Bright White Light - Supernatural/X-Files fic: Chapter 4
Warnings, rating and summary are in the Master Post.
Sam was already waking up when Dean shook him by the arm.
"What? Dean?" It was still dark, and the only light in the room was from Dean's flashlight.
"Something happened. Get dressed, warm clothes."
Sam scrambled into his clothes, pulling them on in layers, leaving two pairs of socks on his feet. "Did you hear from Dad?"
"Keep it down, Sammy. No." Dean was mostly dressed already, and had a shotgun propped against the nightstand. "There was a big flash of light and the windows shook."
"Was it the thing Dad saw go down the chimney? Has it come to get us?"
"I don't know! It was just one flash, like lightning."
Sam shoved a pair of knit gloves in his coat pocket and frowned. "How do you know it wasn't lightning?"
Dean shone the flashlight around the room again, checking the window and door. "I heard a fire truck went out right after it, and then a sheriff's truck."
"Which way did the truck go?"
"South. Towards Oconto Falls, where Dad is." Both boys fell silent as sirens approached. Dean jumped onto the bed and peered out the high window, and the lights of police cars reflected on his face, a sickly blue-red-white. "That's two more sheriff's department trucks, and another fire engine, all heading south." Dean sat down again, the mattress groaning.
"Dean? It can't get in here, can it? Dad said the salt kept it out of the house last night."
"Let's go check all the lines are good, okay? Then we should get everything packed up and ready to go."
Sam nodded, even though he really didn't want to leave this one safe room. It made sense to pack up - the end of a job often signaled a speedy departure, and John Winchester's idea of "speedy" often meant that things he considered unimportant were left behind.
Dean gave the flashlight to Sam and picked up the shotgun. "Okay, close formation."
Sam held the flashlight in his left hand and slowly opened the door with his right. His heart was thudding but Dean was right behind him with the shotgun, so nothing would hurt him. Dean would get it first.
The living room looked entirely as they had left it, and Sam huffed a breath of relief, then moved slowly over to the lights by the door, Dean so close behind him that he was treading on Sam's sneaker heels every third step. The light showed that their first assessment had been correct - the salt lines were intact, and nothing had been disturbed. They quickly checked the other lines, and replenished the damp one on the bathroom window, but all was quiet. Sam flopped down on the sofa in relief, only to leap up again at the sound of a distant phone ringing.
Dean pushed the front window curtains aside slightly and peered out, scanning the parking lot. "The light's on in the motel office, Sammy."
"Is Dad back?" It seemed like a slim chance, but he had to ask.
Dean didn't seem to take it as a sign of Sam's babyishness. "No sign, sorry." He frowned and moved the curtain a little further aside so he could crane his neck and see past the white lattice-work in front of their room. "Max's trailer door is open, and his lights are on."
"Really?" Sam hurried over, and Dean let him peer through the window, too. "Oh no, do you think it came for him?"
"I don't see why," Dean kept staring at the trailer's open door. "He's got nothing to do with the Kovacs family. I'm thinking he might have had a fit, you know, with his epilepsy."
"We can't go out there." Sam was adamant, but Dean kept looking through the window. "Dean, we can't!"
"Okay. Let's give him five minutes - if the door just popped open, he'll notice the cold by then. If not, something's wrong. Go get our stuff packed. I'll get Dad's things and the kitchen."
Sam quickly obeyed, happy to have a plan in place, and started shoving their clothes and school things back in their duffel bags, hoping all the while that Max would simply realize the door was open. He didn't want to think about what was going on in the direction of Oconto Falls, with the white light and the sick girl and his dad; the fire trucks and the sheriff's department, let alone what was happening right outside their room. He finished off the bedroom and bathroom, quickly made the beds, then peered out the window again while Dean packed up the food they'd brought with them, and lined up all the duffel bags beside the sofa, ready to go.
"That's five minutes, Sammy."
"Dad said to stay here." Sam pulled the curtain back into place so that Dean could no longer see the trailer. "Maybe we could call Shawna in the office? You said the light was on, she must be awake."
"And what if it's not epilepsy? What if it's something else? Shawna won't know what to do, and Max will probably be all 'We come in peace' and it'll eat him." Dean forced his fingers to make Mr Spock's famous gesture. "It's our job to save people, Sam."
Sam sighed. Dean was right. "Okay. But if Max did have a fit, we go and tell Shawna and she can call 911. And if something's still sniffing around, we run right back in here."
"Good plan, Sammy! Now, you grab the salt canister and the flashlight, I'll take the shotgun. Shawna shouldn't see us from the office."
They edged carefully out the door, Sam sweeping the area with the flashlight even though the lights on the second story balcony meant that the parking lot was reasonably well-lit. There were no signs of any great destruction, and the brisk wind carried the sound of Shawna's voice from the office, though they couldn't make out individual words. Sam made his way to Max's trailer door at a cautious trot, Dean right behind him, and sprinkled a line of salt across the top step, just in case. Dean patted him firmly on the arm, meaning well done, and Sam got his courage up to walk up the steps, staying strictly to the outside of the salt line. If anything was in there, it wasn't coming out this door and into Sam and Dean.
"Max?" Sam called out, not too loudly, peering into the trailer. It was an absolute mess - papers and photographs were strewn all over the floor, a cup of coffee tipped all over them. Max's sheets and blankets were at the far end of the trailer from the bed, and the microwave door was swinging gently back and forth. Sam called out again, but there was no response, and no sign of Max.
"Sprinkle some salt in there," Dean whispered, and Sam cast a generous handful all over the debris on the trailer's floor, but nothing happened, and with a nudge from Dean, Sam carefully stepped over the salt line and into the trailer.
"Dean, he's not even here." Sam kept his voice low, even though it was hardly likely that Shawna would hear them.
"I'm going to check the bathroom in case he's fallen over in there." Dean made his way to the far end of the trailer and slowly opened the door to Max's toilet, shotgun at the ready, but he wasn't there, either. "All this stuff was stacked up neatly, before. I mean, it was messy, but not like this." He bent down and righted the mug on the floor, though most of the coffee had already soaked into the papers beneath it.
Sam peered at Max's satellite equipment, most of which was displaying confusing dots and lines on different screens, and rested his hand on the shelf that held the police scanner. "Ow! Dean, the shelf's hot!" Sam scrambled backwards, right into Dean who was hurrying towards him.
"Watch it, Sam! And stop touching stuff!"
"You did first!" Sam sucked his scorched finger and sulked. Both of them looked cautiously at the shelves - indeed, all the metal brackets were somewhere between warm and hot, and the Formica shelves were slightly scorched. There were small, matching scorch marks on the ceiling and floor, and Max's big headphones dangled from their cord. "Are the headphones hot, Dean?"
Dean touched them cautiously. "Yeah. But they're just plugged into the police scanner, nothing special." He propped the shotgun against the bench and, pulling his sleeve over his hand, picked them up and flipped an earpiece around so he could listen. "Oh, man, Sam, something's going on."
"What? Let me listen!"
Dean held out a hand and Sam shut up, though he kept hopping from one foot to the other waiting for the news. "Something blew up in the state forest...they called in the army and the Air Force? I think? And some people got killed, and some got bad burns. They're going to the hospital in Oconto Falls."
Sam nodded, pleased that the incident hadn't taken place in Oconto Falls itself. Their dad would be keeping an eye on the people brought in.
"Oh, wait, they're saying it's a chemical spill? And a train?"
"No way! A train didn't grab Max out of his chair."
"Shh, Sammy! The sheriff's guys have been told get out of the area, and the military is coming down from some base to take over." Dean took the headphone away from his ear. "Let's get back to our room - we can't help Max now. Put the flashlight in your pocket and take the gun. I'll take this."
"You're stealing Max's police scanner?"
"Yep." Dean pulled out his knife and neatly unscrewed the scanner from its brackets. "I don't know how to read the rest of these machines, but I do know how to listen to a scanner. It's the only information we're going to get right now."
"We can return it if Max comes back." Sam was warming to the idea rapidly - after all, Max wasn't using it right now.
"Okay, grab the gun, let's go. And close the door behind us - if whatever got Max comes sniffing around, I don't want other people getting hurt."
The boys hurried back across the parking lot and into their motel room, carefully stepping over the undisturbed salt lines as they entered the room. Sam put the gun on the table, then hurried over to put the chain back on the door. He collected his blanket to keep him warm on the sofa while Dean listened to the police chatter, but he hadn't even started to get sleepy when Dean frowned and started twisting the dial left and right, with excruciating care.
"Dean?" Sam got up, but kept the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Dean shook his head and Sam waited patiently. After more fiddling with the scanner, Dean pulled off the headphones and threw them on the table with a loud clatter that made both of them jump.
"Nothing. It's gone completely silent."
"Why? If there's a train crash, there's got to be fire trucks and police everywhere, and ambulances. Even if it's not a train crash, but they think it is!"
"It's all jammed, I don't know why. And Dad's got the EMF meter in the car."
"Is the monster doing it?"
"Maybe? There's a clock radio in Dad's room, I'll see if regular stations are on the air."
"I'll try the TV." Sam rolled the TV back into the living room and turned it on. The reception was snowy, so he flicked through the channels until he found one that was clear. "Uh oh. Dean, look at this."
The emergency broadcast system had taken over all the local channels. A monotonous voice was warning residents of Oconto County between Townsend, Lakewood and Mountain to prepare for mandatory evacuation due to a transport accident and chemical spill. Both boys hurried into the bedroom to listen to the radio - it had the same message. Dean flicked off the radio and stared at Sam, but before he could speak, the tornado sirens started up, wailing into the chilly night.
Sam put his face up next to Dean's ear. "Are we going to get evacuated?"
"We can't, Sammy! They'll just ask where Dad was, and we'll end up in foster care. We know there's no chemical spill, and the army and cops or whoever aren't going to find anything. We have to stay here where we know it's safe." Dean grabbed Sam's arm and shook him a little. "Got it? We know what the real danger is!"
"I'm not arguing!" Sam snapped, insulted that Dean felt the need to persuade him. "I don't want to go to foster care!"
The sirens continued, but their ears were already adjusting.
Dean ran a hand through his short hair. "Okay. Whoever they send to evacuate the motels, they're not going to do proper checks, they're just going to go door to door as fast as they can. Stash all our stuff under the bed, turn off the lights, and they'll think we're with Dad in the car."
Sam didn't argue. They quickly hid the bags and the police scanner and turned off the heaters, Dean packing their candy and some extra shells - both salt and pellets - into Sam's school backpack. With the lights out, it was easier to see out the bedroom window to the road, which was full of military jeeps and soldiers, and a slow convoy of civilian cars turning off the main road - which would have led south through the affected zone - and turning west at the motel, directed by two soldiers in reflective vests.
Dean peered at the jeeps. "Hey, those jeeps are Air Force, not army."
"Really?" Sam stretched up on his tiptoes to look. "You don't need the Air Force for a chemical spill. They must have seen something in the sky."
"Yeah, well, I hope Max didn't go running off after it, or calling it into his trailer or something. Hey - listen."
They fell silent, straining their ears over the still-wailing sirens, to hear someone knocking loudly on a door near theirs. Without a word needed, they quickly straightened the covers, and rolled under the bed.
Their door was next, with a loud knock. A second knock followed, then keys in the door, as Shawna called out, "Mr Wells? Boys? Are you here?"
The light in the main room clicked on, but neither boy moved. Two people entered the room, one in heavy boots.
"Their car's gone," Shawna added, "And they were paid in advance, so I'm sure they'll be back when this is over."
"I'll mark them off as evacuated, then, ma'am," replied a male voice, and the light switched off, then the door closed.
Dean and Sam sighed in relief, but quietly, and stayed right where they were until five minutes had passed by Dean's watch, then resumed their watch at the salt-lined window. Shouting was coming from the parking lot - it sounded more like barking orders than terror - and Dean nudged Sam to go and peek out the front window. Sam moved carefully and slowly, looking through the gap left by the curtain, not daring to actually move the curtain out of the way.
"It's the Air Force, and they're going through Max's trailer, Dean. An officer just showed up in a jeep and they're standing out there showing him Max's pictures."
Dean grimaced. "Well, I hope they can help the poor guy. I mean, normally I'd say only a hunter could help, but we don't usually get the Air Force showing up."
"Maybe Dad can point them in the right direction? They'll still think he's in the EPA, won't they?"
"I guess. Anyway, we just need to sit tight until Dad gets back into town. It'll all be fine."
The tornado sirens switched off abruptly, and Sam woke up. He was still fully dressed, lying on top of the bedcovers, but with familiar wool army blankets piled over him. Pale sunlight was coming in the window and illuminating Dean. He was wrapped in another of their blankets, sitting cross-legged on the other bed with the shotgun resting across his knees, breath cloudy white in the icy room. Despite his alert posture, Dean was fast asleep and drooling from the corner of his mouth. Sam smirked, but then he remembered how upset Dean would be if Dad knew he had fallen asleep on watch, even a watch that Dad hadn't set. Sam desperately needed to pee, but instead he turned over with as much struggling and grunting as he could plausibly manage, and heard Dean wake up with a gasp.
Sam yawned. "Dean? Is Dad back yet?" His ears were still ringing with the sudden absence of the blaring sirens.
"Uh, no, Sammy, not yet. It's all gone quiet out there, no jeeps, no Dad, no nothing."
"Okay. I gotta pee, then I could keep watch for a while if you want to sleep."
Dean shook his head. "No way, I'm good. Anyway, it's morning now."
Sam glared at him. All that trouble he'd taken to let Dean keep his nap secret, and now Dean was just being stupid, as usual. "I promise I'll wake you up the second anything happens. It might be a whole day before Dad gets back and he'll want us to be ready to move, you know." A whiny tone had crept into Sam's voice, which annoyed him - he was trying to sound grown-up and capable, not like a baby who needed protecting. Dean must have been pretty tired, though, because he nodded and propped the shotgun against the bed.
"Okay, but only for a few hours. And that promise is serious - anything happens and you have to wake me up right away. Don't think you can handle it yourself."
"Yeah, like I'm going to see a monster and go running at it."
"Thanks, Sam."
Taken aback by Dean's unusual acquiescence, Sam scurried to the icy bathroom without reply, glad that he had kept the extra socks on. He peed, but skipped flushing and washing his hands to hurry back to swap places with Dean before his hoarded body warmth entirely dissipated.
Keeping watch wasn't very interesting, but Sam knew that from previous vigils. He alternated sitting on the bed with looking out the side and front windows, peering out into the pale morning light. The men on the jeeps that occasionally passed by were heavily armed, and there was no sign of civilian traffic whatsoever. Sam let Dean sleep, though, until it was mid-morning and Sam's stomach would let him wait no more.
"Hey, Dean. Wake up."
Dean was awake in a second, but the bored expression on Sam's face told him all he needed to know. He reached under the bed, dug around in a duffel bag, and retrieved the rest of the bread and peanut butter, and handed it to Sam. Sam folded a piece of bread in half and used it to dig some peanut butter out of the jar.
"Eat up, Sammy. The phones in the room don't call long distance, so we'd better get into the office to call Bobby before people start showing up again." Dean followed Sam's example before stretching, wriggling out of bed and lacing his sneakers. Once they were finished, Dean put the peanut butter and empty bread bag away, and they both re-made their beds, rolling the duffel bags and Sam's backpack right back under the bed. A quick check of Max's police scanner showed that reception was still poor - the frequencies that the scanner could pick up were either deliberately jammed or had such great interference that the result was the same.
Leaving the shotgun behind - it was broad daylight outside, now - Sam and Dean crept quietly along the latticed walkway of the motel, staying low and moving fast so that any passing jeeps would be unlikely to spot them. It was entirely quiet, apart from the slow creaking of Max's satellite dish in the stiff breeze, but Sam's heart was in his mouth. With Dad still not back, getting caught could mean the Air Force handing them over to protective custody, and then to foster homes. Sam was fairly sure they could get Father Jim to come and pick them up, but it was a level of official notice and investigation that made him quake - regular people shouldn't have that kind of power over his family.
The office door was locked, but Dean easily picked the basic window lock and boosted Sam through to open the door from the other side. Shawna had obviously left in a hurry - a coffee mug still sat on the desk, and a small TV was on in the corner, its volume set low. The emergency broadcast had finished, and now a news broadcast was on, though all the footage seemed to be of distant pine trees, rather than of anything useful.
"See if you can learn anything. And keep watch, okay?" Dean pointed Sam towards the television, and picked up the phone behind the desk, dialing Bobby's number from memory.
The reporter was repeating the same story that had been on the emergency broadcast: there had been a freight train derailment, and subsequently a small forest fire and a dangerous chemical spill. Locals had been evacuated and the Air Force was taking over operations after the deaths of a sheriff's deputy and three firefighters called to the scene. The scene switched to a small city, and the outside of a busy hospital. A reporter was on screen, a dark-haired woman in a trench coat.
"We've just had confirmation that the sheriff's deputy who was killed in the train accident was Deputy Jason Wright, of Townsend. Deputy Wright was a five-year law enforcement veteran and leaves behind a wife and son. Hospital sources indicate that Deputy Wright died of severe burns, and that there are several other burn casualties. There are no reports on the status of the driver of the train at this point in time."
"Dean? Did you hear that?" Sam sat on the floor, feeling weirdly heavy in his legs.
"Yeah, I heard it. Poor guy." Dean didn't sound particularly troubled. "But if people are actually dying from burns, that's something totally different to what's killing the Kovacs family and their friends. Unless this is Super Monster Team-Up Town, that's pretty weird. Let me talk to Bobby."
"Okay." Sam felt stupid, getting upset over a guy they'd only met twice. Dean was right: the case was the important thing, and this was new information. It seemed so strange, though, that the man who'd been buying candy bars just yesterday had been killed just a few hours later. Sam wondered if the candy bars had melted in his pocket when he died, just leaving the foil, but he didn't want to ask Dean and be dismissed as a baby.
Bobby must have picked up the phone, because Dean was quickly explaining to Bobby about the evacuation and the news report, then fell silent, writing things down on a motel notepad as Bobby told them to him. Sam kept watch out the front window, not really wanting to watch the TV any longer, new information or not, annoyed with himself for needing to turn away.
"Okay, thanks, Bobby. Gotta go now." Dean hung up the phone and carefully tore off his piece of notepaper. "Let's go, Sammy, Bobby's got us some good intel. Better get back to the room first, though."
They hurried back, making sure to relock both the window and the door. Just after they'd shut the door of their room, they heard the approach of several vehicles, both civilian cars and military jeeps, travelling in convoy. Just one car turned into the parking lot, though, a big white pick-up truck. Dean peered out the gap in the curtain.
"It's Shawna. Good timing on the break-in, Sammy! Hey, if they're letting people come back now, Dad should be here soon!"
"What did Bobby tell you? Does he know what it is?" Despite himself, Sam was greatly cheered by the thought of getting their dad back.
"Yeah, he's pretty sure. And I don't think we're fighting a team-up after all. Bobby said that the pages Dad faxed him are in Hungarian, and they're about how to make a thing called a ludverc. It's like a little imp creature, and it does stuff for you - makes your life easy and makes you lots of money. Then it tries to drive you crazy by wanting things to do all the time, so you can either set it free or you go mad."
"What about the bright light?"
"That's the sucky bit - if you make a ludverc, even if you let it go, guess what happens?" Dean waited for Sam to guess, but when Sam didn't, he kept on anyway, just as pleased. "Well, when you die, you turn into this other kind of ludverc, and you go around appearing to everyone you know as something they desire. So they're all hypnotized and they do whatever you want, and you suck out all the years of their life until they die, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. And!" Dean held up a pontificating finger. "You travel around as a star and shoot down their chimneys!"
"So Darrell Kovacs made his own ludverc and got rich, but now that he's dead all his family and friends have to pay the price? And he's killing them? And they can't run away because he's showing up as something they want to see?"
"Looks like it. Anyway, Bobby's not sure how to kill it but he says, um, purification will protect you from it, which is why the salt is so good. Also birch twigs."
"I think I saw birch trees on the road near the lake, the way we went when we first got here. When Dad talked to that doctor?"
Dean grinned and punched Sam lightly on the shoulder. "Awesome! Dude, you rock. As soon as Dad gets back, you tell him."
On to Chapter 5
Back to Chapter 3
Master Post
Sam was already waking up when Dean shook him by the arm.
"What? Dean?" It was still dark, and the only light in the room was from Dean's flashlight.
"Something happened. Get dressed, warm clothes."
Sam scrambled into his clothes, pulling them on in layers, leaving two pairs of socks on his feet. "Did you hear from Dad?"
"Keep it down, Sammy. No." Dean was mostly dressed already, and had a shotgun propped against the nightstand. "There was a big flash of light and the windows shook."
"Was it the thing Dad saw go down the chimney? Has it come to get us?"
"I don't know! It was just one flash, like lightning."
Sam shoved a pair of knit gloves in his coat pocket and frowned. "How do you know it wasn't lightning?"
Dean shone the flashlight around the room again, checking the window and door. "I heard a fire truck went out right after it, and then a sheriff's truck."
"Which way did the truck go?"
"South. Towards Oconto Falls, where Dad is." Both boys fell silent as sirens approached. Dean jumped onto the bed and peered out the high window, and the lights of police cars reflected on his face, a sickly blue-red-white. "That's two more sheriff's department trucks, and another fire engine, all heading south." Dean sat down again, the mattress groaning.
"Dean? It can't get in here, can it? Dad said the salt kept it out of the house last night."
"Let's go check all the lines are good, okay? Then we should get everything packed up and ready to go."
Sam nodded, even though he really didn't want to leave this one safe room. It made sense to pack up - the end of a job often signaled a speedy departure, and John Winchester's idea of "speedy" often meant that things he considered unimportant were left behind.
Dean gave the flashlight to Sam and picked up the shotgun. "Okay, close formation."
Sam held the flashlight in his left hand and slowly opened the door with his right. His heart was thudding but Dean was right behind him with the shotgun, so nothing would hurt him. Dean would get it first.
The living room looked entirely as they had left it, and Sam huffed a breath of relief, then moved slowly over to the lights by the door, Dean so close behind him that he was treading on Sam's sneaker heels every third step. The light showed that their first assessment had been correct - the salt lines were intact, and nothing had been disturbed. They quickly checked the other lines, and replenished the damp one on the bathroom window, but all was quiet. Sam flopped down on the sofa in relief, only to leap up again at the sound of a distant phone ringing.
Dean pushed the front window curtains aside slightly and peered out, scanning the parking lot. "The light's on in the motel office, Sammy."
"Is Dad back?" It seemed like a slim chance, but he had to ask.
Dean didn't seem to take it as a sign of Sam's babyishness. "No sign, sorry." He frowned and moved the curtain a little further aside so he could crane his neck and see past the white lattice-work in front of their room. "Max's trailer door is open, and his lights are on."
"Really?" Sam hurried over, and Dean let him peer through the window, too. "Oh no, do you think it came for him?"
"I don't see why," Dean kept staring at the trailer's open door. "He's got nothing to do with the Kovacs family. I'm thinking he might have had a fit, you know, with his epilepsy."
"We can't go out there." Sam was adamant, but Dean kept looking through the window. "Dean, we can't!"
"Okay. Let's give him five minutes - if the door just popped open, he'll notice the cold by then. If not, something's wrong. Go get our stuff packed. I'll get Dad's things and the kitchen."
Sam quickly obeyed, happy to have a plan in place, and started shoving their clothes and school things back in their duffel bags, hoping all the while that Max would simply realize the door was open. He didn't want to think about what was going on in the direction of Oconto Falls, with the white light and the sick girl and his dad; the fire trucks and the sheriff's department, let alone what was happening right outside their room. He finished off the bedroom and bathroom, quickly made the beds, then peered out the window again while Dean packed up the food they'd brought with them, and lined up all the duffel bags beside the sofa, ready to go.
"That's five minutes, Sammy."
"Dad said to stay here." Sam pulled the curtain back into place so that Dean could no longer see the trailer. "Maybe we could call Shawna in the office? You said the light was on, she must be awake."
"And what if it's not epilepsy? What if it's something else? Shawna won't know what to do, and Max will probably be all 'We come in peace' and it'll eat him." Dean forced his fingers to make Mr Spock's famous gesture. "It's our job to save people, Sam."
Sam sighed. Dean was right. "Okay. But if Max did have a fit, we go and tell Shawna and she can call 911. And if something's still sniffing around, we run right back in here."
"Good plan, Sammy! Now, you grab the salt canister and the flashlight, I'll take the shotgun. Shawna shouldn't see us from the office."
They edged carefully out the door, Sam sweeping the area with the flashlight even though the lights on the second story balcony meant that the parking lot was reasonably well-lit. There were no signs of any great destruction, and the brisk wind carried the sound of Shawna's voice from the office, though they couldn't make out individual words. Sam made his way to Max's trailer door at a cautious trot, Dean right behind him, and sprinkled a line of salt across the top step, just in case. Dean patted him firmly on the arm, meaning well done, and Sam got his courage up to walk up the steps, staying strictly to the outside of the salt line. If anything was in there, it wasn't coming out this door and into Sam and Dean.
"Max?" Sam called out, not too loudly, peering into the trailer. It was an absolute mess - papers and photographs were strewn all over the floor, a cup of coffee tipped all over them. Max's sheets and blankets were at the far end of the trailer from the bed, and the microwave door was swinging gently back and forth. Sam called out again, but there was no response, and no sign of Max.
"Sprinkle some salt in there," Dean whispered, and Sam cast a generous handful all over the debris on the trailer's floor, but nothing happened, and with a nudge from Dean, Sam carefully stepped over the salt line and into the trailer.
"Dean, he's not even here." Sam kept his voice low, even though it was hardly likely that Shawna would hear them.
"I'm going to check the bathroom in case he's fallen over in there." Dean made his way to the far end of the trailer and slowly opened the door to Max's toilet, shotgun at the ready, but he wasn't there, either. "All this stuff was stacked up neatly, before. I mean, it was messy, but not like this." He bent down and righted the mug on the floor, though most of the coffee had already soaked into the papers beneath it.
Sam peered at Max's satellite equipment, most of which was displaying confusing dots and lines on different screens, and rested his hand on the shelf that held the police scanner. "Ow! Dean, the shelf's hot!" Sam scrambled backwards, right into Dean who was hurrying towards him.
"Watch it, Sam! And stop touching stuff!"
"You did first!" Sam sucked his scorched finger and sulked. Both of them looked cautiously at the shelves - indeed, all the metal brackets were somewhere between warm and hot, and the Formica shelves were slightly scorched. There were small, matching scorch marks on the ceiling and floor, and Max's big headphones dangled from their cord. "Are the headphones hot, Dean?"
Dean touched them cautiously. "Yeah. But they're just plugged into the police scanner, nothing special." He propped the shotgun against the bench and, pulling his sleeve over his hand, picked them up and flipped an earpiece around so he could listen. "Oh, man, Sam, something's going on."
"What? Let me listen!"
Dean held out a hand and Sam shut up, though he kept hopping from one foot to the other waiting for the news. "Something blew up in the state forest...they called in the army and the Air Force? I think? And some people got killed, and some got bad burns. They're going to the hospital in Oconto Falls."
Sam nodded, pleased that the incident hadn't taken place in Oconto Falls itself. Their dad would be keeping an eye on the people brought in.
"Oh, wait, they're saying it's a chemical spill? And a train?"
"No way! A train didn't grab Max out of his chair."
"Shh, Sammy! The sheriff's guys have been told get out of the area, and the military is coming down from some base to take over." Dean took the headphone away from his ear. "Let's get back to our room - we can't help Max now. Put the flashlight in your pocket and take the gun. I'll take this."
"You're stealing Max's police scanner?"
"Yep." Dean pulled out his knife and neatly unscrewed the scanner from its brackets. "I don't know how to read the rest of these machines, but I do know how to listen to a scanner. It's the only information we're going to get right now."
"We can return it if Max comes back." Sam was warming to the idea rapidly - after all, Max wasn't using it right now.
"Okay, grab the gun, let's go. And close the door behind us - if whatever got Max comes sniffing around, I don't want other people getting hurt."
The boys hurried back across the parking lot and into their motel room, carefully stepping over the undisturbed salt lines as they entered the room. Sam put the gun on the table, then hurried over to put the chain back on the door. He collected his blanket to keep him warm on the sofa while Dean listened to the police chatter, but he hadn't even started to get sleepy when Dean frowned and started twisting the dial left and right, with excruciating care.
"Dean?" Sam got up, but kept the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Dean shook his head and Sam waited patiently. After more fiddling with the scanner, Dean pulled off the headphones and threw them on the table with a loud clatter that made both of them jump.
"Nothing. It's gone completely silent."
"Why? If there's a train crash, there's got to be fire trucks and police everywhere, and ambulances. Even if it's not a train crash, but they think it is!"
"It's all jammed, I don't know why. And Dad's got the EMF meter in the car."
"Is the monster doing it?"
"Maybe? There's a clock radio in Dad's room, I'll see if regular stations are on the air."
"I'll try the TV." Sam rolled the TV back into the living room and turned it on. The reception was snowy, so he flicked through the channels until he found one that was clear. "Uh oh. Dean, look at this."
The emergency broadcast system had taken over all the local channels. A monotonous voice was warning residents of Oconto County between Townsend, Lakewood and Mountain to prepare for mandatory evacuation due to a transport accident and chemical spill. Both boys hurried into the bedroom to listen to the radio - it had the same message. Dean flicked off the radio and stared at Sam, but before he could speak, the tornado sirens started up, wailing into the chilly night.
Sam put his face up next to Dean's ear. "Are we going to get evacuated?"
"We can't, Sammy! They'll just ask where Dad was, and we'll end up in foster care. We know there's no chemical spill, and the army and cops or whoever aren't going to find anything. We have to stay here where we know it's safe." Dean grabbed Sam's arm and shook him a little. "Got it? We know what the real danger is!"
"I'm not arguing!" Sam snapped, insulted that Dean felt the need to persuade him. "I don't want to go to foster care!"
The sirens continued, but their ears were already adjusting.
Dean ran a hand through his short hair. "Okay. Whoever they send to evacuate the motels, they're not going to do proper checks, they're just going to go door to door as fast as they can. Stash all our stuff under the bed, turn off the lights, and they'll think we're with Dad in the car."
Sam didn't argue. They quickly hid the bags and the police scanner and turned off the heaters, Dean packing their candy and some extra shells - both salt and pellets - into Sam's school backpack. With the lights out, it was easier to see out the bedroom window to the road, which was full of military jeeps and soldiers, and a slow convoy of civilian cars turning off the main road - which would have led south through the affected zone - and turning west at the motel, directed by two soldiers in reflective vests.
Dean peered at the jeeps. "Hey, those jeeps are Air Force, not army."
"Really?" Sam stretched up on his tiptoes to look. "You don't need the Air Force for a chemical spill. They must have seen something in the sky."
"Yeah, well, I hope Max didn't go running off after it, or calling it into his trailer or something. Hey - listen."
They fell silent, straining their ears over the still-wailing sirens, to hear someone knocking loudly on a door near theirs. Without a word needed, they quickly straightened the covers, and rolled under the bed.
Their door was next, with a loud knock. A second knock followed, then keys in the door, as Shawna called out, "Mr Wells? Boys? Are you here?"
The light in the main room clicked on, but neither boy moved. Two people entered the room, one in heavy boots.
"Their car's gone," Shawna added, "And they were paid in advance, so I'm sure they'll be back when this is over."
"I'll mark them off as evacuated, then, ma'am," replied a male voice, and the light switched off, then the door closed.
Dean and Sam sighed in relief, but quietly, and stayed right where they were until five minutes had passed by Dean's watch, then resumed their watch at the salt-lined window. Shouting was coming from the parking lot - it sounded more like barking orders than terror - and Dean nudged Sam to go and peek out the front window. Sam moved carefully and slowly, looking through the gap left by the curtain, not daring to actually move the curtain out of the way.
"It's the Air Force, and they're going through Max's trailer, Dean. An officer just showed up in a jeep and they're standing out there showing him Max's pictures."
Dean grimaced. "Well, I hope they can help the poor guy. I mean, normally I'd say only a hunter could help, but we don't usually get the Air Force showing up."
"Maybe Dad can point them in the right direction? They'll still think he's in the EPA, won't they?"
"I guess. Anyway, we just need to sit tight until Dad gets back into town. It'll all be fine."
The tornado sirens switched off abruptly, and Sam woke up. He was still fully dressed, lying on top of the bedcovers, but with familiar wool army blankets piled over him. Pale sunlight was coming in the window and illuminating Dean. He was wrapped in another of their blankets, sitting cross-legged on the other bed with the shotgun resting across his knees, breath cloudy white in the icy room. Despite his alert posture, Dean was fast asleep and drooling from the corner of his mouth. Sam smirked, but then he remembered how upset Dean would be if Dad knew he had fallen asleep on watch, even a watch that Dad hadn't set. Sam desperately needed to pee, but instead he turned over with as much struggling and grunting as he could plausibly manage, and heard Dean wake up with a gasp.
Sam yawned. "Dean? Is Dad back yet?" His ears were still ringing with the sudden absence of the blaring sirens.
"Uh, no, Sammy, not yet. It's all gone quiet out there, no jeeps, no Dad, no nothing."
"Okay. I gotta pee, then I could keep watch for a while if you want to sleep."
Dean shook his head. "No way, I'm good. Anyway, it's morning now."
Sam glared at him. All that trouble he'd taken to let Dean keep his nap secret, and now Dean was just being stupid, as usual. "I promise I'll wake you up the second anything happens. It might be a whole day before Dad gets back and he'll want us to be ready to move, you know." A whiny tone had crept into Sam's voice, which annoyed him - he was trying to sound grown-up and capable, not like a baby who needed protecting. Dean must have been pretty tired, though, because he nodded and propped the shotgun against the bed.
"Okay, but only for a few hours. And that promise is serious - anything happens and you have to wake me up right away. Don't think you can handle it yourself."
"Yeah, like I'm going to see a monster and go running at it."
"Thanks, Sam."
Taken aback by Dean's unusual acquiescence, Sam scurried to the icy bathroom without reply, glad that he had kept the extra socks on. He peed, but skipped flushing and washing his hands to hurry back to swap places with Dean before his hoarded body warmth entirely dissipated.
Keeping watch wasn't very interesting, but Sam knew that from previous vigils. He alternated sitting on the bed with looking out the side and front windows, peering out into the pale morning light. The men on the jeeps that occasionally passed by were heavily armed, and there was no sign of civilian traffic whatsoever. Sam let Dean sleep, though, until it was mid-morning and Sam's stomach would let him wait no more.
"Hey, Dean. Wake up."
Dean was awake in a second, but the bored expression on Sam's face told him all he needed to know. He reached under the bed, dug around in a duffel bag, and retrieved the rest of the bread and peanut butter, and handed it to Sam. Sam folded a piece of bread in half and used it to dig some peanut butter out of the jar.
"Eat up, Sammy. The phones in the room don't call long distance, so we'd better get into the office to call Bobby before people start showing up again." Dean followed Sam's example before stretching, wriggling out of bed and lacing his sneakers. Once they were finished, Dean put the peanut butter and empty bread bag away, and they both re-made their beds, rolling the duffel bags and Sam's backpack right back under the bed. A quick check of Max's police scanner showed that reception was still poor - the frequencies that the scanner could pick up were either deliberately jammed or had such great interference that the result was the same.
Leaving the shotgun behind - it was broad daylight outside, now - Sam and Dean crept quietly along the latticed walkway of the motel, staying low and moving fast so that any passing jeeps would be unlikely to spot them. It was entirely quiet, apart from the slow creaking of Max's satellite dish in the stiff breeze, but Sam's heart was in his mouth. With Dad still not back, getting caught could mean the Air Force handing them over to protective custody, and then to foster homes. Sam was fairly sure they could get Father Jim to come and pick them up, but it was a level of official notice and investigation that made him quake - regular people shouldn't have that kind of power over his family.
The office door was locked, but Dean easily picked the basic window lock and boosted Sam through to open the door from the other side. Shawna had obviously left in a hurry - a coffee mug still sat on the desk, and a small TV was on in the corner, its volume set low. The emergency broadcast had finished, and now a news broadcast was on, though all the footage seemed to be of distant pine trees, rather than of anything useful.
"See if you can learn anything. And keep watch, okay?" Dean pointed Sam towards the television, and picked up the phone behind the desk, dialing Bobby's number from memory.
The reporter was repeating the same story that had been on the emergency broadcast: there had been a freight train derailment, and subsequently a small forest fire and a dangerous chemical spill. Locals had been evacuated and the Air Force was taking over operations after the deaths of a sheriff's deputy and three firefighters called to the scene. The scene switched to a small city, and the outside of a busy hospital. A reporter was on screen, a dark-haired woman in a trench coat.
"We've just had confirmation that the sheriff's deputy who was killed in the train accident was Deputy Jason Wright, of Townsend. Deputy Wright was a five-year law enforcement veteran and leaves behind a wife and son. Hospital sources indicate that Deputy Wright died of severe burns, and that there are several other burn casualties. There are no reports on the status of the driver of the train at this point in time."
"Dean? Did you hear that?" Sam sat on the floor, feeling weirdly heavy in his legs.
"Yeah, I heard it. Poor guy." Dean didn't sound particularly troubled. "But if people are actually dying from burns, that's something totally different to what's killing the Kovacs family and their friends. Unless this is Super Monster Team-Up Town, that's pretty weird. Let me talk to Bobby."
"Okay." Sam felt stupid, getting upset over a guy they'd only met twice. Dean was right: the case was the important thing, and this was new information. It seemed so strange, though, that the man who'd been buying candy bars just yesterday had been killed just a few hours later. Sam wondered if the candy bars had melted in his pocket when he died, just leaving the foil, but he didn't want to ask Dean and be dismissed as a baby.
Bobby must have picked up the phone, because Dean was quickly explaining to Bobby about the evacuation and the news report, then fell silent, writing things down on a motel notepad as Bobby told them to him. Sam kept watch out the front window, not really wanting to watch the TV any longer, new information or not, annoyed with himself for needing to turn away.
"Okay, thanks, Bobby. Gotta go now." Dean hung up the phone and carefully tore off his piece of notepaper. "Let's go, Sammy, Bobby's got us some good intel. Better get back to the room first, though."
They hurried back, making sure to relock both the window and the door. Just after they'd shut the door of their room, they heard the approach of several vehicles, both civilian cars and military jeeps, travelling in convoy. Just one car turned into the parking lot, though, a big white pick-up truck. Dean peered out the gap in the curtain.
"It's Shawna. Good timing on the break-in, Sammy! Hey, if they're letting people come back now, Dad should be here soon!"
"What did Bobby tell you? Does he know what it is?" Despite himself, Sam was greatly cheered by the thought of getting their dad back.
"Yeah, he's pretty sure. And I don't think we're fighting a team-up after all. Bobby said that the pages Dad faxed him are in Hungarian, and they're about how to make a thing called a ludverc. It's like a little imp creature, and it does stuff for you - makes your life easy and makes you lots of money. Then it tries to drive you crazy by wanting things to do all the time, so you can either set it free or you go mad."
"What about the bright light?"
"That's the sucky bit - if you make a ludverc, even if you let it go, guess what happens?" Dean waited for Sam to guess, but when Sam didn't, he kept on anyway, just as pleased. "Well, when you die, you turn into this other kind of ludverc, and you go around appearing to everyone you know as something they desire. So they're all hypnotized and they do whatever you want, and you suck out all the years of their life until they die, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. And!" Dean held up a pontificating finger. "You travel around as a star and shoot down their chimneys!"
"So Darrell Kovacs made his own ludverc and got rich, but now that he's dead all his family and friends have to pay the price? And he's killing them? And they can't run away because he's showing up as something they want to see?"
"Looks like it. Anyway, Bobby's not sure how to kill it but he says, um, purification will protect you from it, which is why the salt is so good. Also birch twigs."
"I think I saw birch trees on the road near the lake, the way we went when we first got here. When Dad talked to that doctor?"
Dean grinned and punched Sam lightly on the shoulder. "Awesome! Dude, you rock. As soon as Dad gets back, you tell him."
On to Chapter 5
Back to Chapter 3
Master Post