The Nightmare People

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Or worse?

  Smith was still in the kitchen; he glanced around casually.

  Annie was stirring the pot of vegetables on the stove, paying no attention to her guests just now. To her left was the refrigerator, to her right the countertop and double sink. To the right of the sink was what he wanted – a rack of carving knives.

  “’Scuse me a minute,” he said to Sandy.

  He strolled around the kitchen table the long way, to the counter by the sink.

  “Can I help you with anything, Ms. McGowan?” he asked.

  She looked up. “Oh, no, I’m doing fine, thanks. You fellows make your plans.”

  “All right. Thanks.” He strolled back, and casually pulled a knife from the rack as he walked past.

  It was a good knife, a bread knife with a walnut handle and a serrated stainless steel blade.

  Sandy and Khalil had gone on into the living room. Sandy had settled on the couch, while Khalil stood by the window, looking out at the garden. The sky was clouding over, Smith noticed. He held the knife casually in one hand, as if he had forgotten it was there.

  “How’s your hand, Sandy?” he asked.

  “My hand? It’s fine,” Sandy said.

  “Let’s see,” Smith said.

  “Hey, it’s fine, so fuck off, okay?”

  That was almost the first thing Sandy had said this evening that was in character, but by now Smith was seriously worried.

  “Khalil,” he said.

  Khalil looked at him, then looked at Sandy, sitting on the couch. He tensed.

  Smith lifted the knife.

  “Let’s see the hand, Sandy,” he said.

  “Hey, fuck yourself, Smith, my hand’s fine!”

  “Then let me see it, Sandy. What’s the big deal?”

  “What’s that knife for, asshole? That’s the big deal. You gone nuts, planning to cut off my fingers?”

  Sandy’s attention was focused on Smith and the bread knife; he was caught by surprise when Khalil grabbed his arm and lifted it.

  “The scars are there,” Khalil reported.

  “Just scars?” Smith asked.

  Khalil nodded.

  “Hey, I told you it was fine!” Sandy insisted. “Christ, so I heal fast. What the hell is wrong with you, anyway, Smith?”

  “Hold him still,” Smith said, approaching carefully, the knife raised.

  Khalil looked very worried, but he held the arm where it was.

  “Khalil, look,” Smith said. He reached out, wincing, and pricked the middle finger of his own left hand on the tip of the knife.

  A red drop of blood appeared and dribbled down the blade.

  Khalil nodded, and his worried look faded somewhat. He turned his full attention to Sandy.

  Smith hesitated. It was Sandy who had him worried, but what if Khalil, too, was tainted?

  He had to risk it.

  “Now you, Sandy,” he said. “Just a drop of blood.” He wiped the knife on his shirt – the garment was already hopelessly damaged and dirty – and took another step toward Sandy.

  Sandy suddenly began struggling, and Khalil forced him back down, shifted his hold. The two wrestled briefly, and although Sandy was the larger man, when it was over Khalil had Sandy in a full Nelson.

  Smith took Sandy’s hand and pricked the finger.

  No blood appeared.

  He pressed harder.

  Sandy struggled again, but no blood came.

  Smith shifted his aim, and drew a cut down Sandy’s upper arm.

  The knife left a white line; no red.

  Smith cut more deeply, and the skin parted to reveal ropy grey flesh beneath. Khalil stared.

  Smith stepped back. He glanced uneasily at Khalil, but then focused on Sandy once again.

  “We know how to kill you,” he said. “And we should kill you. You murdered our friend, the man whose skin you’re wearing.”

  The Sandy thing just stared at him.

  Smith needed time to think of what to do next. He couldn’t bring himself to just fling himself on the thing, cut open its chest and eat its heart out, here on Annie McGowan’s couch.

  At least, not yet.

  “Ms. McGowan,” he called, never taking his eyes off the creature, “Could you come in here, please? And bring a sharp knife, a paring knife would be fine.”

  Annie answered, “What?”

  Smith repeated his instructions, and added, “And lock the front door on your way, please.”

  A moment later he heard her bustling into the room behind him. He didn’t turn.

  “Give the knife to Khalil,” he said.

  Clearly puzzled, Annie obeyed.

  Khalil accepted the knife uncertainly.

  “Let me see your blood,” Smith said. He leaned forward so that the tip of the bread knife was resting lightly on the false Sandy’s chest.

  Comprehension dawned; Khalil loosened his hold on the creature enough that he could use the knife to prick his finger.

  Blood welled up immediately, thick, red, human blood.

  Smith relaxed.

  “Forgive me,” Khalil said, “but Mrs. McGowan?” He made a small questioning gesture.

  That had not occurred to Smith. He nodded. “Ms. McGowan,” he said, “I’m sorry to have to ask this, but could you draw a little blood for us? It seems to be the surest way to be certain you’re… well, still you.”

  She blinked. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on here,” she said, but she took the knife Khalil offered her, and cut across the base of her thumb.

  Blood flowed freely, red and shining.

  “Thank you,” Smith said. “So it’s just Sandy.”

  “Here,” Khalil said.

  Smith stared at him. “What?”

  “It is just Sandy of the four of us here. We don’t know about elsewhere.”

  Smith nodded; Khalil was right; Maggie had gone home, and the nightmare people might have gotten her there.

  There was nothing they could do about it right now, though. Not if it was already too late.

  But if there was still time…

  “Ms. McGowan,” he said, “Would you please phone Maggie, and warn her that the nightmare people have been active again? If she can, I think she should stay with other people at all times, and to stay awake, and it might be wise to stay in well-lit places. If she wants to come here, that would be fine, but not alone – someone should walk with her.”

  “All right,” Annie said. She looked at the false Sandy, at the knife at his chest, and hurried to the kitchen.

  3.

  “Now,” Smith said to the imitation Sandy Niklasen, “What are we going to do with you?”

  The creature didn’t reply. It watched Smith warily.

  “You probably think,” Smith told it, “that we’re going to kill you, that we’re going to cut you open and eat your stinking black heart. And you may be right. On the other hand…”

  He paused for dramatic effect, but the thing just stared at him. It still looked exactly like Sandy; except for the cut on its arm, its disguise was perfect.

  “On the other hand,” Smith said, “If you tell us everything we want to know about your kind, maybe we can make a deal – you leave us alone, we let you go. What do you think, hey?” Khalil, where the thing couldn’t see him, shook his head angrily.

  “I think you guys are nuts,” it said. “You think I’m one of them? Hey, I’m Sandy Niklasen; I helped you kill one of them last night!”

  Smith shook his head. “No,” he said, “You aren’t. Sandy’s dead. You ate him, and now you’re wearing his skin. We know it, and you know it, and there’s no point in denying it.” He flicked the knife aside for an instant to point at the exposed flesh of the thing’s arm, then quickly pressed the tip back against its chest, a little harder than before.

  The steel blade cut into Sandy’s shirt a little. The individual threads seemed to slide up the blade one by one, stretching until they parted.

  The thing stared up at Smith
for a moment, then it flashed a quick, silvery grin.

  “All right,” he said, “You’ve got me. I want to live, same as anybody; I’ll deal. What do I have to do?”

  Smith looked up at Khalil, who looked back. Both of them could hear Annie McGowan’s voice in the kitchen, too low to make out the words, as she spoke to Maggie on the phone.

  “What are you?” Smith asked.

  The thing blinked, and its eyes flashed red for an instant before Sandy’s familiar brown returned. It shrugged. “You called us nightmare people,” it said. “That’s as good a name as any.”

  “You don’t have a name for yourselves?” Smith asked.

  “Nope,” the thing said. “Why should we? We knew that sooner or later, your kind would give us one.”

  Smith hesitated, and then demanded, “Where did you come from?”

  “Nowhere. Or everywhere. We didn’t come from anywhere so much as we just happened.” The voice was still Sandy’s, but something had crept into it, a coldness that hadn’t been there before.

  “What are you talking about?” Smith asked, uneasily. The knife sank a little deeper, indenting Sandy’s stolen skin.

  “We happened,” the creature insisted. “We didn’t come from anywhere. When Lammas Night came with the new moon, at 3:00 a.m., we were just there, at the Bedford Mills apartments.”

  “What is Lammas Night?” Khalil asked, before Smith had phrased his next question.

  “The night of August first,” the thing said. “And the early morning of August second. It’s one of the four nights of the year when the old, dark powers are strongest, the powers that you people say you don’t believe in any more – the powers you hid from as children, the ones that put monsters in your closets, the powers you deny now even when they put those same monsters in your streets and parks, with knives and guns instead of claws and teeth.” It shifted, and smiled again, showing silver teeth. “You all know Hallowe’en, and some of you remember Walpurgisnacht, or Beltane, and your very awareness of them weakens them. But that left us Candlemas and Lammas – and here we are.”

  “Why 3:00 a.m.?” Smith asked, trying to inject a little sarcasm. “Isn’t midnight traditional?”

  The creature shook its head. “Not any more. Before the electric light, midnight was the darkest hour, when sanity was weakest and evil could walk free, but nowadays you people are scarcely in bed then, what with the eleven o’clock news. No, it’s 3:00 a.m. when the spirit fails, when the darkness is deepest and hope furthest away. That’s the hour for suicides, the time of despair, when the day past is gone and the sunrise still impossibly far ahead.”

  “You sound like you’re enjoying this,” Smith muttered, annoyed.

  “Oh, I am!” the thing said, smiling. “Don’t you see? Isn’t it obvious? You people, you humans, you’re my natural prey, my targets, my enemies; my kind is destined to destroy yours, to devour you – but in secret. Always in secret. And where’s the fun in that? Hey, I like to gloat as much as you do; I want to brag. I want to let you poor creatures know something of what you’re up against, so you’ll see how hopeless it is. I want to see you scared. I want to see you suffer, see you worry. I enjoy seeing you frightened.” It paused, grinning.

  “Ordinarily, I couldn’t tell anyone,” it said. “That would be too dangerous. But you’ve forced me to speak; my sibs can’t hold it against me, even if you let me live. And of course, you’re already marked anyway. You won’t live to tell anyone.”

  “You sound like a bad movie villain, gloating over his captives and giving the hero time to arrive,” Smith said.

  The thing’s grin widened. “Ah, but isn’t there some truth in that clich? gloating, however foolish it might seem to take the risk? And what if, instead, I’m distracting you while my own reinforcements arrive?”

  Khalil glanced around at the windows and the front door, then back at the thing on the couch.

  “If that’s the case,” Smith said, “then you’re a fool to tell us.”

  “Only if you believe me,” it said, “But you don’t, do you? You don’t think I’d be that foolish – or that clever.”

  Smith stared at it, baffled.

  “Maybe we should just kill you after all,” he said. “Just in case.” The knife sank a little deeper, and Sandy’s skin gave, allowing it passage into the hard grey flesh beneath. Smith licked his lips and swallowed.

  The grin vanished.

  “No,” it said. “Don’t do that. I’ll tell you what you want to know. There’s no one else coming yet; they don’t know you saw through my disguise. I’m supposed to get you to separate, after dark, so we can get you one by one.”

  The pressure on the knife lessened.

  “Talk,” Smith said. “Don’t wait for questions, and don’t try and scare us with any stories about boogey-men in the closet. Just tell us what the hell is going on.”

  “But you already know most of it,” the thing said.

  “Tell us anyway,” Smith demanded.

  Annie was standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Smith didn’t take his eyes off the thing. “We’re questioning it,” he said.

  “It looks like you’re torturing it,” she said.

  Smith just shrugged.

  “What about Maggie?” he asked.

  “She says she’s all right, but she’s scared,” Annie reported. “She’s going to work in a few minutes – I caught her just as she was leaving, she’s already late – so she’ll be out in public for the rest of the evening, and she’s asking her father to come and pick her up after she gets off for the night.”

  Smith looked up at Khalil, who looked back.

  “Well,” Smith said, “I hope she’s okay. I don’t know what we can do about it.”

  Khalil shrugged.

  Smith glanced at Annie, who was still standing there, looking disapproving.

  “Ms. McGowan,” he said, “have a seat. I’m afraid this will take awhile; we’ll have to hold off on eating dinner for now.”

  She frowned, and said, “I’ll wait in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine,” Smith said. “Go ahead and eat if you like, you don’t need to wait for us. Besides,” he said, as he turned his attention back to the Sandy thing, “I may be eating in here.”

  The thing sneered.

  Smith smiled back. “All right,” he said. “Talk.”

  It talked.

  4.

  “You people think you’re so smart, with your science and your religion, you think you know all about space and time and what’s real and what isn’t,” the nightmare person said. “Well, you don’t. You don’t know shit. You worry about atoms and quarks and gods and devils, or about car payments and income tax and cocaine, and you don’t even know what death really is.”

  “And I suppose you do?” Smith said.

  “More than you,” it answered.

  Smith didn’t reply.

  A moment later, the thing went on, “There’s real evil in the world, you know. Real evil. Not just disease or accidents or bad luck, but evil, a force that wants you people to suffer and die and rot away, that wants to see you all destroyed, that wants to see everything you’ve done perverted and debased and ruined, and then blotted out – everything that any of you ever did, ever fought for or loved, wiped away. That’s what it wants – what we want. Some of you call the true evil the devil, but that’s wrong – your idea of the devil is so fucking wimpy and anthropocentric it doesn’t even begin to reflect the truth. You don’t have any words that do it justice. You don’t have any words that fit it at all, but the one – evil.

  “There’s a real, tangible evil in the world, a supernatural force that’s basic to the universe, indestructible and omnipresent. It manifests itself wherever life exists, taking its form in part from whatever life it finds.

  “It touches you sometimes, some of you more than others – or maybe you touch it, because you feed it, all of you, there’s evil in all of
you, lurking down there in the darkness. It’s something that evolved in you, and in some of the other natural species on this planet – and on other planets, too, but the part of it here, the part I’m talking about, it can’t reach that far. It’s part of this world, part of your world. And it wants you. It wants you, and it’s going to get you, consume you.

  “And it’s not satisfied with just touching you every so often, so that you destroy each other and yourselves. A few suicides, murders, wars, that’s not enough. It’s insatiable. It wants you all, it wants you to die horribly, it wants to devour you, absorb you, make you all part of itself.

  “So when the touches aren’t enough, when it can’t find another Ted Bundy or Adolf Hitler, it makes tools for itself, living tools.

  “I don’t want you to think, though, that it’s intelligent, that it thinks the way you people do, with your fragile little egos and half-assed schemes. It’s beyond that. It’s a force of nature – of a part of nature you people call supernatural. It’s not an entity, it’s nothing you have a word for, but it has this drive to hurt you, and every so often that manifests itself in a new way.

  “It doesn’t design these things; they evolve, they just happen, from random chance guided by what survives, what works, in supernatural selection. The competition isn’t here, in your reality, it’s somewhere else, and only the survivors, only the fittest, ever break through and become real.

  “You’ve always had them. On Earth, you’ve called them demons and monsters. It’s manifested itself as lamia, witches, demons, vampires, werewolves, all of them – but only one form at a time, in our own supernatural evolution. Each species appeared spontaneously, bred and flourished after its fashion, and was in time wiped out by humanity as its secrets were learned and the initial fear conquered. Each was appropriate to the time in which it appeared, and each one has eventually failed, it’s been destroyed, wiped out, and then, when time has passed, another has appeared, stronger and fitter, to fill that same niche in the ecology – to be the new predator that preys on humanity. The Romans destroyed the lamiae, and you thought they were just a myth. The Saxons wiped out the fay, the elven, and you turned them into a mere fairy tale.