Supernatural--Cold Fire (6 page)

They’d agreed to be honest with each other. No more secrets. Dean said he remained in control of himself, that he wore the Mark without it controlling him. But they both knew that couldn’t last. The Mark would eventually have its way. And when the scales tilted, when the Mark claimed its inevitable hold over Dean, would his brother even know that moment had arrived? Or would his own will be swept away as he lost the battle for control? And if that fateful day arrived, would Dean still retain enough of himself to admit the truth to Sam?

The newest Braden Heights housing development remained a work in progress.

Yet from Day One, the builder had made sure to have the decorative wooden sign erected at the eventual entrance, facing the busy highway, with C
OVENTRY
C
ROSSING
emblazoned in a flowing script font, painted green, very official, as if the houses had already been built and were home to many happy families. If not for the white vinyl banner below the wooden sign, stating F
AMILY
H
OMES IN THE
$200,000
S
– C
OMING
S
OON
! A year later, the permanent sign and a new vinyl banner with an updated enticement remained, with twenty percent of the projected 110 homes unfinished. Traveling from one of the developments to the other, finished homes gave way to skeletal wooden frameworks of future homes, which gave way to several lots which had seen utility work completed but little else.

Since Sal Fanizzi operated his bulldozer on the edge of the development farthest from the finished homes and the families living in them, he had no qualms about blasting the volume on the old radio he’d duct-taped to the window of the cab. Listening and singing along to the classic rock station helped the day go by faster, especially when stuck in the noisy bulldozer, cut off from the rest of the construction team. All afternoon he’d worked his way along the packed earth roads between the lots, clearing the building sites of trees and brush.

Driving from one end of the development to the other seemed like traveling through time. It reminded him of fast-forwarding through a movie or watching time-lapse photography. Head toward the finished homes and you jumped to the future where the homes had already been built. Turn around and drive away from the completed section and you traveled into the past, watching roofs and walls vanish, lumber come down to reveal rectangular foundations, exposed earth and finally open land, nothing but trees and brush and the occasional patch of wildflowers. At the moment, Sal worked in the past while listening to a commercial-free block of music from what seemed an equally distant time.

He’d been tasked with clearing the far perimeter of the land the builder had purchased for the development. Sal couldn’t believe this preliminary work hadn’t been done already, but he’d heard some whispers about “bad mojo” and the “creeps” or the “willies” that others had experienced while working this portion of the property. Hardly mattered if it was the guys getting their hands dirty or the supervisors directing the operation, they all seemed to find something better to do a little farther away and the work never got done. Sal had laughed, called it a bunch of superstitious bullshit. Guys looking for any excuse to get out of some work. How long before one of them said he spotted Bigfoot roaming through the woods? Eventually, the task of clearing the final bit of land fell in Sal’s lap. So he put on a brave face, tugged down his trucker hat and told his foreman, “No problem.”

Naturally, within an hour or so, the other guys had wandered off and he worked the final lots alone. The bulldozer’s blade rumbled through the dirt and ripped out the snarls of brush same as anywhere else. Yes, the air seemed unnaturally still, the breeze from earlier in the day gone, but on the “unusual” meter, that hardly budged the needle. True, he neither saw nor heard any signs of wildlife out here, but why would he? The powerful growl of the bulldozer’s engine combined with the gouging destruction of the blade would have scared off any bird, mammal or reptile with the slightest instinct for self-preservation. As for the occasional chill Sal felt down his spine, he imagined he might be coming down with the flu bug going around.

He made a mental note to toss back some vitamin C and zinc tablets soon as he got home. In the meantime, he sang along to the radio, Mellencamp’s “Rain on the Scarecrow” segueing into Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.”

Besides, he was almost done with that section of the property. All that was left was the removal of a stand of dead trees, not a bit of foliage on them. The trunks had shed most of their bark, their branches brittle, skeletal limbs. A bunch of dried timber too stubborn to fall down and crumble to mulch or turn into a massive buffet for termites. Enter Sal Fanizzi to help the process along.

If he was honest with himself and beyond earshot of any of the superstitious bozos on his crew, he would admit how odd it was for this one stand of trees to have died in the middle of lush growth. They were like a stain on the landscape. He wondered if the previous owner of the land had dumped something toxic on the back corner of his land. Out of sight, out of mind. Whatever it was, it happened long ago and the effect hadn’t spread. Tucked away in the cab of the bulldozer, Sal had no worries about exposing himself to whatever might have killed those trees. He simply took a great deal of satisfaction in watching them tumble over, their withered roots tugging clumps of earth up with them, giving way almost too easily after all the superstitious mumblings had bestowed this block of the land with almost mystical powers.

As one tree after another toppled over, seemingly in slow motion, Sal accelerated into the muck and drove them back beyond the perimeter, backing up and circling around to repeat the process as many times as needed. Once the trees were well clear of the final lots, he dropped the blade into the tossed earth, plowing the excess back into the darkness of the surrounding woods and packing the earth left behind in the process.

* * *

Mangling the lyrics to Springsteen’s “The Rising,” Sal smiled as the last of the dead trees fell.

Focused on the removal of the trees and the bragging rights he now possessed for finishing what the others had been too scared to attempt, he never noticed the long shapes scooped up within the mounds of earth. Partially obscured from view by the bulldozer’s massive blade, the shapes offered no more resistance than the withered trees. Rootless and silent, they made no protest to this latest mistreatment, beyond the fluttering of ragged cloth that continued to cling to them after so many years.

When the bulldozer backed up and turned away, they settled into the loose earth, once again hidden from view. Once again ignored and forgotten…

Pharmaceutical sales rep Elijah Green often referred to his silver Audi S3 as his mobile office. Considering the long hours spent and the many miles logged in the sedan, traveling between pharmacies, doctors’ offices, hospitals and outpatient clinics, his nickname had a certain inescapable logic. Unless he was taking a client out for a business lunch, the passenger seat of the Audi functioned as a mini desk, holding his samples trunk, laptop computer and an old-fashioned clipboard and legal pad. But he had a dashboard mount for his smartphone, which allowed him to see notifications of incoming calls and texts without fumbling in his pockets while navigating the highways and side streets of Evansville, Indiana.

If he received an important call, he’d pull over and answer rather than dividing his attention between the caller and the road. Some days he drove well over a hundred miles before heading home to Braden Heights. He’d seen more than his share of distracted drivers and refused to become one. They came in all shapes, sizes: chatting or texting on phones, eating fast food lunches out of paper wrappers cradled in their lap, applying makeup with the aid of a sun visor mirror, yelling at kids in the backseat to behave, even a few who’d spent too many hours on the road and dozed off at the wheel.

After a brief, hopeful flirtation with a Bluetooth earpiece—a gift from Brianna—in an effort to communicate hands free, Elijah finally concluded that phone conversations, no matter how they were conducted, remained too much of a distraction for him. During his one-week trial with the earpiece, he’d caught himself drifting into the next lane twice; on a third occasion, he’d been scolded by a passing motorist who laid on his horn for three indignant seconds. Elijah might as well have been dozing. Another time, he hadn’t noticed traffic slowing ahead in a construction zone and a tailgating situation quickly escalated to a near-miss fender bender. To avoid the collision, he’d stomped on the brake pedal and watched helplessly as his trunk, laptop and clipboard slammed into the dashboard. After that incident, he took the hint and tossed the earpiece into the dinged glove compartment.

Sometimes days on the road seemed like a war of attrition, or at least an erosion of concentration. And while he might joke about the car being his mobile office, anyone who carried a smartphone knew that possessing one of the miraculous devices, with constant access to email, text chat and voice calls, meant that the owner never left the office. Being on-call 24/7 was not always a blessing, but Elijah was particularly grateful for the freedom it allowed him these past few days. He’d made Brianna promise to text him whenever she had news. Sure his schedule in the field remained busy and hectic, but almost anything on that schedule could be rearranged. All it took was a few calls. Problem solved.

Naturally, her first text came during rush hour, while traffic maddeningly alternated between too slow through the bottlenecks and much too fast when the lanes opened. While slogging through the former, he’d turned on the radio to take his mind off of how slow so many cars could move in unison. The Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” was playing when his dashboard-mounted phone’s screen lit up to display the text notification. Considering his situation, he vacillated between recognizing the appropriateness of the song and believing it was far too cynical for a pharma rep to ever include on a playlist.

His gaze darted between the uncomfortably close rear bumper of the PT Cruiser in front of his Audi and the short text message on his phone’s screen.

“Gotta go!”

At the moment, he was stuck between lanes of slow-moving traffic, no opportunity to pull over and too risky to attempt a fumbled reply. He’d narrowly avoided one fender bender. Best not to push his luck. Instead he wondered why she’d waited so long to text him. He’d asked her more than once to text him right away. And she had promised, playfully offering to pinky-swear if he doubted her.

The phone chimed again.
“Can’t wait!”

Frowning, Elijah jabbed his finger at the radio to switch stations.

Another text chime:
“Sorry!”

Strangely, the new station was also playing “Mother’s Little Helper.” Hell of a coincidence. He was used to hopping between stations and hearing the same irritating commercial, those things were impossible to avoid, but what were the odds of both stations playing this old song?

He was mentally rambling, a familiar habit when his anxiety climbed, which happened when he felt himself losing control of a situation. Nothing he peddled in his samples case would treat that condition.

Chime:
“Malik’s here.”

Fortunately, Elijah was nearing the end of the bottleneck. Ahead, he saw cars accelerating, the mass of metal expanding and flowing away from him at unsafe speeds, many drivers determined to make up for lost time. Today of all days, he could sympathize. As the PT Cruiser sped away from him, he pressed down on the gas.

Supposedly, Brianna’s brother was the backup plan, in case she couldn’t reach Elijah. She hadn’t wasted any time, though. She must have called Malik first, before bothering to text her husband. Maybe she thought Elijah would find his way home in time, but planned all along to have Malik take her. To keep her own anxiety under control. To be fair, her needs came first and his being there for the main event was more important than being the chauffeur.