And what would they do with the monsters if they ever did acknowledge that they really existed? Again, they’d be bound by rules and forms and procedures. They’d need proof that the nightmare people had killed their victims. They’d need a legal determination as to whether the creatures were human or animal. The whole thing would inevitably get into the news, and there would be crazies of every sort popping up – people who would claim that the nightmare people were innocent victims, or UFO aliens, or a punishment sent by God.
And who knew what would happen then? What would the nightmare people do, if the police started investigating them? What would they do to reporters and gawkers and loonies?
Smith knew he couldn’t fight the things alone, but he couldn’t go to the police, either.
He asked himself whether he really needed to fight them at all. Couldn’t he just flee?
He shook his head. No, he couldn’t do that. They had killed his neighbors – killed them, and from the fact that there were only bones and no flesh, maybe eaten them. He couldn’t just leave the creatures there. Even if he got away, surely, they would eventually kill other innocent people, kill them and eat them.
He shuddered.
Where had the things come from?
Had there always been monsters like this, lurking in quiet corners of the world?
He didn’t know, of course. He had no way of knowing.
He did know that he had to fight them, somehow, and destroy them – kill them all.
But wouldn’t that be murder?
No, they weren’t human, he reminded himself. They might be intelligent and humanoid, but they weren’t human, and they were all murderers and presumably cannibals – well, man-eaters, anyway. “Cannibal” wasn’t the right term if they weren’t human.
And “murder” wasn’t the right term if they weren’t human. Killing them wouldn’t be murder.
The police might have another opinion, though. So might the nightmare people themselves. He couldn’t just walk in with an assault rifle and start gunning them down and expect to get out alive, or to stay out of jail if he did survive.
He needed to know more about them, and he needed help.
He looked around at the parking lot again, at all the cars there, the cars that had been sitting there all afternoon, instead of carrying their owners to and from ordinary nine-to-five jobs.
The things weren’t human. They had disguised themselves as human, but the disguises weren’t perfect. Their victims had had friends, relatives, co-workers – the neighbors were all gone, but the families and friends were still out there.
If he could find those friends, and could convince them of what had happened, he would have allies.
He wished he knew more about his neighbors. Did Mrs. Malinoff have any family, or Nora Hagarty, or Walt Harris? None of them had ever told him. He had hardly spoken to most of his neighbors; he had been too busy settling in at work, arranging his apartment, making contacts in the area. The only ones he’d ever spoken to, other than a few minutes here and there in the stairwell or on the lawn, were the Goodwins. He knew a little about them – not much, but a little.
Well, he decided, at least that was a place to start.
2.
Maggie Devanoy was irked.
She was aggravated.
“Irked” was her father’s word, and “aggravated” was her mother’s; in her own words, she was royally pissed off.
She had had to ride the bus most of the way home from her summer job at the mall, and walk home from the bus stop, in ninety-zillion degree heat, and after waiting tables for six hours she did not need to do any more walking, and all because that asshole Bill Goodwin hadn’t shown up the way he had promised he would.
Now it was well after seven, and the sun was setting, and she’d missed dinner, and if she admitted that she hadn’t eaten her parents were going to give her another stupid lecture and ask why she hadn’t called them for a ride – and if she had called, of course, she’d have gotten a lecture on being independent and old enough to take care of herself and how inconvenient it was for them to make a special trip.
In an attempt at fairness, she admitted that Bill might have an excuse. Maybe he was sick, or that old clunker of his had broken down again, or something – but then why hadn’t he called?
He hadn’t called her since Monday, in fact.
Maybe this was his not-particularly-clever way of hinting that he was losing interest in their relationship, and if that was it, then she was going to be even more irked, because it was a really shitty way to break it off, and didn’t he know that?
He could have just told her – preferably in the car or over dinner, after he’d picked her up the way he had promised.
She could see her house now. A little red car was sitting at the curb in front, one she didn’t remember ever seeing before – that was all she needed, for her parents to have some stupid guest there when she came in all dirty and sweaty and tired.
Then she saw that someone was sitting in the driver’s seat, and an instant later the car’s engine started up.
Well, that was a relief, anyway – she wouldn’t have to be polite to one of her parents’ friends. She shifted her backpack to her other shoulder and trudged on.
The car was rolling now, but moving very slowly, just inching along, and hanging close to the curb. She stopped and watched it.
The driver looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. Someone from her Dad’s office, maybe?
The car was coming closer, and she decided it was none of her business. She shrugged, and started walking again.
The car pulled up to the curb and stopped, about twenty feet in front of her.
She stopped.
What was this, some sort of pervert trying to pick her up, or something? Or someone selling drugs?
The driver leaned across and rolled down the window on the passenger side. Maggie stepped over toward the grass alongside the sidewalk, ready to head for cover if the guy tried anything funny. She glanced over and saw she was in front of the Goldsmiths’ house; she could run up and ring their doorbell if anything happened. Mrs. Goldsmith was pretty cool.
“Maggie?” the guy called, stretching his head out the window.
Oh, great, she thought, he knows my name! She didn’t say anything, just stood and watched.
“Aren’t you Maggie Devanoy?” the stranger asked.
“What if I am?” she called.
“I’m Ed Smith,” he said, pulling himself halfway out the window of his car. “I live upstairs from the Goodwins. I’ve got to talk to you about Bill.”
She eyed him warily.
Yeah, that was where she’d seen him; he and Bill got along pretty well. He’d been teaching Bill some stuff about computers back in the spring. She’d seen him around the Goodwins’ apartment building maybe three or four times.
“What about?” she called, not going any closer.
“It’s hard to explain. Something’s happened to him. Look, have you seen him since Tuesday? Did he seem strange to you?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t talked to him since Monday,” she said.
“Well, isn’t that strange?” the man in the car asked. “I mean, it’s Friday evening, and you haven’t heard from him?”
Her irritation got the better of her. “You’re goddamn right it is!” she told him. “We had a date for dinner tonight, and that bastard didn’t show up! He was supposed to pick me up after work!”
Smith, if that was really his name, nodded. “I’m not surprised. Look, I really need to talk to you. I’ve got some things to tell you, but it’s going to be really hard to explain, and hard for you to believe. I don’t want to do it here, like this.”
“You want me to get in the car with you?”
“Or I could meet you someplace – someplace public, if you’re worried about me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have a car. And I’m not about to walk back to the bus stop and wait – I’m not even sure there are any more buses tonight.”
“Well, then climb in, and we can talk.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
“Yeah, I know, you don’t get in cars with strange men. Look,” he said. He paused, groped for something, found it, and picked it up.