Supernatural: Night Terror (21 page)

“Face it, Sammy. You’re keeping Dean away from Lisa and Ben. He’d run to them in a heartbeat if he thought you could handle yourself. But he’ll never go while you’re alive. We both know it. And that leaves me with one option.” Soulless Sam chuckled, tapping the edge of the blade against his palm. “Actually, you should thank me. Dean’s excess baggage. You’ll travel faster without him. And be a better hunter for it.”

“You’re over,” Sam said to him. “A figment of my imagination.”

“Imagination is powerful,” Soulless Sam said. “Especially these days, don’t you think? I feel... rejuvenated.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll find out. Sooner than you think.”

Sam lunged toward his doppelganger, pitching forward in the chair. He braced for the impact, determined to break free of his bonds before Soulless Sam could strike with the knife. But the impact never happened.

The basement floor opened in front of him, an expanding darkness, like the sinkhole at Mack’s Qwik Mart, but instantaneous. Blood rushed over the receding edges of the hole, a macabre waterfall.

Standing clear, Soulless Sam laughed as the floor swallowed Sam whole.

Sam awoke with an involuntary jerk of the muscles in his arms and legs. In the dream, he’d been fighting against the ropes binding him to a chair. Once awake, the ropes were remnants of his imagination and his limbs flailed wildly at the sudden freedom.

The motel room was dark. They’d pulled the blinds so the morning sun wouldn’t wake them before they’d logged a few hours of sleep. After two long nights in a row without much rest, the Winchester brothers were running on caffeine vapors and little else.

Wanting some fresh air to clear his head, Sam stood and walked to the foot of his bed. He stopped when he noticed the silhouette of a man across the room, back turned toward him, standing next to the other twin bed. Sam almost called Dean’s name, but saw his brother was asleep on the far bed. Then Sam saw the glint of stainless steel extending from the stranger’s fist.

For a moment, he thought the Butcher Bartch manifestation had somehow followed them back to their motel room, but the body type was wrong—and so was the blade. Not a cleaver—a butcher knife.

That’s impossible
, Sam thought.
I’m still dreaming
.

Dreams within dreams. A waking dream?

The stranger raised the butcher knife over his head, clutching the dark handle in a double-handed grip, knuckles flexing, prepared to strike.

Sam charged across the room.

He almost expected his legs to betray him, or the floor to open up beneath him again, or the carpeting to bunch and trip him. But none of that happened. And he was almost fast enough to stop the attack.

As the stranger drove the point of the butcher knife downward, Sam slammed into him and the other man’s weight was as solid as his own, the impact jarring as they both fell to the floor. Before Sam saw the man’s face, saw that it was in fact his own face staring back at him, he registered the man’s empty hands.

The knife was missing.

Soulless Sam smiled at Sam.

“Too late!” he said.

Then vanished.

Dean Winchester, alone in the Impala, drove through a rainstorm at night with the radio turned to a classic rock station, but he heard more static than music. Over the hiss of the tires on the wet road, he heard snippets of Seger and AC/DC and Skynyrd. And no matter the song, the repetitive
thwum-thwump
of the windshield wipers kept time with the beat about as competently as an inebriated percussionist. Rising above this confused mush of sound with stark clarity, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID display: Lisa Braeden.

Shaking his head, he answered the call and said, “Ben, we’re not doing this again.”

“Dean!”

Lisa’s voice. Hushed and frightened.

Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel, instantly alert.

“Lisa? What’s wrong?”

“It’s in the house.”

“What’s in the house?” he said urgently. “Lisa, what’s in the house?”

“He looks human,” she whispered. “But he’s not.”

“Who—what is it?”

“Dean, he’s calling for you. Says he wants you but he’ll enjoy the fresh meat while he waits. He knows we’re here!”

Casting aside a dozen possibilities, Dean’s mind seized on one: ghoul.

“Where are you?”

“In the closet, in my bedroom. With Ben.”

“Dean, you gotta hurry!” Ben’s voice, smaller and somehow more distant.

“We’re frightened, Dean,” Lisa said and her voice sounded raw.

“Hang on, Lisa. I’m coming.”

Dean floored the accelerator, staring through the muddled windshield, wipers turned to their highest setting. Visibility sucked. He could see less than fifty feet in front of the Impala’s headlights before darkness swallowed his surroundings. He had yet to see one sign on the empty road, which seemed endless and unchanging no matter how long he drove. No destination ahead of him. Nothing in the rearview mirror.

“Dean, where are you?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“How long before you get here?”

“Soon—soon as I can.”

Dean looked left and right, desperate for a street sign or a route number. Anything. Was he even driving in the correct direction? Maybe he was heading away from them.

“Dean... he’s coming up the stairs,” Lisa whispered frantically. “I can hear him. Tapping a knife on the banister.”

Facing the inevitable, Dean asked, “Do you have any weapons? Anything you can use as a weapon?”

“I didn’t have time,” Lisa said. “I grabbed Ben and hid. Let’s see...” Dean heard sounds of rustling movement. “I have... hangers...”

“Wire?”

“Plastic.”

“Anything else?”

“Boots, shoes... Dean I didn’t know I’d need weapons in my closet!”

“Call 911.”

“I tried. They put me on hold. Dean, he’s going to kill us...”

“No,” Dean said defiantly. “That won’t happen. I won’t let it happen.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s too late. He’s in my room...”

Silence on the line.

“Lisa? Lisa, talk to me?”

A moment later, he heard her scream.

“No!” Dean yelled.

He pounded the dashboard with his fist and—

—he was standing in her house, at the bottom of the staircase.

As Dean grabbed the railing and took the first step, a darkhaired ghoul appeared at the top of the stairs whistling an unrecognizable tune. It held a blood-streaked butcher knife in one hand. The index finger of the other hand pressed casually against the tip, as if testing its sharpness. In addition to the blood on the knife, the ghoul had blood smeared around its mouth.

“About time you showed up, Winchester,” the ghoul said. “Had to amuse myself while I waited. And I was feeling a bit peckish.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Dean launched himself up the stairs.

The ghoul waited for him impassively. Until the last second. Then it slashed the butcher knife toward Dean’s throat.

But Dean was expecting the attack, and threw his forearm into the crook of the ghoul’s elbow as he drove it back and slammed it into the wall. Dean drove his right fist into the ghoul’s abdomen, doubling it over. Then he placed his palm under the ghoul’s jaw and shoved its head back so hard the back of its skull smashed through the drywall.

Stunned by the head blow, the ghoul failed to resist when Dean grabbed its knife-wielding hand, twisted the wrist down and forced the blade deep into its gut. The ghoul gasped and sputtered, blood foaming on its lips. Dean grabbed the back of the ghoul’s neck with his right hand and its belt with the left, and ran it forward, hurling the creature down the staircase, head over heels.

Grunting in pain as the embedded knife cut through assorted internal organs, the ghoul rolled end over end, feet bursting through the railing at one point before its body veered toward the wall and crashed to the landing below. Moaning, the ghoul stirred, plucking feebly at the handle of the butcher knife.

Dean marched down the steps, pulling his gun from the holster and taking aim as he neared the last step. When Dean finally stood over the prone form, the ghoul opened its eyes and tried to focus on Dean’s face, but it couldn’t ignore the muzzle of the handgun.

“As last meals go...” it began.

Dean fired two quick shots into the creature’s head.

Standing in a dark silence broken only by his ragged breathing, Dean steeled himself for what he would find upstairs. He holstered his gun and rubbed his palm over his face. Numbness spread from his head to his toes. He clenched and unclenched his hands, sensing that he stood on a precipice. Looking down, he would see the face of madness.

Several moments passed before he realized he heard sobbing from upstairs.

Lisa!

Dean turned back to the staircase, moved toward it, fighting the sensation that the stairs would disappear before he could ascend them. He gripped the railing for support and it wobbled crazily beneath his grip, weakened by the balusters damaged in the ghoul’s fall. With each step up, he had increased difficulty breathing. When—
if
—he made it to the top, he was certain there would be no oxygen left in the house.

One plodding step after the other he came closer to the source of the sobbing. As much as he tried to hurry, he dreaded what he would find. The staircase seemed to rear upward, making the climb steeper. He pressed onward, determined to face the consequences of his actions, the price of his inaction... the result of his absence.

At the top of the stairs, the sobbing became louder, more sporadic and—how was it possible?—even more inconsolable.

The mournful sound led him to Ben’s room.

Dean stood in the open doorway. His body trembled with his inability to step forward, into the room. Lisa sat with her back toward him, hunched over—

—blood on the walls—

—blood stained the bedcovers and—

—blood on the floor, near...

Dean pressed his eyes shut before he could see—

—if he opened his eyes he
would
see—

He turned away and—

He woke up.

In the dark motel room, lying on his right side, shuddering as he held back a bottled grief that carried over from his disturbing dream. He’d collapsed on the bed without changing out of his rumpled clothing, falling asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Now he felt as if he’d been through a spin cycle.

“Whoa,” he said softly as he swung his feet over the side of the bed.

“Dean!” Sam said from behind him, undisguised relief in his voice. “You rolled over.”

Dean looked over his shoulder. “What?”

“You moved—rolled away. Bad dream?”

“Doozy,” Dean said. “What’s wrong? Couldn’t sleep?”

“Same here. Bad dream.”

As Dean turned around, he saw Sam pass his hand over the edge of the bed, as if searching for something.

“You need loose change for the vending machine, just ask,” Dean said, looking at his brother, puzzled.

“No—it’s not that. Thought I saw a tear in the blanket. Guess I imagined it.”

Dean stood up and turned to face Sam across the bed.

“This ain’t no four-star hotel,” he said. “But I think I would have noticed ripped bedding.”

“Right.”

Sam stood there for a moment, looking dazed. Then he ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled forcefully.

“It’s late morning,” he said. “What do you say? Coffee with an energy drink chaser?”

“Sam? Something you want to talk about?”

“No. I’m good.”

“You don’t look good.”

Sam sighed. Dean had the impression his brother wanted to tell him what was bothering him so he kept quiet, waiting, to let Sam work it out.

“Like I said, bad dream. More like a waking dream. I was... talking to Soulless Sam. Guess it’s the unknown. He was me. But he’s a stranger, in a way.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t know, man,” Sam said. “Maybe it’s a psychological side effect of having this wall in my head. Wondering what it—he was like. But what can I do? Doubt I’ll find any case studies on the Internet.”

“You think it’s cracking? The wall, I mean,” Dean said. “Maybe Cass can patch it.”

“No, it’s not that. I’m not remembering anything about my... lost time. Or what went on in the pit with Lucifer and Michael. It’s just about
him
... the not knowing.”

“Make sense, I suppose” Dean said.
As if any of this makes sense.

By the time Dean parked the Impala across from 109 Chaney Lane, a tree service company was reducing the downed white oak to disposable pieces. One man cut off smaller branches and fed them into the wood chipper while a second man turned the trunk into manageable slices with a heavy-duty chainsaw.

Between the raucous roar of the chipper and the repetitive whine of the chainsaw, Dean felt a massive headache brewing. Lack of sleep and too much caffeine could be a crappy combination. At least he wasn’t hung-over. Although, at the moment, he couldn’t imagine how a hangover could possibly feel any worse.

Sam pressed the doorbell.

They waited with their FBI laminates at the ready. Melinda Barnes might assume they were with the press, intruding on a family tragedy, and slam the door in their faces. She would be more inclined to speak to someone trying to figure out what happened. But what they really needed was to speak to her son.