A/N: Written for week 13 of SPN Hiatus Creations on tumblr. Prompt: women of Supernatural.
To the guest who reviewed this story, I put up your review even though it didn't say anything nice about my story (but it didn't say anything mean either) because I didn't want to seem cold and callous, and now I want to address it.
1) Ghouls can't survive in long-dead bodies. Usually they just look like dead bodies because they take the form of whatever the last thing they ate was. In this story, that's not a dead body. And if you somehow manage to decapitate them or blow off their head, they will die. If you deliver what's considered a killing blow anywhere else, they won't.
2) I'm sorry I didn't have a warning on this story. It's nowhere near as close to the most graphic thing I've written so I didn't consider that a warning would be needed. I really am sorry. I tend to always put all the appropriate warnings on my stories. Thank you so much for letting me know. I hope not having a warning didn't ruin your day or upset you too much. That wasn't my intention.
WARNING: Graphic depictions of violence
Jody didn't want to kill the little boy. But her shotgun was still aimed at the eight-year-old who was too shocked to beg for his life.
Only, he wasn't just any eight-year-old. He was a ghoul, and he'd eaten the boy he now looked like. He'd eaten his family.
Jody had taken care of the parents the day before, and then had made the call to not kill him. She couldn't. He looked like a child. He was a child. Just not a human one.
And then she'd received a frantic call from the next-door neighbor. By the time she'd gotten there the man was already dead. His body lay in a dark pool of blood in the entranceway where they were now standing, the liquid looking black when her flashlight wasn't shining on it.
"Please, you don't have to do this," Jody told the boy.
She was surprised the ghoul hadn't yet attacked her. She had expected anger in the wake of his parents' deaths, but instead he just appeared lost.
"But I'm hungry," he reasoned. "And Mommy and Daddy can't feed me no more."
"I know. I'm sorry about that," Jody lied.
Or maybe it wasn't a lie. No child should have their parents taken away from them. Why should it matter if that child was human or not?
And most of all, Jody didn't want to have to kill him.
In her mind a different boy stood before her, one with light-colored hair, and her husband's blood on his lips, dripping down his chin.
Owen.
Owen Mills.
Her son.
"But you did it," he said quietly so that his voice was almost a whisper. "You took Mommy and Daddy away."
She nodded, trying to hold her tears back.
"I had to."
"Why?"
"They hurt people, sweetie."
"You hurt them."
"Uh huh, I did," she told him. "But I don't have to hurt you. You don't have to keep doing this."
Jody wasn't sure she believed the words, but she had to say them anyway. Not for him, but for herself.
The boy turned his head, looking down at the body behind him, maybe contemplating his situation. He didn't even seem frightened of the fact that Jody still had her gun trained on him. He probably thought the shaking in her body was from fear. He was a predator, after all. Some instinct probably told him he had the upper hand here. Maybe he did.
Jody felt stupid and guilty and sickfor not killing him the day before, for now standing there like an idiot, trying to talk, as if that would help.
"Hungry," he murmured forlornly.
She sniffled, still seeing her little boy in her head. All of her wanted to help this child, but she knew she couldn't. There wasn't an alternative diet ghouls could live off of.
She had to do it.
Jody checked the sights, gripped the gun more firmly, and braced for the powerful kick.
"I'm sorry, honey."
She squeezed the trigger.
Jody wanted to close her eyes, but knew she had to see if she got the job done.
At such a close range the shell had pulverized the bottom of his face and the base of his skull, separating his head from his neck. The force of the blast sent blood and brain matter flying, splattering on her. The air was now thick with the metallic stench of the blood, drifting in the acrid smoke of spent gunpowder.
A gunshot. And Owen was dead.
A different boy, now dead, his body dropping to the floor.
Jody grew weak, falling to her knees, and she let her flashlight and shotgun fall from her hands; she had switched the safety on the weapon before allowing it to clatter to the hardwood floor. A sob racked her body, throat aching, eyes stinging, tears flowing freely now. She hugged her stomach, feeling as if a scar had been ripped open inside of her, and she had to hold herself together. If she didn't do that she'd fall apart, her memories bleeding out in front of her, her pain clawing and tearing.
"I'm sorry!" she cried into the empty air.
I'm so sorry, Owen.
Jody wanted to call Sam. After all, he'd been the one who had killed Owen for her. He'd understand.
Sam was probably busy.
Jody had to do this alone.
But she wasn't alone. She still had a family. Just not the one she had married into, not the one she had given birth to.
Once she picked herself off the floor the rest of what she did was a blur. She cleared things up with the sheriff who now knew of the supernatural and never wanted anything to do with it ever again, she cleaned herself – though it still felt like the little boy's blood was on her face, she packed, and then she was on her way home.
Every part of her was numb, and the gunshot from the night before erupted and banged in her head in time with the gunshot that had ended her little boy's life.
Claire was in the living room on her phone when Jody got home, and Alex was in the dining room studying for a nursing exam.
"Hey, how'd the hunt go?" Claire asked.
Jody's voice was suddenly hoarse as she beckoned, "Come here."
"Mom?"
Claire's worried tone drew Alex, and they must have seen something in her face, some pain, because both girls were now hugging her. They were warm and comforting against her and Jody returned the hug, wrapping her arms around them, intending to not let go for some time.
She cried, but she didn't sob this time.
It wasn't on them to be strong for her. That was Jody's job. She had to be there for them. So she kept herself quiet, nearly holding her breath, and they didn't ask questions.
"It's okay, Mom," Alex assured.
"We got you."
That made more tears flow down her cheeks, grateful tears, loving tears.
She didn't have her husband, or Owen, anymore, but she was still a parent, and these beautiful, extraordinary girls were her daughters.
Jody loved them with all she had, and she knew, with them, she was going to be okay.