“There’s a selling point I hadn’t thought of.” Dean started the engine and got the Impala back on the road, headed for the Trail’s End. “Hook up with us and see a quick return on your premiums.” He laughed. “I like it, Sammy. Think we can fit it on a bumper sticker?”
TWENTY
Juliet Monroe woke up with a nagging headache and the sense that the previous night’s ordeal must have been some sort of terrible nightmare. Dawn’s light filtered in through the living room blinds. She was still on her couch, though she’d slumped over onto her side and lost part of the blanket that had covered her. The house was warm and cozy, and it seemed impossible that life could look as hopeless, that survival could be as unlikely, as it had seemed before she’d gone to sleep.
She shook off the remaining blanket and forced herself to her feet. Her head throbbed with every move she made. The house was quiet. She started toward the TV set, thinking that maybe some chattering voices would help fill the silence, but halfway there she decided against it. If the big canine was still around, she wanted to be able to hear it.
Instead, she went to the window, poked a finger between the miniblinds—which needed dusting, she realized, and the windows could stand some Windex—and parted them just enough to look into the front yard.
Stu’s body, red and mangled, hadn’t budged. The snow right around it had melted but then had frozen again during the night. Crimson-splashed ice surrounded it now, holding it in a fierce grip.
Either it had snowed a little more during the few hours she slept or the wind had smoothed out the snow, but she couldn’t see the wolf’s tracks anymore. Again, a sense of unreality invaded her mind, like it hadn’t actually been a wolf after all. Like Stu had been killed by some other mechanism, a bad fall on the slick ground or an explosive aneurysm.
As she had the night before, Juliet went to every window in the house, looking out for any sign of the animal. The sun was just cresting the ridges to the east, and its slanted light would have picked out tracks. She saw some that might have been birds and maybe rabbits, but no canines, large or small.
That task completed, she went into the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove to boil for tea. She chose a box of Earl Grey and shook some into an infuser, which she lowered into an enameled teapot. She knew she should eat something, but her headache was affecting her stomach, making her nauseous. Maybe a slice of toast. Or two. With just a little butter.
When the water screeched its boil, Juliet shut off the stove, poured some into the teapot, and set the boiling pot down on a cool burner. While her tea steeped, she went to the front door. She pressed her ear against it, listening.
There was no sound at all, not even birdsong. With the boiling pot off its burner, it was as if sound had ceased to exist, or she had gone deaf during the night. She knew that wasn’t the case, since she’d heard the whistling pot. Just in case, she tapped her fingertips against the wooden door. They made noise. Nothing wrong with my hearing, then. It’s just awfully quiet.
Her restless mind filled in the cliché. Too quiet.
Placing her hand on the doorknob made her heart pound. She held it there for a long moment, willing the noisy organ to quiet itself. She took three deep breaths, letting the air out slowly. Her heart calmed. She jump-started it again by flicking open the thumb latch. More breaths, more waiting. This was taking too long; her tea would be bitter by the time she got back to it.
It had to be done, though. If the beast was gone, if there was a way out of here, she had to take it.
Holding her breath altogether, Juliet opened the door. Just a fraction of an inch, at first. Enough to peer out through the crack. She could see the walkway in front of her house, some snow, a tiny splash of red over where Stu was. She pulled it open more. Nothing attacked her. Nothing moved.
Juliet stepped outside, pulling the door to but not releasing the outer knob. There was no breeze at all, no flutter of wings or chirping or any of the other morning noises she was accustomed to hearing. Absolute stillness. The air was cold, as on a crisp winter morning. She associated days like it with shopping on Chicago’s Miracle Mile, the stores decorated for the holidays, Marshall Fields standing like a warm, welcoming beacon that would happily take her money and make her appreciate it.
She hadn’t decorated for Christmas since Ross died, and hadn’t planned to this year, either. The holidays felt empty without him.
She released the knob, took a few steps away from the door. Now she could see Stu better, and the sight brought with it a wave of nausea.
What she still didn’t see was the wolf.
Maybe it had gone. She had ascribed nearly supernatural powers to it, but what if it was, after all, just a big canine? It had been hungry, had attacked a few cows, and then had seen Stu as a threat because he came between it and its dinner. It couldn’t have magical powers, couldn’t read her mind or know her intentions. Last night she had believed it could do all those things and more, but that had been panic talking, not reason. By now it was probably forty miles away and still going.
Juliet began to formulate a plan. She had to have some food, and her tea. Had to settle her stomach a little. Then she would put on some good snow boots, fresh clothes, long underwear, her down parka. With gloves and a cap, she would be ready for the long walk to the neighbors’ place. They kept to themselves and she hardly knew them, but they’d let her use a phone. That was all she needed now. Just a phone call to the sheriff and this whole thing would be behind her.
She turned back toward the house and her head swam, black dots crowding her vision from the fringes, and her stomach lurched. Thinking she might vomit, she stopped in place. Better to do it in the snow than on her living room floor. She put her hands on her knees and rested for a moment, hunched over, waiting. The feeling passed, and the blackness moved out of her eyes again.
Straightening, she let her gaze travel up, past the door to the edge of the roof.
The wolf hunkered there, gazing down at her. A surprisingly pink tongue slipped from its mouth, washed across it. Then the canine’s muscles tensed.
Juliet bolted. She burst back inside, slammed the door behind her, and locked it again. Outside, she barely heard the crunch of the animal’s landing in the hard snow.
With the door secure, she rushed to the bathroom, certain that the vomit would come this time. All the way there, she thought, Stupid, stupid, stupid! You cannot go outside! To go outside is to…
To go outside is to die.
TWENTY-ONE
The deputy’s SUV was pulled off to the side of the road and its driver’s side door hung open. No lights burned inside or out. Someone said that the vehicle had run out of gas and then its battery died, but it only sat there for a couple of hours, so Sam thought the real explanation had to be more complicated than that.
They had heard about its discovery on their police band radio, shortly after returning to the motel following the eventful trip to Heather’s and back. By the time they made it to the scene, the deputy’s body had already been bagged and hauled away. Sam overheard another deputy talking about bugs, but that didn’t make any sense; he hadn’t seen so much as a housefly since coming to town.
Yellow tape reading sheriff line do not cross in big black letters had been strung around the SUV and off into the brush around it. Uniformed deputies bustled around behind the tape, taking photographs and measurements. Others stood in grim little knots, talking among themselves in low voices under the gray light of an overcast morning. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to Sam and Dean until Sheriff Beckett detached himself from one of those clusters and stalked toward them. He didn’t look like a happy man.
“Who are you people?” he asked as he drew near them. “And don’t give me any crap about the National Geographic, because I only see you at crime scenes, and neither one of you is ever taking notes or pictures. I’ve just had a man killed who was a deputy and a friend of mine, and I’m not in any mood for foolishness, so either I get a straig
ht answer out of you or we might just have ourselves a constitutional test case on unlawful arrest.”
“We’re not here to make any trouble,” Sam said.
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Dean dug a leather case from his pocket that Sam hadn’t seen him put there. “We’re trying to stay low profile,” he said, lowering his voice as if inviting Beckett into a conspiracy. He opened the case. Sam saw a flash of a badge and a plastic window showing an ID card. “Homeland Security,” Dean said quietly.
Beckett took the badge case and studied its contents. “Nice job,” he said. “Looks like the real deal. It’d convince me if I was feeling persuadable, which I’m not.” He eyed Sam with suspicion. “You got one, too? Or maybe you’re from the Department of Agriculture.”
“He’s not buying it,” Sam said to Dean.
“Doesn’t seem to be.”
“I say we tell him the truth.”
“Okay,” Dean said. “We’re with DEA,” he began. “Deep undercover.”
The sheriff reached for his handcuffs.
“We’re here because of the murder cycle,” Sam said quickly. The sheriff stopped, hooked his thumb through his belt. “We investigate things like this. Paranormal events, particularly the violent kind. Folklore, myth, what some people would call monsters. I can’t give you verifiable statistics, but we have a very good track record at what we do. By now you’ve got to admit that there’s something going on here that’s outside the scope of your expertise.”
“So you two are some kind of ghostbusters?”
“Except they’re not real,” Sam said. “We are.”
Sheriff Beckett ticked his eyes back and forth between them. “I don’t know which story is more ridiculous.”
“So when you said tell him the truth,” Dean said quietly, “you meant the true truth.”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “He needs our help, and we could use his.”
“We really are here about the murders,” Dean said. “Every forty years, like clockwork. Unusual weapons. Even animal attacks. You have a better way to explain it?”
“Better than what?” Beckett asked. “I haven’t heard you explain it yet. You’ve only described it.”
“Well, truth is, we’re still working on that part.”
“I see,” Beckett said. “So all your expertise is good for what, exactly?”
“At least we’re not running around pretending it’s something you can solve by the book.”
“Son,” Beckett said, looking weary, “I haven’t been pretending I could solve any of this for about thirty hours now. Maybe a little longer. I’d like to be able to keep ahead of it, prevent some people from dying if I can. But solve it? Hell, I just want to keep the town together until it passes. Forty years from now it’ll be some other cop’s problem.”
“But we can make it stop forever,” Sam said.
“How are you going to do that?”
Sam cleared his throat. “That’s the other thing we don’t know yet. Depends on what it is. We’ll get there, though. We really are good at this sort of thing.”
Beckett shook his head slowly. “I can hardly believe what I’m going to say. You think you can do something about all this? We’re supposed to have a shopping center opening at noon today. It’s—” He consulted his wristwatch. “It’s seven-ten now. You were there when Mayor Milner said that nothing would delay the opening.”
“But that many people all gathered together in one place might be an irresistible target for whatever’s behind all this,” Sam said.
“Exactly. If they can get here.” He inclined his head toward the SUV. “Apparently, we can’t get out. That’s what Trace was trying to do, trying to get to Flagstaff to fetch us some reinforcements. We can’t call or even e-mail outside of town. But if people can come in, then once they’re here they’ll be trapped too, and like you say, piled up in the mall, they’ll be easy pickings. So if you think you can do something to stop it, you have till eleven. When noon comes around, I’ll be at that mall. If I see you and you haven’t put a stop to all this, I’m holding you both as material witnesses. You have any outstanding warrants?”
Sam and Dean caught each other’s glances, then looked away.
“I thought maybe,” Beckett continued. “Look, that’s five hours away. You’re the experts you claim to be, that should be plenty of time.”
“We’ll do what we can, Sheriff,” Sam said. “You have our word on that.”
“I hate to admit it, boys, but I’m counting on you.”
Beckett was turning around to go back to his car when police radios crackled. After a moment’s conversation, one of the deputies called out to him. “Sheriff! Jodi Riggins has spotted that old man, she thinks, heading east down Second!”
“On my way!” Beckett replied.
Sam caught him by the arm. “Let us go first,” he said. “You said you’d trust us, so give us five minutes. It’s just a sighting, right, no one’s been killed? We think that old man might be the key to it, and if you go in with lights and siren, he’s going to vanish again.”
Beckett looked constipated, like he’d eaten his own words and they disagreed with his gut. “Three minutes,” he said. “You get on out of here, and I’m three minutes behind you. You better move your asses.”
They moved. Sam reached the Impala first, so he got in behind the wheel. Dean slid in beside him without comment, and before his door was closed Sam was peeling out.
On the way, Dean slid his nickel-plated .45 from the glove and checked the magazine.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Making sure I’m loaded.” He reached into the backseat, brought up a pump-action Remington from the floorboards. “For anything.”
“We probably just want to talk to this guy,” Sam said. “Not kill him.”
“We don’t know that. All we know, he might be the soldier. Or the Indian. Or both.”
“Yeah, and we’ll know that if we see him.”
“When.”
“When we see him. But if he’s none of those things, he might be a witness. He might know something. He might even be a hunter.”
“He doesn’t sound like a hunter,” Dean said.
“Only because so few of them live to be old. But showing up around the scenes of these incidents? That sounds like a hunter to me, and a better one than we are, so far.”
“Okay, you could be right, Sam. We won’t shoot on sight.”
The car cornered well considering the roads had frozen over during the night and were just beginning to thaw, and within Sheriff Beckett’s three-minute window they were cruising down Second Street. A mailbox on the right had riggins painted on the side.
“Okay, along here somewhere,” Dean said.
Sam slowed. He watched the houses and yards on the left while Dean took the right.
They had covered two blocks when Dean shouted, “There!”
Sam screeched to a stop. “Where?”
Dean pointed to a gap between a single-story bungalow and a larger, shingled A-frame that looked like it had been built during the seventies. “I saw him right in there, going behind that wannabe ski lodge. Old guy, carrying a rifle he must have had since birth. I think there was a knife or hatchet or something tucked in his belt, too, but I couldn’t get a very good look.”
“You go up behind him,” Sam said. “I’ll go around the other side. We’ll try to pinch him in the middle. And don’t let him get us caught in each other’s cross fire if we need to shoot.”
“I thought you didn’t want to shoot him.”
“I don’t. I’m just saying…if we have to.”
“No cross fire,” Dean repeated. He got out of the car and started jogging toward the A-frame. Sam sprinted past it, then hooked around toward the back.
Behind the A-frame the woods grew thick again. At first Sam didn’t see anyone except Dean in the yard. Lost him again, he thought, disappointment welling up in him. But then Dean gave a shout a
nd pointed, and Sam saw the old man trying to sneak off through the trees.
Both Winchesters started running, relying on long legs to propel them over short, prickly underbrush, dodging low-hanging branches as they went. The old man broke into a run too, but his legs weren’t as steady as theirs, and the length of his rifle slowed him because he kept catching it in fir branches.
Within a minute they had caught up to him, one on either side. He leveled the rifle at Dean’s belly. In the distance, Sam could hear approaching sirens.
“You take one more step, either of you jaspers, and I’ll open you up like a can of tuna,” the old man said.
From the glint in his narrow-slitted eyes, Sam believed he meant it.
Wanda Sheffield was disappointed to see that the snow had stopped during the night. She’d curled up under her down comforter the night before, hoping that when she opened her eyes again a blanket of white would cover the land, flocking all the trees and creating the winter wonderland effect that would help put her in the Christmas spirit.
Christmas was Wanda’s favorite time of year. She loved the music, the decorations, the general good cheer. She even liked shopping in crowded malls, as long as the stores were dressed for the holidays. She wore bright clothes, heavy on the reds and greens, and she seemed, on those occasions, to have a perpetual grin on her face, like some kind of happy idiot.
This year the mood hadn’t quite caught her up yet. It would, she had no doubt of that. And it was early in the month yet.
Still, a good heavy snowfall would have set her nicely down the Christmas road.
She would survive the disappointment, she figured, one way or another. To that end, she brewed a small pot of fair trade organic French roast and put a couple of croissants she had picked up the day before in the oven to warm. She got some boysenberry jam from the refrigerator, along with a container of heavy cream. If one intended to pamper oneself, she had long believed, half measures weren’t worth the trouble. From a cabinet, she took a real china cup, the kind that came with a saucer and seemed so out of vogue these days, and she put a spoonful of sugar into the bottom of it.
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