( SUSPECT )
PLUCKY PENNYWHISTLE'S MAGICAL MENAGERIE
[ ☼ ]
Sam and Elena enter. A recorded message says "Welcome to Plucky Pennywhistle's! Have fun!" Sam flinches at a large picture of a clown on a wall and exhales sharply.
They walk to the ticket counter, which is manned by a staff member, Hiward. He passes a mechanical clown that laughs and says "Welcome to Plucky Pennywhistle's!" as its jaw moves. Sam eyes it several times.
"Welcome to Plucky's, where all your dreams are good." Howard says.
"Could you just, uh, maybe..." Sam says as he and Elena hold up their FBI badges. "Just get the manager for me?" Howard nods and walks off.
"Okay." Elena says as Sam walks further into the room, past the mechanical clown and a clown-shaped sign that says "You must be THIS TALL to play here." He appears very uncomfortable. He looks up at a large clown head mounted on a pillar and blinks.
A person in a lion costume poses for a photograph. A young Woman employee crouches down next to a Young Boy who is seated at a child-sized table. "I just need you to stay sane for three more hours. Okay? Here. Finish your homework." The Woman walks away. Her name tag reads Libby.
"Like I can concentrate in here." The Boy says. Libby pauses, but doesn't turn around. Sam looks at a wall hung with paper placemats that say "Draw your worst fear... Plucky will make your fear disappear." The drawings include a shark and various monsters. A name tag on the wall says "Kelly Harper."
"Real beauties, huh?" The Manager asks. "We rotate them out once a week. Kids love having their art on the wall."
"'Draw your worst fear'?" Elena asks
The Manager's name tag reads Jean. "I know. But we don't post the truly evil stuff—just the standard crap like sharks and ghosts." Jean holds out a hand to Sam. "Jean Holiday, shift manager." They shake hands and then with Elena.
"Johnson and Meyers, FBI." Sam says. "So tell me—why even ask the kids to draw creepy stuff to begin with?"
"It's just an exercise... some pop psychologist came up with. Plus, the owner's obsessed with "aiding children's development." Jean says. "So, the place mat is a safe way to get kids to talk about their fears. You know, we get them to sketch it in a little box, and—voila!—Plucky magically transforms it into rainbows and candy. Personally, I think it's a load of hooey, but they say that if these fears run wild, then it affects kids long into their adulthood."
A laughing clown walks between Jean, Elena and Sam and gets very close to Sam's face. Sam leans back. "Yeah, I've – I've – I've heard that. Um... so, I – I don't know if you'll remember, but there was a – a kid in here yesterday named Billy Pogue for a party?" Sam asks.
"Oh, the conniption kid." Jean says.
"Conniption? He—he had—" Elena starts.
"No, no, no, not him. He was fine. It was his dad. He pulls the kid away before cake and presents, and I guess the kid asked to stay for another five minutes." Jean says. "The dad pulls a full-frontal douchebag, starts screaming. Just embarrassed for the kid." Sam makes a call on his phone.
As he is waiting for it to be answered, a Janitor whistles to attract his attention. "Hey." He whistles again. "Hey." The Janitor looks around to see who is watching. Sam pushes a button to end the call and walks over to the Janitor. "You guys are cops?"
"Uh, yeah. We're Feds." Sam says.
"Uh, what are you investigating?" The Janitor asks.
"Couple of crazy deaths. Why, is there something you want to share?" Elena asks.
"Look—not now. Too many eyes. Come back after closing."
MOTEL ROOM
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Dean is taking food in paper boxes out of a bag. The boxes have chopsticks attached. Sam and Elena enter. "Hey. So, what's the lowdown with trauma town?" Dean asks.
Sam makes a face and Dean smiles. "I can tell you this much. Neither vic was up for parent of the year. Kelly's dad skipped her birthday, and Billy's dad pulled one of those Dick Parent scenes that makes everyone cringe." Sam puts some of the placemats from Plucky Pennywhistle's down in front of Dean.
"What the hell are these?" Asks Dean.
"Kid therapy. Um, you draw your worst nightmare—poof!—Plucky fixes it." Elena says. "Um, they hang them up on this big wall."
"Well, can't argue with this. Leprechauns are deadly." Dean says and Sam snorts. "Okay, so, Kelly draws a monster, and then that goes after her father? That's what we're saying?"
"Well, here's the thing. They label those. And guess which two were missing." Sam asks. "Well, name tag was there—no place mat."
"Little Miss Octovamp." Dean says.
"Yeah. And..." Sam starts. "Billy. So... somehow, whatever he drew came to life and killed his dad, riding a horse." He pokes at his food with chopsticks and Dean hands Elena her food.
"Close, but no Seabiscuit. See, I went and had a little chat with Billy. And he drew me this." Dean unfolds a piece of paper on which is drawn a unicorn with a rainbow-colored tail. A person is impaled on the unicorn's horn.
"Wait. So now unicorns are evil?" Asks Elena eats.
"Yeah. Obviously." Dean says.
"Great. Well, now the question is, how did a unicorn come off a sketch and kill Billy's dad? How's any of this happening?" Sam asks as Dean rubs his chopsticks together and prepares to eat.
PLUCKY PENNYWHISTLE'S MAGICAL MENAGERIE
[ ☾]
Jean is counting money behind the ticket counter. The Janitor walks past carrying a backpack. "Well, that's it for me. Guess I'll head out." He says.
"Uh, one more thing. Some kid puked in the ball pit. It's gonna need a full sanitization. Do that, and then you can clock out." Jean says.
The Janitor is now knee-deep in balls in the ball pit, using a large suction tube to suck up the balls. Something appears to be moving under the balls behind him. "Aah! Aah." He reaches a hand down to one leg. When he takes his hand away, it is covered with blood. He looks around the ball pit.
Something grabs him from behind and pulls him down as he yells. He gets back to his feet. Something moves under the balls in front of him. He flails for the side of the pit, but is dragged back.
He tries again to get out and is dragged under the balls. All is still for a few moments, then the Janitor reappears. He looks frantically in all directions, then is pulled under the balls again. A moment later, blood splashes against the glass wall of the ball pit.
Meanwhile, Dean, Elena and Sam, wearing casual clothes, arrive in the car Dean has been driving. Two police cars and an ambulance are outside the building. EMTs wheel the Janitor's body, covered with a sheet, out of the building on a stretcher.
Dean holds up his FBI badge. "Hold on one second there, guys." He says. Sam is talking to Jean in the background.
"Keep in touch." Sam says as Dean looks under the sheet. "Uh, thank you." Sam walks over to Dean. "So?"
"The manager found the body in the ball pit. Blood everywhere." Sam says.
"Cops have a theory?" Elena asks.
"Yeah, they think the ball washer did it." Sam says.
"The what?" Dean asks.
"The... ball washer."
Dean smiles. "The what?" He asks.
"The ball—" Sam holds up his hands in frustration.
"Look at this." Dean lifts the sheet covering the body. Sam raises his eyebrows and inhales. "Thank you, gentlemen." The EMTs wheel the body away. "That's a shark bite."
"Yeah." Elena breathes out.
"And, uh, judging from the radius, I'd say a 20-footer, at least." Sam and Elena look skeptical.
"'Shark Week', man. How do you guys not watch that?" Dean asks as they walk away. "Whole week of sharks."
Sam, Elena and Dean are looking at the wall of placemats, using flashlights. Sam removes a name tag from the wall. "Omar Cooper. How much you want to bet little Omar here was scared of sharks?" Sam asks.
"Saul the janitor is connected how? I mean, he's not related to Omar." Dean says.
"No. But Saul had something he wanted to tell me." Sam says.
"So this isn't about ganking some dickweed parent." Dean says.
"More like, uh, silencing a whistle-blower?" Elena suggests.
"Great, so whatever we're looking for can literally fire off childhood fears at will." Dean says. "Wow. Watch out for evil lunch ladies."
Sam is holding an EMF reader. "All right. Let's comb this place." He walks off.
Dean takes an EMF reader out of his jacket pocket as does Elena. "Seriously. Dractopus. Seabiscuit the impaler. Land shark – what's next?" He asks.
PLUCKY PENNYWHISTLE'S MAGICAL MENAGERIE
[ ☼ ]
A hatchback pulls up outside the building. Libby is driving. The Young Boy is drawing in the passenger seat. "Okay, Tyler, that's it. You got to take the bus from here." Libby says.
"But I thought—" Tyler starts.
"I can't. I'm sorry. I'm late." Libby takes some coins from her purse and gives them to Tyler. "Here." She says and Tyler gets out of the car. "Stay out of trouble." She gets out of the car.
The camera pans in on Tyler's drawing on the passenger seat. It is of a giant robot with red beams coming from its eyes standing in front of a city backdrop. Two people are fleeing and a car is upside down.
GARAGE
[ ☾]
Timestamp: NOW
Sam goes flying through the air and lands on a large pickup, breaking the windshield. The clowns whoop and cackle. One clown pulls Sam off the hood of the pickup. The other kicks Sam in the stomach. The first clown catches him, turns him around and kicks him back towards the second clown.
Sam grabs a tire iron from the pickup in his right hand and raises his left arm to deliver a backwards hit to the second clown. It falls down. Sam hits the first clown with the tire iron. The clown takes a step back, but then points with a flourish behind Sam to the second clown. The second clown is juggling some stakes [?]. It lunges at Sam with one of them.
MOTEL ROOM
[ ☾]
Timestamp: 4:34:12
Dean is turning pages of John's journal at the table and Elena on the bed researching. Sam is sitting across from Dean at the table, using the laptop. "Maybe a... Tulpa?" Sam asks.
"No, killings are too spread out." Elena says.
"True. Um... angel?" Sam suggests.
"It's a little imaginative for the God squad, don't you think?" Dean says.
Sam sighs. "All right. So... what?" He asks.
"Yeah, I don't know. I'm tapped out." Dean says. Sam and Dean are both drinking coffee.
"Well, whatever it is, at least we know where it is." Sam says.
"Plucky's!" Dean exclaims.
"That's where the victims are getting picked up." Says Elena.
"Yeah, but we swept the place last night, and nada." Dean says.
"I can go back. Go to the employees, maybe dig up some dirt." Sam says.
"What good's that gonna do? They think you guys are Feds." Dean says. "The one guy who was gonna rat, he got Bruce'd. If anybody knows anything, they're not gonna tell you."
"All right." Sam claps his hands once. "Yep. That's the plan." He stands up. "I'll go back, play bad cop, really lean into them." He walks towards the bathroom.
"And...?" Dean asks.
"And... when I'm done, then you watch them." Sam says.
"So if somebody freaks out, then that's our creep." Dean says.
"Or he'll lead us closer, and you can track him."
"Well, what's my cover?" Dean asks.
"I don't know. Just hang back. Act normal." Sam goes into the bathroom and closes the door.
"Yeah, yeah. Guy in his thirties hanging out at Plucky's alone – that's normal. That's not pervy at all."
PLUCKY PENNYWHISTLE'S MAGICAL MENAGERIE
[ ☼ ]
Jean is talking to another employee. "So, it doesn't matter what people say. We've roped it off. I've notified the powers that be. Everyone's aware." She says. Sam and Elena walk up and clears his throat loudly. "Just no one goes in the..."
"Hi." Sam and Elena say in unison.
"Agent. I bet I know why you're here." Jean says.
"How's business?"
"Turns out not even grim flippin' death can slow down the birthday fun." Says Jean.
"Oh." Elena says.
"We roped off the ball pit, though, until corporate can get here. I just can't believe the machine fritzed and did Saul in like that."
"Yeah, that makes two of us. I'm gonna need to talk to some of your employees." Sam says.
"Like who?" Jean asks.
Sam speaks somewhat menacingly. "Like you." He says and Jean leads the way to the back. Dean is sitting at a table in the restaurant area watching. A girl walks past him carrying a large rainbow-colored slinky. Dean looks around and gets up. Howard is behind a counter.
Behind him are shelves stocked with novelty items, including the giant slinky. Below it is a sign that reads "1000". "Howdy, friend." Howard says.
Dean raises a hand towards the giant slinky. "Giant slinky. Would have killed for one of those when I was a kid. How much?" He says.
"1,000 tickets." Howard says.
"American dinero. How much?" Dean asks.
"Oh, we don't take cash here at Plucky Pennywhistle's. Only tickets won through hard work and determination."
"You mainlined the kool-aid, huh?" Dean asks.
Howard laughs, but Dean looks unamused. "It's double-ticket Tuesday if you play skeeball." He says. A boy walks up to the counter holding up a string of tickets. "Howdy, friend!"
Jean is seated at a table. Sam and Elena stay on their feet. "So, where were you last night?" Sam asks.
"Well, here. Obviously. I found him. But I was by the cash register the whole time." Jean says. "There's a security camera pointed right at the counter. The cops already looked at it."
"Uh-huh. And you heard nothing?" Asks Elena.
"I heard the ball blaster. I didn't hear him. If I did, I would have run in, of course." Jean says.
"Yeah, right, right. So that's your excuse." Sam says.
"My what? Look, I know I'm new to this job, but I'm—"
"What? How new?" Sam asks.
"Couple weeks. I just got promoted." Jean says.
"Hmm. So, uh, was there a lot of competition for the gig?" Sam asks.
"I guess. It comes with benefits. The bosses had us all write essays about how we would do our best for the kids, and they picked me." Jean says. "Don't be shocked, but I actually did two semesters at college, so... I'm not in any kind of trouble, am I?"
"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?" Asks Sam.
"Look, I know I'm not perfect, but I'm trying. And, I mean, it's not as if I'd ever do anything illegal." Jean says.
Sam slams a hand on the table and leans over close to Jean. "Sure you wouldn't." He says.