Wanda didn’t like a lot of clutter around, so although she would decorate for the holidays, she hadn’t done so yet. She kept her home, a 1970s A-frame, neat and clean, and as she worked in the kitchen, she put used utensils and dishes into the sink and ran a little water over them. After sitting at a pine dining table and consuming her breakfast, she carried those dishes back to the sink, rinsed them, and put the whole lot in the dishwasher.
While she was straightening up after bending over the dishwasher, she thought a shadow passed across her back window.
She closed the dishwasher’s stainless steel door and walked over to the window. It looked out onto a quarter acre of flat yard, then a thick expanse of trees. A few birds—the kind she called LGBs, for “little gray birds,” because she didn’t know their real names—jumped and flitted about on yesterday’s snow, pecking through it for bugs or seeds or whatever it was they ate off the ground. Grass poked through the snow in tufts here and there, and one scraggly bush, its reedlike branches bent toward the ground by late fall’s snow and ice, offered shelter to a couple of the tiny birds.
None of those looked big enough to have cast such a shadow on the window. Wanda pressed her face against the cool glass, leaving an oval of steam there as she scanned this way and that for some larger creature, a hawk or maybe even a rare visitor like one of the black bears seen once in a great while in town—although surely they’d be in hibernation by now?
Seeing nothing, she gave the tiniest of shrugs. Just a cloud across the sun, maybe—or the sun breaking through the cloud cover, more likely, for a second, and her mind misinterpreting it.
She gave the room a quick once-over. Nothing out of place, no missed croissant crumbs on the table, no splashes of water on the tiled kitchen counter. Satisfied that all was as it should be, she headed upstairs for a bubble bath. She was off work today—she was a checkout clerk at Swanson’s, which wasn’t exotic but paid the bills—and except for the mall opening in the afternoon, she had nothing on the agenda except relaxation.
At the top of the stairs, a sitting area overlooked the kitchen and living room. She had a couple of cushy, comfy chairs and a reading lamp there, along with a low bookshelf containing her to-be-read books. After the bubble bath, maybe she would tear into that new Laura Lippman thriller. Beyond the sitting area was her bedroom—on a corner with dormer windows on both sides, the lightest room in the house during the day—and her bathroom.
She went into the bathroom first and started the water, shaking in some scented moisturizing bubble bath flakes. She took a thick white towel from the antique cabinet at the end of the tub, where they were rolled and tucked into cubbies, and set it out, folded neatly, on top of the cabinet. While the water splashed in the nearly empty tub, she thought she heard a noise downstairs. Just a thump or a bump, hardly worth notice, except that she didn’t have any pets or visitors and she hadn’t left a radio or TV on down there. Maybe a bird had flown into a window. She went to the bathroom door and listened.
The sound wasn’t repeated.
But now there was something else strange. At the doorway, the air felt cooler than it had a few moments ago. She remained there long enough to be sure.
Yes, there was moving air wafting up the stairs, and the scent of the pine forest outside had intensified, battling with the floral smell of her bath flakes.
Someone had entered through the back door.
She had a phone in her bedroom. Barefoot, walking as quietly as she could, she hurried in there.
But she hadn’t made it yet when she heard a tread on the steps…
TWENTY-TWO
“Lower your weapon, Grampa,” Dean said. “We just want to talk to you.” He wasn’t sure if that was true, but it seemed like the right thing to say. He was tired of civilians pointing guns at him.
“And those sirens I’m hearin’, boy, they’re just the wind in the trees? Do you think I’m some kind of an idiot? I still got all of my senses, including hearin’ and common sense.”
“I’m sure you do,” Sam put in. “Believe us, we don’t want to be here when the sheriff gets here, either. We’d rather be long gone, but with you along for the ride.”
“Why? What’ve you got to say to me, stripling?”
“You’re not behind these attacks, are you?” Dean said. The more he watched the old guy, the more convinced he was that the man was nothing but human. He wasn’t flickering or vanishing from sight, and although he was dressed oddly—a little like Elmer Fudd on a wabbit-hunting expedition, in fact—he wasn’t the soldier they had seen at the mall. “You’re trying to stop them. So are we. I think we’ll all do better if we can compare notes.”
“And why should I believe that? Answer me that one if you can.”
“Do we look like Indians, or bears, or soldiers, or whatever to you?” Desperate, Dean zipped his leather jacket up and then unzipped it again. “Have you ever seen one of those creatures wearing a modern leather jacket with a zipper?”
The old man narrowed his eyes even more than they already were—just tiny black balls behind fleshy folds—and peered at Dean’s jacket. He came a few steps closer, pushing through the underbrush, his rifle held out before him. What Dean thought he had seen at first glance now proved correct—the guy’s coat was belted shut, and jammed under the belt was a small hatchet. A smell like old cheese wafted off him in waves. His breathing was ragged and wet, as if he had fluid built up in his lungs. Guy’s got to be at least ninety, Dean thought. Unless he’s thirty-five and lives really hard. Still, for such an old coot, he got around well. He had, after all, managed to elude him, Sam, and every cop in town until now.
“Sir, all we want is to talk to you, compare notes,” Sam said. “But if we’re not out of here by the time those sirens arrive, we won’t have the chance.”
The old guy looked confused, or maybe uncertain—Dean didn’t know how to read his ancient, creased face. His mouth was open a little, with a wedge of pink tongue flitting out and running across his lips. Those BB eyes twitched back and forth. His chin quivered a little, but that might have been because all of him was locked in a state of continual tremor.
Dean hadn’t minded landing on the kid before. It had been kind of a shame to dent the hood of that old wagon, but at least he hadn’t dented the Impala—that would have required a more punitive beating.
Laying into an old geezer like this, though…it just seemed wrong. He’d do it if he had to, particularly if the guy looked like he was going to pull the trigger on his blunderbuss, or like his hand might spasm on it. Things would be much easier if they could, for a change, talk the man into lowering his weapon.
Meanwhile, the sirens closed in. Beckett had prolonged the head start beyond the promised three minutes, but not by much.
“Sir…” Sam said. Always polite. They must have taught him that at Stanford, because manners hadn’t been high on John Winchester’s lesson plan. “We’ve got to hurry.”
Finally, the man lowered the barrel of his weapon. He flashed a quick, unconvincing smile—showing teeth as small and yellow as baby corn—and then his face seemed to collapse, cheeks sinking, forehead drooping, as if he had held out hope until just this instant that he and he alone would somehow save the day. “All right,” he said, his voice as creaky as a rusted gate hinge. “Let’s go.”
“We have a car,” Dean said. Although I don’t know if there’s enough air freshener in the world to get the stink out of it after I give you a ride. “Let’s go.”
Hustling toward the Impala, the word “spry” came to mind. The old guy stepped lively, and by the time the sheriff’s department vehicles appeared in Dean’s rearview, he was already turning the corner.
“I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean,” Sam said, twisting in the front passenger seat to talk to the old man. “We’re here to try to put a stop to this murder cycle once and for all.”
“Murder cycle,” the old guy said, chuckling wetly. “That sounds like a kind of motorcycle.”
&
nbsp; “The usual response is to tell a person your name,” Dean pointed out.
“Oh. I’m…” He paused, as if he had to think about it. Dean knew the feeling. “…I’m Harmon Baird.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Baird,” Sam said. “You’ve been spotted around a lot of the murder scenes. That’s why the cops are looking for you. Us, too, at first, but we just wanted to make sure you weren’t another guy, this old soldier we saw once.”
“Oh, right,” Baird said. “We should go back there.”
“Go back?”
“The reason I was there in the first place. They come out of the woods, you know. If you’re quiet and you watch the woods you can see ’em coming, like wraiths or the dire wolf.”
“Is there going to be an attack?” Dean asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“It came as a raven,” Baird said. Dean hated people who answered questions with riddles. “Then it became a snake. Now it’s a man, or the shell of one, without a soul. His heart is twisted and black as coal.”
“Dude!” Dean snapped. “Is he gonna kill someone?”
“Oh, yes,” Baird said. “Unless he’s stopped, most certainly. He’ll kill ’em dead as they can be.”
Dean hit the brakes and spun the wheel, pulling the Impala around in a screeching power 180. Fortunately the streets were still mostly empty at this hour.
“How can they be stopped?” Sam asked.
“Shoot ’em,” Baird said. “Simple as that.”
“You can just shoot them?”
“Can shoot anything. Some it don’t stop, some it does. Them it does.”
“Shoot ’em,” Dean said under his breath. “Like we couldn’t’ve thought of that.”
“So they’re not spirits,” Sam said. “What are they? The reanimated dead?”
“Reanimated dead shapeshifters,” Dean added. “Just to make it that much better.”
“’Course, not with just any bullets.”
“What kind of bullets do you use, Baird?” Dean asked.
“I carve crosses into mine. Let the power of the Lord work through ’em.”
“Crosses?” Sam asked.
Dean slapped the wheel. “He’s making them into homemade dumdums, dummy! Cut an X into the lead and the slug explodes on impact. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“But if they’re spirits, or reanimated dead, or whatever, why would exploding bullets work any better than regular ones?” Sam asked. “Maybe it’s the crosses themselves, the symbolism of those, that’s stopping them.”
“All I know is it works,” Baird said.
“I’d still feel more comfortable with rock salt,” Sam said. “But whatever they are, Dean, if we can shoot them, we can beat them.”
“If we can believe Grandpa Munster here,” Dean said. “Where are we going, Baird?”
“That house with the pointy roof,” Baird said. “He was heading in there last I saw him, so that’s where he’s looking for his victim.”
“Right where the sheriff’s people will be,” Dean said.
“Unless they’ve already moved on,” Sam said. “They’re looking for Mr. Baird, not whoever it is he saw. Even if they see the killer they won’t know what he is.”
“Unless he’s doing that whole flicker in and out of sight thing,” Dean replied. “That’s pretty much a dead giveaway.”
“He was flickering like a Christmas tree,” Baird said. “One of them blinky kinds.”
Dean slowed as he reached Second Street again. There was one sheriff’s department SUV parked about halfway down the block, in front of the house with the name Riggins on the mailbox, but the others had come and gone. Dean couldn’t see any officers; presumably they were inside interviewing the woman who had placed the call.
Dean stopped in front of the A-frame. “That’s the place, all right!” Baird shouted. “Feller’s in there right now.”
“How can you be sure he’s still there?” Sam asked.
“I’ve developed a kind of nose for ’em,” Baird said. “This is the third time I’ve gone up a’gin ’em, after all. I know what they’re thinkin’, almost, except thinkin’ ain’t exactly what I’d call what they do.”
“Come on,” Dean said. “We can talk about it later.” He reached into the back and drew out the Remington. Sam chambered a shell in the sawed-off. They locked eyes briefly and then clambered from the car. Harmon Baird followed, still wielding his antique.
The front door of the house was closed, but through floor-to-ceiling windows Dean could see that a door in back was ajar. He couldn’t see any movement inside or any signs of struggle, or much of anything in the house. It seemed that whoever lived here had adopted a minimalist lifestyle, which was probably appropriate for someone whose house had a lot of windows.
“Cover the back!” he shouted. “I’m going in!”
Sam sprinted around the house. Baird hadn’t quite reached the yard yet. Dean tried the doorknob, which was locked. He reared back and kicked the door just beneath the knob. With a loud splintering of wood, it flew open.
“Anyone home?” Dean called into the silence.
For a second he thought no one was home and the old guy had been mistaken all along. But then, from somewhere on the second floor, up a flight of open-faced stairs, came a piercing scream.
“I guess someone is,” he said to himself. He raced for the stairs. As he reached them, he saw Sam appear at the open back door. Dean jerked a thumb toward the upstairs, then pointed at Sam and made a palm-out “stay” signal. Sam nodded his understanding. Dean raised the shotgun and continued up.
The upstairs was a loft, only occupying a third as much floor space as the downstairs. The stairway’s wooden banister became a railing at the top, and behind it, after a small sitting area, were two doorways. One of the doors stood open, and through it Dean could hear frightened whimpering. Running bathwater sounded through the other.
He swung into the doorway, bracing his right shoulder against the jamb, shotgun leveled.
Inside the room a slender brunette in her fifties or so stood up against the far wall with tears running down her face. Between her and Dean was a soldier—not the one they had seen at the mall, but a younger guy, from about the same era if the uniform was any indicator—holding a wickedly huge knife in his right fist. A genuine bowie knife, Dean thought. The soldier advanced toward the woman, but the bed blocked his way. He stepped to his left like he would go around it, then raised his leg like he would step up on it. He lowered the leg again, apparently undecided.
“Ma’am,” Dean said softly. “You might want to duck now.” He backed up his words with a hand signal.
At the sound of his voice, the soldier turned around. He was just a kid, maybe seventeen or so—or that’s how old he had been when he died. His throat had been slit, and the wound still gaped, dry and papery. Something had been gnawing on him, too—holes in his cheeks and forehead showed bone beneath. As he looked at Dean, he flickered, and for an instant it was like his bones were illuminated from inside by a bright lightbulb made from transparent black glass. Then he looked whole, as he must have in life, and then he flashed back to the slit-throat dead man Dean had first seen.
As indecisive as he had been before, he didn’t seem to have any trouble recognizing that Dean—while not his initial target—represented the greater threat. He lunged toward Dean with the big blade.
Dean pulled the Remington’s trigger. The rock salt blast obliterated what remained of the young soldier’s head and much of his chest. The woman, hunkered down in her corner, screamed as bits of him pelted her like rain.
The soldier’s lower part teetered and fell, landing in a seated position on the bed for a few seconds before slumping to the floor. There he blinked in and out, in a pattern that was growing familiar to Dean, and vanished.
All the other parts of him disappeared at the same time. The walls were marked with rock salt, but not with the bits of flesh that Dean had just scattered all over.
“It’s okay now,” Dean said. “He’s gone.”
The woman, sobbing almost hysterically, wiped her hands at body parts that had been on her a moment before and were no longer.
“No, I mean completely gone,” Dean said.
“But…”
“I know. Don’t try to understand it,” Dean suggested. “It’s a lot easier that way.”
The woman tried to smile through her tears. She rose and wiped a sleeve across her eyes. “Thank you. Whoever you are.”
“No problem,” Dean said. “And, uh, you might want to have someone come out and install a new door in front. I kinda broke yours.”
TWENTY-THREE
As Dean had directed, Sam waited downstairs. Coming back down, Dean saw that he’d been able to hold Harmon Baird there.
“What happened, Dean?” Sam asked.
“There was another one of those soldiers,” Dean said. “Just a kid. His throat had been cut, and he was trying to do the same to the woman who lives here. But the old guy’s right—if you shoot them, they go away. Blink a few times and poof, gone, like they got stuck in a transporter beam.”
“If you shoot them with the right load,” Sam said. “Anyway, we should probably get Mr. Baird out of here before someone comes to investigate the gunfire.”
“What I was thinking.” Dean called back to the woman upstairs, who still hadn’t left her bedroom. “Ma’am, we’re taking off. There’s a sheriff’s officer down the street at the Riggins place. You might want to see if they can stick around until you get that door fixed.”
She didn’t answer, but comprehensible conversation was not yet within her capabilities. Dean thought she’d be okay once she got over the fright of the dead guy—and he had been ugly dead—trying to ice her.
Dean shrugged. He and Sam and Baird exited through the destroyed front door and hurried to their car. The sheriff’s vehicle was still parked in front of the Riggins house. By the time Second Street vanished from the rearview for the second time that morning, no one had come out.
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