1 - Frailty

It was about the time that the fourth ghoul joined in that everything went off the rails.

Sam had guessed they might have company, but now he was second guessing his methodology while he reloaded the shotgun, the ghouls pounding against the door at his back. Wood was splintering, and it wouldn't hold long. "Dean!" he shouted, hoping for some response, dreading the lack of it.

Dean was supposed to be downstairs, going after the ones that ran that way. It was unclear what made the ghouls want to crash in this crumbling old mansion, but Sam suspected it was the amulet. The guy who use to own this place was a collector of "occult artifacts". Ninety nine percent of which were fake, and could be picked up on Etsy or Ebay if you were bored and doing a little late night impulse buying. But one item stood out. The Amulet of Dahou, which was supposedly the artifact of a genuine black magician, eventually killed by a rival coven. But the amulet supposedly had many qualities, including the ability to appear as anyone - or anything - and render the wearer "immune to any weapon forged by man". No immunity to witchcraft, but hey, you couldn't have everything.

Thing was, when the collectors artifacts went up for auction, the amulet was nowhere to be seen, and since he had no family, there were few if any places it could have gone. Since the people that packed up the artifacts were a dead end, Sam figured the amulet probably hadn't left the house, that the collector had a special hiding place for his only actual treasure that no one ever found. As it turned out, he was not the only one to have come to that conclusion. But he'd been expecting witches or something. Ghouls was a truly surprising development, but sure, they'd have a use for the amulet. Just about everything would, save for angels.

Sam felt the final hinge go, so he shoved off and turned to face the entrance as two ghouls stumbled in over the now fallen door. Sam shot the first one in the head from near point blank range, painting its brains on the near wall. He was unable to get off another shot before the second ghoul shoved the gun barrel up towards the ceiling and tackled him, sinking their teeth in his shoulder. He screamed in pain as he collapsed against the far wall, but he still managed to bring the gun butt down on the ghoul's head. It stumbled back into the third ghoul, and Sam had time to flip the gun around and shoot it in the head. He was hoping to get a twofer, but no such luck, as the third used the second as a shield, and once his head exploded she retreated, along with number four.

Sam quickly ejected the shells and loaded in others, not even paying attention, because after all these years, this was automatic. He could probably do it in his sleep, and, at some point, may have done so. "Dean, where the hell are you?" he shouted, following the trail of the still functional ghouls. You had to destroy the brains, so it was always as messy as hell, and made him feel terrible. Not that he didn't know why he was doing it, it just made him feel like he was some reckless asshole in a derivative first person shooter. Silent Hill, but somehow simultaneously more boring and more terrifying.

His shoulder ached, and every time it moved it felt like the wound was getting bigger. He carefully crept up to doors and looked in gun first, ready to take the head of the first ghoul he saw, but two doors down and he hadn't found either one yet. He kept his ears peeled for noise, for floorboard creaks, or for gunshots that would indicate Dean was still (alive) fighting ghouls. Goddamn it, he knew they shouldn't have separated. Ghouls always had a tendency to be faster, stronger, and generally nastier than you anticipated.

The fourth door was the last on this floor, and Sam braced himself, but it didn't help. He nudged the door open with the shotgun barrel, but the female ghoul grabbed it and yanked Sam into the room, while the male ghoul jumped on him.

Sam managed to keep a hold of the shotgun and fired while the male ghoul straight up chomped on his head. It didn't hurt nearly as much as the bite on his shoulder, but maybe because the skull was a lot harder, or because he had so many shoulder injuries in his life it was a sore spot. The shot was wild, but partially got the ghoul in the face, spinning her around, and Sam slammed hard into the back wall,, attempting to at least stun the ghoul on his back. He then raised the shotgun, pointed it over his head, and fired.

He knew where the ghoul was on him, so he got the head, but blood and tissue rained down on him, and he couldn't help but let out a noise of disgust as he threw down the headless corpse. It was so gross washing ghoul out of your hair.

Also gross? His wild shot had taken part of the jaw off the female ghoul, leaving an open hole in her face. But because she was a ghoul, and not something slightly more mortal, she saw this as no deterrent, and launched herself at him, sinking what was left of her teeth in his arm, and clawing for his eyes. Sam had to turn away, but because she was still biting his arm, took her with, and she almost unbalanced him.

It brought on a little memory of Dean, during their seemingly endless training sessions growing up, telling him, " Don't let anything take you to the ground. If they have you down, they have an advantage. Don't go down." He was right; you were more vulnerable as soon as you were off your feet. Hell, didn't they teach that in MMA now? But he remembered hating this when he was a kid, because it was virtually impossible to keep your feet during any assault by something way bigger than you. Sometimes he hated Dean for that, but when he got older, he reserved the hate for Dad, because he realized he was the root cause. And now it didn't matter at all. So much wasted emotion, and now he simply felt exhausted. Where did depressed hunters go for help exactly?

The shotgun needed reloading, but he couldn't do it one handed, with a ghoul chomping down on his other arm. So he used it as a club, smashing her in the head until the shotgun broke in half and she finally let go, and he pulled out his pistol and shot her in the head. It felt like a mercy killing at this point.

A quick check showed she barely broke the skin on his arm; the leather jacket had taken the brunt of the damage. Lucky for him, relieving her of half her jaw had cut down her bite force significantly. But his shoulder was still throbbing, and he wiped gore off his face, wondering what kind of end of horror movie lunatic he must have resembled. "Dean!" he shouted, still disturbed by the silence. He allowed for the possibility he was half-deafened by the shotgun, but Dean usually made enough noise that ability to hear was optional.

Sam headed down to the ground floor, vowing that if Dean let himself get killed by a bunch of ghouls, he was going to bring him back just to kill him himself.

Fighting in a creepy old house sucked for many reasons, but the worst one was the crumbling infrastructure. Nothing was quite as solid as it should be, and if you were smart, you could use this as an advantage.

Dean felt like he'd never really run into smart ghouls, but there were first times for every goddamn thing, and tonight was no exception. When he started picking off ghouls like ducks in a shooting gallery, they fled towards the back of the house, and Dean followed, leaving Sam to get the ones who ran upstairs. Dean figured they'd led him to the old dining room - there wasn't any furniture for context clues - when he heard as well as felt the floor give way beneath him.

This was where his years of monster hunting came in handy. He had to make decisions in nanoseconds, and hesitation - as his Dad drilled into his head, over and over again - was death. Dean had already made the decision not to attempt to grab on to the remaining floor to try and prevent the fall. The floor was old, rotted, water damaged - it wouldn't hold him even if he did manage to catch it, and he'd have to give up at least one of his guns to do it. So, fuck it - he was falling. Now, he had to make the decision how he was going to land.

It was a long drop, probably to the creepy as fuck basement, and there was surely a welcoming party waiting for him. The biggest problem in both cases was not knowing the numbers, of how far he had to go, or how many would be waiting for him. Probably not too far - who made basements with opera ceilings? - but the number of ghouls would probably be vomit inducing. He'd heard of ghouls sometimes clumping together, like a family unit, but the nests weren't that big. Did they invite friends? Did they send out a group text ' Hunter meat on the hoof if you can get here within 10 minute s'. Knowing their luck, that was exactly what happened.

Dean couldn't help but picture the Dawn of the Dead remake, where the zombies swamped the bus in the parking lot, the best scene in that entire goddamn mess of a movie. But he couldn't get distracted, and there was no way the basement could even hold that many ghouls, even if it did have an opera ceiling. Dean randomly decided on the number ten, because it was nice and round, and still far too many fucking ghouls in one place at one time.

He had no choice in landing - try and hit and roll, and come up firing. Trying to land on his feet would probably shatter his ankles, his knees, or both, and if that happened, he might as well eat his gun before the ghouls ate him alive. If the ghouls were right there, he wouldn't have a lot of room or time to move. No two ways about this - this was going to suck.

Dean smelled them before he ever saw them. They smelled like what they ate when fresh meat wasn't available - rotting corpses. He was falling into a dark cesspool of decaying people, and it was one of those times when he wished he could be a normal person and take a moment to gag. No such luxury.

He hit the ground hard, aware it was cold concrete and it sent an unwelcome shock of pain up his leg that didn't feel injurious, simply annoying. He rolled right into legs, saw shadows reaching for him, and fired both his guns. He had no time to aim, and didn't care. Right now he simply needed breathing room.

Hands clawed at his legs, his arms, but he kept firing, and the ones that got close enough to grab him were close enough to reveal their heads. Blood and brain matter splashed all over him, and he had to keep his lips sealed tight so he didn't accidentally swallow anything. He was in a forest of grabbing arms and gnashing teeth, a nightmare come to life, but he didn't allow himself to think. He noted, he found targets, he kept fighting and he didn't think, so he didn't get freaked out.

One grabbed him by the hair and attempted to pull him deeper into the throng, but Dean blindly shot behind him until it let go. He found space to roll to his feet, and slammed up against the nearest wall back first, so they couldn't attack him from behind. As he popped a clip and slammed another one in, the ghouls who were still functional swarmed him as one, and he did the only thing he could do, which was fire until he saw daylight or he got his head ripped off, whichever came first.

Dean cleared space for himself in an unrelenting shower of gore, and when his second gun clicked empty, he dropped it and pulled out the machete he had strapped to his belt. He had some injuries, some torn skin, some bites, but he was high on enough adrenaline to ignore it for now. It wasn't easy to shoot and slash at the same time, so he alternated or picked a favorite. He'd killed enough of them that a couple of them fled, but not upstairs. "Hey, party's not over yet," Dean shouted, wiping blood out of his eyes with his arm. Now he was starting to hurt, but he had a job to finish. Also, where the hell had they gone?

Ghouls had been known to tunnel occasionally, so he thought that 's what it was, but when Dean turned the corner, gun first as always, he was met with an astoundingly large hole in the far wall. It looked like he could drive the Impala through it, with no damage to the body. How had the foundation withstood such a massive gap? It struck him as illogical - like the supernatural was ever logical? - and then he noticed how smooth the edges were. It was like it was eroded by water or something, but again, that made no sense.

What did make sense? The ghouls didn't make this. They found it, they took advantage of it, but it wasn't theirs.

As he approached it, visually scanning for clues, his arms were starting to tremble, his knee was starting to ache, and all the bits of the battle he didn't allow himself to think about started catching up with him. Dean glanced back, to make sure he wasn't getting flanked, and scanned the throng of bodies on the ground. Ten? Maybe closer to twelve. Jesus. How did he survive that?

He never told anyone this, but sometimes he had no fucking clue how he survived certain things. It was probably training. Head down, emotions off, do the job until you couldn't do it anymore. It bothered Dean sometimes, made him wonder if he had the singular focus of a psychopath or something, but it had, against all odds, kept him alive. More or less. If it ain't broken, don't fix it, right? But Dean wondered if this was the most glaring sign of his own brokenness.

Nope. Couldn't think. Still had a job to finish.

He holstered his machete and reloaded before pulling out a flashlight and shining it into the large abyss. Dean kept the flashlight over the gun, ready to fire at the first thing that jumped out at him, but the ghouls had made the sensible decision to fuck off deeper into the tunnel than go for him again. If it didn't work in a large group, it wasn't going to work with two left. He could feel a breath of cool, fresh air coming through the tunnel, and it smelled like ... water? It was hard to say, with the basement reeking of both alive and dead ghouls, but it was extremely nice.

He heard thudding footsteps over his head, as well as Sam bellow, "Dean!"

"Down here!" he shouted, and was surprised by the depth of the echo from the tunnel. How far did this thing go?

He heard Sam pause on the creaky staircase leading down to the basement. "Holy shit. How many were down here?"

"Didn't count. It was a trap."

"For you or for them? And where's that echo coming from?"

"Come here and find out."

Sam was covered in enough blood that Dean almost laughed, but he imagined he looked as bad, if not worse. They were both final girls, or Carrie after the prom. Oh god, he was a nerd too.

Sam's eyes widened at the tunnel, and his visual scan seemed more comprehensive and disbelieving. "What the hell ..?"

"Some ghouls ran in here, but there's no way they made this."

Sam went up close to an edge and touched it, noting how smooth the edge was. "No fucking way. What could have made this?"

"That's what I was about to ask you," Dean admitted.

Sam shook his head. "Could this be man made?"

"Who would do that and why?"

"They were looking for the amulet?"

Dean fixed him with a disbelieving stare. "Really? That's the best you got?"

Sam looked at him and frowned. "I wasn't expecting to find a subway tunnel in the basement. Excuse me for being low on answers."

It was then Dean noticed blood dripping from Sam's arm, and turned his flashlight on him. "How badly are you hurt?"

"It's nothing. One got a bite in. What about you?"

"I should be dead, but I'm not. All good." Dean glanced down at himself, saw bloody tears in his jeans, his lower left leg nearly black with it. So that's why his boots felt a little squelchy. That was going to hurt later.

Sam gave him the scowl he always gave Dean when he thought he was being too macho, and pointed at his left arm. "Looks like you got bit too."

Dean checked, and saw the tear in his sleeve. Damn it. He almost pointed out he got bit more than once, but that too was something he wasn't thinking about. He was never going to let himself reflect on how close he'd come to dying a ghoul snack. If he ever took a genuine moment to consider all the times he'd nearly died - and in fact, had died - he would curl up in a shivering ball and be comatose for the rest of his miserable life. So he would drink away what he could, and tuck the rest in a corner of his mind where he didn't dare to venture. When he glanced back at Sam, he saw the blood dripping down the side of his face. "Did one of them try and make out with you?"

He seemed both confused and insulted by the implication, but the blood finally dripped in his eye, and he understood. "Oh crap. One of them bit me on the head. I didn't think it was deep."

"Probably isn't. Scalp wounds bleed like a son of a bitch."

All considered, they were both very lucky, and probably should have called it a night and counted their blessings, such as they were. But along with that fucking amulet, they now had this tunnel mystery. They exchanged a look, as years of working together allowed them a purely tacit language. The look was simply a "do we go" and a "yes", all at the same time. So Dean lead the way, and Sam followed, taking out his own flashlight and handgun.

The only sound in the tunnel was their footsteps, and once they were several meters in, Dean heard slow dripping. A water leak, but not a major one. Sam kept moving his flashlight across the side walls, possibly looking for something, most likely enjoying the view. Where it was stone, it was smooth; where it was earth, it was hard packed and more solid than you might have thought. "Dean," Sam finally whispered. Despite the low pitch of his voice, it still echoed in this cavernous space. "This is an engineering marvel. I have no idea what could have made this."

"Twenty bucks says it's nothing good." Dean realized that was a cheat. Of course it was no good. When had it ever been something good?

As if to prove his point, Dean finally saw something in the darkness ahead of them, clumped up on the ground. It was mostly translucent, but it had kind of a rainbow sheen to it when the light hit it at certain angles. There was also a repeating pattern on it, and it was nearly as wide as the tunnel, and so long Dean couldn't see the end of it. He cautiously tapped the edge of it with his boot, and it was thick, spongy, and firm. Ick. Kind of like rubber.

Sam crouched down for a closer look, using the barrel of his pistol to lift an edge of the stuff and examine it. After a few moments, he dropped it suddenly and stood up. "Dude, do you know what this is?"

"No."

"It's a snake skin."

Dean played the light over the surface, and realized that repeating pattern could very well be tightly overlapping scales.

Holy shit.