Disclaimer: For the Bunyip, I own nothing but its appearance and how it kills :)

CHAPTER THREE

Confrontations… With Guns

Sam stared at her for a moment, waiting for his shivers to dissolve, and brought his hand back up to continue dabbing the blood. 'Where are your parents, Sara?' He tried to sound unfazed from his latest spooking, but it failed.

Sara took her eyes off Sam, looking down at the white linoleum floor, and then back up at him. 'I… I think they're dead.'

'Whoa, you think? Sara, you can't think their dead.'

She softly cleared her throat, and winced from the pain. 'There was this thing… I was just going downstairs for a drink… Oh God, Natalie!' She could no longer look him in the eyes. Heck, she didn't even know what she was feeling anymore. It could be anger, pain, horribly aching sadness, happy that someone cared, or maybe all of those combined.

'Who's Natalie? Is that your mom?'

'No, no. She's my baby sister… She was.'

Sam began to think this was something supernatural. 'Sara, you're safe now; you don't have to be scared. Just tell me everything that happened.'

Sara nodded, looking him in the eyes again. 'I woke up in the middle of the night and went downstairs to get a drink. Someone… something came in through the front door. I heard it. So I look around the corner and I see… it.'

'Is it a creature?'

She nodded again.

'Can you explain it to me?'

'It had leathery, kind of scaly skin… but it was different. Stranger. The sharp teeth-' Sara recalled how they shined in the moonlight. 'And the long fingernails-' The remembrance of the sound of them punching into her ankle gave her goose flesh. Her breath became shaky again, 'I hear a crash. I climb the stairs. My baby sister is… oh God I don't even know. He gutted her, and left her mutilated body there.' She locked glances with Sam. His blue-green eyes were so caring and lovely; Sara wished she were as happy as his eyes made him appear. 'And I turn, to my left. He's eating my parents. The he jumps for me and chases me downstairs. I grab an iron rod and hit him over the head, and kick him. He hurts my ankle.' Sara pointed down towards her ankle with her long index finger.

'So that's how your ankle got hurt?'

'Mhm.' She told him, concurring. 'He dug each fingernail into my skin at the same time. So, I… I… take the iron rod and drive it into his temple. Last thing I know I have all my things packed and I've opened the door. That's when I saw your car.'

'How did you pick the lock?'

'With this,' Sara indicated the bobby pin in her hair.

'Don't you have grandparents or aunts to live with?' He asked. She looked into his eyes once more, his every word was genuine and he really cared. Sara always wanted a big brother like that, or even a little brother, but unfortunately that could never happen now.

Sara shook her head. 'Both my parents were only children. My mother's parents died in a wreck. My father's mother died in a fire – she was a schoolteacher and some kids smoking cigarettes lit the school on fire. His father died of old age.' She laughed nervously, not liking the sound that came out of her mouth. The laugh was phony; she was trying to cover up her loneliness. 'I guess my family's parents have a knack for dying.'

Sam had stopped dabbing sometime during Sara's story, but started up again. His hands were smooth and firm, and as he got closer and closer where the wound was, it hurt worse. She tried to pretend like he wasn't hurting her, but it was very irritated. When Sam reached the lips of the laceration, he dabbed once, and immediately her head was on fire. She hissed, and Sam stopped. 'Sorry, am I hurting you?'

'Uh, it's not your fault,' She gulped, cringing. 'I think there might be rocks in it.'

That was when they heard the rumble of the Impala come closer and closer until it stopped all together. The door of the motel opened, 'Sammy!'

Sam dropped the washcloth, left Sara there in the bathroom, and went out into the main room to see Dean carrying a brown paper bag – that had the food – and a gun from the trunk of the Impala. Sam knew that gun. It shot iron bullets. Dean started heading for the bathroom, but Sam grabbed his arm and stopped him, asking, 'What's the gun for?'

'It's all over the news. There's a family of four living out in the suburbs, three are found mutilated, all that's left is their skin. The fourth member is mysteriously missing with all their clothes gone? Sounds very suspicious to me, Sammy.' He yanked his arm from Sam's grasp and cocked the gun, walking into the bathroom. Sam followed.

Dean pointed the gun fiercely in Sara's face. She retaliated, losing her seat on the edge of the tub, slipping and falling into it. The back of her head smacked the wall, but she seemed unfazed. 'Dean, what are you doing?' Sam tried to pull Dean back from Sara, but he stood his ground. Her eyes had widened, and she was looking up at Sam for help.

'Hold on, Sara, he doesn't know the story yet.'

'So this thing has a name?'

'She's not one of them, Dean. Have you ever heard of a Bunyip changing into a human?'

'What?' Sara asked frantically, looking at Sam and then Dean.

'I'll explain later.' Sam said to Sara, turning to Dean. 'One got into her house and ate her family. This one seemed to eviscerate every one of them. She put an iron rod in its head and got away.'

Dean laughed. 'Nice.'

Sara looked at him funny. 'Is he bipolar?'

Dean shot her a nasty look and kept the gun pointed at her. 'And that explains why they didn't say anything about an unidentified creature.'

'What happened to it?' Sara asked.

'When you kill a Bunyip, you have to kill it with iron. The gun Dean's holding is filled with iron bullets. After the Bunyip's killed, it… dissolves. Even if it bleeds, all that's left behind are the people it ate. At your house, it just looks like a misplaced iron rod.

Dean lowered the gun and got close to his brother, dropping his voice low enough so Sara wouldn't hear. 'So how'd you get her to talk?'

'I didn't hold a gun to her head.' Sam said plainly, walking over to Sara and helping her out of the bathtub. He led Sara to the main room and told her to get on the bed closest to the bathroom. She placed her back against the wall, sitting on the pillow. Sam got on the edge of the bed after wetting the washcloth again and turning on the television. Dean had the remote while Sam began to clean up the gashes on Sara's ankle. Sara watched the television intently as Dean flipped through the channels; he was sitting lazily on the other bed. He stopped on a local new station. A woman was giving them the latest news:

'…the Federal Bureau of Investigation has no comment. Onto breaking news, a local suburb is the gossip of the town when Mary Anne, Ralph, and Natalie Whittaker are found marred in their home. The local police think this is the work of a rabid dog that has stalked this town for some time. Their teenage daughter Sara was nowhere to be found. They think she was kidnapped, and is now presumed dead.'

'Hey, you made headlines!' Dean exclaimed, a Twinkie shoved in his mouth, pointing at the television with the remote and looking over at Sara.

Sam shook his head silently keeping his attention on Sara's ankle. All Sara did was look down at her nightgown, playing with the bloodstained hem. 'Go get her suitcase, she needs clothes.'

Dean rolled his eyes and got off the bed, walking outside to get her suitcase.

'Is he always like that?'

Sam sighed, working on cleaning up her ankle. Dean could definitely be that way, a lot. 'You just have to learn to deal with it.'

An elongated silence fell over the two. The television filled the silence. Sara spoke up, 'Sam?'

'Yeah.'

'What killed my family?'

Sam stopped working on her ankle and looked up at Sara. 'It's called a Bunyip. Its story origin is Australia, and recently it's been terrorizing families around your area. Normally Bunyips prey on animals, women, and children, but recently it's been taking older men as well. Dean and I are thinking we have a new type of species.'

'You said story origin. Is this… folklore?'

Sam sat up. 'Yes, but it's very real. You say you saw the Bunyip?'

Sara nodded.

'Did it have flippers?'

She shook her head.

'Tusks or a tail?'

She made the same gesture.

'Was there hair anywhere on it?'

'No, the skin was like a snake.'

'No feathers or fur?' Sam saw her shake her head. 'Did it have an abnormal head, like a bird or horse head?'

'No, it was round like a human.'

'How about a long neck?'

She thought a moment. 'Yes. And red eyes.'

'Did it make a sound when you got close to it?'

'I didn't get that close to it. The closest was about twenty feet. It always came up to me.'

He nodded. 'Okay. Stay here, I'll be right outside.' Sam stood from the bed and began to walk away, just about to the door until Sara interrupted him.

'Wait!'

He turned around.

'How do you know all this stuff? Why do you guys have strange guns?' Sara paused; she was reluctant to ask the next question, 'Are you guys murderers?'

Sam couldn't answer her questions. Not right now anyway. If she was going to stay here one night he would try to think of another explanation, or no explanation at all – he couldn't have her running off and telling everyone what they do. The police were already chasing the brothers; they didn't need the funny farm doing the same. All he could think of was to turn around and go outside to tell Dean the information he got from Sara.

Sara didn't know what to think at this point. She was just sitting there in the bed, totally perplexed at all that's happened in the past few hours. Just a little while ago she was lying in her bed, fast asleep. Sara would rather be dead than where she was right now. She knew for a fact that she didn't like Dean but Sam was all right. He was a little too clingy, even though his eyes brought her a few seconds of peace. She could do everything just fine on her own, thank you. Even though this wasn't her favorite place right now, it was her only place. Without these weird brothers she had hotels and food temporarily, but after her money was gone, she had dumpsters as her home. Without crazy Dean and clingy Sam, she had scraps as food. Without them, she had nothing. But there was no way in hell she was going to stay with these two forever. Something was going on between the two, something bigger than she could wrap her mind around, and she really didn't want to get in the mix of it.

How had Dean gotten that gun? It looked really expensive, and iron bullets were probably not that cheap. What if they were murderers? Then Sara knew she was in a dilemma. But Sam didn't seem like the murdering type – at all. Sam looked like the type who would throw up a hundred times before murdering anyone. Sara hoped that was true. It didn't matter if she were killed anyway; everyone thought she was dead.

---

As Sam shut the door behind him, guilt piled onto him. Sara was a good person, he should be able to trust her, but from a life of hunting he learned you couldn't always trust a damsel in distress. Then a question hit him, why had Dean taken so long? All he had to do was grab a suitcase out of the trunk and come back inside. As Sam neared the trunk, he saw Dean had opened the blue suitcase and was looking through Sara's money. 'Dean! What are you doing? That's Sara's money!' Sam called to his brother.

Dean obviously hadn't noticed Sam was coming, but he didn't try to hide the fact that he was looking at the money. 'Do you know how much green is here? Over a thousands bucks! We could use this cash Sammy.'

'It's not ours. Put it back.'

Dean looked at his brother pleadingly, Sam returning a hard expression. Dean sighed, giving in, 'Fine!'

'I can't believe you were about to steal money from a teenage girl who just lost her family.'

'Wait, so tell me what happened.' Dean told his brother, stuffing the money back into the suitcase. Sam explained the story to his brother while walking back to the motel room. Dean would nod his head every once in awhile, and once Sam was finished, Dean spoke up, 'Sounds like one of 'em.'

Sam opened the door to the motel, the noises of the television flooding outside. He looked over at the bed Sara had been sitting on when he left, and saw her, back facing them, sleeping.

'She's got the right idea.' Dean said, plopping down on his bed and turning over on his side after placing the suitcase on the table where the TV sat.

Sam laid down beside Sara, a girl he barely knew, and turned the opposite way, closing his eyes.

A/N: I'm sorry this is such a boring chapter. Every story's gotta have one ;) The next one will be more exciting, I promise!