Chapter 11: A Trolling We Will Go!
A/N: I'm glad everyone was satisfied with the last chapter. Now that the fun is over though, it's time to get back to a little family angst and trauma. ;-)
00000000000000
Dean packed up the last of the weapons into his duffle bag and zipped it up. He looked up as Sam came out of their room with his bag hanging on his good arm.
"It feels weird to not be packing up everything we own before taking off," Sam said.
"Yeah, it feels even weirder to know that when this hunt is done we're coming back here," Dean added.
"It's kind of nice, though, don't you think, I mean, having a home?" There was almost a hint of begging in Sam's voice as he asked his brother the question.
Dean knew where Sam was going with this. He knew Sam still held to his belief that one day they would all settle down and live a nice suburban life.
"I guess it's good for now. It beats sleeping in the car while we both still have broken bones, but once the casts come off it'll be good to get going again."
"But Dad took a six month lease," Sam said, "and we still don't have money to get you a car."
"Sam, don't do this right now. I know you want to turn me into some fat, suburban, lawn mowing, freak of a husband but I just don't ever see it happening. I'm not going to marry Cassie! I'm not going to have kids! You and I will never be living in houses that are right next door to each other!" Dean didn't mean to sound so angry but his voice continued to rise with each sentence he uttered until he was almost shouting.
"Sam, I accept the fact that when the day comes you are going to go and I will let you because that is what you want, and I want you to be happy, but you are also going to have to accept the fact that I'm not cut out to be normal. This is my life, Sam. Hunting is my life, and for as much as you want to turn your back on it, it's your life too. If you go back to school and have a vision of someone dying, being hurt by something you could stop, are you going to ignore it? Are you going to stand back and just let that person die? Are you?"
"No," Sam whispered.
"Exactly! So even when the big bad demon is dead and you are free of your obligation to avenge Jessica, you are still going to be the person that you are right now! You're still going to be psychic boy. You're still going to be a hunter."
"Dean, I've accepted that I'm not ever going to be normal, but can't we compromise? Can't we find a way to have both? Like now? We have a home, Dad has a job, and in few days we'll be able to get jobs, but we'll still hunt on the weekends."
"It's a nice idea except what do we do when the hunt is to far away to get it done in a weekend?"
"I don't know," Sam admitted.
"Sammy, you have a life, and maybe it isn't the one you wanted, but it's the one you got, and you're going to have to learn to make the best of it. Not everything we do is bad. We save people's lives. We rescue children from monsters. We get to travel and see places."
"Yeah, we should write a guide book on the crappiest motels of America."
Dean chuckled. "Okay, so maybe the accommodations aren't always the best, but we still have each other, and now Dad. At least you aren't alone. You have a family that loves you and is willing to do almost anything for you. Who knows, maybe we can convince Sarah to move out of her stuffy mansion and go one the road with us?"
"I haven't spoken to Sarah in over six weeks."
"So you're keeping count?" Dean asked, cocking his eyebrow.
"Sarah was great. She was smart, beautiful, brave, but let's face it, I'm never going to see her again. I have nothing to offer her."
"That's not true," Dean said.
"Really, tell me oh wise one, what do I have that she could possibly want?"
"You," Dean said. "You have you, and the last I saw that seemed to be enough for her."
Sam looked down at his shoes and thought for a moment. "The only thing I can offer her is fear and pain. She would constantly be worried for every hunt I went on of whether I would come home alive. Then, if I died, or worse, if something I hunted came after her, there would be the pain. I do care about Sarah…a lot…and because of that I'm going to do her the biggest favor I can. I'm going to leave her alone."
"Sammy, has anyone ever told you what a ray of sunshine you are? Really, you should get a job writing greeting cards for Hallmark."
Sam tossed his over night bag at Dean. "Jerk."
Dean easily caught the projectile and smiled. "Bitch."
Before either could comment anymore they heard the loud engine of their father's truck pull in the driveway and then the honk of the horn. They grabbed their bags and headed out.
John had packed his bags the night before and had loaded the truck with his things before going to work that morning.
Sam locked the door behind them and they tossed their stuff in back before climbing in with their Dad. Sam ended up in the middle as Dean sat next to the passenger door.
"You boys get everything?"
"Yes, sir," Dean replied.
"Then let's go. Sammy, which way?"
"Take 15 north until you get to 696. Then go west on 696 to Springwood."
"Okay." John put the truck in drive and headed out.
"Did you find out any more details about this thing?"
"Not really," Sam replied. "Just the six disappearances listed in the news and that they all happened by this bridge. I checked the local newspaper going back and I wasn't able to find any other strange deaths or murders. There's nothing to suggest this is a spirit so far. Again, they all disappeared by the old bridge. The bridge has been there for about sixty years, but, here's the catch, the neighborhood has only been there for about two and half years."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked.
"It's a brand new subdivision," Sam stated. "Three years ago all that land was forest. If a troll had been living under the bridge he would have just been hunting animals and not bothering people. The new housing destroyed his habitat."
"So, instead of eating Bambi and Thumper," Dean supplied, "he's now eating preschool children who wander off too far from their parents."
"That's pretty much what I was thinking," Sam agreed.
"Well, this troll, if it is a troll, has to be destroyed," John said.
"Totally," Dean agreed. He reached out to change the country music station but had his hand smacked by his father.
"Driver chooses the music," John warned.
Sam looked at Dean and gave him an evil grin. "Shotgun shuts his cakehole."
Dean's response was to elbow Sam in the side.
"Ow," Sam complained.
"Dean, I expect you to act your age," John warned.
Dean just sighed and slumped down in his chair. It was going to be a long two hour drive!
0000000000000
John drove them through the McDonalds drive-thru and ordered a bunch of burgers and items from the dollar menu. He handed the hot bag over to Sam and then drove them across the street to the small motel there.
"Stay here," he said as he got out of the truck and went to get their room.
Dean grabbed the bag from Sam and dug around for some fries.
"I hate country music," Dean grumbled.
"Now you know how I feel," Sam replied.
"Hey, my music is better than that shit!"
"Only marginally," Sam told him before grabbing the bag back and fishing out a few fries for himself.
John climbed back in the truck and tossed Dean the room key. He started the engine and drove around back and park by their door, number 16. From the looks of it they were the only ones on this side.
Everyone climbed out and grabbed their stuff. Dean unlocked the door and led them into a motel room that was remarkably like many motels they had stayed in before.
Dean set his things on the bed closest to the door like he always did.
"No, that bed's mine," John said. "You and Sam take that one."
It suddenly dawned on the boys that they would be sharing a bed. Both felt a little weird about that. It wasn't like they hadn't shared a bed before. There had been several occasions when the motel only had a single room left and they were forced to make due, but somehow with their father there it seemed different. It made them feel like children again. Dean also felt a little off because he always had the bed next to the door and now Dad was claiming his territory.
Dean picked up his bag and set it on the bed. Sam put his next to Dean's.
"This is my side," Dean claimed. "You sleep on that side."
John tore into a burger and watched as Dean put Sammy closest to the wall and farthest from the door. Sam didn't complain, though. By now Sam was used to Dean's over protectiveness and had given up grumbling about it a long time ago.
"Okay, so I think we should take a drive out to this bridge," Dean said and clapped his hands together in anticipation of a little action.
"Shouldn't we wait till morning," Sam suggested. "Trolls are nocturnal. Tomorrow we can scope out the area, find its nest, and then go back at dusk and kill the thing."
"Sam, you worry too much," Dean said. "It's just a troll. There's a reason why they go after small kids instead of adults."
"Actually a troll will eat anything they can get their hands on," John pointed out. "Don't think that just because you're not a child it won't try to eat you. They're also not completely stupid. They're good hunters. Trolls can live to be hundreds of years old and go most of their life undetected."
"Okay, but we can still go and check it out tonight," Dean said. "Troll's are solitary critters. So it's just one troll and three of us."
John looked at the clock. It was only 7:18. Now that it was mid-spring the sun was out longer. "We still have another hour of daylight," he finally said. "Let's go check it out, but we're not going to try and attack it tonight until we have a little more info on what's out there. Remember, it might not be a troll. We've just been assuming all this time."
Sam and Dean both pulled out their handguns and tucked them into their belts. Dean pulled out his machete as did John. Shotguns were loaded with real shells instead of rock salt. It took several bullets to bring down a troll since their skin was pretty thick, and then you needed to get the chest cavity to really kill it, but decapitation was fast and effective.
The drive to the bridge only took about fifteen minutes down some back roads. Everyone was happy to see that there weren't any houses actually on the river or near the bridge itself so they wouldn't have to worry about trespassing and upsetting any of the residents.
The houses were actually set back about two hundred feet from the area but it was easy to see from the trashcans and occasional piece of litter that the place was used a lot by the neighbors for picnicking and playing.
John parked just before the covered bridge's entrance. Sam climbed out of the truck and looked inside the dark cavern created by bridge. He knew most people were fond of covered bridges but he always just found them to be ominous looking. The dark shadows they created allowed for too many things to hide and wait. He heard his dad and Dean talking and planning but he start walked into the bridge and tried to see if anything was in there. His foot steps sounded hollow on the wooden planks beneath his feet. He flinched when one of the boards made a loud creak. He startled again when he heard something scrambling underneath the bridge. Something was literally hanging onto the floorboards just underneath his feet.
"There's something here!" Sam called. He looked up and saw both Dean and Dad running towards him carrying their shotguns and machetes.
"What did you see?" John asked as he reached Sam. His eyes were quickly scanning the inside of the bridge.
"I heard it under the bridge," Sam said softly. "It's hanging on underneath."
"You boys go under from the left side, I'll approach from the right," John said.
Without another word spoken the three took positions, John on the right with his gun raised, Dean on the left with Sam watching his back. Carefully they tramped down the deep embankment. Sometimes they had to put their arm out and touch the ground to keep their footing. It was about a ten foot drop to the damp ground below.
The stream really wasn't a stream but a small river. Sam guessed it was probably about forty feet across. The water seemed to be barely flowing and there wasn't a ripple in sight. The water mirrored a perfect reflection of the long shadows the trees cast and of the orange and pink evening sky.
Once they reached the opening under the bridge they were even more alert than before. They all kept their eyes trained on the floor of the bridge which was now over their heads. Every beam and rafter was a potential hiding place. In the next second three flashlight beams clicked on and they made diligent work of searching every possible nook and cranny big enough to hold a river troll.
After ten minutes of searching the underside of the bridge, the ground below it, and the support beams that held the bridge aloft they realized the troll was gone.
"It must have gone to the other side of the river," Dean said.
"It would have been easy enough for it to simply scale across the bridge or even swim across," Sam agreed.
"Sammy, are you sure you heard it?" John asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I heard its claws as it dug into the boards to hang on." Sam raised his flashlight again and began searched once more. He walked around and then stopped when he found what he was looking for.
"There," Sam pointed. "You can see the claw marks in the wood and over there too. It's definitely a troll."
"Well, at least we know what we're dealing with," John said. "There's only about ten minutes of light left. Let's take a minute to search the area and see if we can find anything before we leave for the night."
The three broke up. John started walking east along the bank of the river and Dean went west. Each shone their flashlights along the ground to see if they could find the trolls burrow. Sam stayed under the bridge and continued to search for clues. He walked closer to the water's edge. He sighed when the ground became muddier and his foot sunk in all the way to his ankle.
"Shit," he grumbled and pulled his foot out of its muddy hole. He shook his foot trying to sling some of the mud off. It happened by accident that he saw his flashlight reflect off something. He didn't even know what it had been, just that for a split second the light bounced off something that wasn't black mud.
"Hey," he called out to his family. He took several tentative steps and gave up trying to keep clean when he realized he was going to have to traipse through the mud to find out what his light had hit.
Dean had just turn and started heading back to the bridge. He watched as Sam's beam of light wandered closer to the water. He sped up a bit when he heard Sam's soft call of 'Hey.'
Sam looked back and saw that Dean was coming. He looked to his father but apparently Dad hadn't heard him since he was still walking away from them.
"What did you find?" Dean asked when he got close enough to not have to shout.
"I'm not sure," Sam replied. "You should stay back though. It's really muddy here and you'll ruin your cast."
Dean scanned the ground and saw Sam was right. "Just be careful," Dean ordered. He raised his gun to cover Sam's back should something jump out.
Sam plopped through the muck and mire and finally he saw something again with his light. It was right next to the water's edge. He approached slowly and gasped softly when he saw what looked to be a chunk of blond hair lying on the ground. He bent down to pick it up. His fingers brushed the yellow hair and he let out a sigh of relief when he realized it was just a doll's head. He was about to stand up when he heard a soft splash in the water. He froze and looked out to the river.
Suddenly a noose was jerked up from under a thin layer of mud where it had been buried and caught Sam's foot in it. The rope was then jerked and Sam flew backwards landing on his back with a soft thump.
"Sam!" Dean called. No sooner had Dean taken the first step towards his brother he watched as Sam was pulled fast as lightning across the slick mud and then into the river.
"SAM!" Dean screamed and took off after Sam. He slipped several times on the mud but managed to stay upright. He looked out into the water and there, about twenty feet out he could see Sam thrashing in the water. Without a second thought to his own safety he charged out into the water. He was quite surprised when one second the water was only at his thighs and then the next second it was over his head as he reached a major drop off. Dean struggled to the surface only to realize too late that the cast on his leg was too heavy and he was unable to swim.