“We’re guests in your home,” Dean said. “Not looking for evidence of any crimes. We want to make sure your house is not vulnerable.”
“Let them check, Dad,” Maurice said.
“If it’s okay with your mother,” Hogarth said. “I don’t have a problem with it.”
Maurice’s mother, though startled to find two FBI agents in her home, consented to the full scan. Room by room, almost treating the floor plan of each story as a grid, Sam scanned the Hogarth home for elevated EMF. Over a half-hour later, Sam declared the home safe. Clearly relieved, Maurice shook both of their hands vigorously in thanks.
* * *
Back in the Impala, Dean looked at Sam, whose demeanor matched his own. The kid had been upset, with good reason. And his relief was warranted, but the EMF all-clear was no guarantee that the shadow creature wouldn’t return the next night. Or five minutes after the Winchesters left.
Dean’s parting advice to Maurice had been to expand the black light coverage to his entire bedroom. That precaution would protect him from the threat of possession—while he remained in his bedroom—but didn’t guard against the possibility of physical harm. The black-lit shadow had no problem slicing open human flesh.
If they want us dead, Dean thought, slicing our throats is a brutally efficient way to get it done.
TWENTY-TWO
As the sun rose over Central Avenue in Moyer’s business district, the shadows compressed, faded and disappeared, but not all were banished. Beneath awnings and trees, along alleys and driveways, beside trashcans and under cars and outdoor tables, traces of darkness lingered. Inside every store, behind doors and under counters, they remained. In basements and closets, they persisted.
During the day, the free shadows of Moyer traversed two-dimensional planes among the living residents of Moyer, sliding up and down walls, gliding along floors and sidewalks, slipping under doorways, completely unnoticed. But many of the shadows had grown impatient with the wan existence. Once they had a sample of real life, however brief, they wanted more. As easily as humans slipped into a jacket, the free shadows slipped into humans. The briefer the experience, the more intensity they desired.
Harold Turnbaugh, an elderly man walking east along Central Avenue slowed as he neared a middle-aged woman standing at a curb, carrying a shopping bag. As a panel truck delivering appliances rumbled through a green light and approached them, the man stopped behind the woman, waited a moment, then placed both hands against her upper back and shoved with all his might. The woman shrieked as she stumbled forward, losing her balance and tumbling face first. Before her body hit the street, the truck rammed into her. The driver hit the brakes hard, but too late. The dead woman rolled half a block before the shattered bones of her broken body came to a halt, oozing blood.
Harold turned on his heel and walked westward for almost a block before stopping, confused, checking street signs to determine where he had wandered since he’d come downtown. He failed to notice the dark streak that had spread beneath his feet and darted between two stores. Behind him people shouted, something about a woman having been pushed in front of a truck and killed. He stared at the scene of the accident, but couldn’t make out any details.
Not wanting to gawk, he decided to cross the street to avoid the area when someone pointed in his direction and yelled, “That’s him! Right there! That’s the guy that shoved her!”
Harold looked over his shoulder, but he stood alone.
* * *
Craig Westerlund rolled his Audi to a stop in front of Sino Savings & Loan, windows rolled down, heavy metal music blasting from the speakers from a radio station that had never been one of his presets. Reaching over to the passenger seat, he picked up the lug nut wrench he’d removed from the trunk before leaving the parking lot at work. He climbed out of the car, idling in park, and set the wrench on the roof while he took off his suit jacket and tossed it through the window. In shirtsleeves, he marched into the savings and loan, cut in front of the line control stanchions and their retractable barriers and approached the first teller window.
The elderly woman standing there, with her checkbook out, along with a deposit slip and multiple rolls of pennies, saw the look on his face and the wrench in his hand. She emitted an involuntary squeak of alarm, grabbed her belongings and scurried to the other side of the lobby.
Taking her place at the window, Craig placed the wrench on the counter.
The teller, a thin man with a long face and pinched features, croaked out one word, “Sir?”
“Everything in your drawer or I split your skull open.”
“Is this—Is this a—?”
The three other tellers and their customers had begun to stare at the confrontation. Several customers backed away and the old woman whispered to anyone who would listen, “He has a weapon.”
Craig glanced at the brown nameplate on the counter that read, Jay Lauzier.
“Now, Jay!”
“Right, okay,” Jay said, scooping out the bills one row at a time and stacking them on the counter.
When he reached for the coins in front, Craig said, “Keep the change.”
“Of—Of course.”
“Thanks, Jay,” Craig said as he stuffed his trouser pockets with banded and loose bills. “I might try a real bank next. They have security guards and probably a lot more money.”
As he walked toward the exit, an occasional loose bill falling out of his stuffed pockets, the grimy lug nut wrench resting on the shoulder of his white shirt, someone shouted. “Call the police!”
“I already pressed the alarm,” Jay said.
With one hand poised on the door handle, Craig paused and shook his head. Whirling around, he loped back toward the teller window with a broad smile plastered on his face. “Had to ruin our moment, Jay!”
“I’m sorry—I won’t—!”
“Actions have consequences, Jay,” Craig said as he swung the lug nut wrench down like a hammer and crushed the back of Jay’s left hand.
Screaming in pain, Jay clutched the broken hand to his chest.
“Sincerely hope that was the hand that pressed the alarm,” Craig said, grinning. “Otherwise, we have to do this all over again. Was that the hand, Jay?”
Jay nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yes!”
Craig heard sirens and frowned. He raised the bloodied lug nut wrench and turned in a slow circle, taking in the customers, the tellers, and the branch manager who had poked her head out of her office upon hearing the commotion.
His voice abruptly deeper, Craig said, “Let this set an example for all of you.”
For a second time, he walked to the exit, seemingly unhurried despite the imminent arrival of the police. He strolled to his car, climbed into the driver’s seat and tossed the wrench over to the passenger side.
He placed his hands on the steering wheel but didn’t shift the car into drive. Instead, he stared through the windshield, eyes unfocused. A few seconds later, he shook his head and looked around, confused, wincing at the music blasting from the speakers. Immediately, he switched off the stereo before the bass gave him a headache.
Last thing he remembered was stopping at the water cooler for a drink before heading back to his desk at work. At the sound of paper rustling, he glanced down and saw thick rolls of bills falling out of his trouser pockets. Fives, tens and twenties spilled onto the seat and fluttered onto the floor of the car. Without even counting the money, he realized it was much more than the maximum allowable cash withdrawal from an ATM machine. So, how—?
Glancing out the window, he read the sign for the Sino Savings & Loan, which explained the source of the cash. But he banked at Jefferson National. Even if he’d applied for a loan, he’d have to wait for the approval and they would have given him a check. Why so much cash?
As he sat at the curb, he debated walking into the savings and loan and asking them why he’d requested the money—
His gaze had drifted across the other side of the car, to the lug nut
wrench, smeared with bright crimson—blood?
The sound of police sirens had become almost deafening. Looking through the windshield and then the rearview mirror, he understood why. Two patrol cars had pulled up on either side of his car, parking at angles to effectively box him in at the curb.
As the cops jumped out of their cars, guns drawn and pointed at him, Craig thought he must have been carjacked by a bank robber. If he’d been pistol-whipped, left unconscious with a concussion, that might explain the memory loss.
But why had the criminal left him with the money?
“Out of the car now!” one cop shouted.
“Hands where we can see them!” yelled the other.
Resigned, Craig opened the car door and stepped out.
Maybe they know what happened to me…
* * *
A few blocks from the Sweet Town Bakery, Jeremy Krepps walked along Central Avenue with the aid of a rubber-tipped wooden cane. Due to an unfortunate bout of clumsiness, he’d torn ligaments in his knee while playing tennis with an old college friend at one of the free courts in Penninger Park. After surgery and rehab, the knee had progressed to the point where he thought he could ditch the cane in a week or two, though it came in handy ascending stairs. Walking became a regular part of his rehab, so he tended to walk the route of his weekly errands.
After a trim at A Cut Above Salon, he walked toward the Red Rooster Tavern for lunch. Figured he’d grab a burger and a beer and walk it off on his way home. He had to cross over to the westbound side of Central Avenue, so made his way to the nearest crosswalk. Focusing on approaching traffic, he failed to notice the approaching rumble of polyurethane wheels. As he took a step toward the crosswalk, a teenager old enough to have been a dropout, but who had probably ditched school for the day, flashed in front of him. Jeremy flinched, tweaking his recovering knee as he recoiled from the collision. The kid’s shoulder whacked Jeremy’s left arm and the blow added another twist to the knee.
“Damn it!” Jeremy said.
The kid had to hop off the skateboard to keep from falling. That concession seemed to aggravate him more than the collision. “Dude, watch where you’re going!”
“Me?” Jeremy said incredulously. “You cut right in front of me!”
The redirected skateboard rolled into the intersection a moment before a public transit bus cruised through the crosswalk. The bus’s right front tire rolled over the middle of the skateboard and split it in half.
“Son of a bitch!” the kid shouted. “You’re paying for that, gimp!”
Jeremy tried to ignore the throbbing in his knee. “How is that my fault?”
“You got in my way,” the kid said. “That board cost me one-fifty. Pay up!”
“I’m not paying a dime for your negligence,” Jeremy said. “You shouldn’t even be on the sidewalk with that thing!”
Neither of them noticed that when the ripple of the bus’s shadow passed, a darker shadow passed through it to their side of the crosswalk, momentarily settling under a nearby tree.
“One-fifty now, gimp,” the kid demanded, right hand extended. “Or I beat it out of you.”
“Get lo—!”
A wave of darkness blotted out Jeremy’s vision and—
—his body convulsed, as if he were in the throes of a silent coughing spasm. When he straightened, a smile spread across his face.
“What’s so funny, dumbass?” the kid asked.
Jeremy raised his cane, gripping it in two hands like a baseball bat, and whacked the kid in the head, splitting his ear open with the first blow. When the kid yelped and cowered in pain, Jeremy swung again, breaking his nose. A third blow toppled him.
With the kid curled into the fetal position and bawling in pain, Jeremy stood over him, a fiendish gleam in his eyes, and mercilessly continued the assault. One blow split open the kid’s scalp, the next gashed his cheek, and a third knocked two teeth loose. The kid was unconscious when the cane cracked and split in half.
Jeremey studied the jagged end of the top half of the cane and looked down at the kid’s bruised and bloodied face, settling on the closed eyes. Kneeling beside the kid to get a better angle, he raised the half-cane to strike and—
—someone sprinted across the crosswalk and caught his arm on the downstroke, the jagged tip of the half-cane inches away from the kid’s left eyelid.
“Hey, buddy!” the guy said as he pulled Jeremy up and away from the unconscious skateboarder. “Anger management issues?”
Jeremy blinked rapidly, shook his head and stared at the stranger. He had the weird sensation he’d passed out. “Where—Where did you come from?”
“Red Rooster Tavern,” the stranger said. “I saw you whaling on—”
“Oh, Red Rooster,” Jeremy said, remembering his lunch plans. “What are the specials?”
“Specials? Seriously?” the stranger looked down. “You almost killed that kid.”
“Kid? What—?” Jeremy looked down at the bloodied youth at his feet. “Who—How? I don’t understand.”
When he noticed the bloody remnant of his cane, still clutched in his hand, both of his knees buckled.
* * *
Near the edge of the commercial district, the Moyer Public Library existed as a quiet oasis. Unless a stay-at-home parent brought in young children or an elementary school class dropped in on a field trip, Bonnie Lassiter, the head librarian, spent most of the afternoon in contemplative silence.
She stacked returned books on the wheeled cart to take them back to their shelf locations. With each passing week, it seemed as if the number of returned books dwindled. Not because people forgot to return them, but because fewer people checked out physical books. Many adults who continued to read books rather than spend their free time on social media, had apps to download eBooks from the library’s online catalog. Virtual patrons checked out and returned virtual books from a virtual library. A procession of ghosts in the machine, never initiating human contact.
In the evenings, various clubs and groups came in for weekly or monthly meetings, breathing needed life into the library. Others came in to use the computers and the free Internet connection. Where librarians had once fielded all sorts of questions, these days the answers were waiting at the click of a search engine’s submit button.
Sometimes, though, the physical books stored on row after row of shelves seemed like an afterthought, remnants of a bygone era. Other than her college years, Bonnie had spent her whole life in Moyer, a small town with a pace geared toward those who consciously chose that environment over the frenetic, anxiety-laden life in a big city. And while they couldn’t escape the inevitable march of progress, they were happy to follow behind at a safe distance.
Her wheeled cart filled with all the books returned in the last twenty-four hours, most via the drop box outside—yet another convenience that had the unfortunate side effect of discouraging visits—Bonnie rolled toward a bookcase on the far left of the library, hardcover fiction. Out of habit, she listened for a telltale squeak from the left front wheel, the one that continually needed a drop of oil to quiet its protests.
Instead she heard the whoosh of the automatic doors opening and closing, but no other sound. From where she stood with the cart, she couldn’t see the entrance. “If you need assistance, I’ll be with you in a moment!”
No answer.
She eased the cart to the end of the aisle, almost thought she heard the wheel squeak, but wiggling the cart back and forth produced no sound. The squeaky wheel reminded her of her troublesome left knee, though she had no quick fixes to quell its complaints. First touch of arthritis there, she thought with a melancholy smile, a foothold in the knee. But lately, her fingers had become a bit achy and stiff, less nimble.
Bonnie plucked the first book from her cart and was about to shelve it when the thump and rustle of many falling books startled her. Alarmed, she almost dropped the book. The sound had come from across the library.
“Hello?” she called. “A
re you okay?”
Again, no answer.
Generally, Bonnie assumed the best in people, but she had kept up with the news of people in town behaving not just badly, but criminally, in some cases. Streaking, vandalism, physical assault and, if she could believe the report, murder by an orderly after a riot in the emergency room at the county hospital.
She left her wheeled cart in the fiction aisle and walked cautiously toward the sound of the disturbance. Patting the pocket of her cardigan, she belatedly remembered that she’d left her cell phone on a shelf under the front counter. As she passed the corner of her office, she could see the counter and the front entrance. A few steps farther toward the other side of the building and she’d be able to see where the books had fallen.
At first, she failed to see the young man. Her eyeline had been too high. When she scanned for the books, she saw him sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the nonfiction bookcases, his head barely visible above the waist-high shelves. Sitting there, he appeared nonthreatening, as if he were resting or meditating in a quiet place. Curious, she walked around the low shelf and approached the open space where he sat staring straight ahead.
The books came into view, arranged in front of the man in the shape of a number, eighty-eight. But the glossy library slipcovers looked damp, with a few scattered drops of fluid on the floor around them. A thin aluminum can with a red plastic cap on the floor was next to the man’s hip—
Lighter fluid!
The young man turned his head toward her, his faraway gaze finally locking on her, and his mouth opened slowly. For a moment, she thought he would speak, but his mouth closed and opened a few times without him uttering a sound. She had the weird impression that he’d forgotten how to speak.
With a resigned sigh, he struck a match and raised the flame over the mound of doused books.
“No!” she shouted, rushing forward to stop him.
Too late.
He dropped the burning match on the nearest book. The flames spread quickly, setting the number eighty-eight ablaze.
“Why?” she asked, shaking.
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