The Nightmare People

4.

Obviously, I agreed.

I don’t usually do stuff like this. People have tried to get me to write up their story ideas for them before, and generally I’m just not interested. I have plenty of ideas of my own, and usually the people who try this have a really peculiar idea of what the story is worth and how the money should be divided. Ideas are cheap; it’s turning them into stories and getting them down on paper that’s the hard work.

This wasn’t the usual situation, though. I don’t usually have some guy I played poker with a couple of times turning up on my doorstep at ten p.m. one night with his friend who has “something important” to tell me, where the friend is on crutches and has more bandage than bare skin showing.

I wasn’t busy, and the kids were in bed, and I liked George when I played cards with him, so I agreed to listen.

It wasn’t the usual situation. The people who want me to write their stories for them don’t usually say the money doesn’t matter, I can keep it all, so long as the story gets published.

And nobody ever suggested a story to me that was anything like this one before.

Of course, the story isn’t like anything I’ve ever written before, either; as George said, I’m a science fiction writer, and I’ve never written anything set here and now, in contemporary Maryland, before. My wife Julie said she didn’t think I should do it. She pointed out that I was under contract for other stuff, which was certainly true.

I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try, though, so long as I got something in writing that these people weren’t going to sue me for stealing their story. I didn’t make any promises that it would be published, or how it would be published if it ever was.

I didn’t really believe it, of course. Neither did Julie. We didn’t know how this guy had gotten all chewed up and burnt, but we didn’t think it was done by monsters.

But it was a good story.

So I agreed, and I wrote it all out just the way Ed Smith told it to me. It took a couple of nights to get all of it straight; the second night they brought Khalil along, just to prove he existed. Nice guy. Very quiet.

I still didn’t really believe it, and I still don’t, but I took what they told me and wrote it up as the novel you’ve just read. I changed a couple of the names, just in case; you won’t find a real Lieutenant Daniel Buckley on the Montgomery County police force, or a real Dr. Frauenthal practicing around here. Wherever I needed a new name I picked one from a list of the survivors of the Titanic – it seemed appropriate – but most names I didn’t change.

The apartment complex that burned down last August wasn’t really called Bedford Mills, either. That was the only other change I made.

I didn’t alter any of the events; as Smith said, you never know what little detail might turn out to be important to someone. I tried to tell them well, but just as they happened, nothing added or removed.

It took awhile to write the whole thing out, but I did it, and now I’ve found a publisher for it, who’ll buy it as a horror novel, and I’m starting to feel a little guilty. After all, all I did was write down what they told me.

I think Ed and George and Khalil ought to get a cut. After what happened here, they could probably use the money.

But I don’t have an address for Ed Smith, and there are a hundred Smiths in every phone book. He said he was going to California, but a letter to “Edward J. Smith, California” isn’t going to do the job.

George Brayton and Khalil Saad have both moved away, as well, and neither of them left a forwarding address. Annie McGowan won’t talk to me; she’s retiring to Florida, and says she just wants to forget the whole thing. Maggie Devanoy’s gone off to school somewhere. Neither one will admit to knowing where Smith went, or George, or Khalil. Neither will anyone else I’ve talked to.

So Ed, I’m holding half the money for you, but I haven’t been able to reach you, or George, or Khalil.

Half this money is yours.

Just tell me where to send it.

– Lawrence Watt-Evans

Gaithersburg, Maryland

About the Author Lawrence Watt-Evans is the author of more than two dozen novels, and more than a hundred short stories. He served as president of the Horror Writers Association from 1994 to 1996. Further information can be found at http://www.watt-evans.com.

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