Supernatural 9 - Night Terror

by John Passarella

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:

  Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon

  by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Supernatural: The Unholy Cause

  by Joe Schreiber

  Supernatural: War of the Sons

  by Rebecca Dessertine & David Reed

  Supernatural: One Year Gone

  by Rebecca Dessertine

  Supernatural: Coyote’s Kiss

  by Christa Faust

  SUPERNATURAL

  NIGHT TERROR

  JOHN PASSARELLA

  SUPERNATURAL created by Eric Kripke

  Titan Books

  Supernatural: Night Terror

  Print edition ISBN: 9780857681010

  E-book edition ISBN: 9780857685445

  Published by

  Titan Books

  A division of

  Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St

  London

  SE1 0UP

  First edition September 2011

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  SUPERNATURAL ™ & © 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

  Cover imagery: Front cover image courtesy of Warner Bros.

  Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Printed and bound in the United States.

  For Andrea, who kept our family on course while my writing routine drifted into the nightmare hours.

  And in loving memory of my father, William Passarella whose absence/presence affects me every day.

  HISTORIAN’S NOTE

  This novel takes place during season six, between “Frontierland” and “Mommy Dearest.”

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  PROLOGUE

  Gavin “Shelly” Shelburn ambled along the tree-lined streets of downtown Clayton Falls, Colorado with enough conviction to avoid any charges of loitering. Occasionally, he sat on one of the secured wrought-iron benches to rest his perpetually sore feet, which had worn down the soles of his scuffed boots to the intimation of rice paper. Mostly, he spent the evening hours circling the restaurant district, eight square blocks encompassing the most popular sit-down restaurants, asking for handouts.

  Whether people were about to sit down to a good meal, or returning to their cars after enjoying a fine repast, his strategy was to impart a touch of guilt on these more fortunate citizens. With a notoriously bad economy struggling to right itself, Shelburn remained on the bottom looking up. Not that it was much consolation to a man who had lost his wife to a lengthy illness, his job to subsequent neglect in unforgiving times, and his house to dispassionate bankers, but his current disenfranchised condition lacked the stigma of years past. With record unemployment and housing foreclosures “There but for the grace of God, go I” had become a familiar refrain.

  The decline and fall of Gavin Shelburn had begun in advance of the so-called Great Recession, but he wasn’t above accepting the sympathy of those still gainfully employed to keep his stomach, if not full, then at least occasionally mindful of its gastric function. To that end, he made his nightly rounds wearing a battered fedora—which he unfailingly tipped to the ladies and regularly flipped over to accommodate folded donations—along with a rumpled overcoat that also served as his blanket and fell to the top of his second-hand combat boots. His gaunt torso gained some bulk from the two button-down shirts he wore, one over the other, though he switched the layers each day in lieu of regular laundering. Combined, the two shirts had a complement of buttons sufficient for one. His threadbare jeans retained a hint of their original black color.

  On most nights, the reliable combination of sympathy, guilt and polite panhandling kept Shelly’s stomach fed and, yes, his spirits warm, while steering clear of Chief Quinn’s holding cell. But the lingering effects of a poor economy led to slow evenings in the restaurant district, especially on weeknights. He’d reached the outskirts of his bread-andbutter zone, near the smaller pizza joints which offered slim pickings at the best of times, and was about to head back, when a middle-aged woman rushed out of Joe’s Pizza Shack with a large pizza box and a two liter bottle of Coke.

  “Good evening, Madam,” he said, tipping his multipurpose fedora.

  “Oh,” she said, startled, pausing in her dash to her car, a white Nissan idling at an unfed parking meter. “All right.” She set the pizza box on the hood of the car, fished a crumpled dollar bill out of her purse and dropped it in his hat. “Here ya go.”

  “Thank you, Madam,” he said, graciously accepting the dollar, which he stuffed into his left pocket since the right had a hole that had traveled the entire length of the seam.

  With a careless wave she gathered up her pizza box, jumped in the car, and sped off.

  A fine white mist roiled in her wake, seeming to seep in from the side streets and roll past him, lending an unearthly quality to the gritty areas that lay beyond the reach of the urban gentrification of the downtown district. More than isolated, he felt... abandoned, as if reality, along with the suburban woman, had decided to move on without him.

  He stood for a moment, staring after her car, before pushing the fedora back down over his thinning, prematurely gray hair, and turned back the way he had come. Despite momentary delusions to the contrary, his reality had not changed. Though it had become routine, his life remained unpleasant, with no guarantees. But these days, he thought, nobody has any guarantees.

  Over the course of the slow evening, he’d collected enough to pay for a few slices of pizza and a beverage to call his own, but it was too soon to reward himself with a meal or a drink—alcoholic or otherwise. Within the next hour, the
last wave of sated diners would be heading home to park themselves in front of their high-definition plasma screens. Surely a few would spare a buck or two for a neighbor who had fallen on hard times?

  Ignoring a protracted grumble of protest from his stomach, he continued his trek back toward the heart of the restaurant district. He hadn’t gotten far, when he heard another sound behind him, a scrape like steel on concrete followed by a sudden, slurping hiss.

  Startled, he whirled around. And staggered backward in disbelief.

  “What the hell?” he whispered.

  It wasn’t possible.

  His right hand patted the flask tucked into his overcoat pocket. Almost full. He hadn’t touched the stuff. Was saving it for later, when he would hunker down for another fitful night’s sleep. But even if he had drained every drop, it couldn’t explain what he saw.

  It was easily as long as two Nissans. A giant lizard, with a black pebbled face, its long powerful body and massive tail banded with bright orange. A name bubbled up from his subconscious, planted there in his grade school years and not quite forgotten.

  Gila monster.

  Its forked tongue, long as a pink yardstick, flickered out toward him, tasting the air. Then its jaws spread open, revealing a row of sharp teeth lining a mouth that could accommodate his head and entire torso in a single bite.

  He remembered something else about Gila monsters. They released venom in their saliva, a nasty neurotoxin that would paralyze their prey.

  “Sweet Jesus...”

  Unable to tear his gaze away from the monstrous lizard, Shelly stumbled back several paces. These creatures were supposed to be slow—but they were also supposed to be less than two feet long. This one was twenty times that size.

  It took a step toward him, one set of sharp claws scraping the pavement beneath it. The tongue flicked out again. Then all four legs began to churn forward in an alternating stride that covered ground much too quickly for Shelly’s liking.

  Turning his back on the enormous creature, he ran almost doubled over, out of control. Behind him, the raking claws stuck the concrete in a frightening, metronomic rhythm that gained in volume as the distance between him and the creature withered away.

  “Help! Somebody, help me!” he screamed breathlessly.

  His voice seemed lost in the night, silenced by the blanket of mist and his total isolation. Never had he felt more alone on the streets of Clayton Falls than at that moment. Gasping in a breath to scream again, he felt the monster’s long, forked tongue, sticky with what he imagined a lethal dose of venom, strafe his stubble-covered cheek.

  He squealed in uncontrolled fright, his heart pounding so hard he thought it would burst in his chest like a bloodfilled grenade. Claws slapped down on his right heel and the combat boot was wrenched off his foot, twisting his ankle painfully to the side. Staggering, he barely managed to maintain his balance, but knew his time had run out, so he veered left, into an alley behind a Chinese restaurant.

  The hot breath of the giant Gila monster washed over the back of his neck.

  Shelly heard a loud thump as the creature’s enormous tail stuck a parking meter.

  The alley ran all the way through to Bell Street, but he couldn’t outrun the creature here, either. In seconds he would be devoured close to where he often scavenged for discarded food himself, right out of the—

  He veered to the left, raised his left arm up to the edge of the shadowy bulk of the restaurant’s Dumpster and heaved himself over the lip and down into the damp and malodorous refuse.

  No sooner had he landed in the cushion of garbage than something, probably the Gila monster’s head, stuck the side of the Dumpster and propelled it down the alley. Metal shrieked against the brick wall opposite the rear of the Chinese restaurant. The Dumpster trundled spastically as its undersized wheels squealed in protest.

  Abruptly, the jittery motion stopped.

  Shelly held his breath. All he heard was the thunderous beating of his overtaxed heart. As he pushed himself up to a sitting position, something powerful struck the side of the Dumpster, dimpling the steel right between his feet, and rocking the container back into the brick wall. Another protracted screech as the creature’s claws raked the exterior.

  Shelly remembered another unfortunate fact about Gila monsters.

  They could climb.

  And this one was large enough to raise itself over the edge of the Dumpster.

  He was cornered.

  Frantically, he swept his hands through the slimy and sticky refuse, searching for something sharp or hard, anything that could serve as a weapon. His search became more desperate when he saw the creature’s claws wrap around the rim of the Dumpster like a matching set of butcher knives. The trash bin began to tilt forward as the creature’s weight pressed down on it. Shelly heard an explosive pop as of one of the wheels sheared off the base. It was only a matter of seconds before the pebbled head, beady black eyes, and grotesquely long, forked tongue would rise over him and block out the sky.

  Shelly’s foraging hand slammed into a wooden slat. He blindly traced its dimensions because he refused to look away from the Dumpster’s opening. A produce crate! he realized. Flimsy, but if he broke it apart he could use one of the slats as a makeshift dagger. Poke its eye out and maybe it would go elsewhere for its next meal.

  Abruptly the Dumpster eased back and bumped into the brick wall.

  Long seconds passed before Shelly realized the claws were gone. One moment they’d been pressed against the steel, the next they were absent. He waited a minute, motionless, listening intently for any sound. Gradually, he became aware of the ambient noise of the night. The rumble of passing trucks, the hiss of tires on asphalt, the toot of distant horns... his own ragged breathing.

  He rolled onto his hands and knees and reached for the edge of the Dumpster, slowing pulling himself up out of the garbage, his head rising above the surface like a periscope in enemy waters. He peered along the length of the alley, left and right.

  Nothing. As if the lizard had dropped off the face of the earth.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “This town is so lame.”

  Eighteen-year-old Steven Bullinger drained his second can of beer, crumpled the empty aluminum can and tossed it into one of the decorative bushes that ringed the tarnished bronze statues of Charles Clayton and Jeremiah Falls at the center of Founders Park.

  Tony Lacosta shook his head. “You say that every night.”

  “Yeah, Bullinger,” Lucy Quinn said. “You need new material.” She stood between them, facing the opposite direction, hands stuffed into the pockets of her hoodie, which was hot pink and densely patterned with tiny black skulls. She was the lookout.

  The bronze nineteenth-century pioneers were depicted astride their horses, angled away from each other in a V-shape, illuminated by recessed floodlights. Clayton pointed into the distance, possibly indicating the site of the present municipal building, while Falls pulled up on his horse’s reins. But the three teens did not choose their loitering spot out of any sense of civic pride. The benches directly behind the bronze horses were obstructed from view and cloaked in shadow at night, beyond the harsh glare of the monument’s floodlights.

  Steven grumbled, “Making sure you were paying attention.”

  “You could leave.”

  “Thinking about it,” Steven said sullenly. “Weighing my options.”

  “Right,” Tony said. “Toss me a beer before you drink them all.”

  Steven slipped his hand into the open backpack he’d set on the park bench next to him and tossed a can to Tony. He looked at Lucy. “You want one?”

  She shook her head. “I’m good.” Drinking was the furthest thing from her mind.

  “You don’t drink no more, is that it?”

  “No,” she said defensively. “It’s not that.”

  “Worried your dad will catch you?” Steven persisted.

  “No,” she said, then sighed. “Maybe. He is the chief of pol
ice.”

  “And you have him wrapped around your finger.”

  She scoffed. “I wish.”

  “What’s the real reason?” Tony asked, index finger poised over the tab, waiting to open the can.

  “I don’t know,” she said and shrugged. “The timing.”

  “What? Not late enough for you?” Steven asked.

  Tony heaved an exasperated sigh. “She’s talking about Teddy, you dumbass.”

  “Yesterday was the one-year anniversary,” Lucy said. “You guys don’t think about the accident?”

  “Sure I do,” Steven said defensively. “Don’t see me driving, do you?”

  “Jackass!” Lucy said, kicking him in the shin.

  “What the hell?” Steven seemed more upset about dropping his third can of beer than about the kick. He scooped it off the ground before much had spilled. A thin white mist had rolled across the park grounds, progressing in eddies and swirls. Steven only gave it a moment’s notice. “I didn’t mean anything by it!”

  “So being a jerk comes naturally?”

  “More like constant practice,” Tony said, smirking.

  “Shut up,” Steven said to him. Then he turned to Lucy. “Look, a year ago that’s all people talked about. Every time they saw me. Any of us walk into a room or if they passed us on the street. Can’t say I miss that. Ever since the factory fire... All I’m saying is, I get to deal with it on my own terms now. Without people shoving it in my face all the time.”

  Lucy crossed her arms and glared at him. “Excuse me if I don’t want to forget about Teddy.”

  “I don’t—I didn’t say—Tony, talk to her.”

  “None of us want to forget Teddy,” Tony said. “He was your boyfriend, but we knew him since grade school. And we were all... stupid that night. But dwelling on it? I don’t think that’s.... What’s wrong? Cops?”

  Lucy was staring at the statues. Her eyes were wide, her green irises ringed with white. She pointed. “Three—three horses.”

  Tony followed her gaze. Steven twisted around on the bench, looking over his shoulder. Moving within the V created by the horses of Clayton and Falls was another horse, a black stallion. Its hooves clopped on the marble base of the life-sized monument and it snorted as its rider steered it away from the bronze tableau, between two benches and through a gap in the decorative bushes.