title: Nightmares and Dreamscrapes: Special Edition
author:  Alex Emerson 
description: <div>Alex Emerson lives in New York with his wife and two children. When he&apos;s not busy fixing up his house, he enjoys listening to podcasts, watching hockey, and hugging said wife and children. He&apos;d write something witty here, but he has stories to tell.&#xA0;</div><div></div>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ## The Nightmare People
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Lawrence Watt-Evans
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Lawrence Watt-Evans
  
  
  
  
  
  ## The Nightmare People
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One:
  
  
  Wednesday, August 2nd
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The air was hot and thick, heavy with moisture, and he lay unwillingly awake
  beneath its weight, his bedsheet soaked in sweat. The ceiling was gray and
  blank above him when he opened his eyes. When he closed them and tried to
  sleep, or pretended to try, he saw only a darker gray.
  
  
  He thought he could almost hear the air moving about him, a slow, sluggish,
  viscous movement, like the shifting of wet sand, and he wished that his clock-
  radio were an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock, so that at least he would
  have the ticking to mark off time for him. As it was he lay in an infinite
  timelessness, feeling the perspiration ooze from his back into the mattress.
  
  
  He forced a sigh out into the air above him and turned his head. The glowing
  red digits on the clock read 