Supernatural: Night Terror (4 page)

“Sam!”

“Go!” Sam yelled, veering unsteadily around the burning corpse.

Dean caught Sam’s upper arm long enough to steady him, then shoved him toward the wooden staircase. Sam took the stairs two at a time. One of the boards cracked under his weight but Sam was up and out. The heat had become unbearable. Dean shielded his face with his arm, holding his breath and squinting through the roiling black smoke as he followed his brother. Flames scorched his heels as the hungry fire roared up out of the ground. He rolled clear of the shed, which was engulfed moments later, and gulped down huge mouthfuls of fresh Nebraska air.

Dean left the Impala parked at the curb and walked into a local tavern. With his ribs aching and his mouth tasting of bitter smoke, he wanted nothing more than a cold one or three to apply the layer of numbness he needed to sleep through the night.

It was a few hours before closing time, but the barroom was deserted. Tables, booths and stools were empty, the lone pool table unemployed, and the jukebox silent. A flat-screen TV angled over the bar displayed a soccer match in some other part of the world, the volume turned down to white noise hum. Other than Dean, the middle-aged bartender was the only person in the place.

Tapping the eraser end of a pencil against his teeth, the bartender was hunched over a pile of papers on the countertop with the concentration of someone working on his taxes. As Dean neared the bar, he saw the object of the man’s concentration was a horse racing form. The man looked up at his approach.

“Get you something?”

“Whatever you got on tap,” Dean said, sitting on the nearest stool. He rested his forearms on the padded edge of the counter and sighed. “Maybe a few peanuts.”

“Sure,” the bartender said, taking down a glass. “Quiet night, huh?”

“Didn’t start out that way.”

“Problems?”

“Same old same old.”

The bartender held the glass under the chrome faucet and pulled the brass lever. Amber liquid flowed into the glass, rising toward the brim. But at the halfway point, the beer level began to fall.

“That’s odd,” the bartender murmured.

“Hole in the glass?”

“No, no, the glass is fine.” Nonetheless, the bartender released the lever, set the glass aside and began to fill a replacement. Same result. As fast as the beer flowed into the glass, it seemed to... evaporate. “This makes no sense. Let me try another one.” He sidestepped to the next draft lever and repeated the process. Beer flowed into the glass and was as quickly gone. The bartender passed a hand over his closecropped blond hair. “This has never happened before.”

“First time for everything, pal.”

“Maybe it’s the CO2 tank. How about a bottle?”

Dean nodded. Tapped the countertop in front of him.

“Domestic? Import? Microbrew?”

“Let’s start with domestic and go from there.”

The bartender grabbed a long-necked brown bottle from under the counter, popped off the cap, releasing thin streams of vapor, and slid it across to Dean with the glass from the tap.

Dean decided to skip the middleman and raised the tip of the cold bottle to his lips. He tilted the bottle back and... nothing came out.

“What the hell?” he declared.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s empty.”

“That’s impossible.”

Dean upended the bottle over the glass. Not a drop fell out.

“Let me try that,” the bartender said, grabbing a fresh bottle. He eased it back and forth and liquid sloshed within the bottle. He then popped the cap and titled it over Dean’s glass. Wisps of vapor escaped the bottle and dissipated. A few drops of liquid struck the bottom of the glass and promptly evaporated. The bartender pushed the empty bottle aside and tried a third, and a fourth, different labels, all without success.

“Cans,” Dean said. “What about cans?”

The bartender opened a door behind the counter into a back room, and returned a moment later with a six-pack.

“These were delivered today,” he stated.

He pulled the tab off the first can and they heard a faint hiss as vapor spiraled out the opening. One can after another, the glass remained empty.

Dean shook his head. “This is not happening.”

“I’m sorry,” the bartender said. “What can I do?”

“Try something else,” Dean said. “Anything. Whiskey, rum, vodka. Peach schnapps!”

Nothing worked. The bartender tried Irish whiskey, Russian vodka, and Jamaican rum.

“I can’t explain this,” the bartender said, incredulous. “What does it mean?”

Dean noticed the audio hum emanating from the television set above the bar had changed. He glanced up and saw a news bulletin had replaced the soccer match. A telegenic news anchor in her late twenties spoke while a news crawl informed Dean one letter at a time that the world’s supply of alcoholic beverages had become unstable.

“The volume,” he said. “Turn it up!”

The bartender pointed a slim remote control at the set and raised the volume.

“...the scientific community remains baffled by the sudden and complete volatility of alcohol in any form.”

Dean stared aghast. “You gotta be
kidding
me!”

“This bar’s been in my family for sixty years,” the bartender said morosely. “And it’s all gone?”

The news anchor continued in an upbeat tone, “...face the new reality that we have become a nation, indeed an entire world, of teetotalers.”

“She’s smiling,” Dean said, pointing accusingly. “Why is she smiling? She can’t smile about this.”

“Oh, well,” the bartender said, now strangely at peace with the family-business-ending news. “How about something nonalcoholic?”

“No,” Dean said, backing away abruptly and knocking over his stool.

“Pop? Or milk?”

“No!”

“Juice box? Bottled water?”

“No!”

“Got it,” the bartender said, snapping his fingers. “A Shirley Temple. No alcohol in that!”

“Dude! Seriously?”

Dean backed up to the door, tugged on the handle but the door wouldn’t open. In frustration, he pounded his fists on the wood panels.

“An egg cream?”

“Noooo!”

Dean sat upright, heart racing. A fleeting sense of displacement faded and he remembered where he was. The nondescript motel they’d checked into in Lincoln, Nebraska. He sat in the dark and fought the ridiculous urge to turn on CNN to confirm the safety of the world’s alcoholic beverages.

Across the room, sprawled on his bed as if sleep had been an afterthought, Sam mumbled something about hunters.

Dean stacked pillows against his headboard and laid back gingerly, enduring sharp protests from his ribs with each awkward movement. Felt as if he’d been kicked repeatedly by a mule with a sour disposition. Bedside clock radio told him he’d been asleep less than an hour. He’d need at least a few more before they hit the road. Coffee would take care of the rest.

“But no more dreams.”

Sam Winchester stood in the root cellar again.

The underground storage room was empty. No shelves or mason jars or plastic containers. Even the Machete Mime’s corpse and the pitchfork that had killed him were gone. No evidence of the all-consuming fire.

He stood at the bottom of the wooden stairs, moonlight spilling across the floor on either side of him, but not reaching far enough to penetrate the darkness that shrouded the back of the room. And though the room seemed empty, Sam was not alone. A shape of equal height and mass stood within the shadows staring back at him.

“What do you want?” Sam asked.

“To replace you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m better at it than you are.”

Sam wanted to step forward, to reach into the darkness, but he was paralyzed where he stood, as if balanced on a precipice. One false step and he could fall; maybe never stop falling. He was close to something dangerous here. Had to be careful. He’d lost his way before. How many times could he go astray before it became impossible to find his way back to... himself?

The
other
took a step forward, emerging from the shadows. Like looking in a mirror, Sam stared at another version of himself. Sam without a soul. And that Sam was smirking at him.

“Your soul is a burden. It makes you weak.”

“You were out of control. You tried to kill Bobby to save yourself.”

“Self-preservation is an admirable trait in a hunter.” Soulless Sam walked around him in a loose circle while Sam struggled to move his legs. He was pinned to the spot.

“You were no different from the monsters you hunted.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Sammy,” he said. “We both know I was the more effective hunter.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “You’re done.”

“Am I?” Soulless Sam asked. “Or... could be that soul of yours is a poor fit these days. Damaged goods. Might not stick around for the long haul. One little
push
—” Soulless Sam poked him in the chest with a forefinger and Sam staggered back a step before regaining his balance—“and
poof
! I’m back in the driver’s seat.”

“No,” Sam said. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“You’d be surprised,” Soulless Sam said. “You’re not free of me. Never will be. I’m still in there, itching to get out.”

“No!”

Sam was frozen to the spot while Soulless Sam had complete freedom of movement. He walked behind Sam and paused at the staircase. Sam twisted his head around to keep Soulless Sam in view.

“Not as safe as you think you are.”

Soulless Sam climbed the creaking stairs. Before he disappeared into the night, he turned back and shook his head.

“Better watch your step, Sammy.”

With a sense of impending doom, Sam looked around the dark root cellar. Soulless Sam’s parting words had been a warning, no mistaking that but what—

Through the soles of his feet, he felt vibrations, as if the ground was pulsing. And with that chthonic disturbance, he regained control of his feet. But the moment he shifted his position, the cellar floor began to sink from the center outward, the concrete crumbling to the consistency of gravel—or sand. Even the walls began to slide down, funneling into the widening hole. Sam leapt toward the wooden staircase, falling forward to grab the bottom step with his hands. The ground fell away so quickly it offered him no support. He pulled himself up the stairs far enough to get his knees, and then his feet under him. But without the floor to brace the staircase, it was unable to support his full weight. The tread beneath his feet cracked down the middle, separating from the riser. As he jumped up to the next step, he heard a sharp crack and saw the top tread separating from the front wall. Sam lunged toward the exit—

—and struck an invisible barrier.

He pressed his hand against what appeared to be a glass barrier, several inches thick. After pounding his fists against the glass to no effect, he rammed his shoulder against it and almost fell off the teetering staircase. Catching his balance he pressed his back against the transparent barrier and tried to push it out of the way. His gaze dropped to the center of the root cellar where a whirlpool of sand sank into darkness.

Suddenly the staircase collapsed under him.

Falling, he flung out an arm and caught the shattered wooden framework, clinging to the wood as if it were a life preserver in the swirling ocean of sand. Soon he was caught in the current, cycling around and down, ever closer to the darkness that would consume him—

“Whoa!”

Sam sat up on the motel bed, heart racing as he tried to remember where he was. Middle of the night, but cold light cast from the motel parking lot sliced through a gap in the curtains and split the room in half. On the other side, he saw Dean propped up against his headboard. Too dark to tell if his brother was awake.

“Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“Ribs?”

“Waiting for the aspirin to kick in.”

“Right.”

“Bad dream?”

“That obvious?”

“Case of the three a.m. shakes,” Dean said. “Had a doozy myself. Terrifying.”

“Really?” Sam had the unsettling idea that Dean had witnessed Sam’s dream. Or had the
same
dream. They’d seen stranger things. “What about?”

Sam listened with a growing incredulity.

“...and to top it off,” Dean finished. “I was trapped there with that guy.”

“
That
was your terrifying nightmare?” Sam scoffed.

“All the beer, Sam. In the world.
Gone!
”

“Wow.”

“What? Tell me yours was worse?”

“No—I—no,” Sam said. Actually, he was relieved that Dean didn’t know what had plagued his subconscious. As it was, Dean thought his brother’s psyche was too fragile. No need to add fuel to that fire. “It was—was fine.”

Dean’s demeanor changed. He climbed off the bed with a soft grunt of pain, and walked toward Sam, the slice of light momentarily painting a swath of illumination across his concerned expression.

“Sam, if this is something serious, maybe I oughta know about it.”

“Look, Dean, I get it. You’re worried about me. But this is... nothing. Really. Nothing at all. Okay, man?”

“Then tell me.”

“It was the Mime, all right? I was back in Gillmer’s root cellar.” At least that part was true. “Too close to the clown thing.”