Nightcrawlers (The Twilight Zone)

State trooper Dennis Wells takes shelter from a downpour at a roadside diner. As other customers arrive during the storm, he describes to the cook and the server a massacre that he is investigating that occurred at a local motel. Suddenly, after almost getting into a collision outside, a Vietnam veteran named Price enters the diner- who Wells already suspects of being trouble. While Price is having coffee, he asks for a cold beer but the cook Bob tells him that the diner does not have a liquor license. When Price laments how a cold beer would taste good, a can of beer appears in his hand; when he comments that beer would only make him sleepy, it vanishes.

Wells strikes up a conversation with Price, lamenting that he wishes he could have gone to Vietnam. Price is compelled to describe how he fled and abandoned his unit during the war, condemning all of them to die in the jungle, and he relays that he often dreams a reoccurring nightmare in which his unit, "The Nightcrawlers," are hunting him down to exact revenge. Price explains that he and four other soldiers were sprayed with some kind of chemical that gave them the power of mind over matter, which he demonstrates by materializing a t-bone steak on the grill. Tension rising, Wells instructs Price to sleep the night off at a local motel, but Price reveals he accidentally fell asleep at the last motel- and he dreamed his unit came back, resulting in a massacre which Price was powerless to stop. Wells, knowing Price to be the one who caused the massacre he's investigating, pulls a gun out- which Price melts with his mind. As he tries to flee, Wells knocks Price unconscious with a ketchup bottle in an effort to subdue him...

... But being knocked out brings Price's nightmare into the world. The diner patrons and staff then begin to see ghost-like soldiers materialize, destroying everything in the cafe with machine gun fire and explosions. They all take cover in terror. Trying to escape, Wells is shot and killed. Bob tries to kill Price once and for all with a pan, but is shot as well. Price regains consciousness as the soldiers force their way in, and finds a spotlight has been cast upon him. He then calls out "Charlie's in the light!" and the soldiers react by firing their rifles and killing him, thus ending the attack- and Price's nightmare. With the cafe in flaming ruins, everyone catches their breaths after the horror they endured.

As Bob the cook is being taken away in an ambulance, he reminds the others that Price said there were still four more soldiers out there who had the same ability.

"Nightcrawlers" was based on a short story by Robert R. McCammon. It was scored by Merl Saunders and the Grateful Dead, featuring Huey Lewis on harmonica. Exene Cervenka of the punk group X plays a waitress.

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

• "Nightcrawlers" at TV.com
• "Nightcrawlers" at IMDb