“Come on,” Smith said, gesturing, “If they won’t come out, we’ll go in after them.”
“I don’t know, Smith,” Buckley said. “This is private property…”
“Hey, I live here, remember? That’s my apartment up there, C41.” He pointed. “I’ve got a perfect right to go in and say hello to my neighbors, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” Buckley admitted. Reluctantly, he climbed out of the car.
“One thing,” Smith said, “When it happens, turn and run. Remember, there are dozens of them in there. They aren’t significantly stronger than ordinary people, but there are a lot of them, and those teeth are dangerous.”
“When what happens?” Buckley asked, annoyed.
“You’ll know,” was Smith’s only reply.
They were halfway up the walk when he added, “And remember, they aren’t scared of guns. Don’t bother pulling your gun if they attack – just run.”
“What gun?” Buckley asked.
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” Smith said, “I know you’ve got a gun. You’re a cop, aren’t you? And you’re out here dealing with someone who might be a dangerous loony, right?”
Buckley didn’t argue.
“And if they get you,” Smith added, “Bite.”
Smith turned aside from the entry and stepped down onto the patio of C14. Buckley followed, puzzled.
“Hey, Smith,” he began, as Smith rapped on the sliding glass door.
Smith held up a hand for silence.
“This apartment,” he said, “Was home to a pleasant little person named Irene Corbett, who I didn’t really know. I ran into her now and then when I picked up my mail or brought down my trash, that’s all. She’s dead now, and there’s something living here pretending to be her.” He rapped again, then tucked his hands into his pockets; the night air was unseasonably cool.
The patio light came on, disturbing a swarm of gnats.
“Look, Smith,” Buckley said, “We shouldn’t be here…”
Before he could say any more the door slid open.
A small, plump woman with curly black hair leaned out. “What is it? Oh, hi, Mr. Smith, Lieutenant; what’s up?”
Buckley started to speak, but before he could get a word out Smith’s hand came up from his pocket, the switchblade snapped open, and he slashed it across the woman’s face.
She blinked and stepped back, startled.
Buckley blinked, as well.
Smith was already turning away; he called, “Take a good look, Lieutenant.” Then he ducked out of the patio and onto the entryway path.
Buckley looked, and at first he thought that Smith’s knife had missed, that this was all just another manifestation of insanity.
Then he saw the skin slipping down the thing’s nose, revealing grey flesh beneath.
No blood.
No pain, from her reaction.
No human reaction at all. Just a slit across her face and the skin sliding down, the dull gray showing through.
He stood for a moment, staring.
“What’s wrong?” she said. She reached up and felt her nose.
“Oh, damn!” she said, when her fingers found the slash.
Buckley just stood, staring.
Then a car horn sounded, and he whirled. He remembered Smith’s warning, and he started running.
The thing jumped him from behind, grabbed him around the neck with both arms, around the waist with both legs. He stumbled, staggered, then ran on.
Something incredibly sharp, like a double row of hypodermic needles, scraped across his scalp. He looked up, but couldn’t see his attacker.
What he could see, though, was a ring of people, all kinds of people, men, women, and children, wearing everything from ordinary street clothes to nothing at all, standing silently on all sides and moving slowly inward, toward him – and toward the little red Chevy that stood in the parking lot, with its lights on, motor running, and horn blaring.
He ran for the car, ignoring everything else. It was rolling by the time he reached it; he dove inside, Smith reaching forward from the back to pull him in.
His attacker came with him. He tried to ram her head against the doorframe, to pry her off, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Here,” Smith shouted, “Get her inside, too – we can handle it, if it’s just one of them.”
He bent forward, dragging her in, and Smith reached up and wrapped his arms around her, trying to pry her loose. The door flapped as the car picked up speed, smashing painfully across the back of his right leg, and he fell forward, almost into Khalil’s lap.
Khalil paid no attention; he was concentrating on his driving.
There was a loud bump, and the car rose up for a moment, then slammed down again. Buckley tried not to think about what they had run over.
Then they were rounding the corner out of the parking lot and onto Barrett Road, and after that he couldn’t see much, as his own blood ran down into his eyes from half a hundred scalp wounds.
Buckley lost track of events for what seemed like several minutes. When he finally got himself straightened out and his vision cleared, he was sitting in the passenger seat, Khalil was driving at roughly twice the thirty miles per hour the law allowed on Barrett, and the passenger-side door was ajar but almost closed.
He opened the door and slammed it, then looked around.
In the back seat Smith was struggling with the false Irene Corbett. Her head was in his lap, face up and smeared with bright red blood, and his right arm was around her throat, while his left arm reached across, the point of the open switchblade pressed between her breasts.
“Hold still,” Smith hissed, “Or I’ll cut your heart out and eat it.”
She blinked up at him, horror suddenly plain on her face, and held still.
Smith relaxed slightly, but the knife didn’t move.
The hand that had been round her throat reached up and pulled at the loose skin on her nose.
It peeled away, like a rubber mask, revealing ridged flesh the color of wet modelling clay, a black-lipped mouth filled with gleaming needle-sharp teeth that looked more like stainless steel than bone. From the bridge of her nose – its nose – up, it still looked human; from there down, it was monstrous.
“Believe us now?” Smith asked.
Buckley swallowed.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I believe you.”
Smith smiled, and sank his knife gently into the thing’s chest.
Chapter Eleven:
Wednesday, August 16th
1.
In the days that followed Smith’s little demonstration Lieutenant Buckley and some of his men provided unofficial help in reducing the number of nightmare people in the vicinity, as he had promised they would.
Officially, nothing was out of the ordinary at the Bedford Mills Apartments, nor elsewhere in Diamond Park, or any other part of Montgomery County. No bulletins were issued regarding Bedford Mills or its inhabitants, and no arrests or incidents were reported. Nothing more appeared in the newspapers about the disappearance or its aftermath.
Unofficially, however, the nightmare people were being systematically hunted and destroyed. Half a dozen of the few who still bothered to show up for work at their victims’ jobs received unexpected calls from the police while at their places of business, calls informing them of various emergencies, and when they left to attend to matters they were never seen again. A dozen or so who stayed “home” were phoned there and summoned for questioning, and likewise never seen again.
The brief spell of cool weather gave way to normal August heat, muggy and uncomfortable, but that made no difference to either the hunters or the hunted. None of them paid much attention to the weather, or the news from Lebanon, or the upcoming twentieth anniversary of Woodstock. The silent struggle for survival took precedence.
During that period, several Montgomery County police officers reported in sick with stomach problems – cramps, nausea, and so forth. Officers who had not been included in the secret campaign wondered about food poisoning, and memos were circulated, but nothing came of it. No official cause was ever found, and in the end the whole matter was dismissed as an outbreak of an unknown and not particularly serious virus.