The Nightmare People

1.

The grass sighed softly against the sides of Smith’s sneakers as he moved into hiding. The sound of his own breath was loud in his ears, and gurgling of the can of lighter fluid in one unsteady hand seemed like waves crashing in the cool August night. He knelt down behind a rhododendron and found himself in a patch of mud; the day had been overcast and unseasonably cool, and traces of the morning rain still lingered in the sheltered area between the bush and the wall of the house. It was damp, but it was out of sight; he stayed. He wiped a forearm across his face to remove the sudden moisture, then waved to Maggie with his crowbar, signalling that he was ready. She stood out on the sidealk, under a streetlight, looking very small and vulnerable and scared.

Sandy crouched nearby, between a scraggly evergreen and one end of the Samaans’ front porch. Smith could see only his back, but there was no sign that he was nervous at all.

Theoretically, Khalil was somewhere nearby, but Smith could neither see nor hear him.

Maggie took a deep breath and marched up the walk, up the steps and onto the porch. Smith crouched down low as she pressed the doorbell button.

He heard no bell, but Maggie presumably did. She looked quickly, nervously about, then faced the door again.

It opened, but Smith could see nothing of who or what had opened it.

“Hi, Mrs. Samaan,” Maggie said, and Smith was sure he heard a quaver in her voice. “Elias left some stuff at my place; can I come in and give it to him?”

“What stuff, dear?” a voice asked, a voice that seemed to Smith to have an oddly familiar sound to it.

“Well, just… just stuff… I mean…” Maggie’s voice trailed off. After a second or so of awkward silence, she asked plaintively, “Can I come in?”

“Well,” the voice said, “If it’s just something he left, I can give it to him, but if you want…”

“I need to talk to him, too, Mrs. Samaan.”

Smith saw that Sandy was up and moving, so suddenly and silently that it caught Smith completely off-guard. Sandy was jumping up onto the porch and charging toward Maggie and the open door.

Khalil, too, had emerged from somewhere – Smith hadn’t seen where – and was coming up the porch steps.

Smith realized belatedly that “I need to talk to him” had been the agreed-upon signal; he rose and pushed around the rhododendron and clambered awkwardly up onto the porch.

He still only had one foot up on the concrete when Khalil and Sandy burst in through the open door, out of Smith’s line of sight, carrying Maggie in with them. Smith heard the door slam back against a doorstop with a sharp bang.

Cursing his own ineptitude, he flung himself across the porch and into the house.