Solitary Man – chpt 6

By: sifi

John looked up from the computer screen, Sam was still out and still, if his moaning and occasionally flopping arm was any indication, tormented. John's eyes moved from his son's pale frowning face to his feet that were barely on the bed despite how high his knees were tucked up. A single is way too small for him…he thought absently and returned to his e-mail account where he clicked on a letter from Shep.

A scan of a news story from a Chicago paper appeared on the screen and as he read it he not only knew where he and Sam had to go, but where Dean would be. Neither of his boys were unintelligent, Dean was certain to have found the clip about the Guinardi woman and now he would be alert to what to look for. John had no doubt he would follow these scribing incidents, and he knew that if he didn't find a way to act fast, to stop whatever had been set to killing these women that could be connected to his son, that every subsequent death would accomplish the Demon's mission in very little time.

"Dean!" Sam barked and bolted upright startling John's heart into his throat.

Sam blinked the dream out of his head and sighed, not sure if he could believe his eyes, "You're still here?"

John nodded, "You better?"

"Yeah… just a… memory…" he explained haltingly. John had no idea what they'd been put through, the screams Eddy Jay and the memories he stirred up dragged out of his eldest boy, but Sam knew Dean would never want his father to know about them either. It was bad enough Sam knew, but at least they had the shared experience, John hadn't been there, he didn't know this particular hurt.

"…and last night… was that a vision?" he asked.

Sam nodded, "… of the past… retrocognitive I guess… nothing important…"

John cocked an eyebrow, "Nothing important?"

"Can't change the past dad…" Sam muttered sliding off the bed and into the bathroom, effectively ending any further questions for the time being.

--

Dean sat at one of the branches of the Chicago Public Library searching for anything he could find on post mortem body scribing. He searched for the timing of the incidents, the locations, gender of victims, anything that could point definitively to a specific entity and on a small single page map of the U.S. began to plot locations. His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall and he set the alarm on his cell phone. He had an appointment at the morgue in just over three hours to see the body of Trish Harris. He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly then opened his phone and scrolled through his phonebook until he found her number and her picture. I'm sorry…please don't let this be the start of a pattern…two women…I mean so I'm not really the player I like the guys to think but there's nothing wrong with having some fun… every soldier needs a little leave once in a while…Trish was fun…he nodded and sighed. They'd played Skee ball down at Navy Pier and tilted a pinball machine macking until they couldn't stand it anymore and retired to a nearby hotel. Please don't let this be the start of a pattern…he reiterated and continued plotting his points until the alarm sounded and he made his way to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.

--

Sam pulled out of the motel lot, his direction a generalized Easterly one, toward Chicago as his dad turned the opposite direction, heading back to Nebraska, back to Bobbys' to see what they could find out about where this thing might show up next. As his father's truck shrank to nothingness behind him Sam reached into his jacket pocket and checked his cell phone. There were no new messages. The last time he'd heard from Dean was the previous day, another message to call him, let him know where he was, if he was okay.

He highlighted Dean's phone number and his thumb hovered over the 'send' button. He'd promised John not two hours ago that he'd leave Dean investigating this thing on his own, as they both knew he was doing, he insisted that Dean needed the emotional turmoil to keep his defenses up, his guard tight against any kind of psychic attack. The higher his guard the less effect any subsequent deaths would have at the immediate moment. It sounded good, it sounded convincing, But it feels so wrong… he shook his head, This isn't right… this hasn't been right since the get-go…Dean is alone, he hates to be alone, he's… it's not right… Sam felt his thumb twitch.

--

Dean followed the tech back into the refrigerator, this one, five times the size of the one in Sedalia with no less than ten sets of free standing shelving units, each unit with at least sixteen slots, each slot capable of holding several corpses. This was Chicago after all. She led him to one of the two dozen gurneys that lined the walls, (the shelves were full) picking up sheets along the way to check the faces.

No tidy little checking the toe tags here…he thought and wondered how a sane person could work in a place like this five days a week until retirement. I'll take hunting thanks…

"Here you go," she smiled kindly, and rolled the sheet down over Trish Harris' torso stopping at the crest of her pelvis.

Dean saw the butterfly tattoo peeking out from under the sheet on the left hip and nodded to himself.

He drew his eyes up to her belly and gazed at the same message, the same 'writing', everything was identical to the scribing on Carol's corpse.

"Can I get a copy of her face sheet?" he asked knowing it would have her address and all of her vital statistics on it.

The tech looked at him, "Sure, your papers don't list any information restrictions so I don't see why not,"

"Thanks," he nodded.

"You done?" she asked.

He licked his lips and nodded silently, Not that you probably will Trish, but rest in peace…I'll find what did this and kill it, don't you worry. How many more am I going to have to make that promise to before this is over? he wondered.

"What about the boyfriend?" he asked.

The tech sighed, "He's already been claimed… pretty clear cut suicide… hung himself with the belt from a bathrobe after he killed her and did that… least that's what the report said…" she looked at him and grunted, "Lemme guess you want a copy of that too?"

"If it's not too much trouble," he nodded somberly.

"Come on," she directed leading him from the refrigerator, back to her office where she directed him to sit and handed him a glass of water from the cooler.

"Thanks," he nodded feeling his hands tremble just a bit. He couldn't remember any time when he'd been surrounded by so many bodies. He'd noticed an organizational process in there, the rear shelves stacked with infants and children, then teens, apparently causes of death still under investigation until closest to the main entrance was primarily elderly and suspicious deaths. He just couldn't believe the amount of bodies in there and the smell was getting to him. He'd tried the camphor under the nose bit once and found it just opened up his sinuses more and made the smell more pungent. He wondered how long he was going to be tasting this place after he left.

"Don't get a lot of bodies out in Bisbee huh?" she asked returning from wherever she'd gone and sliding the copies he'd asked for into a manila envelope.

"Not that many," he smiled wanly, his pallor a dead giveaway to her practiced eye.

"Listen, I've been in this job over twenty years Detective, I've seen the biggest boys from the roughest towns go down in here… all things considered you did better than I expected,"

"Thanks I think," he looked up into her frank, unassuming countenance.

"Don't go thinking for a minute though that I can't tell when a case is personal to a cop, but this… it's gonna hurt you if you don't find a way to deal with whatever ghost you got on your shoulder… I'm just sayin…" she shrugged handing him the envelope and holding the door open, the gesture certainly not lost on Dean who rose with a deep breath and extended his hand to her.

"Thanks…I think I needed to hear that," he smiled a little more warmly and followed her out of the maze and to the main entrance.

"We aim to please," she smiled, "Good luck Detective…"

Dean nodded and stepped out into the grotesque humidity of the day breaking into an instant sweat as he shrugged out of his suit coat and loosened his tie. He turned, the sound of a siren approaching and looked down the street at Cook County Hospital where two ambulances barked their sirens at meandering pedestrians who refused to hustle their butts across the street to allow them through any faster. Dean shook his head, Nice town. He opened the door to the Impala and slid behind the wheel opening the windows to let out some of the oppressive heat.

While his baby's engine warmed up and the air conditioner started to cool the car he opened the envelope she'd given him and started to sift through the information.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there reading through the photocopied pages but when his cell phone chirped to life he actually jumped.

He looked at the incoming number and smiled, "Hi," he greeted.

"Hi yourself… I told you I'd call you back," her voice stroked him gently.

"You okay? What was that thing?" he asked closing the door as the a/c finally started to kick out some coolness.

"Gargoyle… and not the benevolent cartoon kind…how goes the searching? Heard from anyone yet?" she asked and he heard a small buckle of tension in her voice.

"Not yet… I'm kinda getting the feeling they're avoiding me, whatever it is they think they're doing… I guess I'll find out eventually. Right now though I got other fish to fry. You sound like you're hurt?" he asked.

"Ackh… just a little dented… nothing that won't make me shout out in pain a few times before I get sick of hearing my own voice and decide to let it go," she explained and he could hear the smile in her voice, frosted glass on the cabinet door that shielded him from any genuine pain he might sense. "So… what happened with your friend Carol? and… before you tell me anything I need to tell you, I was checking hot news stories on line this morning… there was a scribing incident in Chicago you might want to check out,"

Dean spent the next ten minutes filling her in on everything that had transpired so far while his heart weighed heavy in his chest.

"I just wish I knew why y'know? I mean I never expect to hear back from dad anymore, not even when he finds the Demon y'know? I've pretty much relegated myself to the fact that he's going to try and go after it himself and probably get himself killed in the process… Shep and Bobby…" he shook his head, "I don't know if they're avoiding me or if they're just busy… sometimes they don't get back to us for days…"

"Yeah but Sam's the monkey wrench, he only ever went 'missing' when those inbreds kidnapped him right? I mean you guys have been pretty inseparable since you picked him up at college… so… what would make him do this?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted and cleared his throat, "You know it's funny Laura, I really feel like I'm going to find him, like we're going to wind up walking the same line from different directions or something… geez you must be rubbing off on me…"

"Mmmm darlin' don't you say that word when I'm not around…" she moaned then chuckled playfully, "Well if you feel it, you're probably right… I mean you don't sound as frantic as you did the other night so that's a good."

He nodded to himself, "I don't feel quite as frantic… just… kinda… like I'm missing something… oh gee, go figure I am missing something…" he snarked and felt himself chuckle. It felt good to chuckle a bit with everything running through his head, "I'm tempted to just stay in the car in the parking lot here and wait for Sam to show up… I know he will, then I can smack the living crap out of him for scaring me like this…"

"Do you want… I mean could you use… you know…" she started. The last thing she would ever want to do was inundate someone with her presence. Let alone someone she loved, "If you do all you have to do is say the word… and you're going to have to say the word because my pride takes priority over yours… I'm the girl."

Dean felt his mouth stretch into a huge grin and he ruptured out a couple of full laughs before he shook his head. Damn… she's got a way that's for sure… "What about your gargoyle problem?"

"Well, one of 'em's sidewalk material… and the female, you know I've heard they can be real bitches… she wants me… there's nowhere I can hide,"

"So you're going to have to go up against her?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's pretty much a given…I don't know what the hell they expected when they started pulling a pissed off Bartleby and decided that playing citywide hopscotch with people was a good idea… but, then again… I'm not made of stone…so…"

"Go figure…" Dean smiled and heard the call waiting click in his ear.

His heart skipped a beat and took off at a racetrack gallop, "Laura I'll call you back…"

"Call me if you need me," she said. The smile in her voice telling him all he needed to hear.

Dean switched the line, his ears rushing with blood, "Sammy are you okay? Where the hell are you?" he gasped and felt rather than heard a puffy 'whump' 'whump' 'whump' at almost he same time as one of the Impala's windows shattered and he felt himself flatten across the front seat reflexively as blood ran into his eye.

"Dean? Dean!" Sammy called on the other end of the line.

--

tbc –

Please… am I getting to you?

Cause I'm trying…

And thank you.

sifi