Title: Ancient Penguin Evil, part 2/?
Disclaimer: You know I don't own them. I know I don't own them. Must you torment me with that cruel knowledge?
Chapter Two - a big damn hero sandwich
"He didn't do his job so I had to do it for him." Skipper smacks the duct tape bound security guard with his flipper. "Typical human."
Rico grunts in approval as he slaps one more piece of duct tape around the human's taped ankles. Private tears off another piece from the roll and hands it over.
Skipper paces back and forth on the security console. "Good thing we never depend on humans for help anyway. Be a hell of a world if we did." The guard's eyes widen in disbelief as he tracks this short round penguin strutting back and forth in front of him.
"Kowalski!" Skipper barks.
The tallest penguin standing lookout at the door snaps to attention. "Sir!"
"I feel the need for a log entry."
"Yes, sir!" Ramrod straight, Kowalski pulls out a notepad and a purple crayon.
"Captain's log: Engaging in the final endgame against our ancient tenacled foe."
Kowalski scribbles furiously.
Skipper raises one eyebrow, stops, and stares at him. "What happened to our equipment upgrade, soldier? That was a PDA, wasn't it?"
Kowalski shrugs. "Etch A Sketch, sir. Unreliable. Kept losing your notes."
Skipper nods. "Ah, I see. Sometimes the old reliable are…old and reliable." He shrugs, then resumes pacing. "Captain's Log: We spent all our time before breaking out of that zoo up in New York, never thought for a moment that we'd have to break into a zoo, but here we are. Now we're trapped in this whacked out place, surrounded by terrified humans, idiots like this joker here."
The guard leans forward staring and Skipper slaps him in the face again. Dude's head does a pretty good imitation of a bobblehead doll, and the Skipper's well pleased with himself. "Cute and cuddly ain't gonna fly here. We may have to call upon Private to make the ultimate sacrifice."
Private's eyes widen. He jerks so hard he tears the piece of duct tape he's holding in two.
Skipper fixes the guard with his hypnotic stare, makes several slow passes in the air with his flippers. "You didn't see anything."
The guard's eyes get wide and glassy.
"Put a fork in him. He's done." Skipper hops down, waddles determinedly for the door. "We're a big damn hero sandwich between this thing and the rest of the world. We got a job to do here, boys. Time we got down to it."
Private and Kowalski follow Skipper out. Rico swallows the roll of duct tape as he brings up the rear.
000
"Such a rude boy!" the little old grey haired lady snarls at Dean. He just shrugs it off. Gets that reaction quite a lot from people, has all his damn life. He sidesteps that vicious swipe she takes at him with that big brown purse of hers. She's pretty feisty for an old chick, and Dean doesn't like the way the other tourists watch the action. If he shows any weakness they'll be all over him.
Granny takes aim at him with that purse of hers again.
The hell with that. Dean raises his shotgun up a little. He doesn't point it directly at her, but she thinks he's going to, and that's just enough to get her to back off, just enough to make the others pause. Dean can't help but notice that those black bifocals of hers make her eyes look way too big for her face. It's a creepy effect.
"Lady," Dean growls roughly, "I can so be your worst nightmare right now."
"She knows which way to go!" one of the frightened tourists yelps. Plaid shorts. Old baldy dude's wearing black, green and yellow plaid shorts. Dean tries not to stare. Could be one reason why the dude's survived for this long. Maybe the fug's a picky eater and wouldn't be caught eating something as ugly as that.
Dean rolls his eyes. "You can follow Witch Hazel here, but don't come cryin' to me when you end up as snack food." Granny's eyes narrow. She growls at Dean and Dean growls right back at her. He watches the way her hands tighten up on those purse straps.
Dean hears John's whiskey smooth voice inside his head a lot these days. The man with the gun always has more credibility. Civilians are like drowning swimmers; watch your ass and take charge of the situation, son, or they will drag you down with them.
These idiots just stand there, frozen in place.
"MOVE YOUR ASSES!" Dean roars, puts everything he's got into his command voice. He motions with his shotgun in the direction these dumbasses should go. "NOW, DAMMIT!"
The voice startles them. First one moves, jerkily, hesitantly at first, then another, in the right direction. Granny's the last one to go, trailing the others, and from the way she glares at him Dean's pretty sure that if looks could kill he'd be pushing up daisies right now.
People are strange, no damn doubt about it. Dean can read the average person like a book, but he really prefers demons. They're comparably simple. They want something: your soul, your ass, your blood, life energy, you name it. That's stuff Dean can wrap his head around, and he certainly doesn't even consider for one minute how screwed up his mindset probably is. Hey, he's a hunter, and this comes with the territory.
Demons he gets. People are friggin' crazy.
Dean backs up. He's not about to leave his six wide open and unprotected. He's pretty sure that they're all headed in the right direction, but he's not about to assume anything. He takes a couple more steps and finally feels comfortable enough to turn his back.
Dean walks right into Granny.
Something hard slams into Dean right between his legs, right in the family jewels.
He dimly realizes it's her foot. The pain is white hot and consumes the whole damn world. His knees buckle, but he still lashes out, takes a pretty damn good swing at her with his left. It's a good solid hit. Her head jerks sideways from the blow, and those black bifocals of hers fly off and land in the grass nearby.
She smiles at him, a weird, tight grin. The bitch doesn't blink. Dean stares at her. Her eyes are all wrong, too big. They really do take up most of her forehead.
That's when Dean realizes that she's fugly. That's when he realizes he's sooo screwed.
"Rude meat," she whispers slyly, and Dean raises the shotgun, at least he tries to, but he can't. She raises her hand and gestures at him. Pain explodes inside Dean's head, fills up his skull with shrieking like claws on chalkboard and almost unbearable pressure. He actually sees just about every color in the rainbow before even that fades, and everything goes blinding white.
000
Sam comes awake, slow and sluggish. Head hurts, a low heavy ache right between his eyes. It's quiet, except for crunching and smacking noises, and he tries not to groan into his pillow.
He doesn't notice yet that he really doesn't have a pillow.
Huh. They're back in their skeevy motel room, the really awful one with the red blue and green plaid wallpaper. Dean took one look and snorted. "Plaid. Dude, what the hell were they thinking? Damn plaid." Must have been something about the pattern or the color combination or some damn thing, because Dean ate like a horse from then on.
"I gotta eat to take my mind off this, Sam," and that was it. The room was take-out Heaven from then on: Chinese food, pancakes and sausage, any and everything. Dean brought doggie bags in from the diners and restaurants they went to. The doggie bags never survived the night.
From the sound of it Dean's sitting on the bed (with his boots on, naturally) gleefully scarfing down a supersized portion of zesty nachos and slurping up a super-sized Coke. The noises continue for a few more seconds, and Sam's nose gradually informs his brain that maybe, just maybe, that first impression was dead wrong.
For one thing, Sam can smell sardines, a food stuff that Dean has never been a fan of.
Never.
For another, there's sulfur in the air.
Sam catches a whiff of perfume, light and floral scented, and his brain makes the connection right away.
Oh God. Sarah.
He jerks awake as his eyes open, and Sarah pushes him back.
Overturned tables and chairs in front of them. The floor all around them is gritty with broken glass and plates, spilled food and drink. It takes Sam just a little longer to put things together. Food court. Sarah. Zoo. California.
"Thought it killed you," Sarah whispers. "It picked you up, threw you into these tables over here."
Sam nods. It all comes back in a rush. He moves forward a little too fast and immediately regrets it.
He turns his head and sees about fifteen people cowering along the same wall he's got his back to. Young, old, black and white, male and female. Families, They hold onto each other, try to duck down, stay hidden behind those overturned tables, and Sam suddenly gets the feeling that hiding behind tables isn't gonna do a damn bit of good against whatever that is making those godawful mouth sounds on the other side of the room.
"Don't apologize." Sam smiles at her, and the lines of tension in her face relax a little. "I'm just glad you're okay. We'll get out of this." He struggles up and her eyes widen a little at how unsteady he is. "Gotta see what this damn thing is up to first."
Sam somehow gets on his hands and knees. He hears crunching sounds now (bone) and he takes a deep breath as he stays low. He peers around the corner of the table and all the saliva in his mouth dries up.
Ugly doesn't even begin to cover this.
The giant penguin thing sits on the far side of the room, right next to those glass double doors. Sam sees grey skin, red eyes, and pinkish grey tentacles instead of flippers, and as Sam watches it opens its maw full of needle-sharp teeth and very daintily drops a squealing pot-bellied pig into its gullet. The way those tentacles move through the air, quick and lethal, Sam highly doubts that he or anyone else would be able to make it out the door past the damn thing.
It sits back against the wall as it chews, slowly, thoughtfully. It idly scratches its belly with several of the longer tentacles.
"Gotta get out of here," Sam mutters to himself. His mind races as he tries to remember where the exits were. The place is pretty well torn up, debris and broken furniture everywhere. When they make their move, they've got to make it damn fast.
Sam knows why the damn thing is taking its time, knows why it didn't just pop him into its mouth like a peanut instead of laying him out cold. He's seen the same kind of behavior every time he and Dean ate out.
This is a buffet. The animals are appetizers.
He and Sarah and the rest of the people in the room are the main course.
000
tbc