The Nightmare People

1.

Smith was unsure whether or not he had slept, but when dawn crept up over I-270 and spilled down the railroad tracks behind the motel he decided to pretend he had, that he was fully rested. He got out of the chair where he had spent most of the night, stretched, and headed for the bathroom.

At first, he had only intended to rinse his face, but after he had flushed the toilet and washed his hands he reconsidered and took a long, hot shower.

When he stepped out and towelled himself off he still felt a bit woozy from lack of sleep, but the gummy taste in his mouth was gone, and his skin was fresh and clean. He felt as if he were just now waking up, as if the long night in the motel and the entire day before had been one long continuation of his initial nightmare.

He knew that it had not been a nightmare, that he had seen something strange and abnormal, but for the moment he was willing to not think about it, to worry instead about the demands of everyday life.

For example, he asked himself, did he plan to go to work today?

It was Thursday. He was still ahead of schedule, and had had so little sleep the past two nights that he was quite sure he would be unable to write any code the computers would accept. On the other hand, it would be a step toward getting back to normal.

And if he didn’t go to work, just what was he going to do all day?

One alternative would be to spend the day looking for somewhere new to live, as he had no intention of returning to the Bedford Mills complex.

In either case, he decided as he folded the towel, he would want to look fairly respectable. He picked out a yellow sport shirt and dark brown slacks that would serve that purpose, and dressed quickly.

And whatever he was going to do later, the first thing to do was to eat some breakfast. He’d only managed one meal the day before.

Checking his wallet and room key carefully, he took a last look around the room, stepped out on the motel balcony, and then closed the door behind him.

It was almost seven o’clock. I-270, behind him, was already buzzing with traffic. Denny’s, across the parking lot, was busy with the breakfast rush.

He noticed the sign that read “Always Open,” and snorted quietly, thinking he’d been foolish to stay in his room. He could have gone to the restaurant and gotten himself a snack at two or three in the morning, when the place would have been almost empty.

He’d missed his chance. He would have to settle for an ordinary breakfast. He headed down the stairs and across the lot.

The food at Denny’s was good, but the service could be slow, and was that time; he had plenty of time to consider his plans as he sat in a booth waiting for his fried eggs. He tried to break everything down logically, as if he were planning out a program.

First, what was the actual situation? Never mind what the customer says is happening – in this case, what he thought he’d seen – what was really happening?

Second, what needs to be done about the situation?

Third, how could he do it?

Well, to start with, he didn’t know the actual situation.

He thought he’d seen something at his top-floor window at three in the morning.

The following day, all the other people in the apartment complex vanished, and were found emerging from a basement several hours later with a story about a phony bomb scare.

Minor details, such as Nora Hagarty’s hat and Mrs. Malinoff’s knee, had seemed strange after everybody came back.

That night he’d again seen something bizarre at his window.

That was it, so far – four things out of the ordinary. Were they related?

The two apparitions were obviously connected, since they involved the same monstrous face. And Nora Hagarty and Mrs. Malinoff and Walt Harris were tied in by the second apparition, as well.

The connection to the mass disappearance was less definite.

And what had really caused the disappearance?

If it had really been a prank, why hadn’t he been included?

He could make guesses, and he did.

He might have been skipped by a prankster because, exhausted from staying up so late, he had slept too heavily to be awakened by knocking at his door.

Nora Hagarty had said the boy came around at about five, when he would have been asleep for roughly an hour and a half. He would have been deeply asleep.

But why was everyone else so easily awakened? If they were taking it seriously enough to rouse everyone, how had he been skipped?

And how did it relate to the apparitions and the general strangeness?

Could somebody be playing an absurdly elaborate prank on him, and him alone?

What if the faces at the window had been faked, somehow? Special effects could do amazing things, he knew.

What other explanation could there be for a face hanging thirty feet in the air?

Suppose that Nora Hagarty and Mrs. Malinoff and Walt Harris had decided, for some perverse reason, to frighten him. Suppose they had somehow projected that inhuman face on the outside of his window, using some sort of movie or hologram.

That would account for how it could reach a fourth-floor window, and how it could vanish so mysteriously, without leaving a trace.

For the second apparition, they could have used a live actor in make-up, and the four of them could have just ducked away around the corner, or into the next room, when he started screaming, before the clerk could see anything strange about them.

The slouch hat and the strange smile would be easy little teases. The red gleam from Mrs. Malinoff’s eyes – that could be colored contact lenses.

The knee that didn’t creak was harder to explain. Some sort of special treatment, perhaps?

He had no idea what caused creaking joints in the first place, so he couldn’t even guess at what would cure them.

What about the disappearance, though? How did that tie in?

It might be coincidence – or it might be that the pranksters, Hagarty and Malinoff and Harris, had done that, too, hiring some kid to go around and wake up everybody except that guy in Apartment C41, with the story about Iranian terrorists.

It could have happened that way. He told himself that. It could have.

And didn’t an elaborate practical joke make more sense than some sort of needle-toothed monster hiding behind Mrs. Malinoff’s face?

His hand shook slightly as he sipped his coffee.

If that was done with special effects, they were damn good, he thought. It had been totally convincing.

Although, he added mentally, he had been tired, it had been dark out on the balcony, he had been caught by surprise – maybe it hadn’t been that hard to fool him.

Why would anyone want to play such a trick on him, though? Why go to such incredible lengths?

He shook his head, and sipped coffee again. It didn’t make sense.

He knew that he had annoyed Walt Harris sometimes, by playing his stereo too loudly. He knew that Mrs. Malinoff distrusted him because he was relatively young and because he worked with computers, which she hated and feared. Why, though, would they go to such fantastic trouble?

And what had he ever done to Nora Hagarty?

He shrugged that question off easily enough; the other two could have brought her in for money, or the sake of a friendship, or just for fun.

Maybe the three of them – or four, if whoever had worn the grey make-up and fake teeth was one of them, and not a hired actor – were a little gang that did this for kicks.

Maybe they’d even done it before. Maybe, if he knew more about them, he would find out that they’d pulled any number of stunts on other people.

His eggs finally arrived, and he cut a piece with his fork as he considered that.

The whole thing could be the work of three or four middle-aged tricksters.

It could be. He reminded himself that he hadn’t proven anything with all his clever theorizing. It could be tricksters.

Or it could be that the monsters were real.