AN: All of the weirdness and the creature in this chapter are out of my own head, a place with many strange little dark corners.
After I post this, I'm going to add Bailey's to my nighttime cup of (decaf) coffee and cuddle up in bed to read some fanfiction, because I had to scrape ice and snow off my truck this morning and feel that I'm entitled. *feels pathetic and sorry for herself*
Blondie: Hey! Nice to "see" you around! Yeah, it feels like forever ago watching those old episodes. But they're fun to write…not so much to remember, and they were definitely more lighthearted back then. Anyway, so glad you're reading. I'm always happy to see your name pop up.
Lena: I did get your pms! *happy dance* It's so funny that you got the old ones from me now. How very cool to be part of those QA's. I don't have CW either, so I'm hoping the whole thing is on the app too. And as always, thanks for the encouragement.
Stormy: Beefed up Agatha's back story because you're right – it had potential. I'm glad you're caught up in the suspense, though the answers aren't all revealed yet in this chapter. You're right about living so long, too. I had an ancestor back before my family even came over from the Netherlands (1800's) who lived to be 92, and I always wondered at that. Her husband died when he was 36! Oh, and she lived in the same town her whole life, but it was part of the Netherlands, Germany, and the Prussian Empire at different points during her lifetime, which I find fascinating. But now I'm blabbing on…thanks for commenting! LOL
Janice: Please let me know how the creep factor is in this chapter! Sfaulkenberry likes the creepiness and violence…I mean action…too, and I love giving you both crap for that. hehe You seem to have great instincts for stories, asking questions about things or suspecting things I have in mind. I love that!
Sylvia37: That is such a funny way to put it! It makes me imagine Sam wearing a shirt that says: If Lost, Please Return to Dean Winchester.
The Wanderer. The Restless One. The Spirit of Disquiet.
He had many names, for he'd spent so many, many years traveling the earth. Heaven considered him a demon. Hell couldn't categorize him, but appreciated his exploits. Both were…wary…of him, while he was uninterested in either. He just enjoyed his pursuits.
He'd driven Caligula to beautiful madness. Whispered ideas in Tomas de Torquemada's ear. Ridden with the Don Cossack Host across the Volga, reveling in blood and death. His poisoned murmurs had even convinced La Llorona to drown her children and become the first woman in white.
Never had he found more exquisite hatred than here, in a nothing woman in a nothing place.
Agatha Clancy Morrow had first hated for actual reasons. She hated her father for preferring her siblings. Her peers for avoiding her. Her sisters for being pretty, then for their easy lives. The boys for ignoring her. Her father for essentially selling her. Her husband for forcing her to work a hard, foul-smelling trade. Then her husband for his philandering. She hated the townspeople for looking the other way and her children for their wariness of her. Eventually, she hated everyone. She hated everything.
Except for the exquisitely bloody work of skinning.
Her family left her to it, until she lived for nothing else. Until her skin permanently absorbed the smells of the caustic chemicals she worked with so she constantly emitted an odor of death. Until she became such an outcast that nobody knew what she was doing. Her family was relieved to have her out of sight. They simply left food and animals ready for skinning near her little shack and took away the piles of furs.
So no one knew when she began to trap animals and taught herself how to bleed them in a way that didn't kill them and didn't damage the hide, so she could skin the living.
And no one knew when The Wanderer found her and offered her something he'd never offered anyone else: he would inhabit her, keep her living, and give her the chance, the strength to kill what she really wanted. People.
WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER
The husband of the first victim, 28-year-old Anne Tchai, wasn't home. Dean would have liked to have checked out the house while it was empty, but it was broad daylight, and it was the kind of town where neighbors noticed strangers. In fact, a woman in her sixties who was getting her mail across the street, called out, "he went back to work today."
Dean nodded his thanks and looked at the next name and address on his list. "Listen, can you give me directions?"
It was a good thing he'd asked, and he still wasn't sure if he was at the right house. Half the streets didn't have name signs, and none of the houses seemed to have their numbers posted. He saw a yard full of kids and pulled over, car idling and window open. "Hey, excuse me," he called to the 30-something blond who was the only adult in sight. Guess there's not a lot to do in a town this size, he thought, counting six little heads. But damn.
"Not all mine," she grinned, handing a bubble wand to a child of about 4 who was a tiny, male version of her.
"What?"
"The kids aren't all mine. I saw you counting heads." She laughed. "People give me that look all the time when I take them with me to the store outside of town. Except for these two, I just watch 'em for my friends." She indicated the blond boy who'd just been at her side and a bigger boy. They were currently engaged in a swordfight with the bubble wands.
Dean couldn't help but smile at the sight. The whole scene looked like chaos to him, but the kids were happy and the woman looked content. "Dean Plante, FBI." He shook her hand through the window. "I'm trying to find the Morrow household."
"Beth Winters. And which one? Half the town is Morrows."
"Uh, Alice."
Beth looked sad. "She left town for a little while. I assume you came to ask about Clyde?"
Dean nodded. Clyde was another of the skinned victims. He differed from the other four dead in that his skull had been cracked, though the ME didn't think that had been a fatal injury. Alice was his wife.
"You could talk to his brother Ed. Probably better than talking to his son Allen."
Dean was exceptional at reading people, and he'd caught the way the woman's face had changed subtly at the mention of the second name. "I didn't see that he had a son," he said casually. "But it doesn't sound like you like Allen very much."
Beth made a show of checking on the kids and stopping the smallest child from taking off her clothes. (Though Dean couldn't entirely blame her. It was pretty hot out.) Finally, she said, "Allen is my cousin. He and I never got along, but…that doesn't mean anything. Anyway, Ed is my dad and he can tell you all about town history and my uncle."
People hate silence, so Dean let the pause stretch, but she didn't add anything else. Okay, time to channel Sammy. "Beth?" he asked softly. "What else?"
"Nothing concrete," she sighed, picking up the persistent little girl and propping her on a hip. "Just…I'm a little older than Allen, and even as a kid, I made sure none of the younger cousins were ever alone with him, you know? My dad always thought it was because he grew up without a mom – Uncle Clyde and Alice only were married about four or five years, and Allen's mom died when he was born – but there's just something about him that gives me the creeps. Always has."
"What did he think about his dad getting married?" asked Dean, trying to figure out where he'd seen the name A. Morrow.
"He wasn't a fan, but he hadn't gotten along with his dad for a long time by then." Beth looked uncomfortable with the conversation.
Just then, the older of her boys ran up and said, "Cool car! Can you rev it for me?"
Dean smiled and obliged and let Beth off the hook after she pointed out her dad's house just down the block.
Ed was stooped and affable and wearing a sweater despite the heat. He made Dean a cup of coffee that could rival the kind John brewed after an all-night hunting session. And he was more than happy to talk about the history of the town, after stating that Clyde was a good man without enemies.
The Morrows and Clancys were town founders, he told Dean proudly. And he was descended from both. In fact, one ancestor had been the first judge in the whole county, and another had started a tannery, then bought a mill, and his sons had been big names in local logging.
"So no skeletons in the closet?" asked Dean, trying not to be bored with the glowing recitation.
Ed considered him. "Bethie called and said you'd be coming and she thought you could handle hearing the weird stuff," he confided.
"Hit me," offered Dean.
Ed pondered him another second, then honest-to-god pulled an afghan over his legs. "My wife used to roll her eyes when I'd read this stuff," he admitted. "She'd say I was supposed to be a historian, not a fiction writer. But can't hurt to tell you, I s'pose. There's been unlucky times in this town before." His eyes grew dark, and Dean thought it didn't matter how old you were, it had to be awful to lose your brother.
He deliberately gentled his voice. "What do you mean, Ed?"
Ed's hands plucked at the blanket, coffee forgotten. "People disappearing, maybe on and off for six months or a year, then nothing for fifty years. This is the first time any of 'em have been found. Other stuff too. Voices in the cemetery. The mausoleum always feelin' damp, no matter how hot and dry the weather. And every coupla generations, somebody goes off their rocker." He sighed. "Clyde believed it, though. Our gramps shut down the family cemetery and told us never to go there, and we told our kids the same thing.
"There's not a pattern anybody can make out, and Sheriff's a good man, but he thinks it's a crock of horse shit." Ed gave Dean a sad smile. "Now what can a fed do with all that?"
"I don't know yet," responded Dean, feeling a need to help this town. "But thank you for telling me all of that." He stood to go and casually threw out one more question, a trick his dad had often used. "Your nephew Allen isn't one of those who's gone off their rockers, is he?"
Ed didn't give out a quick or glib answer. He might be getting up in age, but there was plenty of shrewd intelligence there. "Not that I know of," he said finally. "But if I were younger, I'd keep both eyes firmly on the kid. Clyde never shoulda let him become a cop."
A cop. That's where Dean had seen him. Lacey's smile had distracted him at the police station, but he was a trained observer and noted details subconsciously. There had been a mousey cop behind her, with a nametag that read A. Morrow.
Dean distractedly excused himself, feeling like his mind was a gearbox and the teeth were slotting into place. Cemetery. Mausoleum. Allen Morrow. Founding family. He hadn't seen a mausoleum at the cemetery that morning, but then again, Ed had said it was a closed family cemetery.
Dean grabbed his phone off the front seat to call Sam. He was diverted by a text message from the same. Following lead with Dpty Morrow.
The call went directly to voicemail.