Medusa
And here's yet another one of my stupid little stories.
( Medusa…Greek Mythology… A beast with snakes instead of hair, whose one look could turn onlookers to stone)
The brothers sat at the counter of the old diner eating their lunch. They had just returned from a successful hunt and were going to take a few days off before looking for their next one. Sam sat at the counter daydreaming while Dean read a copy of Bizarre News a national tabloid filled with mostly made up stories or semi true stories that the newspaper was famous for. Sam glanced over at his brother and shook his head smiling.
"I had an alien baby." Sam read the blaring headlines on the front page. He gave a little laugh as he looked at the picture of the alleged baby. "Why are you reading this junk?" He asked his brother.
"Hey it's not all fake; you should know that as much as I do…A lot of stuff in here we actually hunted."
"Okay then its ninety five percent fake."
Dean's eyes looked over the top of the paper and glared at Sam.
"We've seen much worse then this paper can make up." Dean said defending his reason for reading it.
Sam knew that was true. They had hunted creatures that most people only thought occurred in nightmares.
"Yeah I guess we have." Sam said as he once more went back to daydreaming as he looked out the window.
"Hey I found something." Dean folded the paper in half and put it on the counter between them. "Read this."
Sam leaned over and began to read the article. The article was about a small town where residents were mysteriously disappearing and in their place a statue with their likeness would suddenly appear.
"You gotta be kidding."
"What?"
"You don't really believe that do you."
"Why not? It sounds like that movie we watched about….." Dean thought for a few seconds before looking at his brother. "What the heck was her name?...She had snakes in her hair and I think the bottom half of her was also a snake…she turned men to stone if they looked at her…I think she shot people with arrows which made them to turn to look at her and then wham….they turned to stone."
"Medusa."
"Yeah that's it." Dean smiled. "It sounds just like that."
"Dean Medusa is a Greek mythology…. she's not real."
"Well it sure sounds like it's her."
"The whole story is probably made up Dean. We've never come across a Medusa before and Dad never did either. Sure, he had an entry in his journal about one but he only heard about one, he never actually ran across one."
"There's always a first time."
"You're serious aren't you?"
"The town is only about sixty or so miles from here. Why don't we go check it out and if it's nothing we'll just move on to something else?"
"Dean…." Sam still wasn't convinced.
"Hey, we're not doing anything….It won't hurt to just go check it out."
"Dean we just got back from a hunt, can't we just take a day off for once?"
"But it's right down the road Sam. It won't hurt to check it out."
Sam shook his head smiling as he gave into his brother.
"Okay…if it will make you happy."
Later
They took off for Foxgrove, Arizona and stopped at a small motel on the outskirts of town. They walked into the motel's office and Dean pulled out his credit card and gave the clerk his most charming smile.
"We'd like a room for the week, maybe longer."
"You boys visiting relatives in the area?" The clerk asked as he took the card. "We don't get many people out this way unless they know someone in the area."
"Actually we were just passing through." Dean told him. "My brother picked up one of those stupid tabloids at the mini market and saw a thing about some strange disappearances in your town and since we were in the area…" Dean leaned in close to the man and whispered. "My brother's a little slow and he's into all these weird tabloid stories….I try to humor him when I can."
"Well actually that news magazine is pretty close to the truth."
"Really?" Dean glanced at Sam and gave him an 'I told you so' look. "What do you mean?"
"Four people in town disappeared and in their place the cops found a statue that looks just like them."
"So something really is happening here? What do the cops say about it?"
"They don't have a clue to what's going on. There is no sign of a struggle, no blood…just a statue which looks just like the missing person."
TBC