AN: This chapter is…well, I hope it's okay. That's all I have to say about that.
Kathy: I see your comments! They don't seem to show up the same day you post them (because they show the date), but I do see them and appreciate them.
Lena: I have so much to say about the finale and my broken heart that I'll just send it in an email. You should read Supernatural Ends by K Hanna Korossy. It heals some of the pain. I totally forgot your comment about the paperclips when I put the bobby pin thing in there, but I guess we were on a similar page. Also, since I'm easily distracted, I have a kind of fix-it in the works. It doesn't fix the BIG problem, but it eases some of the pain, I think.
Janice: I finally sent you an email. Actually, I sent two, and the second came back for some reason. So if you do not see either, could you write me at imawoomie at att dot net? I've been slow to write to you, but I would love to connect, especially since I've never figured out PMs. And I totally liked Allen getting his due! hehe
scootersmom: I like creepy! I hope you do too!
Baby was the first car to drive up to the cemetery, to park haphazardly with the back wheels still on the road. But it was followed by more cars, and more, and more. Rob got out of the Impala and started walking stiffly across the cemetery.
"Stay where you are, Clayburton," called Dean in a deadly voice. "I will shoot you if you come any closer."
He would, too, witnesses by damned. And there were a lot of witnesses as cars continued to drive up and people climb out of them. Everyone was moving strangely, slowly toward the brothers, most of them leaving car doors hanging open. More than one tripped blindly over headstones.
"Can't…stop," grit out Rob. His face was a rictus of effort or pain. "It…it wants a body."
"Yeah, I know what it wants with bodies. Your deputy fell in there." Dean's gun didn't waver.
"No!" yelled Rob. He halted for a moment, looking like he was struggling. But he seemed more in control of himself than the others. "It wants…to get inside someone. So it can get…out." He lurched forward again and Dean suddenly felt like he was surrounded by zombies. He fired a shot into the ground and most of the people stopped walking.
"Nobody come closer!" he ordered, trying to sort through what the sheriff was saying and decide if he believed it. Sam had said there was something more. Had Agatha been possessed by something? Maybe even after death? He'd never heard of anything that could possess a ghost, but they ran into things they'd never heard of all the time. Dean had noticed the iron around the mausoleum. A ghost couldn't cross iron, but if Sam had burned the body, maybe the other thing needed someone new to possess. And maybe it could cross the iron in a body that was actually alive.
Knowing what it could do, that was a frightening thought.
Dean couldn't take long to figure this out. Sam needed medical attention, and soon. But he also couldn't just drive away and allow the mad skinning…thing…to possess one of these people. He didn't know what it was or how to kill it, and he also couldn't exactly kill two dozen people, including children, to prevent it. Dean fired into the ground again as a few people started walking again.
What the hell do I do now?
"You can't…it's evil…" called Rob, walking again. His hand was on his gun.
"Yeah, no shit! You've been feeding it people!" Dean shook his head. "Don't make me shoot you, man." He wouldn't feel guilty if he had to, but shooting the sheriff in front of half the town was not a great way to stay under the radar.
"Can't…won't…" panted Rob. If he hadn't been a homicidal maniac, Dean might have felt sorry for him. "You need to shoot me." He took a few more steps while Dean tried to sort out his sudden decision to commit suicide by Winchester. Apparently, that was longer than Rob was willing to wait. In one swift move, the sheriff pulled his gun and shot himself in the head. Dean stared in shock, a mere second from shooting the man himself.
"What the hell is happening in this town?" shrieked a new voice. Dean had registered a few more cars pulling up, but hadn't realized Lacey was one of them. At least she'd seen that Rob had offed himself.
"You with the zombie horde?" Dean wanted to know. His attention was divided when Sam twitched and made a soft noise beneath him. Dammit. I need to get him out of here!
"These guys?" Lacey waved at the blank-eyed people all around her. "No! I'm here because nobody is answering dispatch, and a bunch of people just walked away from their jobs and whatever to come here. They've caused car accidents and…just what the hell?" Her eyes were wide but she kept her voice steady, and Dean was mildly impressed.
"Short version. There's something evil in there," he indicated the mausoleum, "that's been doing the skinning, a lot longer than you know. It's stuck in there, and Rob and Allen have been feeding it people. Rob was a lot better at hiding the bodies, apparently. It hurt Sam when Allen made him go in there. It killed Allen when he fell in. Now it's trying to get one of these people to come in so it can possess them and get free." Dean wished for yet another reason that Sam were awake. He did this part much better than Dean did. "Sorry I can't ease you into all of it, but that's the truth."
Lacey's mouth moved soundlessly for a moment. She looked at her neighbors and friends, who were all staring at the mausoleum like it held the secrets of eternity. Her eyes were wide and a little bit panicked.
"I know, you don't believe it, it can't be true, I must be nuts. Now are you going to help me or what?" The stress was taking what little tact Dean had, but he didn't have time to regret it right now. Lacey nodded tightly, still eyeing the blank-eyed, restlessly shuffling crowd. Dean didn't like either option – give her permission to root through their trunk, or leave her to protect Sam. With a grit of his teeth, he said, "Watch him a minute while I get first aid stuff." This whole case was turning into decisions with only bad options. Story of his life.
Lacey nodded again and skirted the crowd to stand between them and Sam. Dean had taken all of three steps before they started moving forward again, but Lacey did just what he'd done and fired into the ground, warning them to stay back. At least they had some control, or at least some sense of preservation, but something warned Dean that it wouldn't last. He dashed through the people, who ignored him completely. He winced to see Ed, Beth, and Beth's boys among them. There were a number of children, actually.
Dean hooked the keys from Baby's ignition. In half a minute, he was back at Sam's side with their duffel of first aid supplies. Lacey glanced down and Dean vaguely appreciated her calm in the face of the whole cluster, but the feeling faded as he loosened the jacket that he'd tied around Sam. The bleeding had slowed, but the cuts were too deep and gaping to heal on their own.
"He's…he – " Lacey started.
"I know. He needs blood. And stitches. And fluids. But we can't leave these people. And we can't let them in there." Dean knew he was growling, even as he poured holy water over the wounds. Sam reared up as it steamed and bubbled, and Dean hardened his heart to pin him down with a hand on the far shoulder. "Easy. Easy, Sammy. Hang on. Gotta get the ghost or whatever nasty out of there." He poured it again, not letting Sam's choked sounds stop him, though he cursed creatively in his head. "Okay, okay, no more of that. Let's get this covered. Then I just need to figure out how to stop the baddie and I'll get you outta here." As much as Dean wanted to, he couldn't wait for Sam's breathing to slow down before he rolled him and put the bandages on, since the bleeding was picking up again. He couldn't pay attention to Sam's soft moan or wet lashes, but he hated himself and their job just a little. Sam's pain was intense enough that he didn't even react when Dean rinsed the scratches on his right wrist. They hissed too, but weren't serious enough to warrant any other treatment.
"You have to get him out of here," insisted Lacey, firing at the ground yet again. "I can – "
"No, you can't." Dean tried not to resent her. She was helping. And he really wished the people around him were actual, mindless zombies, and not innocent humans, so he could just shoot them and take care of his brother. "And hospitals are…not ideal." He cut away Sam's left shirt sleeve – both their suits were lost causes anyway. The realization that this injury was a bullet furrow showed Dean that he could still be angry at a dead man.
"Look, I'll give you the address of a clinic where I know the head doctor. He can order blood from the hospital and it will probably be there before you are. I'll tell him to treat Sam himself and keep it quiet. He'll do it."
"We can't leave," insisted Dean again, instincts warring with each other. "Not until – "
"C-c," stuttered Sam, pawing at Dean's knee.
"Shh, Sammy. Don't try to talk."
Weak and barely awake or not, Sam firmed his jaw in the way that said he was going to do what he was going to do and there was no stopping him. "Con-consecrate." He panted lightly.
Dean frowned a little. "Consecrated rounds? They aren't zombies."
Sam's face pulled into pure little brother annoyance. Well, little brother annoyance and pain. "Ground. Tr-trap, we-weaken. Pree – " he breathed a minute. "Priest."
Dean's mind spun even as he rinsed and bandaged the bullet wound. A family cemetery this old had probably never been consecrated, despite the Christian majority of the settlers. Sometimes his brother was the smartest guy in the room…er, cemetery…even when he was barely conscious. "Lacey," Dean snapped. "Is there a priest or shaman or wise woman or anything in the area that you could call to come right now?"
"Well, Ed Morrow's a retired pastor."
"Seriously? Okay. See if you can, I don't know, wake him up and bring him here."
Lacey tucked away her gun and didn't argue, and Dean was grateful for the help again. He turned to Sam. "Hurt anywhere else?"
Sam pondered that blearily. "No-o?"
Dean sighed. "You're not inspiring confidence." He saw Lacey shaking Ed and blinked a little. But it must have worked, because she was walking him over. The bad news was that the other people were walking too. Beth's older son was the closest now, and Dean thought, oh no, you don't get a kid. He picked the kid up and quickly set him down a few feet farther back, all the farther he was willing to get away from Sam.
"Ed, you with us?" asked Dean sharply when he and Lacey reached the brothers.
"Yes, agent." The man looked more than a little shaken. "I don't even remember coming here. You need, uh, you need the cemetery consecrated?"
"Yes, as fast as you can. Don't get too close to the building. You need holy water?"
"Can't hurt." Ed smiled gamely, and Dean thought perhaps he didn't hate the entire town quite so much. Ed nodded resolutely. "There is real evil in there."
He sprinkled the holy water in front of open mausoleum door and blanched at what he saw inside, but he began to speak.
The reaction was immediate. The entire mausoleum began to tremble, and about half the people standing around began to rush toward the open door. Dean tackled a middle-aged man as gently as possible, grabbed Beth in one hand and her younger boy in the other and dumped them on their backsides. Lacey was in a shoving match with a high schooler and held a little girl in one hand. Dean tackled another man and saw Ed was stiff-arming a thirty-something man. And then it was over except for a high-pitched scream of frustration from the mausoleum. Dean kicked its door shut and dashed back to Sam's side.
Sam's eyes were open, but nobody was home. Everyone else was looking around in confusion or fear. "Go," directed Lacey. "I'll take care of these people."
Dean only hesitate one more second. "That needs to be guarded until I can find a final exorcism or something. O-negative blood."
"I've got it, Dean. Clinic is 226 Cottonwood Drive." She pulled her phone and began to dial even as she put an arm around the girl who'd just been fighting her.
With a deep breath, Dean nodded his thanks and finally, finally turned his entire focus on his brother. "Okay, showoff, let's get outta here. Can you stand?" There was no response, so he grumbled a few completely false complaints and carefully pulled Sam upright. Sam didn't help in the slightest, or even hold his head steady, so Dean didn't bother wait to see if he'd be able to lock his knees. He simply tipped him over one shoulder, careful to keep the pressure away from Sam's bad side as he levered him into a fireman's carry.
"Do you need…?" asked the middle-aged man timidly.
"Just…the car door," Dean grunted. His brother was not light. By the time he'd picked his way across the uneven ground and crumbling headstones, the back door and passenger's front door were both open. Dean headed straight for the front. He needed to monitor Sam. He tucked his brother in and his helper closed the back door. "Can you hold him up until I'm in, then close the door?" Dean asked. He might prefer to take care of Sam himself, but time was of the essence and certain small things could make this a lot easier.
The man nodded and propped Sam up until Dean was in and could lower Sam to lie with his head on Dean's leg. As he closed the door, the still unnamed man whispered, "Thank you."
"Pull around back and honk!" called Lacey from across the cemetery, and Dean thought maybe Dad was wrong about needing a little help sometimes.
He monitored Sam's pulse the entire ten-minute drive to the clinic, finding it thready and too fast. He also talked quietly to Sam, but didn't get even a hint of a response.
The coil in Dean's stomach grew tighter with every mile.
Hang on, Sammy. Hang. On.