Disclaimer- Everything you recognize belongs to its respective owners (i.e. not me). Anything you don't recognize, probably still doesn't belong to me.
"Here." Sam says, handing the open journal over.
"Walk-ins? What the hell are Walk-ins?"
"No one knows. Not for sure, anyways."
"You know, when I asked 'Where next?' I was thinking a simple exorcism, Sammy."
Sam just rolls his eyes and angles his lap top so Dean can see the screen.
"That's just gross," Dean says glancing at the picture, "Guy looks like a nuclear holocaust survivor."
Sam closes down the window showing the deformed and sore ridden man then pulls up another. Dean stares at the next picture for a long time before saying, "Is that a beak? What is that? Some sort of reverse Harpy?"
Sam pulls the computer back and starts typing furiously.
"The popular theory seems to be that they're aliens."
"Sam, we deal in ghost and vampires and stuff. You know, the shit fantasy-fiction is made of. Not sci-fi."
"It's one of the last entries in Dad's journal. We should at least check it out."
"Fine. Where to then?"
"Stoneham, Maine."
"Maine?!"
The two brothers lucked out almost immediately. They'd introduced themselves as paranormal investigators at the local pharmacy and an older woman had given them an address. She'd told them to speak to the man who lived there.
When they pulled into the private driveway they found a man sitting out in a lawn chair smiling at them.
"One of these days I'm going to learn to trust a pre-cog when she tells me I'm going to have guests." they hear him say as they climb out of the car.
"You must be the Winchester boys." The man gets up and walks toward them.
The brothers exchange a glance before Sam says, "You were expecting us?"
"No," the man grins, "I just like sitting out in my yard messing with everyone who pulls in.
"Come on inside. Suz made a peach cobbler."
The brothers exchange another look before following him up the ramp into the lakeside home.
"I'm Eddie Dean, by the way," he offers as they enter the house, "My wife should be... Ah, here she is."
An older black woman rolls in to the front room on a wheel chair. Her hair is streaked with gray and her legs are amputated from just above the knees.
"You must be Sam and Dean. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Susannah Dean." She offers her hand. Sam winces slightly when she crushes his fingers in her grip. Dean, taking a cue from his little brother's discomfort, grasps the woman's fingers lightly and kisses the back of her hand while offering a roguish grin.
"Bes' be careful, child," her cultured voice becomes an almost stereo-typical southern negro patois, "I already got me a man." Her dark chocolate eyes glitter with amusement.
"You're here about the Walk-ins?" She asks, educated accent back in place.
"Yes, ma'am." Dean answers.
"We were told to come here and speak with your husband." Sam adds, holding his injured hand gingerly against his chest.
"Well, come into the kitchen. I've some coffee and a cobbler."
Once they're seated at the kitchen table with a plate of dessert and a cup of coffee, Eddie turns to the brothers, "Have you ever heard of Stephen King?"
"The writer?" Sam asks.
"Who hasn't?" Dean replies.
"Doesn't he live around here?" Sam again.
"Just across the lake." Susannah nods towards the window over the sink and the dark water beyond.
"Have you ever read 'The Dark Tower' series?" Eddie asks. Sam shakes his head.
"I read 'Carrie' once." Dean offers.
"This would have been a whole lot easier if you'd read that series." Eddie smirks.
"Why? What's that got to do with the Walk-ins?" Dean asks around a mouthful of cobbler.
"Everything." Susannah replies.
"Jake will be here before too long and we can palaver. Until then, enjoy the cobbler. It's the best this side of the Mason-Dixon line." Eddie grins.
After twenty minutes of conversation, the brothers have learned almost nothing about their hosts other than the fact the Susannah is older than her husband, they are filthy rich, and they aren't fazed by the supernatural.
"We've seen and done thing not even you can imagine." had been Eddie's explanation.
Eventually, they hear the thing they'd all been waiting for; the front door slamming home and a cry of, "I told you to call me on my cell when they showed!"
A second later, a tall, lean man in khakis strides into the room.
"Hello," he says to the brothers as he shakes their hands, "I'm Jake Chambers. It's nice to meet you."
"What have you told them?" he asks the table's other two occupants.
"Nothing. We were waiting for you." Susannah replies.
"Yeah. You knew old long, tall, and ugly before we did. It's your tale to start." Eddie smirks.
Jake sits down heavily and rubs at his face.
"Eddie here said it best when he called Roland a 'Tower-Junkie'." Jake gives an almost bitter laugh.
At first, the brothers argue with Jakes story; refusing to believe, but Susannah shuts them up quickly.
"You two have slain vampires and exorcised ghosts, yet you refuse our tale?"
When Jake's story comes to an end, Sam couldn't help but blurt out, "You died twice?!"
"Three times, actually, but we'll get there soon."
Eddie takes the story up from there, then Susannah. Eventually all three of them are speaking; correcting and adding on to each others telling.
Eddie stops talking when he's shot in the head and Jake when he's run over. It's long past dark when Susannah tells them about passing through the door.
"Did Roland make it to his tower?" Sam asks.
"As obsessive as he was? Of course he reached it." Eddie smirks.
"And?" Sam questions.
"And, you'll have to read the series," Eddie grins, "I've got an extra copy you can have."
"Don't tell me you actually believe this crap!" Dean blurts out.
"I don't know. Maybe." Sam sighs.
"They're claiming to be characters from a book!" Dean hisses.
"Seven actually." Jake smiles.
"Well, me and Suz were only in six." Eddie smirks.
"We can prove it to you, if you'd like." Susannah offers.
"How? Are you going to take us over to Stephen King's place and have him confirm it?" Dean shoots.
"God, no. The first time he meet one of us, he nearly had a heart attack; the second time, he'd just been hit by a van." Eddie laughs, bitterly this time. Sam looks over at Jake who is eyeing the table sadly.
"River Tam, the girl who told us you were coming, told us something else." Susannah says.
"You two came here to see a Walk-in, and you will." Jake clarifies.
Eddie pushes his chair away from the table abruptly and stands. Four sets of eyes watch him as he walks out of the room. When he returns, a bare minute later, he's carrying an old, well-oiled holster on one hand. In the other is an antique revolver with a sandal-wood grip.
"You coming with us?" he asks the man he's claimed as a brother.
"No. I have to get back to Dani and Roland."
"Give my nephew a big kiss for me."
"Of course," Jake smiles as he stands, "It was nice meeting you two. Maybe we'll see each other again." He shakes the brothers' hands before making his exit.
"What about you, Suz?" Eddie turns to his wife.
"You're the Dinah of this little ka-tet. It's your duty. I had enough of death years ago."
Eddie turns to the brothers, "Looks like it's just the three of us. Follow me."
"Where are we going?" Sam asks curiously as he and Dean rise from their seats.
"Cara Laughs." Eddie answers with a cryptic smile.
They saw it long before they actually reached number 19 Turtleback Lane; a brilliant blue-white light in the distance.
"What the hell was that?!" Dean yells from the passenger side seat of Eddie's Ford.
"What did it look like?" the older man asks absently.
"Like a man with a pig's head."
"Taheen," Eddie says, "I'm amazed they're so thick. This doorway hasn't been open in almost four years.
"First time I came here, I saw a butterfly with a human face."
"Doorway?" Sam asks from the backseat.
"Transdimensional portal, really." Eddie answers.
Soon they see little spots of light breaking away from the larger one; birds and insects that are definitely not of this world.
Twenty-four hours ago the two brothers might have claimed to have seen everything, and now they sit in a stranger's car, mouths agape. As they pull into the driveway, the brothers can only stare at the point of light.
"Somethin, ain't it?" Eddie says in a deep Maine dialect they would have believed natural if they hadn't just spent hours listening to him speak in a Brooklyn accent.
Dozens of figures mill about the light. Some are what Eddie called Taheen, but the rest look human beneath their pulsing sores and wispy-thin hair.
Eddie opens his door and gets out of the car without turning it off. As the brothers sit staring, the older man walks to his trunk pulls out his gun and holster. When it's strapped low on his hip, the revolver within easy reach of his right hand, Eddie motions for his companions to get out of the car. Once outside, they stand behind him, flanking either side.
Dean fells naked without the armory in his trunk. He only has a small caliber pistol loaded with silver bullets strapped to his right ankle and a small silver knife on his left. Sam is too busy resisting the seductive pull of the portal to realize he might be in danger. It's Eddie yelling that brings them out of their thoughts.
"Come forth, ye Children of Roderick, ye spoiled, ye lost, and make your bow before me, Edward, son of Roland, of the Line of Eld!" he shouts in a loud, clear voice that Sam imagines might have belonged to kings. Not even Dean can reconcile the man that stands before them now with the one who had laughed and grinned just hours earlier.
Most of the creatures flee at Eddie's words, but five slowly walk towards him and kneel in the dirt, hands fisted against their foreheads. They, all of them, seem tragically beautiful in the cold, harsh glow with their bloody wounds and crusty, pus-covered sores. Even the stench of disease and rotting flesh is bearable.
"Hile, Edward of the Eld." they each say, lapping over one another.
A child, no more than seven by size, whose sex was hidden beneath layers of dirt, turns up its face to look at Eddie with an expression of awe and gratitude.
"Might I have some sigul, Sai?" the pathetic little creature asks, tears running freely down its face and making tracks in the grime on its cheeks.
"Aye," Eddie says, pulling out his yellow-handled revolver. He shows it to the child and then to the other four. They look at him like a savior or a legend from the long-lost past. From what he's told Sam and Dean, he's a little of both.
Standing before the dirty naked woman kneeling farthest right, Eddie asks, "Would'ee have peace at the end of your course, thou Child of Roderick? Would'ee have the peace of the clearing?"
"Aye, Gunslinger. I would." she answers, looking Eddie full in the face with the eye that wasn't swollen shut and leaking blood.
Neither brother see Eddie's hand move. It would have been easy to believe the loud report had come from thunder if the gun that was suddenly in Eddie's hand, held loosely next to his right thigh, wasn't emitting a thin trail of smoke.
The woman slumps on the ground, a charred and bloody hole between her eyes before Dean manages to gasp, "What the..."
"Why'd you do that?" Sam yells, "She wasn't doing anything!" Eddie ignores him and moves on the next person.
He goes through the line, asking the same question and receiving the same answer before shooting each between the eyes. The dirt is muddy with blood and brain matter by the time he reaches the last person, the child who'd asked for a sign.
"Would'ee tell these two where it is ye hail from?" Eddie asks gently after the child has responded to his question.
"An' then ye'll send me on to the clearing?"
"Aye, child."
The kid turns to the brothers and, in a high, squeaky voice speeks, "Thunderclap."
"Thankee." and Eddie pulls the trigger one last time.
He turns to the brothers, face drawn and grim, far older than the forty-three he'd claimed.
"Do you believe?" he asks.
"Why?" Sam sighs sadly.
"I was doing them a favor," at Sam's shocked look, he continues, "They were what Roland would call slow-mutants; inbreed and already dying of radiation poisoning. It might have been days. It might have been years. I saved them the suffering and they knew it.
"Do you believe?"
"Yeah, man. I believe." Dean croaks. Sam nods weakly.
"Good," Eddie says, "Then let's vacate. Rod's Kids have always given me the screaming heebie-jeebies. And I've got some stuff at the house for you."
Back in the Impala parked in the Deans' driveway, Eddie hands over a stack of books and a card.
"For the sake of time, we didn't tell you everything, so read the books," Eddie nods towards the pile of hard covers resting on the floor board between Sam's feet, "When you're ready, contact the woman on that card."
"'Marian Odetta Carver'," Dean reads aloud, "'Tet Corporation? President?' Are you shitting me?"
"Not in the least," Eddie grins, "She's a slave-driver, but she'll treat you right and pay you well for doing basically what you're doing now."
"Ghost hunters with corporate sponsorship. Now I've heard everything." Dean smirks.
"Not even close." Eddie laughs.
"Your father did some work for her a few years back and she's looking forward to meeting you two."
"Really? Dad worked for this Carver woman?" Sam asks, eyes ablaze.
"Yeah," Eddie says, slapping the roof of the car and standing up, "Well, goodbye boys. Long days and pleasant nights."
'Bye,' is on the tip of Sam's tongue but to his surprise what comes out is, "And may you have twice the number."
Eddie shoots Sam a smile that drops twenty years off his face before he walks away.
As soon as he walks into their bedroom, Susannah rolls over and turns on the lamp.
"So?" she asks before her husband can utter one of his cheeky comments.
"That Dean kid reminds me of myself at his age," Eddie grins as he toes off his boots, "And Sam's every bit a sensitive as Jake."
"Marian told me that John, their father, reminded her of Roland a bit."
"Guess all they're missing is you then."
"You don't think Marian..."
"Susannah Odetta Dean, no one can compare to you. Not even someone with your name. You are completely unique." Eddie smiles.
"You always know jus' what to say." Susannah smiles back, "Come 'ere an' kiss me, white-boy."
"My pleasure."
"Mine, too."
It's nearing on midnight and they're rumbling down the highway looking for a cheap motel where they can find some sleep when Sam turns on the overhead light and digs through the pile of books. He flips to the first chapter of 'The Gunslinger', the thinnest tome in the stack by far.
'The man in black fled across the desert,' he reads, 'and the gunslinger followed.'
Author's Note - This story has been rattling around in my head for a long time. It took a bottle of Rum and a pack of cigarettes to finally coax it out.
I apologize if any of the characters seemed a bit OOC. I only ever watched the first season of 'Supernatural' and it's been nigh on two years since I really read 'The Dark Tower' series.
Stephen King wrote 'The Dark Tower' series as a giant multi-fandom crossover ('Harry Potter', Isaac Asimov, 'Spiderman', 'Salem's Lot', 'Everything's Eventual', 'Eyes of the Dragon', The Wizard of Oz, and real life events all made it into the books along with several other things that I probably didn't catch). So in keeping with that I managed to make mention of 'Firefly' (for those who caught it).
I guess the real reason I wrote this, other than to get it out of my head, was to get you guys out there in Internet-Land to read 'The Dark Tower' as they're seven of the most brilliant books ever written, in my opinion. It's even better than what you'd expect from Stephen King's magnum opus. Of course, I'm probably biased as King is in my top five list of favorite authors. If I were to go by how many books I've read by them, King would come in second only to Piers Anthony.