The Nightmare People

1.

He sat on the bed in his cramped room at the motel, wondering if the police had found anything. Various horrible scenarios drifted through his mind.

What if two cops went down those steps to find a hundred of those nightmare people waiting for them, silver teeth gleaming in anticipatory grins?

What if his voice on the phone had been recorded and analyzed, his identity somehow discovered, his refuge tracked down, and the cops were about to come knocking on his door, demanding to know why he was wasting their time, warning him of the penalties for giving false information? (What were the penalties for giving false information, anyway? He had no idea.) What if the police had found the bones and realized that the current inhabitants of Bedford Mills were all cannibalistic monsters, and were trying to stamp them out – but couldn’t? What if the monsters came after him, seeking vengeance for this inconvenience he had caused them?

The whole thing was so incredible that he had no idea what to do, or what to expect. He had fallen out of the normal and predictable world into… into what? Madness? Hell?

Into exhaustion, for one thing. He needed sleep.

He looked at the phone and considered calling the police again, but giving his name this time and asking Lieutenant Buckley what had happened, if anything, in the investigation of yesterday’s mass disappearance. Surely, if anything had been found in that basement, Buckley would know and would mention it.

But whoever it was who had answered when he called from the pay-phone at the Quince Orchard shopping center would probably still be on duty, and might recognize his voice. He didn’t want that.

Besides, the cops who went to investigate might not have had time to report back yet.

He would wait and call later.

He glanced at his watch, still thinking about phones, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t yet called in to work to explain his absence. Einar would be annoyed. Einar didn’t mind an occasional missed day, but he liked to know what was going on.

Smith reached for the phone and dialed.

It rang twice. Smith heard the click as someone picked up, and then a familiar voice said, “Hello, DML Communications, software division, Einar Lindqvist speaking.”

“Hi, Einar,” he said. “It’s Ed Smith.”

“Hey, Ed,” Einer replied, “What’s up now? Change your mind about coming in today?”

“No,” Smith said, a bit puzzled by Einar’s jovial tone. “I was just calling to let you know that I’ll be out for the rest of the week, but I should be back Monday.”

“So why’d you call?” Now Einar sounded appropriately annoyed. “I mean, that’s what you told me an hour ago.”

Smith blinked, staring at the painted concrete wall, and tried to convince himself that he had heard wrong. He felt very unsteady, and for a moment he thought he might faint, just fall over on the bed, or the floor, and let consciousness go away for a little while. He needed sleep, he needed sleep very badly.

“What?” he said.

“I said, that’s what you told me an hour ago.” Now Einar sounded worried. “Are you all right, Ed? I mean, I know you’re sick, but… well, you’re sick, I shouldn’t nag.”

“You talked to me an hour ago?” Smith asked.

There was a pause, and Smith could picture Einar leaning back to get a good look at the wall clock. “About that,” he said. “Maybe only forty-five minutes.”

Smith swallowed and improvised. “Look, Einar, maybe it’s the medication – my doctor gave me some stuff that makes me really fuzzy – but I don’t remember talking to you since Tuesday. Did you call me or did I call you?”

“I called you,” Einar said. “Hey, Ed, how serious is this bug you’ve got? I thought it was just a summer cold or something, but if you’re on this medication…”

“Oh, it’s okay, I think, really, it’s okay,” Smith said hurriedly. “It’s some sort of, you know, three-day wonder.” He hesitated, then asked, “Einar, where did you call me?”

“At your apartment, of course,” Einar said. “Where else?”

Smith felt himself tense up at that. His throat was dry, and he had to swallow again before he could speak.

“Einar,” he said, and then hesitated, unsure what to say.

The phone hummed quietly in his ear.

“Einar,” he continued at last, “That wasn’t me. There was some trouble at my apartment building yesterday, and I’m staying in a motel in Gaithersburg. That’s where I am now.”

For a long moment he heard only silence.

“Ed,” Einar finally said, “What are you talking about? It sure sounded like you, and who the hell else could it have been, in your apartment?”

It took Smith a moment to figure out how to answer that. He really did not want to try to convince anyone over the phone, least of all the mind-bogglingly unimaginative Einar, that his apartment complex had been taken over by monsters.

“I don’t know,” he said, after an uncomfortable pause, “Some prankster, most likely. The trouble yesterday was a practical joke that got out of hand – you can call the police if you want the details, I don’t really know what happened. Ask for Lieutenant Daniel Buckley. Maybe one of the pranksters got into my apartment and thought it would be funny to answer my phone when it rang, I don’t know. Maybe it was a smart-ass burglar, or a cop leading you on and hoping you’d spill something. I don’t know, Einar. I do know that I’m sitting here in Room 203 at the Red Roof Inn on Route 124, and that I haven’t been in my apartment since yesterday afternoon.”

The silence that followed was perhaps the longest yet.

“I don’t know, Ed,” Einar said at last. “It sounds pretty unlikely. Sounds completely screwy, in fact. I mean, whoever it was sure sounded like you, and he seemed to know who I was, and everything.”

“Did you give your name before he used it?” Smith asked.

He dreaded a possible affirmative answer. If the one who answered the phone was that thing, that nightmare person, and if they really took over the lives of the people they replaced, they must have some way of knowing little details of people’s lives.

“I don’t remember,” Einar admitted after a moment’s thought. “I guess not; I guess he said hello, and I said hi, it’s Einar, and then I asked if you – if he’d be coming into work this afternoon… oh, shit, Ed, I don’t know. It’s weird. The voice was exactly the same – are you sure it wasn’t you?”

“I’m sure,” Smith told him. “And the voice – well, you expected it to be me, so you heard what you expected, right? It’s not like my voice is unusual or anything.”

“Well, yeah, but… Jeez, I’m not sure whether you’re telling the truth now, or if maybe you’re the one pulling a practical joke.”

“I’m not, Einar, I swear it. Look, I’ll be in Monday, and you can see me face to face, and maybe by then the police will have it all straightened out. And if you’ve just got to talk to me, call me here. The Red Roof Inn in Gaithersburg.”

“Red Roof Inn. Right. Room 203, you said.”

“That’s right,” Smith agreed.

“Got it,” Einar said. “See you Monday, then.”

“Right. See you.”

Smith set the receiver gently down on the cradle, then fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to think.

His thoughts were a mass of fragmentary and horrific images that he tried desperately and unsuccessfully to force into order. That thing was in his apartment, answering his phone – and what else was it doing there? What did a walking nightmare do in its free time?

What about all his things – his clothes, his books, his computers? Was that thing wearing his clothes, reading his books, using his computers?

There were so many questions and mysteries!

What had happened in that basement? What had the nightmare people done there? What had they done to his neighbors? What had the police found there?

Where had the monsters come from in the first place? Where could they have come from? Outer space? Hell? Genetic experiments?

None of those made any sense. How could monsters from outer space disguise themselves as human? Why would they want to? Why attack an apartment complex?

And nobody was doing genetic experiments like that, not even the CIA, he was sure.

And he didn’t believe in hell, not really, not as a source of devils and monsters.

So where had they come from?

He didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine any sane explanation, and as he tried, his exhaustion got the better of him; he fell asleep.