Some held bandages or icepacks to faces, limbs or other body parts. Others panted, short of breath, or moaned quietly. A young boy sobbed into his mother’s shoulder. A red-faced toddler, probably feverish, cried inconsolably as her grandmother rocked her and hummed a soothing song. A heavy man with a thinning pate and a ragged ponytail held a bucket between his knees, shoulders trembling as his stomach rumbled alarmingly. Along the far wall, which had a cutout for a long fish tank, a middle-aged man paced, clutching his side as he mumbled to himself.
Sam could count the number of suffering patients taking the long wait in their stride on the fingers of one hand. The overwhelming majority grumbled about the level of care and perceived incompetence on display.
Catching the attention of one of the nurses behind one of the clerical stations, Sam glanced at her nametag and asked, “Is this normal, Lindsay?”
“And you are?”
“Special Agents Blair and Tench,” Sam said, indicating Dean with a tilt of his head toward the doorway. “FBI.”
“Are you here to arrest someone?”
“No, not yet, anyway,” Sam said. “Ongoing investigation.”
“Well, to answer your question, nothing is ever normal here,” she said bluntly. “But it’s been better. This is definitely… not ideal.”
“How long?”
“How long has it been like this?” she asked. “All day.”
“Since the midnight blackouts?”
“Now that you mention it,” she said, nodding. “Feels like we barely recovered from all those emergency calls. But these accidents and incidents are unrelated to whatever happened at midnight, obviously. Just seems like nothing’s been right—or, as you say, normal—since then. Lot of clumsy and angry people out there.”
“Real nasty string of bad luck,” said another nurse, who overheard their conversation as she passed by, clipboard in hand.
“Can’t last, right?”
She stopped and stared at Sam. Her nametag read Alexis. “What makes you say that?”
Sam shrugged, almost taken aback by her negativity. “Law of averages.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
The fluorescent lights above buzzed and winked out for a moment, casting a sudden shadow before flickering back on.
“That’s all we need,” Alexis said with a weary sigh. “Power outage in the middle of this mess.”
“That’s what backup generators are for,” Lindsay said evenly.
“I’m sure they never fail,” Alexis scoffed, and continued along the row of desks to pass through the counter gate and flap out into the waiting area.
Sam returned to where Dean waited by the doors. “Got their hands full.”
“You think?”
“They’ve been swamped since the mass blackout.”
“Maybe Gruber’s right,” Dean said. “About the connection.”
“Makes sense.”
Alexis escorted a lacrosse girl with a bleeding ear and scalp back to a treatment area.
As Sam and Dean walked toward the exit, Dean said, “Doesn’t make it any easier to understand.”
The pacing man paused mid-turn and shouted, “Hey, I was here before her!”
The nauseated man cradling the bucket looked up. “I’ve been here an hour.”
“I’ve been here ninety-two minutes,” an old woman said, in the middle of crocheting a scarf. “And I’m not getting any younger.”
Dean walked through the exit when the automated doors opened, but Sam held back. The room had felt combustible after the arrival of the injured lacrosse players and now sparks were flying.
Around the crowded room, other patients voiced their frustration, a chorus of suffering.
“My son has a fever!”
“Half the people here have a fever, buddy!”
“This is bullshit!” yelled the pacing man. “My stomach is killing me.”
“Your stomach?” said the nauseated man. “Here! Borrow my spew bucket!”
“Shove that bucket up your ass, pal!”
Another man, with a bruised cheek and puffy eye, approached the pacer and said, “Calm down, buddy. It’s an emergency room, not a deli. You can’t take a number—”
“Who asked you?” the pacer said, shoving the other man away from him.
“Tough guy, huh?” nauseated man said as he climbed to his feet and lumbered toward the formerly pacing man.
“Oh, no, Mr. Ponytail is gonna vomit on me.”
“Don’t worry,” the other man said. “When I’m done, those nurses will take you right back. No waiting!”
The former pacer picked up a potted fern and hurled it at him, aiming for his scalp. Nauseated man, swatted the projectile aside with his bucket, inadvertently flinging the container’s contents on a large man in a leather jacket who had been dozing fitfully a minute ago.
“What the hell!” leather jacket shouted, flinging a strand of the other man’s bile from his fingertips. “You son of a bitch!”
“Dean!” Sam called.
Leather jacket charged bucket man, driving him against the wall with a crash that cracked the glass of the long fish tank.
Dean returned, taking in the scene. “That escalated fast.”
“Everyone, calm down!” Sam called.
“Bite me!” someone shouted.
“We’re FBI,” Dean shouted, flashing his ID and badge.
The pacer, who had jumped out of the way at the last minute, spun around and tripped over another man’s outstretched leg. That man jumped up and shoved him. After climbing to his feet, the pacer bent over and bull-rushed him.
With all the shouting, hooting and fighting, Sam wasn’t surprised nobody paid attention to him and Dean. The fight had a weird inevitability to it, spreading like a contact virus. Kicking feet and flying fists often missed their mark. Chairs fell over, people collided, offense taken at every turn. Each time someone slammed up against a wall or hurled a chair across the room, the fluorescent lights blinked on and off, shifting light and darkness across a sea of outraged faces. Existing injuries became more pronounced and serious contusions blossomed like flowers in time-lapse photography.
The fight reminded Sam of countless barroom brawls in classic Hollywood Westerns. It seemed oddly appropriate that the mass frustration of endless waiting would result in each patient requiring more immediate medical assistance. In that context, a group riot was almost logical.
Sam and Dean mutually concluded that the participants would not listen to reason—or threats of incarceration—and that the only way to stop the fighting before it became deadly was to physically intervene. They pulled combatants apart, stoically taking the odd punch or kick without retaliating. Even so, they were completely outnumbered.
Nurse Lindsay called for the orderlies, while Alexis dialed 911. An emergency room doctor surveyed the melee, hung back and grabbed the phone from Alexis.
Sam was holding leather jacket man back when he caught sight of an object hurtling toward him. By the time he realized it was the base of a table lamp, it struck his jaw and he felt his knees buckle.
NINE
As Sam fell to one knee, stunned, leather jacket man disengaged and moved to pick a fight with someone else nearby. But Sam swung his forearm, clubbing the man behind his closest knee, causing him to stumble. In a moment, Sam grabbed him and put him in a sleeper hold, retreating to a wall so nobody could attack him from behind.
From this new vantage point, Sam surveyed the emergency room. Since most of the people there had preexisting illnesses or injuries, the scattered brawls had a short half-life. Dean landed a solid punch in nauseated man’s gut, which stopped the big man in his tracks. Collapsing to all fours, he vomited between his splayed hands, removing him from the fray he had helped instigate.
A few continued to wrestle and struggle half-heartedly, gagging, coughing or having re-opened clotted wounds. Several cowered behind overturned tables and chairs while others had retreated to the hallway between the
curtained treatment areas. The toddler continued to wail back there.
One white-clad orderly stood between two contentious men, holding them apart at arm’s length like a referee in a chippy boxing match. Another orderly, a man big enough to have played left tackle for an SEC contender, had pacing man in a headlock but he continued to struggle, despite a bloody and possibly broken nose, pulling ineffectually on the orderly’s meaty forearm while simultaneously attempting to back-kick his shins.
“Listen, Mr.…?”
“Davick,” pacing man croaked, “Archie Davick.”
“Luther Broady,” the orderly said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Nothing pleasant about any of this!”
“Be that as it may, Mr. Davick,” the orderly said, effectively oblivious to Archie’s attempts to break free, “you need to settle down before I have Nurse Alexis over there stick you with some sleepy juice.”
“I will not settle down,” Davick croaked. “I demand immediate treatment.”
“Everyone will get treatment.”
“Not good enough,” Davick said, continuing to struggle. “I plan to sue this hospital for every dime.”
“You’re free to take that up with your lawyer,” Broady said. “But right now, I need you to be civil. Can you do that?”
“Right after I sue you for assault and battery!”
Sam lowered leather jacket man to the floor and stepped over his unconscious body. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gruber stride into the emergency room. With professional efficiency, the Moyer cop took in the situation with a sweeping gaze, pausing a moment to register Sam and Dean before shifting his attention to Luther, the orderly, and Archie Davick.
“What the hell happened here?”
“Patients behaving oddly,” Dean said. “The new normal.”
“God, I hope not,” Gruber said, his right hand dropping to his duty belt. “Luther? Everything under control here?”
“Far as I’m concerned, Officer Gruber,” Luther said. “Mr. Davick here might have other ideas. Promised him some sleepy juice if he doesn’t behave.”
“Or I cuff him and give him a ride in the back of my patrol car.”
“Works for me,” Luther said. “What’s it gonna be, Mr. Davick?”
“Let me go!”
Above them, an acrylic fluorescent light cover, which had been loose and dangling at one corner, slipped out of its track and fell to the carpet, while the light it had muted crackled and blinked rapidly. Startled, Luther momentarily lost his hold on Davick as shadows jumped and shifted across his face. Before Davick could pull away, Luther reached out and grabbed him by his shoulder. “Not so fa—”
Luther’s eyes seemed to lose focus, as if he were stunned, then red light flickered in them for a moment, like embers in prodded coals. The transition happened so fast, Sam almost doubted what he’d seen.
He recalled the words of the wounded lacrosse player describing her enraged coach. “Fire in her eyes.”
Is that what she saw?
Luther’s big hands clamped down on Davick’s shoulders, painfully, judging by the way the smaller man winced.
When Luther spoke again, his voice was preternaturally deep, as if some otherworldly force was speaking through his towering body rather than Luther himself. “Some need to fall in line. But some won’t listen.”
“Please!” Davick gasped, his face ashen. “You’re—hurting me!”
Sensing the sudden change in Luther’s demeanor, Gruber stepped forward, a taser held in his outstretched hand. “Luther, that’s enough,” he said in a calm but firm tone. The taser’s laser sights darted across Davick’s body up to Luther’s shoulder and neck area, but the shot was far from ideal. “Let him go. I’ll take it from here.”
“Let this set an example for all of you,” Luther said, releasing Davick’s shoulders long enough to grab his jaw in his right hand, the back of his head in his left and twist violently, snapping Davick’s spine.
In the hallway, a woman screamed.
“Jesus, Luther!”
Luther released Davick’s head. The man’s limp body collapsed on the linoleum floor with a muffled thump. Reaching into his back pocket, the large orderly withdrew a folded hunting knife with a carbon fiber handle.
As he flipped open the steel blade, Gruber fired the taser. The cartridge popped. Electricity crackled as the probes struck Luther’s abdomen and delivered five-thousand paralyzing volts. Luther’s hand convulsed on the knife handle. He staggered forward without muscular control and collapsed, his body convulsing.
When his body struck the floor, the overhead lights flickered off and on several times. Luther’s shadow jittered around his large body as if it too had been electrified. Then, as the light normalized, the shadow seemed to detach from Luther’s prone form and dart away.
Noticing the odd movement of the shadow, Sam cast a concerned look at Dean, who nodded. He’d seen it too. Compared to a demon vacating a meat suit in a column of black smoke vomiting up from the host’s mouth, the departing shadow was subtle enough to miss if you weren’t looking for something odd. While Sam’s brain wanted to chalk it up to a trick of the light or an optical illusion, something to dismiss as having no consequence, his hunter’s instincts warned him to ignore it at his own peril.
After five seconds, the taser’s electrical assault ceased and Luther lay still. Gruber wasted no time kneeling on the back of the orderly’s legs and slipping a zip tie over his wrists. He released the expended taser cartridge and holstered the device.
“On your feet,” Gruber ordered, hooking his hand inside Luther’s right elbow to help him stand.
The emergency room doctor, who had hung back during the outbreak of violence, rushed forward to check on Davick, but it was too late for medical intervention. Davick’s fate was sealed before his body struck the floor.
Wounded and scared patients climbed to their feet and came out from behind overturned tables and chairs, talking softly among themselves. Davick’s death had shaken all of them, even those who had been active participants in the free-for-all battle. The worst offenders stood with hunched shoulders and downcast faces, hoping to avoid opprobrium and possible arrest. A few muttered, “What happened?” or “Do you remember?”
Sam moved beside Dean and whispered, “You notice his eyes?”
“Before the voice change?”
Sam nodded. “Something the girl said about her coach.”
“‘Fire in her eyes,’” Dean said. “I remember.”
“Like the flash in a shifter’s eyes,” Sam said. The retinal flare in shapeshifter eyes was a bright gold rather than red, and their eyes appeared white on surveillance camera footage.
The doctor called Alexis to his side, where they conferred and adjusted the triage hierarchy based upon the additional wounds suffered during the fighting. He asked Stan, the other orderly, to grab a gurney and take Davick to the morgue immediately. Then, he told Lindsay to call the medical examiner. Before retreating to the treatment area, the doctor looked around the room. “For those who don’t know me, I’m Dr. Machett, and I’m truly sorry all of you had to witness this horrifying incident.” He looked toward Luther, who seemed confused more than anything else, as if he were caught in some dream of unwarranted persecution. “And I apologize for the circumstances that led to this… But I promise you, Mr. Broady will face the full wrath of the law for what he’s done.”
Frowning, Broady looked at Gruber and spoke softly. “Tom? What’s he talking about? I tried to stop the fight before…”
“Quiet, Luther,” Gruber said. “I plan to take your statement—after I read you your rights. But we have dozens of eyewitnesses.”
“To what?” Luther asked, perplexed. “What happened?”
“If you choose to stay,” the doctor continued, “I will treat you. If you prefer to leave and seek care elsewhere, I understand.”
As the doctor walked back to the treatment area, Gruber raised his hand to command everyone’s
attention. “Before you leave, I need to get contact information and take statements from all of you.”
Some people groaned or muttered complaints, but a man had been murdered and numerous others had been assaulted, potentially resulting in numerous criminal charges and civil lawsuits. Considering they were in a room with a dead man and some of those present might be uncomfortable or traumatized by the incident, Lindsay suggested they use one of the hospital’s conference rooms.
Gruber thanked her for the recommendation and turned to the Winchesters. “I’ll call for backup, but I need to get Broady processed. And there’s likely to be additional arrests. So, I’d like to get your statements first since you witnessed a good bit of this. That all right with you?”
Playing his role as an FBI agent, Sam nodded with an “of course” attitude, while Dean almost grimaced as he gave a half-hearted, “Yeah.”
Not that Sam blamed his brother. By this point, they were certain something other than free will was responsible for Moyer’s pranks, vandalism, assaults and, now, murder. Until they discovered and stopped the true cause of the disturbances, they had to follow the law enforcement playbook.
They backed away from the clusters of patients, seated and milling around, so they could talk in private. “We’ve come a long way from middle-aged streakers,” Dean said grimly. “We need to figure out what this is.”
“So far, we know it’s something. But is it one something,” Sam asked, “or many somethings?”
“Don’t kid yourself, Sam,” Dean said. “We’re outnumbered.”
“Yeah.”
TEN
As darkness fell across Moyer, shadows cast by the surrendering sun stretched like taffy across pavement and blacktop, scaling walls and spanning fences. Everything solid and certain was tethered to a funhouse-mirror world, without weight or substance or continuity. Streetlights flickered to life, spawning temporary shadows riven by headlights. Security lights blazed, casting stark shadows unseen in daylight hours, while motion detectors presented temporary performances of light and shade when anyone crossed their path.
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