Sam glanced into the rearview mirror, his worried gaze falling on his brother for maybe the tenth time since leaving the house. Dean was sitting in the backseat, propping Ellen's head up with his arm, carefully applying pressure to the wound with his hands. "Where to now?"
"Since you two have ruled out hospitals," Jo said softly, "I'm thinking the Roadhouse. We've got all kinds of stuff in the cellar. Guns, knives, first aid kits. It's not that far." She looked over the seat as Sam turned his attention back to the road, her eyes studying Dean. "What was that thing?"
"Best guess? A demon. Maybe the big guy was possessed. That would explain why he didn't die, anyway."
Jo nodded. "And with everything you let out of Hell…"
"It makes sense," Sam agreed. "All right, so we'll go to the Roadhouse, fix this, and then maybe call Bobby. If that thing was a demon, he'll be able to help, maybe tell us if there could be more, and where." He pushed down on the gas pedal, sending the car faster toward its destination, praying that they got there in time.
As it turned out, Jo had been right. The Roadhouse wasn't too far from her home and the group had arrived sooner than they'd thought. The blonde jumped from the car before it had even stopped rolling and dug through her pocket for her keys. She fumbled with them for a moment before finally finding the correct one and unlocking the door to the bar.
She nearly broke it off its hinges as she pushed it open with enough force to rattle the steady new frame. The strong scent of fresh wood hit the group as they crossed the threshold into the newly reconstructed building, running for the stairs that led to the cellar.
Sam and Jo took the steps two at a time, with Dean at their heels, careful not to drop the unconscious woman in his arms. The blonde flipped on the lights and a single, dirty light bulb flickered on, illuminating the room in a soft, hazy glow.
"There's an old couch over there," she said, pointing to a darkened corner of the room, "I'll grab the stuff."
"Get a flashlight," Dean instructed, "can't do this in the dark."
The girl nodded and began digging through some crates that sat near the wall. Dean moved slowly toward the couch, weary of the darkness, of the things that could be hiding there. He had to squint to make it out until a bright light clicked on behind him, bathing the once-darkened corner in an artificial glow.
"Found one," Sam announced as Dean laid Ellen out of the couch and started unbuttoning her shirt, pulling the torn fabric back to get a better look at the wound.
"Not too bad," he reported, looking over his shoulder as Jo walked up with a large first aid kit in her hands, "shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"What about blood loss?" the blonde asked, handing him the kit.
"We kept pressure on it. I don't think she's lost that much." He started digging through the kit. "Hey, bring that light closer."
o0o0o0o0o0o
Dean sighed as he finished packing up the contents of the kit. He turned and looked at Jo and Sam, who had been stranding behind him the whole time, holding flashlights over his shoulders to better illuminate the small area. "Done," he announced, scooting the large white box into a corner and leaning his back up against the couch. "We should call Bobby."
"Weak signal down here," Jo reported, "we'll have to go upstairs."
"Then we go in pairs."
"You're kidding, right?" Sam scoffed, "you want to use the buddy system?"
"You've seen a lot of horror movies, right?" Dean asked.
"Yeah. You drag me to them all the time."
"Well, what always happens to the people who go off alone?"
"We've been over this, Dean. This isn't a movie. It's real life."
"Just answer the question."
Sam sighed. "They always die, all right?"
The older man nodded. "That's right. They do. Now, unless you want someone to die, we're using the buddy system."
Sam opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by a loud banging sound from the building above them. The three hunters turned their heads up to look at the ceiling, their eyes going wide.
"Did you lock the door?" Sam asked, looking back at Jo.
She turned scared eyes on him and he had his answer. He glanced at his brother. "Buddy?"
"Oh, now you'll use the buddy system," Dean said, rolling his eyes as he stood up and brushed himself off.
"Just grab a gun or something and go," Jo hissed, nodding toward a cabinet on the opposite side of the room as footsteps pounded above them.
Sam crossed the cellar and pulled open the cabinet doors to reveal a small armory. "You weren't lying when you said you guys had everything down here, were you?"
Jo smiled and walked up to stand beside him, reaching into the cupboard to arm herself. "Nope."
Sammy nodded and grabbed a gun from the closet, passing a machete to Dean. "Ready?"
"Ready." The older man turned to Jo. "You stay down here and make sure your mom stays safe, all right? No matter what, don't come up."
The girl scowled at him, but did what he said and plopped down in front of the couch, staring up at the cellar door. The brothers shared a quick glance, and then headed up the steps, Sam out front, toward the bar.
The door creaked open and Sam stuck his head out, glancing quickly around the darkened kitchen space that was used more for storage than for cooking. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so he proceeded into the room with Dean watching his back.
The two moved slowly into the bar, careful to completely take in their surroundings as they entered the room. The main entrance to the building stood open, a slight breeze causing the door to bang repeatedly against the siding.
"That must be what we heard," Dean said quietly, "we're getting paranoid."
Sam turned to face his brother and nodded. "Yeah, I…" he trailed off as something moved from the shadows behind his brother. "Dean, watch out!"
The older man ducked down and Sam fired at the tall, white-faced figure that had emerged from the shadows behind him. The man stumbled back a step, and Sam fired again, peppering the tattered coveralls with more bullet holes.
The thing didn't seem too fazed by the attack, and turned its attention to Dean, who had fallen onto the hardwood floor and was clearly hurting because of it. The machete he'd taken from the cellar had fallen from his grasp and lay less than a foot away. He saw the creature coming and struggled to reach it.
His fingers closed loosely around the weapon just as the masked figure attacked, standing over him and stabbing straight down toward his neck with the bloody knife. Dean reacted fast and kicked at the thing's legs, tripping it up and bringing it down toward him.
Sam shouted his brother's name as he watched the creature fall, the tip of its knife glinting menacingly in the light that fell through the windows. Dean was ready, though, and shoved his machete toward the falling monster, pushing the blade through its face with a sickening squelch.
The creature went limp almost instantly, its knife dropping from its slackened grip and falling harmlessly to the floor beside the hunter. Dean pushed the large figure off of himself and to the floor. Breathing a quick sigh of relief, he grabbed the fallen knife.
Sam watched in horror as his brother straddled the monster and began ripping into it with its own weapon of choice. The blade went in and out, in and out, with an inhuman amount of force, splattering blood over them, leaking onto the floor to form a pool of sticky red goo.
"Dean," he said softly, taking a cautious step forward as his brother continued to carve the creature up like a jack-o-lantern. "Dean. It's gone. You got it. It's dead now."
"No," Dean grunted, shoving the knife into the body again, "it's. Not." Each word was punctuated by another stab, another grunt, a slight shake from the figure lying prone on the ground.
"Dean-"
"They. Never. Die."
"What if we burn it?"
"What?" He didn't even stop butchering the corpse to ask the question, didn't even turn, just kept stabbing.
"It can't come back if we burn it."
"Fine," Dean said through gritted teeth as he dug the knife straight into the creature's heart and let it sit, "we'll burn it. But we're not taking chances." He wrenched the knife out again and began sawing through the corpse's neck.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"In the movies, these things are like revenants-"
"This isn't a movie."
"Humor me here, Sam. It can't hurt."
"All right."
"Revenant lore is pretty broad, right? But one thing that they all have in common, the vamps and the zombies and whatever else, is decapitation. If you cut off the head, it can't come back. See where I'm going?"
Sam nodded. "I guess. But we'd have to keep the head away from the body, right?"
"We'll bury the ashes from the head behind the building. Burn the body up front. Sound good?"
"You do that," Sam said, wrinkling his nose as Dean began sawing through the thing's spinal cord, "I'll stay in here and see if I can get a hold of Bobby." He pulled out his cell as Dean continued his bloody work.
Happy Halloween!