!”

He was right, of course. I knew it in an instant. I had no right to mess with his life. I knew that he would never speak to Adeline. Would live his life without her. My attempted intervention was a waste of time. Would he even remember it? Doubtful.

I watched him walk away from me, my young self leaving me behind. Living his own life. As he had a perfect right to do. Unhampered by me. I'd tried in vain.… Time travel? Bah! Humbug!

Unless …

Unless it taught me something. But what? Leave yesterday alone, maybe. No point in trying to change the past. It's
gone.
Only in memories. Which are, face it, indelible; not subject to rewriting.

*   *   *

I walked back to the house. It was still there. I rang the deafening bell and the old lady opened the front door. Somehow, it was 2009 once more. I don't have to climb back through the window. “I've decided against renting that room,” I told her. She didn't seem surprised. “Thought you might,” she said, then shut the door.

I walked back to Miriam's house. She'd returned from the market and was unloading groceries.

“Where you been, Dad?” she asked.

I kissed her on the cheek. “Went for a walk,” I told her.

ALSO BY RICHARD MATHESON

Hunted Past Reason

Other Kingdoms

The Beardless Warriors

Button, Button (The Box)

Duel

Earthbound

The Gun Fight

Hell House

I Am Legend

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Journal of the Gun Years

The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

Noir

Now You See It …

The Path

7 Steps to Midnight

Shadow on the Sun

Somewhere in Time

A Stir of Echoes

What Dreams May Come

 

C
OPYRIGHT
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

“Steel” copyright © 1956 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1984. Originally published in
Fantasy & Science Fiction,
May 1956.

“To Fit the Crime” copyright © 1952 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1980. Originally published in
Fantastic,
November/December 1952.

“The Wedding” copyright © 1953. Originally published in
Beyond Fantasy Fiction,
July 1953.

“The Conqueror” copyright © 1954 by RXR, Inc.; © renewed 1982. Originally published in
Blue Book,
July 1954.

“Dear Diary” copyright © 1954 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1982. Originally published in
Born of Man and Woman,
1954.

“Descent” copyright © 1954 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1982. Originally published in
Worlds of If,
May 1954.

“The Doll That Does Everything” copyright © 1954 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1982. Originally published in
Fantastic Universe,
December 1954.

“The Traveller” copyright © 1954 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1982. Originally published in
Born of Man and Woman,
1954.

“When Day Is Dun” copyright © 1954 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1982. Originally published in
Fantastic Universe,
May 1954.

“The Splendid Source” copyright © 1956 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1984. Originally published in
Playboy,
May 1956.

“Lemmings” copyright © 1957 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1985. Originally published in
Fantasy & Science Fiction,
January 1958.

“The Edge” copyright © 1958 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1986. Originally published in
Fantasy & Science Fiction,
August 1958.

“A Visit to Santa Claus” © 1957 by Richard Matheson; © renewed 1985. Originally published as “I'll Make It Look Good” under the pseudonym Logan Swanson in
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine,
March 1957.

“Dr. Morton's Folly” copyright © 2009 by Richard Matheson. Originally published in
Vice,
December 2009.

“The Window of Time” copyright © 2010 by Richard Matheson. Originally published in
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
September/October 2010.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

STEEL

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Matheson, Inc.

All rights reserved.

A Tor
®
eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

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®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Matheson, Richard, 1926–

    Steel, and other stories / Richard Matheson.—1st ed.

        p. cm.

    “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

    ISBN 978-0-7653-2942-4

    I.  Title.

PS3563.A8355S74 2011

813'.54—dc22

2011021549

First Edition: October 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-7040-2