Duel by Richard Matheson

examining its exterior surface.
    Wade stepped up on the platform and touched the smooth metal with his palms. It comforted him to feel it. It was a tangible link with the past—and his wife.
    Then a look of concern crossed his face. Someone had locked the door. He frowned. Opening it from the outside was a difficult and imperfect method.
    One of the students spoke. “Will you open it? We didn’t want to cut it open.”
    A pang of fear coursed through Wade. If they had cut it open, he would have been stranded forever.

    â€œI’ll open it,” he said. “I have to leave now anyway.” He said it with forced belligerence, as though he dared them to say otherwise.
    The silence that greeted his remark frightened him. He heard Clemolk whisper something.
    Pressing his lips together, he began hesitantly to move his fingers over the combination dials.
    In his mind, Wade planned quickly, desperately. He would open the door, jump in and pull it shut behind him before they could make a move.
    Clumsily, as if they were receiving only vague direction from his brain, his fingers moved over the thick dials on the center of the door. His lips moved as he repeated to himself the numbers of the combination: 3.2—5.9—7.6—9.01. He paused, then tugged at the handle.
    The door would not open.
    Drops of perspiration beaded on his forehead and ran down his face. The combination had eluded him.
    He struggled to concentrate and remember. He had to remember! Closing his eyes, he leaned against the chamber. Mary, he thought, please help me. Again he fumbled at the dials.
    Not 7.6 he suddenly realized. It was 7.8.
    His eyes flashed open. He turned the dial to 7.8. The lock was ready to open.
    â€œYou’d b-better step back,” Wade said, turning to the four men. “There’s liable to be an escape of … locked-in gasses.” He hoped they wouldn’t guess how desperately he was lying.
    The students and Clemolk stepped back a little. They were still close, but he had to risk it.
    Wade jerked open the door and in his plunge through the opening, slipped on the smooth platform surface and crashed down on one knee. Before he could rise, he felt himself grabbed on both sides.
    Two students started to drag him off the platform.
    â€œNo!” he screamed. “I have to go back!”
    He kicked and struggled, his fists flailed the air. Now the other two
men held him back. Tears of rage flew from his eyes as he writhed furiously in their grip, shrieking, “Let me go!”
    A sudden pain jabbed Wade’s back. He tore away from one student and dragged the others around in a last surge of enraged power. A glimpse of Clemolk showed the historian holding another hypodermic.
    Wade would have tried to lunge for him, but on the instant a complete lassitude watered his limbs. He slumped down on his knees, glassy-eyed, one numbing hand outflung in vain appeal.
    â€œMary,” he muttered hoarsely.
    Then he was on his back and Clemolk was standing over him. The historian seemed to waver and disappear before Wade’s clouding eyes.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Clemolk was saying. “You can’t go back—ever.”
    Â 
    Wade lay on the couch again, staring at the ceiling and still turning over Clemolk’s words in his mind.
    â€œIt’s impossible that you return. You’ve been transposed in time. You now belong to this period.”
    Mary was waiting.
    Supper would be on the stove. He could see her setting the table, her slender fingers putting down plates, cups, sparkling glasses, silverware. She’d be wearing a clean, fluffy apron over her dress.
    Then the food was ready. She’d be sitting at the table waiting for him. Deep within himself Wade felt the unspoken terror in her mind.
    He twisted his head on the couch in agony. Could it possibly be true? Was he really imprisoned five centuries from his rightful existence? It was insane. But he was here . The