Sam huddled deeper into his coat. The weather was miserable, it couldn't even be bothered to rain properly. Dean seemed totally oblivious to it, more than that, he actually seemed to be enjoying himself.
"Okay college boy, you take the hospital, find out exactly what these people died of. I'll take the witnesses."
"Okay. Dean?"
"What?"
"Just remember these people are in shock, go easy on them."
Dean looked insulted. "Hey, I think I know what I'm doing. I've been at this a while."
"Yeah, what ever." He had an image in his head of Dean being chased by angry townsfolk with flaming torches and laughed out loud. "Later."
oooooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooooo
The rain had hardened by the time Dean finally found the Diner. Its windows had misted up and as he pushed the stiff door open humid air oppressed him. He took a deep breath that seemed more water than air and looked about. He could see her behind the counter at the far end, her face pale, her mouth a straight line.
Rubbing his hair to get the worst of the rain off he decided to take his brother's advice, though he'd never admit it, and take the tactical approach. Sitting at the counter he waited for an older man, her father he guessed from what the librarian had told him, to approach.
"I'll have a coffee please." As he watched the coffee poured, he leaned forward and dropped his voice. "Is that Katie Smitham over there?"
The coffee pouring stopped.
"Why d'you want to know?" There was a protective growl in the man's voice.
"Look, I know she's been through a lot, I'm sure just about everyone's wanted to talk to her, but I'd really appreciate it if she could talk to one more person."
The coffee came out in a gush, Dean flinched as a drop scalded his hand.
"You're right, she has been through a lot, and she's talked to a lot of people too. And the last thing she needs is another idiot treating her like she's lost her mind!"
"No, no, you don't understand. I'm Nathan Shipford, I work for 'The Fortean Times', believe me the last thing I'm going to do is make fun of her. No matter what others might be telling you, mass hallucinations simply don't exist, I know she really saw what she saw."
He looked at Dean, trying to weigh him up, and Dean put on his best sincere face. Suddenly the man's eyes drifted beyond, automatically Dean turned around in time to see a woman sitting at one of the tables nod. Her eyes settled on him, clear deep blue eyes. She got up, smiled at Katie's father, and left swinging her long leather coat on in one fluid movement, and though the rain was still hammering, it seemed to make no difference to her.
"Who was that?" He asked, before he could stop himself.
"A visitor," he replied. "I'll see what Katie wants to do."
Whoever the woman was, the nod seemed to have given Dean the key. Katie was reluctant, but she agreed to sit down in a booth and tell her story one last time.
"Thanks for doing this, I know it's not easy."
Katie shrugged, and nervously pushed a stray copper curl behind her ear, her finger nails were bitten down to the quick.
"So you write about this sort of thing all the time?"
"Well, not usually anything so dramatic, but I cover a lot of odd things for the FT."
"Odd?" She laughed, a humourless laugh that seemed to be forced out of her against her will. "That's one word for it."
"Now, I 've talked to a lot of people who saw the ship from afar, but you got up real close. What was it like?"
"It was like the shadow of a boat," she told him, shivering with the memory. "Not the actual boat itself, a ship really, with three masts, the sails were billowing, but the wind was going in the wrong direction - I guess others have told you that?"
Dean nodded.
"They also mentioned that a cloud seemed to detach itself from the ship and head over the town."
"So they say. I saw the cloud move away from the ship. I don't know where it went."
"Must have been scary."
"Yes, but I can't tell you why. It was a ship, so what? We see ships all the time here. It wasn't just the way it looked, it was the way it made you feel. It felt like my breath was being squeezed out of me, like everything was squeezed out of me except fear - there wasn't room for anything else. I've never felt that frightened before."
"Did you see any one on it?"
Katie frowned. "You know, you're the first one to ask me that. No, no one was on it that I could see, but..."
"But what?" Don't give up on me now - he thought.
"I thought I heard someone. A whisper. I don't know, no one else seems to have heard it."
"What did it say?"
Katie bit her lip. "The hour has come, but not the man. And it wasn't an American accent, it was more like, oh you'll think I'm crazy..."
"Believe me Katie, with all the things I've seen and heard over the years, I am not going to believe that."
Katie deliberated for a moment, then decided to tell.
"It sounds stupid, but it reminded me of Johnny Depp - in 'The Pirates of the Caribbean."
ooooooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooooo
"Are you one of the trainees they sent me?"
Sam jumped and spun to face the balding doctor who had just poked his head through the swing doors behind him.
"Er yeah, I'm..."
"Don't care, all that matters is that I'm Doctor Cavendish, and as far as you're concerned, I'm God so get in here. This damned place was never meant to deal with this sort of thing."
And then he was gone again. Sam smiled to himself, and he didn't even have to lie - well, not much.
"Now," Dr. Cavendish continued, moving his large bulk with surprising grace around the post mortem lab. "What I don't need is you getting ideas above your station, you are not a doctor, you're not an intern, you're just here to move what I say to move, when I say to move it. Understand?"
"Absolutely." He assured him. "So, why are you having to do this here? I would have thought..."
"Are you an idiot?" He snapped. "Until they know why ten middle aged but otherwise healthy men dropped dead around the same time half the town was suffering from a mass hallucination they're not going to let these bodies out of the quarantine zone."
"I thought the quarantine was over."
"For a gofer you talk a lot. Here put this one back into number three and get number four out."
Sam moved to the head of the trolley with the corpse, covered in its shroud, and pushed it where he was told. Luckily he wasn't unfamiliar with this kind of thing and the grumpy Dr. Cavendish didn't seem to suspect he had a ringer for an assistant.
The doctor barely waited for Sam to put the new corpse into position before pulling the covering off. Sam gasped.
"Yeah, not exactly a pretty sight, is it?" He grudgingly admitted.
"They're all like that?" He asked. "Why? I thought they just dropped dead."
"That's what the media have been told - we can hardly tell them that the men died of fright."
Sam looked again at the corpse, his face stuck in a dreadful grimace, a silent scream as if somewhere his soul was still screaming in horror.