Supernatural: Night Terror (28 page)

The librarian grabbed the chair at the end of the table and turned it to face him. She sat down with her legs crossed, chin on her palm.

“Sir, as a librarian I am very curious how these books have the ability to save lives. I’m Vickie Steuber, by the way, branch manager.”

Sam spoke absently as he checked the index of each of the books.

“My partner and I are investigating the unusual incidents happening in town,” he said. “We believe something... unnatural is responsible.”

“Unnatural? As in supernatural?”

“Yes.” Sam flipped to pages referenced in the indexes, finding some spotty information, but enough to convince him he was on the right track.

“Interesting,” she said. “I’ve heard some admittedly strange stories about last night. Didn’t give them much credence.

“You should.”

“Are you saying it’s going to happen again?”

“Unless we figure out how to stop it,” Sam said. “Tonight will be worse.”

The librarian’s casually curious attitude evaporated. “How much worse?”

“Go home,” Sam said. “Lock your doors and windows until morning.”

“Oh...”

Sam tapped the keyboard of the nearest computer. A login screen appeared.

“How do I...?” he began.

“Login as guest,” she said. “Password is also guest. All lowercase.”

Sam logged in and opened a web browser to run a search. He selected blocks of text and sent them to the printer at the end of the table. Frowning, he closed the browser, stood up, and pulled out his cell phone to dial Dean.

When Dean picked up, he said, “I know what we’re up against. Pick me up at the library. Across the street from the
Ledger
.”

To afford Sam privacy while he made his call, Vickie Steuber had wandered toward the front of the library. Staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she crossed her arms and shuddered. Sam walked up beside her.

“It will be dark soon,” she said.

“Do you have a ride?”

“The ten-year-old white Corolla in the parking lot is mine,” she said. “Very reliable.”

“Good,” Sam said. “Remember what I said and you should be safe.”

“Even as a child,” she said, “I was never afraid of the dark.”

“Not too late to start.”

Pausing at the passenger door of the Impala, Sam nodded to Vickie Steuber as she pulled out of the library lot in her Corolla. Judging by her pale face and wide eyes, Sam was confident she’d make a beeline for home. Other than leaving town, the next safest option for her should be inside her own home. Although that hadn’t helped Max Barnes.

“Find something in the
Ledger
’s morgue?” Dean asked.

“More like what I didn’t find,” Sam said. “Brief coverage of Teddy’s accident a year ago. Nothing since. But the garment factory fire is still the subject of stories six months later. In Olga’s eyes, everyone has forgotten about her grandson.”

“So patient zero is a suspect again.”

“Not intentionally,” Sam said. “Not consciously. It’s more complicated than that. I think she... called it. Subconsciously. In her own nightmares.”

“Called what?”

“Nocnitsa,” Sam said. “The night hag in Polish mythology. A nightmare spirit. It’s known for tormenting children.”

“Like the Barnes kid.”

Sam nodded. “Dean, it drains life energy. Looking at pictures of Olga from a year ago compared to how she looks now. Like the thing has aged her twenty-five years.”

“So it’s feeding off her and creating these living nightmares.”

“Who knows? Maybe Eve used something like nocnitsa to generate some of the monsters that hunters have been killing for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.”

“A mobile monster factory.”

“And it feeds off of emotional darkness,” Sam said. “Depression and sadness make it stronger, more powerful.”

“This town must be like a friggin’ smorgasbord.”

“A vicious circle,” Sam said. “More death and destruction, more negative emotions to feed it.”

“Perfect storm,” Dean said, nodding. “How do we recognize it?”

“It’s made of shadows, with glowing red eyes.”

“Shadows? How do we gank it?”

“Supposedly not fond of iron.”

“So we attack random shadows with iron? Hope for the best?”

“Sorry, Dean,” Sam said. “That’s all I could find in the library and online. Soon as I figured out the nocnitsa was involved, I called Bobby again. He’d already locked onto the night hag as a possibility but has no new information. Promised he’d keep looking.”

“Dude, it’s almost evening. We’re running short on time here.”

“While we’re waiting, I know where we can get our hands on some iron.”

The shadows stretched long and had begun to fade as Dean hacksawed another wrought-iron post from the collapsed fence around the hulking remains of the Clayton Falls Apparel Company. Once the posts were freed from the panel, they cut them in half, about the length of a sawed-off shotgun. Since the posts had ornamental points that resembled spearheads, they made serviceable stabbing weapons.

“This site is responsible for most of the negative emotions feeding the nocnitsa,” Sam said. “These fence posts might turn that negative energy against it.”

Dean hefted one of the posts, practiced thrusting it forward with one hand and then both hands.

“Olga called this thing in her sleep?” he asked.

“Maybe that’s the only way somebody can call it,” Sam said. “It speaks nightmares. Olga has bottled-up rage, an unspoken desire for revenge, and sees only injustice where her grandson’s friends are concerned. Subconsciously, I think she... vented. She wanted them punished. She’s read all those books on the history and folklore of Poland, probably multiple times.”

“So subconsciously, she hired a monster hit man—hit woman? This night hag?”

They returned to the Impala, each holding a pointed halfpost.

“Maybe that’s how it works,” Sam said. “That’s its currency. You feed it, and it does the dirty work.”

“Came for the cake, stayed for the negative emotion party.”

“She’s a stubborn old woman,” Sam said. “But on a conscious level, she has no idea what’s happening. She’s sickly and blames aging. Bitter but blames karma for what happened to Bullinger and Lacosta.”

Dean tossed the hacksaw in the trunk of the Impala, slammed the lid shut.

Sam’s cell phone rang.

“Bobby,” Sam said after checking the display. He put the call on speaker and walked toward Dean. “Bobby, you find anything?”

“Lore’s a little light on this one, boys.”

Dean frowned. “You called to tell us you got nothing?”

“No, ya idjit,” Bobby said. “Of course I got something.”

“Let’s hear it,” Sam said.

“Everything I found says this nocnitsa is made of shadows...”

Dean mouthed the word “nothing” and Sam shook him off.

“But I found a pattern,” Bobby said. “If two cases make a pattern.”

“What is it?”

“Both times a hunter went up against a nocnitsa, the thing was feeding.”

“She takes solid form to feed?”

“Best guess,” Bobby said. “And she only feeds when her victim is sleeping.”

“We gotta gank her red-handed?” Dean said.

“Job was easy, boy, everybody’d do it.”

“Doubt that, Bobby,” Dean said.

“Quit yer bitchin’ and listen.”

“You got more?” Sam asked.

“What I gather, if you don’t end this thing, the nightmare manifestations will outlast the nightmares that spawned them, take on a life of their own. Phrase ‘eternal night’ keeps popping up. And not like it’s a good thing.”

“How much longer before that happens?”

“Rate this thing is powering up? Better kill her tonight or there won’t be a town left to save.”

With Dean driving east along Welker, Sam said, “Our best chance—maybe our only chance—at catching this thing feeding is at Olga Kucharski’s house.”

“Why there?”

“She starts there,” Sam said. “Hasn’t finished her original mission.”

“Lucy Quinn.”

“Last one left,” Sam said. “After that, the night hag could go anywhere.”

“We can’t kill it unless it’s feeding,” Dean said. “By the time that happens, the Charger will be back, gunning for Lucy.”

Sam nodded. “She’ll be a sitting duck.”

“We split up,” Dean said. “I bodyguard Lucy, you wait at Olga’s for feeding time.”

Dean dropped Sam off near the Kucharski residence and then drove to C.J.’s Diner to keep an eye on Lucy Quinn. When he’d left to pick up Sam at the library, Sophie Bessette left as well. Dean had advised her to go home, but she flashed a mysterious smile and gave him a little wave goodbye without revealing her intentions. Lucy, however, hadn’t finished her shift and had promised to hang around until Dean gave the all-clear.

He pulled into the diner’s crowded parking lot and hurried inside. Betsy had taken over Lucy’s section and navigated the booths and tables with practiced fluidity. A buzz of excited conversation filled the air and Dean heard the word “nightmare” several times as neighbors and acquaintances compared notes. Dean intercepted Betsy when she returned to the counter to pick up an order.

“Lucy in the break room?”

“She was,” Betsy said. “Got fidgety. Went outside for some fresh air.”

“Crap,” Dean said under his breath. He hadn’t seen anyone outside when he parked the Impala. “If she comes back, tell her to wait here.”

“Sure thing, Agent DeYoung,” Betsy said and slipped past him, balancing a large round metal tray filled with several entrees.

Dusk had transitioned quietly, dangerously, into evening.

When Dean stepped outside, the streetlights were on and all the passing cars had turned on their headlights. He walked a circuit around the diner to no avail. At any minute, anywhere in town, lethal nightmares could be forming. One of the first ones would be a ’68 Dodge Charger lining up Lucy Quinn in its high beams. And she was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Sam couldn’t take the chance that Olga Kucharski would let him wait in the house while she turned in for the night. She was sick, feeble, and slept fitfully at odd hours. Now that night had fallen, the chances of her falling asleep had increased. And the night hag would be ready. Even if the old woman were amenable, the thought of having a stranger in her home might prevent her from falling asleep. And if she stayed awake, would the nocnitsa wait around? Or move on to another, random, house to feed off a different dreamer? A stealthy approach provided his best chance at catching the night hag feeding. With that in mind he’d brought along a set of lock picks.

Checking the street for pedestrian traffic, Sam slipped along the side of the house and peered through a livingroom window. A gap in the blinds revealed a glimpse of Olga Kucharski in her recliner, the TV remote control dangling from her hand at the end of the armrest. The television was on with the sound turned too low to hear through the closed window. Another peek revealed that Olga’s eyes were closed. The lamp on the table beside her chair began to flicker. Sam worried the stuttering light would rouse her, but she seemed too tired to react to the shifting shadows. As he watched, a deeper shadow slid down the wall, a shadow whose impenetrable darkness defied the arc of light that intermittently flashed across it. A moment later, the lamp winked off and the ambient light cast from the television set vanished. The room plunged into darkness. At the same moment, the streetlight in front of the house seemed to burn out.

Sam crept back to the front door, knelt in front of the lock and placed his wrought-iron short-spear on the welcome mat, freeing his hands. First he tucked a thin Maglite between his chin and shoulder to illuminate the lock, but the flashlight immediately dimmed until it provided no light.
The night hag,
he guessed,
it’s knocked out all electric light
. He’d have to work the lock by feel alone.

Inserting the tension bar in the lock, he applied torque to the cylinder while working the pick to set the pins. He’d had years of practice picking locks. The skill relied on touch and hearing more than sight anyway. In a few seconds, the pins were set and he slowly turned the cylinder, releasing the deadbolt and unlocking the door.

After tucking his lock-pick set in his jacket, he scooped up the short-spear and eased the door inward. If he’d timed it well, Olga was sleeping and the nocnitsa was feeding. But that meant that the phantom Charger would be hunting Lucy.

After pacing in the diner’s break room, Lucy Quinn had walked around the parking lot waiting for DeYoung, the shorter FBI agent, to show up. Unable to sit still for more than a couple of minutes, she thought a brisk walk would burn off her nervous energy. But she had walked farther than she intended. As dusk slid into nightfall, she looked up and saw C.J.’s several blocks distant.

Her first thought was to call Agent DeYoung and tell him she’d be there in a couple of minutes, but her cell phone signal strength kept dropping from three bars to none, and each time the display flashed the “no signal” icon, the call disconnected. As she hurried back toward the diner’s neon sign, white mist swirled around her shoes, immediately reminding her of the headless horseman in Founders Park and the—