Tastes Like Trophies
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Chapter Five
Dean swore as the door clicked closed behind him. "I am going to rip that guy's head off myself when I get my hands on him."
They both stood silently for several seconds listening. They could hear the insects chirping, but nothing else.
"We've got to get to the car," Dean stated the obvious, vowing for the hundredth time never ever to leave the car again unarmed. Somehow he always really needed to shoot something when he found himself unarmed.
Sam hurried off in the direction of the parking lot and Dean followed as quickly as his injured leg would allow. He was beginning to have real issues with tigers. They were going to give him a permanent limp if he wasn't careful.
He heard a faint noise behind him, almost like… chuckling. Then the same sound repeated to his left, them again to his right, the same snuffled chuckling.
Crap.
"Faster, Sam. We've got hyenas on our tail!" Dean shouted.
Sam put on an answering burst of speed and ran ahead of him into the parking lot, illuminated by the security light.
"Keys!" Dean yelled, throwing them to his brother who turned and caught them one handed, still at a run.
By the time Dean was within a few feet of the car, Sam had the trunk open and threw his sawed-off shotgun, Marigold, into his waiting hands. As always, Marigold was a sudden reassuring and comforting weight. Dean spun, leaning back into the car and fired just as the nearest hyena launched itself toward him. And it was definitely him they were after. He was wounded and bleeding, the weaker of their two prey.
His brother was too tall anyway, Dean mentally muttered. They probably thought he was a tree.
"Down!" Sam fired to Dean's far side where a hyena had been sneaking up. As soon as they were shot, the hyenas fell to the ground only so much cut shrubbery. As soon as they were down, however, more appeared to take their place.
"How many of these freaking things did the bastard have stuffed?" Dean shouted.
Unexpectedly, the wheezing, chuckling sound ceased.
"Ok, not good," Sam said.
"What? The hyenas backed off!" Dean snapped.
"So what out there is scary enough to make a pack of hyenas stand down? Cause it's not us," Sam answered.
From the far side of the parking lot, an enormous lion stepped into the pool of light created by the security lamp. The green, leafy animal was huge, its mane a flowing halo around its head.
"Just couldn't be a rabid meerkat," Dean sighed.
The lion began sauntering toward them, first one way and then the other, slowly and silently making its way forward. "Sam, I think it's your turn to take one for the team. You keep it busy while I go set that room with all the heads on fire."
"Dean…" Sam said, his tone far from amused.
A booming concussion filled the air and the entire center of the lion was gone in a sprinkling of green leafy confetti. A man stepped into the parking lot in full turn of the century safari get-up, complete from pith helmet to boots. He was carrying an enormous shotgun, still leveled in the direction of the lion.
"Get behind me, chaps! He's a maneater."
"Why do I get the feeling Jungle Jim isn't making a Hall & Oates joke?" Dean said, completely exasperated.
They both looked back to the lion and watched as the hole the shotgun blast had caused began to shrink and then completely fill in with fresh leaves. Dean brought Marigold to bear and fired directly into the lion's face. The leaves flew as the rock salt struck home, but unlike the hyenas, the lion did not revert to lawn clippings. The leaves filled in and reformed and the lion roared furiously.
"Wonderful," Sam's shoulders slumped. "It's immune to rock salt."
"Good try, lad," the hunter called to Dean, "but it will take more than that to bring the old boy down. I've been trying to kill him for years."
"Hey, safari dude," Dean yelled.
"I beg your pardon!" the man said. "My name is Huntington."
"Whatever. Can you get us back to the room with all the heads?" The house was huge and Dean wasn't sure he could find it again.
"Ah, my collection," the man said proudly. "Want a better look at it, do you, lad?" He motioned grandly, "This way then."
Sam and Dean looked back to see that the lion was now sitting casually, though still watching them. Sam quickly gathered as much salt and as many rock salt rounds as he could fit into a bag, adding a tin of lighter fluid for good measure and together he and Dean moved toward Huntington never turning their back to the lion.
"Cheer up," Huntington chuckled. "Lions are a lazy lot. Even a maneater. He's decided to find a better time to sneak up on you and eat you."
"That is not exactly comforting," Dean asserted.
"Live to hunt another day," the man nodded, already moving quickly toward the house. "That's what I always say."
"Except you're dead," Dean muttered.
"What was that?" Huntington raised an eyebrow.
"Shut up, Dean," Sam hissed. "He doesn't know."
"I said, I want to see the heads," Dean said louder, then half-coughed, slightly embarrassed. "Your collection, I mean. They're… fascinating."
Huntington smiled and led them to yet another door. He, of course, passed right through it, while Dean was forced yet again to break it open, the old mechanism giving way easily as he put his shoulder to it.
Walking three abreast down a long corridor, Huntington turned to them. "Are you hunters?"
"Sort of," Dean answered. He never had liked talking to ghosts. You never knew what they were going to take the wrong way and then decide to kill you. And he wasn't really feeling up to a run at the moment.
"Ever been to Africa?" the man pressed.
Dean grunted, "No."
"Best hunting there is, on safari," Huntington replied. "So many of the beasts. Excellent time to be had. Nothing better than the absolute rush of bringing your animal down. Tracking it, getting it in your sights."
Dean's gut twisted in distaste. Killing just for the sake of killing. Not to protect, not even for food. Just to kill. Just to have another trophy to hang on his wall to prove what a man he was. To prove that he was a better killer than his friends.
Dean had killed. He'd hunted and killed and killed, but never just for the sake of killing. He hunted to protect those who didn't know enough to protect themselves. He hunted to protect his father and Sam. The thought of a keepsake to remind him of something he'd killed… It made his stomach turn.
And yet the hotel manager's words rang in his ears. I pick up after murderers… like you two. It was a killer who woke the animals. A murderer. But it wasn't Sam. Sam wanted a home. He wanted to be normal, to be a lawyer. Dean knew it was him. He was the killer. He was the reason the valet had died. Death was his trade and the animals had known it.
"What's the matter, lad?" Huntington asked. "You look like you've just swallowed a stink larva."
"Nothing," Dean bit out. "Much farther?"
"No, no."
They turned a corner and Dean finally recognized where they were. They turned into the room and he felt every hair on his head stand to attention. The animals' spirits were using the plants to get around, but this room was just creepy and the smell… like ancient rot, was nauseating.
Huntington wandered around the room, staring adoringly up at his trophies, reliving past triumphs.
Quietly, Sam started pulling the stuffed animals off the wall and piling them in the center of the room. Huntington continued wandering obliviously, as ghosts were prone to do, occasionally petting a stuffed head as if it were a pet.
Sam hurried as fast as he could while Dean kept his gun trained on Huntington in case of trouble. Truth be told, Dean's leg felt like it was on fire and he doubted he could help his brother with the task if he wanted to.
"What do you think you're doing?" Smedley roared, barreling into the room.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Huntington roared, raising his shotgun and aiming it at Sam.
Dean immediately fired and Huntington evaporated in a spray of rock salt. Dean swung and leveled Marigold at Smedley.
"Don't move." Dean spared a glance at his brother. "Keep going, Sam. Forget the pile. Just knock 'em down. We'll spread some salt and burn the whole room. I don't think Huntington is going to stay gone long."
"What are you doing?" Smedley shouted again.
"We're taking care of your little problem," Dean snapped, keeping his gun on Smedley. "You were right. We're hunters. Just a bit more specialized than your Mr. Huntington. Now I'd suggest you answer a few questions before I think better of it and throw you outside on your ass and leave you to the lion."
"What do you mean you're taking care of it?" Smedley asked, astounded.
Dean pulled the hammer back on his gun, the noise loud in the room. Sam stopped what he was doing and looked at him. They both knew it wasn't necessary to cock the weapon. Dean wasn't going to shoot the man and it was only rock salt after all. Still, the sound always made a statement. Sam just didn't like him scaring people. The guy had nearly gotten them killed, though, and Dean had no qualms about seeing the manager squirm.
"Not another word," Dean said coldly, "Except some answers. Sam, keep pulling them down."
Sam gave him a hard look, but kept knocking the stuffed heads down, standing on top of various bits of furniture to get to the highest ones, pitching them to the floor.
"Now," Dean said, raising Marigold higher, backing Smedley to the wall. "Where is Huntington buried?"
"What?"
"Dude… don't make me ask again," and something in his face seemed to convince the hotel manager.
"He…," he cleared his throat nervously, "His mausoleum is in the walled garden."
"The one you locked us into earlier?"
Smedley nodded.
"There are no lions in this room. I've looked. Is it kept somewhere else?"
"L-lion? What do you…"
Dean's glare stopped him. "I'd suggest you not cross a man you've tried to murder. Where's the lion? Is it a rug?"
"It was the lion that killed him. One of Mr. Huntington's friends shot it and… and sent the claws. He was buried with them."
"You have got to be joking!" Dean said wide-eyed. "It's no wonder they're still walking around trying to kill each other. You idiots buried them together."
"You… You can stop this?" Smedley asked, as if what Dean had said had finally gotten through.
"You about done, Sam?"
"Yeah," Sam said, slightly winded as he jumped down from atop a tall sideboard.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw a flash of movement.
"DEAN!"
Smedley gasped, seeing whatever was happening. Dean turned just in time to see the huge bear he'd been looking at earlier free itself from its pedestal and fall forward onto his brother. Sam crashed to the ground, the air knocked out of him as his head cracked on the floor. The bear growled, batting at him, almost like a cat toying with a mouse, except the claws were leaving gouges on Sam's arms as he struggled to protect himself from the bear's massive paws.
Dean fired into the body of the stuffed bear, emptying Marigold until the animal slumped, a dead weight with Sam trapped underneath.
"Get this thing off me!" Sam grunted, trying to shift the heavy carcass.
Dean grabbed the bear, now just a stuffed animal that had been blown to smithereens, and dragged it to the side far enough that Sam could crawl out from underneath.
"You ok?" Dean asked, studying his brother for signs of serious injury. "You hit your head pretty hard."
"I'm fine," Sam answered.
"You sure?" Dean persisted. He put out a hand seeing his brother sway slightly. His arms had deep claw marks from elbow to wrist and his shirt was bloodied where the bear had gotten past Sam's guard and taken a swipe across his stomach.
"Let's just get this done," Sam said, rubbing at the bump on his head. He walked to the bag he'd brought and got a large canister of salt. He held it in one hand and swung it in a wide arc, throwing salt across the room. He added extra to the bear and to the large pile he'd created first.
A touch of lighter fluid and the dusty fur burned like an Oklahoma grass fire.
Smedley stood with jaw open, looking at the spreading fire, Dean, his shotgun and the bear completely forgotten. "Y-you can't do that."
"Already done." Dean grabbed the stunned man by the sleeve and dragged him out the door into the corridor. Sam quickly followed shutting the door on the fire.
"Take us back to the garden," Dean ordered, "And hurry. Huntington is going to be back soon and he's going to be pissed."
Thanks for sticking with it… Just a little bit to go… More tomorrow…(I hope -- Crosses fingers the site stays up -- )