One

A Clay In The Life

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Claire Benton was twenty-six, naturally brunette, and one of life's hopeless dreamers. She often longed for days of wild romance or fantastic adventure, involving either pointy-eared, bow-carrying elves or pointy-eared, blue-shirt wearing aliens. It just depended on the day.

Abstemious of non-alcoholic weekends and jealous of the vibrancy of all places that her small apartment was not, Friday had nonetheless persuaded her to eschew the company of her friends and stay in to watch a DVD. It had managed this through nothing more than presenting her with a work day full of rude telephone customers and an unsympathetic manager. Now home and hovering by the criminally organised bookshelf of DVDs, wondering which pointy-eared hero to attach herself to for the next few hours, she caught sight of a sudden, slick movement right in the corner of the window.

She pouted. "If that's you, Mr Tinkles, I am so not in the mood for you miaowing at my window," she called, already going to the open-plan kitchen and picking up a dishcloth. She carried it back to the window by her DVDs, flinging the pane of glass open and looking out. "Beat it, you mangy excuse for a hot water bottle!" she hurled.

The tin roofing just outside her flat, two floors up and understandably confused by her apparent anger toward it, simply watched her fume. Her eyes went over the roofing very, very carefully, inspecting all the corners. Finding nothing to antagonise her further, she leant back inside and pulled the window shut securely. She bolted the bottom and the top before tossing the cloth to lie over her shoulder, waiter-style.

"Friggin' cats," she muttered to herself, turning back to the bookshelf. She reached out and took down the first DVD case, not caring what it was. Cracking it open, she found it to be a rather good film from 2009 with a very nice pointy-eared man in an impressively-fitted blue uniform. She wasted no time getting the disc in the player and retreating to her large sofa with the TV and the DVD player remote.

As the disc cycled through the usual FBI warnings and assorted greetings regarding the disadvantages of pirating, the corner of her eye glimpsed a shape. She jumped in shock.

She grabbed for the offending creature. Her hand had a good hold - and then she realised it was only the dishcloth, still lying over her shoulder. She cursed herself and got up, taking the cloth back to the kitchen and stopping by the fridge on her way past, her eyes straining to check the progress of the film's opening frames as she snagged the glass neck of a beer bottle.

"Ooh wait - don't let me miss the Kelvin!" she cried at the TV, already whisking the fridge shut and hurrying back to the sofa. She bounced down to the seat just as familiar pings and trills echoed from her 5.1 Dolby system, and she grinned as the story began to unfold. Her eyes, glued to the screen, made it clear her hands would have to operate without their input. She twisted off the beer cap in slow motion, already completely engrossed in the onscreen drama playing itself out in perfect audio and visual glory.

So she didn't see the minuscule shadow on the floorboards, slipping stealthily across the surface of the floor. It ducked and ninja-rolled under the sofa, coming to an awe-inspiring heroic pose of a stop just to the right of the arm. It slunk in slight retreat to press its back against the side, listening for movement.

All it heard was the sympathetic gasps and muttered moans of the sofa's only occupant. A flickering, pounding something caught its attention and it edged silently to the corner of the sofa. And there, in the middle of Claire Benton's front room, it found itself completely and utterly captured by the amazing action happening right there in front of it.

All other thoughts were purged. The next two hours flew by. Rather the same way as the make-believe vessels on the forty-two inch screen that, to Claire's stowaway's smaller viewpoint, may as well have been the entire universe itself.

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"Well," said Sam, straightening up from a particularly bone-popping crouch, "we'll have to take a closer look before we can start coming up with any theories." He turned to look at the grey-haired police chief watching him with her arms folded.

"If you can come up with anything out of all this, I'll start believing in all those flying pig stories," she grumped. She nodded to the tall, black-suited Winchester, and then walked past him to reunite her backside with the driver's seat of her police car, three floors down and fifty yards across the car park.

Sam watched her leave then turned and eyed his brother. Dean was crouching over the strange dollop, a pen in his right hand, digging at the melted mess on the carpet tiles.

"Any ideas?" Sam asked, pushing his own pen and notepad into his inside jacket pocket.

"I know exactly what did this," Dean said with a nod, flicking molasses-like goo from the end of his pen before pushing himself back to his feet. Sam tilted his head, dreading the next remark from his elder brother's mouth. Dean turned and looked at him. "Godzilla."

Sam's eyebrows took a crouch themselves, leaping for his fringe with everything they had. They contented themselves with the upper reaches of his forehead. "Right," he said cheerfully. "Yeah, I can see that." He turned and looked behind him, to the front doors to the large, open-plan office. "Godzilla comes all the way over from Japan without anyone seeing him, comes to the customer service phone centre of Greck Car Insurance Limited, and melts down what was probably a computer monitor in the middle of the room." He looked back at Dean. "Motive?"

"Someone pissed him off when he asked how much it'd take to insure his collection of Gatchaman on Blu-Ray," Dean smirked. "Case closed. Let's eat."

Sam grinned, but he put his hand up to stop Dean walking past him. "Hold on. How big is Godzilla again?"

"Coupla floors, I think," Dean nodded.

"And he got in here without breaking any doors down?"

"Well you're the one who volunteered us for pavement pizza inspection duty," Dean said, swinging his hands out in protest. "What are we even doing here? It ain't exactly Spook Central."

"I thought it was going to be something simple," Sam shrugged. "To be honest, I really thought it was going to be a spirit."

"Great. Well I think we've done all we can here, Harry Dresden. Let's eat," he stressed, walking to the doors and pushing them open grandly. He disappeared and Sam watched the doors swing shut before he looked back at the melted lump on the carpet.

He took a few steps closer, eyeing it in silence. Just as he turned to go, a dark shape flitted across the very edge of his vision. His head whipped around to follow it.

Nothing moved.

He frowned before looking back down at the pile of warm goo. Then he looked up slowly, back in the direction of the fleeting shadow. He took slow steps over to the cubicle, his shoes making not a single sound against the carpet. The desk and its partitions shielded the entire corner of the room. He grasped the back of the chair, wheeling it back toward him to afford him the view over the partitions.

Something shifted.

He grabbed the partition, hauling himself up quickly to see over the top.

"Dude?" Dean called, his head and shoulder sticking out from the doors slightly ajar.

Sam let go of the partition, drawing back and dipping sideways to look under the desk. "Hang on," he called back. He crouched suddenly, reaching under the desk before shuffling out again. He looked at the small item in his hand, turning it this way and that. Then he put a hand to the edge of the desk, getting up again slowly. He turned and looked over at the doors, and by extension, his brother. "Think I got something."

"We'll call at a clinic, you can get medication that'll clear it right up," Dean said helpfully.

Sam just looked at him - just looked. "Here," he said pointedly, raising his hand.

Dean huffed with the feeling of all the unjust souls in Hell before he came back into the room and strode back to his brother. He took the small lump from his fingers, lifting it to the lights in the ceiling for a moment. Then he sniffed it cautiously, before squeezing it in his fingers. "Congratulations, Sam. You found someone's eraser. Now can we eat?"

He pushed it into his pocket and turned away, leaving Sam to look back at the desk, and the corner of the room it was protecting.

"Yeah, why not," he shrugged, shaking his head and following.

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"Ah, Agent Doohan," the police chief said, apparently with some relief, as she spotted the tall man approaching the desk. "Good morning."

"Chief Anderson," he said with a smile. "Just checking in - did forensics come up with an analysis of the melted substance yet?"

"Oh, did they," she said, gesturing to her office with her head. He offered the two desk sergeants a very wide smile and they rushed to open the counter-trap for him, brunette and blond pony-tails bouncing eagerly. The chief eyed them with a weary mix of disapproval and resignation, before waving a hand out for the impossibly tall man to walk down to her office with her. "Where's Agent Pegg this morning?"

"He's following up a possible lead," he said, falling into step beside her as they went down the hallway. Narrow and definitely possessing of a shortfall in the decor department, it was as uneventful as their progress as he paused by her door.

She opened it for him, nodding him in. He chose the chair opposite her desk, folding himself into it as she closed the door and went to her chair, flumping down into it. She picked up a sheet of paper, turning it round and proffering it across the table.

He took it slowly, reading it with care and attention worthy of a real FBI agent. He read the end and looked up, surprise and DO NOT WANT written in the hike of his eyebrows. "Human remains? You mean that pile of goo was a melted person?"

"I don't mean anything, Agent Doohan. All I know is, that wasn't a computer monitor or some other plastic thing that we were poking - it used to be a person. Apparently, the guy who used to clean up at night," she said slowly. "Michael Feswick, the janitor." She put her hands up, running them through her short grey hair before making them drop to the desk. "This gives me the creeps, I don't mind telling you."

"It should," he marvelled, looking back at the paper. "How hot would it have to-. I mean, how would it still be malleable after cooling-." He shook his head. "I've got to get this to my partner."

"By all means," she said, leaning back in her chair. "To be honest, I'm glad you two boys are down here. This is easily the weirdest thing I've ever seen - and I've been here thirty years."

"I'll let you know the moment we have any idea what happened," he said firmly, getting to his feet.

"Appreciate it, Agent Doohan."

He nodded to her and left the room quickly, aiming right for the front desk. Chief Anderson sighed, looking at the name and address on her notepad, as if she needed to be reminded of the house-call she was about to make.

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