Running alongside the counter, Dean had to duck and dodge the plates, saucers and mugs Fred launched his way. He swiped out a hand and nearly caught one of Fred’s ankles. Beside him, Gruber grunted as a broken soup bowl clipped his ear.
“Fred, stop it!” Gruber yelled. “Right now!”
The countertop ended with a curve near the front door. Fred would have to stop, jump down, or reverse course. No other choices. Dean had him cornered.
The overhead fluorescent lights flickered, casting sudden shadows and pockets of darkness, as if a series of power surges had come down the electrical lines.
Fred’s eyes seemed to roll back in his head as he pitched forward, tumbling over the edge of the counter and crashing to the floor. A moment later, Fred groaned and convulsed, in obvious pain from his awkward fall.
Dean kneeled beside him, looking for anything unusual in the flickering light. A moment later the fluorescents resumed their normal faint buzzing and steady illumination. And Fred looked like any ordinary middle-aged businessman who had taken an awkward fall. Except his lower pant legs and shoes were covered in grease and bits of food, and smelled of strong coffee. Moaning, he clutched his elbow. “What happened? It hurts?”
Gruber squeezed the transmit button on his shoulder mic and called for an ambulance. Then he knelt beside Fred and said, “You’re under arrest for aggravated assault.” As he pulled Fred’s arm back to cuff him, Fred yelped in pain.
Fred continued to grimace. “What—are you talking about?”
“You stabbed that woman with a fork,” Gruber said, tightening the cuffs. “Little pain’s no more than instant karma.”
“Who? What—?”
“Let me guess,” Dean said. “You don’t remember anything.”
“I—I was eating lunch,” Fred said. “I had a little bit of heartburn and I…”
“What?”
“I—I woke up here, on the floor? Did somebody push me?” Fred said. “I’m the victim here. I’m—hurt!”
Dean heard a rhythmic thumping from behind him. Twisting around, he cast about for the source of the sound. As he rose from a crouch, he saw a man outside the diner, banging his head against the plate glass.
“Hey!” Dean called, but the man couldn’t hear him.
While Gruber hoisted fork-wielding Fred to his feet, Dean moved toward the door, waving at the man outside who continued to pound his forehead against the plate glass. The next thump ended with a squishy sound as the man’s brow split open. Blood streaked the glass, but the man didn’t stop.
The next blow cracked the glass.
After staggering backward from the force of the impact, the man lunged forward and whipped his face toward the dripping smear of blood. Fearing the next impact would force the man’s head through the window and potentially slice his throat open, Dean rushed through the door, swerved around an A-frame chalkboard sign and hurled himself against the man. He wrapped both arms around the man’s torso, driving a shoulder into his ribs to tackle him. They fell together, the man’s right shoulder and back slamming into the unforgiving sidewalk before Dean rolled clear.
For a fleeting moment, Dean blacked out, or seemed to, because he had no sense of lost time. If he’d lost consciousness from the jarring impact, it had happened in the space between heartbeats. Crouched by the curb, he examined the man’s bloody forehead. Pulped and bruised flesh but, fortunately, no exposed bone. Nevertheless, the man could have fractured his forehead—or given himself a concussion—and needed prompt medical attention.
“Stay with him,” Gruber called as he hustled Fred to his patrol car, shoving him unceremoniously into the back seat. “Ambulance should be here any minute.”
Beside Dean, the man with the bloody forehead groaned and placed his palm against the mess of flesh above his blood-matted eyebrows. He cursed in pain, his hand jerking back reflexively before approaching the wounded area with trembling fingers.
“Dude, what were you thinking?” Dean asked, shaking his head.
“I don’t—what happened?”
Here we go again, Dean thought. “You don’t remember?”
“No, I—I stopped outside the diner,” the man said, struggling to recall the events leading up to his head-banging incident. “I was reading the lunch specials on the outdoor sign—that one, over there—and then I—I…”
“What?”
“I had trouble focusing on the words…”
“Blurred vision?”
“No, mentally,” he said. “Like they were a bunch of jumbled symbols and I had no idea what they meant. But that lasted only a moment or two and then I…”
“What?” Dean asked, encouraged that he hadn’t been struck with a complete case of temporary amnesia.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “I felt like the sign was falling away from me or I was falling away. Like when you look through the wrong end of a telescope. But mostly, the darkness blotted everything out. Sight, sound.” He shook his head, then winced at the pain engendered by the sudden motion. “That’s all I remember until I—woke up, lying on the sidewalk. Did I fall?”
Dean cleared his throat. “You—had help.”
The man glanced up, noticed the bloodied plate glass window. “Is that—did I…?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “You tried to enter the diner head first.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said. “Maybe you weren’t happy with the specials.”
“That’s—I don’t understand.”
“Makes two of us,” Dean said. “But we’ll have a doctor check you out.”
* * *
Sam sat facing Kelly Burke, in a corner booth by the cash register, far from the table she’d recently shared with Fred Harris until he snapped. After shoving the plates and glasses aside, Sam had wrapped her injured hand in a clean dish towel and had her apply pressure to both sides with her other hand. Lying on the Formica tabletop between them, like a proverbial smoking gun, lay the bloody fork, tines up, a bead of crimson slowly tracing a path down one twisted tine to pool with other drops below. To keep it out of view from her, Sam draped a paper napkin over it.
Most of the diner’s patrons had cleared out after Fred’s violent outburst, jumped in their cars and driven away. A few hardy—or hungry—souls returned to finish their half-eaten meals, occasionally glancing toward Kelly and Sam, possibly wondering if Sam would also channel his inner Mr. Hyde at a moment’s notice.
Kelly stared at the fork, shaking her head. “I don’t understand it,” she said, her voice a bit raw. “Why would Fred do something like this?” She raised her wrapped hand and shuddered when she noticed blood seeping through the folded layers of cloth.
“Keep pressure on it,” Sam reminded her. He glanced toward the kitchen, where Marie was searching for the diner’s first-aid kit. Apparently, Pete—the short-order cook during the blackout—had applied most of the bandages to his burnt forearms but she hoped a few might remain, if she could figure out where he’d stashed the kit. Though Kelly had lost a fair amount of blood, Sam hoped a good surgeon could minimize any permanent damage to the hand. Until she had a professional assessment, he wanted to keep her mind from dwelling on worst-case scenarios.
“So, are you two close?”
“No, not really,” Kelly said. “I’ve only met him a couple times.”
“You were dating?”
“No!” she said. “It was completely professional. I’m the office manager at Holzworth Heating and Cooling. We hired Fred’s company to keep our office supplies stocked. Everything’s available online, but sometimes you can’t wait overnight or two days or whatever. Fred’s local, so we can have anything we need in a couple hours. His prices are competitive. We keep a smaller inventory and I have fewer headaches. He offered to take me out to lunch on his expense account to celebrate his winning the contract. But, really, it was a win-win situation. I offered to pick up the tab, but he insisted.”
“You think
he was expecting something more than a business lunch?”
“We took several bids,” she said, shaking her head. “His was the lowest. No favoritism. Besides, it was lunch in a diner, not dinner or cocktails in the evening.”
“But more than coffee.”
“Wait—are you implying I led him on or something?” she asked. “Because we’re both married, and everything was strictly business, even boring. I mean, we’re talking about paper clips and toner cartridges here.”
“Of course,” Sam said. “So, you have no idea why he might have snapped?”
“No,” she said. “Everything was fine… until it wasn’t.”
“No triggers? Anger?”
“His reaction was… immature,” she said. “I mean, he was doing most of the talking, asking about inventory levels for this and that, when would be the best time for him to stop by and check or if he wanted me to call first. He seemed excited to get rolling, establish a routine. And then he’s screaming, ‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Who does that?”
“What changed?”
“Fred’s a fast talker,” Kelly said. “Maybe because the office supply business is, frankly, not that exciting. So, he talks fast rather than bore you to death. Probably a good strategy.” Sam nodded. “But it was his eyes that seemed to glaze over.”
“Like he was boring himself?”
“Exactly,” she said. “I mostly nodded, gave an occasional suggestion about how much toner or paper we might go through in a month, which is stuff we talked about before, so maybe he wanted confirmation, whatever. Anyway, he’s talking a mile a minute, in between gulps of food, and then he stops. For a second I thought he was choking, but I guess he just lost his train of thought. Stopped talking mid-sentence and looked around. Embarrassed for him, I reminded him what he was saying before he… faded out. But he was different.”
“Different how?”
“All the excitement about the new business was gone. Like that,” she said, raising her uninjured hand to snap her fingers. “I said, ‘Fred, are you okay?’”
“And that’s when he started shouting?”
She nodded. “I had this insane thought that I’d offended him somehow, but before I could even ask, he grabbed the fork and…” She squeezed her eyes shut at the brutal memory, her voice trailing off. “Well, you know the rest.” She stared down at the dish towel, stippled with red.
“Completely unprovoked,” Sam said, more of a statement than a question. Before escorting her to the corner booth, Sam had stood near the table where Fred attacked her, sniffing for a hint of sulfur, but detected none.
Again, she nodded. “Like I said, I don’t know him that well. Maybe he has a history of mental illness and he’s off his meds. But, he gave us references and we followed up with them. Nobody had a bad word to say about him.”
Marie came out of the kitchen carrying a small, white plastic case with a red cross on the lid. She frowned as she approached them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Pete really cleaned it out. There’s only two small bandages left, a bit of gauze, and maybe a little bit of antibiotic cream—if you squeeze the tube hard enough.”
“Thanks,” Sam said, taking the kit from her. “We’ll make do.”
Fortunately, as soon as he opened the depleted medical kit, he heard the siren of an approaching ambulance.
SIX
Officer Gruber stood with the Winchesters while the paramedics treated Kelly Burke’s impaled hand, replacing the dish towel with antibiotics and proper bandages. Hesitantly, she asked them if her hand would suffer permanent damage. Victor, the senior paramedic, said, “That’s above my pay grade, ma’am. We’ll take you to county hospital, have the doc there evaluate your injury.”
“I can drive,” she said, almost as hesitantly.
“Wouldn’t advise that, ma’am,” said Charlene, the other paramedic. “Might aggravate that injury.”
“You’re right, of course,” Kelly said, nodding. “I should call my husband, let him know… I don’t even know where to begin.”
Victor helped her into the back of the ambulance. She sat next to the gurney upon which they’d earlier secured the bloodied head-banger, Tim Powell, who continued to moan softly, his eyes closed.
While Charlene closed the doors of the ambulance, Victor approached Gruber and the Winchesters, “Guess we’re lucky it was only two.” He glanced toward the back seat of the patrol car. “He should have that elbow looked at by a doctor.”
“You looked at it,” Gruber said. “Said it was just a bruise.”
“I’m no doctor.”
“Noted.”
“If it swells or the pain gets worse…”
“Got it, Vic,” Gruber said.
“I’m serious, Tom.”
“So am I,” Gruber said. “After what he did, he goes to the back of the line.”
A minute later, the ambulance left, no siren.
Gruber turned to Sam. “Nothing from the woman? Burke?”
Sam shook his head. “No warning,” he said. “No trigger. He drove the conversation. Business as usual one minute, senseless rage the next.”
“Followed by another case of temporary amnesia,” Dean added.
Gruber glanced through the side window of his cruiser at Fred Harris, who sat hunched forward, head hanging, staring forlornly down at his feet. “Probably a member of the damn chamber of commerce,” Gruber said. “At this rate, wouldn’t surprise me if he sings in the church choir.”
“Powell, the head-banger, didn’t remember hammering his skull against the window,” Dean said. “But he did remember something. Not sure how helpful it is.” He explained how Powell suddenly had trouble reading the sidewalk sign specials before falling away into darkness.
“Never made it inside the diner,” Sam said. “So, we can’t blame the bottomless cup of coffee.”
“All kidding aside,” Gruber said. “If we rule out food, drink, chemical spills and toxic gases, are we back to my designer drug theory?”
“Even though you’ve heard nothing through the cop grapevine about such a drug?” Sam asked.
“There’s that,” Gruber admitted. “But I’m far from an all-knowing, all-seeing oracle.” He sighed. “If I was in the dark, I wouldn’t… Wait a minute. What if that’s it? A visual trigger. Like one of those subliminal ads you used to hear about.”
“Like the word ‘sex’ hidden in ice cubes in a vodka ad?” Dean asked.
“Something like that,” Gruber said. “But instead of suggesting sex, what if it could trigger violence or other uncharacteristic behavior?”
“Sounds more plausible than a massive carbon monoxide leak,” Sam said charitably, but Dean saw right through it.
Gruber scratched his chin, thoughtful. “Wouldn’t explain the simultaneous blackouts, though. How could everyone awake in town see the same image at the same time?”
“You believe the blackouts are related to the vandalism and violence?” asked Sam.
“Know my town well enough to know it only got this weird after the midnight weirdness,” Gruber said. “One night the entire town does a group faint and the next day a bunch of people start acting weird.” He looked to Dean. “Like you said, Special Agent Tench, the blackout might not have been caused by a drug, per se, but there’s been a whole laundry list of side effects.”
Dean nodded. “Hard to argue with that.”
Gruber climbed into his patrol car and drove Fred to the police station. A few moments after the cruiser pulled out of the lot, a dinged red pickup truck with patches of primer and a chassis that looked as if it had seen a quarter-million miles since its car lot debut rolled up the driveway in squeaky shocks and pulled into the vacated parking space.
“Good, you’re still here,” Marie said as she exited the diner and approached them. “When I called Pete to ask where the hell he stashed the first-aid kit, I mentioned the FBI was here, asking about the blackout and he volunteered to come in.”
A burly, olive-skinned man with a full head of w
avy black hair and a pronounced five o’clock shadow climbed out of the pickup truck. He wore a gray sweatshirt over jeans, both sleeves pushed up past the elbows, revealing white bandages across the underside of his forearms down to the base of his palms.
“Pete,” Marie said. “Special Agents…?”
“Tench and Blair,” Dean said, not bothering to flash his phony credentials.
“Pete Papadakis,” he said, shaking their hands in turn. “That was one crazy night, am I right? And not in a good way.” He chuckled. “But how can I help?”
“What do you remember?” Sam asked.
“Craving a cigarette.”
“Excuse me?”
Pete chuckled again. “It’s true,” he said. “That’s about the last thing I remember before the lights went out. Not the real lights.” He rapped his skull with his right fist. “These lights. Marie was there, busy night, mostly regulars. I was trying to clear out the orders and all I could think about was sneaking out back for a puff or two.” He leaned back against the rust-colored pickup, eyes staring off into space as he spoke. “I had just scraped the flat top clean with a spatula. Basket of onion rings in the deep fryer, but I thought I could slip out for a minute. Then—boom!” He struck his palms together for emphasis.
“What?” Dean asked. “Something exploded?”
“No, the darkness came,” he said. “Almost like somebody flipped a switch inside my brain, ‘Goodnight, Pete!’” He chuckled again. “No, not a real voice. Just that sudden. Like falling asleep soon as your head hits the pillow. But, in this case, I fell forward and slapped my arms on the flat top. For a moment, I almost shook it off and woke up. You burn yourself, that pain is quick, yes sir. Faster than the sleep. But whatever was dragging me down was too strong to fight. I’m lucky I fell back onto the floor, or the burns could have been much worse. Mostly first degree. Not bad. Second degree closer to my elbows.”
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