EIGHT
Sam and Dean stepped off the elevator at the ground floor of the county hospital and proceeded toward the exit. Dean had been quiet since they left Nancy’s room. Probably trying to decide if her experience invalidated his hex bag theory. On the one hand, she seemed to have had no control over her actions from the time she parked her car until after she jumped off the overpass. Of course, Sam had to allow for the possibility she was in denial about a suicide attempt. He never claimed to be a psychiatrist, but his gut told him she hadn’t tried to end her life. On the other hand, she had no apparent enemies, nobody in her life personally or professionally who might wish her harm let alone a brutal death. And of all the people who claimed to have no memory or control of their uncharacteristic actions, Nancy’s incident had been severe enough to suggest she would have been a clear—and perhaps primary—target on any sort of hit list which employed the other pranks, indiscretions and acts of vandalism as a culpability smokescreen.
Of interest to Sam was the apparent ability of pain to pierce the veil of amnesia affecting all the victims. Dean had noticed that with the diner head-banger. And now the same thing had happened with Nancy. Initially, she had a complete gap in her memory, but a flare-up of pain from her cracked ribs unlocked a visual record of what happened.
Nancy had also told them she experienced no sensory or emotional connection to the event, from the time she parked her car on the shoulder until she leapt from the overpass fence. As if someone or something had hijacked the experience from her, leaving her with only the suppressed visual memory, like a subconscious record. She had referenced the common phenomenon of zoning out on the expected, ordinary details of a daily commute. The brain must register the details, even when someone can’t recall passing a building or intersection they drive past each day. Visual white noise, cast aside as nonessential.
The memory suppression could be deliberate, Sam thought. Or the natural result of having the immediacy of the peculiar actions blocked from our consciousness.
“Dean, what if these people can’t remember committing these acts because they weren’t the ones committing them?”
“What?” Dean stopped and looked at him. “Somebody took their place? Body doubles? Or is angel possession back on the table?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Good, because last time I checked, angels need permission to take over,” Dean said. “And, according to Cass, it’s not easy for an angel to find a vessel strong enough to survive. They break down fast or die immediately. That’s a lot of time and effort for a bunch of angels to pull off some pranks.”
“You’re right, Dean,” Sam said. “I don’t get an angel vibe from any of this.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“A different kind of possession,” Sam replied. “What if something hijacked the experience from each, well, host. So, that in their minds—”
“The hosts’ minds?” Dean asked, resuming his path to the exit.
Sam heard the wail of approaching sirens.
“Yes,” he said. “The hosts don’t have access to the memory because it wasn’t their memory in the first place.”
“So, something took their body for a psychic joyride?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Maybe.”
“Are we missing something?” Dean wondered. “Could it be demons?”
Sam shook his head. “Still not getting that vibe either. Streakers? Graffiti? Pranks? Demons have a much darker agenda. And when they grab a meat suit, they tend to be squatters. In it for the long haul. Besides, they’re all about stealth, not drawing attention to themselves.”
The automatic doors slid open with a whoosh.
“Doesn’t rule out the possibility of a hit list.”
“No.”
The sirens were getting louder.
“Because, as far as experiences go—”
Two ambulances, red lights flashing, turned into the parking lot and followed the curved driveway up to the emergency room entrance. Several cars, minivans and SUVs followed in their wake, roaring up the ramp into the parking lot, front and rear bumpers perilously close to one another. Before they reached the parked ambulances, they split up in search of the nearest parking spaces.
Dean frowned. “This can’t be good.”
“Could be us,” Sam said. “More weirdness.”
Dean sighed. “I’m never getting out of this suit.”
Paramedics had pulled open the double doors on both ambulances. Within moments, they helped several blood-spattered high-school-aged girls in team uniforms out of the back before unloading the gurneys carrying the more seriously injured. A few of the walking girls clung to lacrosse sticks, but most pressed bandages to bleeding foreheads, noses and ears, while others cradled injured shoulders and elbows. Tears streamed down some of their faces. One girl with a broken nose and a bludgeoned ear quietly sobbed as emergency room nurses and the paramedics guided them inside.
Sam and Dean hurried toward the ambulances.
Close behind them, the passengers from the cars that had followed the ambulances to the hospital made a beeline for the same entrance. Sam scanned the group. More injured lacrosse players, with less severe injuries, accompanied by concerned teachers and anxious parents.
Sam caught the shoulder of the last EMT out of the ambulance as he helped guide a gurney through the automatic doors. His patient writhed in pain with what looked like an orbital fracture of her right eye, a broken nose and a split lip.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
Without slowing, the paramedic appraised them in the blink of an eye. The Fed suits probably saved them from a cursory dismissal. “Who are you?”
“FBI,” Sam said, not bothering to dig out his fake ID.
“FBI?” he asked. “What’s the—Never mind. All I know is, team’s coach grabbed one of their lacrosse sticks and started beating them with it.”
Dean scanned the area. “Where’s the coach?”
“Bus driver and the assistant coach held her down until the police came and took her away.”
As the late arrivals flowed past the Winchesters, Sam heard a girl with a bleeding ear tell her mother, “Coach McDermitt said we weren’t practicing hard enough. Called us losers.”
Another girl, cupping her left elbow with her right hand, said, “She, like, literally had fire in her eyes.”
Sam and Dean followed them into the crowded emergency room, now made more claustrophobic with the influx of new patients. Benches and chairs were scattered around the long U-shaped room, all occupied. A short hallway led back to curtained enclosures on either side, with a row of private offices at the far end.
The paramedics took the girls on the gurneys back to the curtained section. Other girls and their guardians lined up at four clerical stations and were rewarded with clipboards, pens and pages of forms to complete before their treatment. Emergency, the uninitiated soon discovered, was a relative term.
Some held bandages or icepacks to faces, limbs or other body parts. Others panted, short of breath, or moaned quietly. A young boy sobbed into his mother’s shoulder. A red-faced toddler, probably feverish, cried inconsolably as her grandmother rocked her and hummed a soothing song. A heavy man with a thinning pate and a ragged ponytail held a bucket between his knees, shoulders trembling as his stomach rumbled alarmingly. Along the far wall, which had a cutout for a long fish tank, a middle-aged man paced, clutching his side as he mumbled to himself.
Sam could count the number of suffering patients taking the long wait in their stride on the fingers of one hand. The overwhelming majority grumbled about the level of care and perceived incompetence on display.
Catching the attention of one of the nurses behind one of the clerical stations, Sam glanced at her nametag and asked, “Is this normal, Lindsay?”
“And you are?”
“Special Agents Blair and Tench,” Sam said, indicating Dean with a tilt of his head toward the doorway. “FBI.”
“Are you here to arrest someone?”
“No, not yet, anyway,” Sam said. “Ongoing investigation.”
“Well, to answer your question, nothing is ever normal here,” she said bluntly. “But it’s been better. This is definitely… not ideal.”
“How long?”
“How long has it been like this?” she asked. “All day.”
“Since the midnight blackouts?”
“Now that you mention it,” she said, nodding. “Feels like we barely recovered from all those emergency calls. But these accidents and incidents are unrelated to whatever happened at midnight, obviously. Just seems like nothing’s been right—or, as you say, normal—since then. Lot of clumsy and angry people out there.”
“Real nasty string of bad luck,” said another nurse, who overheard their conversation as she passed by, clipboard in hand.
“Can’t last, right?”
She stopped and stared at Sam. Her nametag read Alexis. “What makes you say that?”
Sam shrugged, almost taken aback by her negativity. “Law of averages.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
The fluorescent lights above buzzed and winked out for a moment, casting a sudden shadow before flickering back on.
“That’s all we need,” Alexis said with a weary sigh. “Power outage in the middle of this mess.”
“That’s what backup generators are for,” Lindsay said evenly.
“I’m sure they never fail,” Alexis scoffed, and continued along the row of desks to pass through the counter gate and flap out into the waiting area.
Sam returned to where Dean waited by the doors. “Got their hands full.”
“You think?”
“They’ve been swamped since the mass blackout.”
“Maybe Gruber’s right,” Dean said. “About the connection.”
“Makes sense.”
Alexis escorted a lacrosse girl with a bleeding ear and scalp back to a treatment area.
As Sam and Dean walked toward the exit, Dean said, “Doesn’t make it any easier to understand.”
The pacing man paused mid-turn and shouted, “Hey, I was here before her!”
The nauseated man cradling the bucket looked up. “I’ve been here an hour.”
“I’ve been here ninety-two minutes,” an old woman said, in the middle of crocheting a scarf. “And I’m not getting any younger.”
Dean walked through the exit when the automated doors opened, but Sam held back. The room had felt combustible after the arrival of the injured lacrosse players and now sparks were flying.
Around the crowded room, other patients voiced their frustration, a chorus of suffering.
“My son has a fever!”
“Half the people here have a fever, buddy!”
“This is bullshit!” yelled the pacing man. “My stomach is killing me.”
“Your stomach?” said the nauseated man. “Here! Borrow my spew bucket!”
“Shove that bucket up your ass, pal!”
Another man, with a bruised cheek and puffy eye, approached the pacer and said, “Calm down, buddy. It’s an emergency room, not a deli. You can’t take a number—”
“Who asked you?” the pacer said, shoving the other man away from him.
“Tough guy, huh?” nauseated man said as he climbed to his feet and lumbered toward the formerly pacing man.
“Oh, no, Mr. Ponytail is gonna vomit on me.”
“Don’t worry,” the other man said. “When I’m done, those nurses will take you right back. No waiting!”
The former pacer picked up a potted fern and hurled it at him, aiming for his scalp. Nauseated man, swatted the projectile aside with his bucket, inadvertently flinging the container’s contents on a large man in a leather jacket who had been dozing fitfully a minute ago.
“What the hell!” leather jacket shouted, flinging a strand of the other man’s bile from his fingertips. “You son of a bitch!”
“Dean!” Sam called.
Leather jacket charged bucket man, driving him against the wall with a crash that cracked the glass of the long fish tank.
Dean returned, taking in the scene. “That escalated fast.”
“Everyone, calm down!” Sam called.
“Bite me!” someone shouted.
“We’re FBI,” Dean shouted, flashing his ID and badge.
The pacer, who had jumped out of the way at the last minute, spun around and tripped over another man’s outstretched leg. That man jumped up and shoved him. After climbing to his feet, the pacer bent over and bull-rushed him.
With all the shouting, hooting and fighting, Sam wasn’t surprised nobody paid attention to him and Dean. The fight had a weird inevitability to it, spreading like a contact virus. Kicking feet and flying fists often missed their mark. Chairs fell over, people collided, offense taken at every turn. Each time someone slammed up against a wall or hurled a chair across the room, the fluorescent lights blinked on and off, shifting light and darkness across a sea of outraged faces. Existing injuries became more pronounced and serious contusions blossomed like flowers in time-lapse photography.
The fight reminded Sam of countless barroom brawls in classic Hollywood Westerns. It seemed oddly appropriate that the mass frustration of endless waiting would result in each patient requiring more immediate medical assistance. In that context, a group riot was almost logical.
Sam and Dean mutually concluded that the participants would not listen to reason—or threats of incarceration—and that the only way to stop the fighting before it became deadly was to physically intervene. They pulled combatants apart, stoically taking the odd punch or kick without retaliating. Even so, they were completely outnumbered.
Nurse Lindsay called for the orderlies, while Alexis dialed 911. An emergency room doctor surveyed the melee, hung back and grabbed the phone from Alexis.
Sam was holding leather jacket man back when he caught sight of an object hurtling toward him. By the time he realized it was the base of a table lamp, it struck his jaw and he felt his knees buckle.