Burdens, Doublefold - Chapter 3
As it so happened, by ‘help’ Elkins had in mind a total burn-out.
They opted to wait until the next morning to launch their assault, making full use of the sun’s handy combustion power. Dean was dragging ass anyways, after Sam’s crazy-cakes phone call the night before.
The vampires were holed up in a barn, not the most glamorous of nests but then bloodsucking wasn’t a generally recognized hobby of the wealthy. Despite the bright blue sky, it was cold - so cold Dean’s breath froze on his lips and made the tips of his ears sting. He reasoned that vampires weren’t bugged by a change in temperature. Guess dead was dead.
His clothes and hair smelled of smoke; back at the trucks before they’d scouted up on the decrepit structure, Elkins had lit a thick braid of dried sage and let the resulting smoke wash over the lot of them, obscuring the warm, tasty smell of humanity. Once, Dean had attended a Native American smudging ritual that had actually managed to rid a split-level ranch of a haunting. Since then, he’d always appreciated the smell of burning sage.
That fragrance, and spotting a posse of wild turkeys alongside the road, had reminded Dean it was, in fact, Thanksgiving Day. While the Winchesters hardly stood on ceremony, the brothers had always taken the trouble to phone, even if it was just to exchange voicemails. And that was what Dean had been forced to do: Leave a message after the tone. He didn’t like it one bit, but he didn’t have the time to brood. There were bloodsuckers to fry.
Elkins’ words plumed white as he spoke, his voice a low rumble that carried an edge of thrill. “Alright, here’s the deal. I’ll circle ‘round the barn with a gas can. The fleas should be sleepin’ but that don’t mean they won’t wake up. Sun’s a bitch, but it won’t keep ‘em inside if push comes to shove. Fire, on the other hand…” Elkins grinned, and slapped a Molotov cocktail into Dean’s palm. “Soon as you see me at the last corner, light up and let loose. It’ll take ‘em a few minutes to get their shit together then they’ll be tryin’ to get out the door, day-blind. Be like shootin’ fish in a barrel.”
John nodded tersely, not nearly as confident as Elkins appeared. The two hunters were cut from very different cloth, that was damned clear to Dean. And as stoked as Dean was to be hunting a fiend as legendary as a vampire, he shared John’s ill ease. Something wasn’t sitting right. He sensed it in the pit of his stomach, a familiar ping of warning. He caught Dad’s eye, raised a brow in question but John simply nodded again and clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“You good, son? Got your lighter?”
Dean found himself saying “Yes, sir” before he could figure out what else to say.
John and Elkins clambered away, low to the ground; John kept to the edge of the woods behind broad trunks and thickets while Elkins beat a path to the barn, moving like a man half his age. Dean had no choice but to play his part.
The absurdly cheerful sunshine belied the gravity of what they were doing here. Gasoline’s sharp stink cut the air and again, Dean couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go distinctly ass-backwards. He’d long since learned to listen to that little voice, but being half the age and farther away than everyone else in this fine piece of arson, he was in no position to throw a flag on the play.
Dean watched Elkins douse the walls and disappear around the back of the building. His dad crawled along the west side, around the corner. Within minutes, smoke drifted into sight and flames began licking the edge of the barn like a living thing, chasing the spilt gas.
He heard shuffling from inside, the thud of bodies hitting the earth. Smoke billowed. The barn door flew wide, shaking the whole face of the structure, and something stumbled out. Man, monster, Dean wasn’t immediately certain until the thing squinted up and hissed. Yeah, that sealed the deal. Dean lit his rag-stuffed bottle and lobbed it at the vampire’s chest. His toss went high and the bottle cracked against the vamp’s skull before exploding. Sucked to be him. It. Whatever.
He grabbed his bow from the ground and notched off arrows-soaked in dead man’s blood-at the creatures stumbling from the building as his father and Elkins began lopping off heads. The barn sizzled and creaked. It was messy, manic business, monitoring the living from the dead, but Dean did so with a desperate focus. If there was one thing he didn’t dare do, it was hit the wrong body.
But when the girl staggered from the building, Dean pulled his shot. He knew her. Maybe? Shit, no, maybe she just looked like-
John raised his machete in a great arc, the blade gory and glistening red in the mid-morning sun.
“NO, DAD!” Dean leapt from concealment.
John hesitated. The girl, crying real tears and bleeding her own blood from bites all over her neck and arms, looked up at him and wobbled.
“Damn, she’s human. Cover me.” John dropped his blade and caught her as she fainted, Dean still spearing arrows into the chest of every leech that snarled into the sunshine.
The heat and smoke was almost smothering, forcing the Winchesters and the girl back towards the trees. Vampires weren’t spilling from the barn anymore and Dean could only hope they’d gotten the last of them.
The building groaned and listed as its rotting, load-bearing beams were consumed by the fire. The groans turned into one massive scream and the whole thing collapsed in on itself. Plumes of black and a shower of sparks filled the clearing.
Dean hunched his shoulders to the storm. When the din ebbed, he looked through stinging eyes to the disaster, smoke so thick it was almost corporeal. Daniel Elkins erupted from the mess, coughing, sooty, limping, and grinning like the cat that ate the canary. Dean still couldn’t help but feel wrong about all of it. There was another human; he knew it. Just. Knew. It.
His father was lightly smacking the girl’s cheeks, rousing her. She sputtered and darted confusion from John to the sky to what was left of the barn. And she began trembling.
“D-did you…did you f-find…oh, God, where’s Cameron? Where’s my boyfriend?” She shrieked and the barn crumpled further, punctuating her misery. Nothing was living through that. Not man, not bloodsucker.
Not Cameron, who had been trapped inside.
Dean raked a sweaty palm through his hair. Well, fuck.
__________
That evening, the three of them hit a local bar to celebrate the holiday with all the other displaced folk. It could’ve been hellishly depressing except that the beer was cold and the jukebox played Credence Clearwater Revival and the bartender was hot. She was a little closer to John’s age than his son’s, but that didn’t make it a deal-breaker.
John sat in the customary quiet he always did on days when families should be together. Still, he wore a hazy smile and even shot a couple of games of pool. Won one, lost one. Dean could tell the game he lost was deliberate.
Dean was working his way into the bartender’s favor when he saw Dad answer his phone. He paused to watch his father’s bearing for any sign it was bad news, that something had happened to Sam (Dean checked his own phone to be sure he hadn’t missed a call) or Old Yeller had been spotted, kicking orphans.
Quite the contrary; John’s eyes lit up. He spoke, nodded, even laughed. Dean begged a moment from the bartender and joined his dad at their table. Elkins was off entertaining some of the locals with stories that involved explosive hand gestures. Dean didn’t even want to know.
“You got it, Stormy. We’ll catch you tomorrow. Late, though. It’s not gonna be early rising for either of us.”
Dean grabbed a handful of peanuts-in-the-shell and sat down, brows quirked askance. “Stormy Saunders? Crazy weather dude?”
To be fair, most hunters were on the far side of crazy and Stormy fit right in. The guy’s specialty, as one might’ve supposed, was weather phenomena. When he wasn’t recording bizarre, unexplained meteorological conditions, he was chasing tornadoes in an armored car he’d named Betty. And he played a mean game of poker.
“He’s driving through Utah. Heard we’d been chasing omens, and he’s got a groundswell of ‘em.”
“All of a sudden?”
John nodded, dropping his phone back in a pocket. A switch had been flipped and he looked deadly serious, all the pleasantry drained from his face. His eyes shone with lethal interest, scalpel-sharp. “Lightning, out of nowhere. Mysterious blasts of wind. Birds dropping from the sky, dead. All over the place, and yeah, all of a sudden.”
John’s intensity made Dean uneasy but he’d still let Dad draw up the plans. And he’d still follow. “Okay. So what now?”
“We meet Stormy outside of Provo, get the intel. He said most of the activity was in Nebraska and Michigan. We’ll need to separate from there.”
“Dad, you sure you wanna split-?”
“Yes,” was all John said, and ended the discussion.
__________
As if on cue, the hefty gray clouds that had been blotting out the sun parted, and Betty rumbled into the rest area parking lot. The vehicle looked more like a mechanical armadillo than a Chevy, riveted plates and metal rubbing metal. It must’ve weighed a good four tons, lurching to a clumsy stop before a hatch opened-Dean couldn’t rightly call it a ‘door’-and Stormy Saunders squeezed out. There was a flash of hand-painted sigils on the inside of the portal before it thudded shut.
Stormy got bigger every time Dean saw him. He was nearly as tall as Sam and easily thrice as wide. His wild black hair got bigger, too, grown to the point it hung half-way down his back like some Disney princess. The only delicate thing about Stormy was the wire-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose.
He pumped Dad’s extended hand in both of his, overtly pleased to see the Winchesters.
“John! How the hell are ya?”
“Stormy…” John couldn’t help but give up a grin.
“Dean!”
Oh God, here it comes. Dean steeled himself but still felt ribs groan when Stormy wrapped him in meaty arms and squeezed.
He released Dean and cast a glance around. “Where’s little Sammy?”
“School,” John said, wandering over towards a nearby picnic shelter as the heavens clouded over again and snow began to drift down in lazy spits.
“Oh, that’s right. Big man on campus now, huh? Cool, cool.” Stormy joined John at the table and sat. The wood creaked dubiously. “Right, so. What the hell’s going on, you ask? Because I’m asking’ too. Check out this shit.” Stormy spread a folded piece of paper on the table. In flowery script was a list of coordinates and their locations, along with corresponding notes in the margins. “First thing that pinged on my radar was up in Saginaw, Michigan. Reports of dry lightning. No clouds, no heat, no reason. And there was this micro-burst of wind that blew out windows, in one particular neighborhood. Awesome, right?”
Dean joined the conversation on John’s side of the table, to balance Stormy’s ballast. “Awesome. And when was this?”
“Almost a week ago. I didn’t really think much of it until the same lightning showed up a few days later in Seattle, Washington. Again, not the right climes for this sort of event. Oh, oh! Annnnnd, the coast was slammed by a rogue mini-tsunami.” Stormy made a swooping gesture with his hands and the page went fluttering into Dean’s chest. “No causative earthquake. Came out of nowhere.”
John grabbed the page and smoothed it out again, skimming. “What’s this? In Nebraska?”
“Yup. Same time as Seattle. Sudden temperature fluctuation. Went from frost to mid-seventies in the course of ONE. HOUR. Almost got lost in the shuffle except, you know, there’s this crazy meteorologist in Lincoln-”
“Crazy? By your standards?” Dean broke in.
“Yeah, man, he makes me look like a tax accountant. He found not only the temperature thing, but a rash of still-born calves.”
“Demons’ handiwork.” John sounded almost pleased.
“Maybe.” Stormy lowered his voice and tapped the paper. “Cut to right around Thanksgiving Day. Northern lights are spotted. In San Francisco. No, nothing weird there at all. The last thing I’ve got is birds dropping out of the sky dead in San Diego. Oh, and more lightning. At first they were saying it was a sonic boom of some sort, but that’s bullshit. I checked with my guys in the military; no one was doing any sonic testing yesterday.”
The group sat in silence for a moment, digesting the information. The snow was starting to pick up and Dean stuffed his hands in his pockets, pressing his arms close to his body. Stormy noticed and buffed Dean’s shoulder with a grapefruit-sized fist. “You need a layer of padding, there, slim.”
John’s face was as dark as Dean had ever seen it. He picked up the paper and gave it a little shake. “Can we take this?”
“‘Course,” Stormy said. “All yours.”
Nodding his appreciation, John stood up and made it clear he was ready to be on his way. No moss grew on John Winchester when he decided it was time to get shit done; Dean knew this well.
They thanked Stormy, watched Betty slowly get up enough speed to merge onto the highway, and within minutes, Dean was heading northeast, to the Wolverine State. John had decided to hit Nebraska, and Dean didn’t ask why. That was Sam’s department, and Sam wasn’t here.
Cantaloupes, Jo reasoned, were roughly the size and weight of the human head, right?
She lobbed a melon from hand to hand, considering. The wind was weak, which was perfect for her little warm-up. The sky stretched into a great expanse of clean blue, but stung any exposed skin with the bite of winter. Nonetheless, she pulled off her mittens and snagged them on the broken spindles of an old fence that had once kept the wildlife off the Roadhouse grounds. Her mom had long since stopped caring about the bears and deer in favor of warding off less typical pests. Like puca and wendigo. The fence was little more than a ruin these days, and certainly wouldn’t keep out a monster. That’s what the hexbags, herbs, and silver were for.
Jo balanced the melon in her left hand and grabbed her machete-a gift from Gordon-with her right. The long knife was a far more comfortable fit than the fruit. She narrowed her eyes upwards, lips pressed tight. After a couple of small, test tosses, she let fly the melon high into the air, straight up. It came down fast, but not as fast as the machete slid sideways. It whistled a cut through empty space and then, the cantaloupe. There was a thunk, the tiniest whoosh, and a pair of plops after the fruit split sharply in two. Stringy orange innards hit the frozen ground. Jo smiled.
She hitched up her jeans and picked another melon from the big box she’d stolen from the bar’s kitchen. Ellen would never admit to it, but Jo knew her mother liked cooking for the hunters who passed time at the Roadhouse. Each haggard face had a story and it never ended with anyone riding off into the sunset. If she could put a good meal in their belly that was one less thing to worry about. They were Jo’s extended family, for better or worse.
This week, the patrons were getting barbeque and fruit salad. Maybe homemade cornbread if the Harvelles were feeling especially generous.
Jo chucked another melon into the air but the creak of the Roadhouse’s rear screen door distracted her just enough to skew her timing. She skimmed the rind, barely scalping the damned thing. Well, crap. That might’ve taken off a vampire’s ear, at best. Just enough of a nuisance to piss it off.
“Hola, mamacita.”
Ash. Jo huffed and turned her head, watching him amble his way around bits of broken fence. She glanced at her watch. “You’re up early. It’s only 2:15.”
“Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, some smart dude said.” He flipped his long, dirty blonde hair, squinting as though the sun caused him grief. He was wearing the same jeans and tattered flannel shirt he had on the night before. A pair of bottles dangled from his fingers, and he offered one to Jo. “Heard something.”
“Yeah?” She uncapped the beer on her belt buckle, flipping the lid off into the brush. “Something interesting? Or did ‘Dr. Sexy MD’ get some nurse knocked up again?”
Ash didn’t bother to look offended. He swapped bottles with Jo, forcing her to uncap the second one too. “Dr. Sexy has learned to wrap that rascal, so…no. I mean interesting interesting. If you think The Tall Man is interesting. And I know ya do.” He took a long, slow swallow of beer.
Jo cocked a brow, stabbed her big knife into a stump, and waited for Ash to continue. The redneck genius really loved an audience.
“Was tracking this hellacious lightning storm outside of San Diego. You know, ‘Nature’s Wrath’-caliber lightning? And there was another sighting of those two guys, one of ‘em supposedly seven feet tall. Though I highly suspect that’s hyperbole. Or just some chick freakin’ out. Anywho, another kid dies the next day. Pinprick bleeds all over her skin. Called in the CDC but they don’t find diddlysquat. Nada. Zippo.”
“She a psychic?”
“Affirmative. Did some Facebook surfing and three of her friends had bit it in the past six months. All of ‘em sudden. Heart attacks. And Miss Lily Hammond felt responsible, afraid to touch anyone. Said for folks to stay away. Far, far away.”
Jo hmphed and took a drag on her beer.
“Shame, too. Lily was a bettie-”
“Ash!”
“Just sayin’…”
“Well stop.”
Ash tipped his beer and shut his trap, starting to shiver without his coat.
Jo took pity on him and grabbed her knife and gloves. She’d come back for the melons later. “What are we up to now, is that four?”
Ash nodded and trailed her back inside. “Yes, ma’am.”
Dammit, this was a case. Her kind of case. But Jo couldn’t do a thing about it, what with her mother forbidding her to leave even though Ellen knew full well her daughter was as strong willed as she was.
Additionally, it would’ve been lame to chase the deaths all over the country. By the time she could get to a crime scene, the cops would already have the site scrubbed clean and the victim autopsied or cremated. The trail would be gone stone cold, because it always did. The killer was so careful.
Jo had to get more dirt on this Tall Man. She had to figure out a way to predict his next murder, or hope she got lucky and Ash picked up his tells at a town nearby. Jo might just get there in time. But then what?
She secured the machete carefully back in its sheath behind the bar and shrugged out of her coat. The Roadhouse was nearly empty, save two dusty men who were quietly talking at one of the corner booths. Jud and Theo. Locals. Came in at least three times a week to get lunch or booze or just hang out. Not hunters, but they knew to keep their business to themselves. Jud was the nephew of the local sheriff, which came in handy every now and again.
Settling in on his favorite stool, Ash sifted through a disheveled stack of papers, manila envelopes and files liberally peppered with Post-it notes. He pushed a particular page at Jo. “Miss Lily.”
Jo scanned the sheet, chewing the inside of her cheek. “So. Lily was…an accidental killing machine? She just stopped people’s hearts?”
“Seems to be the yakkity-smack on the street.”
“Weird. And she was twenty-two?”
“Mmmhmm. Just like the others”
“So, Little Miss Heart Attack was-”
But Jo got cut off by a quick ahem from Ash and he scrambled to collect the mess of a file. The barroom brightened briefly as the front door opened and closed, and boot-steps rapped on the wooden floor. Had to be Ellen.
A quick glance confirmed that suspicion. Ellen had an armload of groceries in brown paper bags, and she plopped them on the bar with a wise glare at the two of them.
“Better not be what I think it is,” she said dryly.
“No, ma’am!” Ash croaked, smashing the paperwork to his chest and disappearing down the bar’s back hall with the incriminating evidence.
Jo rolled her eyes as any good, petulant daughter would and moved down the bar to help unload supplies.
“Joanna Beth.”
“Mom. Don’t worry; I’m not going anywhere. Some people paint. I…collect urban legends on strange murders, okay? It’s in the genes.”
Ellen got very still, her expression unreadable. She stared at her daughter until Jo felt her face color with heat. Ellen sighed and brushed the wispy blonde hair from Jo’s shoulder.
“I know, baby. I just-” Ellen stopped herself and her eyes got steely again. “I will spank the both of you if you do something stupid. Just so’s you know.”
Jo gave her mother the most winning of smiles. “I know, Momma.”
Dean kept looking at the sag in the seat next to him, the place where Sam’s ass had worn a crater. There were even dents in the dash, the perfect shape of Sam’s stupid knees. The trees painted moving stripes of shadow across the leather, road noise and engine growl serving as hard proof of forward progress. He should’ve been on top of the world. Hell, he’d just cleaned out a fat nest of vampires and Elkins had begrudgingly given Dad what he’d promised. A gun.
A very special gun.
But Dean didn’t even want to throw a cassette in the tape player. The Impala felt vacant. It wasn’t like this was something new; he’d been driving without Sam for four years, following in his father’s wake, eyes trained on the tailgate of the big black truck. Dean knew every faint dent, every curve of the thing, right down to the self-repaired scrape put there by a brush with an RV in a Days Inn parking lot.
California must’ve reset the meter, got Dean wanting his brother’s company all over again. That, and those two unintentional deaths at the barn. They shouldn’t have happened. Dean couldn’t help but feel he’d missed something, some bit of information or clue or telltale sign, and maybe if Sam’s big brain had been there with them, he’d have caught it. The whole affair left Dean twitchy and clinging to the hunt’s adrenaline long after it should’ve leached away.
Impulsively, Dean fished his phone from a pocket and dialed Sam's number. It wasn't until the phone rang for the third time that he remembered Sam hadn't returned his last few calls. He hadn't heard a peep from Sam since that last bizarre exchange at 4am, over a week ago. Dean felt a twinge in his chest when he thought this call was about to go to voicemail too, but then he heard Sam answer.
"Hello?"
"Sam!"
"Hey, Dean."
Dean pushed past the stilted tone in Sam's voice. "Dude. You'll never believe it. Guess what Dad and I killed yesterday?"
"What?"
"Vampires! They're real, man. We took down a whole nest of them. How crazy is that?"
"Wow. Yeah. That's pretty crazy."
The pang in Dean’s chest didn’t loosen. He hated this. It felt like he suddenly didn't even know how to talk to Sam anymore. Or some B-movie pod creature was wearing his brother’s skin, aping his speech without any real soul behind it. Dean supposed it could still be depression over Jess, but not even that rang true. Regardless, he wasn’t going to let Sam off the hook yet. "It gets better. We found something-something that can kill the demon."
The phone was quiet for a few moments before Sam spoke again. "What did you find?"
"A gun. The gun, Sammy. The Colt. It's not a legend; we’ve got it."
"The Colt?" For the first time, Sam seemed interested in what Dean had to say.
"Yeah." Dean pressed the phone tighter to his ear when he thought he heard an odd sound in the background: a deep mechanical moan, almost like a train. No, a foghorn. "You by the water?"
"You really think this gun can kill the demon?"
"Dad does." Dean added quickly, "How are you? Is everything -" Dean cut himself off and started over. "How's school?"
"School's fine," Sam said. "Listen, Dean, I'm glad you called, but I gotta go. Talk soon, okay?"
Dean swallowed, tightening his hand on the steering wheel. "Yeah, okay Sammy."
But the call had already ended. It was going to be long drive to Saginaw.
Sam slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket and turned to Brady, who was standing by the edge of the pier staring out at the little island that held Alcatraz.
"What do you know about the Colt?" he asked, walking up next to the demon.
The seagulls gathered around them left, squawking loudly.
Brady snorted, "Bedtime story hunters tell each other-a magic gun that can kill anything, including us."
"Dean and my dad...they have it."
"No shit." Brady let out a low whistle, "How'd they pull that off, exactly?"
Sam shrugged, "Does it matter? What I want to know is, can it kill Azazel?"
"No way to know for sure. Maybe?" Brady shook his head, "We'd have to get close enough to him to find out, which means we'd have to make sure he doesn't know we're coming."
"But it could work..."
"Yeah it could," Brady let out a frustrated huff, "if he doesn't see the gun and yank it away from you first, or throw you into a tree, or kill you with a thought."
Sam swallowed, "I just thought that maybe we should consider the Colt as an alternative to..." he waved his hands around at loss for a gesture that could encompass 'blood-letting psychics all across the USA.'
"Sam no. No way. Think about it. You'd need to land a killing shot on your first try. I know you're good, you and your brother were raised to kill, but this isn't a regular hunt. Azazel is the king of Hell. He was Lucifer's right hand. We don't even know the Colt would work on him, for starters, and even if we did that doesn't change the fact that he could choke you with your own intestines before you ever pull the trigger!" Brady put his hand on Sam's shoulder and said, "This...what we're doing…it's the only way to be sure you can take him down. We only get one chance. You have to make it count. You have to be strong enough."
"Strong enough." Sam repeated. He'd barely been strong enough to take down Liam, but he’d done it (with Brady's help), and the world was better off for it. Some of the psychics were dangerous, and if Sam could take away their weapons that was the best thing to do. They'd get another chance at a normal life and they wouldn't be as much of a threat to anyone else.
Then there was Lily. The relief on her face was still fresh in Sam's mind. She'd been grateful they'd freed her from her curse and had asked them why they hadn't come sooner. Maybe this was the only way to kill Azazel. If he could help the psychics like her, make their lives a little easier by freeing them from their curse, and get strong enough to take down Azazel in the process, then there really wasn't any reason to stop. Sam shook his head, chasing away the memory of Max and his frightened eyes and asked, "Who's next?
Dean grabbed the most obnoxiously colored power drink and cellophane-wrapped microwave meal he could find in the gas-n-go. He heard Sam’s scoff in his head as he threw the goods on the counter-You know, the nutritional value of that shit is less than week-old, road-kill ‘possum, Dean-adding a local paper to the pile as an impulse buy.
The Impala had sucked down her gasoline lunch and Dean slid back into the driver's seat, slapping open the newspaper. He'd been following his favorite highway, I-69, and had just crossed the border into Michigan. Flipping through the pages to the weather section, it appeared the bizarre, cloudless lightning didn’t seem to be continuing anywhere in the state, least of all Saginaw. One trick pony. Great.
Dean had the niggling feeling Dad was sending him on a wild goose chase anyway, giving him the farthest and oldest omens to track. Researching Ground Zero was important, sure, but still sat uncomfortably with Dean as Dad went after the fresher scent.
He wolfed down the pre-fab food, slugged back the bright green swill and was about to throw the newspaper into the backseat when his eyes snagged on a name in a lesser headline. Max Miller.
Dean read the article four separate times. He was regrettably accustomed to reading about suicides, but this one felt horribly familiar.
Saginaw, Michigan; Max Miller, age 22, was found dead late last Saturday evening from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The only son of Jim Miller and step-mother Alice, Max worked at the Bridgeport Public Library. Neighbors and acquaintances said that Max was "a good kid," but "had it rough." Witnesses mentioned numerous domestic disputes, which were later confirmed by authorities. One neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, reported hearing the gunshot late Tuesday afternoon. Other witnesses reported seeing two men at the Miller residence earlier that day, but when found, Max was alone. His parents devastated by the loss and had no comment. If anyone has any information, please contact the Saginaw Police Department at…
"Max..."Dean whispered to himself, drumming fingers on the steering wheel. God-damned déjà vu, all over again. That name meant something. Once more, there was an elusive spark of recollection on the edge of Dean's memory…someone crying and…a knife? Floating, as though held by an unseen hand. What the hell? Dean grabbed at the scene but it slithered away, burying itself back in a fog he could never seem to shake.
In Dean’s World of Something’s Wonky, this was the top of the food chain. A car horn bleated from behind him, to move away from the pump. Dean growled an “All right, all right,” and got back on the road.
Even though a little voice in the back of his brain was whispering, “Not right, not right…at all….”
__________
The light looked different the closer Dean got to California. It was true what they said about it, about its clarity and its way of making colors look super-intense and pure…unless you were circling Los Angeles, of course, then it just looked like dirty milk.
Michigan had been gray and unwell, heavy with the threat of winter and cold to the core. The overt quaintness of Saginaw hadn’t helped, one big Americana creepshow with a side-order of Stepford Wives. Women in aprons with perfectly coiffed hair always gave Dean the heebie-jeebies, and Mrs. Miller had been no exception.
Dean’d been more than a little troubled when the coordinates he’d taken from Stormy turned out to be the Miller’s back yard. No way that was a coincidence.
The missus had been overly-gracious to him; masquerading as a priest never hurt. Max was a high-strung boy; he never fit in. He was always quiet and didn’t have many friends. We don’t know where he got the gun. I…I never keep guns in the house. Dean had been certain Mrs. Miller was hiding a healing black eye under all that make-up. Maybe that’s why Max never had many friends. Mr. Miller liked to make things hurt.
There’d been no unexplained EMFs on the property and whatever residual clues might’ve remained had long since been scrubbed away; the house was spotless. Max was buried, and as far as the cops were concerned the case was closed. Dean had perused the police report and noted, with casual interest, that Max had shot himself with the same sort of gun Sam carried.
Dean had left Michigan with far fewer answers and far more questions than he’d like. He begrudgingly admitted he was glad to see California.
Jo turned when she saw the door to the kitchen open.
"You know I don't mean to give you a hard time," her mom said, thumping a rack of clean pint glasses onto the bar.
"I know," Jo sighed, "and I know you're just worried I'm gonna get myself hurt, but Momma, I-"
"Hurt? No, I ain't worried you're gonna get hurt; I'm worried you're gonna get yourself killed!" Ellen ran her fingers through her hair in frustration.
Sliding open a cooler case, Jo began filling it with the glassware, chewing the inside of her cheek to keep from commenting on her mom’s omnipresent worry.
"I just…I don't want to lose you too."
There was such quiet sadness in her mom's voice, it made Jo wonder if something crappy had happened earlier today. Had her mother run into one of Dad’s old friends at the gas station? Was it an anniversary Jo didn’t know about? Ellen’s eyes were dark and steadfast, watching Jo with all her twenty-some-odd years of motherhood leveled in a straight line at her daughter.
Resigned, Jo put a hand on her mom’s arm. "You won't. I promise.”
“What about this stupid case you and Ash are pretending not to work on?”
Boy, she won’t let it drop, will she? “I told you. I’m just collecting info."
Ellen shook her head. "You can't lie worth a crap, you know that, right?"
“Momma!” Jo quirked a grin. "I'm not lying. Besides, Tall Man ain't anywhere near us as far as I can figure."
"Good. He better keep his distance, too."
"Or what?" Jo teased.
Ellen chuckled and left the bar to wipe down the tables. "You know I can do a whole lot more with my knife than chop onions, right?"
If Jo didn’t love her momma so damned much, she’d have felt downright smothered by all this paranoia. Though God’s honest truth, Jo knew Ellen had every right to feel as she did.
It was only a tiny sin of omission, that bit about “collecting info.” Right now, sure, Jo was simply gathering fun facts about a serial killer. Well, possible serial killer; there were still a ton of mysteries surrounding the guy, like was he actually killing these psychic kids, or was he just some sort of big ol’ deathwatch beetle?
If he came within 100 miles of the Roadhouse, Jo had every intention of chasing the case but until then, she would keep fattening his file with every scrap of hunter gossip she could get her hands on.
Jo grabbed the recently emptied glass pallet and nearly bounced into Ash when she spun around to return it to the kitchen. He’d managed to sneak up on her, and Ash was not famous for his stealth. Dammit, this did not bode well for her hunting career.
“Where’s Momma Bear?” he whispered, hooded eyes roaming around the barroom. He was doing a bang-up job of feigning nonchalance, given his healthy respect for Ellen’s temper.
Jo jutted her chin towards the jukebox in response. Ellen was buffing clean the old Wurlitzer of last night’s spilt beer.
Ash nodded, cast another glance around the area, and slipped a folded paper into Jo’s hand. “Burn after reading, you got that, Double-Oh Jo?”
Biting back a grin, Jo gave him a stern salute and Ash disappeared back down the hallway before Ellen so much as smelled him.
“Hey, Momma, gonna go to dry storage for straws, okay?”
“Okay, baby.”
Jo took her super-secret note to the locked closet where they kept shelves of paper products and take-out containers and anything else that didn’t fit in the kitchen. The cubby didn’t have a light so Jo left the door ajar, her back to the outside.
It was a copy of a CDC health advisory, dated today, still warm from the printer.
Distributed via Health Network Alert Network
November, 27th 2005 9:30 AM EST
CDCHAN-083
The CDC has issued the following alert:
A potentially deadly toxin is in the process of being identified on the West Coast. What was initially suspected to be an unknown variant of the influenza virus has affected at least three individuals in the last 72 hours. Symptoms include high fever, fatigue, depression, paranoia, loss of appetite, minor blood loss centralized around the heart and chest resulting in the appearance of what has been described as 'blood sweat,' followed by a spike in white blood cells.
So far, three affected individuals have been identified: one from Seattle, Washington; one from San Francisco, CA and one from San Diego, CA. The patients in all three known cases died within 48 hours of exposure. If you notice any of these symptoms, please contact your physician immediately. These symptoms are not believed to be the result of a contagious virus and should be reported immediately.
Those were the Tall Man victims, she just knew it. Way too coincidental to be otherwise. What the hell was he doing to them? He had to have known what Jo (and Ash) did, that the kids had all been ‘gifted’ in some fashion. Why else would he have gone after them? What was his take-away from all this? And dammit, why didn’t he roam closer to Nebraska?
“Joanna Beth! You still in that pantry?”
Jo hurriedly folded the page and stuffed it in her pocket. “Yes, Momma!”
“Bring out some toothpicks too, could you?”
“Okay, Momma.”
“Before Hell freezes over.”
“Alright, alright…”
Dean drove onto Route 84 and fought the urge to pull out his cell phone again. He was less than twenty minutes away from Stanford and there was still a tiny (okay, maybe not that tiny) part of him that really wanted to let Sam know he was on his way. Then again, Sam hadn't answered his phone, or called Dean back once since they last talked about the Colt. Not even on Thanksgiving. Not like Thanksgiving was a sacred holiday in the Winchester household or anything-usually just slightly better than the usual take-out and a celebratory round of beer-but still. Usually Sam had found the time to give Dean a call, tell him he missed him, or tell him he didn't, or something.
Dean turned up the music to drown out his anger and tried to appreciate the rather spectacular view instead. He was driving across the Dumbarton Bridge, the water was the exact color of turquoise and the morning sky was clear. It was beautiful really, but Dean felt unsettled and on edge.
Something was up with Sam; Dean was sure of it. He wasn't dead. Dean would know if he was. He just would.
He didn't know what classes Sam had on Mondays, or any days for that matter, but he figured if he nosed around the campus long enough he'd find him. He was a damned good tracker after all.
__________
Six hours later, Dean started to worry. He'd looked everywhere, he'd even asked everywhere and Sam was nowhere to be found. The most worrisome answer had come from the Registrar's office. They kept a university directory for all faculty and students and would let you leave a message for anybody there. They had Sam Winchester in the directory, sure enough, but he lived off-campus. The wiry dude working the counter offered Dean Sam's email address, and Dean had to force his smile wider just to keep from punching him. I have his phone number you jackass, how's an e-mail gonna help?
Dean almost turned and left so he wouldn't lose his temper, but then he had a thought. He turned back to the counter. "How about Tyson Brady? Do you have a number for him or an e-mail or anything?" The guy behind the counter smiled and said, "Brady? Man...he throws killer parties. Lives off-campus in this sweet split-level..."
"Does he now?" Dean smirked back across the counter. "Is he throwing any this week?"
"No. Dude, it's weird. He, like, dropped off the face of the Earth or something. Nobody's heard a peep from him in two weeks."
Dean chewed on his lip as the gears in his head did an unhappy dance. "Okay, well thanks anyway, man." He turned to leave, determined to find out everything he could about Sam's former roommate.
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