-.-.
From the radio, rose a perky, upbeat guitar tune, something between rock and country. The noise woke Sam, who was sleeping in the passenger seat, as the Impala speeded down a deserted back road in New Mexico. Concentrated on his driving, Dean was beating his fingers on the wheel.
Sam sat up in his seat.
"No Metallica tonight?"
"No", Dean replied. "I'm trying to get the news, see if there's something supernatural around. It is the only channel that I managed to catch so I'm waiting to see if there is a news bulletin following."
"The music is not bad."
"Yeah", Dean admitted reluctantly.
Sam sneered and ignored his brother dark look. He collapsed back into his seat and listened in silence to the music and watch the blurring landscape by the window. It was a dark night, and no artificial light, other than the Impala's headlights, pierced the darkness.
"What's the name of the band ?", he asked.
"No idea, the song had already started when I found this channel. I don't even know what kind of radio it is."
The song ended to give way to a masculine voice, soft and calm. It makes Sam think of maple syrup. That was a strange comparison, but accurate.
"Dear listeners, it looks like our flood problem is finally being resolved. Our latest information shows that it came from the port and the aquatic recreation area. Apparently, they would have started functioning on their own by filling themselves with blood. The Municipal Council insisted on repeating in a press conference that the port and the aquatic recreation area do not exist, never existed and that therefore this flood did not occur. However, the mayor recognizes that they stopped the flood by isolating this area from the running water network.
The blood should be totally gone from our streets before the night is over. Each citizen will then be authorized to go back to their home and start cleaning up the remaining stains if they wish. The City Council refused to advance the next Street cleaning day, declaring in unison, and I quote "A Street cleaning day, really? Don't make us laugh. A little blood on the walls does not hurt anyone. Street cleaning does." I think I can say that we are all relieved by that news.
To end on a happy note, respectable vampire members of the community agreed to taste the blood and said it was B negative, very dense and fruity. One said it was the best blood he had tasted in years and encouraged us to save it for their personal consumption. It seems that for a few months, we'll be able to dispense with the lottery to find a volunteer to donate his blood to our dear blood-sucking friends! So, it seems like this story has a happy ending after all, except the poor intern Alexander who was caught by a particularly dangerous blood whirlwind. We will not forget you, Alexander.
And now, good night, Night Vale. Good night.
Today's proverb: tweed pants? Really ?"
That was the end of the show. They could only hear static now. Sam leaned over to turn off the car radio, then turned back to his brother. Dean had parked the car on the side of the road to listen more closely. On the wheel, his hands were white. His face was dark and focused. He met Sam's eyes, the same concern and resolution reflected in both brothers' eyes.
"We're stopping at the first motel," Dean said. "And tomorrow we're looking for this Night Vale is on a map. I want to know if this is the show with the craziest humour I've ever heard or if there is some truth in that guy's mouth."
"Agreed. I'll start on the computer tomorrow morning. I've heard that name somewhere, but I can't remember when or where."
They had to travel another thirty miles before they find any motel. This part of the United States was hot, deserted, and desolate. Few people, even fewer towns. The shady motel they found owed its survival only to the rare travellers forced to cross this desert. There were no cars in the parking lot, and no light was shining from the bedroom windows. The manager greeted them with a yawn but did not blame them for their late arrival, too happy to gain some cash for once. The room cost the two brothers a lot more than it was worth, but they didn't protest. It wasn't like they honestly earned the money they were paying her with.
Sam and Dean silently made their way to the bedroom and looked at it. Bare walls, uncomfortable beds, the usual. All the furniture was at list thirty years old and in poor form. The whole gave off an impression of despair. Dean raised an eyebrow but went in anyway.
"At least it's clean," he said as he dropped his bag onto the nearest bed.
"I'll take care of the bathroom," Sam replied, grabbing a bag of salt.
Within minutes, the two brothers had added all the necessary protections against demons and other monsters. Dean requisitioned the bathroom. He cursed against the lack of hot water in the shower. Sam ignored him, collapsed on his bed and fell asleep, trying to ignore the pipe noises coming from the next room.
When he woke up, the sun was pouring into the room, failing to make it any more welcoming. Dean was at the table, nibbling on a candy bar. He sent one to Sam, who grabbed it by reflex.
"I inquired. The motel does not provide breakfast, and the nearest town is over twenty miles away. We'll have to settle for that until noon."
"Oh, joy,", Sam hissed, getting up to stretch. "Did you look for info on yesterday's show?"
"No, I leave the research to the family's geek. But I tried to find the channel on the Impala car radio while you were sleeping."
"And?"
"Nothing at all. I ran into normal channels, or static noise, nothing more. Let's see if you can do better."
Sam opened his computer and ate his parody of lunch absently. Against all expectations, there was Wi-Fi. He could begin the research. Sitting on the bed, Dean was cleaning his guns, humming a Led Zeppelin tune in a false tone. A few minutes passed. There was some useful info on the net, to Sam's surprise, and he found it quickly. He looked up and motioned to Dean that he saw something. Dean grabbed the second chair and sat down in front of his brother.
"First, there's no proof that the place exists. It does not appear on the maps, and I cannot find a tourist site or the town hall. There're some photos, mostly aerials, but all blurry..."
Dean frowned.
"You don't know if the city exists, but you have pictures?"
"That's the trick. There is not the slightest serious information on the net about this city, but I can give you weird if you want weird. This Night Vale fascinates some people online. They claim it exists and locates it all over the United-States, based on blurry aerial photos."
"Okay. Give me the non-serious information. Must be good."
"Conspiracy sites", Sam grimaced. "The usual 'the government is hiding things from us, the truth is elsewhere'. Some fifteen-year-old boy claims his brother was kidnapped and taken there for experiments. A woman writes that there is a gutted nuclear site that is dumping its radioactivity all over the area, and the inhabitants have two heads. Plus everything else, aliens, secret prison, zombies ... "
"Zombies?"
"You know. The great zombie outbreak caused by the experiments of the government and contained by its watchtowers. Frankly, nothing that I'm reading seems to have anything to do with the supernatural, it's just paranoia from some kind of crazy guys: no sources, no figures, no good photos, only rumours based on pretty much nothing.
"And the radio show? Found something about it?"
"For that, I have something a little more interesting and real."
Dean sat up in his chair and motioned for him to continue. Sam picked up a pencil to take notes as he spoke.
"A paragraph on a paranormal site. It's not much, but it's instructive. The author says that people disappeared shortly after hearing a radio broadcast. He doesn't give a name to it but calls it "the ghost radio". Apparently, it's only audible late at night and that most disappearances can be circumscribed in southern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The author gives the names of these people and the towns where they disappeared. He doesn't seem to take the story very seriously himself, but it's better than nothing."
"At least he gives us a starting point", Dean growled. "Can you give me some space? "
Dean took a map of the United States out of his bag and spread it out on the table. Sam shifted his computer to his lap, her eyes riveted on the information on the site. He wrote the names he was reading on the computer on a piece of paper and gave Dean the disappearance locations and dates. On the map, Dean drew crosses in pencil in about thirty places. Soon he joined them together in a circle, then connected them together with straight lines, thus bringing together the most distant points by diagonals. Sam joined him to watch him do it. When Dean was done, they pinned the map to the wall and stared at it for a long moment.
"Most of the disappearances took place in California," Sam finally noted.
"Yes, but the centre of the circle is somewhere near the Grand Canyon. Maybe that's where this show comes from."
"One disappearance took place not too far from here. If we drive fast, we can be there by tonight and investigate it. We may learn more. "
Dean nodded and collected their things.
-.-.-.
They reached Safford's town in the early evening, where a certain Danny Grahms had disappeared six months earlier. They devoted the next evening and the following morning to research. According to the local papers, Danny and Sally Grahms were an uneventful couple, in their forties. Two children and a dog, the perfect little American family. Then Danny suddenly changed, acted as if he was being followed, isolated himself for days in his office trying to find a radio show. After fifteen days of strange behaviour, he was gone. The police had thought he just abandoned wife and children, but the man had taken nothing before he disappeared, neither his keys, nor his papers, nor his car, and no one had seen him leave. So they had suspected murder, but all the suspects had solid alibis. In six months, there was no progress in that case. The man was just gone. While doing this research, the Winchester brothers tried unsuccessfully to pick up the strange radio again, without success.
They gave up in the early afternoon to go see the wife. She greeted them - or rather, welcomed the two FBI agents she thought she had in front of her - trying not to cry. She ushered them into the living room and invited them to sit down.
"My Danny wasn't the type to disappear like that," she said, pouring them drinks.
"Sometimes people do strange things," Sam whispered apologetically.
Sally nodded, smiling weakly.
"You don't know my Dany. He could do nothing without planning it for weeks in advance. It was so frustrating. I guess I have to get used to talking about it in the past tense by now... But why do you ask these questions again? I told the previous agents everything I knew. I saw they didn't believe there was any hope of finding him."
Sam and Dean gave each other a quick glance, then Sam stood up, asking for the toilet, while Dean answered.
"I don't want to give you too much hope either. But my colleague and I came across a similar case. All the answers you can provide us with would be useful... for both cases. So, you say he was very picky."
"Even for an emergency, he couldn't cancel an appointment or move the dog walk. And he was always perfectly on time."
Sally pause and stood up to take a small notebook from a pedestal table, which she handed to Dean.
"Every day, he wrote all his planned trips and activities. Even when he started acting weird. But that day, at four o'clock, instead of walking the dog, he went upstairs to take a nap. He never came back down. I stayed in the living room all this time, I would have seen him pass in the hallway. Our boys, they were playing outside. They didn't see him use the back door. Flutty, he hasn't barked, and he always barks when a visitor approaches the door. "
Dean nodded to show that he was still listening. He was going through the notebook. If anyone asked for his opinion, this Danny was so picky and precise he was nearly insane. Who would write "seven-fifteen, breakfast, seven twenty-seven, take the dog out, seven thirty-six end of the walk," every day for six months? The first pages of the notebook, entitled "notebook 132, August 2011 -..." show the typical routine of a father and a small bank employee: walking the dog, dropping the children off at school, weekly outing with colleagues, cinema once a month...
However, from January 2012, a few weeks before his disappearance, Danny had written some strange things in his diary. This man who used to go to bed at 10:30 pm every day of the year suddenly wrote every night "eleven to one in the morning, find the radio". Two days before his disappearance, it changed to "eleven fifty-seven, listening to the radio". But the strangest thing was not this allusion to the radio that Dean had heard. No, it was the unexpected activities that popped up without warning in the logbook. Dean saw written "drown the dead leaves", "do NOT go to the library", "walk around the garden and listen to the stars", "take the dog out. Be careful, the dog park is dangerous."
Dean looked up as he heard Sam come back and sit next to him, looking confused. He saved his questions for later and met Sally's gaze. Her gaze was a sort of mixture of despair, unease, and acceptance.
"The police said maybe he had something in his brain, like early Alzheimer's. But this is nonsense. My Danny wasn't sick, he just became..."
Words failed her. She was on the verge of tears. Sam took her hand, unsure it would help. She clung to it like a rescue board in the middle of the sea. She was only forty, but anguish made her look thirty years older. A sight that hunters saw all too often.
"We will do our best, he reassured her. "What is this radio that the notebook talks about?"
Sally's embarrassment increased.
"Dany started talking about it soon before... He had a business meeting in Tucson. He got home very late, and the next morning he looked confused. He didn't come up to our room, and I'm pretty sure he had a sleepless night. In the evening I asked him what happened, he mumbled something about a radio show. He asked me if I had heard it before, but the name meant nothing to me. I can't remember it now. After that, he locked himself in the office every night to look for this show. Sometimes I passed in front of the room, and I heard a strange noise like there was a poor signal, you know? Some static. And two days before he disappeared, he gave me a big smile at lunch and said he had found the radio. He did not mention it afterwards. It is important ?"
"The smallest detail can be", Dean replied.
There was nothing more to say or learn. They left the Grahms' house soon after, the probable widow watching them go, holding back her tears. When they pulled away from the block, Dean pulled up, turned off the Impala's engine and turned to his brother.
"Did you find anything?"
Sam pulled Dean's EMF out of his jacket pocket. A burning smell still escaped it, and the screen was black as if charred. His brother's face fell as he grabbed the transformed Walkman to scrutinize it.
"Fuck, what happened? I loved this thing!"
"I have used it in every room of the house. As soon as I got into the desk room, it crackled and then grilled, all the LEDs popped out. I turned it off immediately but..."
"I'll see if I can repair it when we're at the motel", Dean decided, handing the EMF back to Sam and turning the ignition back on. "Hey, supernatural activity must have been amazing in this room!"
"Yes. But nothing strange otherwise, no traces of demonic or angelic activity, witchcraft or anything else. We have more questions than answers."
"Okay. The next step is to find the origin of the radio program. Back on the road, I guess."
"Wouldn't it be better to do some more research first?" Sam asked, annoyed. "This guy heard the show and disappeared shortly after. I would prefer to avoid doing the same."
"And the best way is to remove the source of the problem. You got me. I'll start the research in northern Arizona then. At the centre of the disappearances. "
Sam could only nod. Too many people had disappeared in the area for his liking. However, there was something he didn't like about this story. Since the day before, he had been trying desperately to remember a detail that escaped him. When they got back to the motel, they had chosen the day before - which, thank goodness, was much cleaner and more welcoming than the previous one - they packed their things for a quick departure the next morning. Dean absently cleaned his guns as Sam continued to study their too thin file, trying to find the detail that bothered him.
"You know what bothers me the most about this story?" Dean asked, putting down a pistol and grabbing another. "Sixty-seven people disappeared, what? Fifty, sixty years old?"
"Since the spread of radio in American homes, give or take. Men, women, children, all saying they heard a strange radio, all missing without a trace."
"Okay, since everyone has a radio at home. And no one made the correlation between these disappearances? No hunter?"
"Bobby would know the answer," Sam whispered, trying to restrain the sadness he still felt after the old hunter's death. "But I looked in his notes and diaries, I couldn't find anything."
"If even he didn't know…", Dean growled, disappointed as he returned to his gun cleaning.
Sam nodded in agreement, then froze. A second later, he rushed to his bag and searched it. Soon he frantically scanned their father's diary for a reference, a clue he was sure he had read a long time ago without knowing what it was about then. It must have been there, the young man repeated to himself. Their father was the most knowledgeable man about supernatural stuff after Bobby. There had to be something.
A few minutes later, he found something, but his joy was short live. He swore. Yes, John Winchester's diary contained something about their case, but nothing useful. The age-yellowing paper, written maybe a year after Mary Winchester's death, carried only these words "Night Vale. Not an urban legend. Stay away."
It was frustrating. Sam had searched for all possible information about Night Vale for three days and had only come across contradictions and impossibilities. Wasn't the city an urban legend? But then, which of the fifty rumours he had come across was the truth? Dean picked up the journal Sam was still holding. A curse escaped his mouth.
"Really?" He growled. "Hasn't it occurred to him to write useful information?"
He was still complaining as he got into the Impala the next morning.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
They travelled around northern Arizona for the next three days but found nothing. There was no sign for Night Vale, no truck driver or motel owner had heard of the place, no local newspaper reported any strange events in the area. The two brothers didn't talk about it, but both knew they would have to give up soon. Other cases required their intervention in another corner of the United States, people who would die during their useless hunt. Too many hours in the car searching for an elusive sign was getting on their nerves. Sam, who tried to consult a detailed map of the state with the light of the headlights, suggested that they found a place to rest for the night. They should take a day off. It would be an opportunity to finally see the Grand Canyon before going to dig a case of a witch's convent in Oregon. Dean was in a terrible state, even if he refused to admit it out loud, since he'd got out of Purgatory without bringing Castiel back with him. He didn't want to talk about it, which was fine, for now. But Sam wouldn't hesitate to force him to rest, even if he had to tie Dean to his bed and hide the keys to the Impala.
Behind the wheel, Dean had more or less the same ideas. He hated leaving a case unresolved, of course, especially a bloody trail of disappearances and even murders that would go unpunished. But he knew that being unreasonable was no solution. They could still follow things from afar and come back if they had a serious lead. Until then, a good ghost or witch hunt would be more effective in calming his frustration. He was doing okay, as long as he had things to keep him busy. He couldn't think of Cas, being hunted down in Purgatory when he should have been able to get him out of there. Even better, if that could also allow Sam to stop dreaming in broad daylight of the life he had built for himself and had given up.
They rode in silence through the night, each focused on their own thoughts. It was an October night and soon, fog formed and wrapped around the car and the few electric poles that lined the national road. The radio crackled softly, unable to pick up a single channel.
"Turn left," Sam suddenly told.
"To the left? Already?", Dean asked, slowing down.
"Not much choice if we want to find a motel that is still open. If I follow the map correctly, we have to take the first left. I didn't see any other junction before."
"You have the map", Dean shrugged.
He turned where his brother told him to. They continued to drive for a long time. Leaning over the map, Sam frowned frustratedly.
"A problem?"
"We should have already found the national road. I must have misread the map, but I absolutely do not see where."
"Well, it's done", Dean decided. "We continue. We'll end up somewhere. I hope it' soon because this fog is getting tedious."
It was thickening from minute to minute. Soon Dean was forced to slow down again.
"Luckily, the road is straight", he grumbled, "because I cannot see one mile ahead."
"Do you want to stop?"
"And wake up cold tomorrow morning in the back seat? No thanks."
"Hopefully ... holly shit! "
Dean steered the wheel just in time to avoid the sign by the side of the road. He hadn't realized he was no longer driving on the road. They bumped into something, and the car stopped. Dean didn't shut the engine before he rushed out to assess the damage in the headlight. The car had hit a big rock but didn't take any damage, to his relief. Not even a scratch. As he examined his dear Impala, he heard Sam cut off the radio, which refused to make an understandable sound, and the engine. He heard him get out of the car and take a few steps.
"Dean ?", Sam asked. There was urgency in his voice.
"The car's good, we can leave."
"Come see it. I think we arrived. I have no idea how we did it, or where we are exactly, but we're there."
Dean joined Sam, who was reading the warning panel by flashlight. "WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE," announced the panel in large black letters on a purple font, under the design of a white moon inscribed in the iris of a darker purple eye. Then, in smaller letters, the panel said, "CITY FOUNDED IN 4000 BEFORE SOME PROPHET. 1,937, ¾ INHABITANTS ''. Further down the sign said, 'We have nothing to fear, except ourselves. We are ungodly and horrible people. We fear in silence. Look down, Night Vale. Lower your gaze and forget what you've done. "
The two Winchester brothers stared at the panel for a long moment.
"Out of the question to go in there without sleep", Dean finally decided. "We take turns sleeping in the car, and we wait until daylight before doing anything."
"I totally agree. I take the first guard."
"No way. I..."
"You've just driven four hours in a row, two of which at night and in the fog. You sleep first."
To Sam's relief, Dean didn't protest. They pulled the car away from the panel and the road. Then, they checked that they had their guns within reach and invisible to any prying passerby. That done, they began a brief night's sleep.
Everything was silent around them. There wasn't an animal around, and all the city lights were off, except for the dim light that lit up the welcome sign. However, if the Impala's radio had been on, it would have been proof that the town was not as sleepy as it looked ...
In every house in Night Vale and a dozen other homes around the world, the radio crackle changed to an unpleasant screech, then to soft music. Then, a deep voice began to speak.
"A nocturnal sun lazes over our city, ignoring world affairs but reluctant to leave it. Welcome to Night Vale.
It's strange to think that we are just a cluster of atoms. What prevents them from falling apart and leaving only a memory of us behind? The city council and the secret police remind all our fellow citizens that a storm of uncertainty will sweep our region tonight and tomorrow.
A scientist came up to show us a diagram full of pretty colours and curves to explain the situation. Uncertainty seeps into our homes through all doors and windows and the smallest of cracks. It's very dangerous because it seeps into the human mind if we're not careful. The scientist ended his explanation by shouting "If you let uncertainty invade you, you put yourself in danger!" Although ... I'm not sure ... What did I mean again?". With those words, he blurred and disappeared. Do not, I repeat, do not go outside if you don't feel entirely sure of your existence.
A city council representative said the only certainty about this storm of uncertainty is that we're not sure it will end overnight, or in a year. But we'll not let this uncertainty bother us, Night Vale, am I right? Things are going as they are, as usual. Let's not ask questions. We don't want to ask questions.
Ever.
In other news, two men in a black car stopped at our city's door. Who are they, where are they going, we don't know. Intern Melinda left to ask them a few questions, but she told us she didn't dare. She just sat on the car hood to watch them sleep. "They're gorgeous," she told us. "Really gorgeous, and very sad. One of them dreamed of a forest and an angel, although we all know angels are not real. The other dreamed that he was awake and that he was guarding his brother. Then he dreamed of a dog and a house, and the other, the smaller of the two, dreamed that he was walking around their car to stay awake. Their dreams were lovely. Lovely and sad."
A secret police member told us that their black car was a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, a model not used by the government or the vague yet threatening government agency. We therefore still do not know who these two sleepers are. We just know they prefer actual sleep to an imaginary sleep. How could any sane person do that? Maybe we'll know more soon.
And now, a message from our sponsors."
The voice continued to speak for a long moment on the radio waves which fly, invisible, in the night. The sky turned purple, then mauve, and finally clear blue even if the sun was not up yet. A breeze blew around the city. Cries of horror did not resound in the houses with the open windows.
Dawn broke on the horizon during Dean's third shift. Silently, so as not to wake Sam, he got out of the car and stretched. His muscles were tired from the uncomfortable night. He examined the surroundings. They were in the middle of Arizona, a desert of sand and rock, where a few shrubs were struggling to survive. The small town of Night Vale was surrounded by mesas that rose above her. The city itself, seen from its outskirts, looked clean and quiet, perfectly normal. It was still early, the main street was absolutely deserted. Not a man, not a dog, not even a bird was visible. The first houses were all housing estates, painted new, well-aligned. There was laundry hanging from the trees, automatic sprinklers struggled to keep the yellowing lawns alive. In broad daylight, their reluctance to enter the city seemed ridiculous.
Except ... the welcome sign now read "1,926.000000666 INHABITANTS AND TWO HUNTERS". It sounded like a poor joke, but the culprit should have walked past one of the two brothers on guard. He couldn't have done so without been seen. Dean ran a hand over the panel, but the paint was dry.
His stomach growled. He climbed back into the Impala and woke his brother up with a light knock on the shoulder.
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. It's time to find some breakfast and a place to begin our search. And be careful, this city gives me creeps."
"Everything looks normal," Sam protested, yawning.
"Too normal."
That's how the Winchester brothers entered Night Vale. They were on Route 800, which Sam couldn't see marked on any area's map he owned. They followed the signs for a library and found it next to a motel and a diner both advertised 'open'. The motel was as clean as the rest of the city. After they put down their things, they went to the dinner to have breakfast. They weren't the first customers. There was a man, thirty to forty, black, with curly hair greying at the temples, having lunch. He was frantically writing on the table. Dean thought it would be great to see him understood he wasn't writing on paper when he finished his coffee. Farther on, three hooded figures whose faces he could not see were discussing while drinking coffee. With straws.
A waitress, a bored-looking twenty-year-old girl, came to take their order. Sam smiled at her. The girl blushed slightly, her scowl disappearing.
"We've new to town," he said. "Are there interesting things to see or do in the area?"
The girl gave a scornful little snort.
"Here? There's nothing to see, nothing to do."
"Really nothing?"
"Well, it's fun when you're a kid. I was a scout for ten years, you know what it is. But now I want to, you know, get out, move to a big city, see the country. Nothing ever happens here. Nothing interesting."
"Really? And in the past? My friend and I are journalists. We're writing a paper on the history of the small towns of the Southwestern United States. You don't have some interesting stories to share with us? On the Civil War, the city's construction, ... "
"Even old heinous crimes", Dean put in, grinning. "We take everything."
"You know, I'm not too interested in that old stuff. But there must be some people here to tell you stories. Old woman Josie, maybe. She knows a lot of things."
"Or your library, perhaps?" Sam asked. "I'd like to take a look."
The girl did not answer immediately. She returned to her counter to grab a coffee decanter and came back to serve to the two brothers.
"The library's huge, you'll undoubtedly find what you're looking for. Well, I never set foot there. I'm not crazy."
She didn't clarify. She was about to leave when Dean stopped her.
"And you don't have a radio station or a local newspaper? They often have interesting archives."
"Yes for both. Well, the newspaper is closed at the moment, they took some damage recently."
"And the radio?"
The handsome black man writing on his table interrupted them to speak to the waitress.
"Excuse me, Jessie, can I take this table with me? I didn't realize I ran out of paper and these are very important equations..."
"Sure," she said, slipping her order book into her apron. "I'll help."
She walked away, leaving the two brothers to their thoughts. For a fraction of a second, when she was at the limit of his vision's field, Sam thought he saw her lean on three legs instead of two. He turned around immediately, but everything looked perfectly normal.
They didn't find another occasion to speak with the waitress, so they went out immediately after finishing their breakfast. Sam went to the library to start some general research on the city's history. Dean went to look for what information they could get from the radio and the newspaper employees.
The local newspaper offices were only a few minutes' walk from the library. When he saw them closed, a passerby agreed to inform him. A recent flood had submerged the archives kept in the basement. Cursing his bad luck, Dean continued on his way to the radio station.
The building was a ruin. It bore the traces of a fire that had devastated it, ripping open the facade and shattering all the windows. Lichen and some kind of yellow ivy grew all around it. For a moment, Dean thought he saw a huge dog behind a collapsed section of the wall, but it was just a plastic bag that flew away and disappeared. Dean stopped a woman who was walking her dog.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for the radio station..."
"It's just here," the woman replied, her face showing that she clearly took him for an asshole.
"I know, I mean the current one. The one who still emits."
"There is no other. But don't worry, Cecil will be on the air tonight as usual."
She gave him a friendly wave of hand and left without giving him any further explanation. Dean looked around the building for a moment, uncertain, then turned around and walked over to the library. In front of it, Sam was waiting impatiently.
"You took a long time." He was annoyed. "I've been waiting for you for half an hour."
"You said you'd spend the day there."
"I did! It's 6:30 pm, Dean! Frankly, what took you so long?"
Dean stared at his brother in disbelief. He had to look up to check the sun's course and examine his watch for a long time to accept that it was really 6.30 pm. His little exploration only took him twenty minutes or so. There was something really wrong in this town, and they were going to have to fix it. Dean didn't like being in such uncertainty.
"Time doesn't seem to work as it should. Did you find anything?"
Sam was angry, but not necessarily against him.
"Most of the books in this library are written in Sumerian, Akkadian and other alphabets that I can't read, I've never seen that! The filing system is incomprehensible, half of the books are missing from the shelves, and when I asked where the city archives were, the librarian just told me I was very young to want to die. He ended up giving me access to the archives, but Dean, part of it... I believe they were written in human blood! And not on paper, on skin... I think it was werewolf skin."
Sam's voice bordered on hysteria now.
"How would you know?" Dean asked, but Sam cut him off.
"I saw manuscripts written on human skin, and you too, Dean. It looked like that, except one side was covered in fur, like a werewolf's. Dean, let's forget about the strange radio station, this library is dangerous, we have to take care of it!"
"No way we're going to forget the radio! I can swear it didn't take me an hour to make the round trip and my watch tells me it took me nine hours. Not to mention the fact that the place was in ruins. A fire, old. So, unless the show was broadcast from somewhere else - and the woman swore me there isn't another station around - we're dealing with something supernatural. Not to mention the fact that a woman told me that a certain Cecil's show would take place tonight."
"Okay, here's what we're going to do," Sam decided. "We buy sandwiches and eat at the motel, our ears fixed on that damn radio. I wrote everything I could find about the history of the radio station. I believe I saw the mention of a certain Cecil."
More attentive than ever to their surroundings, Sam and Dean went back to the motel. They were glad to have weapons at hand. With the same energetic step, they made their way to the motel. On the way, Dean noticed several people dressed in black, the kind of clothes government agents wore. He was familiar with these costumes, having worn some himself in several cases. However, these people didn't seem to pay attention to the two brothers, and Dean refrained from pointing out their presence. Sam stayed silent on the figures he thought he saw at the edge of his vision or the passersby's distorted reflection in the windows. Around them, the wind grew stronger.