Don't feed After Midnight
Chapter 12
The doors of the freight elevator slid open into thick gloom; the sound of the motion echoed somewhat, indicating to Dean's hunter senses a large room lying beyond.
Breath caught, he stepped out of the elevator and raised both his maglite and pearl-handled Colt M1911A1 to scan the space.
The floor was covered in a carpet of dust and debris, unmarked by footprints.
Like occluded cataracts, the high barred windows at the far end did almost nothing to help visualisation, covered by a heavy film of grime and cobwebs.
The whole place looked to have been undisturbed for a long time.
The room was long and narrow, utilitarian, a storage room or— no, a loading dock.
A block and tackle, barn-type hoist hung down from the cobwebbed ceiling over a concrete loading ramp, it caught the beam of the maglite to throw off weird shadows, as he moved about the space.
Moving dollies and an old style hand truck loomed out of the gloom next; caught in turn by the probing luminescence of his maglite. The equipment telegraphed the purpose of the space adequately, as did the plethora of pallets, sacks, drums and stacks of wooden packing cases, scattered about and lined up, haphazardly against the adjacent wall.
Shining his flashlight along the wall beside the elevator, Dean found the switch and flicked it on.
The bulbs along the ceiling sizzled and hummed into life, flooding the space with stark illumination.
Grey skeins of cobwebs and dust drifted lazily in the stale air he'd disturbed, while a small skittering sound heralded retreating vermin. Rats, spiders and dust had never made their way into the inner bunker. But it seemed this area wasn't protected in the same way.
Suddenly, two of the disused bulbs popped like firecrackers, one after the other; failure caused by being snapped into use, after so long inactive.
The sound made Dean flinch, swinging his gun and torch towards them, wide eyed. But they weren't a threat.
Dean lowered his gun, pocketing the torch, and turned in a circle.
Now the space was lit up fully, he could see that most of the far wall was designed to open up, sliding on heavy metal runners, to allow egress.
He turned in place once more, still scoping the surroundings for any hint of danger, before finally relaxing.
Walking towards the doors, footsteps weirdly loud on the concrete, Dean traversed the space.
The doors were huge, giant slabs of iron and concrete which took up almost the entire side wall, they appeared to opened via a crank system.
As strong as he was, Dean doubted his ability to move something so large by himself (even ignoring how the doors had been immobile for more than 50 years.)
He considered backtracking again, but decided to try turning the crank before calling on his brother.
Dean gripped the metal and threw his weight against it and was shocked to find that the handle revolved smoothly.
The giant doors began to edge open little by little, requiring surprisingly little muscle-power to work. He assumed there was some kind of reduction gearing system hidden inside the wall. A pretty nice feat of engineering, which he guessed made a kind of sense, the place had been built to house arcane lore and a bunch of big brained academics unused to physical labor.
A ponderous groan of metal on metal filled the space as he continued turning the handle. Slowly the doors ground and gouged their way through 50 years of built up debris, making a low tortured sound, which ran up his arms and spine and into his skull. Vibrations making his teeth ache with reverberations of translated force and filled him with unease. The gap widened still further, and finally let afternoon sunlight flood in from outside.
When the gap was wide enough, Dean left off cranking, and slid through to look around.
He turned in a circle gaining his bearings and surveyed where he'd ended up.
This was the west side of the bunker, a portion further along than the main entrance.
From the outside it had always appeared to be just a blank concrete wall, left uncovered by the hill the rest of the bunker was sunken in to.
Dean looked over his shoulder to clock the liquid, glossy black and chrome lines of the impala. She glinted in the afternoon sunlight, outside the main entrance.
He smiled to himself thoughtfully. An idea kindling.
He hated leaving his girl outside, exposed to the elements or anything else that might damage her.
Now, it looked as though that wouldn't have to continue. The space was a bit awkwardly shaped, true. Not exactly ideal for use as a garage. He'd have to be careful edging the car round that loading ramp.
But, the thought of his Baby finally having a home, safe and protected from the elements, it filled him with an overwhelming burst of satisfaction.
…
It took him 20 minutes of concerted effort to clear the space.
Dean made full use of the hand truck and other equipment to shift crates, sacks and barrels, used the moving dolly to drag all the crap over to the far wall.
He'd cleared out plenty of space for his girl, and now here she sat.
Dean grinned in deep satisfaction, taking in the sight of the impala there under the lights, and wiped his brow. And grimaced in distaste at the dust and sweat that smeared down his sleeve.
If the angels didn't trash the world in another of their temper tantrums, there was a shit ton of work to do down here.
Hands shoved deep in his pockets Dean turned back towards the doors, ready to close up.
His trajectory took him past a wooden barrel. Looking down in passing.
Dean staggered back a step in disgust.
"Sonofabitch! Ugh! So gross." He shuddered with revulsion, and peered in again.
The bottom of the barrel contained a tangle of corpses, the bodies of many many rats, some partially mummified, others stripped down to the bones. skeletonised and cannibalised. Some were fresh.
He'd seen something similar once before, back in Singer Salvage. When he was all of 11 years old. Thank god Sammy hadn't been with him at the time, the kid had a tender heart. Bobby had explained it, how it must have happened.
This barrel, like that one, must have once contained some kind of food.
The rats had jumped in after the food, and once they'd eating their fill, they'da discovered they couldn't jump back out.
No problem you'd think, they were surrounded by food.
But there'd been no water.
The rats would have kept eating, they wouldn't have starved, but soon enough they'd have started feeling the effects of dehydration. They'd have turned on each other, the strongest lasting longest.
Eventually they'd all have died.
More rats would have come, attracted by the food, or maybe, investigating the previous rat's deaths.
They'da got trapped like their predecessors. But those rats wouldn't have died as quick.
In search of moisture, driven by their mounting thirst, they'd have started cannibalising the corpses of their dead comrades.
A dead body don't hold that much moisture, and a stomach can only hold so much spoiling meat.
Eating the dead would have just delayed the inevitable, stretched out the suffering.
This process would have probably happened over and over, before the rats got it, learning to stay away from the barrel of death.
But every generation has a few fools, willing to disregard warnings. Some of the rat corpses looked kinda… juicy.
The thought of those creature's lingering, gruesome deaths had horrified his younger self, they'd haunted his dreams, with their scrabbling paws, and desperate bloody jaws.
Years later he'd learned animals could, on rare occasions turn Casper like people, become restless spirits, after death. That's what black dogs were.
Admittedly they'd never come across ghost rats, but still…
You'd think that after all these years, of all the awful sights, dead bodies of people and gross fuggly monsters, he'd be immune to something as grade school as the corpses, and imagined last hours, of a brace of dumb-ass rats.
But the thought of leaving those rodent, lost souls, just sitting there putrefying… trapping others. In the same place as his Baby… That was a hard nope.
Skin creeping with goose flesh, Dean opened the Impala's trunk and pulled out gasoline and salt.
Then, swallowing back revulsion he dragged the barrel, with its gag inducing cargo, out of the loading bay and into open air.
Salt and burn.
Dean was watching the flames and smoke climb higher from the barrel up towards the cloud ruffled sky.
When suddenly, the giant concrete doors to the loading dock behind him, slammed shut, like a trap.
…ooo0ooo…
Kevin looked like he was on the verge of having a meltdown.
Sam laid a steadying hand on the boy's shoulder.
He flinched at the contact, but didn't brush Sam off.
"Kevin, we've got this, it'll be okay." He soothed. "Let's just…" Sam considered the best course of action, "check the map table, try to work out what happened." He suggested giving the prophets shoulder an awkward pat, led the way down the hallway towards the war room.
Sam slid his phone out of his pocket, thinking to call Dean, or Cas, and check if either of them had heard anything about what ever new disaster had washed up on their shores.
He then realised, his phone didn't have signal.
Kevin noticed. "No signal," he muttered with an almost vindicated look. "We're trapped like rats in here.
The door, it won't unlock from the inside. Just like last-time."
Then his eyes widened further, dark orbs, rimmed in white, bulging in their sockets at a thought, "only thing different is that this time, the King of Hell is in here with us." The boy started to hyperventilate.
"Hey, hey, hey Kevin. Kevin! Slow down…" Sam soothed and rubbed the prophet's back.
"It's okay. Dean's out there, and he'll be back. You know that! And Crowley, he's—he's locked down, if— if it makes you feel any better I'll go check on him, make sure he's not going anywhere, you can come with—" Kevin started panting harder, his eyes horrified.
"Okay, okay! No, no, it's fine, you stay here."
They reached the map table and found it inactive, not a single flashing light.
Looking around, Sam grabbed a canister of salt and made a wide circle, set a chair in it and helped the terrified prophet to sit.
Slid his hand under the map table, and pulled out one of the many backup guns Dean had concealed around the bunker. Checking the ammo quickly, he placed it in the prophets hands.
"You know how to use this right?"
Kevin held the gun gingerly and nodded.
Dean had given him a crash course after the last-time he'd been trapped in the bunker, during the lockdown. That one caused by the angels falling.
They'd come back to find Kevin in a complete state, cowering behind an upturned table and attempting to defend himself from any intruders with a crossbow. Kevin didn't really respond well to emergency situations, and okay, sometimes they forgot that not everyone received extensive weapons training, before entering middle school.
Sam laid a steadying hand on the prophets shoulder again.
"It's going to be okay, Kevin. I'll check Crowley and be right back. Okay?
You have to relax, remember we're in one of the safest places in the world, we've got plenty of supplies. And Dean will be back in no time."
Kevin nodded shakily in response. His breathing sounding a bit better.
"In the mean time all we have to do is sit tight." Sam advised, before hurrying out to check the demon in the basement.