Criminal Minds/Supernatural Fic: I'll Lay Your Soul to Waste 1/4
~*~*~*~*~
“Far from being the basis of the good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.”
- Sir Edmund Leach
~*~*~*~*~
When she saw the flash of black clothing out of the corner of her eye, her first thought was that Doyle had found her. And in New Hampshire of all places.
Her heart leapt into her throat and she swallowed harshly. Doyle was dead. She’d identified his body in the morgue once she’d gotten out of surgery and switched his toe tags herself to ensure cremation. After Wisconsin she wasn’t betting that a man who’d broken out of a North Korean prison in life would accept the fact that she was out of his reach after his death. The scar on her stomach was enough of a reminder of Doyle, she didn’t need his spirit hanging around. Of course, she could always get Morgan to shoot him again, but she’d always been a proactive kind of girl - better to keep these types of situations from starting in the first place.
Her brain finally caught up with her eyes and her heart suddenly felt too heavy. She wasn’t sure this was any better, because if Sam Winchester was in town the likelihood that she’d be able to walk away intact wasn’t good. Possession, kidnapping followed by murder by ghost - what would it be this time?
Goddamn it. His stupid brother had promised, promised, that he’d keep her in the loop if their cases ever crossed again. It was one thing to run into a supernatural case accidentally, but allowing her team to go in uninformed?
Not going to fly.
Her phone was to her ear before she had a chance to realize she’d dialed Dean’s number. When he answered with a thick and slow “hello”, clearly not quite awake, she couldn’t stand it. Emily had never been one to hold her tongue at friends’ mistakes and she wasn’t going to start now.
“What the hell, Winchester!” she spat turning away from the Hetton house. “We had a deal! You’re supposed to let us know if we’re going to walk into any of your crap! What is going on here?”
“Prentiss?”
“How many other FBI agents do you have this kind of deal with?” she asked, all too aware her voice was rising and making a conscious effort to keep it to a low roar. “Now, what the hell is going on?”
Dean cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “Going on where?”
“Portsmouth!”
“Ohio?”
Prentiss looked at her phone in disbelief, wondering if he was always this stupid in the morning or if she was just exceptionally lucky. When they’d met last, she’d chalked his slow thinking up to the obvious concussion he’d been sporting, but maybe she had been too generous.
“New Hampshire,” she finally ground out. “Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where we’ve been for the last three days chasing down leads and you’ve apparently been too busy to clue us in. So help me god, if you’ve been holding out on me I will get Garcia to plaster your face all over the Internet warning people you’re a walking den of STDs and you will never get laid again, DO YOU HEAR ME?”
Dean was silent on the other line. “Prentiss, I’m in Indiana. I have no idea what you’re talking about here.”
“Then what the hell is your brother doing here?”
Dean inhaled sharply on the other end. “You saw Sam?”
“He’s kind of hard to miss,” she replied. “I thought you two worked together - wait, what’s going on in Indiana?”
“Did you talk to Sam?” Dean asked urgently.
“If I had talked to him, would I be screaming at you?” she asked, her anger redirecting to his stupid behemoth of a brother. “I should probably get his cell number if you’re going to take a while to get here. Hopefully we can compare notes.”
“Prentiss,” Dean said darkly. “You need to stay away from Sam. If you see him, run. Don’t talk to him, don’t argue with him, don’t do anything. Just run as fast and as far as you can.”
A chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the puddle she’d stepped in. “What’s going on here?”
She could hear clothes rustling in the background and for a long moment she was afraid Dean wasn’t going to answer; that he’d just hang up and she’d be walking into another situation blind.
“Prentiss - Sam died four months ago. Whatever you saw, that wasn’t Sam.”
~*~*~*~*~
He was tearing the tarp off the Impala before he realized he was breaking his promise to Sam. Sam’s last request, but Dean hadn’t even paused when Prentiss mentioned something funky going on in New Hampshire. Dean couldn’t even do normal right. All Sam asked of him before he threw himself into the Pit... But some punkass bitch demon was wearing his brother, and Dean couldn’t let that happen. And if it meant disappointing Sam once more, well, Dean had never been the good brother in their family.
The car started perfectly, just as he’d known she would. Even with Dean’s recent foray into responsibility and normal living and shit, he’d known his baby wouldn’t let herself go. She was too awesome for that. He checked her oil before checking the trunk. Sam probably wouldn’t have approved of the arsenal still living there, but Dean had been in the game too long to ever be comfortable without weapons nearby. He had been proud of himself for only taking two guns and his favorite knife into the house, though Lisa hadn’t been nearly as cool with it when she found them tucked into his boots one early morning.
Lisa.
Crap.
She’d been awesome, more awesome than he deserved really. Dean knew himself well enough to know if some ex-girlfriend of his had shown up on his front porch after years of no contact, offering the fold-out in the study and giving her a good meal and a couple of beers wouldn’t be the first thing he’d do. Dean had barely been able to speak the first week and somehow Lisa knew when to send Ben in with a question on the best Zeppelin track of all time and when to ply him with a beer to sit with her on the swing during a summer thunderstorm.
And he’d been two minutes from taking off without even a thank you.
Dean well and truly sucked at any thing approaching a normal life.
In the darkest moments of the summer, he sometimes wondered if this was Sam’s revenge for not finding a way to save him.
~*~*~*~*~
The sorry sight of a full-grown man in full pout met Lisa when she pulled the Volvo into the driveway. When she saw him like this, Lisa sometimes wondered how he and Ben managed to share all the same expressions and mannerisms without sharing a single drop of blood. He looked the same as Ben had when Lisa told him that most bands don’t produce vinyl anymore: shocked, puzzled, and slightly pissed off that the world wasn’t acting the way it should.
She ignored him as she brought the groceries into the house and grabbed two beers from the fridge. “So what’s wrong?” she asked, handing him a beer and twisting the cap off the second for herself.
“Prentiss saw Sam. In New Hampshire.”
“Sam? As in your dead brother Sam?”
Dean nodded sullenly.
“So why are you here?”
Dean’s head whipped around to stare at her incredulously. She laughed softly, he looked like a moron with his mouth hanging open like that and his eyes bugged out. After she gleefully informed him how stupid his face looked (and waited for the inevitable “your face is stupid” response), she couldn’t help but ask, “What’s with the surprise?”
“So you want me to leave?”
Lisa smiled softly. “Dean, do you want to be here?”
Dean just looked blank and slightly lost. He opened his mouth several times, but an answer didn’t seem to be forthcoming.
She gripped his hand fiercely. “Ben and I? Have loved having you here. Ok, maybe him more than me when you come home from the grocery store with Wonder Bread, bologna, and chips. But seriously, we’re fine on our own. And I don’t want you to stay if you’re just here because you feel like you have to be.”
Their conversation dried up, neither knowing exactly what to say. She could wait him out and did. The silence between the two of them grew, letting in Mrs. Wilson’s complaints on her husband’s lawn mower skills from down the street. She stopped staring at Dean, waiting for him to say something - anything- to watch Tommy and Melissa Parkey run by each holding super soakers, and see Shawn Danitz’s steadfast attempt to weed his wife’s garden. The last gasps of summer were always Lisa’s favorite time of year, but it was obvious it never crossed Dean’s mind to look out and enjoy the neighborhood. Where she saw signs of community, he saw danger.
He couldn’t help it; she knew that. But at times she couldn’t help but resent the fact that she’d never seen him as lively as the time a raccoon had found its way into the garage and he’d chased it around with a baseball bat and a cardboard box for twenty minutes. And she’d known then that it would only be a matter of time before something called him back. Hell, he certainly spent enough time moping by his cell, waiting for a call that never seemed to come.
But sometimes, when he and Ben spent hours with their heads together over an engine or plotted to convince her that pie was really a balanced meal, she’d almost let herself hope. They’d had one glorious weekend together years ago and her kid adored him; how could anyone not wonder what things would be like ten years down the road?
But Lisa’d always been too hard-assed for her own good and when those thoughts managed to worm their way through her defenses, she just reminded herself of the way Dean reflexively looked for exits every time they entered the bookstore or movie theater.
“God this is such a chick flick moment,” he said finally, ruining the moment completely.
“God you’re an ass,” she replied.
He offered her a hand off the porch swing and grabbed her tightly. “Thanks,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
He grabbed the duffle from underneath the swing and walked away, pausing once to wave and give her a crooked grin. She watched the Impala peel away, classic rock blasting from every open window, and nodded once, firmly, before going back into the kitchen. He’d be fine. And if he wasn’t, she sic Ben’s softball team on ‘em.
Twenty-five pre-pubescent boys without a clear sense of basic hygiene and a propensity to ask horribly awkward questions while being fundamentally unable to keep a civil tongue in their mouth? Most terrible thing on Earth.
~*~*~*~*~
Reid had been told he often lacked a basic understanding of conventional social interaction, but it was fairly obvious that something beyond the case was bothering Prentiss. She had been snappy, unusually content to do paperwork and didn’t bother trying to foist it off on him so she could do field work, and had been checking her phone obsessively. If he hadn’t caught her rubbing her tattoo several times he would have thought she was worried about the fallout from lying to the team about her past involvement with Doyle again.
So he didn’t understand why she looked so gobsmacked when he’d pulled her aside and asked her if she’d heard from the Winchesters yet.
“You knew this was supernatural?” she hissed, pulling him into a supply closet roughly.
“Of course not.” Reid took off his glasses, examined them critically and began to clean them with the edge of his shirt. “But the last time you rubbed your tattoo this much was after Wisconsin, so it’s not that big of a leap.”
“What’s the rule about inter-team profiling?”
“According to you and Morgan last week, perfectly acceptable when trying to figure out what your coworker was up to over the weekend,” Reid replied.
“Ok fine, we shouldn’t have bugged you about that, but this is totally different.”
“Five hours of constant interrogation is not ‘bugging’, it’s borderline harassment.” Reid put his glasses back on. “Emily, I’m just concerned. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she finally said, holding a hand up at his sputtered replies. “Seriously Reid, I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“That it’s probably bad enough we need to get the team together,” she replied, ushering him out of the dark closet quickly.
That didn’t bode well, Reid thought darkly, shrugging off confused looks from the officers at his exit. One of these days he’s going to figure out how Morgan manages to look cool in these situations; failing that, maybe he can just invent a perception filter and everyone will ignore him whenever he wants.
~*~*~*~*~
“What’s going on in Portsmouth,” a rough voice demanded as soon as Bobby answered the second phone from the left.
“Dean?” Bobby replied curiously. “Thought you were trying to drown yourself in doilies and dry wall.”
“Bobby…”
“Don’t you Bobby me boy,” he answered. He took a seat at the kitchen table and smoothed out the yellow paper he’d created for the occasion. “You think you can go all this time without a ‘Hey, I’m alive’ and not get your ass chewed out. What the hell Dean?”
Dean sighed, same as he always did when he thought Bobby was being ridiculous. Too bad kid, Bobby thought viciously. This is what happens when you stop answering your phone after your brother and your dead half-brother become meat suits to Lucifer and Michael, try to bring about the end of days in a graveyard in Kansas, then one brother stupidly sacrifices himself by jumping back into Pit and pulling the other along for the ride.
Bobby was a bit hazy on the ending, he’d been dead at the time (apparently), but that kind of shit doesn’t earn you a “get out of ass-chewing for running away like a wimp” card. It’d been bad enough when his father and brother did it, Bobby had thought Dean knew better by now.
“Look, you can yell at me all you want later, but I need you to tell me what’s going on in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that’s obvious enough to attract the FBI’s attention but is probably caused by demons,” Dean said, cutting into Bobby’s thoughts.
Goddamnit. The kid is good. Bobby took one last look at the “105 Reasons to Yell at Dean” list he’d spent the better part of the last few weeks creating and turned it over to write on the blank back. “I’ll call when I have more information.”
Dean hadn’t hung up yet.
“There anything else you want to tell me?” Bobby asked curiously. Winchester manners being what they were, he hadn’t been expecting Dean to bother with small talk now that he had what he wanted.
“Prentiss called,” Dean finally says, the silence stretching out between them like so many miles on the highway. “She said she saw Sam.”
Bobby’s blood ran cold. “I’ll call from the road.”
“What? No,” Dean sputtered. “I just wanted to know if you knew anything.”
“It’s Sam, you idjit,” Bobby said flatly. “What’s Castiel say?”
The line remained silent.
“Dean…” Bobby warned. He could hear Dean grinding his teeth the same way he used to when Dean and Sam had thought it was a great idea to tape a rocket to one of the junkers out back to “see what happens”.
“I haven’t heard from Cas in months,” Dean finally replied, sullen same as he always was when he’d been caught being an idiot.
“Lucifer is possibly walking the Earth again and you’re not calling our best source of information because you’re mad your boyfriend hasn’t called?”
Bobby tried hard not to laugh too loudly at Dean’s indignant protests before hanging up. He had calls to make, books to check, a car to load, and a demon to send back to hell.
~*~*~*~*~
“Probably a good thing we don’t have Seaver on this case,” Rossi said taking a moment to digest Dean’s warning about his brother. “She’d flip.”
“I’m flipping,” Morgan replied angrily. “What exactly is going on?”
Prentiss paced by the windows in the corner of the office. “I told you guys everything I know. I saw Sam Winchester, I called Dean to figure out if our case had any supernatural elements, he told me his brother had died and I should stay away. What more do you want me to say Morgan?"
“I want you to make sense,” Morgan said, pounding his fist on the conference table.
“Maybe Sam’s a zombie,” Reid suggested, looking way too intrigued for Dave’s comfort.
“If Dean hadn’t told me, I would have never known something was wrong,” Prentiss replied immediately. “Plus he didn’t do the walk.”
“Could be a fast zombie,” Reid replied, clearly unwilling to give up so soon.
“Would you shut up about the zombies already Reid!” Morgan shouts. “This isn’t funny.”
“I know it’s not funny,” Reid replied waspishly. “Our friend apparently died and came back from the dead and is now evil. What do you want me to do?”
“Something a hell of a lot better than crack zombie jokes!”
“Everyone needs to calm down.” Hotch’s voice was a bucket of cold water over the room. “We have five people dead, we can’t afford to go off half-cocked. We are going to do our jobs.”
“But what about Sam Winchester,” Reid protested.
“We don’t know the situation well enough to do anything,” Dave said slowly, as uncomfortable with the word admission as everyone else in the room. “We won’t do anyone any good if we lose focus now.”
“But what if the victims died from something--” Morgan paused, clearly uncomfortable with the word he’s about to utter, “supernatural?”
“Do you know why Sam Winchester would be back from the dead?” Hotch asked, implacable.
No one in the room is willing to meet his eyes. “We’d be going in blind and frankly our luck’s never been good with the Winchesters.”
Prentiss rubbed her chest with her thumb at the reminder. Dave wondered if a tattoo was going to be enough to protect her this time, it hadn’t last time. The past year hadn’t been an easy one for them - Winchester encounters aside. Losing JJ, almost losing Prentiss - Dave didn’t know if he was ready for the sheer terror and chaos tattoo the Winchesters always seemed to create. Morgan and Reid exchanged long looks across the table at the reminder and Dave couldn’t help be puzzled at Morgan’s unconscious back-rub and Reid’s quick flick of his wrists. Dave knew there was a story there, but for the life of him couldn’t figure it out.
“I’m not saying don’t keep in touch with Dean,” Hotch continued. “We’d be stupid to overlook any information he can give us. But there’s no way he’s getting here in the next day, so let’s work with what we know and keep an eye out for Sam Winchester.”
Dave would never admit it, but he almost jumped out of his skin when the knock at the door sounded. Detective Irving poked his head in cautiously. “Everything all right in here?”
“Just discussing some new theories,” Hotch said blandly. “Did something happen?”
“Got a call, might be another victim,” Irving replied darkly. “I’m sending Petroski and Smith out.”
“Morgan, Prentiss, go with them,” Hotch orders. “Dave, I’d like you and Reid to go the hospital again, see if there’s been any change in Max Hetton’s status and check in with the pathologist again to see if the latest blood tests have come in.”
~*~*~*~*~
The last notes of “Highway to Hell” died on the stereo and the first notes of “Girls Got Rhythm” sounded before Dean was ready. It was a game his father had created in those early days after the fire, measuring time by song: “We’ll find a hotel after the next two songs”, “Look for a place to eat when ‘Ring of Fire’ ends”, “Sam, you can’t ask another question until this song is over, I mean it this time.” He’d gotten out of the habit recently - Lisa’s house had some sort of clock on every wall - but this game was as much a part of him as sitting in the Impala tearing through mile after mile of highway. It was as familiar and comforting as having his Colt resting in the small of his back and a knife wedged in his boot.
The tape turned over in the deck and the opening power chords of “Walk All Over You” reverberated through the cab and out the window. Crap, he’d gotten distracted. Ok, next song, because this? This required head banging and one arm out the window keeping time on the door.
This was stupid; Cas probably didn’t even have the cell anymore. It’s not like he’d used it…
Holy crap, Bobby was right. Dean was acting like Sam used to when his latest crush hadn’t returned his phone calls. Before the main chorus could play, he grabbed his cell and pushed three.
Cas’ stupid voicemail greeted him, not even a ring. Just “I don’t understand, why do you want me to say my name?” and the sound of Cas frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to make the “strange voice” on his cell phone make sense. Add that to the “reasons to kick Castiel’s ass” list he’d been working on while forced to watch Ben’s little league games; reasons one through ten were still mostly focused on Cas being a douche and dicking off to Heaven, but not changing his voicemail definitely made the list at number twenty.
“Cas?” Dean cleared his throat. “Listen, something funky is going on Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Prentiss… you remember her from Wisconsin last year? She said she saw Sam. Got any clue what’s going on? You’ve… uh, got my cell.”
Dean ended the call and threw this cell into the passenger seat. Crap, he hadn’t sounded that awkward since calling Jenny Ushkowitz for his first booty call when he was fifteen.
He was halfway through the Zeppelin mix-tape he’d made in sophomore year (man, Jenny had been awesome) and passing the exit for Akron before his phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?” Cas sounded exactly the same; gruff voice, sounded vaguely irritated at the world at large, direct to the point of rude.
“Hello to you too,” Dean replied sarcastically. “I’m in the car, on 271 outside Akron.”
“271 what?”
This is what Dean got for being friendly with supernatural beings with no appreciation of pop culture or humanity in general.
“271, the highway,” he ground out. “Interstate 271, I just passed the exit for the Medina regional airport.”
“Look left,” Cas commanded.
On his left ahead a couple hundred yards was a familiar sight, trench coat blowing out behind him from the cars whizzing by giving the impression of wings. Dean allowed himself a small giggle at the irony, if only all the jerks honking knew whom they were ignoring. The figure started waving his arms up and down as Dean approached. He looked like a deranged tax collector as he tried to keep the phone to his ear and wave with both arms simultaneously.
“I am the one signaling you.” Cas said unnecessarily.
“I noticed,” Dean replied, pulling the Impala across two lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder. He opened the passenger door. “Get in."
~*~*~*~*~
Spencer tried to contain his initial reaction to the pathology lab in front of him, but everything was just so interesting. He hadn’t seen some of these reference samples since grad school - couldn’t Rossi just give him a few minutes before grabbing his shirt collar and dragging him into the discussion on what substance the unsub was using to poison the town?
At Rossi’s glare, Spencer reluctantly rejoined the conversation. Apparently he’d missed something important while his fingers itched to start experimenting at the Grosslab benchtop pathology workstation.
“So why don’t you think it’s poison anymore?” Rossi asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “When we arrived yesterday we were told that you thought it was poison and we’ve been operating accordingly.”
Dr. Gablehouser glared right back. “I don’t know what idiot told you that. As I told Detective Irving last night, initial indications came back from Max Hetton reading some sort of infection, likely bacterial same as the others from the day before.”
“But why is he still alive when six others are dead? That doesn’t make any sense,” Spencer wondered out loud, twisting his hands as if he was physically manipulating the problem and he only needed to turn in the right way for everything to make sense. Six people dead, one in critical condition. Max Hetton was the outlier, not the norm. What made him different?
“Doctor Gablehouser,” he asked, possible questions and answers running through his head, each discarded as unlikely or impossible after a second’s consideration. He twisted his fingers again, as if the problem was Rubix cube and he only had to twist for everything to become clear. “When you ran the tox screen for Hetton, did you test for any medication?”
The balding man grabbed the chart in the middle of his messy desk and scanned it quickly. “We were mostly looking for toxins, neurotoxins, and biological weapons - though the damn CDC is taking their sweet time getting back to us - didn’t really see the point in looking for aspirin and antibiotics.”
“But he’s the outlier,” Spencer replied, aware his voice was rising but unable to contain his excitement. “Something about Hetton is different that’s allowed him to survive long enough to get to a hospital. Maybe it was something he was already taking!”
“Or maybe he doesn’t have the same thing the others had,” Rossi said, playing devil’s advocate. “According to their families, the others all had hallucinations before they collapsed and died. Hetton didn’t as far as we know and his physical symptoms are different - none of the others had boils.”
“Well, the boils may be from a staph infection he developed here; it’s fairly common unfortunately” Dr. Gablehouser replied. He made a notation in the chart and nodded politely at both agents. “We’ll retest for common medications Dr. Reid, but I think your colleague may be on to something.”
Spencer frowned, but didn’t bother challenging the pathologist. He twisted his fingers again, but the problem remained an unsolved Rubix cube, colors intertwined and stubbornly refusing to fall into place. He turned the problem over and over, trying to find the right side to start from, only to realize they were sitting in the car. “Aren’t we going to interview Hetton?”
“Hotch wants us back at the station,” Rossi replied.
“We have time though,” Spencer argued. “And we only have the wife’s account from Prentiss’ interview earlier today.”
Rossi started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. “We’re needed more back at the station. According to the hospital updates, Hetton should be coming out of sedation later today - we’ll come back when we have more information from the latest victim. Might help us understand how Hetton survived.”
Spencer opened his mouth to argue further, but one look at Rossi clearly indicated he wasn’t changing his mind. Instead he mentally started reviewing case notes - Prentiss’ interview with the victim’s wife indicated no enemies, but Prentiss also noted she was likely in shock. Mrs. Hetton had apparently spent the interview cleaning the bloodstains from the dining room carpet and mentioned no plans of visiting her husband. Hetton himself had no known enemies, lived more than three miles from the previous victim and had only the barest of interactions with all the other victims.
There was something, Spencer thought stubbornly, something they were missing that would make everything clearer.
~*~*~*~*~
The White household was a mess, emotionally and physically. Emily circled the den once again, hoping this time she’d find something beyond Randy White’s college lacrosse trophies and framed newspaper clippings. Someone had never moved on from past glories, she thought cynically.
White had been found facedown, but after the paramedics failed to revive him he lay face up staring blankly at the ceiling, dried blood running down his cheeks in a sad approximation of tears. Emily knew if she looked at his hands, now carefully positioned by his sides, she’d find them covered in blood, fingernails left in the remains of his torn face.
She really wished the paramedics had turned him back over. It would be a kindness.
Mrs. White couldn’t stop crying; Emily could hear her broken sobs all the way from the kitchen. Didn’t sound like Morgan was having any luck getting a coherent statement. She took one last look at the broken man in front of her, his mouth contorted in a rictus of pain and confusion, and left Petroski and Smith to their documentation.
Nellie White was too young to be a widow; she didn’t even have a wrinkle, Emily noted ruefully.
“He just sounded so scared,” she whimpered.
Morgan nodded. “You’re doing real good Nellie, real good. What else can you tell us?”
“It was just so fast. He got home from practice and checked his email.” She laughed brokenly. “I hate when he does that, I’ve asked him a thousand times to just shower, but he always has some excuse.”
Emily hated these early moments, when the death and the horror hadn’t quite sunk in. The families forget, they speak in present tense… and then it hits all over again and again and again.
“He just gets caught up on the stupid computer, you know? And he’ll spend hours in here just sitting in his own filth.” Nellie looked up from the latest tissue she’d been shredding, the pile in front of her a testament to how long it’d taken her to get her composure back.
Even after everything she’s seen, Emily’s not sure she’d recover nearly as quickly. Nellie may be the typical blonde trophy wife physically, but there was a spine of steel buried below.
Deep below, she amended as Nellie started sobbing into Morgan’s shoulder, again from the look of his shirt.
“Nellie,” she asked softly. “When did you first realize something was wrong?”
“When I was in the kitchen making dinner,” she said. She pointed to the pots on the range. “Homemade soup, one of his favorites. And suddenly this horrible scream comes from the den.”
She breathed deeply. “And when I get in there, he’s just clawing at his face and screaming. He’s not even trying to say anything, he just screams and screams. He’s stumbling around the room and his hands just keep clawing and clawing. And before the ambulance even arrives, he’s on the ground and he’s not moving.”
Nellie looks up at them brokenly. “I…didn’t even try to help him. I couldn’t even go in the room. Do you think it’s my fault he died? If I’d done something, maybe he’d be alive right now?”
“Ma’am, there’s nothing you could have done.” Morgan took both her hands in his. “But we need you to be strong right now, can you do that?”
Nellie nodded uncertainly.
“Just before he died, you mentioned that Randy was ‘stumbling around the room’,” Emily prompted. “Can you be more specific? Was he disoriented? Was he trying to get out of the room?”
“It almost looked like he was trying to get away from something,” Nellie said after a moment of thought. “Like there was something in the room only he could see and it was horrible. And he just wanted to get away.”
She and Morgan exchanged a discomfited look. How did all the victims share the same delusion?
“Nellie, this is uncomfortable, but we have to know. Did you touch the body in any way?”
She looks at Emily confused. “I already told you, I didn’t do anything. Oh my god, I’m such a stupid cow! I just let my husband die in front of me without doing anything!”
“I know this is hard,” Morgan said softly, “But did Randy have any enemies? Anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?”
Nellie patted at her running mascara ineffectively and sniffed a few times. “No, nothing I can think of. He’s never gotten in trouble with the law, not even a parking ticket! Why would anyone want to hurt him?”
Before she could collapse back into sobs, Morgan thanked her for her time and recommended she stay with a friend or family member for the night.
Emily waited until they were out of earshot of the local cops and the victim’s wife before confessing, “This is freaking me out.”
“Seven victims now. Six dead and one hanging on by a thread in the hospital is bad enough, but the shared delusions are not normal.”
Emily knew it was stupid, but she lowered her voice conspiratorially anyway. “You think it has anything to do with the Winchesters?”
“People dropping like flies in creepy and horrible ways?” Morgan asked rhetorically. “Sounds like their M.O.”
Part Two