Supernatural: Night Terror (27 page)

Wieczorek pursed his lips. “I’ll try. But I don’t know if they’ll believe me. Or listen. Maybe they can black out this market.”

“Do what you can,” Dean said.

“I will,” he said. “But the nature of nightmares is that they linger.”

“We know,” Sam said.

“Oh, and I’ll talk to Millie,” Wieczorek said. “She’ll have a record of all the emergency calls. Maybe that will help.”

“Knock yourself out,” Dean said.

His mind had already leapt ahead, considering the likelihood that he and Sam would be shooting rabid wolves in several hours. At least wolves—unlike lobster-clawed aliens—weren’t immune to bullets. As they exited the studio, Dean looked back and saw Sandy rejoin Wieczorek, handing him a towel to begin removing his makeup. The old man stared after the Winchesters, but his gaze seemed unfocused, lost in thought, a pensive zombie.

Dean and Sam retraced their steps to the lobby.

“You got anything?” Dean asked. “ ’Cause I got nothing.”

“Whatever is happening, it’s connected to Dr. Gruesome’s show and Olga Kucharski,” Sam said. “The Gila monster, the headless horseman, and the Charger started this. If those two are not directly involved, something is using them.”

“What about the Raptors? And the sinkhole. And Nazi zombies?”

“Like he said, nightmares linger,” Sam said. “We only checked one week of TV listings. Maybe movies about that stuff aired two weeks ago. Or... maybe not. I don’t know.”

Exiting the building proved much simpler than entering. The droopy-eyed security guard barely looked up as they passed through the lobby and stepped outside. Sam paused and looked at Dean over the roof of the Impala.

“I’ve got an idea.”

“All ears, Sammy.”

“Let’s go with the premise that Olga Kucharski is patient zero.”

“Okay.”

“The most significant event in her life is the death of her grandson,” Sam said. “And two of the people who were with him when he died have been killed by the nightmare car.”

“Right,” Dean said. “So we’re back to her?”

Sam shook his head. “Not directly. But something triggered this. Something about that accident. But I’m missing something.”

“Sounds like research dead ahead.”

“I’ll call Bobby. Get him working the nightmare angle.”

“Good.”

“Then I need you to drop me off at the
Fremont Ledger
,” Sam said. “The online archives are a bit thin. I want to check back issues in their morgue, dating back to the accident.”

“Watch out for that reporter—Nash,” Dean said. “Last thing we need is our pictures all over the paper.”

“Right.”

“While you’re at the
Ledger
, I have something to check out.”

“What’s that?”

“Last survivor of that car accident,” Dean said. “Lucy Quinn. Way I see it, she has a big honkin’ bull’s eye on her back.”

“I’m surprised you asked me here.”

“I’m surprised you came,” Dean said, smiling.

“Is this the early bird special?” Sophie Bessette said after taking a cursory glance at the laminated C.J.’s menu she’d plucked from the wire holder next to the paper napkin dispenser.

“I missed lunch,” Dean said.

“Don’t FBI agents have expense accounts?”

“You know how it is. Budget cutbacks,” Dean said. “Besides, I wasn’t sure if this was business or pleasure.”

“Oh,” Sophie said. “Definitely business.”

“Too bad,” Dean said. “But they have great cheeseburgers here.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sophie said. “And yet I’ve managed to avoid the temptation.”

“We’re still talking cheeseburgers, right?”

She smiled winsomely. “So far. Yes.”

“Good.”

“I’m assuming the crisis is not yet past?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Lucy Quinn approached their booth in her C.J.’s Diner navy blue vest with the red buttons, carrying two glasses of water, which she placed in front of them.

“Hello again, Agent DeYoung. Are you both ready to order?”

Sophie cleared her throat. “You serve salads?”

“House salad,” Lucy said with a slight shrug. “It’s okay. Nothing to write home about.”

“That will be fine,” Sophie said. “Vinaigrette. On the side.”

“Cheeseburger and fries,” Dean said. “Lady doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

Lucy smiled, pulled a pen and order pad from a side pocket in her vest and scrawled down their order quickly.

“Any appetizers?” she asked. When they declined, she said, “Okay. That’ll be a few minutes. Or do you want the salad brought out right away?”

“Together is fine,” Sophie said.

After Lucy left the booth, Dean said, “She look familiar?”

“Yes,” Sophie said. “I believe she’s the daughter of the chief of police.”

“Know her any other way?”

“No,” Sophie said, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you suggesting?”

Dean reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a list of names he’d written down while waiting for her to show up at the diner. Unfolding the paper, he placed it on the table, flattened the creases and turned it so she could read the names.

“Is this a list of terror suspects?” she asked him, intrigued.

“No. I mean, probably not.”

“Then what?”

“Look, I know you’re worried about patient confidentiality, so I want you to look at those names and let me know if any are familiar.”

“I can’t say I’m comfortable with this.”

“Read the list,” Dean said. “If you don’t know any of the names, fine.”

“And if any of them
are
familiar?”

“I could get a court order,” Dean said. “But let’s cross that bridge when it’s time to blow it up.”

She sighed. “You realize I don’t treat patients personally? Half of these people could have been patients at Restful Sleep and I’d be oblivious.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe what you want,” she said, but she examined the names, running her manicured index finger down the list slowly enough that Dean knew she was making an honest effort. He watched that finger closely, looking for any telltale pauses beside any particular name, but each one received equal treatment. “No,” she said, eventually. “None of these names are familiar.”

“Worth a shot.”

“Who are they?”

“Witnesses and victims,” Dean said. Lucy Quinn was the only name he’d left off the list. All along, he’d planned on watching Sophie’s reaction to Lucy in person. But her reaction—or non-reaction—had told him nothing.

After Lucy had set down their plates and walked away, Dean said, “Guess this is pleasure after all.”

“You wish,” Sophie said, but smiled affably as she picked at her lettuce.

Hoping Sam was having better luck with newspaper research, Dean tore into his cheeseburger with gusto.
She really doesn’t know what she’s missing
, he thought. And he was still referring to the cheeseburger.

Appropriately enough, the morgue of the
Fremont Ledger
was located in the basement of the newspaper office building. A clerk helped Sam locate the year-old issues of the newspaper, which had been converted to microfiche. Sam started two weeks before the accident that killed Teodor Kucharski, in case anything unusual had precipitated the crash. But there we no mentions of the boy or his grandmother in any of the local stories.

The day after the accident, the coverage was minimal. Police blotter details. Nothing more. In the days that followed, a few human interest stories appeared, some with reprinted photos of Olga Kucharski and her grandson. Again, Sam marveled that he was looking at photos of the same feeble and sickly woman he’d interviewed a couple of hours ago. The Olga Kucharski in the newspaper photos looked young enough to be her daughter. A sympathetic reporter had interviewed her after the accident to delve into Teodor’s character and personality, and she referred to him as a “good Polish boy” more than once in the interview. The reporter had commented on the pride she had in her Polish heritage and how she’d lost her husband to illness before immigrating to the United States.

Photos at the crash scene showed the totaled Charger, crumpled like an accordion. Looking at the wreck, Sam shook his head. Hard to believe the other three teens had survived the crash.

Other newspaper stories dealt with the issue of driving while intoxicated and underage alcohol consumption, drifting from human interest to op-ed. Teodor had become a grim cautionary tale for the youth of Clayton Falls. Less than two weeks after the accident, however, the press coverage ended. Sam skimmed through a month’s worth of microfiche after the last article and found nothing else about Olga or her grandson. Seemed like Teodor Kucharski had been dismissed from the public consciousness.

The microfiche archive began six months back. According to the clerk, anything more recent would be converted to digital records in parallel with microfiche but neither was available yet.

Sam pulled hard copies from the time of the Clayton Falls Apparel Company fire. Almost three dozen employees had died in the fire. The press coverage was extensive. Frontpage stories about the explosion that led to the fire, the malfunction of the sprinkler system, the investigation into the cause and culpability of the fire, inspection records, capsule biographies of all the victims. Days and weeks after the fire, longer human interest pieces, detailed profiles of the victims, basically mini biographies covering the entire span of their lives.

Sam skipped forward weeks and months and found more human interest articles. How families continued to cope with the loss, how they had changed their lives in the wake of the deaths, changed priorities, sons and daughters returned home from college, or changed courses of study, volunteered to help with burn victims, and one high school senior had decided to become a doctor. These articles turned into calls for a memorial, public debate on the memorial’s location and design and when it would be constructed and dedicated, and whether the ruins of the factory would be razed or preserved or rebuilt as a church or a community center.

During this last batch of articles Sam caught up to the online archive he’d reviewed before he and Dean arrived in town. He returned the hard copies to their shelves and left the building, thanking the helpful clerk on his way out.

If he looked at the town’s reaction to the two tragedies from Olga Kucharski’s perspective, Sam could understand how she’d feel Teodor had been forgotten. For the last six months, the town had shared a communal grief that excluded her because her personal grief had become too isolating.

The living nightmares had begun on the one-year anniversary of her grandson’s death. An anniversary forgotten or ignored by everyone but Olga Kucharski. At least that’s how it would seem to the old woman. The living nightmares, however, could not be ignored. They would continue to grab and hold the town’s attention. And that’s why Sam kept returning to her, his patient zero. But if Olga had triggered the living nightmares, he was pretty sure she’d done so unintentionally—or subconsciously.

Two things had been the focus of her life. Her grandson and her heritage. The
Fremont Ledger
reporter had noticed it, as had Sam, from the moment he entered her house and saw the Lech Walesa portrait, the map of Poland and the entire bookcase of volumes on...

Cell phone in hand, Sam stopped at the bottom of the stairs of the
Fremont Ledger
building.

Across the street was the Clayton Falls Public Library.

Pocketing his cell, he crossed the street to the single-story white stone building. As he walked up to the entrance, he saw a brunette in a gray business suit standing with her back to him at the door. He heard a metallic click and realized two things simultaneously: she was the librarian and she’d just locked up for the day.

She dropped her keys in her pocketbook, turned around and emitted a startled squeal when she saw him standing there.

“You scared me!” she cried.

“Sorry,” Sam said. “Bad timing. I need to get in there.”

“Really bad timing,” she said. “We closed an hour ago. I was cleaning up after everyone left.”

Sam pulled out his FBI credentials. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

The woman smiled. “Has that line ever been used in the history of law enforcement in reference to a library?”

Sam shrugged. “First time for everything.”

“If nothing else, this will make a great article for the library newsletter,” she said as she plucked her keys out and unlocked the door. She held it open for him and followed him inside. “How can I help?”

“Do you have any books on Poland?” Sam said. “More specifically, Polish legends and folklore?”

“We have a few books on Poland, some related to World War II,” she said, leading him through the aisles and pointing to the appropriate sections as she spoke. “Any books on myths, folklore, and legend would be in a different section.”

Sam pulled four volumes on world folklore and legend from the shelves—one title matched a book he’d seen on Olga Kucharski’s bookcase—and carried them back to a long table in front of the checkout counter with a row of four computers connected to the internet.