Chapter 11: The Demon in the Diner
An hour and a half outside Fort Dodge, Iowa, Missy Loo's Diner was having a busy day. It was mid-August, and it seemed that everyone within a ten-mile radius had a craving for Missy's famous deep fried mozzarella sticks and apple cinnamon pie. Every seat, from counter to booths, was full.
Eight burly construction workers, still wearing their high-vis vests, sat in a contended line along the counter, slowly working their way through two pots of coffee and at least a full pig's worth of sausage and bacon. Enjoying their air-conditioned break from the hot day and hard work, their rumbling conversation was frequently interrupted by effervescent laughter.
In the booth farthest from the single glass door, a young family were happily persuading mouthfuls of scrambled egg into their three-year-old son, while his little sister, Anna-Beth, who would be celebrating her eight month birthday tomorrow, was giggling incessantly with disproportional delight as their mother tried, unsuccessfully, to spoon a soggy green pea-based goo into her mouth. Too cheerful to get properly frustrated, their mother, Sarah, threw down the tiny spoon in mock defeat. Flashing a glowing smile to her husband, she rose from the booth and strode over to the old-fashioned jukebox in the far corner. Flicking her long blonde hair behind her shoulder, she smiled contentedly at all the families and friends laughing and chatting happily over good coffee and better food. She took a moment to appreciate what a delightful day she was having. A warm bubble of confident joy swelled inside her chest as she passed the booths.
Just as she found the perfect song to fit her current mood in the jukebox, she felt a rush of warm air blow her hair up into her open mouth. Looking up automatically, she saw a man enter the diner. He was tall, muscular, and the sight of him sent a shiver running up Sarah's spine, though she couldn't imagine why. Perhaps it was his too-confident bearing, as though an explosion could take place feet from him and he'd laugh at its flames.
He had longish hair that fell to just above his eyebrows, and he wore black biker boots, a black, slimming jacket, and dark jeans. A well-trimmed beard, peppered with sparks of ginger, covered his jawline. And yet he didn't look like a biker. There was something unsettling about the man. His green eyes were filled with an energy that twisted her stomach in fright. When he met her gaze briefly, she offered a small smile, which he returned with gusto. That smile had her fumbling with the machine, eager to get away from the stranger and back to her family.
"I'll be with you in two shakes, love," Margaret called to the newcomer from behind the counter, coffee pot in one hand and a bill on a small circular dish in the other.
"Oh, don't mind me," the black-clothed man called back, his voice lower and silkier than Sarah would have guessed. An easy smile pulled at his lips as he reached a hand to an inside pocket of his dark jacket. "I just stopped by for" – he drew out a dark brown object and gripped it firmly in his right hand – "a bite." With a too-loud click, the windows and doors suddenly locked.
The atmosphere of the diner shifted. The construction workers' laughter stilled as they turned to see who had spoken. Slowly, slowly, the other diners' light-hearted babble died down as everyone suddenly became aware of the sinister stranger in dark clothes. Without knowing why, every occupant of Missy Loo's Diner felt cold fear trickle sluggishly down their spines.
The jukebox chugged and skittered slightly as it prepared the next song. The sudden lack of a background melody only accented the man's effect on the restaurant.
His smile widened.
As the opening chords to Pink Martini's "Donde Estas Yolanda" filled the waiting diner, Dean Winchester, his eyes flicking deepest black, took a long stride forwards to the nearest of the patrons: Jeremy Flynn, one of the construction workers. The First Blade slashed through the air with perfect precision, slicing the man's throat so fast, Dean had already moved on to the next worker before Jeremy's blood had a chance to flee his dying body in a great spurt of red.
The screams started the same moment the horns poured out from the jukebox like spiced honey.
Smiling in euphoric, primal satisfaction, Dean danced through the long diner, each strike ending a desperate scream, stilling a frantically beating heart. He swept through the mounting panic and chaos like a hunting panther, with perfect economy, each blow landing precisely where he willed it to, each thrust eliciting an angry explosion of glistening blood. Like the calm in the centre of a hurricane, Dean waltzed through the terrified crowd, dodging each wild punch and plate thrown his way with the skill of a seasoned warrior.
To amuse himself, he timed his strikes with the beats of the song that filled the room, relishing the sweet harmony the screams added as they weaved themselves around the melody, punctuated by low grunts and desperate whimpers of agony as those he left to die more slowly gradually expired, their hands cradling their guts or great pools of their own blood to the gaping wounds in their abdomens and chests.
"Donde estas, donde estas, Yolanda,
Que paso, que paso, Yolanda,
Te busque, te busque, Yolanda,
Y no estas, y no estas Yolanda."
The music continued indifferently as Dean butchered the fifty or so men, women, and children, regardless of their fevered pleas for mercy, their misjudged attacks, or their futile attempts to escape to the kitchens or out the inexplicably unbreakable windows.
Dean flew through Missy Loo's Diner, sailing through the airborne tendrils of glinting crimson like a child through a fountain on a hot day. Flecks of blood spattered his jacket and t-shirt, trickling down to create spiralling patterns as he spun in for attack after attack. Globules of it landed on his thick hair, making the shimmers of ginger in his beard stand out all the more. Dripping down onto his face, the tiny streams of scarlet shone as brightly as his eyes were dark. Coupled with the feral, rapturous smile, he didn't look remotely human.
"Tus ojos me miraron,
Tus labios me besaron,
Con ese fuego ardiente,
Ardiente de mujer."
It was the dance of death. Dean Winchester was a master of every step, every arrest; every tiny movement was under his complete control. The diner was consumed with blinding red flashes and sudden spouts of blood.
"Si un dia te encontrara,
No se que puedo hacer,
No se me vuelvo loco,
Si ya no te vuelvo a ver."
Sarah and her family were among the last to be killed. First, the demon gutted her husband Robby from his belly button to the centre of his chest where he crouched concealing his wife and children. His life left him with a piteous gargling whimper. Next, the bone knife swept for her son's head. With a desperate shriek of single-minded desire, Sarah, her once-blonde hair now slicked down with her best friend's blood, flung herself at Dean with wild abandon, driven by her frenzied need to save her wailing, blood-spattered children.
Dean took half a step to his side and brought the Blade down in a graceful arc, slicing through her left shoulder and down to below her right breast as easily as through the air, drawing it back to his right side in one fluid, uninterrupted, motion.
As her corpse fell at his feet, the last of her wretched cry crawling from her blood-coated throat, Dean flicked the Blade and thrust it through the orphan son's face. The tip of the Blade hit the metal of the booth's seat and he took a half-second to relish the feeling of the hilt quivering in his steady palm, the vibrations tickling up his wrist.
"Donde estas, donde estas, Yolanda,
Que paso, que paso, Yolanda,
Te busque, te busque, Yolanda,
Y no estas, y no estas Yolanda."
The last to die was little Anna-Beth. Her blood trickled down Dean's chin from blood-stained teeth, and he had to agree with Abaddon. Words couldn't describe the feeling, the satisfaction.
Standing in the centre of the carnage, Dean looked up. He caught sight of his blood-flecked reflection in the mirror over the till. His eyes seemed to suck the light from the room. His chin was crimson and it looked as though he'd stepped through a cobweb of blood. He smiled at himself, a red drop running down his neck from the corner of his mouth. As his eyes faded slowly to green, and the last chord of "Donde Estas Yolanda" punched itself into the silent diner, he threw his head back and laughed with unbridled delight.
"Now that," Dean laughed, exhilarated, to the roomful of corpses, "was fun!"