She knew some of Bill’s neighbors. She’d babysat for some of them. She’d talked to them.

She knew some of their friends and relatives, too.

She reached for the phone and dialed.

Chapter Five:

Later Saturday

“So what do we do, do we just walk in and shoot somebody?” Elias asked.

Smith shook his head. “Give me the gun,” he said, holding out a hand.

Elias hesitated, still holding the automatic. “Wait a minute,” he said. “First tell me what you’re going to do. This is my dad’s gun, after all.”

Smith sighed. “I’m going to go into the building, and go up to my apartment, and then I’m going to call up the Goodwins on the phone and ask if someone can come up and help me move stuff, and when someone comes I’m going to shoot him, and if anyone finds out and asks what happened I’ll claim that I mistook him for a burglar.”

Elias considered this, and couldn’t see anything really wrong with it, in theory.

One detail still bothered him, though. “It’s my dad’s gun,” he pointed out. “If the police get it they’ll trace it. How’re you going to explain that?”

Smith shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Maybe I stole it. I don’t think I’ll have to explain it. You think these things are going to call the police?”

“But what about the neighbors…” Elias began, and then stopped. He had forgotten.

There were no neighbors. Just the creatures that he privately thought of as proto-vampires.

“So what do I do?” he asked.

“You wait here,” Smith told him. “And if anything goes wrong, you get out of here, and you and Maggie can try your luck.”

That sounded for all the world like a speech from a bad movie, Smith realized, the sort the hero gives before he plunges into some ridiculously dangerous situation, and as soon as Smith had finished saying it he wished he hadn’t.

For one thing, it brought home all too vividly the possibility that he might be about to get himself killed, just like the heroic leader in all too many old war and adventure movies.

And horror movies, of course.

He knew if he stayed and talked any longer he would lose his nerve. “Give me the gun,” he said.

Elias handed him the gun, butt first.

Smith took it awkwardly; it was heavier than he had expected.

Elias saw Smith’s uncertainty. “You know how to shoot, don’t you?” he asked, worried.

“No,” Smith admitted. “I know you point and pull the trigger.” He lifted the gun.

“It’s loaded, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Here,” Elias said, holding out his hand. “Give it back.”

Smith handed it back.

Elias expertly released the clip, checked it, slid it back in place, then worked the slide to chamber a round.

He handed it back to Smith with the safety off, ready to fire.

“Be careful with it,” he said. “It goes off pretty easy. Just squeeze the trigger gently.”

Smith nodded. He started to stick the gun in his pocket, then looked at the tension on Elias’s face and stopped.

“I can’t walk in there with a gun in my hand,” he said.

“Yeah, but you don’t want to stick it in your pocket, either – the trigger could snag on your belt or something.” Elias groped around behind the driver’s seat for a moment, then came up with an oily rag. “Cover it with this,” he suggested.

Smith draped the rag across the gun and his hand. “That looks stupid,” he said, studying the result.

“Hold it with your other hand, like a bandage,” Elias suggested.

Smith looked at him suspiciously. “This is the rag I use when I check the oil. It’s filthy. It doesn’t look anything like a bandage.”

“You got a better idea?”

Smith shrugged and tried it, holding the rag around his right wrist with his left hand as if staunching a bad cut.

“All right,” he admitted, “It’s better than nothing.” He opened the car door.

“Watch where you point it,” Elias called, as Smith climbed out.

Nobody had paid any attention to him as he had made his way from the car to his apartment; in fact, he had seen no sign of life anywhere in the complex. No children played in the grassy area between the two sections of parking lot; no housewives were sunning themselves on the balconies.

He had to put the pistol down on the floor to unlock the apartment door. As the door swung inward, the thought suddenly struck him that his own particular monster might be lurking inside, ready to pounce, and he quickly knelt and grabbed the gun.

The air conditioning was still out, and hot air poured out over him as he stood up.

Remembering at the last moment what Elias had said, he stopped his finger from touching the trigger.

Nothing jumped out at him.

Gun in hand, no longer concealed, he stepped into his own living room, ignoring the heat.

“Anyone home?” he called.

A car horn suddenly sounded from outside, an almost nasal beep, repeated four times in quick succession.

Startled, he spun to face the windows, and then, realizing where he was, he spun again, looking first back out into the stairwell, and then down the little hallway to the bedroom.

Nothing.

He swung the door closed, and listened carefully to be sure it latched. Then he marched across the room and peeped out through the drapes, the gun held up, pointing at the ceiling, the way the actors always held their guns on all those cop shows on TV.

Elias was looking up at him through his car’s sloping windshield; the boy waved.

Smith waved back.

That had almost certainly been his own car’s horn he’d heard; Elias had beeped at him about something. The wave had been calm, though, not a signal that something was wrong.

Well, he’d figure it out later.

He crossed to the kitchen, put the gun down on the counter, and picked up the phone. The Goodwins’ number was written in felt tip on the edge of the memo pad he kept there; he read it over, then dialed.

On the third ring, someone answered. “Hello?” said a familiar childish voice.

“Sid?” he said.

He hadn’t thought of that. Monster or no, he didn’t think he could shoot a little kid. Sid was… the real Sid had been eight.

“This is Sidney Goodwin; who’s this?”

“This is Mr. Smith, upstairs in C41.” He couldn’t face Sid. Nor ten-year-old Harry nor twelve-year-old – or was it thirteen? – Jessie. “Is Bill around?”

“Yeah, he is; do you want to talk to him?”

“No, but if he’s not busy, I could use a hand moving some of this stuff up here.”

“Hang on a minute, Mr. Smith.” A series of bumps came over the line, and then voices, too low to make out the words, and then the Sid thing came back on.

“He’ll be right up, Mr. Smith. He’ll knock.”

“Thanks, Sid.”

He hung up.

The imitation Bill Goodwin would be right up. His target was on its way, about to walk right in.

He picked up the gun, and then looked around the living room, trying to decide where he should stand.

Then he felt the weight of the pistol, and thought about recoil and whether his hands might shake, and he decided he didn’t want to stand anywhere.

Instead he sat down in the back corner, leaning back against the wall with his knees up, facing the door. He took the gun firmly in both hands and pointed it at the door.

That should work.

He lowered the gun.

A moment later he heard footsteps coming up the stairs, followed by a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he called, “It’s open!”

He lifted the gun.