Visiting Smallville: 17b/21
Okay, there'll be one more part after this, which should be up by tomorrow evening.
...Previously...
Chloe ducked under the yellow tape and looked around the stuffy, maroon-coloured room. She was tempted to run her hand over the antique looking tables, but remembered one of Dean’s favourite bits of advice - ‘When at crime scenes, don’t touch’- and quickly withdrew her hand.
Clark saw her sudden movement and exhaled. “You know, Chloe…” he started, following her under the police tape. “This is a crime scene.”
He looked pointedly at her hand, and Chloe rolled her eyes, edging towards the bed. The duvet had been removed and all that was covering the mattress was the white sheet, a black outline of Mrs Sykes drawn onto the sheets by ash.
“So?” Chloe laughed, frowning down at the bed. “There’s no other sign of fire damage anywhere, so you might want to dial back on that spontaneous combustion scepticism.”
She reached out to touch the black; to see if really was ash, but Clark pulled her hand away with a stern, yet confused look. “No barking.” he stated.
Chloe tugged her hand away from his, tossing him a puzzled glance. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
Clark smiled slightly, but was soon back to the slightly confused expression as he glanced around. “Pepper.”
“Who’s Pepper?”
“Mrs Sykes’ dog. She turned into a barking machine anytime someone came over. Pepper?” As Clark turned away, whistling for the dog, Chloe withdrew her camera from her bag and started to take as many shots of the crime scene. “Come here, girl!”
When Chloe stopped taking her photos, she turned to stare at Clark, who was lumbering round the room, still calling out for the dog. “Animal shelter probably came and got her, Clark.”
Clark nodded, straightened up, and then his eyebrows furrowed and his gaze became intense as he shot a final, searching glance through the room. With a gulp, he pulled away a curtain separating the bedroom from the area and stared down at a small pile of ashes. “Oh, no.”
Chloe’s eyes widened with disgust as she looked down. “Oh, don’t tell me that’s Pepper.” She choked out.
Clark sighed, reaching out to grab a small metal dog tag from the pile of ashes, ignoring Chloe’s wince as his hand touched the ashes. He raised it up to Chloe and she took a picture of it, waiting until Clark replaced the dog tag to turn away and start to leave.
“Chloe?” he called, and she turned around.
“Clark? Please don’t tell me she had another dog?”
Clark shot her an angry look, pointing to the fresh white rose by the bedside. “What happened may have been combustion, but I have a feeling it wasn’t spontaneous.”
*
“My mom’s resting.” Max told them as he let the Winchesters into the house. “She’s pretty wrecked.”
Dean smiled at the younger boy. “Of course.”
“All these people kept coming with, like, casseroles. I finally had to tell them all to go away.” Max gestured towards the dining room table, which was covered with foil-covered dishes. “You know, ‘cause nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like tuna casserole.”
As the brothers laughed, Max gestured for them to sit down. Dean did so, but Sam stayed standing. “How you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Your dad and uncle were close?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Max mumbled. “I mean, they were brothers. They used to hang out all the time when I was little.”
“But lately, not much?”
Max smiled weakly. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… we used to be neighbours when I was a kid. And we lived across town in this house, and Uncle Roger lived next door, so he was over all the time.”
“Right.” Sam nodded, frowning. “How was it in that house when you were a kid?”
Max looked down. “It was fine.” he murmured. “Why?”
“All good memories?” Dean spoke up, staring as the Max’s gaze snapped towards him. “Do you remember anything unusual? Something involving your father and your uncle, maybe?”
Max swallowed. “What do you…” he stuttered. “Why do you ask?”
“Just a question.”
Max’s face became blank. “No.” he stated emotionlessly. “There was nothing. We were totally normal. Happy.”
“Good.” Dean responded, scowling. “That’s good. Well, you must be exhausted. We should take off.”
Dean pushed up from the chair as Sam thanked the boy then strode out of the house, heading back towards the car.
“Nobody’s family is totally normal and happy.” Dean stated, not looking back at Sam. “Did you see when he was talking about his old house?”
“Sounded scared.” Sam answered.
Dean nodded. “Yeah, Max isn’t telling us everything. I say we go find the old neighbourhood, and find out what life was really like at the Millers.”
*
“Have you lived in the neighbourhood very long?”
Dean stared at the middle-aged man as they questioned him. The man frowned, confused, but answered anyway. “Yeah, almost twenty years now. It’s nice and quiet. Why, you looking to buy?”
Sam shook his head. “No, no, actually, we were just wondering if you might recall a family that used to live right across the street.”
Dean nodded. “Yeah, the Millers. They had a little boy named Max.”
“Right.”
The man’s face fell slightly and he looked down at the ground. “Yeah, I remember. The brother had the place next door.” He pointed to the house across the street before frowning, concerned. “So, what’s this about? That poor kid okay?”
Sam scowled. “What do you mean?”
He swallowed. “In my life, I’ve never seen a child treated like that. I mean, I’d hear Mr Miller yelling and throwing things clear across the street. He was a mean drunk. He used to beat the tar out of Max. Bruises - broke his arm two times that I know of.”
The Winchester’s eyes were wide, horrified at what they were hearing. “And this was going on regularly?”
“Practically every day.” He continued, swallowing when he caught sight of Sam’s disgusted grimace. “In fact, that thug brother of his was just as likely to take a swing at the boy, but the worst part was the stepmother. She’s just stand there, checked out, never lifted a finger to protect him. I must have called the police seven or eight times, never did any good.”
Dean looked at him. “Now, you said stepmother…”
“I think his real mom died. Some sort of accident - a car accident, I think.” He stopped, looking up as Sam inhaled sharply. “You okay there?”
Sam exhaled, his hands coming up to clutch his head. “Yeah.” he muttered.
“Thanks for your time” Dean called back to the neighbour as he led Sam back towards the car.
“Yeah, thank you.” Sam added, sitting down.
Dean watched, worried, as a terrified expression crossed his brothers face.
*
“I don’t know what you mean by that!” Ms Miller protested. “You know I never did anything.”
“That’s right.” Max snarled, tears running down his face. “You didn’t do anything. You didn’t stop them, not once!”
The knife lying on the cutting board jerked, then lifted into the air. Ms Miller turned to stare at it, wide-eyed, then turned back to Max. “How did you…”
She stopped speaking when the knife turned and flew through the air. With a gasp she pinned herself against the wall, staring at the knife pointing at her eye. It moved closer, stopping barely a centimetre away.
“Max, please!” she begged.
Max swallowed. “For every time you stood there and watched. Pretending it wasn’t happening!”
“I’m sorry!”
“No, you’re not.” he growled. “You just don’t want to die!”
The knife moved backwards, and then flew straight towards her.
*
Dean turned as Sam jolted up in his seat, eyes wide and breathing heavily. He raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“Max is doing it.” Sam gasped. “Everything I’ve been seeing.”
Dean frowned. “You sure about this?”
“Yeah.” Sam confirmed. “I saw.”
“How’s he pulling it off?”
Sam scowled. “I don’t know. It looked like telekinesis.”
Dean narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “So, he’s psychic? He’s a spoon-bender?”
“I didn’t even realise it but this whole time he was there.” Sam murmured. “He was outside the garage when his dad died; he was in the apartment when his uncle died. These visions, this whole time, I wasn’t connecting to the Millers. I was connecting to Max.” He paused. “The thing I don’t get is why, man? I guess because we’re so alike.”
Dean looked at Sam in confusion. “What are you talking about? The dude’s nothing like you.”
“We both have psychic abilities. We’re both…”
Dean interrupted him. “Both what? Sam, Max is a monster. He’s already killed two people and now he’s going for a third.”
“Well, with what he went through - the beatings. To want revenge on those people, I’m sorry man, I hate to say it, but it’s not insane.”
Dean turned away from Sam, focussing again on the road. “Yeah, but it doesn’t justify murdering your entire family.”
“Dean…”
“He’s no different than anything else we’ve hunted. Alright we’re got to end him.”
Dean pulled over in front of the Miller house and stared at the door.
“We’re not going to kill Max.” Sam stated.
“Then what?” Dean asked. “Hand him over to the cops and say ‘Lock him up, officer, he kills with the power of his mind’”
“Forget it.” Sam said firmly. “No way. He’s a person. We can talk to him. Promise me you’ll follow my lead on this one.”
Dean swallowed. “Alright, fine. But I’m not letting him hurt anybody else.”
He reached into the gun compartment and pulled out a gun before he climbed out of the car.
*
Chloe clicked on the arrow, watching as the image on the screen changed to one of Clark’s friend Tyler, dead in the morgue. His hand was bent backwards, digging into a green bracelet.
Pete paled slightly. “That’s disgusting.”
Chloe grinned. “I guess I should have mentioned the ‘may not be suitable for all ages’ disclaimer.” Pete smirked back at her as she turned to Clark. “Your friend’s been busy.”
Clark frowned. “What do you mean, busy?”
“I mean, he tried to kill his mother, rose from the dead and escaped the morgue busy.” she stated. “My buddy Chad works weekends for the M.E. He zipfiled the toxicology report. Besides the fatal amount of pain killers, they also found fragments of an unknown green stone embedded in his skin.”
Pete grimaced. “Meteor rocks.”
“Yep.”
Clark still seemed unconvinced. “If that’s the case, why aren’t all the dead in Smallville rising from their graves?”
Chloe thought for a second. “I think it’s the lethal combo of pain killers and meteor rocks that caused Tyler to pull a ‘Thriller’.”
“Wait a minute.” Clark said, leaning past her to stare at the picture. “Did you say Tyler tried to kill his mother?”
Chloe nodded. “Tried and failed. His mother recovered enough to be sent home.”
The three looked up as a nervous Lana burst into the room. She was biting her lip and fiddling with her sleeves as she stared at all of them.
Chloe raised her eyebrows at her silence. Lana breathed in. “I just left Tyler at the graveyard.” She breathed.
“Are you okay?” Clark asked, straightening up and running over to her.
Lana nodded. “He heard Whitney talking about his father. He said that he could bring him peace.”
“Did you call the police?”
Lana nodded, and Clark walked past her and out the room. Lana frowned. “Where are you going?” she called after him, running to look into the corridor. She turned back to Chloe with a confused look.
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me. He does that all the time.”
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