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.