The Nightmare People

3.

The officer glanced at Mrs. McGowan, who was shaking off her umbrella, and then rang the bell. The psychiatrist stood back a pace or two, watching.

“Who is it?” called a cheerful voice from inside.

“It’s me, Annie,” Mrs. McGowan called, furling the umbrella.

The door opened, and a startled little face appeared. “Annie?” Then she noticed the others. “Who’s this?” she asked.

“This is Officer Nilson,” Annie said. “And that’s Dr. Dodge. Could we come in and talk to you?”

“Oh, is it about those terrorists that said they planted a bomb last week?” the false Kate asked anxiously. Then her face cleared. “Oh, no, it couldn’t be, Annie, because you didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Could we come in?” Annie repeated.

“Ma’am,” Officer Nilson said, “May we, please? We’d just like to talk to you. Nobody’s done anything wrong.”

Annie threw him a glance of outrage at this lie, since someone certainly had done something wrong in replacing Kate with this fraud, but then she covered her anger and smiled. “May we, Katie?”

“Certainly, if you like,” the imposter said, swinging the door wide and smiling in return, her head tipped to one side just as the real Kate’s always was when she smiled.

Annie stifled her revulsion. The real Kate would have seen how upset she was and wouldn’t have smiled like that.

She studied the creature closely as the four of them settled into Kate’s living room. Dr. Dodge sat on the couch; Annie and the monster took the flowered armchairs, and Officer Nilson, rather than taking the other end of the couch, brought a straight chair over from the dining area.

Annie approved of that action; it seemed more businesslike. She wasn’t quite sure why it seemed more businesslike, but all the same, she was glad that Officer Nilson had done it.

Nilson, on the other hand, knew exactly why he had settled on the hard chair. He was well aware that if either of these dotty old women were to go berserk he would need to stand up in a hurry and grab her before she could do any damage, and it was much easier to get up quickly from a solid wood seat than from the depths of an overstuffed sofa.

Old women might look harmless, but he knew better. Anybody could turn violent, and even the feeblest cripple could do some damage if not stopped. Every cop knew that.

And these two might both be in their sixties, but they both looked pretty healthy. He watched both women closely.

The big one’s story that the other was an imposter sounded crazy, but you could never be absolutely sure. It was far more likely that one of the pair had slipped a cam somewhere – or maybe both of them had – but the possibility that their hostess really wasn’t Kate McGowan had to be kept in mind, as well.

“Can I get you anything?” Kate – or whoever it was – asked. “I have some ginger ale in the fridge, or I can have the kettle hot in a few minutes if you’d like tea or instant coffee.”

“That’s all right, ma’am, we’re fine,” Nilson replied, watching the nervously-fluttering hands.

“Well then,” she asked, her gaze turning nervously to Dr. Dodge, and then back to Nilson, “What can I do for you?”

Nilson glanced at Dr. Dodge, who made a small waving gesture, urging him to proceed.

“Well, ma’am,” Nilson said, “Your sister-in-law was worried about you. There have been some peculiar incidents here recently, like that bomb scare…”

“Oh, yes, wasn’t that ridiculous?” Kate tittered. “All of us down there in our nightclothes, waiting for the building to blow up!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Nilson was watching Annie McGowan rather more closely than he was watching Kate. Kate seemed a little discomfited by the presence of unexpected guests, probably especially because they were police, and maybe even more so because one of them was black, which still made a difference to a lot of people, especially older ones – Dr. Dodge knew that, which was probably why he was letting Nilson do all the talking. Or maybe Dodge was just keeping up his role as impartial psychiatric observer, rather than thinking about his race.

Whatever the reasons, Kate appeared discomfited, but only discomfited, nothing more than that. Annie, on the other hand, looked as if she were smothering an outburst of some kind and were almost ready to explode.

Nilson continued, “Anyway, your sister-in-law was worried about you, living here, so we came to talk to you to ask if you knew of anything else strange, anything that’s gone wrong lately, or seemed peculiar or out of place.”

Kate looked utterly mystified. “No,” she said, “No, there’s nothing I can think of.” She turned to her sister-in-law and asked, “Annie, are you feeling well?”

Annie gasped at the sheer audacity of the thing. “Am I feeling well?” she asked. “Me? You’re the one who’s forgotten how to knit, which you’ve known since you were a girl! You’re the one pretending to be Katie, when you aren’t anything like her, really, you’re just acting the part. Officer, I’ll show you – she’s wearing my sister’s skin, that’s not…”

Annie was up and moving toward the Kate thing before she even knew it, intending to tear that stolen face right off her, but Officer Nilson was up as well, blocking her, and his hands were on her arms, the thumbs digging solidly into the insides of her elbows as he forced her back a step.

“Take it easy,” he said gently. “Take it easy, Mrs. McGowan.”

Dr. Dodge was there, too, standing behind her, listening.

“Take it easy!” Annie snapped, “Take it easy? That’s not Kate! It’s not even human!”

“Annie, are you all right?” the thing asked, and the voice was just like Kate’s, but when she looked into its eyes she saw no honest concern, she saw mockery, and a hint of warm red that shouldn’t be there.

Annie didn’t fight against Officer Nilson. She was outmatched. The police believed the creature, instead of her.

Mr. Smith and the others had been right. She forced herself to appear calm, forced her muscles to relax.

It wasn’t that hard. All her life she had taken what came her way without undue protest, doing as she was told, even when she hated it. She had thought that was done with when Pat died and left her on her own, but now she saw it wasn’t.

“No,” she said, “I’m not all right. I’m sorry. Officer, could you take me home, please? I’m afraid I’m not well.”

Nilson glanced at Dodge, who nodded.

“Come on, Mrs. McGowan,” Nilson said, “I’ll take you home. Miss McGowan, I’m sorry if we’ve disturbed you.” He escorted Annie to the door, holding one elbow with his left hand; she did not resist, made no attempt to pull away.

Kate stood up, looking a trifle dazed. “It’s all right, officer,” she said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?”

They were both nuts, Nilson decided.

Dodge picked up Annie’s umbrella, then stepped out, closing the door of the apartment behind himself. Nilson raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

“We’ll take you home now, Mrs. McGowan,” Dodge said. “If there’s anything you’d like to tell me, though, I’d be glad to listen. Did you say something about an imposter wearing your sister’s skin? Did you mean that literally?”

Annie shook her head as she started down the steps. There was no point in telling these people the truth, because they would either treat her as a silly old woman and ignore her, or as a genuine lunatic, in which case they might take her away somewhere.

All she wanted now was to go home.

She had to give it one more try, though – just one, and if it didn’t work, then she would be meek and mild and they would let her go home.

“I thought,” she began, “that maybe something had, well…”

She let her voice trail off as she realized how utterly unbelievable anything she could say would sound. Frustrated, she tried again.

“I don’t know what I thought,” she said, “but I really do think that there’s something very wrong with Kate, and I wish that you could get a doctor to check her. Dr. Dodge, couldn’t you examine her, somehow?”

Surely, Annie thought, the creature wouldn’t be able to fool a doctor.

Dr. Dodge shook his head. “You may be right,” he said, “But I’m afraid it’s not my line. I would suggest that both of you might want to talk to your own doctors – I’ll call your sister-in-law later and explain how worried you are, and suggest that, if I may. I can’t examine her myself, though, unless she asks me to. To be honest, Mrs. McGowan, I didn’t see anything strange about her, but then I don’t know her as you do. It may be that whatever’s changed her, if something really has, has you so upset that you’re not thinking clearly about it. I really think you should both see a physician – but I can’t make either of you do anything you don’t want to, I can only make the suggestion.”

Annie nodded. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, her voice lifeless.

That was another dead end. That thing would never go near a doctor of its own free will.

No help from the police. No help from doctors. That just left Mr. Smith and his vigilantes.

She wondered how their expedition had gone the day before.