Sorry it's taken so long to update. I've been really busy.
Thanks to all who have reviewed. It's always appreciated.
A Different Kind of Hell
Chapter 7
November 12, 2005
Southwestern Utah
"Wish I could say the same, Doc."
Pure hatred surged through Dean as he glared at the man whom he had never expected (nor wanted) to see again.
"You might want to re-think that attitude a bit, Dean. Especially since I just saved your life. Again." Dean flinched as he remembered the last time he had seen the Doc, sending him away from the Facility where he would have no doubt been exterminated by the people who had destroyed the place and (almost) everyone inside. After a brief moment of silence, he recovered enough to growl out a question.
"What the Hell are you doing here?" His gaze flicked over to Cora and Sam. Both of them were frozen in place, staring at the dead man before turning their eyes towards him. Their horror-filled expressions causing a twist of fear in his stomach, worse than he had felt when the gun was aimed at his head. Everything was ruined now, he was sure of it. Cora would never trust him, and his brother was terrified of him. He was going to lose his family again.
The Doc lowered his voice. "We need to talk. And take care of this little problem," he said, indicating the body at Dean's feet.
"I'm not helping you."
"Fine, but we still need to talk. Without witnesses." He shot a pointed look towards Cora and Sam before turning and walking back to the trunk of the sedan. Dean turned toward them, wondering what Doc would say that could makes things any worse. His brother had already heard him called a freak and a monster. How much worse could it get?
"Sam, Cora, I need you to go back inside for awhile. I need to talk to…" he waved his hand in the general direction of the doctor. Sam's expression shifted from terrified to surprised, and then that mulish look Dean had seen so many times before made an appearance. Before Sam could start his tirade, Cora put a hand on Sam's arm in an effort to calm him and looked up at Dean.
"You'll be OK?"
"I--."
"No! No it's not OK!" Sam broke in. "You just…he just…"
"Sammy, please. Please just go inside, I'll explain later. I promise you." Sam's jaw snapped shut in surprise at his brother's plea. "Cora…" She walked up to Dean and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly before letting go and stepping back.
"It's OK, J.D. Do what you need to do. C'mon, Sam." She led his brother back to the office. Sam gave him one last look before disappearing inside, and Dean turned back to the scene in the yard. The Doc had already returned from his trip to the car and he was rolling out a piece of black plastic next to the body. He looked up at Dean for a moment before unceremoniously rolling the dead man onto the plastic, which Dean now realized was a body bag. The Doc arranged the body in the bag before zipping it up and dragging in to the back of the car. Dean followed at a safe distance, feeling nauseous as he witnessed the detached indifference with which the Doc handled the dead man. After heaving the bag into the trunk, he brought out a plastic bottle and walked over to the spot where the man had fallen. He poured the contents over the bloodstain left behind and scraped some dirt over it with his shoe before return to the trunk, tossing the empty bottle inside and slamming the lid.
"There. That little bit of unpleasantness is finished."
"Unpleasantness? What the f--?"
"But it's done. Now, we need to talk. As I said, I am quite happy you made it out, although I am curious as to why you haven't returned to hunting."
"How the Hell did you make it out?"
"I convinced them I was their inside man. I found the culprit, whom they apparently had never met in person before everything went down and dealt with him. I've been leading them astray ever since, but they finally got lucky."
"So you just let all of those people die?"
"I didn't get enough warning to get everyone out in time, I'm sorry to say. It was truly unfortunate. Now, about the hunting..." The man's callous attitude sickened Dean. It took him several moments to respond.
"Sorry, but I've been a little busy," Dean said, his anger readily apparent in his voice.
"You tracked down your brother. Yes, I saw. Made friend, got a job, found your old car and fixed it up; an attempt at having a normal little life. How disappointing."
"What--?"
"Basically you made yourself an easy target. If one member of a delusional homegrown terrorist group can find you, imagine how easy it would be for something that poses a real threat to do so?" Dean could barely contain his fury.
"You…look, you son-of-a-bitch, you told me my brother was dead! Exactly why should I listen to anything you say or do anything you want me to?" The Doc remained unperturbed at his outburst and continued in his normal mild tone.
"Because it's too important. Yes, I told you your family was gone, but that was for your safety, and theirs. Do you have any idea what those people would have done if they knew about your family? They would have been targets. I kept them safe."
"So I'm supposed to thank you? Go to Hell. And nothing is more important to me than my family; not your little crusade, not hunting, not a damn thing. None of it is worth what you put me through."
"Of course it is. The good of many outweighs the good of one. Too many lives are at stake for you to give up what you are meant to be doing."
"Come on, I don't believe in that destiny crap."
"Not destiny: design. You were raised to be a hunter, and I gave you the abilities to be the best."
"Yeah, you buddy there didn't seem to share that opinion. I'm a freak, a monster, right? In the rare chance I come across any other hunters out there, they'll be gunning for me, too."
"You can deal with it. What matters more is you get out there and use what you've been given."
"Why? What's got your panties in such a twist? There's always been evil out there."
"Yes, but it's going to get worse."
"Yeah, says who?"
"There are signs, portents, patterns I've seen and read about."
"About what, exactly? You're not making any damn sense." Dean wanted to break the calm the man seemed to hold with ease, but the Doc's mild expression never changed.
"What do you know about demons?" Dean was caught off guard by the question and it took him a minute to come up with a snide response.
"I've seen The Exorcist quite a few times. Never gets any funnier, though." When the Doc failed to give the intended reaction, he sighed and continued. "Holy water slows 'em down. They can cross iron or salt rings. The only way to get rid of them is exorcism."
"Well, that's mostly right. Demons don't belong on Earth, and it's extremely difficult for them to break out of Hell, at least the lower demons. When more of them start showing up, something terrible is going to happen. There are signs: weather patterns, strange deaths, all of which indicate demonic presence. These are showing up much more frequently. The most recent occurrence was in Palo Alto, ten days ago." Dean felt the blood drain from his face.
"But that's…"
"Yes. So you see, you have a very good reason to get back to work." The Doc reached into his coat and withdrew a leather wallet which he held out to Dean. He took it and looked inside.
"What the--?" There were six sets of IDs and credit cards.
"All of those have a full back up paper trail which can't be traced back to you or me, and you won't have to worry about being reported for fraud. That should keep the law off your tail if nothing else." Dean felt a surge of anger at this man's audacity.
"I don't want any of your help." The Doc sighed.
"Still hard headed, I see. Consider it as restitution, if that helps."
"It doesn't. Nothing could make up for what you did!"
"Probably not, but it will have to do for now. You'll see the advantage in the long run."
"So now what? I don't know much about fighting demons, and something tells me all your little 'enhancements' aren't going to be worth much against them. I don't see the advantage here, Doc."
"For the 'enhancements' you are aware of, there are a few, but as for the rest…"
"Wait, what rest? What did you--?"
"I need to be going now, before someone gets suspicious. You'll figure it out eventually."
With a cryptic smile, the Doc climbed into the sedan and backed in out onto the road, leaving Dean behind in a cloud of dust.
Could this day get any freakin' worse?
Still reeling from the bomb the Doc had dropped on him, Dean made his way back to the office.
Sam watched his brother walk slowly towards the building with his head down and his expression unreadable. He rushed to the door to meet him, hoping somehow that Dean would, like when they were kids, be able to help him make some sense of the weirdness that had happened around them. The now dead man's words still echoed in his mind.
Freak…monster…abomindation…
He could not reconcile those words with the brother he knew, even with the doubt that he had been mulling over since they had been reunited. There had to be some explanation, and he was desperately hoping that he would get one.
When Dean reached the door to the office, he looked up at Sam, barely meeting his eyes.
"Sammy, go get in the car. We need to talk, and I need to get away from here for a little while." Sam nodded silently, searching Dean's expression for some clue, some reassurance, but there was none. He would have to wait for Dean to reveal everything.
Dean turned to Cora. "I'm sorry…"
She gave him a weak smile. "It's not your fault, J.D. Do what you need to do for your brother. I'll…hold down the fort until you get back." Dean nodded and walked to the car, and Sam followed.
After they left, Cora sank down into the recliner and put her face in hands.
Damn it. He doesn't deserve this. Why can't the poor kid catch a break?
The strident ring of the office phone pulled her from her daze and she got up to answer it.
"Cora? It's Frank. Frank Bascombe." Cora felt a wash of relief; something normal to take her mind off what had just happened.
"Hey Frank, how are you? How are Stella and Rog doing?"
"Fine. Listen, Cora, you remember that Iimpala I sold you, about three years ago?"
"Yeah…"
"Do you still have it?"
"No I gave it to my cousin. Why do you ask?"
"Some guy came by here looking for a car like that. I told him about it and he's headed up there to look for it."
"Well he's out of luck. J.D. ain't about to part with it."
"Listen, Cora, that guy's one scary customer. I'm sorry I sent him up there, but I just wasn't thinking. You might want to close up early."
"OK Frank, thanks for the tip. Talk to you later." She hung up the phone, grabbed her keys and headed out to lock the gate. She didn't want any more unpleasant encounters today, that was for sure.
They headed out away from town, towards one of the remote patches of high desert near the base of a mesa. Dean parked the Impala in the shadow of the mesa and sat, silent, apparently trying to decide how to start. Sam cleared his throat.
"Dean--?"
"It's my fault, Sammy. I'm sorry."
"What? What is your fault? That doesn't make sense. The guy said--."
"What I told you before was true. They told me you and Dad were dead, and I…I couldn't deal with it. You were all I had."
"Dean--."
"The only other thing I had was the hunt. And that Doc, he knew that. He knew exactly what it would take to get me to agree. But I did it anyway. It's my fault."
"Agree to what? Dean, I don't understand. Tell me what's going on."
"Doc, he…he said he could help me be a better hunter. I thought he meant, you know, better weapons, stuff like that, but turns out these 'enhancements' he had…were for me."
Sam felt a chill run down his spine. He could barely believe what he had heard.
"For you? What…what did they do to you?" Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"Special drugs to, you know, make my…senses work better, and, uh, other stuff. Something else, uh, gene therapy? And surgery." Sam swallowed hard as he felt his gorge rise.
"But that's…that's not ethical." Dean choked back a laugh.
"No, not hardly. But I don't think that mattered. 'We're from the government and we're here to help you.' Yeah…"
"What? The government…why?"
"Apparently they decided the old weapons were out of style. They needed something a little more human."
"That's…"
"Insane, yeah, I know. But it happened. That Doc, there, he got me into the project so he could do what he wanted and make them think he was doing it for them. Meanwhile, he had other plans for me. Unfortunately, someone else didn't think much of the project and decided to eliminate it. They burned the place down about six months ago. I got out, and the Doc did too, but…" He shuddered. Sam was aghast at what his brother had told him.
"I made it as far as Cora's and I've been here ever since. The rest of the story you know."
"Dean--."
"I'm sorry, Sammy. Everything that happened, and then I just dragged you into this--."
"Hey! This is not your fault! That doctor lied to you and took advantage of your grief."
"I didn't have to agree to it. I just…never mind. Can't go back now, that's for sure."
Sam felt a surge of anger. Not at Dean, but at the man who had ruined his life…and their father, who Sam was sure was also to blame for Dean's predicament. If he hadn't insisted on raising the perfect hunter, the perfect soldier…
Finally, Sam dared to ask about what had transpired back at the garage.
"The doctor who got you into this, that was him there today? And the guy he killed, that was one of the ones who burned down the…lab?" Dean nodded absently, his attention focused away from his brother.
"What did he want? The doctor, I mean."
"He wanted me to go back to hunting. He started spouting off about demons and something big happening, and that I need to get back out there. He also said…"
"What?"
"He's been tracking signs of demonic activity. The last big outbreak was ten days ago. In Palo Alto." Sam felt as though the earth had fallen out from under him.
"You mean…Jess? That was a demon?"
"Yeah. And if these things follow a pattern, then…"
"Mom, too." They sat in uncomfortable silence. Sam's mind raced, trying to take in everything, to draw connections.
"We have to find Dad. We have to tell him, he can help us find this thing. I want it dead. For Mom, for Jess. It needs to stop."
"Yeah. So now what? Any ideas on how to find Dad?"
"I don't know. I don't know if he's still alive, or even still hunting."
"You think Dad would ever stop hunting?"
"I don't…" He paused, realizing that revealing their father's state the last time he had seen him would just upset Dean more. "I guess not. We should go see Pastor Jim. He thinks…well, he'd be happy to see you, and he might give us a lead on Dad."
"I guess that's as good a place to start as any. He could give us more info on demons, too. My knowledge is a little…limited."
"Not something we dealt with a lot, that's for sure. At least it's a start. And Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"No matter what, it's good to have you back." Dean glanced at Sam and gave him a half smile.
"Thanks, Sammy."
When they reached Cora's place, Dean saw there was a large black truck parked just in front of the locked gate, blocking it.
"Aw, damn it," he muttered. Someone waiting for an appointment, probably. Not one of his customers, though. He didn't blame Cora for locking up early after what happened, but he figured she might be still around the office. He pulled up behind the truck and honked the horn to hopefully get Cora's attention. He leaned over the back seat to retrieve his cell phone from his coat pocket when he heard Sam gasp in surprise and open the car door.
"Sam, where are you going? Cora will be here in a minute or so." He looked up to see Sam standing behind the open door, staring ahead at the truck. With a groan, he opened his own door and stepped out. He turned to the truck and froze. A tall, dark haired and bearded man was staring at him. He gasped in recognition just as the man pulled a gun and aimed it at his heart. He struggled to form the word that blazed through his mind, forcing it out as the man's finger tightened on the trigger.
"Dad?"
