“DeYoung? Shaw? Is it over?”
After a few moments, DeYoung answered, his voice bitter with disappointment.
“No. Meyerson is dead.”
Wieczorek came on the channel.
“The creature is on the move.”
By the time Dean reached Meyerson, sitting on a sofa by a table lamp with a crossword puzzle in his lap, the man was dead and the night hag was gone. When he examined the body, he discovered that Meyerson hadn’t been reduced to a husk. He was wrinkled and old but not withered to skin and bones. The strain of the feeding must have killed him, Dean thought. Either a heart attack or a stroke. He turned on the radio to report his findings and to warn Sam he was up next.
The stairs creaked.
Dean glanced up and saw an old woman in a long nightgown staring at him.
“Who are you? Why are you in—what have you done to my husband,” she demanded as she took in the scene below her.
“FBI,” Dean said quickly, scrambling to produce his ID while keeping his iron short-spear beside his leg out of view before Mrs. Meyerson had a heart attack of her own. “I’m afraid your husband has passed.”
“No... no,” she said, her eyes wet with brimming tears as she brushed by Dean and bent down to grab her husband’s shoulders. “Phil! Phil, my God, no. Philip! Please, no...” She turned to Dean with an accusatory look. “What happened? Why are you here?”
“My partner and I are investigating strange incidents in town,” Dean said. “I—I thought your husband could help. I had questions. But... I think he had a heart attack.”
Dean guessed she heard only about half of what he’d blurted out. She sat beside her deceased husband and rested her head against his chest, crying silent tears.
Good luck, Sam, Dean thought. Kill this damn thing already.
When darkness blanketed the warden’s house and extinguished nearby streetlights, Sam slipped around to the back door and picked the lock, allowing enough time for the night hag to settle in and begin feeding. Webb was younger than Meyerson, so she should have time to feed. If Sam acted too soon and the nocnitsa fled, they would be back to square one, not knowing where she’d strike next, with dawn two hours away.
This was it. All or nothing. Clayton Falls wouldn’t last another night.
THIRTY-THREE
On the western outskirts of town, inside the Falls Federal Prison compound, the walls of the supermax wing began to tremble. Fissures appeared in the concrete and raced upward, forking and spreading in all directions. Large chunks of the walls fell away like a calving glacier.
While the walls crumbled, the electrical systems shorted out, rendering motion detectors and closed-circuit cameras blind. Inside the solitary cells of poured concrete, the prison’s most dangerous inmates took notice. Lights flickered and dimmed. Cell doors creaked in their housings. Cracks spread across the walls of cells that were de facto sensory deprivations chambers, with the exception of narrow window slots that revealed only a slice of sky and nothing more. Supermax inmates spent twenty-three hours of every day alone in these cells, known as “special housing units” or “SHU.” They were granted one hour per day to exercise, alone, in what amounted to an empty swimming pool. When the walls began to crack, some of the inmates imagined that the heavy concrete slabs would crush them, unlamented victims of a natural disaster.
But all of them considered the possibility of escape.
Ragnar Bartch jumped up from his bunk and watched in awe as two long cracks rose from opposite sides of the wall across from his cell door and formed an inverted V. Walking forward, he pressed his hands to the block of stone and marveled as the section scraped and slid away, opening a gap in the previously impenetrable wall. A gleam of reflected starlight on his bunk caught his attention. When he saw the familiar rectangular shape lying there, beckoning to him, he smiled for the first time since he’d come to Falls Federal. He grabbed the handle of the shiny new meat cleaver and ran through the breached wall, eager to claim the destiny that had been granted him.
Jasper Dearborn, Deputy Warden in charge of security at Falls Federal ran his hand through his thinning gray hair, convinced he was a cursed man. Alden Webb, his boss, had placed Dearborn in charge after leaving early for the day. Said he felt “wiped out.” Thought he might be coming down with a nasty virus or something. Surely Dearborn could handle things for a day or two. Most days passed without incident. Dealing with administrative red tape was the biggest headache. But routine led to complacency. And Dearborn never accepted complacency in himself or others. The previous night’s false report of an escaped inmate had even provided a bit of a wake-up call for his staff.
Dearborn’s internal alert level went up a notch when he’d received reports of a tornado touching down a few miles from the prison. But that was nothing compared to the report Ray Strawder, his security operations director brought him a few hours ago. Somehow, Kurt Machalek, one of their most notorious supermax cons, had managed to thoroughly and completely disembowel himself while under closedcircuit camera surveillance. Corporal Urbino, the guard monitoring the feeds, noticed static on the monitor. By the time he thought to report it, the image cleared and Machalek was lying in blood-strewn pieces all over his cell.
Dearborn thought it unlikely a man could commit an act of such grievous violence on himself. The logical conclusion was that he’d had help. No prisoners had access to that cell. Only Dearborn’s men. He was determined to find whoever had decided to mete out his own idea of justice—a brutal execution. And if there was a conspiracy in Dearborn’s ranks, he wanted to root it out before he told Webb of his failure. The situation was contained. Urbino had been relieved of duty and awaited interrogation. Dearborn planned to interview anyone who had access to the supermax wing, and anyone who could not account for his time. Even if it took all night.
Lost in thought, Dearborn stared at his desk when it began to vibrate beneath his hands. Picking up the phone, he called Ray Strawder.
“Strawder, what the hell—?”
“The supermax wing, boss,” his security operations director said. “It’s crumbling.”
“What?”
“The walls are literally falling apart!”
“How? Earthquake?”
“Only supermax is affected. All electronic surveillance is down. We’re blind, but I’m getting reports some of the prisoners are outside the walls. I’ve sent men and guard dogs out—hold on a minute.”
Strawder must have cupped the receiver. Dearborn heard rushed and maddeningly muddled conversation before Strawder came back on the line.
“Boss, the prisoners are armed!”
“How the hell is that possible!”
“Don’t know, boss,” Strawder said, his voice piano-wire taut. “We’re taking casualties. Bartch is out, with a damn cleaver. Killed two guards.”
Dearborn almost dropped the phone. His hands were numb.
“Gets worse, boss,” Strawder said. “Stun fences are offline. Tower guards are reporting physical gaps in the fences. Boss, this is some kind of coordinated mass escape.”
“This is a nightmare, Strawder,” Dearborn said. “Have the tower guards shoot them all. Shoot to kill. Nobody escapes!”
Not on my watch, Dearborn thought. I won’t let this happen.
He needed to alert the Clayton Falls police chief, but first he had no choice. Time to notify his boss that everything had gone to hell while the old man caught the sniffles. With a heavy sigh, he picked up the phone and dialed Webb’s number—
—but the call wouldn’t go through.
* * *
Ragnar Bartch sprinted across the prison yard in a state of pure exhilaration. Ignoring the blaring sirens and the blinding watchtower spotlights that swept back and forth, he swung his bloodied cleaver with lethal accuracy at anyone who came within arm’s reach, whether fellow inmate or prison guard. He’d even decapitated one of the German shepherds they’d sent after him without suffering a bite or a single scratch. Handgun bulle
ts whizzed by his ears. Rifle bullets rained down from the watchtowers.
Two cons running on either side of him dropped seconds apart, but he continued unscathed. Once he spotted the gap in the inner fence, he embraced his destiny. Freedom. Through the opening in the first barrier, he hardly had to alter his course to duck through the gap in the second fence. With fresh blood dripping from his cleaver, the night welcomed him and the lights of the town beckoned.
Alden Webb, warden of Falls Federal Prison, thrashed in his sleep, unable to wake up from his worst nightmare. Crouched on his chest, elongated fingers of both hands wrapped around his damp forehead, the solidified darkness of the nocnitsa hissed and sighed with delight as she drained the life energy from his body, mining his nightmare for images of fear and darkness to unleash upon the hapless town. She had grown too strong for the man to free himself from her feeding. She ravaged his subconscious mind with limitless abandon. She would ride out his feeble psychic resistance until his body and his mind succumbed to her will. Only when he had been reduced to a lifeless husk would she move on. No need for half measures now. With total focus, she slowly snuffed him out...
Sam had one shot at ridding the world of the night hag.
When he slipped into Alden Webb’s bedroom, the man was convulsing on his bed, the predatory monster crouched on his chest, cupping his head in her inhuman hands. Between the warden’s thrashing and the nocnitsa’s discordant hissing, Sam’s approach was masked, allowing him to reach striking distance.
Without hesitation, Sam thrust the iron short-spear forward in a two-handed grip, the point directed at the center of the night hag’s back—
—the same moment Webb’s heart gave out and he fell still.
Perhaps the creature heard Sam’s short exhalation as he struck.
Whatever gave him away, she spun toward him and the blow pierced her left arm instead of her back. The arm shriveled up instantly and withered away. The night hag shrieked and bounded toward Sam with remarkable speed, knocking him on his back, the short-spear clattering on the floor just out of reach.
Pushing himself back on his heels, he caught the shortspear in his hand—and froze as the night hag landed on his chest. She lashed out with her remaining hand and the solidified darkness of her fingers reached out to his forehead and through his skull, probing his mind.
Sam stared at the dark face with its glowing red eyes, long crooked nose, and wide mouth filled with sharp, obsidian teeth, and he couldn’t move a muscle. She’d forced him into a state of sleep paralysis. While his mind was aware and his consciousness raged, he couldn’t lift a finger against her.
“Ahh...” she said, sighing. “Enough fear, guilt, and darkness in you to feed me for weeks and weeks. Hmm... what you fear is... yourself! And... for him. Brother. Shall we see what happens? Yesss...”
No!
But it was too late.
Dean called in Meyerson’s death and finally managed to slip outside, leaving the man’s widow to her grief. Win or lose, Sam would be under radio silence until it was over. Lucy and Wieczorek hadn’t heard a peep yet. He started across the brick patio then stopped abruptly when he saw his brother climbing up the handful of steps toward him—holding a butcher knife instead of the makeshift wrought-iron short-spear.
“Sam? What’s going on?”
“It’s time, Dean,” Sam said, a cold glint in his eyes as he turned the knife blade back and forth in his hand.
“What the hell are you talking about, Sammy? Is nightmare bitch dead or what?”
“Of course you failed to kill her.”
“She was gone already. You got the memo.”
“I told him you were useless.”
“Told who? What the...?” Dean froze as comprehension dawned. “Oh, I get it. You’re not him. You’re his nightmare.”
“The best version of him.”
“In your dreams, pal.”
“No. In your nightmare.”
Soulless Sam charged, swinging the butcher knife in an arc at Dean’s throat. Ducking beneath the blade, Dean swept Soulless Sam’s legs. The doppelganger crashed into a deck chair and knocked over an old three-legged barbecue grill.
Shaking off the effects of the impact, Soulless Sam rose up and moved toward Dean, his cold eyes filled with murderous cunning. But Dean had a bigger concern. If he was experiencing Sam’s living nightmare, his brother was in real trouble.
He had to end this now.
Though Sam couldn’t move, he was somehow aware that Soulless Sam had been unleashed upon Dean, as if he were seeing ghost images of their battle on his retinas. Sam’s nightmare was twofold. First, that he would lose his soul again, and that Soulless Sam would cause Dean’s death. As he lay helpless on the warden’s bedroom floor, that nightmare was happening. Unable to intervene in the deadly fight, Sam could only wait, paralyzed, while the night hag fed on him until all that remained was a lifeless husk.
He had an effective weapon within reach but couldn’t use it. The only time he’d had the advantage against the nocnitsa was when she was feeding, when she became focused on nothing but the darkness she craved.
There was nothing Sam could do against her.
So that’s what he did. Nothing.
Though he couldn’t move, his body was taut with the need to fight at any cost. He let go of the tension, let it all slip away.
Why fight? She’s too powerful. She’s in complete control. Can’t win. Might as well surrender. Give up and it will be over soon. Won’t have to face Dean. Won’t have to face our failure. There’s no hope...
The night hag noticed his change in demeanor. She leaned forward, nostrils flaring, red eyes glowing with more intensity.
“That’s it... give it to me... your despair...” she hissed.
Sam closed his eyes, blocking her victory from his view.
She might have won, but he didn’t have to watch. All he had to do was give up...
He was utterly still, unresisting, wearing his hopelessness front and center, giving her exactly what she craved. When she began to rock back and forth and make that discordant hissing sound, Sam allowed himself the briefest of smiles—
—and slammed the point of the iron short-spear through her chest.
The nocnitsa shrieked and thrashed as the iron burned through the congealed darkness of her being. Sam sprang up and maintained his grip on the spear, twisting it and redirecting it into the center of her shriveling mass as she tried to recede from it.
With a blast of foul-smelling air, her body burst apart in rapidly thinning tendrils of darkness that flared and burned into bitter ash and then... faded away.
Sam stood, panting, and finally let the iron weapon slip from his fingers.
* * *
Breathing harshly, Dean stood over the corner of the brick patio where Soulless Sam had fallen. Where he had disappeared a moment ago. Raising the iron short-spear, he looked along its length. Of course, the blood had disappeared as well. Noticing movement near the patio door, he looked across the brick patio and saw the pale face of Meyerson’s widow staring at him through the window.
Had she seen the whole fight? Or just the killing blow?
Before the body disappeared, had she judged him?
Perception is reality. That’s what Sam had said.
“You’re wrong, Sam,” Dean said, staring down at the previously blood-stained corner of the patio. “That wasn’t you. Never was.”
Next to a fallen deck chair, Dean’s two-way radio squawked.
Sam’s voice. “Dean. It’s over.”
Dean scooped up the radio. “Never a doubt.”
“I had a few,” Sam replied. “On purpose.”
Dean frowned but before he could reply, Lucy Quinn’s excited voice came through the speaker.
“They’re gone! All the nightmares. We’re watching through the binoculars and they’re all winking out!”
Discretion being the better part of valor, Chief Quinn had already received the first of his rabi
es shots at County General and had three more deep intramuscular injections to look forward to over the next fourteen days. Harder to accept was Lucy’s assertion—not to mention half his department’s conviction—that nightmares were coming to life. But... the wolf that attacked him had disappeared. And he had seen other things too extraordinary to ignore. He was willing to admit that something strange was happening in Clayton Falls, whether it was a terrorist plot involving hallucinogens, some other kind of biohazard agent or even genetically engineered... creatures.
The latest news was a prison break. But this time Dearborn, the deputy warden confirmed it, though the man had seemed a bit unhinged when Quinn talked to him. And Webb wasn’t answering his damn phone. Maybe they’d put something in the water supply. Whoever they were. Chief Quinn had no answers.
Driving his cruiser down Bell Street, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a large man in pale-blue prison clothes running down the middle of the street holding a bloody meat cleaver aloft and yelling maniacally. Stopping the cruiser and turning on his light bar, Quinn stepped out and stared at the approaching man.
“No. Not this again,” he said.
“You can’t stop me! I’m invincible! It’s my destiny to kill!” the man yelled.
Whatever it was, pretending to be Bartch, Quinn had had enough.
He yanked out his firearm and put a bullet through its forehead.
The body fell to the asphalt with a convincing thud.
The bloodied cleaver spun out of the dead man’s hand and skidded to a stop at Quinn’s feet. He waited expectantly. But neither the corpse, nor the cleaver disappeared.
“I’ll be damned.”
* * *
While Dean picked up Lucy Quinn and Jozef Wieczorek at the municipal building and Sam at Alden Webb’s house and brought them all to the diner, C.J.’s had cleared out, at least temporarily. The long night was over and the eastern sky had already begun to pale, drawing open the curtain on the majestic mountains to the west. Soon the breakfast rush would arrive. The Winchesters hoped to be long gone by then. Fewer questions to answer once the dust settled.
Supernatural: Night Terror Page 28
