The Nightmare People

7.

That night he turned off David Letterman, turned out the light, and lay back on the bed, telling himself he should get some sleep.

Telling himself that did not make it so, however; he was still too nervous to sleep, particularly in a strange bed. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, on a sudden impulse he turned and looked toward the window.

His breath caught in his throat, and he felt himself choking, strangling, as his eyes widened so far that they stung.

That creature, that nightmare person, was peering in the window at him. The red eyes gleamed, and the silvery teeth sparkled a duller red in the glow from the motel sign.

And behind it he could see other faces, human faces, familiar faces.

Mrs. Malinoff. Nora Hagarty. Walt Harris, from C31, who complained whenever he played loud music.

Mrs. Malinoff was leaning over the nightmare thing’s shoulder, and as he watched, frozen, unable to breathe, she reached up with both hands and began peeling her upper lip back.

The skin of her face slid up, across her cheeks and over her nose, peeling back like a rubber mask and revealing greyish flesh and gleaming silver needle-teeth beneath, eyes a baleful red.

On the other side Nora Hagarty was tugging at her ears, as if to loosen them; then she, too, reached for her upper lip.

As Mrs. Malinoff’s face came away, revealing completely the horror beneath, his breath came free, his throat opened, and he began to scream.

He screamed wordlessly, raw sound pouring out.

The red eyes blinked in unison, both pairs of them; Nora Hagarty’s hands froze where they were, her lip peeled back ludicrously to the tip of her nose. Walt Harris ducked down out of sight, vanishing completely.

Slowly, reluctantly, Nora’s hands pulled the skin of her face back into place, and she, too, dropped out of sight.

The thing that had been Mrs. Malinoff tugged her skin back down over the sparse black hair of its head, back across forehead, eyes, and nose, resuming its human appearance, and then it, too, disappeared.

The last one, the undisguised nightmare face, frowned at him. There was something horribly familiar about the gesture. It raised a long-fingered hand in a parting salute, just as it had before, and then it was gone.

He stopped screaming and caught his breath, gasping, taking deep, ragged gulps of the room’s artificially cool air.

Someone pounded on the door. “Mr. Smith? Are you all right in there?”

“I’m fine,” he gasped, recognizing the motel clerk’s voice, “I’m fine. I just had a nightmare.” He gathered what little remained of his composure, and said, “I’m sorry if I disturbed anyone.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the clerk asked, “Could you open the door, please, sir, and let me make sure you’re all right?”

Smith got to his feet and reached out, then paused.

Could it be a trick?

He leaned over and looked out the window.

Nobody was there.

He looked through the peephole.

Only the clerk was there.

He had never seen this clerk around the Bedford Mills complex, he was sure. And he had square white teeth and hazel eyes.

He turned the knob and opened the door.

Nothing leaped in at him. Nobody was there on the balcony but the clerk. Smith tried to smile at him.

“I’m fine, really,” he said.

The clerk peered suspiciously past him, then at his face. “If you’re sure you’re okay, Mr. Smith…”

“I’m sure,” Smith told him. “Really, I’m quite sure. It was just a nightmare – a very bad one, but just a nightmare. I’m really sorry if I disturbed anyone.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Smith,” the clerk told him, in one of those calming voices that can be so maddening. “Listen, if there’s any problem, you call me, okay?”

“I will.” Smith managed a smile, then closed the door, repeating, “It was just a nightmare.”

This time, however, he didn’t believe it.

Chapter Two:

Thursday, August 3rd