4 - Man of War
The worst part of any hunt was waiting for the shit to start. Well, after almost being killed, and watching your friends get killed. Okay, it was the third or fourth worst thing on a hunt. Bobby knew he should sit down and make a list someday, if only to keep it straight in his own mind.
He was distracting himself and he knew it. It was just too weird between him and John now. His first impulse was to punch him the moment he saw him, but he tamped it down. John was younger than him, and while Bobby was sure he could hold his own - and kick his ass - realistically, John would probably eventually win. And them getting in a physical fight again would just upset the boys.
Besides, wasn't there a positive here? He didn't bring them, therefore they weren't in danger. Success! For once. Assuming he didn't leave them on their own in some run down shed in the middle of nowhere, with a day's worth of food and no money ...
Okay, he was drifting again, and he couldn't allow it. Especially not tonight. Too many things could go wrong.
Of course, considering it was a quarter of one in the morning, and he was walking across a weed choked field, holding a shotgun full of silver buckshot, you'd think he was the thing that went wrong. But he was only the symptom. The disease was up ahead.
For a while there was only the sound of his feet crunching on hay dry weeds, and the distant noise of some kind of hard rock blaring from the house. From this distance, it was just a nearly industrial thump of bass and drums. Eventually he heard a scream that turned his blood cold, but then it dissolved into cackling, drunken hooting, which morphed into a half-assed howl, which made Bobby very angry. These were the types of werewolves who really got off on their "wolfness", didn't they? That's probably why they left so many people and animals behind, with their throats and hearts torn out. He caught a smell that got stronger the closer he got to the house, but he couldn't really identify it, save to say it was a weirdly chemical smell, like burning acetate. What the hell were the wolves doing to the house? They'd have to have real shit for brains to light the house on fire while they were still in it, but he honestly didn't put it past them. There was a strong possibility they'd accidentally kill themselves before the hunters even had a chance.
Bobby was aware of Rosie, who had outpaced him, and was several meters ahead on the far right of his vision, but she wasn't always easy to make out, because she had actually worn all black. She was teased about dressing like a ninja, but she was getting the last laugh, because it was nearly impossible to see her. Of course, wolves would be able to smell her, but Bobby thought, with that chemical stench, that no longer applied. You'd think, with their superior sense of smell, they'd want to go far away from the stink, but apparently not. When the wind changed direction and hit him straight in the face, the smell made his eyes water. Christ, that was terrible. He was wondering if he should make an impromptu mask out of water - well, okay, whiskey - and a bandanna. Probably wouldn't make the air any healthier to breathe, but the whiskey ought to overpower the basic smell. It had kind of a burned hair note to it, and Bobby did wonder if one of the wolves had passed out with a cigarette in his mouth and set himself on fire. Although that begged the question why weren't his friends putting him out?
The hunters were all approaching from different directions, in case the wolves tried to flee, although these didn't seem like the type. But, to be fair, no one seemed the type until they were looking death in the face, and then everyone had the instinct to run.
It probably wasn't the time to experiment, but Bobby had airplane sized booze bottles filled with silver nitrate and colloidal silver with him this time. If he was right, it would burn werewolves like holy water burned a demon. Now admittedly, it wouldn't kill them unless they somehow drank it, but it was nice to have an option, and there was no better way to test it than on some murdering werewolf dickholes.
The house slowly came into view. It was lit up like a Christmas tree on the inside, and he could catch glimpses of movement when someone passed a window, but it was still hard to say how many were in there. There were eight people officially in the pack - six guys, two women - but the parties could vary in popularity. Sometimes they were lucky to get two other people to show up. Bobby was kind of hoping that was the case tonight.
He'd also been hoping the smell would fade, but it didn't. It was so solid a smell, he would have sworn he could reach out and grab a handful. Bobby stepped on something glass, something that snapped easily under foot, but it was a soft sound. He bent over to have a look, but it was just finely shattered glass. It did look to be in a vague vial shape. or maybe a tube. What the hell had this been? He expected a broken beer bottle or something. He looked around, in case it was part of a trap or something, but nope. Just a weird piece of litter in the overgrown grass.
Bobby looked around carefully, trying to spot if there was any more, but the grass was too rangy, and while his eyes had somewhat adjusted to the darkness, it still wasn't that great. Bobby was pretty sure he caught an extra whiff of that chemical smell. What the hell was it?
When he came within thirty feet of the house, he crouched down, and kept watch, looking for any hint of a trap. He only did it for five minutes, because any longer and his knees would give out. It looked clear. There was a party going on inside, and everyone seemed oblivious to the crashers about to come in through their door. He stood, hoping his knees didn't crack too loudly. They didn't.
Given his approach to the house, he figured he'd come in the back, and as it was, it was ideal. The back door was one of those sliding glass ones, and on top of that, it was already open, letting music, laughter, and that chemical smell spill out into the night.
Bobby opened it a bit wider, something which made no audible noise over the din, and stepped inside. It somehow smelled worse, with an added layer of cheap pizza and pot smoke to the miasma.
Bobby couldn't imagine that this place was ever great, but it probably looked better than right now, with broken furniture and holes in the wall, and stains on the carpet that ...
... was that blood?
It was a wet, black puddle, but blood could turn dark after a while. You'd think the wolves would have cleaned up a little after their carnage, if only to keep potential new victims from being tipped off, but apparently not. Maybe they reached that stage of drunkenness where they could only see about two feet in front of their face.
Bobby put his back against the wall, and tried to peek around the corner before entering the next room. He was nearly shocked into a heart attack when he found a man with a leering grin looking right at him. His pupils were blown so wide they made his eyes look solid black. "Oh look," he said. "Dinner's finally arrived."
Well, shit.
Dean wondered if this guy emptying his clip into the woods was his time to strike - autos burned bullets like flash paper, and he'd have to reload in no time - when he heard someone trying to shout over the noise. Finally, the shooting stopped, and he could hear the man, who was still kind of shouting. Maybe proximity to the gun left his ears ringing. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Trying to flush out prey," the other man said.
"And burning all your ammo?" Dean made an attempt to look through the blackberry vines at the other man, but he honestly couldn't see him. He was a vague shape behind the man mountain.
"I gotta ton of ammo."
Well, that was good to know. Fucking sucked, but good to know.
The other man sighed. "Well, you're still being a fucking idiot. Come in, we haven't finished searching the place."
"No need. You know as well as I do -"
"I didn't sign up to kill kids," the other man snapped. Okay, great - not only did they know they were here, they were already doing the mental compartmentalization that would allow them to murder children. There was no depth to which they wouldn't sink.
"Too bad."
"We don't ha-"
"They could recognize us, identify us to others. You know what happens then, right? We're dead. It's them or us."
"They're kids. Dead kids usually means police investigation. That's more heat we can't take."
"You're assuming they'll be found."
Dean felt a chill that went all the way to his bones. The man mountain had already decided he was killing them and getting rid of the evidence. Fantastic.
If Dean was any judge, it sounded like his "friend" was unsettled too. "Dude. There has to be some other way."
"You want out, Clay?"
A long silence followed, in which Dean tried again to get a look at the scene, but Clay was no longer visible even as a partial shape, and man mountain had turned around and was filling the doorway. "I'm not saying that ..."
"Then shut up," man mountain snapped, and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.
He and Sam got to their feet and moved quickly and as quietly as possible deeper into the woods. Not too deep, because getting lost out here wouldn't help them.
The woods were dark, and full of underbrush and low branches that threatened to trip or smack them, but their eyes had more or less adjusted, and they managed to get through. There was the occasional rustle, but Dean told himself it was either the wind or nocturnal animals slinking about. He wasn't going to get paranoid. Yet. Although did it count as paranoid when there actually were strangers trying to kill you?
Again, he focused, adding more knowledge to his arsenal. Clay, whoever he was, was a weak point on the team, but he dare not trust that. If it came to his life or going along with things, he'd go along. Man mountain was a well armed psychopath, and probably leader of the group, which didn't bode well at all. They didn't want witnesses, but why? He couldn't make the crime scene completely disappear, not with all those bullets he sprayed into the woods. So, psychopathic, but not a genius. Maybe that was something he could work with.
And Dean was not a kid - nineteen was adult, more or less. If he thought he could trust them, he'd negotiate his life for Sam's, but he'd be a fool to trust them. They were here only to kill everything sentient. And then what? What was the ultimate goal here? Did Hector and Cecilia piss off some monsters without knowing it? They wouldn't be the first hunters to do so.
They came to a stop near a towering pine that still had nicks in the bark, from when Hector had some steps nailed up so they could climb it. The "stairs" were gone, because they didn't need them anymore. Dean's stomach was still a big knot, and he didn't know if it was ever going away.
"What do we do?" Sam whispered, his voice barely audible even though he was within arm's reach. Even in the dimness, Dean could see he was white as a ghost, and his eyes were huge and slightly hollow. Honestly, he was doing a great job considering. They were well trained, and no strangers to horror. Sometimes you could make post traumatic stress disorder work for you.
"My first thought is we have to create a distraction that will pull them away from the cabin. Then we circle around, grab a car, and get the fuck out of here."
"How does that work?" Sam asked, showing he wasn't completely in shock. "We don't know how many of these things there are. We have no guarantee they won't leave someone behind to guard things."
Dean shrugged. "I can take one, if it comes to that."
"We don't know what they are. You don't know that."
"I do. I can take one down even temporarily, no matter what it is." Dean knew he couldn't be cocky, but Dad had trained him well, and besides, behind the knot in his stomach was a simmering ball of rage. They attacked Hector and Cecilia. He wanted to tear them to shreds with his bare hands.
Sam stared at him a moment, and Dean was actually glad to see a little defiance edge back into his expression. Sure, it was a total pain in the ass, but he might be able to use it. Everything had weapon potential, if you used it correctly. "What's plan B?"
"Still working on it," Dean lied. He did have one, he just wasn't ready to tell him yet.
Because if they couldn't escape? Dean was simply going to have to knuckle down, and figure out some way to kill them all first.