The Nightmare People

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  It didn’t feel like paint.

  He shone the light into the gloom beyond the plywood, expecting to see more concrete and scrap.

  The concrete and scrap were there, but everything was liberally splashed with that same reddish-brown, and there were white fragments heaped on the floor that did not look like any sort of building material.

  He knew what the brown stuff was. He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew perfectly well what it was.

  He walked around the stack of plywood, his hand trembling slightly so that the light danced across the floor in frantic whirls, and he looked at the stains that spread across the floor, across the walls, across the plywood and the scattered bits of lumber, and even, in spattered rows of uneven reddish dots, across the metal beams overhead.

  Then he looked at the fragments on the floor, white where they weren’t stained.

  He knew what those were, too. He stooped and shone his light directly on one of them.

  It was bone, a curving chunk of bone broken off unevenly at one end. It was a piece of rib, like a bit of leftover from a barbecue, except that it wasn’t smoky from cooking; it was gleaming white.

  He stared at it and saw marks on it, tiny scratches and indentations. They looked like toothmarks.

  Knowing what he would see he swung the light onward, across scattered bits of bone, to a heap of bones piled in the corner, thrown together haphazardly.

  All of them had those little marks.

  He stood, and began backing out, away from the bones and the bloodstains, back around the stack of plywood, back to the stairs, where he turned and ran up them into the blinding summer sunlight, ran back out across the plywood flooring, back out of the skeletal building, skidding on the bare dirt, scrambling desperately back out under the fence to his car, where the mad struggle to find his car keys, to unlock and open the door, finally broke his unthinking panic.

  6.

  He stood panting for a moment, the car keys in his hand and the door of the car standing open, trying to think.

  He had to do something. He had to call the police.

  What would he tell them, though? That there were bloodstains and what looked like human bones all over the basement here?

  That was too lurid, too much like something out of a horror movie. He would just report a dead body. And he’d do it anonymously, disguise his voice – he didn’t want to be connected with this.

  He turned and looked back at the building. In the bright sunlight, with the solid normality of his car beneath his hands, the everyday reality of the dirt and the chain-link fence and the scrub grass that grew here and there, it was very hard to believe that he had seen monsters, or that he had found human bones – fresh human bones – just a few yards away in that basement.

  Something moved.

  He blinked, and tried to focus on it.

  Someone was standing under the trees behind the construction site, the trees that separated it from the Bedford Mills apartments. It was a boy in his teens, wearing a pair of cut-off shorts and a wide-brimmed hat; Smith thought he looked familiar, despite the distance; he squinted, and finally placed him.

  That was Bill Goodwin, one of the four kids that Charlie and Lillian Goodwin had crammed into Apartment C12. Smith had met the whole clan as soon as he had arrived at Bedford Mills – Bill’s kid brothers, Harry and Sid, had helped him carry boxes of books and dishware upstairs when he had first moved in. Later on he’d talked to Bill a few times, and let him try out a few things on his desktop computer. The Goodwin kids were probably the closest thing to real friends he had in the whole complex.

  He started to raise a hand to wave, and then stopped.

  Was it really Bill Goodwin?

  Wasn’t it one of the monsters?

  Whoever or whatever it was, the boy stared at him for a moment, then abruptly turned and hurried away.

  Smith’s mind refused to work properly. He had just seen a basement strewn with human remains, evidence that some sort of horror was loose, but all he could see now was an ordinary summer day, and an ordinary teenager, and he couldn’t reconcile his theories of monsters disguised as their victims with that calm, everyday reality. Every impulse, every habit, made him want to wave and call a polite hello to the Goodwin boy, but at the same time the memory of the pile of bones had left a knot of panic just below the surface, a knot that was trying to choke him, to force him into his car, to make him drive to the nearest pay-phone and call the police, or to flee as quickly as he could, drive away and never come back.

  Despite his panicky confusion, the prankster theory somehow pushed its way to the surface of his mind. Could the blood and bone be fake?

  He doubted it – but he wasn’t sure. He was no expert. He couldn’t be certain the bones were human.

  He hadn’t really taken that close a look, and it was dark down in there. He hadn’t touched them. The bones might even be some sort of plastic replicas.

  It could be a prank. A horrible and elaborate prank, but a prank.

  If it was a prank, was Bill Goodwin in on it?

  And if the monsters were real, was Bill Goodwin one of them?

  Was Bill going to call for help, get the pranksters or monsters or whatever they were to clean up the basement, hide the bones, do something to cover their tracks?

  Almost certainly, Smith realized, that was exactly what would happen. Why else would the boy have behaved as he did?

  Or was his imagination running away with him? Was he panicking, turning paranoid?

  He suddenly wished he had thought to bring a camera. His own battered Pentax was still in his apartment, but he could have bought a cheap little Instamatic or something when he got his crowbar and flashlight.

  Or he could run across to his apartment and get the Pentax right now.

  His mouth twisted at the thought. He climbed into the car and slammed the door.

  He wasn’t going back in his apartment just now, thank you very much.

  He could go back down in the basement, though, and take some of those bones, for proof of his story.

  But what would they really prove? And how could he prove where he got them?

  That wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t try it.

  Besides, if he went back down into that basement he might be cornered in there if the monsters came back. He wasn’t going back.

  He would call the police, anonymously, and report a dead body.

  That’s all he would do, for now.

  He started the engine.

  Chapter Three:

  Friday, August 4th

  1.

  He sat on the bed in his cramped room at the motel, wondering if the police had found anything. Various horrible scenarios drifted through his mind.

  What if two cops went down those steps to find a hundred of those nightmare people waiting for them, silver teeth gleaming in anticipatory grins?

  What if his voice on the phone had been recorded and analyzed, his identity somehow discovered, his refuge tracked down, and the cops were about to come knocking on his door, demanding to know why he was wasting their time, warning him of the penalties for giving false information? (What were the penalties for giving false information, anyway? He had no idea.) What if the police had found the bones and realized that the current inhabitants of Bedford Mills were all cannibalistic monsters, and were trying to stamp them out – but couldn’t? What if the monsters came after him, seeking vengeance for this inconvenience he had caused them?

  The whole thing was so incredible that he had no idea what to do, or what to expect. He had fallen out of the normal and predictable world into… into what? Madness? Hell?

  Into exhaustion, for one thing. He needed sleep.

  He looked at the phone and considered calling the police again, but giving his name this time and asking Lieutenant Buckley what had happened, if anything, in the investigation of yesterday’s mass disappearance. Surely, if anything had been found in that basement, Buckley would know and would mention it.


  But whoever it was who had answered when he called from the pay-phone at the Quince Orchard shopping center would probably still be on duty, and might recognize his voice. He didn’t want that.

  Besides, the cops who went to investigate might not have had time to report back yet.

  He would wait and call later.

  He glanced at his watch, still thinking about phones, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t yet called in to work to explain his absence. Einar would be annoyed. Einar didn’t mind an occasional missed day, but he liked to know what was going on.

  Smith reached for the phone and dialed.

  It rang twice. Smith heard the click as someone picked up, and then a familiar voice said, “Hello, DML Communications, software division, Einar Lindqvist speaking.”

  “Hi, Einar,” he said. “It’s Ed Smith.”

  “Hey, Ed,” Einer replied, “What’s up now? Change your mind about coming in today?”

  “No,” Smith said, a bit puzzled by Einar’s jovial tone. “I was just calling to let you know that I’ll be out for the rest of the week, but I should be back Monday.”

  “So why’d you call?” Now Einar sounded appropriately annoyed. “I mean, that’s what you told me an hour ago.”

  Smith blinked, staring at the painted concrete wall, and tried to convince himself that he had heard wrong. He felt very unsteady, and for a moment he thought he might faint, just fall over on the bed, or the floor, and let consciousness go away for a little while. He needed sleep, he needed sleep very badly.

  “What?” he said.

  “I said, that’s what you told me an hour ago.” Now Einar sounded worried. “Are you all right, Ed? I mean, I know you’re sick, but… well, you’re sick, I shouldn’t nag.”

  “You talked to me an hour ago?” Smith asked.

  There was a pause, and Smith could picture Einar leaning back to get a good look at the wall clock. “About that,” he said. “Maybe only forty-five minutes.”

  Smith swallowed and improvised. “Look, Einar, maybe it’s the medication – my doctor gave me some stuff that makes me really fuzzy – but I don’t remember talking to you since Tuesday. Did you call me or did I call you?”

  “I called you,” Einar said. “Hey, Ed, how serious is this bug you’ve got? I thought it was just a summer cold or something, but if you’re on this medication…”

  “Oh, it’s okay, I think, really, it’s okay,” Smith said hurriedly. “It’s some sort of, you know, three-day wonder.” He hesitated, then asked, “Einar, where did you call me?”

  “At your apartment, of course,” Einar said. “Where else?”

  Smith felt himself tense up at that. His throat was dry, and he had to swallow again before he could speak.

  “Einar,” he said, and then hesitated, unsure what to say.

  The phone hummed quietly in his ear.

  “Einar,” he continued at last, “That wasn’t me. There was some trouble at my apartment building yesterday, and I’m staying in a motel in Gaithersburg. That’s where I am now.”

  For a long moment he heard only silence.

  “Ed,” Einar finally said, “What are you talking about? It sure sounded like you, and who the hell else could it have been, in your apartment?”

  It took Smith a moment to figure out how to answer that. He really did not want to try to convince anyone over the phone, least of all the mind-bogglingly unimaginative Einar, that his apartment complex had been taken over by monsters.

  “I don’t know,” he said, after an uncomfortable pause, “Some prankster, most likely. The trouble yesterday was a practical joke that got out of hand – you can call the police if you want the details, I don’t really know what happened. Ask for Lieutenant Daniel Buckley. Maybe one of the pranksters got into my apartment and thought it would be funny to answer my phone when it rang, I don’t know. Maybe it was a smart-ass burglar, or a cop leading you on and hoping you’d spill something. I don’t know, Einar. I do know that I’m sitting here in Room 203 at the Red Roof Inn on Route 124, and that I haven’t been in my apartment since yesterday afternoon.”

  The silence that followed was perhaps the longest yet.

  “I don’t know, Ed,” Einar said at last. “It sounds pretty unlikely. Sounds completely screwy, in fact. I mean, whoever it was sure sounded like you, and he seemed to know who I was, and everything.”

  “Did you give your name before he used it?” Smith asked.

  He dreaded a possible affirmative answer. If the one who answered the phone was that thing, that nightmare person, and if they really took over the lives of the people they replaced, they must have some way of knowing little details of people’s lives.

  “I don’t remember,” Einar admitted after a moment’s thought. “I guess not; I guess he said hello, and I said hi, it’s Einar, and then I asked if you – if he’d be coming into work this afternoon… oh, shit, Ed, I don’t know. It’s weird. The voice was exactly the same – are you sure it wasn’t you?”

  “I’m sure,” Smith told him. “And the voice – well, you expected it to be me, so you heard what you expected, right? It’s not like my voice is unusual or anything.”

  “Well, yeah, but… Jeez, I’m not sure whether you’re telling the truth now, or if maybe you’re the one pulling a practical joke.”

  “I’m not, Einar, I swear it. Look, I’ll be in Monday, and you can see me face to face, and maybe by then the police will have it all straightened out. And if you’ve just got to talk to me, call me here. The Red Roof Inn in Gaithersburg.”

  “Red Roof Inn. Right. Room 203, you said.”

  “That’s right,” Smith agreed.

  “Got it,” Einar said. “See you Monday, then.”

  “Right. See you.”

  Smith set the receiver gently down on the cradle, then fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to think.

  His thoughts were a mass of fragmentary and horrific images that he tried desperately and unsuccessfully to force into order. That thing was in his apartment, answering his phone – and what else was it doing there? What did a walking nightmare do in its free time?

  What about all his things – his clothes, his books, his computers? Was that thing wearing his clothes, reading his books, using his computers?

  There were so many questions and mysteries!

  What had happened in that basement? What had the nightmare people done there? What had they done to his neighbors? What had the police found there?

  Where had the monsters come from in the first place? Where could they have come from? Outer space? Hell? Genetic experiments?

  None of those made any sense. How could monsters from outer space disguise themselves as human? Why would they want to? Why attack an apartment complex?

  And nobody was doing genetic experiments like that, not even the CIA, he was sure.

  And he didn’t believe in hell, not really, not as a source of devils and monsters.

  So where had they come from?

  He didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine any sane explanation, and as he tried, his exhaustion got the better of him; he fell asleep.

  2.

  He was awakened by the growling of his stomach. Sitting up stiffly, he looked out the window to see the sun low in the west, behind the Orchard Pond apartments.

  He looked at his watch and saw that he had slept away the entire afternoon; it was only a minute or two before 7:00 p.m.

  He felt better, calmer and more rested, than he had since fleeing his apartment the day before. Sleep had been what he needed, no doubt about it.

  He took a moment to use the bathroom, comb his hair, and change his wrinkled and sweat-stained shirt, then headed for Denny’s for dinner. It was obviously too late to call Lieutenant Buckley now; he would call in the morning.

  And when he did call, besides asking what progress had been made in the investigation, it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to let Buckley know where he was staying.

  He found a table, read
the menu, and told the waitress what he wanted. After he had ordered, he sat back and considered.

  How long was he going to stay at the motel, anyway? And where was he going to go?

  Sleeping on George’s couch down in Bethesda would be cheaper – not that he was especially short of funds or anything – and would get him farther away from Diamond Park. He would be heading against the worst of the rush-hour traffic on his way to his job in Rockville, instead of being in the middle of it, and that would be nice.

  And what was he going to do about his apartment?

  He would give it up, clear it out, and forget about the monsters, that’s what he would do. He had done his part in calling the police. Dealing with monsters wasn’t his responsibility.

  If there really were any monsters.

  And if there weren’t, well, living with vicious practical jokers wasn’t his idea of a good time, either.

  A few hours’ sleep made it all seem so much simpler. It wasn’t his business. He might make a few more anonymous calls, but he wasn’t going to ruin his life. The monsters, if they were really monsters, had come and taken over that one apartment complex, and he had been lucky enough to get out alive, and as far as he knew that was the end of it.

  That they had turned up at the motel later on didn’t matter. After all, they’d had plenty of opportunity while he was asleep just now, or when he was poking around the unfinished office building; if they were going to attack him, they could have done so then.

  Of course, he thought, looking out the window at the orange-streaked western sky, that had all been in broad daylight, and the two occasions when he had seen nightmare people undisguised had been in the middle of the night.

  Clearing out his apartment had better wait until morning, he decided. And in fact, he might see about staying up all night again, just until he could get settled in at George’s place and start looking for a new apartment.

  He was watching the glorious summer sunset and trying very hard not to think any more about any of it when his steak and shrimp platter arrived.