Sounds Like Shadows
Summary: Hell hath no fury like a (dead) woman scorned… And Sam and Dean just got in her way.
Goodness… You guys are too generous! Thanks so much for the kind reviews.
Chapter Two
Faced with Dean's heroics, Sam did the only thing he could. He completely ignored him. Forgetting the door, Sam snatched the handgun out of the duffel bag and bolted toward his brother.
"Give me your hand!"
Dean held out an arm and Sam grabbed it, unceremoniously jerking him back toward the barn. Dean gave an agonized cry as the thing that had hold of him continued pulling in the opposite direction. It looked like the claws or whatever the thing had were stabbing into Dean's thigh.
The tug of war continued and Sam put all of his strength into it, refusing to let the thing drag his brother into the trees. As he continued to pull, Sam saw four long gashes appear running down the back of one thigh, already starting to bleed onto Dean's jeans.
Sam aimed the gun in the general direction of where he thought their attacker was and fired. He immediately felt it release Dean, allowing him to drag his brother the last few feet into the barn. Knowing their lives depended on it, Sam mercilessly threw Dean out of the way before going back to slam the door closed, placing himself against it to hold it shut.
Only a second later, it felt like a battering ram slammed into the door. Sam grunted under the weight of it, ignoring his injured shoulders scraping against the rough wood.
"Dean," Sam shouted, "I need some help here!"
Dean groaned, rolling over where he was still lying on the ground. "What?"
"Something to hold this closed," Sam insisted, "and see if there are any other ways in. Maybe it's just me, but I'm really not in the mood to have my face clawed off."
Dean struggled to his feet and Sam couldn't help noticing blood already sliding down Dean's leg and over his shoes onto the ground. He was limping badly and Sam could also see the tracks stretching across his shoulders that had to match the claw marks across his own.
The door behind him shuddered beneath the weight of another blow. Sam braced his feet fighting to keep the entrance closed, knowing it was only a matter of time before the wood itself gave way.
Sam looked around the barn, trying to find something that might help. It appeared to be well kept, though it was not a large structure. The light was coming from an oversized lantern sitting several feet away from him on a workbench. There was a large pile of loose hay to one side and bales of hay stacked beside it. Stalls ran along the wall on the other side though they appeared empty.
Dean came back into sight, appearing around the tall stack of baled hay. "The door on the other side is padlocked, but I don't know how well it will hold," Dean said, breathing hard and leaning over with his hands braced against his knees. He straightened though and began dragging bales of hay to barricade the door.
It was a little awkward, but Sam managed to hold the door closed while Dean piled two bales against it. Then they hurriedly stacked two more on top of them. The door continued to shudder then the attack abruptly stopped.
"You sure the only other way in is padlocked?" Sam asked.
"Yeah," Dean wheezed, once again leaning over with his hands on his knees. "Is there enough salt in the duffel bag to do the doors?"
"You think it'll help?" Sam frowned.
"We don't know what it is yet," Dean answered tiredly, "but it can't hurt."
Dean limped toward the duffel bag that had been thrown to one side of the door and began rummaging through, finally coming up with a large canister of salt. Sam bolted toward him when Dean swayed, leaning heavily against the barn wall to keep himself upright. Sam caught his arm and held him steady.
"S'ok. Just stood up too fast," Dean stated, brushing his hand away.
"Sit down," Sam said anxiously. "I'll take care of it." He dragged another bale of hay over and set it against one of the stall doors to make a bench. He waited for Dean to sit and then made quick work of salting the two entrances.
Walking back he watched as Dean shrugged out of his denim jacket, giving it a disgusted look. "It's a good thing I wasn't wearing my leather coat. I'd have been pissed."
"It tried to tear your leg off, man. I'm not really worried about your fashion needs."
"Dude, do you know how long it took me to break that jacket in?" Dean turned appalled eyes to him. "That thing was almost permanently Dad-shaped. It took months, years even, for it to achieve the perfect state of comfort."
"I know," Sam said, holding up a hand to halt the brewing tirade. "Your senior year you spent more time on it than you did on the car. If that doesn't say something I don't know what does."
Dean, however, was hardly listening. He was ripping his already shredded jacket, making a strip of cloth to go around his leg to put pressure on the deeper wounds.
"Speaking of which… This thing is ticking me off. It tries to skin us. Fine. It stabs me and tries to drag me off to who knows where. Fine. But that thing touched my car! Did you see the dent in the trunk?"
"Yeah," Sam nodded, trying not to smile. "I think it's right up there with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor."
Dean savagely tied the makeshift bandage around his leg, hissing at the sudden pain, and Sam's urge to laugh faded. His comparison might have actually been a little too close to true. He knew what the car meant to Dean. It was his tie to their dad. It was freedom to go anywhere he wanted to go, but it was also family and… home, all wrapped up into one sleek, black package.
Dean had never really had much that belonged to him. If it couldn't fit in the trunk, you didn't get to keep it. Sam had made a home for himself with Jess. It was gone now, but he had that memory. Dean had the car. It was his, his traveling home. To damage the car was to attack his brother. It was his fortress of solitude and it was to remain inviolate.
"You never did appreciate that car enough," Dean observed. "It's how I knew you were going to go bad."
"I'm sorry?"
"Dude, you were looking at Volvos when you were fifteen. Anyone who would pick a Volvo over a classic muscle car… That's where evil lives."
"Can we focus here, please," Sam raised an eyebrow. "What was that thing? Wendigo?"
"Don't think so. You saw the way it moved through the car. They're fast, but that was something flying through. More like a ghost."
"It had claws though."
"I'm aware of that," Dean responded dryly. "But it knocked out the car. Ghost or poltergeist, I'm thinking."
"So why didn't it just come in after us?"
Dean frowned. "Dunno."
"So we wait for daylight and then head back to the car?"
"Sounds like a plan."
"What are we supposed to do until then?" Sam demanded.
"Take a nap?" his brother suggested.
"You seriously think you can sleep?" Silly question, Sam thought. Dean could sleep through rabid badgers attacking as long as it was outside a locked and salted hotel room door. If they got through the door, however, he'd wake up and shoot the little suckers before they got within ten feet of him. "Fine," he sighed. "You sleep. I'll watch."
Dean gave an inelegant snort. "What are you complaining about? You'd be awake anyway."
Sam watched Dean work to stand, using the stall door behind him. He wasn't using his injured leg at all and he was carefully protecting the arm that had been caught when the trunk slammed shut. Dean hobbled toward the huge pile of loose hay and dropped into it, making a nest for himself.
"You're supposed to be keeping watch, not watching me," Dean sighed. "Knock it off. Makes me nervous."
Sam realized he had been staring and gave a short laugh. "Sorry, Sleeping Beauty."
Dean closed his eyes and they both fell silent. Almost immediately, they heard a new sound. Sam looked around him and Dean sat up in the hay. "What is that?"
"Sounds like… you know that sound rope makes when it's being stretched?" Dean said, also scanning the barn.
"Rope creaking… like on an old swing," Sam said nodding.
Dean's eyes met Sam's and he knew they were thinking the same thing. Their eyes traveled up to the huge beams running the length of the barn, then farther up into the rafters.
The dead man was hanging, the noose tight around his neck, swaying as if in a gentle breeze.
His eyes opened and he looked straight at Sam. "Cut me down?"
More tomorrow... I'm hard at work on it...