Sam and Dean Winchester are the property of Kripke Enterprises, Inc. and the CW. I only play with them for my own amusement and will put them back when I'm done.
A/N This story is the Sequel to "Sons of the Morning". It is not really necessary to read "Sons" to understand this story but if you want to know how Sam ended up being able to turn into a Sphinx and why Dean glows in the dark you need to read "Sons". In addition, reviews are always welcome and will be replied to as soon as possible.
Walt and Roy Get What They Deserve
Chapter 1
Hunters Gather
Stanza 1
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without color
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion,
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men
The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot , 1925
Elroy's bar stuck up out of the Nebraska plains like a zit on God's ass. It wasn't attractive, it wasn't well located and it was ugly. No effort had been made within the recent past to either clean it up or paint it. Looking at it, it was a wonder there were no broken windows. The windows it had were dirty and dusty but at least whole. It was the best thing you could say about the outside of the structure.
'Elroy's' screamed the sign on the roof, sending out a useless neon calling card to the uninterested plains.
There was no easily discernible reason for this bar to be located where it was. Literally in the middle of nowhere, it sat beside a poorly maintained county road and the dust of the drought stricken Nebraska plains blew endlessly, wedging into every available crack.
There was a collection of cars and pick-up trucks out front, most of them in better shape than the bar. You could look up and down the road and not see a moving vehicle. So where did this motley collection of rides come from and why were they gathered here?
The Riddley brothers asked themselves these same questions along with, "Whose bright idea was it to buy this place?" over and over. The brothers were relatively new arrivals to the Nebraska flatlands. They had only owned the bar for about two years, an incautious investment, made in a hurry when their previous place of business, a Pittsburg bar, fell under the eye of the local police.
Under pressure the brothers had spotted a real estate ad for Elroy's and decided in their haste that maybe Nebraska was far enough away for their purposes. They had sent money by wire and bought the place sight unseen, trusting the real estate agent's description.
They really should have made at least a minimal investigation before signing on the dotted line and turning over the cash.
Only one of the rosy promises made by the agent had turned out to be true, the place did do a steady business. Ron and Paul Riddley though, simply did not understand their customers. The customers had a tendency to show up at all times of the day or night and not only expected liquor but also food and beds at a moment's notice.
A lot of those customers showed up in pretty rough shape, often needing medical attention, which Elroy's supplied in the person of Elsie, the bar maid. She seemed well versed in first aide and offered no explanation to her employers as to why that was. Elsie had come with the bar, like the sinks and the toilets.
The Riddley brothers just accepted the place as is. If it didn't bother them, they didn't bother it. All in all it seemed to run pretty well without much input from them. Ron served the drinks and Paul ran the grill and life went on. They did notice that pretty much all of their customers carried weapons and the police just never seemed to drop by.
The Riddleys had no idea that they had bought a "Hunters" bar and if Elsie had explained it to them they most likely would not have believed her.
Elsie didn't bother them with the information that the bar had been for sale because something had eaten the previous owner's right leg off up to the knee and he had abruptly retired both from the bar and from hunting one windy September night.
Ron Riddley cast an eye over the current crop of customers. There had been an undercurrent of tension in the place since two guys named Tom and Andy Cantrell had showed up a couple of days ago. They both had bullet wounds, one in a shoulder and the other in a leg. Ron asked no questions and the men offered no details.
While the Cantrells sat at a center table and drank, two of Ron's regular customers, Walt and Roy, no last names there, sat with their backs to the bathroom wall and eyed the Cantrells. Occasionally one of them would walk over and sit at the Cantrell's table for a while and then go back to his table.
Other men had been wandering in over the past twenty four hours and they all seemed to know Walt and Roy. Each new man would wander in, come up to the bar and buy some beers and take the drinks to the table. It happen so often Ron figured Roy and Walt were getting pretty drunk without laying down a penny.
Gradually the tables were getting occupied and Ron had the feeling of a meeting getting organized. He decided to go and make a pass at pretending to wipe the tables to see if he could get an earful of what was going on. It was his bar and if an explosion was imminent he would like a little warning.
Under Elsie's watchful eye he carried out his plan. Try as he might though he only caught a word here and there. The word that he caught the most was "Winchester."
He talked the situation over with his brother Paul and they decided that their best bet for information was Elsie.
When she came back to the bar after repairing the damage that Ron's wet rag had done to the customer's tables they ask her to step into the kitchen.
"Elsie," Ron started. "Do you have any idea what is going on out there? Is it something we should be concerned with?"
Elsie twisted her bar rag and thought about it all
"Are you guys ready for a little truth about this place?" she finally asked. "You've been pretty determined to ignore events happening right under your noses for the past couple of years. You might consider that you 'll be happier just letting it go on like that."
"No," Paul responded. "I don't know about Ron but I want to know. I'm tired of trying to pick up clues about my own bar. I think you should start with who're these customers of ours and where do they come from. What's the attraction here, a busted out bar in the middle of nowhere? Why do they come here, of all places?"
"Alright, I'll clue you in on a little of it but you have to promise you won't push. Some of this stuff is dangerous. Most of those men out there are dangerous," she warned. " Keep whatever I tell you to yourselves for your own safety."
"We aren't children, Elsie." Ron huffed. "We have been running bars all our adult lives and we have seen and done a lot. Why should we be worried about a room full of guys who don't look like they own much but the clothes on their backs? Because they're all armed to the teeth? I've heard the word 'hunters' tossed around. What the hell do they hunt that they need that many weapons? Grizzley rabbit?"
Elsie sighed. "Ok, yes there's a room full of Hunters out there. But they are Hunters with a capital "H", not lower case. They take down the stuff of your nightmares; big stuff, nasty stuff. I wish you would take my word for it and leave this alone. You'll sleep better at night."
Ron and Paul considered their bar maid. "Alright," Paul conceded. "Just tell us what the current excitement is about. A lot of the guys out there I don't remember seeing before."
"There is something special up," Elsie agreed. "Walt and Roy are organizing a hunt. Those two guys, Tom and Andy, who came in a couple of days ago, brought information that Walt and Roy have been wanting for a while. The Cantrells know where the Winchesters are hiding. Now a hunt is getting organized to go put them down permanent, if it can be done."
"Are you talking about murder? Are the Winchesters people?" Paul asked.
"That's just it. ' Elsie answered them. "No one knows for sure just what the Winchesters are now."
"They used to be Hunters. They used to be valued members of that group out there and other groups like them. Evidently, from what I can pick up, they have made a habit of coming back from the dead and that's making everyone nervous; most of all Walt and Roy, because they've been claiming for years that they put the Winchesters down once. They're taking it personally that the Winchesters seem to be back again."
