Henry Addison, who napped throughout the day but could never seem to sleep through the night, sipped from a bowl of tomato soup and told Dean he’d simply toppled off his stool. “Sad to say, I knocked Mabel James off her stool as well,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s my fault she’s laid up with a sprained ankle.”
None of them experienced the brief wakefulness Pete had. None had any warning before the event. Wherever they had stood or sat, they all went down hard. And they all awoke within seconds of each other.
Taking another tack, Dean asked them if they recalled anything usual happening in the days leading up to the midnight event. A few mentioned the afternoon thunderstorms, but nothing stood out.
Dean ordered a slice of blueberry pie, had it boxed and took it to go. He recalled the last time he’d had blueberry pie. Sam had been kidnapped and tortured for information by Lady Bevell—an early black mark against the British Men of Letters. After they rescued Sam and returned to the bunker, their mother bought Dean a delicious blueberry pie. He smiled, and wondered what she was doing now.
He stopped next at Placko Products and talked to the front desk security guard, asking about the reports of casualties after the blackout. Beyond the guard station, Dean heard the rumble of conveyor belts and the continual beeping of forklift horns. If he stayed much longer, he thought the sound might drive him crazy. But maybe it became one more layer of white noise in the factory.
Ed Brunson, a site manager instructed the guard to “give Agent Tench a visitor badge” and then he took Dean on a tour of the facility. The Placko employees experienced a series of minor injuries and one deadly one. A night shift supervisor had died during the incident, falling down a metal staircase that gave access to a catwalk that overlooked the forty-foot high warehouse.
“Horrible accident,” Ed said as they stopped near the stairway. “Larry was a great guy. Been here since day one. The way it happened…” He looked up the stairs and Dean thought he detected a slight shiver of dread. “Could have been any one of us working that shift.”
“Where were you when it happened?”
“In my office,” he said. “One second, I’m checking our numbers on the computer. Next thing I know my face is mashed on the keyboard.”
Dean talked to a few of the employees, several who had suffered some bumps and bruises and heard more of the same. No warning, no recall. He turned in his visitor badge and returned to the Impala.
“Frigging wild goose chase,” he muttered softly as he shoved the key in the ignition. The motor turned over, rumbling reassuringly. He could always count on Baby.
Glancing at the empty seat beside him, he wondered if Sam had had better luck reviewing security footage with Gruber. If he had, he probably would have checked in with Dean. Before deciding on his next move, he glanced at the box from the diner and decided a slice of pie might provide some investigative inspiration.
With the car idling, he wolfed down the pie and tossed the plastic fork in the box. “Thanks, Donnie,” he said, finally deciding to return to the motel and wait for Sam’s call. If his brother had been staring at security footage all night with nothing to show for it, Dean doubted a second pair of tired eyes would unlock Moyer’s mysteries.
He flicked on the radio, which he’d already tuned to the local classic rock station, and shuddered at Donnie’s taste in music. But, that gave him an idea. Donnie had mentioned scrapped plans to go to Gyrations last night. He wondered what happened when everyone on a crowded dance floor took a dive in the middle of an EDM set. With rapid movement, the potential for injury probably increased. And if some of those dancers had been drinking alcohol or using illicit drugs, or a combination, their experiences with the blackout might have been altered in a way that would give some clue how the whole thing went down.
Of course, if repeatedly beeping forklifts had rubbed his nerves raw, he had no idea how long he could tolerate EDM purgatory. Oh, well. Nobody ever said hunting was easy.
A neon sign spelled out the dance club name on its widest wall. To the right of the word Gyrations, blue and pink outlines of neon dancers—not much more than stick figures—shifted back and forth. Rather than a passable demonstrating of gyrating, the binary motion of the stick figures looked more like the hokey pokey. As Dean pulled into the parking lot, the music blasting from inside the club overwhelmed a Clapton guitar solo coming from his car speakers as several people stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. Reluctantly, Dean switched off the ignition and the stereo.
“No turning back now,” he muttered as he crossed the parking lot to enter the black-and-silver building.
In the lobby, a perky hostess in a glittery silver dress requested a cover charge in exchange for a wristband entitling him to two free drinks. Instead, Dean flashed his FBI credentials and said, “Official business.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised, her smile faltering. “Can I help?”
The building vibrated with repetitive, pulsing electronic music. He could feel it through the soles of his boots. Though tempted to say neighbors had filed a noise complaint, he asked if she’d worked the previous night during the blackouts. But that had been her regular night off, and she’d been home all night, in Bakersburg. He noticed a small black ribbon pinned to her dress and inquired about it.
“In memory of Lettie Gibbs,” she said. “One of our servers. She died last night.”
“What happened?”
“It was awful,” she said, momentarily covering her mouth. “They said she fell and—and she sliced her throat on a broken champagne bottle. By the time everyone woke up…”
“You know her?”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dean said. “I’d like to talk to anyone who was here when it happened.”
“Sure,” she said, and waved him down a short hallway decorated with flashing, multicolored, multidirectional neon piping that ended at two smoky glass doors, each in the shape of a half circle. As he approached, both doors swung open toward him, greeting him with an undiluted blast of EDM.
Inside the main room a long, curving glass-and-chrome bar overlooked a large dance floor surrounded by recessed spaces with intimate tables in a similar style, each a step to three steps up from the dancers. More multicolored neon piping decorated black walls scattered throughout an abundance of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Rotating spotlights and an impressive assortment of strobe lights created flares on the chrome and, combined with the mirrors, made the interior space a dizzying spectacle.
Along with the two free drinks, Dean thought the cover charge should include a handful of aspirin. Even allowing for the soul-crushing music, Dean found the size of the crowd—including those on the dance floor, sitting at tables or clustered along the bar—a bit underwhelming. On the other hand, only a day had passed since a cocktail server had had her throat severed by a broken bottle, so he was surprised anyone had showed up at all. And now that he looked around, he realized the dancers were a bit subdued in their movements. Pairs and groups conversing evinced serious expressions more often than smiling, animated chatter.
Dean flashed his ID at the nearest bartender and ordered a bottle of beer. Might help the music go down. But he doubted it.
With a deft movement, the bartender flipped the cap off the beer bottle and pushed it toward Dean along with a frosted mug. Dean ignored the mug and took a swig right from the bottle. “Investigating the blackout.”
“Awful night,” the bartender said.
“You were here?”
He nodded. “Real shame about Lettie,” he said. “Manager decided to close the place in the morning, out of respect, but some of her friends wanted to take up a collection for her family. Lot of the regulars knew her.” He nodded toward a collection jar a few stools down the counter with a photo of a smiling young woman taped to the front above her name in large print with details about the collection in smaller print below.
Dean asked him what he experienced around the blackout event. Within a few
minutes, word spread, and other servers stopped by to relay their accounts. Even some of the regular customers added their pieces to the puzzle. The physical toll of the blackout, beyond Lettie’s death, included sprains, contusions, a few broken noses, chipped teeth and one broken jaw. Most of those injured the previous night hadn’t come back, but many others had returned to discuss the shared experience with each other.
Gareth, a Gyrations server with an assortment of sterling silver facial piercings, was convinced aliens had abducted the residents of Moyer the previous night. “For experimentation,” he said. “Explains the lost time.”
“That’s a lot of people to probe,” Dean said. “In a short amount of time.”
“Okay, maybe not all of us,” he said, adapting his theory on the fly. “But with everyone out cold, they could pick and choose who they wanted—and maybe those are the ones acting crazy now.”
“Interesting theory.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” Dean said, suppressing a chuckle.
“Aliens smart enough to travel across the galaxy would have tech good enough to hide themselves from us.”
“That’s enough, Gareth,” said Erin, another server, as she stepped away with a drink order. “Want that FBI man to toss you in the loony bin?”
“Hey,” Gareth called after her. “For all we know, they could be standing here right now watching us!”
Not if they have any taste in music, Dean thought.
Dean tried to determine if any of them had resisted the initial blackout, as had Pete the short-order cook, or if any of them had woken up before the others. But his questioning revealed nothing beyond the expected responses. Neither alcohol nor illicit substances had any mitigating effect on the loss of consciousness.
He looked around the dance club again. Saw a couple stuff some bills in the Lettie fund jar. The woman squeezed the man’s hand and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
Hard to believe less than twenty-four hours have passed—
Dean glanced at his phone display.
11:58 PM.
“Standing here right now watching us…”
Sam and he had been treating the blackout as a one-time event and the weird behavior that followed as an ongoing problem to investigate. The police were so busy putting out fires, they had no time to deal with the blackout that preceded them. And the residents of Moyer treated the blackout like a localized natural disaster, even so far as to collect funds to help the survivors. But what if everything was based on a faulty assumption? They had no idea how or why the blackout happened, which meant they had no reason to believe it couldn’t happen again.
11:59 PM.
Pushing his beer bottle away, Dean stood up, turned toward the dance floor and cupped his hands around his mouth so everyone would hear him over the synthesized dance track, “Listen! Everybody down! On the floor—now!”
Those who heard him turned toward him, confused frowns on their faces. But most of them couldn’t hear him above the music.
Confused, the bartender caught Dean’s arm. “What’s going on?”
Dean spotted Erin, a few stools away, filling her serving tray with several cocktail glasses. He sprang toward her, slapped his hand on the tray as she started to lift it off the bar, rattling the glasses. “Everyone—down!”
More quizzical looks from those around him.
“It’s almost midnight!”
Erin’s eyes opened wide in understanding.
Nodding, Dean turned to the bartender. “This could happen ag—!”
FOURTEEN
Disoriented, Dean woke up and took stock. Lying on his side. Elbow and chin sore. Felt as if he’d taken a punch.
EDM blasted from recessed speakers, all around him, helping him recall where he’d been when he’d lost consciousness. Gyrations, right before midnight. It had happened to him. A blackout. A second blackout, possibly across the entire town again. Patting his pockets, he searched for his phone, then remembered he’d left it on the bar. He climbed to his feet, raised the phone and read the display.
12:02 AM.
Behind and in front of the bar and across the dance floor, people groaned and stumbled as they stood up, almost swaying in unison as they recovered from the simultaneous collapse and unconsciousness.
Not as long this time.
Like an aftershock…?
Dean struggled to recall his last few moments, basically interviewing himself in the immediate aftermath, before his memory faded. But what memory? Trying to warn the others. Unable to finish a sentence. The sensory shutdown and the process of falling happened so close together, he only had a sensation of collapsing without feeling any of the physical effects—until he awoke.
Even though he’d seen it coming, and tried to warn everyone, he’d been unable to fight it off. Before his elbow or chin struck the floor, he was out cold. And he had to agree with the description others had given. It had happened as suddenly as if he had a power switch on the back of his head and a random passerby had flicked it off. There hadn’t been anything to fight off. One moment he’d been completely alert and aware, even adrenalized by what he feared was about to happen, and the next moment… nothing.
Once Dean got his bearings, he examined his surroundings. The music continued to play, the roving spotlights followed their automated pattern, and the strobe lights pulsing above the dance floor continued to induce headaches. Next, he checked for any serious injuries. Erin rubbed her own elbow, hobbling around on a broken high heel. Frustrated, she pulled off the undamaged shoe and snapped off that heel, so she could walk without the forced limp of a wardrobe malfunction.
One of the dancers had fallen near a table, sweeping glasses to the floor and landing on top of some broken shards, lacerating her forearm. She held the bleeding arm away from her dress as she walked gingerly toward the bar.
The bartender Dean tried to warn before the second blackout declared himself a trained EMT and left the bar to treat her. Almost everyone else had pulled through with bumps and bruises. Though most hadn’t understood Dean’s warning, they had stopped in their tracks to listen, so had simply collapsed where they stood. While he had their attention, he asked if anyone remembered anything unusual—other than his shouted warning—before they fell, or if anyone had awakened before 12:02. Again, no outliers. A uniform event for all of them.
More lost time. A lot could happen in two minutes when you lay unresponsive, completely helpless. Dean wondered if the whole town of Moyer had fallen into a state of unconsciousness again. This event had been shorter than the first, possibly not as widespread. Too soon to tell.
He picked up his phone to call Sam, but noticed movement on the other side of the smoked-glass half-circle doors a moment before they automatically swung open. A man in jeans and boots strode through the doorway as if he belonged there. He seemed dressed for a barstool rather than a dance floor, but he made a beeline toward the mass of people below.
Dean tried to recall if he’d seen the man earlier, if he’d possibly stepped outside for a cigarette when the blackout happened and was now rejoining a group of friends or a date. Nothing about the man’s face seemed familiar. He neither called nor signaled to anyone present, and nobody acknowledged his approach. If he had arrived right before the blackout and taken a sudden plunge, Dean might have expected him to order a shot of whiskey before busting a move.
Maybe he’s not a drinker.
Nevertheless, something was off about the guy. At first, Dean couldn’t decide what bothered him. Then it came to him. The man never looked to his left or right. No doubt, no hesitation, no curiosity, as if he didn’t care what happened or what happened to him. On the other hand, it had been a weird couple of nights in Moyer. Maybe the guy finally decided to dance like nobody was watching.
Dean turned back toward the bar, about to place his call, when a woman screamed, “He’s got a knife!”
Shoving the phone in his pocket, Dean sprinted toward the dance
floor, mentally kicking himself for not trusting his instincts. He veered left from the man’s right side, saw the raised hunting knife. At the edge of the strobe lights, the man froze mid-step a split-second before Dean drove a shoulder into his ribs. During the man’s brief pause, Dean noticed dark streaks on the gleaming blade—blood—and recalled the perky hostess from Bakersburg who had tried to collect a cover charge.
The man never braced for impact, never turned to fend off Dean’s attack. As a result, Dean drove him sideways several yards before they crashed into four tall-legged chairs around a small circular glass table. Everything fell over with a thundering crash, including the table and the cocktail glasses and beer bottles previously atop it, momentarily drowning out the pulsing rhythm of the endless EDM mix.
Dean sprang to his feet and reached for the man’s knife hand—but found it empty. The knife had spun out of his grip, sliding across the floor to stop against the wall, trailing a few drops of blood. Expecting the man to lunge for the blade, Dean moved between him and the wall, but he sat there, dazed and motionless, leaning back on his elbows.
They faced each other in the relatively sheltered conversational nook where the table and chairs had been positioned. Beyond the glare of the roving spotlights and the intense flicker-flash of the strobe lights, the music was slightly quieter.
“Who—What are you?” Dean asked.
Red light flickered in the man’s eyes, like static on an old television set.
Lost signal?
The man’s arms gave out and his body went limp. He flopped onto his back, the back of his head striking the floor hard enough to elicit a sympathetic wince.
Unsure what to expect, Dean approached cautiously.
“Hey! Anybody home?”
Suddenly, the man’s body convulsed, caught in the throes of a seizure.
After a quick step back, Dean paused, startled as the man sagged again. But this time, a darkness deeper than the surrounding shadows around them emerged from the man’s body, as if he’d excreted it from his pores. To Dean’s amazement, the darker shadow flowed upright in the middle of the nook, without being cast against a wall or against a piece of toppled furniture. A man-shaped silhouette of darkness, it seemed to exist in space, right before him.
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