Rite of Passage Read online

  “I’ll jump after you clowns,” he shouted over the noise of the plane.

  Moments later, the pilot gave them the thumbs up.

  Dave stepped through the doorway first, falling away from the plane, closely followed by Art. With those two out of the way, Mac placed one booted foot down on the footrest outside the plane. As he was about to push off, the plane was jostled by a bit of turbulence and Mac’s foot slipped sideways off the rest and, instead of falling forward, he fell back. His helmeted head bounced off the footrest, dazing him, and he flipped end over end all the way down.

  Normally, at 750 feet, the AAD would release the reserve chute and the unresponsive skydiver would owe his life to the failsafe device. Tora thought it appropriate that Mac, the senior man, hit the ground first.

  Initially, Dave and Art failed to notice Mac’s plight. They enjoyed almost a full minute of freefall before they attempted to open their chutes. Dave, who jumped first, looked around and finally noticed Mac spinning out of control. He pointed toward the tumbling figure behind Art, to direct his attention. Art mistook the gesture as a sign to throw out his pilot chute.

  On the ground, gazing up at the three men, Tora smiled.

  Though pulled out as expected by the pilot chute, Art’s main canopy failed to deploy properly. With the canopy partially open, he spun out of control and quickly became disoriented. Tugging on the toggles, he attempted to help the ram-air canopy open, but soon gave up and pulled the handle on the three-ring release. That freed the lines on both risers and the main parachute. Art was in freefall again. When he pulled the reserve chute handle, nothing happened. Stunned, he waited for the AAD to fire and automatically deploy the reserve chute at 750 feet.

  He waited for the rest of his life.

  Dave threw out his pilot chute a few seconds after Art. But something went wrong. The canopy opened instantly, pulling Dave up so hard he grimaced in pain. Glancing up, he saw the nylon slider that held the lines together had ripped apart as if rotten. The force of the opening tore several cells of the ram-air canopy. He watched in horror as the tears spread, crippling the canopy’s integrity, which offered less wind resistance with each passing second. Worse, the lines began to snap, one after the other. The chute was a lost cause.

  On the ground, Tora looked up intently, squeezing the ironbound handle of his cane. Precision work demanded his full concentration, but it was progressing smoothly. One dazed and helpless, while a second waited in vain for a reserve chute to open, and now the third man had more than he could handle.

  Dave released his main canopy, too preoccupied at this point to notice that Art had already attempted the same strategy. With a silent prayer, he pulled the handle to deploy his reserve chute and sighed with relief as it popped open above him. But his relief was momentary. He felt rather than heard the rugged straps around his shoulders and thighs begin to tear. Once snug, now they pulled away from him. He clapped a hand over a shoulder strap, felt it separating at the seam. As precious moments ticked by, the nylon crumbled in his hand. The whole harness tore away from his body, dangling from the deployed reserve chute while he plummeted toward the ground, quickly approaching terminal velocity.

  Fifty feet from the perimeter fence, Mac slammed into the ground, dying instantly. Less than ten seconds later, Art and Dave followed, like echoes. All three broke most of the bones in their bodies, rupturing internal organs and crushing their skulls. Dave struck the ground a hundred yards away from Mac, while Art’s remains splattered across an asphalt runway and would delay flights for the rest of the day.

  Tilting the brim of his bowler down to block the bright sunlight, Tora chuckled in delight and turned away from the airfield’s imposing perimeter fence. Though he had enjoyed the unique challenge of the skydivers—and the prospect of another three-for-one had almost seemed poetic—he had larger plans to set in motion.

  Returning to the rows of suburban homes, he heard the laughter of a group of small children. Curious, he followed the sound to a long, one-story stucco building with a rainbow painted on one wall near a wooden sign that read First Step Forward Preschool. A chain-link fence surrounded the property, which included a busy playground. Unlike the airfield fence, this one was not topped by razor wire. Of course, the airfield fence was designed to keep intruders out, while the daycare fence kept children, none more than six years old, within its borders.

  Some boys tossed beanbags at a plastic game on the ground, while a row of girls monopolized the swings. A group of boys played a game of tag, running in circles around annoyed girls who were chatting with dolls while others attempted to jump rope.

  A ring of boys tossed a big purple ball back and forth, the type of ball found in the bargain bin of a toy store. It was a game in which the object was to keep the ball away from one of their number.

  Tora lifted one hand off his cane and surreptitiously made a quick come-here motion with his index finger. The next time one of the boys facing him threw the ball, it sailed over the head of its intended target and struck the side of a sliding board, bouncing high toward the fence. The ball one-hopped over the chain-link fence and settled at the curb by his feet.

  “Jimmy, you missed it,” yelled the boy who had made the errant throw to the one who hadn’t jumped high enough. “You gotta get it back.”

  Jimmy looked askance, unconvinced by his playmate’s logic, then sighed and jogged across the playground area, pulling up short when he came to the fence. Jimmy looked up and up, startled by the tall man standing before him. Squinting into the sun, he raised a hand to shield his eyes. The back of his hand exhibited several shallow scratches, stippled with blood.

  “Hey, mister, can you get the ball? We can’t go out.”

  “Certainly.”

  Bending over, Tora palmed the ball in one hand and stepped up to the fence.

  One of the children’s guardians had noticed the stranger by the fence, apparently talking to one of her charges. The young woman hurried across the playground, her brunette ponytail swishing from side to side. “Jimmy! Stay back from the fence.”

  “Huh?”

  By this time, she had closed the distance between them. She placed one hand protectively on the child’s shoulder, as if physical contact would prevent the child from suffering any harm at the stranger’s hands. “The children aren’t allowed near the fence,” she stated flatly.

  In his most pleasant voice, Tora said, “I was simply retrieving the child’s ball.”

  “Of course.” The woman forced a smile.

  The few seconds of interaction had allowed him time to accelerate the spread of an aggressive MRSA virus he had placed on the surface of the ball. With exaggerated formality, he extended his arm over the fence and lowered the ball into the child’s raised hands. “There you go—Jimmy, right?”

  He glanced at the woman for confirmation. She nodded uncomfortably. She hadn’t revealed any personal information about the child in her care, but obviously the minor detail of his given name was no longer secret.

  “Enjoy your game, Jimmy,” he added.

  “Thanks,” Jimmy said, and hurried back to his playmates.

  Later, the town would refer to the boy as Patient Zero.

  “Good day,” he said to the woman, tapping the brim of his hat with the handle of his cane in an old-fashioned salutation.

  Without waiting for a response, he returned to the sidewalk and continued on his way. He felt her gaze on his back, but resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. Despite her suspicious mind, she hadn’t witnessed anything to stoke her fears of child endangerment.

  In the distance, the sirens of emergency vehicles wailed, heading toward the airfield to restore unpleasant order to the delicious chaos he had generated. For now, Tora contented himself with a productive outing and moved on. The more he stretched and stressed the town’s resources, the better.

  Five

  One hundred miles north of Laurel Hill, the hunters stopped for lunch at another anonymous diner. Afterward,
Dean acquired a medium-blue 1976 Monte Carlo with a few dings on the chassis and a small square of the grille missing. Judging by its layers of caked mud and the profusion of bird droppings, nobody would miss the car any time soon. Before they hit the road again, Dean inflated the sagging tires and ran the car through a self-serve carwash. Clean, the Monte Carlo was barely recognizable as the same vehicle. And while it passed the roadworthy test, as a source of driver envy it was pure fail, not worth a second glance. Sadly, in their post-Leviathan existence, that made it the perfect car for the Winchesters.

  “Bobby,” Dean called as the older man opened the door of his Chevelle. “This maybe-hunter you know. Does he have a name?”

  “Roy Dempsey.”

  Dean looked at Sam. “Any bells ringing?”

  Sam shook his head.

  Dean turned back to Bobby. “Is he onboard?”

  “A firm tentative.”

  “What does that mean?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” Bobby said, “with conditions.”

  “What conditions?” Dean asked.

  “Wouldn’t say,” Bobby replied with a shrug. “Better’n his first answer.”

  “Which was?”

  “‘Go to hell, Singer.’”

  Dean nodded. “So the ice is thawing.”

  “Cracked, more like.”

  The last leg of the trip consumed two hours. Roy Dempsey lived in a log cabin home in Lynnewood, a small rural town north of the larger, bustling Laurel Hill. Dempsey’s house was set back from the road, accessed by a long gravel driveway. Hulking trees a few rows deep shielded the backyard from view, and the nearest house on either side was a couple of hundred feet distant. The house itself was all dark wood with a gable roof and, at night, would probably blend into the tall trees behind it.

  Bobby drove down the long driveway ahead of the Winchesters in the Monte Carlo. The loose gravel crunching under their tires functioned as a proximity alarm. Dean half expected the maybe-hunter curmudgeon to come out on the covered porch waving a shotgun and giving them until the count of three to get off his property.

  Bobby parked behind a dark green El Camino about as old as the Monte Carlo, but in better shape. About a decade past its model year, a silver Dodge Ram was parked beside the older car. Rather than block both vehicles, Dean steered the Monte Carlo behind Bobby’s Chevelle. He and Sam stepped out of their car and approached Bobby

  “I’ll do the talking,” Bobby said. “Least until I take his temperature.”

  Dean made an “after you” gesture and they followed Bobby to the porch, but waited at the bottom of the three steps. Bobby rapped his knuckles against the door and waited. No answer.

  “Get off your ass, Roy! It’s Bobby Singer.”

  Dean looked at Sam. “Tough love?”

  The door swung open to reveal a tall man wearing a green T-shirt under a black leather vest, faded jeans and scuffed boots. He had a grizzled jaw and long, graying hair bound in a ponytail. It took Dean a stunned moment to process that the man had lost half his left arm, the stump ending above where his elbow would have been.

  Frowning, Roy said, “Not deaf, you old bastard.”

  “Old?” Bobby said. “Ever hear about pots and kettles?”

  “Told you I was out of the life, Singer. Not looking to jump back in.”

  “Not asking, Roy. We need a roof. That’s all. Won’t cramp your style.”

  Continuing to frown, Roy scratched his jaw. “Don’t know about this.”

  “Thought we had this squared.”

  “Nothing etched in stone, Singer.”

  “Couple days. All we’re asking.”

  “And these two,” Roy said. “Winchesters, huh?”

  “Sam and Dean,” Bobby said, nodding at them in turn.

  “All over the news a while back, those two.”

  “Impostors,” Bobby said. “Told you three times on the phone.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Roy said, conceding the point. “You’ll leave me out of it?”

  “Word of honor.”

  “Don’t want no trouble.”

  “Would say we ain’t looking for any, but you know that ain’t true.”

  Sam, who had been watching the terse exchange with increasing concern, took a step forward. “Bobby, we’ll find something else …”

  Imagining a drafty shack with rats underfoot and no indoor plumbing, Dean shot his brother a look: Are you kidding me?

  Roy sighed. “Couple days,” he agreed. “But whatever you’re hunting, don’t bring it here. And don’t ask for my help. In fact, I don’t even want to hear about it.” He waved his stump in the air for emphasis. “This here is my retirement card. No fight left in me. I’m out. Understood?”

  “Crystal,” Bobby said.

  Roy stepped back and held the door open for them. While Dean retrieved a cooler stocked with beer and hard liquor from the Monte Carlo’s trunk, Sam glanced around the interior of Dempsey’s house, hoping his snooping wasn’t too obvious. Roy’s unexplained pain sat beneath the surface, under a thin film of emotional ice, and Sam doubted the man wanted to answer any questions that would force him to revisit traumatic events in his past.

  The dark wooden walls absorbed all the light in the house, creating a gloom that complemented Roy’s mood. Or maybe it was the other way around. The great room faced the kitchen with its counter and stools and the staircase to the upper floor. To the left was a bay dining area, to the right a fireplace. The house had the look of a bachelor pad—there were no flowers in vases or other feminine touches, but it was clean and orderly. A mahogany coat rack stood by the door, a couple of Navajo throw rugs spread on the floor, a big analog clock over the stove. It was efficient but almost impersonal, like a rental unit, with Roy as the caretaker rather than homeowner.

  The one small personal touch was a row of framed family photos on the wall beside the kitchen. In one, a much younger Roy with shoulder length hair had his arm wrapped around the shoulders of an attractive brunette. Another photo showed the same woman holding a baby boy. A third showed the same boy, now a young man in his late teens or early twenties, standing in front of the green El Camino, smiling as he dangled a set of car keys from a raised index finger. In a fourth photo, the young man stood at attention wearing a police uniform and a serious expression on his face.

  Dean walked past Sam, carrying the cooler on his way to the kitchen, and noticed the photo that had caught Sam’s attention. “A cop?” he whispered, glancing sidelong to where Bobby was talking softly with Roy, probably trying to smooth some ruffled feathers.

  Dean shook his head slightly and took his liquid stash into the kitchen, setting the cooler on the counter.

  Recalling the El Camino outside, Sam asked Roy, “Do you live alone?”

  “What of it?” Roy asked irritably.

  “Nothing,” Sam said. “I saw the photo of the El Camino.”

  “My son’s car,” Roy said. His tone softened as he walked over to stand beside Sam. “Killed four years back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said, caught off guard.

  “Top of his class,” Roy said proudly. “Cop right here in Laurel Hill. Less than a year on the job. One night, he pulls over a speeder.” He cleared his throat, jaw muscles working to suppress his emotions. “Standing there, examines the man’s license, registration, insurance card. Same old drill, right? Gone through it dozens of times before. Except that night, another driver comes along. Man in his late seventies. Wilfred Banks. Confused by the lights. Too damn old to be behind the wheel, basically. Hits my boy, drags him under his car for two hundred yards before he figures out which one’s the brake pedal.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sam repeated.

  “Some people don’t know when to quit,” Roy said, more to himself than Sam. “Old bastard lived two more years after killing my boy.” Roy nodded somberly, scratched his jaw. “Now I got another one to bury.”

  Bobby came over. “Roy?”

  “Mother-in-law,” Roy said. “Out of state.�
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  “When’s the funeral?”

  “Tomorrow,” Roy said. “Hitting the road in a few hours. Expect my place to be standing when I get back.”

  “Extend my sympathies to her folks,” Bobby said.

  “Doubt I’ll be speaking to any of them,” Roy said, and turned, walking away. “Sally’s mother never forgave me for her death. But I gotta pay my respects.”

  Roy crossed the great room without another word, stepped into the downstairs master bedroom and closed the door softly behind him.

  Sam looked questioningly at Bobby. After transferring his liquor supply to the refrigerator, Dean cracked open a few beers and joined them, offering a bottle to each of them.

  “Bout fifteen years ago,” Bobby said in a whisper as he stared at the bedroom door, “ghoul attack in Philly. Killed Sally, wrecked Roy’s arm.”

  “Why’d the mother-in-law blame Roy … ?” Dean started to ask before putting the pieces together. “Because he took his wife on a hunt?”

  Bobby nodded. “Her choice. Standing by her man.”

  “Guess the mother-in-law saw it differently.”

  “The hell knows what he told the mother,” Bobby said. “After he lost the arm, he got out of the life. But losing Sally killed something inside him. For years I worried he’d eat a bullet. Kept in touch, pestered him damn near every week. Pissed him off most likely. Took a while, but I finally got it. His son kept the light on. Roy wasn’t about to check out with Lucas around. Damn proud of that boy.”

  “And with Lucas gone?” Sam asked.

  Bobby shrugged his shoulders. “Got through four years somehow.”

  “Did you start calling him again?” Dean asked.

  “Didn’t hear about it till three months later,” Bobby said. “He called me, late one night. Talked for hours, about family, getting old, hunting. Said he never missed it, not once. Too much killing, too much dying.” Bobby exhaled forcefully. “Had a bad vibe about that talk. Finality written all over it. Next thing, it’s dawn. He thanked me. Said the damnedest thing.”