“And you believe these are somehow connected to nightmares.”
“A boy dreamed a tree outside his bedroom window wanted to kill him,” Sam said. “He woke up in a panic. His father came into the room and was killed by a tree branch coming through the window.”
“Again, a tragedy, but that could also be a horrible coincidence,” she said. “There was a violent storm last night.”
“The car involved in the hit and runs was destroyed a year ago,” Dean said. “Now it’s back. In mint condition.”
She patted her hair, tucked a few loose strands behind her ears and shook her head slightly.
“I’m not convinced—at least nowhere near as convinced as you two seem to be—but I can offer you a quick tour of our facility to... assure you that Restful Sleep has absolutely no involvement in these so-called terrorist activities, whatever their cause.”
Sam opened his mouth to decline, but Dean accepted her offer before Sam could get a word out. Resigned, Sam shut his mouth and followed behind as she led them to a few empty patient bedrooms that were orders of magnitude more luxurious than any of the motel rooms they had ever stayed in. Several times, Sam caught himself yawning, fighting the desire to curl up on one of the beds and catch a few winks while Dean and the director completed the tour without him.
“We diagnose and treat a number of common sleep disorders,” Sophie Bessette said as they walked through the facility, “including obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia, narcolepsy, sleepwalking, and snoring.”
“How?” Dean asked. “By watching them sleep?”
“Through polysomnograms, or sleep studies. Sleep technicians place sensors on the patient that record brain activity, breathing patterns, heart rate, and body movements. This feedback is monitored throughout the night. The results are then interpreted by our in-house physician and later sent to the patient’s referring physician for a consultation. Most sleep studies are concluded in one day—well, night.”
“What are the treatments?”
“The most common nonsurgical treatment is positive airway pressure therapy. The patient wears a mask that converts room air into pressurized air, which keeps the breathing passages open throughout the night. Sometimes weight loss can alleviate a condition. Or sleep position modification, using cushions or wedges to keep the patient from sleeping on his or her back.”
“So you wouldn’t, for instance, inject patients with experimental drugs?”
“Absolutely not!”
“Fascinating stuff, Ms. Bessette,” Dean said, turning on the charm. “Wouldn’t mind discussing it in detail over dinner.”
“Perhaps when the crisis is past.”
“Yes, of course,” Dean said. “Excellent point.” He patted his pockets, found one of his FBI business cards and handed it to her. “In case you think of anything that might help our investigation. Anything at all. Day or night.”
Holding the card delicately at the edges between her thumbs and forefingers, she flashed Dean a provocative smile. “Certainly, Agent DeYoung.”
“Good,” Dean said, clearing his throat and nodding. “That’s good.”
“Glad I could be of assistance. Let me show you both out.”
As they walked back to the Impala, Dean said. “Wouldn’t mind studying her sleep.” Frowning, he added, “Wait. That came out like stalker talk.”
“Little bit.”
“Just saying. We clicked. Nothing wrong with that,” Dean said. “Unless you saw a mad scientist laboratory in there I somehow missed.”
“Don’t know, Dean,” Sam said. “All those sensors on sleeping people. Maybe they’re recording nightmares and playing them back later in town.”
“You’re not serious...”
Sam smirked and shook his head.
“Good one,” Dean said. Then his mind drifted back to Sophie and he whistled appreciatively. “Think she lets that hair down after hours?”
“Relax, Dean,” Sam said, grinning. “She was humoring you.”
“She was undressing me with her eyes.”
“That had ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ written all over it.”
Dean’s cell phone rang.
“A-ha! That was fast.” He glanced at the display. “Crap.”
“Not her?”
Dean shook his head and took the call.
“Chief Quinn? Checking in or...?”
The Winchesters climbed into the Impala. Dean waited until he finished the call before starting the engine. Putting his phone away, Dean frowned as he turned the ignition.
“What was that about?”
“Chief says we have some explaining to do.”
“He’s blaming us for this?”
“Who knows? He’s in denial about most of it.”
“Can you handle him alone?”
“Why? You got somewhere to be?”
“Someone I should talk to.”
“You want me to guess?”
“Olga Kucharski,” Sam said. “This started with the Charger. And there’ve been two deadly incidents involving that car.”
“A car that belonged to her dead grandson.”
TWENTY
Dean dropped Sam off at Olga Kuckarski’s house, in the less affluent south end of Clayton Falls, where the homes were closer together on smaller lots. According to Lucy Quinn, the woman rarely left her house. Dean waited at the curb in the Impala while Sam rang the doorbell. Less than a minute later, a weary gray-haired woman in a rumpled, shapeless housedress opened the door and squinted up at Sam, who showed her his FBI laminate. She frowned, nodded and waved him inside.
Satisfied Sam wouldn’t be standing around for the next hour or so waiting for the woman to return from grocery shopping, Dean drove north to Welker Street, turned left and then right onto Main. He parked in the municipal lot behind the Clayton Falls Apparel Company memorial. Cars occupied about a quarter of the lot. Considering it was a Saturday, Dean imagined many township employees were off for the weekend.
Dean walked past the curved memorial, right over the spot where he’d shot the man stricken with nightmare-Ebola. Glancing down at the sidewalk, he marveled at the complete absence of blood. Vanished without a trace. Same as the Nazi zombies. In the harsh light of day, he could almost believe everything had been a regular nightmare. But then he remembered the dissolved flesh and bones of Harvey Dufford and wondered if the paramedics had found a way to extricate his embedded remains from the asphalt. Not without a jackhammer and a backhoe, he thought.
In the police department lobby, he told Millie, the dispatcher, that Chief Quinn was expecting him. She nodded and buzzed him through. This time the inner sanctum was bustling with uniforms. Dean spotted at least two shift sergeants and a dozen patrol officers, conferring with each other, hacking away at computer keyboards, printing and collecting forms and photos for report binders. Wild and Cerasi spoke together in low tones, the former sparing a brief nod to Dean before returning to her conversation.
Sitting at his desk over a flurry of paperwork, Officer Jeffries belatedly covered a yawn when he saw Dean approaching.
“Crazy night, huh?” he said.
“You look like hell, Jeffries.”
“Pulled a double shift yesterday,” he said. “Off duty now, but something tells me I’m not getting out of here anytime soon. What about you? Sleep in that suit?”
“Sleep is for wimps,” Dean said. “Chief Quinn?”
“In his office.”
Dean knocked on the closed door and waited for the old man to invite him inside. The spartan office seemed more severe than it had the first time Dean saw it. Although the grim expression on the police chief ’s face, along with the sight of his clenched fists resting on a mound of police report folders stacked in the middle of his desk might have contributed to the chill in the room.
“Close the door,” Quinn said. “Take a seat.”
Dean complied. “How’s your daughter?”
Quinn’s eyes flickered to Lucy’s graduation photo on the corner
of his desk and he frowned. “Upset, naturally. She lost a good friend. Two now. But she’s sticking with her ridiculous story. I’m not sure I can help her unless I get some reliable information.”
“No luck finding the car?” Dean asked, even though he knew the car wouldn’t exist until the next time it manifested. Humor the man, he reminded himself.
“None,” Quinn said. “Probably under a tarp in a garage somewhere. But I’ve got nothing to go on.”
“You wanted to see me,” Dean prompted.
“You and your partner,” Quinn said. “Where is he?”
“Following a lead,” Dean said, reluctant to go into details. Technically, Olga Kucharski was a grieving grandmother, not a witness to any of the living nightmares. The Chief might not approve of them troubling an old woman with no apparent connection to the town’s troubles. “How can I help?”
“You can start by telling me what the hell is happening to my town,” Quinn said. “Half my officers out there are convinced they’ve seen zombies or that giant monsters are attacking residents.”
“We warned you about the hallucinogen,” Dean said.
“And I was disinclined to believe you at the time.”
“But now?”
“Now I’m willing to concede that something is causing people to hallucinate, but something else is going on.” He slapped a hand down on the top folder on his desk. “Do you know what’s in here?”
“I can imagine.”
“There are photos of a human being who looks like a halfmelted Popsicle.”
“I saw that in person. Nasty.”
“Jeffries told me,” Quinn said. “He also told me that two witnesses blame a giant spider for the attack.”
“Yes, sir, a tarantula.”
“It was not a tarantula.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Of course it wasn’t a giant spider! That’s just what they saw.”
“Ahh...” Dean said, nodding.
“That part is the hallucinogen. I get it. What I don’t get is what’s really going on here. Samples were taken to the lab. I won’t have a report anytime soon, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it was some sort of acid.”
“Some sort of bioterror agent,” Dean said, trying to couch the seriousness of the situation in a manner the pragmatic lawman could accept.
Quinn snapped his fingers.
“Exactly. A psychotropic drug to create false impressions of what’s happening. Unreliable witnesses. Damn sneaky, if you ask me.”
“That’s one possibility.”
“What I’m grappling with here is the scope of this attack,” Chief Quinn said, nodding thoughtfully. “I know you saved a child at the Qwik Mart sinkhole. Good work.”
“Thank you.”
“And some jackass was crushed by his own car.”
“Tried to warn him.”
“Some people never listen.”
Dean frowned briefly, wondering if the police chief was inadvertently—or subconsciously—referring to himself. No matter what his officers told him, he was determined to find his own explanations.
“We’ve had a nasty storm, lost some power lines, car accidents and that awful tree accident that killed Max Barnes, none of which I can blame on terrorist activity. Well, there is the matter of the tree being relocated to the middle of the street, which makes no sense. Damn prank, if you ask me. Why would a terrorist move a tree? The sinkhole? They occur naturally and some are frighteningly large. Unless you expect me to believe in some kind of subterranean sabotage, right? A terrorist cell, embedded for years, having some hand in local construction?”
“It’s possible.”
Chief Quinn drummed his fingers on the mound of police reports.
“Something on your mind, Chief?”
“I told you this was a quiet town,” he said. “And it has been. But this isn’t over yet, is it?”
Dean shook his head. “Not until we find... whoever is responsible. No.”
Quinn tugged on his earlobe, a deep frown on his face.
“I have a captain, four shift sergeants, thirty patrol officers, a couple of detectives and administrative staff at my disposal. More than enough to handle the usual level of madness. But I find my officers compromised by these... hallucinations. I’ve asked all of them to work double shifts until we put an end to this.”
“Sounds good,” Dean said. Unless Sam and he stopped whatever supernatural agent was bringing nightmares to life, the level of violence in Clayton Falls would only get worse. Until then, an all-hands-on-deck mentality would, he hoped, save some lives.
“Good,” the chief echoed. “But not good enough.”
“Have you considered enforcing a town-wide curfew?” Dean suggested. But the more he thought about it, the more impractical it seemed. It might stop the public violence, but it wouldn’t stop people from sleeping and having nightmares. The terror would migrate to more homes, like the Barnes house.
“Not enough evidence,” Quinn said. “I can’t issue a curfew because of some phantom menace. Storms and sinkholes? No, we’ll handle this proactively. With manpower.”
“Manpower?”
“One of the reasons I asked you to check in was to let you know I have a call in to the Colorado State Patrol.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” Quinn said. “For backup and support. Half-dozen extra bodies arriving here tonight. Possibly more. They’ll report to me, naturally. Just thought you should know.”
“I appreciate that, Chief,” Dean said. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Have them patrol in pairs.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if they’re alone, they might not believe what they see,” Dean said. “Hesitation could be fatal. A second set of eyes could make all the difference.”
Quinn nodded. “Good point, since I don’t even believe what they saw. Suppose the hallucinogenic effect might vary between them.”
“That, too,” Dean said reluctantly. Whatever gets the job done, he reasoned. “Anything else?”
“That’s all for now,” Quinn said. “We’ll talk soon.”
“Okay,” Dean said, rising to leave. He paused at the door. “About Lucy.”
“What about her?”
“Is she being careful?”
“She has a shift at C.J.’s,” Quinn said. “I told her to go straight home after. And stay there.”
“Good,” Dean said. He paused again, halfway through the doorway. “Will she listen?”
“Truthfully? I don’t know. Maybe. I hope so.”
“Me too,” Dean said. If the Charger returned for a third night, he had no doubt she would be its target.
Dean closed Quinn’s door on the way out and was about to navigate a path through the gathered police officers, when Jeffries called him over. A young policewoman had turned a chair around to face Jeffries’ desk and had two folders open, side by side. A quick glance revealed they were the case files for the Gila monster and tarantula attacks.
“Jeffries?” Dean said.
“Chief tell you he’s calling in the State Patrol?”
“No offense,” Dean said. “But you’ll need all the help you can get.”
“None taken.”
The police woman stood and faced Dean.
Jeffries made introductions. “Agent DeYoung, Senior Patrol Officer Carleen Phillips.”
Dean shook her offered hand.
“You’re looking at terrorists for this?” she asked with a nod toward the file folders on the desk.
“That’s our working theory.”
She picked up the two monster attack folders, stared at them and shook her head in disbelief. “Weird, you know? Like something out of Nightmare Theater.”
For a moment, Dean wondered if she had somehow stumbled onto the Winchesters’ actual theory and not their cover story. Not possible, he thought. Even the people they told outright couldn’t accept it. And by ‘people’ he was thin
king about Sophie Bessette. A few moments passed before he realized his mind had wandered and both Jeffries and Phillips were looking at him as if they expected some kind of coherent response.
“A bioterrorism agent affecting the subconscious might be involved,” Dean said and hoped it sounded plausible, even though it was a bunch of bull. Sam would have had better luck selling that line. Dean cleared his throat. “How’s the coffee here?”
Phillips grinned. “An acquired taste.”
“Three parts battery acid, one part roofing tar,” Jeffries said.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Dean said. “Lead the way.”
Entering Olga Kuckarski’s house, Sam’s first impression was of musty gloom. Dark curtains and blinds obstructed most of the light that attempted to enter through the windows. Dark paneling encased the bottom half of the walls; dingy wallpaper with designs too faded to distinguish covered the top. But most of the walls were fronted with dark wooden bookshelves packed with old hardbound books steeped in dust and mildew, and bulky hutches filled with worthless bric-a-brac—collections of snow globes, ceramic fish and frogs and turtles, tiny bottles filled with multi-colored sand, oriental fans. The glass doors on the hutches kept the dust away from the interior shelves, but every other surface looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.
Sam wasn’t surprised by the old woman’s inattention to house cleaning. She walked with difficulty, hunched over with labored breathing, her arms trembling. As she led him down a cramped hallway to the kitchen, Sam’s gaze wandered to a framed portrait of Lech Walesa. A small bronze plate bolted to the bottom of the frame listed the dates Walesa served as Poland’s president. Paired with the portrait in a matching frame was a map of Poland. A freestanding bookshelf on the opposite wall displayed books that—unlike those in the towering monuments of mildew he passed earlier—looked as if they had actually been read or perused in the last decade. These books covered a wide variety of topics, all dealing with Poland: multiple volumes on the history of the country, volumes on life during wartime, the changing face of politics, the legends and folklore, famous people, tourism, music, literature, sports, geography and demographics, even several cookbooks. The woman had access to anything she’d ever want to know about her country of origin.
Supernatural: Night Terror Page 18