Disclaimer: I play in the SN world and put it back as I found it - nothing belongs to me.
Notes: For the spngen Ficathon. There was this choice of three scenarios and I kind've got carried away.
Thank you: The lovely poisontaster and mitchy for fantabulous crash test betaing.
"Time'll come", says Isham the Crow, "you boys in over you' heads."
The Crow is a big man; even with the three inches he's gained this summer, Sam still has to cant his head to look up at him, and then further up because the Crow's hat just draws the eye. It's the rainbow edged, oil-slick coloured feathers tucked in the band; they move a little even when there's no breeze - like now.
Dean doesn't look around from hauling the kerosene into the trunk of the car, but a shrug as he drops it next to its twin makes his new leather jacket creak. Somehow it sounds even louder than the dull clang of metal on metal. "We're always in over our heads." Now he turns and his eyes look too white in the thin moonlight. "It's kind've our job description".
Sam snorts and then rolls his eyes when Dean looks over with studied innocence. He didn't think it was possible but his brother has only gotten better at faking since he turned eighteen. "Like you believe that."
"If I believed that, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. We're the best, dude. We'll never be in over our heads 'cause we are just too damn good." Dean grins and his teeth are too white as well, but they're gone from sight as he turns back to begin packing in the kindling. Sam would help but he's not going to - Dean wants to hog on the driving, he can do the loading too.
The hat rustles as Isham shakes his head and Sam could swear he hears a bird croak out there in the darkness. "Your father-"
"Is fine."
Sam wasn't worried until Dean cut the Crow off but now something crawls up his throat and sits in the back of his mouth, tasting of fear. He swallows and waves a hand to signal that Dean should be ignored. "What about him?"
"He a fool."
Dean relaxes; Sam can see it in the set of his shoulders he just doesn't know why. "He - we - saved you but he's a fool?
"Yes." The Crow's nod is measured; everything he does is measured. Deliberate. Even his chants. Especially his curses. "You all fools but he the biggest. Chillin learn what they taught. This not any your fight. Now the Bokor take him and the Bokor, he got the darkness in him."
Isham has growled about the Bokor – whatever the hell a Bokor is – and his evil black magic ways almost non-stop during the two hours they've known him and Sam is losing what little patience he had to begin with, "We didn't have to stop. We could have fixed the car and just left you to the ghouls."
"Fools, they can be good men too." Isham's grin is a slow creeping chasm and his teeth are dark, even in the glare of the back-lights.
Sam feels a grin beginning to creep over his face in response and he's not sure if he's seeing the joke or baring his teeth. He settles for ducking his head and then looking out over the black prairieland that stretches away behind 'Isham's Gas & Parts'. "Yeah, well, he's not a fool."
It's not the kind of winning rebuttal that would stand up in court, but Sam's beginning to think he'll never have to worry about that and it's bothering him more than it did.
Dean closes the trunk louder than he has to. "Are we doing this thing?"
-o-
Ten minutes down a stretch of back-road and Sam's tired of tapping his fingers to songs he doesn't like. He reaches for the dial and turns it down then speaks before Dean can complain.
"So you think Dad's okay?"
"Dad can take care of himself. And Isham said it, didn't he?" Dean glances over, letting him see the surety, then back to the track that wanted to be a real road when it grew up.
"He said he's a fool."
"Exactly - is a fool, not was."
Sam never does pay as much attention to tense as he should. "And you're taking that as proof? Guy's a witchdoctor."
"Houngan. And a good one."
"Because you're the best judge of voodoo -"
"Vodun."
"- with that extensive experience you got last never."
Dean shrugs again. The leather creaks again. Sam could learn to hate that sound - he's sure Dean's making it on purpose - but not as much as he hates the smug silences.
He gives up after thirty seconds. "Okay, how do you know?"
"He's the Crow."
"I thought that was just, you know - with the feathers."
"Nope."
That's everything and this time Sam counts a full minute before gritting his teeth and speaking again. "Dean, I'm armed."
"Touchy. I was talking to him while you and Dad were making the salt circles. He said it's like a title - he got it from the last Houngan, last Houngan got it from the guy before him. I'm guessing it doesn't come free at the bottom of a box of Lucky Charms, you know?"
"Fine, but you can't seriously believe in some kind of freaky voodoo mojo."
"An hour ago zombies were trying to eat our brains. That, to me, puts a plus on the side of the freaky voodoo mojo."
"Not zombies, ghouls. Ghouls happen, but not because some guy waves a chicken around."
"It probably takes more than a chicken …"
"Whatever. So, just to get this straight, you think Dad's alive because a voodoo priest said he was?"
"Right. Look at it this way - either he's been got by this Bokor guy and the mojo's real, so Crow's real and Dad's alive or he's been got by some guy who thinks he's got the black magic and it doesn't matter if Crow's the real deal 'cause Dad can cope with the deluded."
It's barely comprehensible, let alone logical, and it shouldn't make him feel better but it does. Dean is trying to stop him worrying so he lets him. He always does. Lately - since he noticed anyway - he's even been trying to return the favour. "He's had practice."
"I'm armed too, Sammy."
The engine begins to choke; Dean winces and strokes the steering wheel like it's somehow going to gentle down a trashed carburettor.
"It going to hold out?"
"Better hope so. Isham said it would get us there, at least."
"I don't want to get stuck in the graveyard, Dean."
"I was looking forward to it. Get some beers, we could kick back - play some Zombie Bingo. Double points for the ones eating matching arms."
"Asswipe."
"You kiss your pillow with that mouth?"
When he was young and stupid - or last week - , Sam would have risen in full fiery temper to the bait. Now he manages to keep his tone flat and unimpressed and he's proud of himself. "I waseleven. And I told you: I was smelling it."
"Right. French-smelling it."
"… you are never, ever going to let me forget it, are you?"
"Sammy, Sammy. Of course I will. Right after you do something else I'll never let you forget."
Dean's hand leaves the wheel long enough to turn the volume back up. James Hetfield sings to toy soldiers and Sam tries to read trig by the light of a torch flashlight he can never hold still.
-o-
Ten minutes more and Dean kills the engine; the Impala coasts almost silently up to the black-painted wrought iron fence of the graveyard. The fence is high and ornate with the spears on the top reaching up like they're ready to attack the sky. The night has bled the colour from everything but not the richness.
Grass glistens under their feet as they walk to the trunk and the trees and markers are their own, distinct shade of darkness. 'Almost as many shades as the crow's feather', says the thin sliver of ice making its way up his spine.
Dean is the first to break the silence, low under his breath as if the dead within their wrought iron cage will hear them. Maybe they will.
"Stay with the car."
"What?" Sam knows he's staring stupidly at Dean and Dean is staring equally stupidly back, probably wondering which part was unclear. He shakes his head fast. "No way."
"Sammy…"
"Hah!"
"Sam-"
"Nope."
"Samuel Winchester."
"Doesn't even work for Dad."
"Samantha?"
"Deanna."
"Stay with the damn car, Sam."
"Dad would let me come."
"Dad would look after you." Dean's voice intensifies - whispers aren't a good medium for expressing frustration but Sam is has to admit he's impressed with the effort.
"I can look after myself. Like you'd let anything happen to me anyway." It's out before he's even thought about it but, examining the statement, he doesn't find any particular problems so he can't figure out why Dean is just staring at him again. "What?"
Dean shakes his head with an expression Sam can't place and then pops the trunk. "Nothing. Fine, whatever. You don't leave my sight. You jump when I say jump. You run when I say run. Under no circumstances do you go take a closer look at anything. Also, don't get eaten."
"Okay. Jeez." He takes the can of kerosene, cradling it awkwardly in his arms so his hands stay free.
Dean takes the other can and slings the bundle of kindling over one shoulder and an axe on a strap over the other. "Isham said the Bokor would be up on the hill."
"I was there, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah. Come on."
-o-
Sam always laughs when someone says a graveyard is silent. Maybe not out loud, especially in school or public libraries, but in his head he's laughing. One of the least silent places he can think of is a graveyard.
In a graveyard like this the crickets should be almost deafening. The trees should be creaking and the iron should be groaning quietly as it cools from the heat of the day. There should be whispers he can never quite hear well enough to understand.
Instead there's just muffled footsteps as they inch their way up the hill on treacherously wet grass and mud, avoiding the gravelled path. Graveyards, he thinks, are only scary when they're silent; when they're silent, nobody's home.
No bodies home either. He wishes he hadn't thought that just as a grey hand reaches out of the darkness and claws towards his shoulder.
There's barely time for his choked-off shout – guys who are nearly fifteen do not, under any circumstances, scream – before Dean is pulling him away and then lunging forward.
Sam didn't get a good look in the attack on Isham's store; he was safely inside two circles of protection and chanting with the Houngan in a language he didn't understand while Dean and their father held the path to the door. While Dean was thrown into a wall and their father was dragged away.
Sam has a good look now. Dean is swinging an axe at a man wearing an earth-covered black suit - a man with grey, sagging skin and dead eyes that manage to stay dead despite the fevered hunger burning in them.
Not a ghoul. Definitely. Not a ghoul.
The axe bites through its neck with a meaty sound that makes Sam wince reflexively and the, fine, zombie folds down into so much rotten meat on the ground.
Breath shudders in his throat but he can speak, although he would really like not to smell. His knife seems much, much too small. "Why don't I get an axe?"
Dean unhooks a hand scythe from his belt and holds it towards him; he takes it wordlessly. Not as effective or somehow comforting as an axe but, he has to admit, he'll probably be able to actually use this.
They can see the hut; it's a black shape largely making up their own personal horizon but, edging closer, they can see the thin orange strips along the door frame and from behind stringy curtains as low light escapes into the night.
"The Bokor had to have heard us."
"I doubt it, very much." The voice is quiet and cracked and sad in a way that stops Sam hurling the scythe toward it and asking questions later. Dean turns and raises the axe but he doesn't attack either. Sam can see he's close to it, even closer than normal.
It's a small man in a faded suit with an unmistakable grey cast over dark skin.
Sam licks his lips quickly and wonders how you strike up polite conversation with a corpse.
The corpse, in a dapper black suit and with strands of hair tucked neatly over a glinting skull, solves the problem by introducing himself. "I am Ephram the Crow. Or," Ephram's smile is marginal but by nature toothsome, "at least I was."
Sam lets the blade the scythe drop just an inch. "Where's the Bokor?"
Ephram seems to consider for an unduly long time, near lipless mouth pursed in thought, Sam wonders if he's being mocked by the undead. It would be a new low. Finally the Crow replies. "Rebuilding the protection around the garage, I should imagine. You have no idea how long it took me to break through."
"Isham-"
"Isham." Ephram spits the name, "The Bokor who killed me but he couldn't bind my soul, that he couldn't have. His pets steal your father and bring him to my land, my land. You were meant to find me and destroy me, I expect. Isham was always powerful, sometimes cunning. Never clever." He shakes his head. "Never clever. A poor student."
Sam is silenced by the rage he can hear just under the parchment dry voice but Dean is braver – or he just doesn't hear it. "His pets?"
"Wasted things born of hunger and darkness. My children took him before he could be damaged."
"If your children were the ones attacking the garage earlier, they look a lot like his pets."
Ephram's shrug is philosophical and Sam's not convinced the dead man doesn't lose a bone or two doing it. "So it goes."
"But you're dead, how are you even able to raise-"
"I am dead but your father is a healthy man."
"Where is he?" Dean's voice is deeper and rougher when he tries to sound tough and Sam has never had the heart to tell him that doesn't work. He'll never tell him what does work; his brother scares him enough sometimes.
"In the hut." Ephram inclines his head towards it.
"In the hut." Dean sounds doubtful, the brusque tone forgotten as he tests the words for small print like 'with the zombie horde', uncaring of the meaning of the words and denying Sam the chance to ask. Sometimes Sam admires that focus – the same as their father's. Sometimes he wonders how they're all still alive.
Dean moves and he moves with him without thinking. They edge towards the shack and they're almost back to back as they go. Sam watches the unmoving - and in his limited experience unusually helpful - zombie while Dean concentrates on the path ahead.
Sam hears a creak and assumes Dean has pushed open the door to the shack. He can't help looking; he can't help it even as cautionary tales from all manner of myths run through his head. There's a room empty of everything but a blanket and, under the blanket, their father.
It's a second, it's less than a second, and when he looks back, the zombie is gone.
Their father takes too long to wake up and his eyes don't focus. He says he doesn't need help then nearly walks into a wall and Sam is tall but he's not strong enough to support him. So he holds an axe almost too heavy for him and leads the way back down the hill and through the graveyard while Dean half-carries, half-guides their father.
And Sam realises he really can take care of himself.
What he can't do is make a vintage Impala magically appear from the ether. He tries anyway. He double checks the shrubbery in case it's hiding. If he concentrates hard enough he can almost see its outline and has a sudden rush of sympathy for mirage-seeing souls in the desert.
In the few seconds he waits for Dean and their father to round the corner and see the space where the car used to be, he tries to think of the best way to put it.
There doesn't seem to be one so he settles for calling out as they appear. "I think the living dead stole the car."
-o-
It turns out that a concussion makes John Winchester much more likely to forgive an unlocked car door and Sam files this away under 'useful information' just on the outside chance it will come in handy.
He's not sure how they make it the mile down the track to the road with Dean and his father weaving back and forth behind him while he watches a whole lot of darkness ahead. One step at a time, he guesses.
They find the Impala on the road in all its non mirage-like, fully corporeal glory; Dean guesses the carburettor finally gave out.
It takes a mechanic four hours to reach them and by then John is mostly aware. He doesn't seem to remember the stolen car or the walk to find it and, for once in full and unspoken agreement, Sam and Dean choose not to bring it up.
Twenty minutes after that the still hidden sun is beginning to tint the sky with a faint promise of dawn and they're on the road with a mechanic's warning that the carburettor isn't going to hold them out the state. And they're arguing. Again.
Sam doesn't want to go back to Isham's garage. "We can just keep going. Who cares?"
Dean does. "Well, anyone who runs across the zombie. And Isham."
"Isham set us up."
"Not really. We drove in on zombies trying to kill him but Isham never said they didn't have a reason."
"Well he could have said."
"What? 'No, no, please don't save me – I'm the bad guy'?"
"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, you know."
"'least it's wit, what've you got?"
Their voices have raised enough that their father raises a hand and speaks painfully quiet into the silence it brings. "Down to a dull roar, okay?"
It turns out it doesn't matter, four hours and twenty minutes are at least three hours too long. The shack has been torn apart by a graveyard's worth of unfeeling hands and what isn't broken is burning. Including the corpses of Isham's 'pets' and his teacher's 'children'.
Sam breaths through his mouth as shallowly as he can; he wonders what the school counsellor who called him 'socially withdrawn' and 'emotionally distant' would say about this.
In the center of the wreckage lie two Crows. One is newly dead. There isn't a mark on him but his eyes stare up in blind terror and his mouth is twisted and gaping and it's not hard to believe he might have died from fear.
The other is a shrivelled thing two sizes too small for the rotting suit it wears, but its expression is peaceful and its hands cross over a feather hat held to its sunken chest.
They stare at the scene for a long moment before Sam speaks.
"I hear new cars don't even have carbur-."
John shakes his head carefully as they turn and walk back to the Impala. "We're not getting a new car."
"You said that this morning and we got zombies."
"Zombies are less expensive than a new car."
Their voices fade away and an engine starts; they'll stall again ten miles on the highway but the garage they find probably won't be owned by a Bokor.
Behind them the earth slowly reclaimed its dead until only an old hat with feathers in its band remains. With a crow's cracked cry and a beating of wings, there's not even that.