Exit: Light
Summary: The Void is awake. Takes place after "The Big Empty", but before Castiel calls them. I had to warp time and space to make this story happen. Inspired by "Enter Sandman" by Metallica and "Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Warner Brothers.
Rating: PG 13 for language and violence. Some Wincest suggested (but not what you think).
"Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull
In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all time loser,
Headlong to his death
He feels the piston scraping
Steam breaking on his brow
Old Charlie stole the handle and
The train it won't stop going
No way to slow down
He sees his children jumping off
At stations, one by one
His woman and his best friend
In bed and having fun
He's crawling down the corridor
On his hands and knees
Old Charlie stole the handle and
The train it won't stop going
No way to slow down
He hears the silence howling
Catches angels as they fall
And the all-time winner
Has got him by the balls
He picks up Gideons Bible
Open at page one
I think God He stole the handle and
The train won't stop going
No way to slow down
Opening scene: The Empty; a shadow is kneeling on all fours
The interloper had been banished, but still the Void couldn't rid itself of the ripples of irritation across it's skin, like a rock thrown into water. It wanted peace, and nothing in the Empty could bring it relief again. Others were waking and starting a clamor that were like sirens.
It turned its focus to earth, to the billions of souls that were scrambling across its surface. It searched and sorted through them all, until it found the right measure of light and dark, guilt and virtue. It narrowed its eye, drawing in the goodness and stripping away all the pain.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Whitmer family had just gone to bed for the night. Joe had had a rough day at work. The factory was behind in it's orders, and retailers had been hounding them for a week wanting to know when the shipments would come in. He had come home and taken a muscle relaxer with a double bourbon, passing out soon after supper.
Diane and the kids didn't bother him. She knew he had things on his mind, and kept the kids quiet. She managed to handle helping them with homework and baths, and herded everyone off to bed. She would save the phone calls from creditors for another day.
Between the pills and alcohol Joe was deep asleep. His dream state was relaxed, his body limp in the recliner. Suddenly, he was woken by a beam of light. A howling vortex began wrapping itself around himself and the recliner, and he felt a magnetic force pulling him. A voice he felt rather than heard beckoned him, promising peace from care and worry. Though his body was convulsing in the chair, his mind was calm and met the voice with a simple "Yes". This was what he had been looking for underneath all the fights with his wife, the responsibilities of family and children, the drinking, the anger and frustration, the hook-ups on business trips. He let it all fall away. No struggle, no fight, he simply let himself go into the sweet dark oblivion.
And the Void needed more.
The Men of Letters Bunker, Lebanon, Kansas
Sam put down his cell phone and rubbed the stubble on his chin. His laptop was open to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where he had highlighted an article. A step behind him announced the entrance of his brother Dean into the library. He had his cell phone in his hand also. "We must be doing something right. This is the third call I've gotten this week about a case that I've assigned hunters to. It's good to be king!" He sat down at the table and beamed.
Sam smirked at him. Dean was obnoxious sometimes, but he loved him anyway. "You're going to be thrilled with this then. I just got a call from Bill Chambers in Milwaukee asking us for our 'expertise'. It seems he's come across multiple reports of people going to sleep and dying. They seem to be having seizure-like episodes and then they're gone, but apparently none of them have a history of any kind of epilepsy or other conditions. He says they are up to ten people that this has happened to and he has his hands full."
Dean spun the laptop around and scanned the article. "We worked that case several years ago with the children falling into comas and dying."
"Yes, but this is adults, too and there doesn't seem to be any connection. It's like a random group of people were just sucked dry and left for dead."
"I suppose we could go check it out. What about…" he gestured towards the hall where the bedrooms were located.
"Jack is still binging on Netflix. He's working through all the Marvel movies."
Dean merely scratched the back of his head in answer. Jack had been a sore spot between them for a while, but after he saved Sam's life Dean was reconsidering his stance. He let the subject drop as they both walked down the hall. Suddenly he stopped. "Hey, maybe we should get business cards. They could say something like 'American Men of Letters, Hunters Extraordinaire."
Sam sighed in answer and just went in to his room to pack.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a day later; in a small diner on the south side
"Bill Chambers?" Bill looked up from his coffee cup and was greeted by two tall figures. He had never met the Winchesters, but had heard the stories at hunters' gatherings. They had become not only legends but had taken Bobby Singer's place as the "head" of the American hunters. They were highly thought of, giving good advice and were never too busy to leave their bunker to help out and get their hands dirty.
"Thank God you came. I have no idea what I'm dealing with here."
Sam smiled as they pulled up chairs. "It's no problem. So what are we looking at?"
Bill pulled out his journal and showed the brothers his notes and copies of the articles. "Some bizarre goings-on. Ten people in a week have just been going to bed and not waking up. The only connection I can make is that they are all blue-collar workers."
"And you're sure it's not stress-related?" Dean asked.
Bill shook his head. "According to the coroner's report, all of these people were perfectly healthy. Yeah, a few of them had some alcohol and maybe a couple pills in their bloodstream, but who among us hasn't done that?"
Dean grinned but stern a look from Sam wiped it off his face. "How do you know so much about their medical conditions?" Sam asked.
"The medical examiner is an ex-hunter. He decided to specialize in something quieter. Anyway, it's useful when we come across things like this." Bill slid the ME's report across the table. The brothers bent over it. Years of reading these reports had taught them to know what to look for.
"So what we have is ten disgustingly healthy people who basically went to bed and croaked violently. Can we see the crime scenes?" Dean asked.
"Sure, the last two are still taped off by police, but I can get us in."
A nondescipt house, crime scene number nine
The three men walked through the house, examining things and trying to get a read on what might have happened. Nothing really seemed out of ordinary; just a working class family with a mortgage. Sam had pulled out the EMF meter but it stayed dark. They were checking off what might have happened when Bill's phone rang. It was his friend Kate, a fellow hunter. "Whatcha got?" he asked. Sam and Dean watched as his face contorted. "Godammit! What the hell is this thing?" He ended the call. "Now we have an entire family that this has taken!" he told the other two.
Both brothers huffed in frustration. "So it's getting greedy now." Sam said. "Where did this happen?"
"North of here a few miles. I'll take you there."
It was still not sated. It continued scouring the land, looking for more. So much anger, so much hurt, the souls were just crying out for some kind of redemption, some kind of deliverance from their pain. They were so willing to give up, and for so little. It wanted them, wanted them all, so that it could go back to it's quiet slumber. It moved on to the next souls.
The three men met Kate at the house. "I can't make out why an entire family. What's the point?"
"Did this just happen?" Dean asked.
Kate nodded. "They are-were-my neighbors. Sue was my best friend." She choked up and turned away. Everyone was silent while she pulled herself together.
They went over the house. Another average family ending in pointless deaths . But something was forming in Sam's mind, and as he rifled through some paperwork on a desk it became clear. "I think I'm seeing a pattern." He said to Dean and gestured at a stack of bills and letters. "These people are in over their heads. Overdue bills, creditors calling…." Dean turned away from a cabinet in the dining room holding a bottle of Oxycontin. "And something to numb it all."
Kate came down from the bedroom. "I found something in the kids' bedrooms." she said quietly. She held out some small plastic baggies. "Dime bags." Dean said. "Perfect, even the kids."
"That just proves our theory. Something is being offered to these people in return for the escape from the human condition." Sam answered.
"But what-or who-exactly is offering it?" Dean asked. Everyone was stumped.
Later, in a local steakhouse downtown
If there was something the brothers agreed on, it was red meat. Sam loved it because of the protein, and Dean loved it because….well, who didn't love a bloody steak? The waitress took their orders for rare T-bones and brought them two whiskeys on the rocks. Sam pulled out his tablet and pulled up the file of the case. "I have to say, we don't have much to go on. I've been searching for a phenomenon that would do this, and I'm coming up short."
"Dude." Dean answered. "We're at a nice restaurant and you're still looking at your computer."
Sam looked confused. "We're working a case."
"Yes, but calm down. We can't solve it in one day."
Sam sighed in frustration and flicked the tablet off. "Then what should I be doing?"
"Maybe be less of a nerd?"
"This is what I do! You know that."
Dean held up a hand. "Whoa, I'm just making a suggestion. We do this every case. We get some downtime and you want to keep going." He signalled the waitress for another drink.
"That's the point of 'working a case'."
"Last night you were up until the small hours looking up stuff on Western religion…alphabetically. You were all the way up to the demon "Merihem' before I told you to turn out the light and go to sleep." The server, who just happened to arrive at that moment with Dean's drink, gave them both an odd look.
"Why are you yelling at me?" Sam was perplexed at the direction their conversation was going.
Dean took a huge swig from his glass before answering. "Just once, could we both maybe let our hair down a little? You're going to burn yourself out at the pace you're going. I worry about that."
Sam was taken aback. Dean didn't show his soft side often, but when he did it was always a punch to the gut. They were silent for a moment. "So how do I 'let my hair down'?" Sam finally asked.
Dean's face broke into an impish grin. "I have some ideas. And don't you go analyzing the people there for some kind of exorcism." The server showed up with their food and heard this last part. She hurriedly put their plates down and left quickly.