“Goodness,” Millie said, her face pale with fright. “Real monsters...”
“Just one,” Dean said. This time. He turned to Sam. “Some of the manifestations are sticking around, even after death. Wolves vanished. Zombies didn’t.”
“She’s growing stronger,” Sam said. “Makes sense that manifestations created through direct feeding would be the first to have permanence.”
“Daniel Barnes,” Dean said, tapping the map. “Killer tree dreams.”
Sam circled the Barnes address. Betsy sat down facing the table and looked at the map.
“Roman Messerly had the natural disaster dreams. Lucy, what’s his address?”
She examined the map and pointed. Sam circled the location.
“But he wasn’t there tonight,” she said. “He was at his friend’s house. Here. And... this is where Rich—Officer Jeffries—told me they found him in his car.”
“What about the sinkholes? Falling rocks,” Dean said.
Betsy raised her hand slightly, as if requesting permission to speak.
“Ehrich Vogel,” she said.
“How do you know?” Sam asked.
“He’s a retired miner. Lived through the Croyden Creek cave-in. Crushed his right hand. Told me he still dreams about it, but lately they’ve been... vivid.”
“Got an address?”
Millie leaned forward and tapped her index finger on the map at a location to the northeast of the Kucharski house. Sam marked it.
“Ebola guy,” Dean said. “Gotta be the CDC old-timer we met in here.”
“Yes,” Betsy said. “Phil Meyerson said he never saw someone with hem—hemorrhagic fever but dreamt about one last night. He lives... here.”
She indicated an address in the northeast of Clayton Falls.
“The escaped serial killer,” Sam said. He had a momentary flash of Ragnar Bartch jumping toward him from the utility shed wielding a meat cleaver. “Must be that woman we met, with the fantasy artist roommate... Jylene something?”
Lucy cleared her throat. “That might be Alden.”
“Alden Webb? The warden?”
Lucy leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Hope I don’t get in trouble for this. Dad told me something. Alden—Warden Webb—said once that while he believes in the security at Falls Federal, he always worries about what would happen if...”
“If they escaped,” Sam finished.
She nodded. “Said it kept him on his toes. Eternal vigilance.”
“Then that would be his nightmare scenario,” Sam said, nodding. “Where’s he live?”
Lucy pointed out his address and Sam dutifully circled it.
“We’re forgetting about the zombies,” Dean said.
“Betsy?” Sam asked. “Anybody having zombie nightmares?”
She frowned. “No nightmares, but...”
“What?”
“Well, Linda Deetz is always going on about how her son is crazy about zombies but she won’t let him watch any of the movies because they’re so violent and gory.”
“Address?” Sam asked. But nobody knew. “Phone book?”
Betsy shook her head. “Unlisted. She’s a single mom. Changed her number when her deadbeat ex kept calling at all hours of the night.”
“Jeffries can find it for us,” Sam said. “Lucy, you have his number?”
“Yeah, Dad treats him like the son he never had.”
Sam asked her to call for an address.
The dreamers they had identified lived along the perimeter of the town. But it wasn’t enough. They needed to know not only where the night hag was, but where she would go next. Of course, her feeding schedule could be totally random.
“What am I missing?” Sam asked rhetorically. “This thing feeds off negative energy...”
“Negative energy? Like the brownouts?” Betsy asked.
“What brownouts?” Dean asked.
“The people who’ve told me about their nightmares experienced brownouts. When they woke up, their electricity was out for a few seconds before coming back on. They thought maybe the flickering lights woke them.”
“When she fed on Olga,” Sam said, seeing the connection. “The lights inside the house, along with the streetlight out front, lost power temporarily.” Sam glanced down at the marked-up map again, crosschecking the times of the emergency calls—each living nightmare—with the person who had the nightmare. “That’s it. Negative energy.”
“Whatcha got, Sam?”
“The order of the nightmares.” Sam traced a semicircular path with his index finger, starting with Olga Kucharski’s house then moving to the northeast before coming back toward the north. “Widdershins.”
“Widder—what now?” Dean asked.
“Widdershins,” Sam repeated. “Counter clockwise movement. In witchcraft, some believe the use of widdershins movement creates negative magic or—”
“Negative energy.”
“And that’s more negative energy to feed her,” Sam said. “She’s feeding along the perimeter while most of the manifestations happen inside her negative energy circle.”
“We know she’s feeding in a counter clockwise pattern,” Dean said. “And she causes mini blackouts when she feeds.” He turned to Lucy, who was wrapping up her cell call to Jeffries. “Anything?”
“Rich’s got his hands full,” she said. “I heard a lot of gunfire in the background. Said he’ll look it up and call us as soon as possible.”
“Good,” Dean said. “What’s the highest point in town?”
“Easy,” Lucy said. “The clock tower over the municipal building. Dad would take me up there when I was a kid. But why’s that important?”
“We’ll need spotters,” Dean said.
Her phone rang. “It’s Rich again.” She listened for a moment and hung up. “He’s on his way. Be here in two minutes.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam noticed unusual movement. He turned to look out the window at their booth and saw what had caught his attention, the familiar shambling movement.
“Dean,” Sam said. “We have a more immediate problem.”
Dean followed Sam’s gaze.
“They’re here.”
Nazi zombies. Well, at least one had made his way to the diner. The young officer with the exposed loop of intestine wearing the white tunic, which almost glowed under the streetlamps as he shuffled across the dark parking lot.
Other diner patrons started to notice the zombie with pointing and excited chatter. Three booths away, a woman screamed. People on the other side of the diner left their tables for a closer look at the source of the commotion. Several grabbed hats and jackets and rushed toward the exit.
If they all run out there now, they’ll be dragged down and killed, Sam thought. Then reanimate as zombies themselves, adding to the death toll and chaos. Hoping to avoid mass hysteria, Sam stood and held up his FBI credentials.
“Everybody, listen! A terrorist cell is using an airborne hallucinogen to prey on your fears, to make you see and experience horrible things. They want you out there, in the night, panicking. You can fight this. The safest place is inside. Stay here. Lock the doors.” If they stayed calm, kept control of their fears, they’d deprive the night hag of some negative energy. “My partner, Agent DeYoung, and I are trained to deal with this. Just... stay here. All of you. For your own protection.”
Relieved to have somebody willing to handle the unimaginable, people began nodding. Those standing by the door returned to their former booths and tables.
Millie leaned across the table and whispered to Dean, “Shouldn’t you tell them about the... monster?”
“They’re close to panic.” Dean spoke in hushed tones. “We’d rather not push them over the edge. They need to believe this is manageable. Dangerous, yes, but manageable. And it is. This is what we do.”
Sam looked to Dean and together, after instructing Betsy to lock the door behind them, they went outside.
THIRTY-TWO
> Linda Deetz wasn’t surprised when the lights went out. She’d heard reports of the strong storms and lightning causing outages. No reason to think her house would escape the inconvenience. She’d stocked up on batteries and candles earlier in the day, just in case.
When the lights dimmed and then died, she took out a flashlight and spread lit candles around downstairs. What surprised her was that Trevor hadn’t come down or complained when the power died. Either he was still sulking, or listening to his iPod, or maybe he’d fallen asleep and hadn’t noticed. One less thing for her to deal with.
She poured herself a glass of Piccini Chianti and sat down in her favorite living-room chair to relax until power was restored. By the time she finished the glass and thought about having another, she heard banging from upstairs. She called out to Trevor but received no reply.
Within seconds, she began to worry. Deep-seated fears began to surface. As a single mom, she feared being a target for home invasion or worse. Setting her glass down softly on the coffee table, she hurried to the kitchen and picked up the telephone. When she heard only silence, no dial tone, her fears began to magnify. She grabbed her purse by the front door and took out her cell phone. For a brief moment, she saw she had no signal bars and then the display died.
Her heart raced as she fought to suppress the panic rising inside her. Trevor was upstairs but not answering her calls, possibly in danger from an intruder. Hurrying back to the kitchen, she looked around for a weapon and grabbed the first thing she saw: a cast-iron skillet. She climbed the stairs as quietly as she could, counting on surprise and her familiarity with the layout of her home to help overcome an intruder who was likely stronger and possibly better armed.
Easing open Trevor’s bedroom door, she almost gasped at what she saw by the moonlight streaming through his window. Somebody dressed in black, with his back to her, stood over her son in his chair. And Trevor was thrashing, as if the person was pinning him down—hurting him—but unable to cry out for help.
Anger taking over, she charged into the room, swinging the cast-iron skillet.
“Leave my son alone!” she screamed.
The base of the skillet connected with something... softer than she anticipated. And the intruder screeched—an inhuman sound—as the blow struck him. The dark shape whirled around and Linda felt weak-kneed at the flash of glowing red eyes she glimpsed before the intruder... dissolved.
Confused at what she had witnessed and unable to comprehend how the intruder had simply disappeared, she rushed to her son and shook him, her fear transformed into worry.
Groggy, Trevor slowly came to.
“What happened?” he mumbled.
“You’re okay,” she said, hugging him tightly. “You’re okay now.”
Moments later, when the lights came back on, she saw two streaks of gray in his hair, one on each side of his forehead running all the way to the nape of his neck.
Three zombies had shambled their way to C.J.’s Diner. Dean and Sam put them down efficiently with one head shot each from close range.
“Diner’s no longer safe,” Dean said.
“If it ever was.”
Lights flashing, a police cruiser swung into the parking lot and stopped in front of them. Jeffries stepped out from the driver’s side. He had a state cop riding shotgun. Noticing the dead zombies in the parking lot, Jeffries frowned.
“Damn. They’re spreading,” he said.
“You got info on Linda Deetz?” Dean asked.
Jeffries nodded. “Her phone and electric were dead. Just got through. Says she chased an intruder out of her son’s room.”
Dean exchanged a look with Sam. “She get a look?”
“It was dark,” Jeffries said. “Said he wore black. Red eyes. Goggles? She hit him with a skillet and he disappeared somehow. She was a bit hysterical, so...”
“Disappeared sounds about right,” Sam said. “If she moved on, maybe that ends the zombie manifestations.”
“Don’t know,” Dean said, striking the toe of his boot against white-tunic zombie. “Still solid. Maybe they’re not over until the current batch is all dead.”
Behind them, the diner’s front door deadbolt turned. Lucy, Millie, and Jozef Wieczorek came down the stairs.
“I told everyone inside we had information for you,” Lucy explained. “What now?”
“That depends,” Dean said and turned to Jeffries. “Can you get us binoculars, some spare two-way radios and access to the clock tower?”
“Yes, to all three.”
“Good,” Dean said. “Then here’s the plan...”
Once Lucy explained that climbing a series of narrow switchback staircases was the only way to ascend the clock tower, Millie elected to remain at the diner. That left Jozef Wieczorek and Lucy in the role of spotters. With the state cop staying behind to temporarily guard the diner alone, the others drove to the municipal building.
Once there, Jeffries gave Lucy and Wieczorek a two-way radio, binoculars, and a key to the clock tower entrance. After handing Dean and Sam two-way radios, Jeffries rejoined his temporary partner. Together they would defend the diner while Dean and Sam took positions to ambush the night hag.
Dean glanced at the map, double-checking the warden’s address.
The radio Sam held squawked. Lucy’s voice. “We’re in position. Three-sixty view. Six... seven fires burning. Some existing power outages. But not in... Whoa! Looking northeast, it’s—it’s moving.”
Sam spoke into the radio. “What’s moving?”
“You said it was getting stronger... it’s like a black veil moving over the houses. The lights, they’re blotted out for a few moments as it moves over them. It’s moving counterclockwise, like you said, circling northwest.”
“If it’s moving,” Dean said, “it’s not feeding. Yet.”
“Good. We need to be in position,” Sam said.
Dean stared ahead as he drove north and felt himself zoning out, as if he’d been driving for hours, hypnotized by endless miles of road. Probably lack of sleep causing loss of focus. He tried to shake himself out of it, but then he glimpsed her, in his rearview mirror, running diagonally across the street, Ben beside her. One of the rabid wolves stalked them, ready to pounce.
Dean hit the brakes.
“Lisa!” Dean cried as he swung the Impala around. “Here with Ben. They’re in trouble, Sam.”
Sam looked over his shoulder.
“They’re not real, Dean. Can’t be. The real Lisa and Ben are at home. Safe. It’s the night hag. She’s using your fear against you.”
“How? I’m not asleep.”
“When you’re exhausted, your mind wanders. You’re having a waking nightmare. She’s stronger now. Maybe that’s all she needs to find a way into your subconscious.”
“Gotta help them, Sam. If I don’t—”
Sam grabbed his arm. “I saw something too, Dean. Yesterday. Something that wasn’t real. It’s all mind games. Your fears fuel her. If you give in now, she wins.”
“Damn!” Hitting the brakes again, Dean took a deep breath. He’d failed to protect Sophie. And he always worried that his being a hunter would bring danger to Lisa and Ben. With nightmares to prove it. Now the night hag’s psychic influence was jumbling his failure with his fears to mess with his mind. “You’re right. It’s not real. Lisa and Ben wouldn’t be here... Can’t believe I almost fell for it.”
Shaking his head, Dean resumed his original course and dropped Sam off near the warden’s house with his iron short-spear and lock picks. Then he drove to the home of Phil Meyerson, CDC retiree and parked half a block away. He didn’t need Lucy’s report over the radio to tell him when the night hag arrived and began to feed. The house and half the streetlights on the block went dark all at once.
“Going silent,” Dean said into the radio before turning the volume off. Sooner or later the radio would lose power, but he couldn’t know when. One ill-timed squawk from the speaker and he’d lose the element of surprise.
Once inside the house, he waited quietly for a couple minutes more, long enough for the nocnitsa to assume solid form and begin feeding. But not too long. For all he knew, Meyerson’s subconscious was already creating an outbreak of bubonic plague in Clayton Falls.
Iron short-spear at the ready, Dean crept through the house.
One moment Jeffries was talking to Baumbach—his temporary state cop partner who was still freaked out about what he’d seen in Clayton Falls—and the next moment he saw them wink into existence at the entrance to the parking lot over a thin bed of white mist. Even though DeYoung and Shaw warned them what type of living nightmare they might see next, Jeffries wasn’t sure he would have fired so readily at seemingly ill people if he hadn’t seen their eerie appearingout- of-thin-air act himself. Baumbach stared in shocked dismay as Jeffries shot two of the hemorrhagic fever victims stumbling toward the diner.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
“They’re not real people, Baumbach,” Jeffries responded. “But their disease is contagious.”
Seven more appeared at various points around the diner, lurching forward, begging for help as blood ran from their ears, eyes, noses, and mouths, their voices choking on it as they moaned.
“Help! Help us! Please!”
As they came close enough to shoot, five more appeared behind them. Soon they would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Jeffries took aim, but saw out of the corner of his eye that Baumbach was paralyzed by dismay.
“Baumbach! Shoot!” he commanded urgently.
The state cop nodded abruptly. “O—okay.”
They fired together, Baumbach clearing the left side of the entrance, Jeffries taking the right. Jeffries wondered what the people inside the diner thought about them mowing down apparent civilians in distress, but shook it off. A moment later all the approaching bleeders—as he had begun to think of them to disassociate them from real human beings—disappeared. Even the ones on the ground vanished.
He got on the radio.
Supernatural: Night Terror Page 27