The Nightmare People

3.

“If we can’t kill them all,” Smith said, “Is there some way we can stop them from breeding?”

Nobody answered. Khalil shrugged, and Annie just looked down at her knitting, her fingers working busily.

“What if we just cut their hearts out, but didn’t eat them?” Smith suggested.

Annie dropped a stitch and frowned. Khalil tapped his fingers quietly.

“And how exactly do they breed? That one we questioned said that the larva goes down someone’s throat – how does it get there?”

“Perhaps a bite, the way it happens when one takes a new skin, but it sends only the larva down, instead of eating its own way in,” Khalil suggested.

Smith nodded. “It’s probably something like that,” he agreed. “But if that’s how it works, I don’t see how they can do it. People aren’t going to just let it happen, let strangers walk up and stick their heads in their mouths.”

“Wouldn’t be strangers,” Annie said, looping yarn around the needle. “All those folks over there have friends and family, don’t they?”

“I guess so, but I still don’t see…” Smith began.

“And,” Annie said, “It’s not too much to ask for a little kiss now and then, is it?”

“A kiss?” Khalil’s fingers stopped tapping the table. Smith blinked and looked over at Annie.

“That would do it, wouldn’t it?” Smith said. “At least, it would let ’em get their mouths up against the mouths of their victims.”

Annie nodded, not looking up from her work.

“I expect the one that’s pretending to be Katie may turn up and try to convince me it’s all a misunderstanding, and we should kiss and make up,” she said. “Won’t do it, though, not unless it forces me.”

Khalil and Smith stared at each other.

“I wonder,” Smith said. “Once the larva’s in there, do you think there’s any way to stop it?”

“The doctors have things that pump out stomachs, yes?”

Smith nodded. “Yeah, a stomach pump might work,” he said, “I don’t know. These aren’t normal parasites, after all; they’re supernatural.”

“There are none anywhere yet,” Khalil pointed out. “Should we not try to stop any from getting anywhere?”

“Yes,” Smith agreed, “We should. And I know which one, too – the one that got Sandy said that the one that got Elias’s father was the one that had originally been after me. I think it’s time we finished off that whole fake family over there.”

Khalil nodded.

“Will the two of us be enough, do you think?” he asked.

“We’re all we’ve got,” Smith said. “We’d better be. We’ll be catching it off-guard, I hope, and during the daylight, and there will be two of us to the one of it – we managed okay with the fake Sandy.”

Khalil nodded again. “We go now, then?”

“Yes,” Smith said, “We go now.” He stood up.

Khalil rose as well.

“Oh, one thing,” Smith said, pausing. “This time, Khalil, you eat it.”