The Nightmare People

4.

They picked Khalil and Maggie up at Annie McGowan’s house a few minutes after five. Sandy recovered his own car, a black Mercury, and Khalil rode with him, while Elias and Maggie rode with Smith. The Newells were long gone, and Annie herself wanted nothing to do with their vigilantism, but Khalil and Maggie both wanted in.

Sandy made his call from the pay-phone outside the 7-Eleven on Townsend.

“Hey, Mare!” he said.

The others couldn’t hear the reply.

“It’s me, Sandy. Look, I’m sorry for the things I said last time, okay? Can we talk about it?”

He listened for a moment.

“No, really, I want us to get back together, okay? I love you, Mare – no shit, I really do. So can we talk somewhere? In person?”

Maggie kicked nervously at the sidewalk.

“Naw, Bob’s around, and I want it private. Look, how about you meet me at the north end of the dam, on Barrett Road, and we can walk in the woods, just you and me and Mother Nature, okay?”

Smith looked over at Khalil; he seemed calm, like Sandy, while Elias and Maggie were obviously nervous.

“Seven thirty? Can’t you make it any sooner?”

Smith couldn’t hear the false Mary’s reply, but he saw Sandy wince and guessed it wasn’t exactly polite agreement.

“Okay, okay,” Sandy said. “Seven thirty, then. See you there!” He hung up.

“All set, you guys,” he called.

“Seven thirty?” Smith asked.

Sandy shrugged. “Best I could do.”

“It’ll be getting on toward sunset by then,” Elias pointed out.

Sandy shrugged. “Hey, what can I do?”

No one had an answer to that.

That left them a couple of hours; Maggie and Khalil hadn’t eaten any supper as yet, so they made their next stop the Wendy’s on Diamond Park Avenue.

When they emerged, around six thirty, the sky had clouded over; as they climbed back into the two cars the rumble of distant thunder reached them.

“Lovely weather,” Sandy remarked.

They needed twenty minutes of the remaining hour to get out to the dam and find a spot to hide Smith’s Chevy, up around the curve out of sight.

The walk back to the dam would take perhaps five minutes, but nobody was in any hurry to make it, as the sky was dark and the rumbling more frequent now.

“Lovely weather,” Sandy repeated sarcastically. Khalil made no reply, and the other three, huddled in Smith’s Chevy, didn’t hear him.

About ten past seven the storm finally broke, and rain spilled down heavily, but in the way of summer storms it was over quickly; ten minutes after it had begun, the downpour stopped.

When the rain stopped Smith and Elias and Maggie emerged cautiously from the Chevy and began the walk back to the appointed meeting place, while Sandy got the Mercury turned around and headed back. The ground was damp beneath their feet, and crickets shrilled on all sides.

When Sandy and his passenger reached the agreed-upon spot the other three were waiting for them.

“I just hope she isn’t early,” Smith said, as Sandy and Khalil climbed out.

“I just hope she shows,” Sandy said. “When I phoned it was still sunny and warm, and now look at it.” He gestured at the dark grey skies.

Maggie shuddered slightly.

“I’ll wait here,” Sandy said. “The rest of you get out of sight.”

Smith nodded, and led the other four off the road, back among the trees, well away from the road, so that whatever they did wouldn’t be seen.

Then they waited.

“This is stupid,” Maggie finally said from behind an oak, “Even if she comes. She’ll see us!”

“No, she won’t,” Elias answered. “I don’t think they see very well in sunlight.”

“What sunlight, Elias?” Maggie asked. “I can’t even tell whether the sun’s still up there behind those clouds or already set.”

“Shut up!” Sandy called from the roadside. “I can hear you from here, and that’s her car coming!”

A battered old Volkswagen pulled up onto the sandy shoulder; Smith could just make it out through the shadows and foliage. Someone got out, a petite blonde in denim shorts and a red halter and broad-brimmed straw sun-hat – she obviously hadn’t let a little summer shower bother her enough to make her change clothes. Sandy talked to her, and she answered him, but none of the others could make out what was said.

Then the pair of them walked down into the forest, away from the road, toward where the others waited. Smith clutched the oaken stake; he was sweating, more than the lingering warmth of a summer evening could account for. He glanced over to where Khalil held the four-pound sledgehammer they had bought – on Smith’s charge card – earlier that afternoon.

The little blonde’s voice reached Smith. “…I’m not still mad at you, I just don’t think I’m ready to get back together.”

Wet leaves rustled as the pair walked, and the crickets sang wildly.

“Mare,” Sandy said, “What’s to be ready? I mean, it’s not like it was the first time, or anything. We lived together for over a year, right? So we already know each other. We know what we’re doing.” He had an arm around her shoulders as they walked, his other arm swinging free.

Then, suddenly, the arm around her shoulders was around her throat, choking her; he lifted her off her feet and threw her to the ground, then knelt astride her chest, pinning her arms with his knees.

She looked surprised, but didn’t resist.

Smith swallowed bile and stepped forward, out of concealment, a little voice in the back of his mind shouting at him, she’s a woman, an innocent, this is wrong, it’s murder!

Khalil emerged, and Elias, and Maggie, and the four of them surrounded Sandy and his prisoner. She looked up at them and suddenly screamed, “Rape! Help! Rape!”

With a curse, Sandy thrust his fist in her mouth to stop the screams, but as he did he felt a hundred sharp, sharp points prick at his knuckles from either side, like hot needles. His own mouth came open, but no sound emerged; he tried to pull his hand back and couldn’t.

The screaming was stopped, but his hand was being maimed, he could feel it, the razor-sharp points drilling into his hand, into the tendons, the pressure of her jaws forcing his own fingernails into his palm.

He slapped at her with his free hand, and felt her skin shift at impact, loose from the flesh beneath.

“Let go, bitch!” he shouted.

She smiled, around his hand – except that one side of her mouth didn’t work right, where he had slapped at her, the skin slid loosely and sagged, and something dark grey, almost black, showed underneath, something that looked like a dog’s gum, twisted upward in a leer. The eye on that side gleamed red, while the other was still Mary’s familiar blue.

“You killed her, bitch, you aren’t her,” Sandy shrieked. “Let go of my hand, goddamn it!”

Then Elias was there, with the axe, threatening her with it. She let go suddenly, and Sandy’s hand came free. He fell backward, blood spraying from the dozens of punctures.

“Jesus!” he said, looking at it.

Blood was flowing freely now, winding around his thumb and down his wrist and arm in a steady stream; he clutched at the wounds with his left hand, trying to stem the flow. He could feel each individual puncture, each one stinging, each as if a nail had been driven into him.

Maggie was beside him, looking around helplessly for something to use as a bandage, and Smith was holding out the oaken stake. Sandy looked down at the thing that had bitten him, the thing that had pretended to be Mary, the thing he was still half-sitting on, and he spat at it.

It grinned at him, and he could see the long silver needle-teeth, each one tipped in bright red; one eye was equally red, the other still human and blue. The skin – Mary’s skin – had pulled away from the jaws completely now, and the chin was hanging loose on the thing’s neck, while the upper lip was wrinkled across the bottom of its nose, like a thrown-back bedsheet. In between, the jaws were dark grey, corded with heavy muscle, like ropes of thick clay. The thing’s own lips were thin and black, not at all like Mary’s lush red mouth.

Both its own flesh, and Mary’s skin, were spattered with a fine spray of his blood. A stray shaft of sunlight suddenly broke through the clouds and spilled through the trees to blaze golden from her hair, and Sandy could see gleaming red droplets in her hair, on the surrounding earth, on the moist undergrowth.

All around, the crickets sang.

His spittle caught it on its bare cheek; it didn’t react.

It wasn’t struggling, he realized. It was lying there, grinning at them all, no longer screaming, just lying there.

He felt a chill, and he flexed his neck. Why was it so calm? He suppressed a shiver.

Why was he shivering? Shit, he’d been hurt worse than this, been through worse, without being scared.

Blood loss, he thought, looking at the trickle that was dripping from his elbow. He was losing a lot of blood. Or maybe there was venom in the wounds.

It wasn’t dangerous, though, not unless there was venom, and he didn’t have time to worry about it. They had to kill the thing.

“Give me that,” he said, and he snatched the stake away from Smith, who was standing helplessly, like a fucking baby, Sandy thought, he started this and now he can’t go through with it.

He placed the stake between the thing’s breasts, point down, ignoring the blood that dripped from his hand and ran down the rough oak.

Before he was really ready, Khalil swung the hammer, and the wood ripped against his palms; the point drove down into the thing’s flesh, tearing through the flimsy halter it wore, and tearing through Mary’s stolen skin.

He braced himself, squinting against the expected spurt of blood.

Nothing came; the thing gasped softly, and lay still.

It was still smiling.

“Again,” Sandy said.

Khalil swung again, and the stake drove down again, tearing at Sandy’s hands; he let go, and it stood upright, held by the creature’s flesh.

Khalil swung a third time, and the stake drove in again, and this time Sandy saw the thing’s hands flop at the impact, saw the loose skin on its hideous face bounce up. Something came loose, and its other eye shone red, Mary’s blue gone forever.

Sandy moved back and climbed unsteadily to his feet; once upright, he clutched at his wounded hand again.

God, that hurt!

He looked at the thing on the ground, and saw that only about eight or nine inches of the two-foot oaken stake still showed. It had obviously been driven clear through the creature, and well into the ground beneath.

That was pretty good driving, he thought; Khalil was stronger than he looked.

Maggie knelt by the thing’s side, and Sandy started to shout at her, to warn her away from it, because despite that shaft pinning it to the earth he was not entirely convinced it was dead.

He was having trouble getting his breath, though.

Then Maggie grabbed Mary’s halter top and tore a strip of the fabric away, exposing bare pink skin and a shrivelled nipple. The skin had torn where the stake went in, revealing the grey flesh beneath, and the slackening had let the nipple slide over to the outside of the lump on the creature’s chest, a lump that was not a breast, but only a rough imitation of one.

Sandy gagged at the sight, remembering all too clearly when that nipple had stood atop a real woman’s breast.

Then Maggie was there in front of him with the strip of cloth, wrapping it around his injured hand to stop the bleeding. He looked down, and realized that his hand and arm were completely covered with his own blood, that blood had run down his T-shirt, down his jeans and into his Nikes, that the thing that had pretended to be Mary was smeared and splattered with blood – and all of it was his.

The daylight was dying, the sun was almost down and the clouds were closing in again.

“Cut off its head,” Sandy tried to say, but his voice failed him. He tried again.

“Cut off its fucking head!”

That was better.

Elias was standing there holding the axe, and not doing a damn thing with it. Khalil was holding the sledge, and looking ill. Smith wasn’t holding anything; he was just standing there, staring at the thing.

“He’s right,” Smith said. “Elias, cut off its head.”

Suddenly Elias looked sicker than Khalil did. “I can’t,” he said, “You do it!”

Sandy started forward, intending to take the axe and do the job himself, but he brushed up against Maggie and stopped as pain laced through his hand again.

He probably couldn’t even hold the damn axe, with his hands all torn up!

It didn’t matter; Smith had taken the axe from Elias, and was lifting it up over his head. The sharp edge caught the last glimmer of direct light, as at that moment the sun finally vanished for good.

Then the thing on the ground moved, it twisted its head to look up at the axe, and its arms came up.

The axe came down, but a hand was there to meet it, meet it not at the blade, but the haft, just behind the head. The axe didn’t stop, not at first, but it slowed, and never reached the thing’s neck; it stopped an inch or two short, the creature holding it with both hands. It glared up at Smith with those baleful blood-red eyes, its needle-teeth gleaming.

Elias stared, and then began groping at his shirt, pawing at it, desperately searching as the nightmare on the ground began a bizarre, grim tug of war with Ed Smith, each of the two trying to snatch the axe away from the other. Smith was standing, feet braced, while the woman was lying pinned to the earth, but he could not wrench it away.

The woman-thing had the better grip, because of the axe-head, which kept her hands from slipping off the end, and because Smith’s hands were slick with sweat, while hers were dry – or almost dry. There was still a faint slick of Sandy’s blood on them.

Elias pulled at the chain around his neck, and brought out his grandmother’s silver cross.

Sandy took more direct action; injured hands or not, he had to do something. He stepped forward and kicked the axe out of the thing’s hands.

Khalil stepped up and grabbed it, and he and Smith backed away with it to one side, beyond the thing’s right shoulder, while Maggie pulled Sandy back, past its feet. And Elias stood there, protected by his holy crucifix, to its left.

The thing was still pinned and helpless, but now it was struggling, silently.

Then it took the stake in both hands, but instead of trying to pull it up and out, it pushed down.

“Jesus God,” Sandy said, watching. Maggie retched.

The thing was pushing itself up off the stake.

“Split it with the axe!” Sandy called. “Split the stake! Wedge something in it!”

“Are you nuts?” Smith yelled back. “I’m not going near that thing! What if it got the axe away from us?”

“Let’s get out of here!” Maggie shouted.

Sandy watched as the thing pushed itself up, and saw that the grey flesh around the stake wasn’t just sliding, it was oozing, or rolling, along the rough oak. “Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He started backing away.

He wasn’t afraid of anything God had put on Earth, Sandy told himself, but this thing was none of God’s doing.

“Sandy,” it called, in Mary’s voice, “What’s the rush?”

He ignored that. “Smith,” he called, “Whatsyername, come on!”

Smith nodded, and started circling around the thing, giving it a wide berth. The axe was still in his hand. Khalil, after an instant’s hesitation, came close behind him.

Only an inch or two of stake still showed above its chest, and its entire body was off the ground. Its knees were bent, its sandalled feet planted on the earth; Mary’s golden hair, tangled and filthy with blood and dirt, hung from its head.

“Elias,” Maggie called, “Come on!”

Elias was holding out the crucifix. “I’m all right,” he called. “It can’t hurt me while I’ve got this; you guys go on, and I’ll bring up the rear.”

“Elias,” Smith shouted, “It’s not a goddamn vampire! Look at the stake, for Christ’s sake!”

Elias threw Smith a glance in which Smith read dawning terror, and then turned to follow.

The thing came off the stake and threw itself after him; a hand caught his ankle, and he went down.

He rolled over and thrust the cross in its face as it fell on top of him. “Get away!” he shrieked, “Get it off me!”

“Oh, Christ,” Sandy said, and he turned back.

Smith and Khalil hesitated, then joined him.

Elias was lying on his back, the Mary thing sprawled across him, and as the others started back toward it it took the crucifix from Elias’s hand, smiled at him, and then lifted the crucifix to its mouth and bit it in half.

Even in the dimming light Sandy and Smith and Khalil could see the ragged hole in the thing’s back where the stake had gone through; Mary’s skin had been shredded, leaving an opening several inches across surrounded by ragged flaps of tissue.

Under that, though, the grey flesh had already healed over; only a slight indentation remained where a two-inch shaft of oak had gone through the creature’s body.

It spat out one piece of the crucifix, and flung the other aside. One hand reached up and pulled Mary’s skin up and off its face, flopping it back like a hood. Blonde hair trailed back in a mass of blood, dirt, and tangles, and its own true face was revealed – staring red eyes in round, black-rimmed sockets, grey muscles like clay smeared on a skull, a few strands of grayish-white hair on an almost-bald scalp the color of mud. It smiled down at the trapped boy, revealing what seemed like hundreds of gleaming silver teeth.

Then it leaned its head forward and kissed Elias on the mouth.

He shrank away in terror. The thing’s black lips were hard and cold; its red eyes filled his field of vision. There was no warmth or softness to this, such as he imagined there would be in kissing a woman, no warm breath – no breath at all that he could sense.

Nonetheless, it was undeniably a kiss, and somewhere under his terror he wondered why, why was this thing kissing him? How should he respond?

Then its hands reached up to his face and stroked gently along either side of his lower jaw. He felt a thin, pointed tongue pressing against his lips.

Then the thumbs dug into his cheeks just behind his molars, painfully forcing his mouth open. The tongue slipped into his mouth, and ran slickly along his teeth.

He could taste something foul, something compounded of mildew and decay, as if that tongue probing his jaw were rotted and moldy.

He pulled his own tongue back until he almost gagged on it, and struggled to pull his head away, forcing himself back against the hard ground. He was dimly aware that Sandy and Smith had reached him, that they were tugging at the creature’s shoulders, trying to get it off him, but with no effect.

The thing shifted, its lips sliding down, so that instead of meeting his own mouth squarely it was nuzzling his lower lip, its own lower lip on his chin, its upper lip in his mouth. He tried to bite, but those unyielding fingers at the hinge of his jaw wouldn’t let him.

And then he felt the fangs extending from its upper jaw – not just a pair of them, like a vampire, but an entire rank of them, six or eight, at least, like steel needles, forcing themselves down behind his teeth and into the flesh below his gums, and then the pain hit and he screamed and screamed and screamed until the blood filled his mouth and he couldn’t scream any more.

It seemed like an eternity.

It was just over four seconds before he passed out.