Screaming between coughing fits, she scrambled out of the bathroom in a frantic crabwalk, rolled over and ran toward her bedside telephone. She lifted the receiver and punched in 911. Her stomach rumbled alarmingly. The operator answered but when Bryn tried to explain what was happening, she could only cough and hack, and she spit up more bugs. Several landed moistly on her forearm and skittered toward the hand holding the phone, while others scrambled up her arm, under the loose sleeve of her nightshirt. Dropping the phone in disgust, she swatted at the bugs nestling in her armpit or crossing over the swell of her breasts.
At some point, she’d lost her fuzzy slippers and, as she backed away from the phone, bugs on the floor squished between her toes. She gasped for air and coughed again, hacking out a wiggling centipede before she ran from her bedroom in a blind panic and stumbled down the stairs, catching herself on the railing a moment before she would have plunged headfirst to the landing. In sparing herself from a nasty fall, she’d twisted her right wrist hard enough that she thought something had broken.
Cradling her throbbing wrist against her rumbling stomach, she flung open her front door and ran into the street, grateful that the stormy night had brought cleansing rain to wash away the live bugs crawling on her body and the bits of dead bugs tangled in her hair or clinging to her face, arms and legs.
She lived behind the school where she worked, in the eastern suburbs of Clayton Falls and had always loved that when the weather was pleasant she could walk to work. Now she ran toward the sprawling elementary school building as if it were a sanctuary for her.
By the time she realized she should have stayed close to home after placing the incoherent emergency call, her stomach was protruding painfully beneath her nightshirt. She pressed her hands to her abdomen and felt her flesh rippling under her fingers. With each painful step, she coughed up more blood with the bugs. No matter how many of them she expelled, more remained inside her and they were impatient to get out. From the sharp pains telegraphing from her abdomen, she knew they were eating their way out of her body.
She ran as far as the playground equipment before collapsing to her hands and knees. Sobbing, she couldn’t find the energy to rise again. Wood chips bit into her palms and bare knees. Gagging, she coughed up a wolf spider large enough to fill her palm. As it dropped to the ground she smashed it with her fist.
A stabbing pain took her breath away.
She flopped on her back and moaned in agony.
Clutching at the bottom of her nightshirt, she pulled it up to expose her engorged abdomen. As she watched, golf-ball-sized lumps moved under her bruised skin. She clamped her fingers against the shifting mass and her broken fingernails cut into her skin. Blood welled up and the rain washed it away. Then, through one of the cuts, something dark brown edged upward, with twitching antenna and tiny barbed legs. The submerged mass gravitated toward the breach, pushing, surging—
—and Bryn screamed as her flesh tore open and released hundreds, thousands of roaches, beetles, centipedes, crickets, and spiders. Blood gushed out of her ruptured stomach, running down her sides and soaking into the bed of wet wood chips. But the bugs clung to her. They swarmed over her skin, biting and burrowing back into the flesh they had so recently escaped.
Always tired because sleep was no longer restful for her, Carla Battie would nod off in unconventional locations. Often she fell asleep on the sofa or an easy chair at home, rather than in her own bed. On several occasions, while sitting in one of the rear pews at United Methodist, she’d dozed off during the long sermons. Two weeks in a row, the Clayton Falls librarian had to wake her up after she’d spent too much time debating which New York Times bestseller to check out. And once, unfortunately, she’d fallen asleep while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-80.
Although she often awoke from these impromptu naps with a bloodcurdling scream before regaining her senses and her sense of decorum, her neighbors were nothing short of sympathetic. Because they knew her as one of the few survivors of the Clayton Falls Apparel Company fire. Her car insurance company, on the other hand, had been less understanding about the fender-bender that had jarred her back to consciousness on the interstate.
For a while, she took the prescribed sleeping pills so she could sleep at night—through the night—but the pills made it harder to awaken from the nightmares which then became even more terrifying. After a week or so, she set the pills aside.
Six months had passed since the factory fire but Carla continued to have vivid nightmares about the raging flames and suffocating smoke that had taken the lives of her coworkers, many of whom had become close friends. Long after her doctor removed the plaster cast from the ankle she broke after jumping from the second-story factory window to escape the blaze, the psychological wounds refused to heal. She’d tried counseling for a while, learned about survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress, but none of the rationalizations or medications stopped the nightmares.
Each night she relived those minutes of stark terror before she had managed to escape the inferno. She hadn’t worked on the factory floor. She’d been a bookkeeper, leveraging her associate’s degree in accounting to earn an income that impressed no one. With what she always described as dumb luck, she’d taken a break from her tedious bank reconciliations to restock her desk drawers when the fire overwhelmed the factory. In the second-floor supply room, clutching several rolls of adding-machine tape, a few pens and telephone message pads, she staggered when she heard—and felt— the gas explosion. At the time, she imagined a tractor-trailer had jumped the curb outside and plowed into one of the building’s walls—only later, after she escaped, did she learn the cause of the destruction.
Seconds after the explosion, the heat became unbearable. Scattered supplies forgotten at her feet, she edged out of the second-floor room into what felt like the heart of a furnace, sinuous flames flowing up every surface, charring wood, leaping from point to point, devouring the old factory with incredible alacrity. Soon the billowing black smoke became overwhelming. She heard the screams, but the burning bodies—her choking friends and coworkers—suffered and died beneath the turbulent shroud of impenetrable smoke.
Almost every night, Carla relived the fear and hopelessness of that moment, the certainty that she would die with the others. She always woke from the nightmare version of those events before she noticed the beacon of light at the end of the catwalk, before she sprinted to that recalcitrant window in its warped frame, before she smashed it open with her jacketed elbow, scrambled through while sustaining multiple lacerations and dropped to the cement courtyard below, grateful for the stabbing pain in her leg because it meant she was alive, that she had miraculously survived. The nightmare always ended on the high note of her fear, not on the glimmer of hope, as if she had never escaped...
Once again the fullness of the nightmare seared through her subconscious, striking the nerve-jangling chord of fear at the penultimate moment, rousing her in that familiar, heartstopping instant to stark consciousness, gasping for air. But strangely, she found herself in her own bed. For the briefest time, drenched with perspiration, she marveled that she had managed to reach her bed before passing out from chronic exhaustion. Despite the recurrence of the nightmare, she entertained the idea that she had made progress. Maybe she wouldn’t need to move from Clayton Falls to free herself from reliving the horror. She’d been saving her money to move away from town and its constant reminders, but... No, she would move, to the west coast maybe, start over, make new friends and—
She coughed.
The acrid tang of smoke filled her mouth.
Suddenly, her smoke alarms wailed.
“No!”
An orange glow flared down the hall as a coughing spasm wracked her body. She stumbled out of bed, doubled over as black smoke swirled around her, as if she were the center of a vortex. Dropping to her knees, she fought for breath, her tears etching soot-streaked tracks on her cheeks as she cast about frantically for an escape route. In se
conds, the walls surrounding her were engulfed in flames and the suffocating layer of smoke bore down on her. Face down on the beige carpet, she watched in horror as tongues of flame detached from the burning walls and darted toward her.
When her nightgown ignited, she screamed—but only for a second. Another coughing spasm curled her into a fetal position, blotting out her vision. She swatted at the flames searing her legs until the palms of her hands were no more than raw, shrieking nerve endings. But before she blacked out, in the moments before pain trumped everything else, her earlier thought returned.
She had never really escaped the fire.
The nocnitsa reveled in the darkness her effort had created, but reaching so far beyond her unformed body had drained her energy. She floated through the night sky and drifted downward, slipping into a house, creeping toward her victim in her guise of shadows and found him ready for her influence. A small pulse of her power and he drifted into sleep, a ready conduit.
Ehrich Vogel made a call earlier in the day to see his doctor, but reached his answering service instead. Apparently Doc Bennett didn’t have weekend hours, so Ehrich had to wait until Monday. Unless it was an emergency, in which case the service directed him to the Critical Care facility. For a man like Vogel—who had survived two car crashes, a fall on his noggin from a two-story ledge while hanging shutters, and the cave-in at Croyden Creek, which had left him with one good hand—extreme exhaustion hardly qualified as an emergency.
He suspected his heart might not be pumping at maximum efficiency. Hell, he’d be surprised if the needle hovered in the seventy-percent range most of the time. Of course, it could be his lungs. Lung cancer was not out of the realm of possibility for a former miner, not by a long shot. But he was exhausted, not short of breath.
And though he was bone-tired, sleep was elusive during the worst of the thunderstorm. He’d turned on the local news and heard there’d been a tornado sighting at the western edge of town, but that crisis seemed to have passed. Listening to the rest of the world’s troubles didn’t seem like a remedy for sleeplessness, so he switched off the old television set and picked up a book about John Adams he’d been meaning to read for the past few weeks.
Five pages further into the legacy of the second president of the United States, his eyes gave out, his drooping eyelids finally closed and his head bowed forward in sleep.
A curtain of darkness slid down the surface of the wall and began to coalesce above him. The lamp on the table at his side flickered off and on several times before winking out. Glowing red eyes appeared in the new darkness and a dark hand with elongated fingers closed over the old man’s forehead.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The storm had ended, but the night was far from over. They’d stopped at C.J.’s—a relatively safe place to drop off Lucy—for a breather, and a fresh round of coffee. Despite the deleterious effects of prolonged lack of sleep and too much caffeine, Dean and Sam couldn’t risk nodding off while the nocnitsa was alive. Their subconscious minds would be negative energy gold mines. Though Dean’s head throbbed in a slow drumbeat of pain and his vision lacked focus no matter where he looked, he ordered another large coffee. Appearing as ragged as Dean felt, Sam seconded the order.
Sipping from their steaming cups, Dean, Sam, and Lucy Quinn sat in a booth in the crowded diner thankful that the weather had calmed. Sam ended a call with Officer Jeffries.
“Earthquake activity stopped,” Sam said. “Not even an aftershock.”
“Night hag burned through another Happy Meal?” Dean said.
Sam glanced at Lucy. “They found a paramedic dead in his car, on the side of the road,” he said. “I’m sorry, Lucy. It was Roman Messerly.”
“Oh, no,” Lucy said, clamping a hand over her mouth. “Roman? A car accident?”
“No other car involved,” Sam said. “From the description, sounds like another... husk.”
Lucy slipped out of the booth and ran to the restroom.
“Before, she said he was always nervous about the job,” Dean said. “Nervous enough to have nightmares about emergencies and natural disasters?”
Sam nodded. “Another victim was found by teenagers on the grounds of the elementary school. Abdomen ripped open. From the inside.”
“What the hell?”
“Teacher. Her body was crawling with bugs.”
“Bugs went Alien chest-burster on her?”
“Looks like,” Sam said. “But, Dean, the bugs were still alive.”
“Why wouldn’t—? Oh, nightmare bugs. And they didn’t vanish when she died? So, it’s true. The night hag is getting more powerful.”
“Maybe the bugs were somebody else’s nightmare.”
“But they appeared inside this woman,” Dean said, shaking his head. “That’s too... personal.”
“Either way,” Sam said. “Can’t be good.”
“So what now? We don’t know where the night hag will feed. Drive around and wait for a nightmare to appear?”
Dean’s cell phone rang. The display read “J. Wieczorek.”
“Dr. Gruesome,” Dean said. “Good news, I hope.”
“Sorry, Agent DeYoung,” Wieczorek said. “I begged them to black out Wicked Wolf Weekend, but they thought it was some kind of passive aggressive strategy for a contract renegotiation. Threatened to quit, but they said they’d have a dozen people lined up to replace me before my taped shows ran out.”
Dean looked at Sam. “We could be looking at a rabid wolf pack tonight.”
“Yes—no—I mean, I don’t know. If that’s how this... thing works. I wanted to warn you,” Wieczorek said.
“Thanks, Doc.”
Dean was about to disconnect when Wieczorek continued.
“I’m here with my cousin, Millie,” he said. “We have pages and pages of incidents compiled from emergency calls. Maybe they can help.”
“We’re at C.J.’s Diner,” Dean said. “We’ll use this as a base of operation. If we’re gone when you get here, wait for us.”
Dean disconnected and told Sam that they would soon have their hands on a list of emergency calls since the nocnitsa incidents had begun.
“Not sure what good it is,” Dean said, taking a large gulp of coffee. “Guess it can’t hurt.”
“What can’t hurt?” Lucy asked as she rejoined them.
“Information overload.”
“Emergency call details,” Sam said.
Betsy, their server, smiled as she refilled their coffee cups and asked if they wanted anything else.
“Not right now, thanks,” Sam said.
“Give a holler,” she said. At last her smile faltered, revealing a layer of unease she’d been hiding from her customers. “I’m not really sure what’s happening. But I’m scared—frankly, we’re all scared. So we’re counting on you guys. Half the people in town will need a psychiatrist before the week is over.”
“We’ve been through worse,” Sam said in a clear attempt to reassure her. “We’ll do whatever it takes.”
Dean’s cell phone rang again as Betsy thanked them and walked away.
Not the best timing, but Dean was pleasantly surprised when he saw “S. Bessette” on the caller ID display.
“Good to hear from you, Sophie,” he said. “Before you ask, the crisis isn’t over.”
“I know,” she said, her voice tense. “It’s here.”
Dean sat up straighter. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s falling apart!”
“What?”
“Everything! It’s all falling apart.”
“I’ll be right there. Wait—where do you live?”
He scribbled the address on a paper napkin.
Through the phone’s speaker, Dean heard a resounding crash in the background. Sophie shrieked.
“Sophie, hold tight. I’ll be there in a couple minutes,” he said and ended the call. “Let’s go.”
Lucy rose with him and Sam, but Dean put a hand on her shoulder. “Need you to stay here.”
&
nbsp; “Why?”
“Doc Gruesome and his cousin are meeting us here,” Dean said, though his real reason was to keep the young woman out of harm’s way. “Tell them to sit tight until we get back.”
Dean crossed Main Street and turned left on Bell, swerving between cars as he raced to Sophie Bessette’s house. With the severe storm past, traffic had begun to pick up to what Dean assumed was typical for a Saturday night in Clayton Falls. Big mistake. This Saturday night would be anything but typical.
Although Dean had only met Sophie mere hours ago, he felt responsible for her current crisis. Maybe not in a direct cause and effect way. But in the sense that he may have put her on the night hag’s radar. He and Sam had been trying to thwart the effects of the living nightmares, and now they had attacked the monster directly, if unsuccessfully. Supernatural creatures tended to notice the hunters trying to gank them. So it was possible that Sophie had become a target merely by her association with him and Sam. And judging by the previously calm and collected woman’s state of panic on the phone, Dean couldn’t get there soon enough.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked, braced in the passenger seat as Dean pushed the Impala thirty miles per hour over the speed limit while zigzagging in out and out of oncoming traffic lanes.
“She said everything was falling apart,” Dean said. “I heard a loud crash in the background.”
“Another earthquake?”
“Don’t know,” Dean said. He’d heard raw terror in Sophie’s voice. “Something big.” A few moments later, he pointed to a green-and-beige wooden sign ahead on the right. “That’s her development. Eagle Crest.”
He turned right at the sign and took the first left.
“Dean! Look out!”
Something dark plummeted out of the sky in front of them—flashing through the headlight beams—and struck the asphalt, shattering into several pieces. Dean swerved to avoid the mess. He glanced out the side window.
“Rocks... and clumps of dirt.”
Seconds later, more rocks fell from the sky, striking the road, the sidewalks and parked cars, breaking windows, spider-webbing windshields. Car alarms began to wail. Smaller stones pinged off the hood and roof of the Impala, while others rattled around in the wheel wells. As Dean took the second right he slammed on the brakes. The Impala pulled up several feet in front of a huge sinkhole blocking both lanes of residential traffic. A gray Ford minivan had rolled onto its side in the hole.
Supernatural 9 - Night Terror Page 24