The Nightmare People

3.

For a moment, as he squeezed the trigger, everything seemed to freeze. The door stopped in its swing, the expression on the Goodwin thing’s face set suddenly, even his hands stopped trembling.

Then his eyes closed and the gun went off.

The bang was startling, and loud, but not ear-splitting. The smell of powder was sharp, but not unpleasant. The recoil was like a solid punch against his braced hands, but no worse than that.

The biggest surprise was the rattling that followed the shot.

He opened his eyes to see Bill Goodwin still standing there, looking down at him, his face expressionless.

Smith blinked.

Then the Goodwin thing grinned, revealing those silvery needle-teeth, more teeth than any human mouth ever held, hundreds of them, Smith was certain.

He must have missed. When he had panicked and closed his eyes the gun must have jerked to the side and he must have missed.

Then he saw the half-inch hole in Goodwin’s T-shirt, the hole through the crossbar of the T in Metallica, the hole that was not bleeding, but slowly oozing something thick and greyish-black, something with the color of ash and the texture of mucilage.

Even as he watched, the oozing stopped, and the gunk seemed to be visibly hardening, hardening into new grey flesh.

The nightmare thing was grinning at him, with those hideous gleaming teeth, and its eyes were red and glowing from deep within its disguise of human skin.

“That’s the second hole you’ve put in this skin,” it said, in a normal conversational tone. “At this rate it isn’t going to last much longer.” It ran a long, inhumanly narrow, inhumanly pointed black tongue around its lips, and Smith could see those human lips being pushed back, revealing something shiny and black and wet underneath.

“I might need to get another if you keep this up,” it said, in Bill Goodwin’s voice. “They don’t heal.”

Smith raised the gun again and tried to fix the wavering barrel on the center of the thing’s chest.

It turned its head, looking back out at the hallway, ignoring the pistol. It reached up with its left hand, feeling behind its right shoulder.

“Make that the second and third holes,” it said. “The bullet came out the back. I think I heard it hit the wall.”

Smith remembered the rattle, and his jaw sagged, but he raised the gun and fired again.

This time he didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. He saw the nightmare thing stagger back as the bullet took it in the throat. He heard the sharp crack as the bullet shattered the hallway skylight, and saw the hallway brighten as sunlight spilled through the new opening, unimpeded by the dirt that had been layered on the glass. Small shards of glass sprinkled across the wall and floor.

Then the thing stood straight again, still grinning, as the same grey ooze seeped from the new wound.

“You’re aiming high,” it said, but its voice was no longer exactly Bill Goodwin’s – at least the bullet through its neck had done that much. “I think you forgot to compensate for the recoil.” It took a step toward him.

He pressed back against the wall, tensing for a struggle.

The moment had come. Elias had been right; the gun was useless. The thing was going to eat him.

He took a breath, getting ready to scream, to fight, to sell his life as dearly as he could.

“Now,” it said, “did you really have something you wanted moved, or was that just a trick to get me up here?”

Smith gaped.

The thing just stood there, grinning.

Smith gulped, tried to speak, couldn’t manage it.

Then, abruptly recovering his senses, he lunged forward, scrambled to his feet, and dove toward the doorway, shoving his way past the thing.

It made no move to stop him. He reached the doorway, stumbled through it, and headed for the stairs.

Coming up the stairs, looking up at him from the landing, was another of the nightmare people, this one undisguised by human skin. It looked up, its grey face and gleaming teeth and red eyes plainly visible for an instant, and then it looked down again, like a shy child, its face hidden by the blue-black slouch hat it wore.

Its hands were thrust deep into the pockets of an old raincoat, its body completely covered; with its head down it could pass for human – or for a mannequin.

Smith realized that he was between two of the things, but before he could think about that he was running down the stairs. He slammed the creature on the landing back against the wall and pushed past before it could grab him.

Its hands came out of the pockets as he did, though, long, bony hands, gnarled grey flesh strung tight across bone, with long glistening black nails at each fingertip.

He felt one nail tear at the back of his shirt, and then he was past it and running down the stairs.

Elias saw him coming, saw him running in panic, and started the car – he was already in the driver’s seat, and Smith had left the key in the ignition. With the engine running, he leaned over and opened the door on the passenger side.

Smith stumbled and almost fell on the steps down to the parking lot, but he caught himself and ran the rest of the way to the car. He threw the gun to the floor and dove in.

Before he could even get his right foot inside, Elias was backing the car out of its space; by the time Smith closed the door, Elias was struggling with the gearshift, trying to get it into Drive.

Minutes later, as Elias cruised slowly down Barrett Road, Smith finally caught his breath.