The Nightmare People

3.

“Is it all right if we drive? I’d rather not just sit here.”

She shifted her grip on the crowbar as she glanced around. It was a nice little vehicle, reasonably clean, but with a pile of stuff in the back seat that looked like computer equipment. The air conditioning was running, which was nice; she was in no particular hurry to get out into the heat again. “It’s your car,” she said. “Just so you drop me at home when you’re through.”

“Fine.” He let the car go forward.

“So what is it you wanted to tell me about Bill?”

He glanced at her, but then turned his eyes back to the road.

“Did you hear about what happened at the Bedford Mills Apartments on Wednesday morning?” he asked.

“There was something in the paper yesterday about a bomb scare – is that what you mean?”

He nodded. “Except that wasn’t what it was.” He turned a corner, then continued, “On Wednesday morning, every single person in that whole complex, except me, was missing. The place was empty. Wednesday afternoon, they all turned up in the basement of that unfinished office building across the back lot, with a story about a bomb scare chasing them out.”

“What about you?” Maggie asked, watching him closely and holding the crowbar. “Why were you the only one who wasn’t missing?”

“Because I slept right through it all. I was up until three a.m. because my air conditioner had broken down, and I couldn’t sleep, and then I slept right through until almost noon, and I missed the excitement, whatever it was.”

“Bill was missing, too?” Maggie asked.

Smith nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Bill, and his parents, and Jessie and Harry and Sid, all of them were missing.”

She blinked. Why on Earth hadn’t Bill called her afterwards, to talk about it? That was an adventure, something he would have shared with her!

She’d seen the item in the Journal, but it hadn’t occurred to her that the Goodwins were involved; the article hadn’t mentioned names, or said that it was everyone in the complex, only that “over a hundred residents” were involved.

“That’s the official story,” Smith said, after giving her a moment to think. She looked at him and listened closely.

“What really happened…” he began. “Well, I don’t know exactly, but I know that the people who came back afterwards weren’t the same ones who had lived there before.”

“What do you mean, they weren’t the same ones?” she asked, staring at him.

Then he told her about Mrs. Malinoff’s knee, and her eyes, and the bloodstains he’d found in the basement, bloodstains that had been painted over by the time the cops got there – he didn’t mention the bones, or the apparitions at his windows, or go into any detail about the blood. He told her about his phone being answered when he wasn’t there.

And he told her about peeling a piece of skin off “Bill Goodwin’s” back, and what he had seen underneath, and he fished a little scrap of something, like a milky piece of burst balloon, out of his pocket and held it out to her.

“Eew, gross!” she said, not touching it.

He smiled a tight little smile, and put the scrap on the dashboard. Maggie stared at it, but still refused to touch it.

“That all sounds crazy,” she said.

She immediately regretted it; what if he was crazy? What if he attacked her? Sure, she had the crowbar, but she didn’t want to have to use it. She wasn’t sure she could use it.

She saw a glitter in his eye for a second, and lifted the crowbar.

“I know it sounds crazy,” he said. “Why do you think I haven’t gone to the police with it?” He glanced at her.

She nodded. “I guess,” she agreed. “It’s like something out of a horror movie, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t have to. I tried very hard not to believe it. There were a couple of things I haven’t told you about, because if I did I’d sound even crazier, but I saw them, and felt them, and there’s that piece of skin there, and I sure as hell didn’t imagine that! Even if you won’t touch it, you can see it, right? And it’s really a piece of skin?”

He stopped the car at a corner and looked at her with an odd expression on his face, and Maggie realized that he wasn’t really sure at all. If she told him it wasn’t skin, he’d believe her; he’d think he was nuts.

That might be the best thing all around. She could pretend she’d never seen him, and forget the whole thing.

But it really was a piece of skin, or at least something that looked like one.

“I guess it is,” she said. “I mean, I’ve never… you don’t… I mean, I guess so.”

He nodded. “Good enough.” He pulled out into traffic, turning east.

“Look, you don’t have to believe me,” he said a moment later. “Go visit Bill. You’ve been dating all summer, right? At least that long; I’ve seen you around a lot. You must know him pretty well by now. Whatever it is that’s wearing his skin, you ought to be able to tell it’s not him. I mean, has he been acting like Bill, this week, not calling you, even after all the excitement? Forgetting your date tonight? It’s because the thing that took his place doesn’t know everything Bill knew; it doesn’t know he had a date tonight. You’ll see.”

Maggie didn’t particularly want to see, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she asked, “Is that where we’re going? Bill’s apartment?”

Smith glanced out his side window at the gathering dusk. “Nope. Not at this time of day, we’re not.”

She looked out her own window; the sun was down, and the sky darkening slowly. “Why?” she asked.

“Because I think they’re more active at night.”

“You think what are more active at night?”

“The nightmare people, the things that ate my neighbors.”

She considered that for a long moment of silence as they cruised smoothly along Route 124. Her empty stomach knotted at the idea.

“You really think they ate them?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I can’t prove it,” he said, “But yes, I think they did.”

She grimaced. “Eew,” she said again.

He smiled. It was not a happy smile, nor a pleasant one.

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “I intend to fight these things, whatever they are, even if I can’t go to the police. I’m looking for people to help me, people who knew my neighbors and who’ll have a reason to want revenge. And also, people who will be able to tell that these things aren’t the people they’re pretending to be. Except I don’t know anyone like that. I didn’t live there that long, and you know how people are in apartments – you never get to know your neighbors, not really. The only person I knew at all who might help was you, because I’d seen you and Bill together, and he told me your name and that you lived around here, so I was able to look your folks up in the phone book and come wait for you.”

She considered that, and replied, hesitantly, “I don’t know about this. I mean, I’m not sure what you’re after, and I don’t think I want to do it. I’m no fearless vampire killer or anything.”

“They aren’t vampires,” he said. “At least, I don’t think they are.”

“Then it’s even worse, isn’t it?” she asked. “I mean, with a vampire, you know he can’t come out in the daylight, and they’re scared of crosses, and garlic, and you kill them with a stake through the heart – but what do you do with these things, whatever they are? Where’d they come from, anyway?”

“I don’t know, damn it!” Smith snapped. He calmed down almost instantly, and continued, “I wish I did. And I know you’re not Rambo or anything, hell, you said you can’t even drive yet, but you’re all I’ve got. You’ve got to help me, even if it’s just by telling me where I can find other people who’ll believe me.”

“But I’m not sure I believe you!” she shouted.

“I know,” Smith said, nodding. “You will, though, when you talk to Bill Goodwin, or look at the back of his neck.” He pointed at the skin fragment. “You’ll see where this piece came from – if it hasn’t healed up or something.”

Maggie tried not to yell as she replied, “Look, even if I do believe you, why should I help?”

“Because,” Smith said, snatching up the skin and shaking it at her, “That thing ate Bill Goodwin! It ate the boy you’ve been dating all summer!”

That was too much for her. Her gorge rose.

“Stop the car!” she said, desperately.

He looked at her, startled, “Oh, hey, you don’t have to get out here, I’ll drive you home…”

“No, that’s not it. Stop the car!”

Puzzled, he pulled over onto the shoulder, and she got the door open and leaned out just in time to vomit onto asphalt instead of upholstery.

Smith watched helplessly from the driver’s seat, and noted wryly that she never loosened her grip on the crowbar.

At least, she thought as she wiped her mouth with a rag from the glove compartment, at least she wasn’t hungry any more; missed dinner or no, she wasn’t the least interested in eating anything for quite some time.

When she was done, and sure that nothing more would come up, she leaned back and closed the door.

“Take me home,” she said.

Smith started the car rolling.

“What about…” he began.

“Tomorrow morning,” she said, “I’m going over to Bill’s apartment, and I’m going to talk to him, and if you’re right, I’m going to go home again and call you up.” She paused, then added, “And if this is all some kind of a sick, nasty joke, then I swear I’m going to report you to the cops, you son of a bitch, and tell them you tried to rape me.”

“It’s not a joke,” he said.

“Then you’ll hear from me in the morning. Where can I call you?”

He told her.

Then he took her home.

Shortly after ten o’clock on Saturday morning, he was awakened by her call.

He had his first recruit.