AN: I really tried to do funny, but ended up settling for absurd. lol

Tags to season 13, episode 16, Scoobynatural. Sorry in advance for the sheer nuttiness!

CHAPTER 21: Accepting the Weird

Why did the weird stuff always happen to him? Hit in the balls on a pretend Japanese game show? Sure. Imaginary friend turns out to be real and needs help to find a murderer? Why not? Attacked by killer clowns? Uh-huh. Turned into a car? You betcha. Captured by rogue FBI agent who wants to sell his body parts on monster E-bay? Abso-freaking-lutely. Magically given the clap by bitchy he-witch. Oh, yeah.

So he really shouldn't be all that surprised that he was hiding in a zoo trying to avoid green chimpanzees and some giant, angry goats.

There was a bleat that sounded like a semi horn and something smashed into the side of the maintenance shed Sam was hiding in, causing the wall to buckle alarmingly. Really angry goats.

Forty hours earlier

"Dude, that's gross. I was eating." Dean pushed the laptop screen back to face Sam, but he took another handful of fries.

"Nothing ruins your appetite. Besides, you tried to tell me that ants couldn't eat a whole person," reasoned Sam, unrepentant. "And that's only one of the three weird animal attacks that have happened in or around River Bend, Idaho in the last two weeks. The town only has like 5,000 people, so it's not like there's enough people for big coincidences."

"Fine. But eat while you tell me about it." They weren't exactly kids any more, but it seemed Sam would never learn to eat enough. Dean had been pushing Sam to eat since…forever. Sam absently ate a strawberry from his own plate.

"Okay, so that guy was literally eaten by ants, but the authorities are stumped because the ants were ordinary little house ants – they're just scavengers. And their bites were much stronger than they should be, like ridiculously strong, bullet ant strong."

"That's some Indiana Jones shit," agreed Dean, shuddering a little as he recalled the picture of the body – not much more than some fleshy bones. "So, is this like the subdivision built on cursed burial grounds again?"

"I dunno." Sam absently ate a piece of cantaloupe, knowing Dean was serious about him eating. "The other death was from, um, chickens, not bugs."

"Death by chicken attack?" Now Dean was intrigued. "How do chickens kill someone?"

Sam turned the laptop around again. The body in the picture was ripped to shreds. "Harvey Amity was feeding his chickens like normal. Except the chickens in question suddenly weighed 20 lbs and had hugely overgrown claws and spikes on their feet." He flipped to another picture, this one of a dead monster-sized chicken.

"Holy crap. Yeah, I'd say this is our type of case." He swallowed his bite of burger. "Wait, didn't you say there were three attacks?"

"Yeah, last lady survived and is in the hospital. Her pet cat tried to, uh, eat her. She claimed it went from normal size to the size of a bobcat overnight."

"All right, let's head to Idaho. After you eat something more than rabbit food."

Sam smiled fondly. "Okay."

Present

The maintenance shed collapsed with a resounding crash, but Sam had already dashed out of the back door. Two of the goats from the petting zoo continued head-butting the wreckage, but the third was smarter and charged at Sam. This wouldn't have been a big deal, but these one-time kid goats were now the size of ponies, and a kick from one of those hooves had already probably broken one of Sam's ribs. He had no interest in taking a hit from the big, curved horns or being trampled to death, or being bitten. Again.

The super goat was a lot faster than he was, and there was nowhere close enough to hide. Swearing at the shitstorm that was his life right now, Sam reluctantly jumped a fence to fall into a water-filled enclosure maybe 12 feet below him. With his luck, it would house alligators.

There was just enough water to cushion the fall, and Sam struck the mud at the bottom of the pool, but not hard. He stood and found his head and shoulders came out of the water. It was a struggle to walk out because the mud was so thick and deep, but he had to keep moving.

As he had that thought, the goat behind him screamed. Literally screamed like a human. Sam looked up in horror to see the chimps he'd originally been hiding from swarm the animal and start to tear it apart. They weren't large, but they were smart, numerous, and agile, and they seemed to want to murder everything they could find. And why the hell were they green?

They'd find a way down to him soon enough. Sam had to move. Even as he struggled through the mud, Sam pulled his phone from his pocket to try Dean again; he wasn't sure his brother could make much sense of his earlier, hasty voicemail. In his defense, the attack goats had really startled him. "Aw, shit." The phone was waterlogged and about as helpful to him right now as a brick. No, actually, a brick would be a lot more useful because he could use it to bash in some mutant heads.

He finally got out of the water and froze as something he hadn't noticed before moved in the mud in front of him. It was huge. It took Sam's eyes a second to work it out in the dark – it was a turtle the size of a Mini Cooper. Fortunately, unlike everything else in the freaky zoo, it didn't seem to want to eat him. Nonetheless, he made sure to walk around the back, as far away from the massive head as possible. It simply watched laconically. "You may want to hide in your shell, Buddy," said Sam aloud. The chimps had hesitated at the water, but were now working their way around.

Sam saw a building labeled Aquarium ahead, and ran that way. Well past worrying about noise, he shot the lock to let himself in. Glancing over his shoulder, he was surprised but pleased to see his turtle friend snap its neck out and grab a green ape out of the air. At least something was on his side. A lot more of the chimps were flowing past the colossus, though, so Sam ducked through the door. Damned if he was going to stand for death by chimp.

Sixteen hours earlier

"So, it's not that the victims aren't connected, it's that their connected too many ways?"

"Yeah, it's a tiny town." Sam frowned. They were en route to Idaho, but he was still gathering information. "The first two vics are second cousins. All three of them went to the only high school in town, though none at the same time. They all have acquaintances in common, but all are pretty clean. The guy who was eaten by ants had a DUI, but that was 20 years ago. I dunno what's the deal."

"And we're thinking witch or curse, right?" Dean tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. "What about the town?"

"The only Native Americans that were ever in their area were nomadic. There weren't any significant altercations when white settlers came. No obvious smoking guns there. The only real news in this town in the last year, before the murders, is that some retired actor who grew up here is moving back and building this huge estate." Sam whistled low. "And I do mean huge. There's some controversy because he's bringing in all kinds of kooky stuff. A statue from Maui. Some petrified trees from Germany. A calliope that used to be in a famous church in Massachusetts. Some of this stuff should be in museums, but he must have connections."

"What's he doing with all of it?"

"Filling 60 acres of property. Among other things, the dude is building a preserve for his peacocks if you an believe it."

"Peacocks."

"Yup."

Present

So, this was actually how he was going to die. The goats had now been eaten by the chimps, probably, so no death by angry goats. That was good, because that would sound really stupid in an obituary. Of course, it now seemed like the green chimps wouldn't get him, or even the handsy octopus from one exhibit over. Nope, death by overly friendly penguins. He hoped Dean didn't laugh too much over his body.

Eight hours earlier

"Thank you for your time, ma'am," said Dean, giving the octogenarian a mega-watt smile that had her blushing. As he and Sam turned away, he adjusted his tie reflexively. They'd interviewed everyone involved now. "So, first two attacks were within a short distance of this new estate that's still being built. I'm thinking that's ground zero. You?"

"Yeah, I agree. The third attack, though, was across town, here," he pointed to a map on his phone. "There's a few houses and…uh…a zoo."

Dean pulled the tie completely off. "Why does a town this size have a zoo anyway?"

"Well, it's named for the guy who's building his palace or whatever. Looks like he's been giving money to his hometown for a long time." Sam scowled as he climbed in Baby's passenger seat. "I guess we check out the construction around the estate tonight. I just wish we knew what we were up against." He blew out his breath. "And I think one of us should check out the zoo. I can to that."

He would come to regret that decision.

Present

Every creature in the damn aquarium had tried to grab Sam as he looked for a hiding place, but the coup de grace was after he got into the staff only area. The lights and his flashlight had gone out at the same time, and something crashed into Sam's back. He'd fallen over a short wall or railing of some kind to land on cold, wet cement far enough below that the impact knocked the breath out of him.

Before he could regain his feet something warm, soft and heavy climbed onto his back. It made a cooing noise. Sam twisted to shove it off, but two more heavy weights landed on his legs. Then one on his head, nearly suffocating him. He heaved the one off his head and noticed the lights were on again. And he was being…buried in penguins. Oh, they were much bigger and fluffier than any penguins he'd ever seen, and their coos and their soft eyes would have been adorable if they hadn't been piling on him like they were reenacting The Crucible. And there was the small matter that their beaks were lines with teeth. Luckily, (maybe), they seemed to really, really like Sam.

He struggled and squirmed and tried to yell to scare them, but he could hardly get enough breath to even do that. Then he saw the strangest sight of the night – and that was really saying something. When he'd arrived at the little zoo, he'd seen a small shadow darting around and had chased after it, which was when the animals had all begun to transform and go crazy. (He might never forget the sight of the sloth the size of a minivan.)

The creature that jigged into view as Sam pushed another curious penguin off his head matched the shadow that he'd seen, he was sure of it. "Get away!" He ground out as the persistent bird came back for another pass. He could hardly breathe now; if a fifty pound penguin sat on his head or trapped his only free arm, he was screwed.

The new…thing looked like a small man drawn by a toddler. Its proportions were wrong. Its head was too big for its size, legs too short, and arms too long. And its face looked like it was carved from wood, with squashed features and a much too wide nose. "Oh, ho ho!" it cried. "We have trapped you! Not the dangerous creatures, but the softest of them all!" It chortled.

"Who…you?" gasped Sam. He was trying to work his phone out of his pocket. He knew it was wet, but it had had a little time. If he could just get in turned on, he could call Dean.

"I worked for the erlking. I made the animals perform for his revels!" The creature giggled again, an insane sound. It huffed. "But I wanted to do more. I found I can make them go back, go back to their older, wilder selves." It giggled again, and danced across Sam's limited view. "So glorious!"

Yes! The phone screen lit up! Score one for Android. "How…get…here?" Sam keyed in the shortcut to call Dean by feel. He couldn't get enough breath, and things were starting to get a little gray. Where had he heard of the erlking? Wasn't that a Brothers Grimm thing. That's right. It was some kind of fairy.

"The erlking was displeased." The thing's features twisted into what was probably supposed to be a frown, but it was still singing its words. I'm talking to Rumplestiltskin, Sam thought. The phone crackled, but started to ring. "He bound me to a tree and the tree froze in time."

Sam's brain was working more slowly than normal. Frozen tree? A happily cooing super-sized penguin plunked down on his left shoulder and breath he couldn't afford to lose whooshed out. "Sam?" It wasn't very clear, but it was definitely Dean. That's right, phone. Oxygen deprivation wasn't his friend. Just penguins were on him?

"B-break the tree," wheezed Sam.

"What? Sammy, are you okay?"

"P-petrified tree." Sam's voice was a whisper, but that's all he could get out. The phone went dead. Damn it. As Sam's vision tunneled, he heard the creature's voice switch from singing to screaming and he figured that he'd been right. The erlking had bound this…whatever….to a tree that had then become petrified. It had been freed when the tree was transferred to the U.S. Luckily, his long shot worked and Dean had understood him and destroying the tree had killed it. That was a lot of what-ifs, but it had worked out. Too bad he still had a pile of very heavy penguins squashing the life out of him.

Then Sam had one more idea. Sliding his wrist sideways, he sent the phone skittering across the fake ice and splashing into the water. The coos grew more excited and the penguins promptly climbed off Sam to chase after it, thinking it was feeding time. Sam's whole body protested, but he made it to his feet and out of the enclosure in record time. He laid there and caught his breath for a long while. Eventually, he would get up and find Dean and take some of his ammo, then the two of them would shoot a whole bunch of evil chimps and a few other de-evolved animals. (Probably not the turtle though. That thing was pretty cool.)

Not long after, they would blow town, not having any way of explaining or cleaning up the carnage. They'd be two states over before discovering that two had a cracked rib and a concussion to go with the goat bite, but it would all turn out okay.

"We never did learn what the creature was called, though," Sam told Cas as he and Dean enjoyed beers in the bunker with their friend. "I just hope the rest of the trees of the petrified forest are less…dangerous."

"And that's why you weren't more worried to find yourselves trapped inside a cartoon?" the angel asked, looking a bit confused. "Because you were nearly suffocated by penguins?"

"No, because weird shit is normal for us," explained Dean, who had up until this point left Sam to tell the story, only interjecting snarky comments and laughter. "Meeting Scooby and the gang? Just another day. An awesome day, though."

"I think I understand. But…why were the chimpanzees green?"

In perfect sync, Sam and Dean shrugged and responded, "who the hell knows?"