The Nightmare People

1.

“One down,” Sandy said, smiling.

“And a hundred and forty-three to go,” Smith responded glumly, closing his hand around his coffee cup.

“Hey, that’s not so many!” Sandy said. “At least we know how many there are!”

“Do we?” Smith asked. “How do we know they don’t reproduce somehow? Vampires could make more vampires, couldn’t they?”

“I don’t know,” Sandy said, “Do you? Could they?” He scowled. “And besides, these things aren’t vampires.”

“Yeah,” Smith said, “and we don’t know what they really are, either. Yeah, we know how to kill them now, but people knew how to kill vampires hundreds of years ago, and they still didn’t get the last one until 1939.”

“That’s what that creep told you,” Sandy said. “You can’t believe the creeps.”

“You killed one?” Annie asked from the doorway. “You’re sure?”

Smith turned. Their hostess was standing there in a pale pink housedress and fuzzy blue slippers. “Good morning,” he said. “Yes, we’re sure. It rotted away to nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Sandy objected. “The skin was still there.”

“That wasn’t part of it,” Smith pointed out.

Sandy shrugged.

“But I thought you intended to… ah…” Annie said.

“Eat it?” Sandy asked.

“We did,” Smith explained, “But we didn’t need to eat all of it. There’s a part where the heart should be that’s black and harder than the rest, and when I ate that it began to melt away.”

“I wish we hadn’t left it there,” Sandy said.

Smith shrugged. “What were we going to do? I mean, its screaming woke up the neighbors, and would you want to explain to them that we were killing monsters on their lawn at three in the morning?”

“Yeah, and what about when the neighbors find Elias’s skin lying there empty?”

Khalil, who had been sitting silently staring at his coffee, shook his head. “The others, from the house,” he said. “They got there first.”

Smith turned and blinked at him. “How’d you know that?” he demanded.

“I saw,” Khalil replied.

“Damn,” Sandy said. “They know we know, then.”

“They’d know anyway,” Smith said.

“Where’s Maggie?” Annie asked, looking about the kitchen.

“Asleep on the couch,” Smith replied.

“Oh.” Annie finally left the doorway and entered.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Smith said, a little belatedly remembering his manners, “but we made ourselves some coffee. We’ve been up all night.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Annie said. She looked around, somewhat puzzled, then went to fetch the corn flakes from a cabinet.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Smith pushed back his chair.

“Oh, no, that’s all right,” she said, “I’ll just have orange juice.”

“Okay.” He settled back down.

Sandy looked at his watch. “I’ll have to call in sick today and then get some sleep,” he said.

Smith nodded. “Me, too,” he said.

“I’d better be getting home.” Sandy pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Hey, wait,” Smith said. “What about the others? We’re going to kill them, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Sandy agreed.

“When?” Smith asked. “I mean, they seem less active in daylight; shouldn’t we go at it right now?” He waved at the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window; the clouds had broken up not long after the three men had fled the Samaan house, and the day outside was bright, the sky blue.

Sandy looked at Smith for a moment before replying.

“Look, Smith,” he said, “It’s been a long fuckin’ night, you know? I’m tired. My hand hurts. My jaw hurts. My chest hurts where I got burns. My shirt’s tore up. I haven’t had any sleep in, what, twenty-four hours, at least. I’m going to go home and get some rest, and then I’m going to come back here when I wake up, and then we can go after the fuckers again. You don’t look that good yourself, y’know; are you really in that big a hurry to eat more of that stuff?”

Smith glanced about, and realized that Khalil, too, had stood up.

“No,” Smith said, “No, I guess not. If you go to sleep now you should be up again by late afternoon, right? And you’ll come back here and we’ll still have a couple of hours of full daylight, right?”

“Right,” Sandy said, slapping him on the shoulder. “And Smith, get some sleep yourself, okay? You look like hell.”

“Yeah, sure,” Smith agreed.

Annie had listened to this without comment as she filled a bowl with cornflakes, sugar, and milk, and poured a large glass of juice. Now she looked up and said, “Sleep well, Mr. Niklasen, and you, too, Mr. Saad, and you’re welcome back whenever you like, until you get this all taken care of.”

“Thanks, Annie,” Sandy said as he left.

“Thank you, Mrs. McGowan,” Khalil said as he followed.

Smith stared down at his almost-empty cup.

“Will you be going, too, Mr. Smith?” Annie asked.

“No hurry,” he said. He picked up the cup.

His hand shook.

“Mr. Smith, you’re exhausted, aren’t you?” Annie asked.

He nodded. “I suppose I am,” he said. “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. One of those things was after me for five nights running, and I haven’t made up for it yet.”

“Are you sure you can drive yourself home safely?”

“Not going home,” Smith told her. “They’re there. I’ve been staying in a motel.”

“Oh, well, that’s no good!” Annie said. “Listen, I have a perfectly good guest room upstairs, and nobody’s using it, since you put poor Maggie on the couch; you go on up and get yourself some sleep! It’s the door on the right at the top of the stairs, next to the bathroom. You go on!”

He looked at her gratefully. “Ms. McGowan, I’d love to, but all my stuff is back at the motel…”

“Well, fooey, so what? They aren’t going to throw it out just because you’re out for the day! You can go get it later. For now you just go right upstairs and get some sleep!”

“Uh… I need to call in sick at work, too, and there won’t be anyone there until nine…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! Just sleep! Mr. Niklasen was right, you do look awful!”

He nodded, and got unsteadily to his feet.

“On the right?” he said.

“On the right,” she confirmed, “right next to the bathroom.”

The room was pink and lacy and the bed was fluffy and cool, and he barely managed to get his shoes off.