The Nightmare People

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.

A few hours’ sleep made it all seem so much simpler. It wasn’t his business. He might make a few more anonymous calls, but he wasn’t going to ruin his life. The monsters, if they were really monsters, had come and taken over that one apartment complex, and he had been lucky enough to get out alive, and as far as he knew that was the end of it.

That they had turned up at the motel later on didn’t matter. After all, they’d had plenty of opportunity while he was asleep just now, or when he was poking around the unfinished office building; if they were going to attack him, they could have done so then.

Of course, he thought, looking out the window at the orange-streaked western sky, that had all been in broad daylight, and the two occasions when he had seen nightmare people undisguised had been in the middle of the night.

Clearing out his apartment had better wait until morning, he decided. And in fact, he might see about staying up all night again, just until he could get settled in at George’s place and start looking for a new apartment.

He was watching the glorious summer sunset and trying very hard not to think any more about any of it when his steak and shrimp platter arrived.