The Nightmare People

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “What is it?” Maggie asked over Smith’s shoulder.

  Sandy turned, and his mouth opened, then snapped shut; he was too furious to speak. He thrust the bundle at Smith.

  Smith accepted it reluctantly. The instant his fingers touched it he realized it wasn’t cloth, gauzy or otherwise. He stared down in horror at what he held.

  Maggie, looking around his shoulder, went white.

  “I don’t understand,” Annie said. “What it it?”

  “It’s Mary,” Sandy said.

  “We went to that place,” Khalil said, “In the woods. And we found this there. It is all that is left of her. We found this, and her clothes, and the wooden stake, and some blood, and pieces of bone, all lying in the dirt. Nothing else.”

  With unsteady hands, Smith unfolded a little of the bundle, and a thick hank of blonde hair tumbled free.

  “I don’t understand,” Annie repeated. “What is that you have there, Mr. Smith?”

  “It’s skin,” Smith forced out.

  “It’s Mary’s skin,” Sandy bellowed, “Mary’s skin that that thing was wearing like long underwear, and when it got Elias instead it just crawled out and left it lying there, where we found it!”

  Smith had not been prepared for the shock of having the entirety of a woman’s mortal remains thrust into his hands without warning, so most of his mind was blank.

  Somewhere, though, far in the back, a little trace of logical thought lurked.

  This would be the evidence needed to convince even the most skeptical cop that something out of the ordinary was going on here. Even the most determined psychopath could not have removed a woman’s whole skin so neatly or completely.

  Could he?

  That little bit of him tried to push its way up through the layers of shock and fatigue, to tell the others, to let them know that this could save them all, but then Maggie burst out wailing and fled to the far corner of the kitchen, and he stepped aside to let a concerned Annie hurry past him on her way to comfort the terrified girl, and then Sandy was taking the skin back and saying, “We’re going to burn them. It was Khalil’s idea; aren’t evil spirits all afraid of fire? We’re going to burn all those bastards!”

  Smith tried to think of something intelligent to say, but his thoughts refused to cohere. One fragment managed to surface for an instant.

  “Elias,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Sandy said, “It’s dressed up as Elias now, but it must be living in Mary’s apartment, right? I mean, it…”

  Smith shook his head. “No,” he said, “Elias came home last night, Maggie said.”

  Sandy stared at him. “What?”

  “Elias came home. And Maggie thinks they got his parents, that the one in Elias’s skin let in a couple more.”

  Sandy and Khalil looked at one another.

  “If,” Smith managed, his thoughts moving again, sluggishly, “If we tried to burn down the apartments, we couldn’t get them all. It’s too big, too many of them. And those three aren’t there.”

  “We wouldn’t get the one that got Mary,” Sandy agreed.

  “And we don’t know,” Smith said, “that fire will stop them. Not really.” The image of a hundred nightmare creatures swarming out of the burning Bedford Mills complex, like wasps from a broken nest, came to him. “And the cops…” He lost the thread of what he wanted to say.

  “All right,” Sandy said, “Then we burn the house first, a trial run – burn the three of them, or however many are in there. Get the one who got Mary and Elias.”

  Khalil nodded.

  Annie McGowan, with Maggie in an encircling arm, came up to the kitchen door just then.

  “Burn the house?” she said. “But that’s arson, it’s destruction of property!”

  “Oh, fuckin’ Christ,” Sandy said, turning away in disgust and slapping a hand against the wall.

  Smith blinked. “Ms. McGowan,” he said, “These things are murderers, remember. They’ve killed the people who owned that house. And shooting and stabbing them doesn’t bother them, but fire just might.”

  “Oh, I know,” Annie said, flustered. “I mean, I see you’re right, really. I do. The police weren’t any use, and we have to do something. I wish there were another way, though.”

  “There might be one,” Smith said, “But we don’t know what it is.”

  Maggie sniffled. “When are you going to do it?” she asked.

  Sandy turned back. “Tonight,” he said. “Soon as it’s dark, right? Before they know we’re onto them!”

  Smith blinked, wishing he could think more clearly, that he were steadier on his feet. “Tonight?”

  “Sure!” Sandy said enthusiastically. “The sooner the better! Lady, do you have any gasoline here? For your lawnmower or anything?”

  “Not gasoline,” Annie said slowly, “But I have a can of lighter fluid, and a little kerosene.”

  “That’ll do fine!” He smiled, showing more teeth than Smith liked to see. “You gonna come along yourself and bring it?”

  “Oh, no!” she said, “I’m too old for this sort of thing. Mr. Niklasen, Mr. Smith, all of you, I’m in no shape to fight these things – I’ll help you plan, and you’re welcome to stay here, or meet here, but don’t expect me to come with you!”

  “No problem,” Sandy said, “That’s plenty. With this house to use as a base we’re all set. We’ll do the rest. You and Maggie can stay here.”

  “Oh, no,” Maggie said, her voice suddenly strong and firm again. “I’m coming with you. I want to see those things die!”

  Smith stared at her. Sandy grinned.

  “Fine,” Sandy said. “Ever set any fires?”

  8.

  None of them had any experience in setting fires.

  Most particularly, none of them had ever tried to set a fire where no one was supposed to get out. Starting the fire itself seemed simple enough, given the kerosene and lighter fluid and Sandy’s cigarette lighter, but figuring out how to keep the nightmare people inside until they burned was another matter entirely.

  “In the movies,” Maggie pointed out, “when the bad guys are trying to burn somebody up, they always tie them to chairs.”

  Smith began, “After what happened to Elias…”

  Sandy cut him off. “I’m not trusting any goddamn movie,” he growled.

  “If we just burn down the house, though, they’ll just get out, and we won’t get anywhere,” Maggie said. “We need to make sure they stay inside until they burn.”

  “We do not really need to burn the house at all,” Khalil pointed out, from his straight-backed chair in the corner. “It is not the house we want destroyed, it is the things inside.”

  Sandy stared silently at Khalil for a moment, then smiled tightly and nodded his understanding.

  “Well, how are we going to burn them up, except by burning up the house?” Maggie demanded. “What are we going to do, walk up to them and hold a match to their toes?”

  “Close,” Sandy said, “Very close. Maggie, how well did you know Elias’s folks? Well enough that they’d let you in the house?”

  She shrugged. “Well, yeah, I guess so; I’ve been inside there a few times. What are… oh, wait a minute. I mean, this is like…” Her voice trailed off as she found all three men staring at her.

  It was clear what Sandy had in mind, and Smith wondered whether Maggie was up to it. Sandy wanted her to play decoy, to get the door open so that they all could get inside – but once inside, it would be the three of them – four, counting Maggie – against three nightmare people.

  Those were not favorable odds. Not against creatures that shrugged off bullets, that could pull themselves up off impaling stakes.

  He wondered if he were up to it himself.

  He wondered if any of them were up to it.

  Chapter Eight:

  Monday Night

  1.

  The grass sighed softly against the sides of Smith’s sneakers as he moved into hiding. The sound of his own breath wa
s loud in his ears, and gurgling of the can of lighter fluid in one unsteady hand seemed like waves crashing in the cool August night. He knelt down behind a rhododendron and found himself in a patch of mud; the day had been overcast and unseasonably cool, and traces of the morning rain still lingered in the sheltered area between the bush and the wall of the house. It was damp, but it was out of sight; he stayed. He wiped a forearm across his face to remove the sudden moisture, then waved to Maggie with his crowbar, signalling that he was ready. She stood out on the sidealk, under a streetlight, looking very small and vulnerable and scared.

  Sandy crouched nearby, between a scraggly evergreen and one end of the Samaans’ front porch. Smith could see only his back, but there was no sign that he was nervous at all.

  Theoretically, Khalil was somewhere nearby, but Smith could neither see nor hear him.

  Maggie took a deep breath and marched up the walk, up the steps and onto the porch. Smith crouched down low as she pressed the doorbell button.

  He heard no bell, but Maggie presumably did. She looked quickly, nervously about, then faced the door again.

  It opened, but Smith could see nothing of who or what had opened it.

  “Hi, Mrs. Samaan,” Maggie said, and Smith was sure he heard a quaver in her voice. “Elias left some stuff at my place; can I come in and give it to him?”

  “What stuff, dear?” a voice asked, a voice that seemed to Smith to have an oddly familiar sound to it.

  “Well, just… just stuff… I mean…” Maggie’s voice trailed off. After a second or so of awkward silence, she asked plaintively, “Can I come in?”

  “Well,” the voice said, “If it’s just something he left, I can give it to him, but if you want…”

  “I need to talk to him, too, Mrs. Samaan.”

  Smith saw that Sandy was up and moving, so suddenly and silently that it caught Smith completely off-guard. Sandy was jumping up onto the porch and charging toward Maggie and the open door.

  Khalil, too, had emerged from somewhere – Smith hadn’t seen where – and was coming up the porch steps.

  Smith realized belatedly that “I need to talk to him” had been the agreed-upon signal; he rose and pushed around the rhododendron and clambered awkwardly up onto the porch.

  He still only had one foot up on the concrete when Khalil and Sandy burst in through the open door, out of Smith’s line of sight, carrying Maggie in with them. Smith heard the door slam back against a doorstop with a sharp bang.

  Cursing his own ineptitude, he flung himself across the porch and into the house.

  2.

  Sandy was sitting astride the thing that wore the late Hanna Samaan’s skin; he held a hunting knife at its throat. Maggie was standing with her back pressed to the foyer wall, trying to stay out of the way of whatever might happen. Khalil, armed with an ordinary hammer, was halfway down the front hall, scouting for further opposition.

  “Close the door!” Sandy ordered.

  Smith stepped into the house, shoved aside one of the false Hanna’s slippered feet, and closed the door. After a moment’s hesitation, he threw the deadbolt.

  The creature smiled up at Sandy, a cruel, tight-lipped smile that looked very much out of place on Hanna Samaan’s haggard and ordinary face. A faint hint of a baleful red glow showed through the brown of her eyes.

  “You again,” it said, in a conversational tone.

  “Us again,” Sandy agreed, grinning back. He pressed the knife-blade down, driving the point through the skin and deeply into the flesh beneath.

  He had been unsure what to expect, so he was not surprised that except for the lack of blood it felt very much as he had always imagined it would feel to cut a person’s throat. The blade sank in fairly easily for perhaps an inch, and then met resistance.

  He drew the blade across the thing’s neck, and the mottled, wrinkled skin of Elias’s aging and out-of-shape mother parted, peeling back slightly to either side, revealing no red blood or mortal flesh, but that hard, grey, ropy substance that the nightmare people seemed to be made of.

  He had to saw at it to cut effectively, and he sawed grimly away.

  “What’s going on here?” someone asked.

  Sandy didn’t look up. He was busy; the other two weren’t his problem, they were for Smith and Khalil to deal with. Instead he went on sawing, putting all his strength into it.

  He could feel sweat on his forehead.

  The knife-blade was halfway through the thing’s neck, and the consistency of the flesh was changing. Strands of gray, gummy stuff were sticking to the knife, and a thick pale liquid seemed to be oozing everywhere. The wound seemed to be closing up over the top of the blade. “Damn,” Sandy muttered.

  The creature just smiled up at him with its woman’s face, not bothered at all by the huge gouge in its neck.

  Sandy had hoped that he would be able to cut the thing’s head off, to see whether it could survive decapitation, but it appeared his knife was not going to be enough to do the job.

  That left the original plan, burning the things to death. He looked up.

  Khalil and Smith were standing in the archway between the foyer and the living room, brandishing hammer and crowbar, and facing the mock Elias and someone who must be the false father, a big pot-bellied figure in a sweat-stained T-shirt who reminded Sandy of a black-haired Archie Bunker.

  The sweat stains were old, Sandy noticed, not fresh, despite the heat of the day.

  “Give me the can,” he said.

  Smith took a single step back, never taking his eyes from the two creatures he faced, and held out the can of lighter fluid.

  Maggie took it from him, popped the plastic cap, and handed it to Sandy.

  “What are you doing?” the thing beneath him rasped; his knife might not have killed it, but its voice was reduced to a harsh whisper.

  Sandy’s answer was to spray lighter fluid in its face.

  It didn’t even blink.

  Moving slowly and carefully, Sandy crawled back down the thing’s body to its feet, spraying fluid as he went, soaking its face, its hair, its pale blue housedress. It stared up at him, not frightened, only puzzled.

  The stench of lighter fluid arose.

  “What’s that stuff you sprayin’ there?” the fat “man” called.

  Nobody bothered to answer it.

  Sandy got to his feet and stood, looking down at the creature he had just saturated. He sheathed his knife on his belt, then handed the can of lighter fluid to Maggie, who took it and backed away.

  The Hanna thing blinked, finally, trying to clear its vision of the fluid that had pooled in its eyes. It sat up.

  Sandy and the others moved away from it, away from the front door; the other two creatures stepped back, making room for them, watching.

  Sandy took an old business card from one pocket, and his cigarette lighter from another, and flicked the wheel. The lighter flared up, and the flame caught the corner of the card.

  When it was burning strongly, Sandy flipped it at the false Hanna, just as it was getting awkwardly to its feet, still trying to blink the lighter fluid out of its eyes.

  The fluid caught immediately, and flames spread across the front of Hanna Samaan’s housedress, up into her hair, onto her stolen face.

  Sandy had half-expected a great “whoosh,” like in the movies, but the only sound was a faint hissing, and a sudden crackle, like a far-distant string of firecrackers, as Hanna’s grey hair went up.

  “Hey, you crazy?” the largest of the nightmare people demanded as a billow of orange fire flickered across the foyer ceiling, leaving a thin black film of smoke.

  Sandy turned and squirted lighter fluid at the creature. It backed away.

  The one in Elias’s skin hadn’t spoken yet, but now it did.

  “Sandy,” it said, in Mary’s voice, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Sandy’s reply was to spray lighter fluid at that one, as well. “Bastard,” he growled.

  Khalil and Smith had
stepped to the side, along the living room wall; Maggie was on the stairs, but at a gesture from Sandy she ran across and joined the others.

  “You don’t know what’s up there,” Sandy told her, “and if the fire spreads there might not be a way out.” He turned back to the burning thing in the foyer.

  It was standing there, smiling at him through the writhing flames as flakes of burning skin peeled away, flakes that fluttered up like orange fireflies, then blackened and fell.

  The creature’s human face was gone, and the silver needle-teeth were gleaming golden in the firelight. The last shreds of stolen hair and scalp were being carried upward by the rising heat, brushing lightly against the smoke-darkened ceiling and then drifting away, to fall as fine ash.

  The skirt of Hanna’s housedress was blackened and smoldering, the bodice gone completely, and as Sandy watched the remnant slid down over the thing’s hips and fell to the floor, revealing white panties that were already darkening with the heat, heat that was spilling out in waves, pouring into the living room, forcing Sandy to take a step back.

  And the thing was smiling silently at him, just smiling, red eyes like hot coals in the fire, smiling, smiling, smiling.

  3.

  Maggie turned to watch the thing burn, leaning around the corner of the arch and trusting Smith and Khalil to warn her if one of the others made a move toward her. She saw the dress fall away, saw the skin shrivel and darken, the hair drift away as ash, and she saw the thing smile.

  She saw it smile, and saw it step forward toward Sandy, who stood there, frozen.

  “That’s the second time you people have ruined a perfectly good skin for me,” it said in Bill Goodwin’s voice, and it reached out through dying flames toward Sandy. “I think I’ll just have to take yours.”

  Sandy stepped back and drew his hunting knife, so quickly that Maggie didn’t see him move; just one moment he held a lighter in one hand and the other was empty, and the next moment the lighter was still there, and the other hand held a knife.