Smith looked up from where he squatted over the clothes. “What happened to Mary’s skin?” he asked. “Sandy had it over at Annie’s house, that night – what happened to it?”

Khalil shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sandy had it. Why does it matter?”

“Because that would be hard evidence to show the police that there’s something strange going on, at the very least.”

“Perhaps that is why the thing chose Sandy as its victim yesterday, then.”

Smith nodded. “I was thinking that,” he said.

“We have Sandy’s skin,” Khalil pointed out.

That was true. After cleaning up the couch they had left the skin in Annie’s basement, soaking in the laundry room sink to get off the rest of the slime.

“It’s kind of torn up, though,” Smith said.

Khalil shrugged. “Mary’s was torn up, too,” he said.

Smith nodded and stood up. “Come on,” he said.

They moved on.

Things were neater in the adjoining bathroom, save that the cap was off the toothpaste.

The second bedroom was the guest room. The bed was made, and covered with an old country quilt. A shelf of knicknacks hung between the two windows. Everything was exactly where it belonged. The shades were drawn, and a thin layer of dust covered everything.

The master bedroom was much larger, and somewhere between the artificial and dusty perfection of the guest room and the adolescent chaos of Elias’s room. The dresser was cluttered with cosmetics, including the biggest bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care lotion that Smith had ever seen. The bed was unmade, but the floor was clear and no crumbs could be seen.

It also smelled better than Elias’s.

It was just as deserted, though.

Only after they had checked the master bath and the oversized closet did Smith notice the note on the dresser mirror. A page from a yellow legal pad had been slipped into the crack between the mirror and its frame.

He leaned over and read it.

“You didn’t really think I was stupid enough to stay here after you got the other two, did you?” he read.

It was signed, “Joe Samaan 2nd.”

Smith ripped it from the mirror and was about to tear it up, when he realized there was more writing on the back. He turned it over.

“Ed Smith: You’ve really made my life difficult, you know. If you hadn’t been awake at three a.m., when you had no business being awake, I’d have gotten you that first night and it would all be over. Now I have to settle for skins I was never grown to fit, and they ITCH.”

This time there was no signature.

Smith took great satisfaction in tearing the paper into tiny bits and scattering them about the room.

5.

Exhaustion conquered frustration, and Smith slept from noon until shortly after six.

Khalil was still asleep when Smith came downstairs, and Smith didn’t disturb him.

Annie was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and sipping tea.

“Hello,” she said. “I’d say good morning, but it’s almost time for supper.”

Smith nodded. “Yeah, hello,” he said. He sat down heavily on the nearest chair.

Annie sipped her tea.

After a moment of silence, Smith burst out, “There must be some way to get them all!”

Annie looked up from the paper. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It took three hundred years to kill all the vampires, if I heard that one here correctly; why do you think you can get all the nightmare people in a week?”

“Because it’s still early,” he said, “They aren’t really established yet. And they aren’t vampires, anyway – they’re worse. If they can really double their numbers every month, they can take over the world in, I don’t know, a couple of years, probably. Say a hundred this month, two hundred the next, four hundred, eight, sixteen, thirty-two by January – three thousand two hundred, that’s half of Diamond Park. Six thousand in February, twelve thousand in March, a hundred thousand by next June, a million and a half by October of next year, six million by 1991 – Christ, we’re doomed if we don’t get them all now.”

“But they won’t really spread that fast,” Annie said. “After all, lots of things can breed at that rate – but they don’t. There are always limits, things that hold them back.”

“But these things… oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t really need to kill them all right away,” she said, “Just stop them from breeding.”

“Yeah, we thought of that,” Smith agreed, “But how?”

“Well, if they breed by kissing, and only at the full moon, just keep them from kissing anybody then.”

“Fine, but how?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Annie said, flustered. “How do they get near enough to kiss anybody in the first place?”

“They just walk up, in disguise,” Smith said with disgust. “They’ll get all the friends and family of their original victims, I suppose – or maybe they’ll slip into bedrooms while people are asleep, the same as they did originally.”

Annie sipped tea again. “What if they didn’t have disguises, then? Or if nobody was asleep?”

“Sure, what if, but…” Smith’s voice trailed off, and his expression turned thoughtful.

“You know,” he said a moment later, “You might have something there.”

“Oh?”

“I think so, yes.” Smith was smiling thoughtfully.

“Would you care to explain that?” Annie asked sharply.

“Actually, Annie, no, I’d rather not,” Smith replied. “I need to think about it some more.”

She stared at him for a minute, then shrugged. “Have it your own way, Mr. Smith,” she said. She picked up the newspaper again.

“It’ll be easier if there aren’t as many of them by then, of course,” he said.

“Of course,” Annie said, without looking up. She drank down the rest of her tea.

“I’m not about to walk back into the apartment, though, where I’d be outnumbered a hundred to one.”

“Of course not.”

“I’ll need to get them alone, one by one.”

Khalil, still looking sleepy, entered at that point. He exchanged greetings with them both.

“Annie,” Smith asked, “May I use the phone?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Khalil, can you be ready to leave in ten minutes?” Smith asked. “I want to use what’s left of the daylight.”

Khalil nodded.

“Thanks,” Smith said. “Where’s the phone book?”

6.

“Hi, Walt? This is Jim. You remember, from work. Look, I’m having some trouble, and I need to talk to somebody. Could you meet me at that little bar on Townsend Road in about, oh, twenty minutes?”

The voice on the phone was puzzled. “I don’t know, uh, Jim; what’s up?”

“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone, Walt. Could you please come? I’ll be at the bar.”

“Oh, what the hell, sure, I guess. Twenty minutes? The bar on Townsend Road?”

“Yeah, you know the one, Carlie’s Nightside I think it’s called.”

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

Smith hung up and smiled at Annie and Khalil.

The thing pretending to be Walt Harris arrived right on time, but Smith and Khalil were not waiting at the bar. They were waiting in the parking lot behind the bar, which Smith had chosen because the lot backed up to a grove of trees and was not visible from the street or any neighboring buildings.

The only problem was muffling the screams; they used Khalil’s shirt for that, and Smith got a finger jabbed by one of the needle-sharp teeth while stuffing it in.

Khalil gagged repeatedly on the foul black lump, but gamely choked it all down. It didn’t stay down, of course, but once the thing had stopped moving and started to dissolve, they didn’t much care. Smith stood guard while Khalil heaved it all back up onto the grass beside the parking lot.

When he was done he looked at Smith. “You ate two of those?” he said.

Smith nodded. “And I’m going to eat another, just as soon as we can catch one. Then it’ll be your turn again.” He grimaced. “Who knows, maybe we’ll get used to it.”