“That’s right.”
“But you didn’t eat it?” he persisted.
“Not yet,” Annie admitted. “I just couldn’t. Not raw, not all slimy the way it was.”
“But… where is it, then?” Smith asked.
Annie said, “Down in the kitchen.”
He turned back to the tub. “And it’s still alive?”
Annie nodded. “Has been for hours,” she said.
Smith shuddered; he felt suddenly queasy.
“Has it been screaming the whole time?” he asked.
“Oh, no, not really,” Annie told him. “Just sometimes. It’s not happy, of course, but it hasn’t screamed the whole time.”
Smith nodded. “I see,” he said uneasily. He reached down and pulled the towels away from its face.
It looked up at him from red, inhuman eyes. The skin on its face hung in tatters.
“You!” it said, in a hoarse imitation of Smith’s own voice.
Smith nodded. “Yup, me,” he agreed.
“You,” it said, “I came here for you.”
“I thought you might,” Smith said, “But I wasn’t expecting it to be tonight.”
It made an indescribable noise.
“You left us a note at the Samaans’ house,” Smith said.
It nodded, wary.
“You said something about itching?”
“Yes,” it said, “The skins itch. They… we’re grown to fit. Each of us grows to fit a particular skin, and any other skin will itch, always. It’s horrible.”
Smith blinked. “But the skins wear out,” he said.
The thing nodded. “I know,” it said.
“But that means that eventually, you’ll all be wearing itchy, wrong skins.”
“I know,” it said.
Smith shook his head. “Bad design,” he said.
The thing jerked about, but said nothing.
“You know,” Smith said, “I think that there’s a lot of bad design in you things. The way you breed, where it takes two weeks and it can be aborted with a stomach pump if you catch it early enough, that’s not really very efficient. And you’re dependent on your stolen skins for a lot, and you aren’t any stronger than some of your prey – you rely a lot on surprise and ignorance, don’t you?”
The creature blinked up at him.
“I know you can slip through narrow places, and change your shape somewhat, but it’s not easy, is it? I mean, you can’t just melt down and slide away under a door.”
“Not…” the thing said, then hesitated.
“Go on,” Smith said, “What good do you think it’s going to do to hold back? We’ve got your heart down in the kitchen – or is it so much a heart as the larva you grew from?”
The thing managed to shrug at that. “Name’s not important,” it said.
“You were saying, about shape-changing?”
“Only… can’t do it in sunlight. And can’t do it if we know someone’s watching.”
Smith smiled. “That’s why you couldn’t get through my window that first night, because I was watching you? Shit, that’s as stupid as vampires and garlic.”
The nightmare just stared up at him.
Smith bent down a little farther.
“You know,” he said, “One of you told me that you’re supposed to be the next step for supernatural evil, the predator that can finally wipe out humanity. I think that’s bull. I think you’re an evolutionary dead end, just like vampires – except I’d bet my shirt you guys aren’t going to last any three hundred years.”
He straightened up and turned away.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing to Khalil and Annie, “Let’s go.”
As Smith worked his way back downstairs, one step at a time, he asked Annie, “What did you do with its heart?”
“Oh,” she said, “Well, I told you, I couldn’t face eating it raw, so I saut?ed it with butter and mushrooms and onions. I was just starting on it when you two got here – that was what got the screaming started again. Would you two care to join me?”
Smith gagged and almost lost his balance.
“Saut?ed?” he asked.
Annie nodded.
Smith was appalled by the thought – but when Annie served out the portions he suppressed his reservations and ate his share.
He had to admit that although it still tasted horrible, it was better than eating them raw.
3.
“You know we didn’t get them all,” Buckley said angrily, “And we probably never will, now. That was a damn fool stunt, blowing up the place like that. Sure, it messed them up, and we got a lot of them in the confusion, and we probably mostly kept them from breeding this month, but now we don’t know where the hell they all are!” He glared at Smith.
“We didn’t know all of them anyway,” Smith pointed out, sitting stiffly so as not to aggravate any injuries. “They were already slipping away, one or two at a time.”
“I know,” Buckley said, “But now they’re all gone!”
“How many got away?” Smith asked.
Buckley shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Not counting larvae – and we have no idea how many of those are out there – my best count is that about forty, maybe forty-five are unaccounted for.”
“Less than a third of what they started with,” Smith pointed out.
“Yeah, but dammit, I still should run you in,” Buckley said. “That was the messiest piece of arson I’ve ever seen in my life!”
Smith shrugged, and grimaced as the movement pulled at a scab. “I’m an amateur,” he said. “What can I say?”
Buckley made a disgusted gesture and stopped talking.
“What are we going to do now?” Maddie Newell asked. She and her sister and Dr. Frauenthal had called up, wanting to talk to Smith about the nightmare people, and when, in the course of the discussion, they had learned about the meeting that Buckley had demanded they had invited themselves along.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Smith said, “But I think I’ve done my share. I’ve eaten God knows how many of those things – I’ve probably got an ulcer from them, and my digestion’s never going to be the same. I’ve been cut and burned and beaten, I’ve lost my job – I’ve had it. I’m leaving. I’m going to get out while I still have enough money for the fare, and I’m going somewhere a long way away from here – Boston or California or somewhere, where I can find work.”
Khalil shifted. “I am leaving, too,” he said. “This area is not good for me any more.”
George Brayton, seated on the far side of the room, nodded in agreement. Smith had called him that morning and asked him to come over and join the party. With Buckley and the Newells coming, it had seemed like a good idea to get as many of the people who knew about the monsters as possible.
“But there are still some of those things out there!” Alice Newell shouted.
Smith shrugged. “Not my problem,” he said. “Look around, will you?” He waved an arm to take in everyone in the crowded room. The Newell girls and Maggie Devanoy sat on the couch; Khalil and Lieutenant Buckley stood in either side of the archway to the dining room. Dr. Frauenthal leaned against one arm of the chair George sat in. Annie McGowan, as hostess, stood anxiously to one side, watching in case her guests needed anything. “You all know about them,” Smith said. “You all know how to kill them, what they can do – it’s not my problem any more.”
“Mr. Smith,” Dr. Frauenthal said, “After what I’ve heard, and having patched you back together the night before last, I can’t deny you’ve done your part, but how are we supposed to find them all and kill them? They could be anywhere by now. And we can’t tell anybody – they won’t believe us.”
“Show ’em the one in your bottle,” Smith suggested.
“I can’t,” Frauenthal said. “It died, once the moon was past full and it had no host, and it rotted away to nothing, same as the adults do. I tried to analyze the remains, but it’s just a mix of normal organic waste.”