The Nightmare People

4.

He met his second recruit when he came by to pick Maggie up for a lunchtime strategy session.

He had only gotten four hours’ sleep that morning, after a long night spent playing with the Kaypro laptop in his motel room, but he tried not to let that bother him.

On two separate occasions during the night he had glimpsed something looking in the window at him, a familiar and inhuman face that vanished as soon as he looked up, but he tried not to let that bother him, either.

He was not at his best, however, when he drove up to the Devanoy house on Amber Crescent and found not one, but two people waiting for him on the front porch there. One was Maggie, tall and brown-haired and gangly, and the other one he didn’t know, a boy of sixteen or seventeen, with curly black hair and a pale, round face, an inch or two shorter than Maggie.

“Who’s this?” he asked as he got out of the car.

“Mr. Smith,” Maggie said, “This is Elias Samaan. He lives up the street, and he was a friend of Bill’s, from school.”

Elias started to hold out his hand, then nervously changed his mind. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

Smith nodded. “Pleased to meet you, too,” he said. He looked at Maggie.

She shrugged.

Elias said, “I was over at Bill’s place this morning, and Maggie told me about the vampires, and he’s changed, all right.”

Smith frowned. This did not sound encouraging, somehow. “I don’t think they’re vampires,” he said. “I… well, I don’t think that’s what they are.”

“Sure they are!” Elias insisted. “They aren’t like in the movies, but these things must be what the original legends are based on!”

Smith shrugged. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “This probably isn’t the best place to discuss it, though.”

“Oh, right, I guess,” Elias said. “So what did you have in mind? Where are you working from?”

Smith blinked. “Working from? I’m staying at a motel, if that’s what you mean.”

Elias looked disapproving. “That’s no good. We need somewhere they can’t spy on us.”

“Elias says he knows all about this stuff,” Maggie interjected.

Smith did not like the sound of that at all. “What stuff?” he said.

“Vampires,” Elias explained. “And monsters.”

Smith glanced about, suddenly wondering if he had made some terrible mistake, then turned back to Elias and Maggie.

“Look,” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper, “These aren’t some kind of horror-movie vampires that sleep in coffins. This isn’t a game, either – it’s not Dungeons Dragons. This is real. But it’s not something I want to talk about here where Maggie’s folks might be listening, or the neighbors, or other people. I’m not worried about the creatures bothering us here, or spying on us, but I am worried about getting us all in trouble with the everyday authorities – you two with your parents, me with the cops. Not to mention that it’s hot out here. Now, can we go somewhere a bit more private than a goddamn front porch?”

Maggie glanced nervously at the door, and Elias looked abashed. “Right,” Elias said.

“Should we get in the car?” Maggie asked.

“I think that would be a good idea, yes,” Smith said. He brought up the rear as the three of them trooped down the front walk.

Elias climbed into the back, and Maggie took the passenger seat. “Kind of cramped back here,” Elias remarked.

Maggie found the lever to slide her seat forward a little. “Is that better?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Smith ignored this exchange as he fastened his seat belt and got his key into the ignition. He started the engine, gave it a minute to warm up, then punched on the air conditioning.

“Where to?” he asked. “Any suggestions?”

“Why don’t we just drive around?” Maggie asked. “We can talk, and no one can overhear us.”

“Not unless they’ve bugged the car,” Elias agreed.

“Nobody’s bugged my car,” Smith said, annoyed at the suggestion – not because it was absurd, but because he was afraid that it wasn’t.

He pulled away from the curb.

After a moment’s silence, Maggie suddenly announced, “Okay, I’m convinced. It’s not Bill. He’s got a bandage on the back of his neck where you got that skin off, but he doesn’t… well, it isn’t Bill. He doesn’t feel right.”

“He doesn’t smell right, either,” Elias said from the back.

Maggie smiled back at him gratefully, then added, “And he’s forgotten things that Bill wouldn’t forget, and sometimes he doesn’t move right, and he wouldn’t… I mean…”

Smith threw her a glance, and suggested, “He wouldn’t kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Maggie admitted, relieved. “He didn’t seem to want to touch me at all, and that’s not like Bill.”

Smith nodded. “I didn’t think he’d want to touch you,” he said. “Their disguises aren’t that good.”

They rode on without speaking for a block or so, up Southfield Road to the corner of Barrett.

“So what do we do?” Maggie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Smith admitted. “I hadn’t really thought it through. I just knew that I needed help.”

“Help with what?” Maggie demanded.

“That’s obvious,” Elias replied scornfully. “Killing them.”