“There’s no pulse,” the man said, looking spooked, “but there’s motor activity.”
Through the curtain, they could see the man’s eyes staring upward, his legs moving up and down as if walking.
The code team started talking excitedly, rushing around and checking the equipment. “Everything’s working, doctor,” a nurse told him.
The doctor’s voice bellowed over the chaos. “Get this patient down to M.R.I. immediately.”
“But…” the nurse started, confused.
“Do it!”
She and two paramedics hurriedly wheeled the gurney out from the examination area and raced toward the elevators.
Bobby and Grace followed after them, taking the stairs. They rushed down to the hallway below in time to see the hospital staff with the gurney disappear through the M.R.I. admitting door. They stood outside in the corridor.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t like this.” Grace’s brow furrowed. “What did they mean he didn’t have a pulse? Do you… think he was like that in the car with us?”
Bobby shrugged. “Could be. Neither of us checked, we just assumed.”
As they waited, more doctors rushed in, but none came out. Bobby started to wonder if any were left in the hospital at large.
Finally, the original E.R. doctor emerged, looking exhausted. Bobby stopped him, flashing his F.B.I. credentials. “Can you tell me what happened with the man we brought in?”
The doctor stopped, blinking dazedly. “What?”
Bobby gestured toward the M.R.I. room. “What were the results?”
The doctor’s mouth opened and closed again. “We tried to sedate him so we could do the M.R.I. It didn’t take. He kept trying to get up and walk away… and then finally, he just collapsed.” The doctor stared blankly down the empty hallway. “We managed to run the M.R.I. and…”
When it became clear the doctor had fallen silent, Bobby prompted, “Yes?”
Slowly the doctor’s eyes shifted up and met Bobby’s. “He was full of organs. Other people’s organs.”
“What?”
“We counted at least four spleens, two appendices, enough intestines to fill up his whole stomach cavity and part of his chest.” He met Grace’s eyes. “And most of his own organs were missing. He had no lungs or heart, no stomach, or liver.” The doctor’s voice shook. “It was like someone had stuffed him full of parts and sealed him back up with some kind of super-sticky adhesive.”
“What were those wounds?” Bobby asked.
“Puncture holes. The only marks on the body. His organs must have been sucked out through them, and the others pushed in through the same holes.” The doctor flushed and covered his mouth. “Excuse me,” he said.
As he walked away, Grace said, “What kind of messed-up killer would do that? Does that sound like the work of the murderer you’re after?”
Bobby stared at her. “To be honest, I’ve never heard of anything like that. I need to find my colleagues.”
“I need to go check in at the station.” She squeezed his shoulder in a surprisingly affectionate gesture and returned to the stairwell.
Bobby stood a moment, collecting himself. He had no idea what they were dealing with, and that was unsettling. Most of his books had been destroyed in the fire that had consumed his house, though he’d stashed a few here and there. A trip to the Toiyabe College library tonight was in order. But first he was going to get as much information about the walking organ donor as he could.
As he headed after the queasy doctor, he hoped Sam and Dean were okay, out there in the forest with that thing.
FIFTEEN
At the Truckee General Hospital, Sam sat on the edge of an examination table, wincing as the E.R. doctor injected him with a local anesthetic. She was the same person who had stitched up Dean two nights before. Dean stood next to the bed.
“You boys keep getting into trouble,” she said. “You want to tell me about it?”
Sam fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out his F.B.I. credentials. “We’re undercover. Here working on a homicide case.”
Her eyes widened, and she paused before she started stitching, needle hovering over the wound. “And that’s who did this to you?”
“We’re not sure,” Sam told her. “We didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Have you seen similar wounds to these?” Dean asked.
She began with the curved needle, making tiny, neat stitches. Her brow furrowed. “I don’t think so. The other doctors might have. How did you say this happened?”
“Uh… some kind of hooked weapon,” Dean said quickly. They always went to great lengths to seem as plausible as possible, which usually wasn’t very easy.
“Well, this is bad. Are you up on your tetanus shots?”
“I think so,” Sam said.
“Well, I’m giving you another one just in case,” she told him.
She finished the row of stitches on Sam’s chest. An earlier X-ray had miraculously shown no damage to his collarbones. “I’m going to fill out a painkiller prescription for you and come back with your discharge papers.”
When she left the room, Dean whispered, “I’m amazed that thing was able to pick up a Jolly Green Giant like you.”
Outside the little examination area, Sam suddenly heard a familiar voice. “That’s Bobby,” he told Dean.
Dean popped his head out, seeing Bobby talking to an E.R. doctor. When they finished, Dean called him over.
Bobby stepped inside the blue curtain. “What are you two doing here?”
“We had a run in with a… thing,” Dean elucidated.
“A thing.”
“A flying thing. It had wings.”
“And claws.” Sam added.
Bobby frowned. “I think that man was its handiwork.”
“Naked sleepwalker guy?” Dean asked.
Bobby nodded. “He was full of organs. Other people’s organs. And the creepier part is that I think he was already dead when we found him.”
Dean grimaced. “You mean walking around dead?”
“Yep.”
Sam stood up from the exam table. “What could do that?”
Bobby set his mouth in a grim line. “That’s what we need to find out.”
SIXTEEN
At the Truckee Public Library, Sam pored over old newspaper articles on microfiche. Dean sat at the table behind him, going through the newspaper indexes.
“I have an eerie sense of déjà vu,” Dean said, not loving the research part. He’d been writing down the call numbers for different articles that looked promising, while Sam located them in the microfiche cabinets.
“If we can find other accounts, we might figure out what we’re dealing with.”
“My eyes are going blurry, and I’m getting motion sick watching you skim that microfiche.”
Sam stopped scrolling when he found the article Dean had written down the reference for. “Strange Corpse Found Containing Organs of Twelve Different People.” He skimmed the article. “Check this out. On Thanksgiving in 1992, missing hiker Michael Strathmore returned to his family as they sat down for the holiday meal. They welcomed him in, but he wouldn’t stand still, instead roaming all over the house. Finally he grew weak and collapsed. When they did an autopsy, they found the organs of twelve different people inside him.”
“Where did he disappear?”
“Near Donner Lake. And the body was covered with sealed puncture wounds.”
“That’s our guy.”
Sam read the rest of the article, hoping it might reference other similar instances. It didn’t.
“Anything helpful?” Dean asked.
“Nothing except we know this thing’s been here since at least ’92.”
Dean continued to look over the indices. When he exhausted the Sierra Tribune, he moved to the Sacramento Chronicle. “Here’s another one.” Dean wrote down the reference number and handed it to Sam.
After he retrieved the microfiche spool, Sam wound i
t through the machine. “Missing Aviator Found Dead With Puncture Wounds.” Sam read the article. “It’s about a prop plane pilot who crashed in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in 1964, out near Brantley Ridge. A huge search party turned up nothing. Then about a week later, he just strolled into the small town of Blue Canyon and walked the length of Main Street. He collapsed at the far end. The coroner determined that someone had filled him up with the organs of other people and that he’d died from septicemia.” Sam finished the article. “Yuck. Except the guy had no lungs or heart, so I don’t know how the coroner reached that conclusion. I think you’d die of that before septicemia.”
“Maybe he didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound crazy.”
“Keep looking. We’re on to something.”
Dean returned to the over-large blue index books of the Chronicle. After a few minutes, he said, “Got another one.”
Sam spooled it up. In 1932, a ranch hand in the Central Valley of California had disappeared just outside Sacramento. His body was found by gas company workers some twenty miles away. The medical examiner found the organs of fourteen different people sealed inside the corpse.
Dean leaned forward as Sam relayed the tale. “So, Sacramento, the foothills, Tahoe. This thing was moving east.”
Sam stood up from the microfiche machine. Moving to the shelf full of newspaper indices, he pulled down three huge red books. “Let’s check the San Francisco Daily Tribune.”
They split them up, combing through the entries. In 1912, Sam found another reference to a corpse with foreign organs. He retrieved the spool and fed it through. “Corpse of Missing School Teacher Found Under Grisly Circumstances.”
“What’s it say?”
“An elementary school teacher disappeared after a teacher/ parent meeting in 1912. The following week, she walked into her classroom and collapsed in front of her students. The coroner found the remains of seven people inside her.”
Dean gave a low whistle. “Wow. 1912.”
“Let’s go back farther.”
They scanned the indices. “Here,” Dean said, getting up and retrieving another spool. He wound it through the machine. “1874. A banker was found containing the spleens and appendixes of fourteen people.”
“That’s before Foster could have transformed into a wendigo.”
Dean returned to the table and continued flipping through, but couldn’t go earlier than 1865, when the Daily Tribune was founded.
“What are we dealing with?” Sam asked.
“Something that lives a long time.”
“Or has babies,” Sam added.
“Don’t even say that. I am not in the mood to fight an army of those things.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Sam said, “it covers its tracks well. It’s been doing this since at least 1874, with only a handful of reports.”
“It’s probably why the cases were never connected.”
Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “I’ll see what Bobby’s found.”
Back at the diner, the bell rang above the door and Bobby appeared. He slid into the booth opposite them, then idly glanced at the menu while Sam finished chewing a bite of turkey club.
“Found some interesting stuff. Accounts go back more than a century,” Sam told him.
Bobby shifted uncomfortably in the booth.
“What’s up?” Dean asked.
“I think I know what we’re dealing with.”
Dean sipped his beer. “And that is?”
“An aswang.”
Dean gave out a short laugh. “Excuse me?”
“An aswang. Filipino creepy-crawly with a penchant for human organs.”
“Sounds like that could be our guy.”
“It gets worse. A lot worse,” Bobby told them.
Dean’s brow furrowed. “Okay, tell us.”
“This thing’s more of a nightmare than playing spin the bottle at a family reunion. It’s got a long proboscis that it inserts into victims and sucks out their organs with. But it likes to make them last, taking organs you don’t need to survive at first, then using sticky saliva to seal up the wounds.”
“Yikes,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want this thing to visit me at night.”
“It’s got wings?” Dean asked.
Bobby nodded. “Yep. And even worse, it can take human form.”
“So you could be living next door to Mr. Organ Sucker and not even know it,” Dean added.
“Would make for a memorable block party,” Bobby said. “What did you find?”
“Victims filled with other people’s organs have been turning up for more than a century,” Sam told him.
“That still sound right?” Dean asked Bobby.
“Yeah. When its nest gets full, it likes to select a victim it’s already sucked empty, and put all the inedible parts in it. Then it reanimates the corpse and sends it out to be reunited with its family.”
“Happy days,” Dean said.
“Yeah, that makes for a cheery reunion,” Bobby said.
“So how do we kill this thing?” Dean asked.
“That’s the tricky part. Couldn’t find anything about how to kill one.”
“Well, we can tell you it’s not iron or salt or bullets or fire,” Sam told him.
“That narrows it down,” Bobby said. “I couldn’t find any accounts of someone who’d actually fought the thing.”
“Great,” Sam said.
“Just stuff about villagers living in terror of them at night. Sometimes they suck babies out of pregnant women.”
Dean frowned. “So a real family-friendly, warm and fuzzy monster.”
“But I did find accounts of what people did to ward them away,” Bobby said.
“So what do we have to do?”
“Make a concoction of vinegar, salt, garlic, ginger, and pandan spices. Not sure how it’ll work. Try sprinkling it like holy water.”
“So what’s the plan?” Dean asked.
They all exchanged looks, then Bobby said, “I need to do more research. Find out what’ll kill this thing.”
Sam’s brow furrowed. “Bobby, people are dying out there.”
“That’s why I think you and Dean should go back, at least try to keep people from stumbling into this thing’s territory. You’ll probably have more luck once you have the mixture. At least it’ll leave you alone.” He met their eyes. “And be careful.”
“You don’t have to tell us that,” Sam said. “That thing almost ripped through my chest.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I learn how to finish it off.”
Dean remembered trying to reach Bobby when Sam got hurt. “Cell reception’s a bitch out there.”
“It’ll have to do.” Bobby messed with the brim of his ball cap. “There’s one other heart-warming detail I haven’t mentioned.”
Sam raised his eyebrows.
“This thing’s hermaphroditic; it reproduces with itself. So be on the lookout for eggs.”
Dean couldn’t believe this. “Are you serious, Bobby?”
“Yeah. Grey and leathery.”
Sam leaned forward. “Where would it lay them?”
Bobby shrugged. “Not sure. None of the accounts said. But this thing isn’t so much into deep and dark like the wendigo.”
Dean thought of all the accounts going so far back. “Why haven’t any hunters fought it before?”
“Near as I can figure it, it doesn’t have to kill very often.”
“The accounts were spread apart,” Sam added. “But now it’s killing more often.”
“So let’s make this spice mixture and get out there again,” Dean said.
The aswang was stepping up its game for some reason. Sam was right. All the other reports had been chronologically and geographically far apart, but now too many people had gone missing in too short a time. Either it was killing more people now, or it was getting sloppy. Either way, they had to stop it before more people died.
&nb
sp; SEVENTEEN
Sam and Dean had been walking through lunchtime and into the afternoon, coming up empty. They searched the area where they had found the organ victim, then started moving in greater circles. The weather looked iffy, a new layer of clouds moving in low and grey on the horizon. A chill came with it.
As they crested a rise, suddenly Dean felt eyes on him. A branch snapped and he whirled around. Grace stepped out, her huge backpack towering behind her. “Hey,” she said as they lowered their guns. “That was some messed up crap the other day. Guy was full of other people’s body parts.” She met Dean’s gaze, her eyes haunted. This was a subdued Grace Dean hadn’t seen before. As if reading his thoughts, she added, “You don’t shrug something like that off.” She sized them up. “I’m surprised they don’t have more agents out here.”
Sam shrugged, then winced at the pain in his shoulders. “We’re pretty busy at the bureau.”
Dean noticed that she had double the ammo in her belt now, and a shotgun was strapped onto her pack. He looked at Sam.
“It’s strange that everywhere I go, here you are,” she said.
Sam looked at his watch. “We should check in with Bobby.”
“Sounds good.” Dean pulled out his cell and checked the bars. The icon on his screen displayed a satellite dish spinning uselessly. No signal.
“I’ll be right back,” he told them. He walked toward the nearby ridge, then began the steep ascent up the smooth granite. He could feel the sun radiating off the rock. Yellow and orange lichen grew in colorful patches as he climbed higher. From the top of the ridge, he could see trees and other patches of open granite outcroppings. In the distance, the Tahoe Summit ski resort ran its ski lifts, and in the far, far distance, he could make out the treeless slopes of the Boreal and Sugar Bowl ski resorts. The whole area up here was dotted with them, with miles and miles of undeveloped forest between. It was a perfect place for a man-eater like a wendigo to make its nest. Lots of tourists coming and going, as Bobby had said.
Dean pulled out his cell again, lifting it up as it powered on. One bar. He called Bobby.
When he answered, Dean asked, “You find anything yet?”
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