Smith’s eyes stung, and he was beginning to have trouble breathing. He pulled open a drawer, looking for more flammables.

He found knives.

He pulled out a big carving knife and smiled at it.

“Maybe,” he said, “I can take one of you with me.” He spun, and flung himself at the two in the dining area.

They were concentrating on the fire more than on him, and the sudden attack caught them off-guard; one fell back, while the other staggered.

Smith landed atop the fallen one, and drove the knife into it.

“At least,” he said, as he dragged the blade through resisting fabric and flesh, “I’ll ruin that skin for you.”

The other one was pulling at him, and he pulled the knife free long enough to slash at it.

He took the tip off its nose, and the severed scrap flew back into the burning kitchen. It didn’t seem to notice.

The two at the other end of the kitchen were back, with dripping towels, and trying to beat out the flames. Smith ignored them; he was concentrating on hacking open the chest of the one beneath him, the one, he realized, that wore Nora Hagarty’s skin.

The other one was still trying to pry him loose; he twisted, and bit its hand.

It howled, and fell back, away from him.

“Hey,” someone called, “Give us a hand here!”

The false Nora Hagarty had its hands on his throat now, and that, combined with the smoke, made it almost impossible to breathe. His vision started to dim.

He pulled the knife free and to the side, and shoved his face down between the thing’s breasts. He began chewing.

It screamed, and scrabbled at him with its claws, but in doing so it released his throat. He lifted his head long enough to gulp air, then dove back down, ignoring the smell and the taste and the flailing claws.

Blood was running from somewhere and dripping from his chin, and the heat of the fire was like a furnace at his back. The other three creatures were no longer concerned with him at all; they were all concentrating solely on the fire, which was blazing up wildly, seemingly unstoppable.

The screaming continued, an eerie inhuman screeching that hurt his ears, but Smith was used to that now. He ignored it.

Some small part of Smith’s brain, somewhere beneath the unthinking berserk panic that drove him, was noting that nightmare people, as he had previously seen, were not much on empathy, even for their own kind. The three of them had apparently decided that the fire was a greater danger to them than Smith, or at least a more immediate one, and they were selfishly letting him kill their comrade, right in front of them, while they tried to stop the blaze from spreading.

Well, after all, weren’t they self-proclaimed evil incarnate? Loyalty to one’s kind would be foreign to them.

Something moved, close up against his face, something cool and damp that squirmed, and he remembered that this thing had been ready to breed.

He raised his head and looked down.

The creature’s hands slapped onto his cheeks, claws extended; he grabbed them and yanked them away and looked at the thing’s open chest.

Where before he had always found a black slug-like mass that throbbed gently, here he found two, one much as always, and nestled against it a smaller one, shining moistly, that writhed like a dying, fresh-caught fish.

The larva.

Smith picked it up with one hand and flung it into the fire behind him.

He hoped that, immature as it was, that would kill it; he wasn’t about to eat the thing.

Even if the fire didn’t kill it, just being without a host body might be enough. The nightmare he had interrogated the week before had said that the larvae were vulnerable until they found hosts.

Claws projecting through the skin of Nora’s fingertips raked down his face again, and he forgot the larva as he struggled to force his target’s hands and arms aside, to get back at its heart before the opening in its chest closed up again.

He bent his head down and pressed with his full weight, and the arms gave. His face sank into the oozing mess, his teeth closed on the black core; he held his breath, closed his eyes, and continued eating.

When it went limp he rolled off it, and realized that one of his shoelaces was on fire and both shoes were smoldering. One leg was obviously badly burned.

The other three nightmare people were gone. The fire was raging out of control.

He staggered to his feet, ignoring the pain of his burns, the pain of the dozens of places that the nightmare thing had clawed him, and made his way out through the shattered glass door into a night of fire and chaos.

There were still plenty of nightmare people around, and A building was still untouched by the conflagration, but Smith was too far gone to care about that. By now, he was unconcerned with anything but escape.

4.

Khalil had lost track of Smith, but although he was worried, he didn’t try to do anything about it. He watched the fire-fighters, the police, the crowds, unsure just what he was doing, and what he should be doing.

He saw some familiar faces here and there in the crowd, but he didn’t seek them out.

Then he noticed two of them together, looking worried – the Newell girls, who had come to the first meeting at Annie McGowan’s house and then walked out. They were standing on the sidewalk, not crossing the police line, but leaning and stretching as they tried to see what was happening.

Then one of them shrieked, “Daddy!,” audible even over the roaring chaos of the fire and the crowds, and ran toward a figure emerging from A Building, and then they were both running toward the figure, and Khalil watched as they embraced it.

He remembered that their parents were divorced, and that their father lived at Bedford Mills.

Their father had lived at Bedford Mills. He was dead now, and the thing they were holding was a nightmare person.

And it was hugging them back, and kissing them, and then it leaned over and squeezed one of the girls and kissed her hard on the mouth, a kiss that lingered far too long.

The girl seemed almost to be choking, rather than kissing back.

Khalil left his position and headed for the happy little threesome.

When the kiss ended, the recipient looked somewhat dazed and unhappy, her mouth twisted as if she had tasted something unpleasant. Her sister eyed her oddly.

Khalil stopped, a pace or two away, unsure how to proceed. He had no doubt of what had just happened, but how could he tell her what had just been done to her? How could he get the girls away from their “father,” and away from this place where the nightmare people lurked in such numbers?

Just then a new outburst of noise swept over him, fresh screams and shouting, and he turned to see that B Building was afire; something had just exploded in one of the ground-floor bedrooms, blowing window-glass out onto the lawn.

And staggering across the lawn between B Building and himself was Ed Smith, his clothes torn and blackened, his head and arms red with blood.

Inspiration struck.

“Miss Newell!” Khalil called, “Miss Newell! Can you help me with my friend? We must get him to a doctor!”

The Newells turned, and saw Khalil, and saw where he was pointing.

They ran to Smith, reaching him before Khalil could, and picked him up, supporting him.

“Where’s an ambulance?” the older girl asked. Khalil didn’t remember their first names.

Khalil shook his head. “We take his car,” he said, pointing. “I can drive.”

He ran ahead and opened the doors, and the Newells loaded the semi-conscious Smith into the back seat, where blood and char and slime from his hands and clothes streaked the upholstery. The stink of smoke and decaying flesh filled the car.

One of the girls got in beside Smith, to support him; the other, at Khalil’s urging, got in the front passenger’s seat.