by Tim Waggoner
Dean smiled. “Maybe you’ve still got a few functioning brain cells left after all. But if there is another Igor, how do we find him or her? We can’t just look up every doctor in the Brennan area, drop by their office, and say, ‘Excuse me, but have you built any monsters out of dead body parts lately?’”
“Dippel would need to find someone shady to work with, someone he could blackmail, if necessary. We need to find out if there are any doctors or vets in town who’ve got a sketchy reputation, maybe even been in trouble with the law.”
“Looks like we need to pay a visit to Brennan’s finest,” Dean said. They’d already spoken to the sheriff when they’d first begun investigating the strange deaths in town. They could easily claim they’d returned to follow up on some unspecified leads they’d gathered. “Let’s go.”
Dean started toward the door, but before he reached it, Sam said. “On the way, can we—”
Dean sighed. “We’ll stop for coffee, don’t worry.”
* * *
“What do you think she’s doing? Is she sleeping or just lying awake and staring at the ceiling?”
Dean didn’t want to talk about it. He kept his mouth shut and hoped Sam would do the same. They were in their room at the Hansens’ cabin, Sam sitting cross-legged on his bed, Dean sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. There was a lamp on top of a dresser between their beds, and the light was on. Neither brother had said anything, but they didn’t want to be in the dark, not with Trish—or whatever she’d become—in the house. Dean had also locked their door. He had no idea if it would keep Trish out if she wanted in, but even a little protection was better than none at all.
“What do you think she is?” Sam asked. “Is she a zombie?”
“Zombies are made by voodoo,” Dean said in a tone that indicated this was the most obvious thing in the world. “You saw that little statue her dad had. It was Egyptian.”
“So she’s like a mummy, only with no bandages?”
“I don’t know what she is!” Dean snapped. Sam recoiled as if he’d been struck, and Dean felt instantly ashamed. Sam was scared, that’s all. Truth was, so was he. When he spoke again, he did so quietly, in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Whatever she is, she’s not Trish anymore.”
The day had been one of the most bizarre that Dean had experienced, and given his dad’s job, that was saying something. Trish hadn’t spoken a single word, and her face never displayed emotion—or any expression at all, for that matter. At first, Dean had thought she didn’t blink anymore, but after a while, he realized she did, only far more slowly than a normal person. He’d read somewhere that people blink an average of once every five seconds. Trish blinked once every minute. She didn’t move much, only when her dad asked her to do something. When she did move, she did so with precise, economical motions, like a machine that had been programmed for maximum efficiency. When she wasn’t doing anything, she was so still she might have been a wax figure created in the image of the real Trish. And she never sat. She always stood, and if she was in the way, you had to go around her. Not only didn’t she step aside, there was nothing in her eyes or expression to indicate that she was even aware of another presence.
Walter Hansen didn’t seem to notice that there was anything wrong with his daughter. Dean had heard the phrase “in denial” before, but this was the first time he’d seen it in action. Normally, Walter spent most of the day down in his workshop, preparing documents for his clients, but today he remained upstairs, keeping up a running one-sided conversation with Trish. He spoke about things they had done back when her mother was alive, holidays they’d celebrated, trips they’d taken... He spoke about plans for the future, too. Places they’d never gotten around to visiting that they’d go to soon, renovations he wanted to do to the cabin, changes he wanted to make in their lives. Maybe they’d get a cat or a dog. Trish had always wanted a dog, hadn’t she?
Trish stood there, motionless, never speaking. Dean had no idea if she heard her father’s words, or if she did, if she understood them.
Whatever command Walter gave her, she obeyed, and after having her make breakfast, he had her do a series of chores around the cabin. She ran the sweeper, dusted, and did several loads of laundry, and all the while Walter followed her around, talking. In the afternoon, Walter had the four of them sit down and watch TV. Well, three of them. Trish remained standing. Walter put on a rerun of an old sitcom, and he joined in with the laugh track, laughing loud, as if the show—which Dean had seen before and didn’t think was all that funny—was the most hilarious thing he’d ever viewed. There was an edge of hysteria to Walter’s laughter that Dean found just as creepy as Trish’s immobile, stone-faced presence, and after a while he couldn’t take it anymore. He told Walter that he and Sam were going to go out and gather some firewood, despite the fact that there was a healthy supply already stacked up next to the cabin, and Walter said, “Sure, sure. Good idea.” He didn’t take his gaze off the TV screen as he answered, and Dean and Sam lost no time in getting the hell out of there.
They didn’t bother pretending to get firewood. Instead, they wandered through the woods around the Hansens’ cabin, not speaking, just walking. Each alone with the guilt that was eating them up from the inside.
They stayed out past dinner—no way did they want to suffer through another meal prepared by maybe-a-zombie, maybe-something-else Trish—and they finally came in around nine. They went straight to bed, but before they could hole up in their room, Walter told them to make sure they got a good night’s rest.
“Tomorrow we’ll go fishing at the lake,” he said. “Then later, we’ll head into town for ice cream and a movie. How does that sound?”
Like a nightmare, Dean had thought. “Sounds good,” he’d said. Then he and Sam hurried to their room, closed the door, and locked it.
That had been two hours ago. For most of that time the boys had remained silent, listening to the drone of Walter’s perpetual one-sided conversation with his undead daughter. Eventually, Walter decided to go to bed, but not before leading Trish to her room, and—Dean presumed—tucking her in. He wondered if Walter gave her a goodnight kiss, maybe on the forehead, maybe on the cheek. If so, did her skin feel normal, or was it cold and waxy? The thought made him shudder.
“What are we going to do?” Sam asked in a small voice.
This was the question Dean had been dreading all day. He was the older brother, and with their dad away, it was only natural that Sam would look to him for guidance in this situation. It was his responsibility to look after his brother—as their father had made abundantly clear to him on many occasions. He had nearly failed in that responsibility yesterday, when he’d been dumb enough to lead Sam to the Herald House. He’d thought he was so smart, that he was a big-time hunter, just because he’d picked up one or two things from listening to his dad. Trish had paid for his arrogance with her life, but it could’ve just as easily been Sammy who’d taken a spectral bullet to the heart.
Once, in some hotel room or other, when Sam had been asleep, their father had turned to Dean and said, “Son, there’s not a lot of advice that I can pass along to you about life. Real life, I mean. Not the kind of life hunters lead. But I know this: never let the little head do the thinking for the big head.”
That had been a few years back, and Dean hadn’t been exactly sure at the time what his dad had been trying to tell him. But he understood now. Boy, did he understand! Everything that had happened had been his fault, and all because he’d wanted to act like a big man and impress a girl. An amazing girl who had died and been brought back to some grotesque semblance of life by her grief-stricken, and more than a little crazy, father.
Dean didn’t know if he believed in souls. He knew ghosts were real, and if he hadn’t known it before, he surely would have after the previous day’s encounter with the Rifleman. But he thought ghosts might not be the consciousness of a person that continued to exist after death s
o much as some kind of psychic energy that was left behind. Energy that took on the shape and behavior of the person who created it, but wasn’t literally that person. If that was true, then Trish—her mind, her spirit, her essence—hadn’t been brought back, only her body. She was an empty shell, little more than a puppet for Walter to command. If there were souls, though, then it was possible that Trish’s had returned with her physical form, but was trapped within, unable to do more than passively observe, a prisoner in her own body. It would be, Dean thought, the very definition of a living hell. And it was all his fault.
“The first thing we do,” he told Sam, “is find some weapons.”
* * *
They moved silently through the cabin. Both Walter and Trish’s bedroom doors were closed, but Dean knew that didn’t mean either of them was asleep. Especially Trish. It was very possible that she didn’t need to sleep anymore, that she was—as Sam had said—just lying on her bed, eyes open and staring, blinking only once per minute.
They entered the kitchen, and each selected a large knife from the block on the counter. They searched through the drawers, careful to open and close them slowly so as not to make the contents rattle, but all they found were a couple screwdrivers in a junk drawer. Dean took the Phillips, Sam the flathead. What Dean really wanted to find was a gun. Their dad had made sure that both of them knew how to shoot, and even if neither of them was a highly skilled marksman, they could do more than merely hit the broad side of a barn. If they found more than one gun, Dean wouldn’t have let Sam carry one, though. Sam was an okay shot, if not as good as him yet, but if their dad ever found out he let Sam use a gun without his express permission... Well, Dean would rather face an entire town full of vengeful ghosts than John Winchester when he was angry.
“Should we go down into the basement and look?” Sam asked. “If Walter has any guns, he might keep them down there.”
Dean found himself feeling proud of his little brother. He was obviously scared, but not only was he keeping himself together, he was thinking strategically. Dean knew Sam was smart—smarter than him, that was for sure—but sometimes he forgot just how smart.
Dean thought it over. If Walter sometimes let hunters pay him in trade, he probably did have a few guns somewhere, and his workshop seemed like a logical place to keep them. He could have other things down there, too—items more powerful and dangerous than firearms. He’d said the Egyptian statue he’d used to bring Trish back had come from one of his clients. He might have other magical objects in the basement, maybe even something that could reverse the spell that had resurrected Trish.
Don’t be an idiot, Dean told himself. It’s not like any items Walter has will be labeled and come with a set of instructions. If Walter did have any more magic goodies downstairs, they would be extremely dangerous to use, assuming he and Sam could even get them to work in the first place. They were better off sticking with simple weapons, ones that wouldn’t backfire and turn you into a pile of ash, or worse. But they really could use a gun. Dean didn’t know what sort of creature Trish had become, but he figured that they should avoid getting too close to her. He’d seen Night of the Living Dead maybe a dozen times, and the last thing he wanted was for Trish to sink her teeth into either him or Sam and turn them into flesh-eating zombies. Knives and screwdrivers were only good for close-up fighting, but with a gun, they could deal with her from a distance.
Listen to you! You’re thinking about killing a girl you had the hots for yesterday!
Dean thrust the thought away. He’d learned from watching his father that sometimes a hunter had to put his emotions aside in order to get the job done. Despite the fact that they were in this situation because of his screw up, he was determined to live up to his father’s example and do the job right.
“Okay, let’s go check the basement. But we’ve got to be quick. There’s no telling—”
He broke off as he heard sounds come from down the hallway: a soft creak followed close by another, and that followed a muffled click. Dean felt his gut turn to ice.
“Trish left her room,” Sam whispered, “and went into Walter’s.”
That’s exactly how Dean saw it. No time to look for guns now.
They left the kitchen and hurried down the hallway, Dean’s instincts screaming for him to move faster. They carried their weapons down at their sides so they wouldn’t accidently injure themselves or one another, and when they reached Walter’s door, they stopped. Enough light spilled into the hall from the kitchen for them to see that Trish’s bedroom door was open. The interior was dark, which only made sense. Why would she need light anymore?
Dean shifted his knife to his left hand, with the screwdriver. He then reached out and tried the knob of Walter’s door. He wasn’t surprised to find it locked. He returned his knife to his right hand, then turned to Sam and whispered, “Get ready.”
He’d seen cops break into locked rooms on TV and in the movies, but he’d never tried to do it himself before. There’s a first time for everything, their dad always said. Dean stepped back, raised his right leg, and slammed his foot against the door next to the knob. He had to repeat this maneuver twice more before the door finally burst open and swung inward.
Dean entered first, Sam right behind.
Walter’s nightstand light was on, and in its dim glow, Dean could see the man sitting up in bed, Trish crouched on the mattress next to him, her face buried in his neck.
He smiled weakly, his face pale. “It’s okay. She just wanted a snack. A little something to tide her over until morning.” He reached up a trembling hand and stroked Trish’s hair. “Wouldn’t want my girl to go to bed with an empty belly now, would I?”
In the future, when Dean would remember this moment, several horrible details would stand out. One was that despite what his daughter was doing to him, Walter didn’t cry out in pain. How detached from reality did you have to be not to feel someone tearing into your flesh with their teeth? Then there was the blood. Despite Trish’s best efforts to swallow as much as she could, blood stained the front of Walter’s T-shirt and soaked the sheet drawn up to his waist. Another was the wet smacking sounds that Trish made as she nuzzled at her father’s neck, sounds more like those of a baby animal suckling from its mother than an undead thing chewing on living meat. She’d been silent all day, but now sounds of satisfaction rumbled softly in Trish’s throat, almost like a cat’s purring. As bad as all these details were, though—and that was damned bad, make no mistake—the absolute worst for Dean was the look in Walter’s eyes. In them, Dean could see that, at least on some level, the man knew exactly what his daughter had become and what she was doing to him. Yet still he loved her, deeply, fiercely, and he would give her whatever she needed, even at the cost of his own life.
It was at that moment that Dean realized that as awful as hate was, love, unthinking and unrestrained, could be far more terrible.
Trish drew away from her father, ropey strands of blood stretching from her mouth to the ragged mess that had been his neck, and turned to regard Sam and Dean.
Dean thought there’d be hunger in her gaze, or rage, or maybe even sorrow, because deep down somewhere inside that cold, dead body she was still Trish, and she was horrified by what she had become, by what she was driven to do, but what he saw in her eyes was far worse. Her gaze was empty of all thought and emotion, bereft of the slightest sense of identity. Her eyes lacked even the basic self-awareness that an animal possesses. They were as empty as the largest subterranean caverns, as cold as the deepest arctic waters. Dean knew he was looking at something far worse than simple evil in her gaze. He was looking at nothing.
“Dean...”
“It’s all right, Sammy.” He knew damn well that it wasn’t, that after this nothing would ever be all right again, but he said it because he was the big brother, and it was the kind of thing you were supposed to say when things were bad. And he couldn’t imagine things getting much worse than this.
Trish began crawling t
oward them across the bed, her father’s blood dribbling from her mouth, pattering on the comforter like thick drops of crimson rain.
Dean wished to God he had a gun, but he didn’t, he had a knife and a Phillips screwdriver. And he had what his dad had always told him was the most important weapon of all. Himself. He switched the screwdriver to his right hand and took the knife in his left. Then, before he could reconsider, he ran toward Trish, took aim, and rammed the point of the screwdriver into her left eye, shoving the metal deep into her brain, all the way up to the handle.
He heard Sam gasp and saw Walter’s eyes widen with shock.
Trish didn’t react at all. Instead of blood, clear liquid trickled around the screwdriver protruding from her socket. She remained like that for several moments, crouching on all fours atop her father’s bed, expressionless, wounded eye leaking liquid, her mouth still dripping with Walter’s blood. Then suddenly, as if she was a machine whose power supply had been cut off, she slumped over, rolled off the bed, and thumped to the floor.
Dean could only stand and stare at Trish’s unmoving body, right hand slick with the clear goo that had spurted from her eye when he’d jammed the screwdriver in. A moment later, he felt Sam move to his side and put his arm around Dean’s shoulders. That simple gesture did more for Dean than any words his brother might have spoken.
Walter showed no reaction at first, and Dean feared that he’d lost so much blood that he wasn’t fully aware of what had happened. Then he let out a howl of anguish, jumped out of bed, and knelt next to his daughter’s body. He tried to pick her up and cradle her, but he was too weak and only managed to lift her partway before she slipped from his hands and fell back to the floor. A second later, tears streaming down his too-pale face, Walter collapsed beside her.
* * *
The brothers tried to revive Walter, but he’d lost too much blood. So they dug two graves in the back yard, beneath a large old oak that Trish had loved, and buried father and daughter, saying what words they could think of over their graves. They did their best to clean up the mess in Walter’s room, then searched the cabin and found the statuette of Anubis down in the basement in one of the drawers of Walter’s desk. After a brief discussion, they left it alone, along with a number of other artifacts Walter had stored in his workshop. When they were finished, they went upstairs, locked the basement door, and waited for their father to come get them.