Author: AuntMo
Artist: Vivian Tanner
Genre: Gen; Comedy/Humor
Pairing (if applicable): None
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: Language; while the overall story is a comedy because it takes place during the Apocalypse there are mentions of massacres and a mention of a past run-in with a pedophile. Spoilers through 5.19 Hammers of the Gods, though it goes AU after 5.10 Abandon All Hope
Tier/Word Count: 5k/18,881 words (entire story)
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters. Nor do I own any of the Road to films or any of the other dozen or so television shows referenced herein. This was all just written for my enjoyment and hopefully yours as well.
Summary: Shortly after the events at Carthage, on a seemingly normal hunt, Dean and Cas disappear. Not knowing who else to turn to and fearing the worst, Sam asks Gabriel for his help in locating both of their brothers. In return, Sam reluctantly agrees that Gabriel can feel free to try and convince Sam to play his role in the Apocalypse, he just isn't making any promises that he will consent to anything.
What follows next is an adventure that pays tribute to the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Road to movies, with a trip to a carnival where Sam has to wrestle an octopus. And Dean and Cas have disappeared into a unique set of problems of their own, leaving Dean to suspect that Sam might be in more trouble than he realizes.
A/N: Written for the sabriel_mini challenge over on livejournal. To see the art that goes with the story, you will need to find the links on my journal over there (auntmo9). Thank you so much to the mods, insertcode11 and wolfish_willow, who have done an amazing job at hosting the sabirel_mini. This is the first time I have participated in any challenge like this and you have made it fun and answered all my questions with grace and patience. I would also like to thank my lovely artist Vivian Tanner. I have never had the privilege of having a fic that had art to go with it and hers captured the humor of the story. I owe a debt of gratitude to my betas Jesse A Harper and novakev. Jesse A Harper has been with me all the way as a sounding board and general all around cheerleader, while novakev graciously agreed to come in late in the game and read the whole thing over as someone with an outsider's opinion. I also owe some thanks yous to some other wonderful people, but to do so now who give away some spoilers, so look for an additional note at the end.
Prologue:Skin and Bones
It started out as a normal hunt. Well, as normal as a hunt as they would hope to get this year. Bobby insisted that they take it. They had done nothing but sit and mope around Bobby's house since Carthage so he had unceremoniously kicked them out with the research he had done so far, saying it would do them good and he was tired of looking at their sorry asses.
They packed up the Impala and headed to Independence, CA. Apparently campers in the area were being killed in their sleep. The local law enforcement waved it off as careless campers who got mauled by a bear. But both Bobby's research and their own investigation showed it was much more. Whatever it was, it was stripping all the flesh and entrails from its victims, leaving those behind and taking only the bones.
After a little bit of digging, Sam postulated that it was likely an O-dokuro, a Japanese ghoul. They were nasty things that were basically a gigantic reanimated skeleton, which even dwarfed Sam in size. Cas, who had decided to tag along with them on the hunt, said that they usually rise in locations where much human sorrow and death had taken place, and they typically leave the flesh of their victims behind and incorporate their victims' bones into their own skeleton. Armed with that knowledge Sam dug deeper into his research and discovered that just outside of Independence was the site of the Manzanar War Relocation Center, where over eleven thousand Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II, including where more than 140 of them had died. The camp itself was built on a site that was originally inhabited by the Paiute, along with several other Native American tribes, who were forced off the land at gunpoint after the Owens Valley Indian War of 1861-1863. Once European Americans discovered the gold and silver in the area, the sudden influx of their population brought conflict to the territory. Needless to say, between the looming Apocalypse and the history of the area, the region was ripe for a vengeful spirit to lay siege to hapless campers and locals alike.
The only problem was, O-dokuro weren't easy to kill. Then again, when had they ever had an easy time ganking any evil bitch? They tried shooting it with salt pellets. They tried beheading it. But those things didn't seem to work. The scary-ass thing only re-assembled itself. Then Dean had the bright idea to create a sticky bomb that would actually cling to the skeleton. They ended up making a homemade version of napalm that contained a mixture of diesel fuel, large amounts of rock salt and lime-green Jell-O. They made three of them and waited until nightfall, when the thing would be sure to come out. When it did appear each of them lobbed their own bomb at the giant skeleton from different angles, which caused the ghoul to erupt into flames and explode with a great flash of light, much brighter, Sam thought, than the fire power they brought with them would account for. But this thought was driven from his mind quickly when he realized that Dean's sticky bombs actually had rid them of the ghoul, this time seemingly, for good.
When the smoke had cleared and Sam looked around, there was no sign of the O-dokuro. However, there was also no sign of Dean or Cas either. Sam called out loudly for both of them, tried their cell phones several times and spent over an hour looking in the area without any luck finding them. He finally he gave up and drove back to the motel to begin his search anew there.
Unseen by any human eyes, however, was the figure lurking in the shadows that had watched the entire event unfold with great interest, only to disappear when Sam Winchester had departed in the 1967 Chevy Impala.