The Nightmare People

3.

“Now,” Smith said to the imitation Sandy Niklasen, “What are we going to do with you?”

The creature didn’t reply. It watched Smith warily.

“You probably think,” Smith told it, “that we’re going to kill you, that we’re going to cut you open and eat your stinking black heart. And you may be right. On the other hand…”

He paused for dramatic effect, but the thing just stared at him. It still looked exactly like Sandy; except for the cut on its arm, its disguise was perfect.

“On the other hand,” Smith said, “If you tell us everything we want to know about your kind, maybe we can make a deal – you leave us alone, we let you go. What do you think, hey?” Khalil, where the thing couldn’t see him, shook his head angrily.

“I think you guys are nuts,” it said. “You think I’m one of them? Hey, I’m Sandy Niklasen; I helped you kill one of them last night!”

Smith shook his head. “No,” he said, “You aren’t. Sandy’s dead. You ate him, and now you’re wearing his skin. We know it, and you know it, and there’s no point in denying it.” He flicked the knife aside for an instant to point at the exposed flesh of the thing’s arm, then quickly pressed the tip back against its chest, a little harder than before.

The steel blade cut into Sandy’s shirt a little. The individual threads seemed to slide up the blade one by one, stretching until they parted.

The thing stared up at Smith for a moment, then it flashed a quick, silvery grin.

“All right,” he said, “You’ve got me. I want to live, same as anybody; I’ll deal. What do I have to do?”

Smith looked up at Khalil, who looked back. Both of them could hear Annie McGowan’s voice in the kitchen, too low to make out the words, as she spoke to Maggie on the phone.

“What are you?” Smith asked.

The thing blinked, and its eyes flashed red for an instant before Sandy’s familiar brown returned. It shrugged. “You called us nightmare people,” it said. “That’s as good a name as any.”

“You don’t have a name for yourselves?” Smith asked.

“Nope,” the thing said. “Why should we? We knew that sooner or later, your kind would give us one.”

Smith hesitated, and then demanded, “Where did you come from?”

“Nowhere. Or everywhere. We didn’t come from anywhere so much as we just happened.” The voice was still Sandy’s, but something had crept into it, a coldness that hadn’t been there before.

“What are you talking about?” Smith asked, uneasily. The knife sank a little deeper, indenting Sandy’s stolen skin.

“We happened,” the creature insisted. “We didn’t come from anywhere. When Lammas Night came with the new moon, at 3:00 a.m., we were just there, at the Bedford Mills apartments.”

“What is Lammas Night?” Khalil asked, before Smith had phrased his next question.

“The night of August first,” the thing said. “And the early morning of August second. It’s one of the four nights of the year when the old, dark powers are strongest, the powers that you people say you don’t believe in any more – the powers you hid from as children, the ones that put monsters in your closets, the powers you deny now even when they put those same monsters in your streets and parks, with knives and guns instead of claws and teeth.” It shifted, and smiled again, showing silver teeth. “You all know Hallowe’en, and some of you remember Walpurgisnacht, or Beltane, and your very awareness of them weakens them. But that left us Candlemas and Lammas – and here we are.”

“Why 3:00 a.m.?” Smith asked, trying to inject a little sarcasm. “Isn’t midnight traditional?”

The creature shook its head. “Not any more. Before the electric light, midnight was the darkest hour, when sanity was weakest and evil could walk free, but nowadays you people are scarcely in bed then, what with the eleven o’clock news. No, it’s 3:00 a.m. when the spirit fails, when the darkness is deepest and hope furthest away. That’s the hour for suicides, the time of despair, when the day past is gone and the sunrise still impossibly far ahead.”

“You sound like you’re enjoying this,” Smith muttered, annoyed.

“Oh, I am!” the thing said, smiling. “Don’t you see? Isn’t it obvious? You people, you humans, you’re my natural prey, my targets, my enemies; my kind is destined to destroy yours, to devour you – but in secret. Always in secret. And where’s the fun in that? Hey, I like to gloat as much as you do; I want to brag. I want to let you poor creatures know something of what you’re up against, so you’ll see how hopeless it is. I want to see you scared. I want to see you suffer, see you worry. I enjoy seeing you frightened.” It paused, grinning.

“Ordinarily, I couldn’t tell anyone,” it said. “That would be too dangerous. But you’ve forced me to speak; my sibs can’t hold it against me, even if you let me live. And of course, you’re already marked anyway. You won’t live to tell anyone.”

“You sound like a bad movie villain, gloating over his captives and giving the hero time to arrive,” Smith said.

The thing’s grin widened. “Ah, but isn’t there some truth in that clich? gloating, however foolish it might seem to take the risk? And what if, instead, I’m distracting you while my own reinforcements arrive?”

Khalil glanced around at the windows and the front door, then back at the thing on the couch.

“If that’s the case,” Smith said, “then you’re a fool to tell us.”

“Only if you believe me,” it said, “But you don’t, do you? You don’t think I’d be that foolish – or that clever.”

Smith stared at it, baffled.

“Maybe we should just kill you after all,” he said. “Just in case.” The knife sank a little deeper, and Sandy’s skin gave, allowing it passage into the hard grey flesh beneath. Smith licked his lips and swallowed.

The grin vanished.

“No,” it said. “Don’t do that. I’ll tell you what you want to know. There’s no one else coming yet; they don’t know you saw through my disguise. I’m supposed to get you to separate, after dark, so we can get you one by one.”

The pressure on the knife lessened.

“Talk,” Smith said. “Don’t wait for questions, and don’t try and scare us with any stories about boogey-men in the closet. Just tell us what the hell is going on.”

“But you already know most of it,” the thing said.

“Tell us anyway,” Smith demanded.

Annie was standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Smith didn’t take his eyes off the thing. “We’re questioning it,” he said.

“It looks like you’re torturing it,” she said.

Smith just shrugged.

“What about Maggie?” he asked.

“She says she’s all right, but she’s scared,” Annie reported. “She’s going to work in a few minutes – I caught her just as she was leaving, she’s already late – so she’ll be out in public for the rest of the evening, and she’s asking her father to come and pick her up after she gets off for the night.”

Smith looked up at Khalil, who looked back.

“Well,” Smith said, “I hope she’s okay. I don’t know what we can do about it.”

Khalil shrugged.

Smith glanced at Annie, who was still standing there, looking disapproving.

“Ms. McGowan,” he said, “have a seat. I’m afraid this will take awhile; we’ll have to hold off on eating dinner for now.”

She frowned, and said, “I’ll wait in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine,” Smith said. “Go ahead and eat if you like, you don’t need to wait for us. Besides,” he said, as he turned his attention back to the Sandy thing, “I may be eating in here.”

The thing sneered.

Smith smiled back. “All right,” he said. “Talk.”

It talked.