Supernatural: Night Terror

by John Passarella

  Two camera operators huddled around a short bald man wearing a headset.

  “Al Dornfeld, our floor director,” Sandy said as she led them toward the man in zombie makeup wearing smudged goggles pushed up on his forehead, a white PVC lab coat and black gloves that extended to his elbows. “And this... is our star, Dr. Gruesome.”

  The man pulled off his gloves and offered his hand.

  “Call me Joe,” he said with a pleasant smile that ruined the zombie effect. “I’m only a mad scientist returned from the dead by his own diabolical experiments while the cameras are on.”

  “Agents DeYoung and Shaw,” Dean said.

  “Right,” Wieczorek said, “FBI. I can’t imagine why, but Millie said you had some questions for me.”

  “Hold that thought for a second,” Sandy said. “Joe, I’ll need to talk to you about scheduling when you’re through with these gentlemen.” She patted him on the shoulder before walking to the control room.

  “Sure, Sandy,” Wieczorek called after her. Then he whispered to the Winchesters, “I know I drive her crazy sometimes. But it’s my reputation on the air. My brand.”

  “Mr. Wiec—Joe,” Sam said, “Are you aware of what’s happening in town?”

  “This show keeps me busy,” Wieczorek said. “We’re on every night. So I don’t often catch the news or read the paper. But I heard something about storm damage, power outages, and a big sinkhole at a convenience store—the Qwik Mart. And a hit and run. Two in two days. Awful. Oh, and somebody said a man died falling out of a tree.”

  “The man was killed by the tree,” Dean said.

  “Not the fall? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “The tree stabbed the man.”

  “My hearing’s not what it was,” he said. “Did you just say a ‘tree stabbed a man?’”

  “With a branch,” Dean said. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

  “Thank heavens,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  “Several police officers, Agent DeYoung and I witnessed other incidents last night that have a connection to your show,” Sam said. “A man was killed by a giant tarantula. The night before, another man was attacked by a giant Gila monster. That same night, three teens were chased by a headless horseman.”

  As Sam spoke, Wieczorek’s smile faltered and faded, but then his eyes widened and he chuckled, clapping his hands together in delight.

  “Okay, this is somebody’s idea of a joke, right? Hidden camera. It’s Sandy getting payback, right?”

  “No joke,” Dean said. “Two local men witnessed the tarantula attack.”

  Again, Wieczorek’s smiled faded by degrees, a bit faster this time. He looked from Dean to Sam and back again.

  “Either you have the best poker faces I’ve ever seen or... You are serious.”

  He reached a hand out sideways and grabbed the edge of the laboratory table for support, then took a deep breath.

  “These are popcorn movies, harmless entertainment...” he said. “I don’t understand. This stuff isn’t real. It can’t be real. It’s pure fantasy.”

  “Something is making it become real,” Sam said.

  “And we need to know if that something is you,” Dean added.

  “Me? How could I...? How could anyone...?”

  “Have you met anyone unusual lately?” Sam asked. “Found a strange old coin? Come across a peculiar antique? Received an odd inheritance?”

  “What? No. Nothing like that. This is a daily routine for me. Screen the movies, work up the script for the interstitials, makeup and props, rehearse, record, edit. On television it may all look strange and surreal, but for us it’s... routine. Mundane, even.”

  Dean looked at Sam. “You got any ideas?”

  Sam nodded, turned to Wieczorek. “Do you remember a woman name Olga Kucharski?”

  “Olga... Olga Kucharski? No. Should I...?” He snapped his fingers. “Wait—Olga—is she an older woman? Ha! Look who’s talking? No spring chicken myself. But I do remember a woman from one of my personal appearances. Very much into her Polish heritage. Seemed delighted to learn I was Polish too. Had me sign my full name on a publicity photo. Said it would have a place of honor in her home.”

  “That would be the lady,” Sam said. “Have you had any other dealings with her?”

  “Dealings? No, nothing. She’s a fan of the show. Said she watches every night.” He shrugged. “I believe that appearance was the one and only time I ever met her. But she did leave an impression.”

  Dean looked at Sam, who gave him a barely perceptible shrug. They were both stumped.

  “Just out of curiosity, Doc,” Dean said. “What movie are you working on now?”

  Wieczorek beamed. “Ah, a wonderfully cheesy, space invasion flick. About aliens with lobster-claw hands that crack open human skulls and suck out the brains with their tentacle-like proboscis.”

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Dean said.

  “How do we kill them?” Sam asked.

  “If I tell you, it will spoil the movie.”

  Dean rolled his eyes. “We don’t care about the friggin’ movie!”

  “Oh, of course,” Wieczorek said and frowned. “They’re bulletproof, because of their exoskeletons. So the National Guard kills them with flamethrowers. Cooks them, actually. Ends with a joke about lobster bibs.”

  Dean turned to Sam. “Dude, we’ve got zero flamethrowers in the Impala.”

  “We’ll improvise,” Sam said. “Aerosol cans and cigarette lighters.”

  “Wait,” Wieczorek said, catching Sam’s arm. “How do you believe these movie creations become real?”

  “People have nightmares,” Sam said. “The nightmares manifest in town somewhere.”

  Wieczorek looked as if he wanted to request a thorough examination of their FBI credentials, but then decided against it.

  “Even if that is somehow possible, the aliens won’t be a problem.”

  “How so?” Dean asked.

  “We tape our interstitials a week ahead,” he explained. “Nobody will see this movie until next Saturday.”

  “Good,” Sam said. “One less nightmare scenario to worry about.”

  “Unless, of course, somebody in my crew has a nightmare about it.”

  “Great,” Dean said.

  “I wouldn’t worry. We watch the movies so many times while working on our scripts that they lose any shock value they might have,” Wieczorek said. “If anybody here has a nightmare, it would be about working overtime or not making a deadline.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Sam said. “Wait. What’s tonight’s feature?”

  “Oh, yes! Wolves.”

  “Werewolves?” Dean asked apprehensively.

  “No, regular wolves,” Wieczorek said. “Maybe a bit large. And there’s a pack of them. And... they’re all rabid. They invade a small town and rip...”

  “We get the idea,” Dean said. “Thanks.”

  As the Winchesters walked toward the studio door, Wieczorek called out for them to wait. They stopped and turned back.

  “Listen, I can’t help but think how crazy this all sounds,” he said. “And I promise you we have not changed our routine at all. I can’t imagine a scenario where what you say is even possible...”

  “Your point?” Dean asked.

  “If what you say is true, and I have no reason to doubt you, I can’t ignore the fact that something unexplainable is happening and that it is somehow connected to my show. A man attacked by a giant tarantula...”

  “Want to see police report photos of the half-eaten victim?”

  “That’s quite all right,” Wieczorek said. “I’m trying to say that I feel partly responsible for whatever is happening here. I want to help, but...” He raised his shoulders, hands spread. “I’m not sure what I can do.”

  “You want to help?” Dean said. “Convince NMC not to run the wolf movie.”

  “Not run it?”

  “Preempt it,” Sam said. “With Lassie Come Home or s
omething?”

  Wieczorek pursed his lips. “I’ll try. But I don’t know if they’ll believe me. Or listen. Maybe they can black out this market.”

  “Do what you can,” Dean said.

  “I will,” he said. “But the nature of nightmares is that they linger.”

  “We know,” Sam said.

  “Oh, and I’ll talk to Millie,” Wieczorek said. “She’ll have a record of all the emergency calls. Maybe that will help.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Dean said.

  His mind had already leapt ahead, considering the likelihood that he and Sam would be shooting rabid wolves in several hours. At least wolves—unlike lobster-clawed aliens—weren’t immune to bullets. As they exited the studio, Dean looked back and saw Sandy rejoin Wieczorek, handing him a towel to begin removing his makeup. The old man stared after the Winchesters, but his gaze seemed unfocused, lost in thought, a pensive zombie.

  Dean and Sam retraced their steps to the lobby.

  “You got anything?” Dean asked. “ ’Cause I got nothing.”

  “Whatever is happening, it’s connected to Dr. Gruesome’s show and Olga Kucharski,” Sam said. “The Gila monster, the headless horseman, and the Charger started this. If those two are not directly involved, something is using them.”

  “What about the Raptors? And the sinkhole. And Nazi zombies?”

  “Like he said, nightmares linger,” Sam said. “We only checked one week of TV listings. Maybe movies about that stuff aired two weeks ago. Or... maybe not. I don’t know.”

  Exiting the building proved much simpler than entering. The droopy-eyed security guard barely looked up as they passed through the lobby and stepped outside. Sam paused and looked at Dean over the roof of the Impala.

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  “All ears, Sammy.”

  “Let’s go with the premise that Olga Kucharski is patient zero.”

  “Okay.”

  “The most significant event in her life is the death of her grandson,” Sam said. “And two of the people who were with him when he died have been killed by the nightmare car.”

  “Right,” Dean said. “So we’re back to her?”

  Sam shook his head. “Not directly. But something triggered this. Something about that accident. But I’m missing something.”

  “Sounds like research dead ahead.”

  “I’ll call Bobby. Get him working the nightmare angle.”

  “Good.”

  “Then I need you to drop me off at the Fremont Ledger,” Sam said. “The online archives are a bit thin. I want to check back issues in their morgue, dating back to the accident.”

  “Watch out for that reporter—Nash,” Dean said. “Last thing we need is our pictures all over the paper.”

  “Right.”

  “While you’re at the Ledger, I have something to check out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Last survivor of that car accident,” Dean said. “Lucy Quinn. Way I see it, she has a big honkin’ bull’s eye on her back.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “I’m surprised you asked me here.”

  “I’m surprised you came,” Dean said, smiling.

  “Is this the early bird special?” Sophie Bessette said after taking a cursory glance at the laminated C.J.’s menu she’d plucked from the wire holder next to the paper napkin dispenser.

  “I missed lunch,” Dean said.

  “Don’t FBI agents have expense accounts?”

  “You know how it is. Budget cutbacks,” Dean said. “Besides, I wasn’t sure if this was business or pleasure.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. “Definitely business.”

  “Too bad,” Dean said. “But they have great cheeseburgers here.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Sophie said. “And yet I’ve managed to avoid the temptation.”

  “We’re still talking cheeseburgers, right?”

  She smiled winsomely. “So far. Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m assuming the crisis is not yet past?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  Lucy Quinn approached their booth in her C.J.’s Diner navy blue vest with the red buttons, carrying two glasses of water, which she placed in front of them.

  “Hello again, Agent DeYoung. Are you both ready to order?”

  Sophie cleared her throat. “You serve salads?”

  “House salad,” Lucy said with a slight shrug. “It’s okay. Nothing to write home about.”

  “That will be fine,” Sophie said. “Vinaigrette. On the side.”

  “Cheeseburger and fries,” Dean said. “Lady doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

  Lucy smiled, pulled a pen and order pad from a side pocket in her vest and scrawled down their order quickly.

  “Any appetizers?” she asked. When they declined, she said, “Okay. That’ll be a few minutes. Or do you want the salad brought out right away?”

  “Together is fine,” Sophie said.

  After Lucy left the booth, Dean said, “She look familiar?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said. “I believe she’s the daughter of the chief of police.”

  “Know her any other way?”

  “No,” Sophie said, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you suggesting?”

  Dean reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a list of names he’d written down while waiting for her to show up at the diner. Unfolding the paper, he placed it on the table, flattened the creases and turned it so she could read the names.

  “Is this a list of terror suspects?” she asked him, intrigued.

  “No. I mean, probably not.”

  “Then what?”

  “Look, I know you’re worried about patient confidentiality, so I want you to look at those names and let me know if any are familiar.”

  “I can’t say I’m comfortable with this.”

  “Read the list,” Dean said. “If you don’t know any of the names, fine.”

  “And if any of them are familiar?”

  “I could get a court order,” Dean said. “But let’s cross that bridge when it’s time to blow it up.”

  She sighed. “You realize I don’t treat patients personally? Half of these people could have been patients at Restful Sleep and I’d be oblivious.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want,” she said, but she examined the names, running her manicured index finger down the list slowly enough that Dean knew she was making an honest effort. He watched that finger closely, looking for any telltale pauses beside any particular name, but each one received equal treatment. “No,” she said, eventually. “None of these names are familiar.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Witnesses and victims,” Dean said. Lucy Quinn was the only name he’d left off the list. All along, he’d planned on watching Sophie’s reaction to Lucy in person. But her reaction—or non-reaction—had told him nothing.

  After Lucy had set down their plates and walked away, Dean said, “Guess this is pleasure after all.”

  “You wish,” Sophie said, but smiled affably as she picked at her lettuce.

  Hoping Sam was having better luck with newspaper research, Dean tore into his cheeseburger with gusto. She really doesn’t know what she’s missing, he thought. And he was still referring to the cheeseburger.

  Appropriately enough, the morgue of the Fremont Ledger was located in the basement of the newspaper office building. A clerk helped Sam locate the year-old issues of the newspaper, which had been converted to microfiche. Sam started two weeks before the accident that killed Teodor Kucharski, in case anything unusual had precipitated the crash. But there we no mentions of the boy or his grandmother in any of the local stories.

  The day after the accident, the coverage was minimal. Police blotter details. Nothing more. In the days that followed, a few human interest stories appeared, some with reprinted photos of Olga Kucharski and her grandson. Again, Sam mar
veled that he was looking at photos of the same feeble and sickly woman he’d interviewed a couple of hours ago. The Olga Kucharski in the newspaper photos looked young enough to be her daughter. A sympathetic reporter had interviewed her after the accident to delve into Teodor’s character and personality, and she referred to him as a “good Polish boy” more than once in the interview. The reporter had commented on the pride she had in her Polish heritage and how she’d lost her husband to illness before immigrating to the United States.

  Photos at the crash scene showed the totaled Charger, crumpled like an accordion. Looking at the wreck, Sam shook his head. Hard to believe the other three teens had survived the crash.

  Other newspaper stories dealt with the issue of driving while intoxicated and underage alcohol consumption, drifting from human interest to op-ed. Teodor had become a grim cautionary tale for the youth of Clayton Falls. Less than two weeks after the accident, however, the press coverage ended. Sam skimmed through a month’s worth of microfiche after the last article and found nothing else about Olga or her grandson. Seemed like Teodor Kucharski had been dismissed from the public consciousness.

  The microfiche archive began six months back. According to the clerk, anything more recent would be converted to digital records in parallel with microfiche but neither was available yet.

  Sam pulled hard copies from the time of the Clayton Falls Apparel Company fire. Almost three dozen employees had died in the fire. The press coverage was extensive. Frontpage stories about the explosion that led to the fire, the malfunction of the sprinkler system, the investigation into the cause and culpability of the fire, inspection records, capsule biographies of all the victims. Days and weeks after the fire, longer human interest pieces, detailed profiles of the victims, basically mini biographies covering the entire span of their lives.

  Sam skipped forward weeks and months and found more human interest articles. How families continued to cope with the loss, how they had changed their lives in the wake of the deaths, changed priorities, sons and daughters returned home from college, or changed courses of study, volunteered to help with burn victims, and one high school senior had decided to become a doctor. These articles turned into calls for a memorial, public debate on the memorial’s location and design and when it would be constructed and dedicated, and whether the ruins of the factory would be razed or preserved or rebuilt as a church or a community center.