A six-story building loomed in front of the Winchesters as they stepped out of the Impala and slammed its doors. Evening fast approached and lights turned on in the parking lot. The building was cast into shadows and looked more like a large, metropolitan hospital then a sleep clinic. The building was large and a whitish grey color, with hundreds of windows, each with its drapes shut to block out sunlight. Cold and impersonal, it towered above the rest of the buildings in the immediate area. Sam and Dean entered the building and once again approached another receptionist, but this time, the woman looked like she could be a linebacker.
A cheeky Dean swaggered up to her and glanced at the nameplate perched on the desk, "Hello Ms. Archibald. We're CDC agents here looking into a rash of odd deaths that have been labeled as murders but that we believe are really some sort of infectious disease. We've traced it back to here."
Sam gave Dean a scathing look, which clearly said he'd not made any friends with the woman by insulting her place of work. Sam cleared his throat, "What my partner here means, is that we want to make sure that this facility is in the clear and can continue to do it's job helping people with serious sleep disorders."
Ms. Archibald raised an eyebrow, and then went on in a droning voice, "Place your ID's on the scanner over here and wait for Dr. Nox. He'll guide you around the facility. The receptionist ponderously grabbed for the ID's and the phone, then proceeded to page Dr. Nox while fumbling with the CDC name badges.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean huddled together and spoke in harsh whispers.
"Man, I don't like this at all, what if Dr. Nox is around when the sleep psychopath shows up?" muttered Dean, with some anger and concern in his voice.
"What if Dr. Nox IS the Sandman, Dean? Or is controlling it? We just don't know the situation yet, so we need to play by the rules and see if he can at the least point us in the right direction," criticized Sam.
Just then a balding, watery-eyed man in a white lab coat appeared from around the corner. He smiled warily and held out his hand, which both Winchester's shook.
"I'm Dr. Nox, I'll be leading you around the facility today…what exactly are you looking for?"
"Well, Doctor, there have been a lot of deaths in the area and we, in conjunction with the police, are investigating every possible angle. This just happens to be one of them," intoned Sam.
"Yeah, Doc, we're just here to cover your asses in case it is something coming outta this lovely place you got here," Dean sniggered.
Dr. Nox looked coldly at Dean, but sighed and flatly said, "This way."
He droned on and on about the sleep clinic, losing Dean from the words, "established in 1908 by a apothecary," thus missing the line about how the apothecary was, "concerned with sleeping issues of the townspeople and believed that demons were not to blame."
Suddenly the clinic became a flurry of activity.
"Paging Dr. Nox to observation room 313, Paging Dr. Nox to observation room 313, code blue," sang out an overhead system. Dr. Nox suddenly came alive and quickly turned on his heel away from the hallway he and the Winchesters were currently heading down.
"I have to go, there's an emergency. We have several patients with sleep apnea. They stop breathing at night. Normally they start up again but it looks like this one hasn't," Dr. Nox breathed out the words in a rush and then started running down the hall.
Dean glanced over at Sam and grinned, "Perfect."
"Perfect? A man or woman is not breathing and you think it's perfect?" questioned an incredulous Sam.
"It was bound to happen, Sammy, just call it lucky that it happened at a time when we could search the area on our own, and say we have Dr. Nox's permission. If that ain't perfect, I don't know what is!" a jubilant Dean voiced as he pulled out his homemade EMF Walkman.
Sam took one look at the machine and burst out laughing, choking back the snorts of laughter, he finally managed to stammer out, "You…brought…that….here?"
"Hey, it still works after all these years, so hell yeah I brought it here!" pronounced Dean.
The two began to walk around the clinic with the EMF reader, probing corridors and dark areas where a sinister creature might hide out in the stillness of the night with hundreds of easy targets.
"There are too many damn floors, Dean," complained Sam, "We should split up a little, it'd go a lot faster."
Dean shook his head, "I'm keeping me eye on you little brother, you find more trouble then a fox in a hen house. Speaking of hens," his glanced slid to the young woman on the bed, her face smiling slightly with a pleasant dream or memory that the Winchesters were not privy to.
Right at that moment the EMF Walkman began to buzz quietly and indicate a spirit, creature, or demon was nearby.