A Slight Change of Plans

Run, run, run, faster!

"Hang on, it's right here," Sam said, pointing to the page.

Dean fumbled another round into the chamber, stumbling. He could hear the thing skittering in the trees behind him. He forced himself to go faster.

"They're called hellslights, or just slights, which is a misnomer, actually, because they don't come from hell."

"Sam! You still with me?"

Dean leaned over the back of Sam's chair, frowning. "What about gnomes?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude. Pay attention."

"Still here!" Sam called back. "Hurry it up, man, it's right behind us!"

"A distant cousin of the wendigo, the hellslight is basically the opposite of a poltergeist," Sam paraphrased. "The spirit moves on, but the body comes back. It says this happens when 'negative energies, attracted by a horrific or otherwise tragic death, collect around the corpse. When enough energies are present, they possess the vacant body, their unbalanced, malicious nature warping the human form beyond recognition.'"

A hideous screech like a chorus of human screams echoed behind them. Dean had thought he was running as fast as he could before. He found he was wrong.

Sam skimmed the page. "Let's see…they don't have eyes, ears, or noses, just a mouth full of long, needle-like teeth-"

"Awesome," Dean muttered.

"—and razor sharp claws, which they use to skin their victims alive."

"Just keeps getting better."

"Hellslights only feed on the skin when it's fresh, but will eat the rest of the body once it starts to decompose."

"Delightful. Can we skip to the part about killing them, please?"

"Dean! Building!"

Dean saw it. An old ranger station, crumbling into the mountainside. He changed direction, angling toward it. "Way ahead of you!"

"Prefers warm places, thrives on decay, hunts at night…here we go: holy water. You have to force some holy water into them, then burn the body. Apparently if you don't douse them first, they're fire proof. And…huh, iron and rock salt slows 'em down."

They barreled up to the station, Sam slamming into the door to halt his momentum and jar the door loose. It squealed, resisting.

"Damn it," Sam growled, "It's rusted shut." He took a step back and started kicking.

Dean covered him with the shotgun. It was too dark to see the creature, but he could hear it rustling up in the branches, getting closer. He fired in its general direction, rewarded with the sound of buckshot tearing into flesh and an angry wail.

"It's not slowing down!" Dean yelled, letting off another round. "Sam!"

"I'd say this sounds like our guy," Sam said, sitting back.

Dean was already reaching for his jacket. "So let's load up the holy water and go get the sonofabitch," he said.

Sam didn't move. "I need to do some more research to be sure we got our facts straight first. Wouldn't be the first time the lore was wrong."

"Dude, we don't have time for fact-checking. People are dying; it took us long enough just to find this much on these freaks-"

"We can't afford to run out half-cocked on something like this, Dean."

"So take the book with you and read up on the way."

He could see it now. A pale tangle of unnaturally long limbs, moonlight glinted off its teeth as the hellslight spidered its way through the trees. No matter how many times Dean shot it, it kept coming. He wasn't even sure which rounds he was using anymore—rock salt or iron, neither was working.

"Sam!" He called frantically.

"Working on it," Sam grunted, pounding at the door.

The creature launched itself into the tree directly above Dean and clung there. Its eyeless face was trained downward as though it could see Dean perfectly. For a moment it paused, grotesque mouth gaping, tongue snaking out to taste the air.

"Sam."

Dean's voice was deadly calm. His last pull at the trigger had been met with an empty click. He wouldn't have time to reload.

"You know, you worry too much," Dean told his brother. The Impala crunched to a stop on the gravel lot in front of the woods. "You didn't find anything else about these slight things, did you?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Obviously if I was going to find something that contradicted the lore, it wouldn't have been in the same book," he grumbled.

The brothers climbed out and headed to the trunk.

"Look, we've got iron, we've got salt, we've got holy water. We'll be fine, Sam."

A long string of saliva slipped from the hellslight's mouth. It seemed to be grinning.

Dean stared up, unable to move. Sam was still thundering away at the door, oblivious to the creature that was about to rip their skin off. God, Sam. Why didn't I listen to you?

In a last-ditch effort, Dean thought of the knife at his belt. His hand twitched toward it.

The hellslight sprang.

Just as the thing got close enough for Dean to see the blood caked into its claws, there was an almighty, squealing crash, and he was being pulled back into darkness.