Contents
Cover
Also Available from Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:
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SUPERNATURAL created by Eric Kripke
Titan Books
Supernatural: Joyride
Print edition ISBN: 9781783299362
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299379
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP
First edition: October 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
SUPERNATURAL and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
WB SHIELD: ™ & © WBEI. (s18)
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Cover imagery: Cover photograph © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
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With the exception of the characters from the Supernatural series, this publication, including any of its contents or references, has not been prepared, approved, endorsed or licensed by any third party, corporation or product referenced herein.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
For my mother, Billie May Passarella, for making a bigger house a home, for her encouragement and support, and for helping me learn to weather the storms.
HISTORIAN’S NOTE
This novel takes place during season twelve, between “The Future” and “Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes.”
ONE
Determined to lose twenty pounds in two weeks to fit into the undersized suit he purchased for his cousin’s wedding, Jeremy Merten had cleaned caloric house, tossing out all the junk food from his refrigerator, freezer and pantry. No temptation, no excess in his diet. Or so he thought. He’d lasted two full days before the cravings became insistent. On the second night, he dreamed of an island of potato-chip flower petals and pretzel-stick vines, ice-cream streams winding through chocolate-chip cookie bushes. Nacho shale surrounded bubbling hot springs of gooey cheddar, while a grove of donut trees filled the other end.
Jeremy decided he shouldn’t have gone cold turkey. He needed some kind of “in case of emergency, rip open shrink wrap” snack on hand. Having one or two items in the house should be enough to keep the junk-food demons from invading his dreams with visions of forbidden-calorie islands. After watching the evening news and gnawing absently on his thumbnail through the weather forecast and sports scores, he decided he’d head to Moyer’s Gas-N-Sip minimart to stock up on a few items: a bag of chips and some jerky. That was it. Emergency rations.
He grabbed his keys and jumped into his car for a quick drive.
No going overboard this time. Snack-sized bag of chips and some jerky. That’d be it. He nodded, proud of his restraint. For a few minutes. Then he frowned. Chips and jerky covered the salty side of the junk-food equation. He should probably grab something sweet also. Maybe a box of mini powdered donuts. Good idea, he decided. Bite-sized sweetness. Less chance of overindulging. Add a single pint of ice cream—plain old vanilla—and that would round it out: all his snack bases covered.
Sparse traffic on the state road this time of night, past Jeremy’s usual bedtime. He yawned at the thought of putting so much distance between his head and his hypoallergenic pillow. Truck headlights loomed ahead, approaching fast. “Pack of gum,” he said aloud, talking to himself to stop himself from drifting off. “Sugar-free, though. No cheating.” Gum would take care of the oral fixation.
He glanced at the dashboard clock: 11:59.
Almost a new day, he thought. “New day, new you.” Of course, he wouldn’t eat any of the G-N-S snacks. Just having them in the pantry—or the freezer, in the case of the pint of vanilla ice cream—would get him through the next week and a half.
From behind him, he heard an approaching rumble. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw a single headlight approaching at maybe twice the speed limit. Motorcycle rider. For some reason, bikers always seemed impatient, and as that thought was running through his mind, two things happened simultaneously. The motorcyclist swooped into the left lane to pass him. And the digital clock readout changed to 12:00 AM.
Jeremy’s field of vision immediately shrank, swallowed by an occlusion of shadows rushing in from the edges to extinguish all light and awareness. For a flickering, panicked moment, he fought against the loss of consciousness. Before darkness claimed him, he recognized that his car had drifted toward the center of the state road—or possibly the approaching semi had drifted into his lane—and felt the jarring impact of the speeding motorcycle ramming his car from behind like a giant hand shaking him awake.
Already unconscious when his bike struck the rear bumper of Jeremy Merten’s SUV, Steve Swauger catapulted toward the oncoming tractor trailer while his motorcycle spun on its side, spraying an impressive rooster tail of sparks across the state road.
Slumped unconscious behind the whee
l of the semi, Loretta Papenfuss never saw Swauger’s body strike and roll across the asphalt before half her complement of eighteen tires pummeled his lifeless body. Buster, her long-haul companion, an excitable Bichon Frise, awoke in his carrier behind her bench seat and barked in alarm. Loretta remained unconscious when her truck collided with Jeremy’s SUV and drove it backward, metal screeching against metal, before shoving it aside. Buster lost his footing several times, but continued to bark in distress as the truck veered off the road, lumbered up a grassy embankment, plowed over a white picket fence and punched a prodigious hole through the side of a white split-level home, inches from the bed of a septuagenarian couple who remained asleep throughout the entire incident.
As debris fell in loose and sporadic clumps across the mangled cab and starred windshield of Loretta’s truck, Buster’s cries of alarm grew quieter, as if realizing that nobody, least of all Loretta, was paying attention. Listening to the familiar rumble of the truck engine, he settled down in his cushioned carrier, chin on his paws, eyes wide and uttered a low, disconsolate whimper.
* * *
A few miles away and a couple minutes earlier, the Gyrations nightclub defied the otherwise quiet night with its glowing neon signs, thumping bass, flashing strobes and multicolored, rotating spotlights. Dancers circled the dance floor like a human whirlpool, while others attempted lean-in, shouted conversations at the long, curved glass-and-chrome bar with varying degrees of success, and bartenders glided down the length of the bar taking and filling orders with practiced ease. Midnight arrived: one day changed to the next.
Bartenders, drinkers and dancers suddenly dropped en masse. Cocktail glasses and beer bottles crashed to the floor. One unfortunate server, Lettie Gibbs—who had overcome her awkward adolescent years as a self-described “klutz”—pitched forward with a serving tray on which she’d been balancing a champagne bottle and several glasses and sliced her throat open on the glass.
Men and women slipped off barstools, ending conversations mid-sentence, dropping cocktails mid-sip and phones mid-tweet. Dancers fell in whatever direction as inertia carried them into sudden unconsciousness, with an assortment of sprained limbs, broken noses, chipped teeth and one broken jaw.
The pounding music continued to vibrate the walls, the vast array of strobe lights maintained their flashing fervor and the roving spotlights found nothing moving among the jumbled mass of unconscious club-goers—except the shallow pool of blood spreading from the dying body of Lettie Gibbs.
* * *
The Finer Diner sat near Moyer’s town limits, so it was the first eatery travelers encountered coming off the interstate or their last chance to grab a bite on their way out of town. Though the diner had been in the Finer family for generations, business had peaked decades ago when Moyer’s Lake Delsea was a prime tourist attraction. A series of billboards had lured carloads of vacationers partial to boating and camping to Moyer’s doorstep and the diner had capitalized on all that traffic throughout the spring and summer seasons. Even autumn once drew a sizable number of folks to the cabins that ringed the lake, those in search of a more introspective and picturesque vacation who preferred to skip the frenzy of summer water sports.
Those halcyon days were long past. The arrival of Pangento Chemical had signaled the end of the town’s unemployment woes at the expense of Lake Delsea. Old-timers spoke of accidental spills, toxic runoff and several instances of illegal chemical dumping that poisoned the lake water. Skinny-dipping in the hidden cove of Lake Delsea had long been a teenage rite of passage in Moyer, but ended abruptly when exposure to the water caused rashes, open sores and, if ingested, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.
With the best burgers in town, The Finer Diner survived the economic downturn through the regular patronage of locals and the steady if unremarkable stream of travelers who ducked off the interstate in search of a quick bite to eat. Most of the latter never saw more of Moyer than the diner itself before resuming their journey to more interesting places.
At 11:58 PM the diner served a dozen Moyer regulars who had either finished work late, missed dinner or preferred the twenty-four-hour breakfast offerings.
Marie Delfino carried a large serving tray to the couple in the back booth, regulars for as long as she’d worked at The Finer Diner. Inveterate night owls, Gabe and Linda stopped by late in the evenings and ordered impressively large meals. That night Gabe ordered the “No Decision” breakfast special with blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries, wholewheat toast, coffee and a large orange juice. Linda ordered a medium-well “Gut-buster Burger” with extra cheese fries and a large chocolate milkshake. Sometimes Marie wondered if the pair only ate one meal per day so ordered with no regrets.
Pete Papadakis, the diner’s overnight short-order cook, had juggled the meals well to avoid either order spending too much time under a heat lamp. Hustling the calorie bombs over to the corner booth, Marie felt her easy smile spread across her face a moment before everything went black. Her consciousness winked out like a snuffed candle.
Along the counter, the rest of the late-night customers slumped, eyes rolled back in their heads. Henry Addison, an elderly man perched on the corner stool, fell sideways and knocked Mabel James in the same direction, which resulted in one person after another tumbling from their stools like dominoes.
Back in the kitchen, Pete was craving a cigarette as he scraped the grill surface clean with a large metal spatula. If he had a free minute or two, he planned to sneak out back and light up long enough to quell the craving. But first he had to—
His thoughts interrupted and no longer in control of his muscles, he pitched forward, bare forearms slamming against the hot grill, eliciting a brief sizzle of burned flesh before his knees buckled and he flopped backward onto the tile floor.
* * *
In a display of civic originality, the main thoroughfare of downtown Moyer had been named Central Avenue rather than Main Street. Unfortunately, the contemporary street name seemed at odds with the old-fashioned storefronts that lined both sides of Central Avenue. For more than ten blocks in the commercial district, pastel-colored shops with striped canopies, recessed doorways between twin window displays and occasional sidewalk chalkboard signs adhered to the same aesthetic. Most of the shops were closed, bathed in the amber light of vintage-styled faux gas street lamps.
Close to midnight, only a few storefronts remained open, mostly restaurants and all-night diners, a few liquor stores and a tattoo parlor. As a result, pedestrian traffic had become lighter than usual.
One man, on the downside of middle-aged, in a worn pea coat, frayed jeans and scuffed boots, tugged on his knit hat with fingerless gloves as he bumbled along, weaving side to side as if the individual slabs of sidewalk shifted unexpectedly underfoot. Muttering to himself as he wandered the commercial district, Albert occasionally swatted at imaginary pests buzzing around his head.
Beneath his surface irritation and reaction to these imagined annoyances, he attempted to focus on people who crossed his path, hoping the spirit of generosity would overcome the natural aversion they displayed in his presence. Years had passed since he’d been able to hold onto a job, so he panhandled to survive. A buck here, a buck there, with an occasional fiver or ten-spot keeping him alive, provided he remembered to make his daily rounds of restaurant dumpsters. In his clearer moments, he realized he’d never get ahead again, such was the luck of the draw, but he could get by, if he put in the effort. For however long he deemed the effort worthwhile. Some days, he lost that crumb of faith. Happened most often when he remembered his allotment of days were numbered, so why bother? Surprisingly, the question provided its own answer: why not?
Walking along, ready to make his pitch for a modest handout, a task made more difficult by his tendency to see people who weren’t there. Not really. Like the other products of his fevered—diseased—imagination. He saw a middle-aged couple leaving Angelini’s, a new Italian restaurant—he’d used the restroom once—an
d drafted behind them, slowly increasing his forward momentum to intercept them before they ducked into their car a few yards away.
Angelini’s. The name had to be a good omen. Angels coming from Angelini’s. Charitable angels. Compassionate angels. With a buck or two to spare for their fellow man… helping hand for the downtrodden…
“Eh—excuse me—excuse!”
The woman glanced back at him, startled.
Swatting at yet another dark shape darting around the right side of his face like a bloodthirsty mosquito, Albert grumbled at the unfortunate timing.
“Hurry, Bob!” the woman whispered to her companion, clutching his arm.
“Wait!” Albert called. “I won’t hurt—I’m not—could you spare…?” He groaned, shook his head in frustration and decided to start over.
But the man pointed a key fob at a midnight-blue town car and pressed a button, eliciting a chirp as the door locks disengaged, and said, “Some other time, buddy.”
“Don’t need much,” he said quickly, feeling the fish slip the hook. “Just a buck. No skin off—”
Bob shook his head, jaw set. “I said—”
Then he fell, his key fob slipping from his hand as his body struck and rebounded off the left rear quarter panel. Simultaneously, the frightened woman collapsed, snapping one of her high heels as her leg twisted beneath her and she pitched forward, striking the curb with the side of her face.
Standing over the fallen couple, his hands shaking, Albert stared at their unmoving bodies, and focused on the blood trickling from the woman’s face to the curb, a steady drip-drip-drip, almost as if it had hypnotized him. Of all the unusual things he had seen and imagined, he couldn’t decide how to categorize what had just happened. Too bizarre to have happened, but too mundane for a flight of fancy. Certainly possible the man—or the woman—could have had a heart attack or some kind of brain seizure. But both at the exact same time? It looked real but made no sense.
Then Albert remembered something his mother often told him as a child, Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
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