Supernatural: Night Terror (38 page)

Sam had one shot at ridding the world of the night hag.

When he slipped into Alden Webb’s bedroom, the man was convulsing on his bed, the predatory monster crouched on his chest, cupping his head in her inhuman hands. Between the warden’s thrashing and the nocnitsa’s discordant hissing, Sam’s approach was masked, allowing him to reach striking distance.

Without hesitation, Sam thrust the iron short-spear forward in a two-handed grip, the point directed at the center of the night hag’s back—

—the same moment Webb’s heart gave out and he fell still.

Perhaps the creature heard Sam’s short exhalation as he struck.

Whatever gave him away, she spun toward him and the blow pierced her left arm instead of her back. The arm shriveled up instantly and withered away. The night hag shrieked and bounded toward Sam with remarkable speed, knocking him on his back, the short-spear clattering on the floor just out of reach.

Pushing himself back on his heels, he caught the shortspear in his hand—and froze as the night hag landed on his chest. She lashed out with her remaining hand and the solidified darkness of her fingers reached out to his forehead and through his skull, probing his mind.

Sam stared at the dark face with its glowing red eyes, long crooked nose, and wide mouth filled with sharp, obsidian teeth, and he couldn’t move a muscle. She’d forced him into a state of sleep paralysis. While his mind was aware and his consciousness raged, he couldn’t lift a finger against her.

“Ahh...” she said, sighing. “Enough fear, guilt, and darkness in you to feed me for weeks and weeks. Hmm... what you fear is... yourself! And... for him. Brother. Shall we see what happens? Yesss...”

No!

But it was too late.

Dean called in Meyerson’s death and finally managed to slip outside, leaving the man’s widow to her grief. Win or lose, Sam would be under radio silence until it was over. Lucy and Wieczorek hadn’t heard a peep yet. He started across the brick patio then stopped abruptly when he saw his brother climbing up the handful of steps toward him—holding a butcher knife instead of the makeshift wrought-iron short-spear.

“Sam? What’s going on?”

“It’s time, Dean,” Sam said, a cold glint in his eyes as he turned the knife blade back and forth in his hand.

“What the hell are you talking about, Sammy? Is nightmare bitch dead or what?”

“Of course
you
failed to kill her.”

“She was gone already. You got the memo.”

“I told him you were useless.”

“Told who? What the...?” Dean froze as comprehension dawned. “Oh, I get it. You’re not him. You’re his nightmare.”

“The best version of him.”

“In your dreams, pal.”

“No. In your nightmare.”

Soulless Sam charged, swinging the butcher knife in an arc at Dean’s throat. Ducking beneath the blade, Dean swept Soulless Sam’s legs. The doppelganger crashed into a deck chair and knocked over an old three-legged barbecue grill.

Shaking off the effects of the impact, Soulless Sam rose up and moved toward Dean, his cold eyes filled with murderous cunning. But Dean had a bigger concern. If he was experiencing Sam’s living nightmare, his brother was in real trouble.

He had to end this now.

Though Sam couldn’t move, he was somehow aware that Soulless Sam had been unleashed upon Dean, as if he were seeing ghost images of their battle on his retinas. Sam’s nightmare was twofold. First, that he would lose his soul again, and that Soulless Sam would cause Dean’s death. As he lay helpless on the warden’s bedroom floor, that nightmare was happening. Unable to intervene in the deadly fight, Sam could only wait, paralyzed, while the night hag fed on him until all that remained was a lifeless husk.

He had an effective weapon within reach but couldn’t use it. The only time he’d had the advantage against the nocnitsa was when she was feeding, when she became focused on nothing but the darkness she craved.

There was nothing Sam could do against her.

So that’s what he did. Nothing.

Though he couldn’t move, his body was taut with the need to fight at any cost. He let go of the tension, let it all slip away.

Why fight? She’s too powerful. She’s in complete control. Can’t win. Might as well surrender. Give up and it will be over soon. Won’t have to face Dean. Won’t have to face our failure. There’s no hope...

The night hag noticed his change in demeanor. She leaned forward, nostrils flaring, red eyes glowing with more intensity.

“That’s it...
give
it to me... your despair...” she hissed.

Sam closed his eyes, blocking her victory from his view.

She might have won, but he didn’t have to watch. All he had to do was give up...

He was utterly still, unresisting, wearing his hopelessness front and center, giving her exactly what she craved. When she began to rock back and forth and make that discordant hissing sound, Sam allowed himself the briefest of smiles—

—and slammed the point of the iron short-spear through her chest.

The nocnitsa shrieked and thrashed as the iron burned through the congealed darkness of her being. Sam sprang up and maintained his grip on the spear, twisting it and redirecting it into the center of her shriveling mass as she tried to recede from it.

With a blast of foul-smelling air, her body burst apart in rapidly thinning tendrils of darkness that flared and burned into bitter ash and then... faded away.

Sam stood, panting, and finally let the iron weapon slip from his fingers.

* * *

Breathing harshly, Dean stood over the corner of the brick patio where Soulless Sam had fallen. Where he had disappeared a moment ago. Raising the iron short-spear, he looked along its length. Of course, the blood had disappeared as well. Noticing movement near the patio door, he looked across the brick patio and saw the pale face of Meyerson’s widow staring at him through the window.

Had she seen the whole fight? Or just the killing blow?

Before the body disappeared, had she judged him?

Perception is reality. That’s what Sam had said.

“You’re wrong, Sam,” Dean said, staring down at the previously blood-stained corner of the patio. “That wasn’t you. Never was.”

Next to a fallen deck chair, Dean’s two-way radio squawked.

Sam’s voice. “Dean. It’s over.”

Dean scooped up the radio. “Never a doubt.”

“I had a few,” Sam replied. “On purpose.”

Dean frowned but before he could reply, Lucy Quinn’s excited voice came through the speaker.

“They’re gone! All the nightmares. We’re watching through the binoculars and they’re all winking out!”

Discretion being the better part of valor, Chief Quinn had already received the first of his rabies shots at County General and had three more deep intramuscular injections to look forward to over the next fourteen days. Harder to accept was Lucy’s assertion—not to mention half his department’s conviction—that nightmares were coming to life. But... the wolf that attacked him
had
disappeared. And he had seen other things too extraordinary to ignore. He was willing to admit that something strange was happening in Clayton Falls, whether it was a terrorist plot involving hallucinogens, some other kind of biohazard agent or even genetically engineered... creatures.

The latest news was a prison break. But this time Dearborn, the deputy warden confirmed it, though the man had seemed a bit unhinged when Quinn talked to him. And Webb wasn’t answering his damn phone. Maybe they’d put something in the water supply. Whoever
they
were. Chief Quinn had no answers.

Driving his cruiser down Bell Street, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a large man in pale-blue prison clothes running down the middle of the street holding a bloody meat cleaver aloft and yelling maniacally. Stopping the cruiser and turning on his light bar, Quinn stepped out and stared at the approaching man.

“No. Not this again,” he said.

“You can’t stop me! I’m invincible! It’s my destiny to kill!” the man yelled.

Whatever it was, pretending to be Bartch, Quinn had had enough.

He yanked out his firearm and put a bullet through its forehead.

The body fell to the asphalt with a convincing thud.

The bloodied cleaver spun out of the dead man’s hand and skidded to a stop at Quinn’s feet. He waited expectantly. But neither the corpse, nor the cleaver disappeared.

“I’ll be damned.”

* * *

While Dean picked up Lucy Quinn and Jozef Wieczorek at the municipal building and Sam at Alden Webb’s house and brought them all to the diner, C.J.’s had cleared out, at least temporarily. The long night was over and the eastern sky had already begun to pale, drawing open the curtain on the majestic mountains to the west. Soon the breakfast rush would arrive. The Winchesters hoped to be long gone by then. Fewer questions to answer once the dust settled.

On her way home after an unexpected double shift, Betsy, their amiable server, handed the brothers two paper bags and two large cups of coffee.

“Cheeseburger and fries, grilled chicken, and a salad for the road,” she said pleasantly. “On the house.”

Baumbach had caught a ride with another State Patrol cop, leaving Jeffries alone at the diner with Lucy and Wieczorek to say goodbye.

Dean nodded toward Wieczorek. “Back to your regularly scheduled nightmares?”

Wieczorek shrugged. “Good question. I don’t know if I still have the Dr. Gruesome gig anymore. Frankly, I’m not sure I want it. May have lost my taste for nightmares.”

“People need a nightmare now and then,” Dean said. Off their confused looks, he quickly added, “The old-fashioned kind! Helps them appreciate the good stuff in their lives.”

“So, I want to thank you for saving my life,” Lucy said. “Not to mention half the town.” She stepped forward and gave Dean and then Sam a quick hug. “So, thanks!”

“You’re welcome,” Dean said.

“Couldn’t have done it without your help,” Sam said, thinking about the friends Lucy had lost and the people he and Dean had failed to save. They knew they couldn’t save everyone, but the losses were no easier to accept.

Jeffries hooked his thumb in his bulky cop’s belt and shook his head in disbelief.

“You two are unlike any FBI agents I’ve ever met.”

“You’ve met a lot?” Dean asked.

“Well, no, not personally, but I’ve heard stories.”

“We’re specialists,” Sam said. “Not too many like us.”

“I believe it,” Jeffries said, chuckling.

“What about the prison? All escapees rounded up?” Dean asked.

“Only Bartch made it out of the compound,” Jeffries said. “And Chief Quinn took care of him. Five killed in the escape attempt, seven others rounded up. Supermax wing’s a mess. Survivors will be transferred while the place is repaired.”

“If it’s repaired,” Lucy said. “The protestors will have a new rallying cry. ‘No more supermax.’”

“You know,” Jeffries said, scratching his jaw. “Chief Quinn will be a bit... livid you guys left before a final debrief. Guess I’ll tell him I missed you on your way out of town. Assuming Lucy and Doc Gruesome here back me up.”

Lucy punched his arm playfully.

“You mean they left already, Rich? Darn, I was so hoping to say goodbye.”

Wieczorek smiled. “Real shame. All three of us missed them.”

“Guess that’s our cue,” Dean said. “You ready, Agent Shaw?”

Sam nodded.

They climbed into the Impala with their bags and coffee cups and acknowledged the waves from the three townspeople as Dean steered the car out of the diner’s parking lot.

When they were on I-80 East, Dean said. “Next town, getting the Impala fixed and first motel, I’m sleeping twentyfour hours straight.”

“Not worried about nightmares?”

“Used them all up for a while.”

Sam stared through the windshield, unsure what to expect the next time he laid his head down on a pillow and his subconscious took control. He was aware of Dean’s gaze now and then as the miles rolled by, but said nothing.

Eventually, he had to ask. “What happened with him?” Sam said. “Soulless Sam, I mean. The night hag let me see it. The beginning, anyway. When he appeared and you realized he wasn’t me.”

“You didn’t see the whole fight?”

“Just when he attacked you,” Sam said. “What happened?”

Dean stared through the windshield, giving more attention to the minimal traffic than strictly necessary. Sam thought he saw his brother frown briefly. Maybe from the sun glare.

“Like the other nightmares,” Dean said at last. “He disappeared.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all it was, Sam. A nightmare,” Dean said. “Soulless Sam ain’t coming back.”

“I know, Dean,” Sam said. “Nightmares only make sense while we’re having them.”

When we wake from a nightmare, we recognize how irrational it was. But Soulless Sam had been more than a nightmare. And Sam’s soul had experienced a living nightmare of its own. Who knows what kind of damage that causes, what scars it leaves behind? Maybe you can never go back to who you were.

Dean switched on the Impala’s radio and found a classic rock station. The Stones were playing “Paint It Black.”

THE END