Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 15
They were in the kitchen, Sam half heartedly stirring at a saucepan of Spaghetti O's on a camp stove, and Kevin pouring out two glasses of OJ, when the Bunker door opened.
"Sam! Sammy!" Dean's voice barked in full on command mode, as the lighting and everything else in the bunker reset.
"Dean!" Sam called in response, a huff of relief escaping, at playing their own private spin on Marco Polo, so soon. "In the kitchen."
The Dean that strode into the kitchen wasn't what Sam expected.
He was sweat stained, dusty and stank to high heaven, and not in a, 'I finally charmed my way into Angela's bed,' kind of way.
"What happened to you?"
"Walked into town to save your ass."Dean grunted," you did know the Bunker was in lockdown?"
"Yeah, we knew." Sam shared an eye roll with Kevin, "You run out of gas again?"
"No!
So wait, everything's okay? Crowley isn't…"
"Worst thing he's been up to is singing hits from the 70's.
Out there?"
"Nothing, according to the 'net. Called a couple other hunters, nada and bupkis."
"Huh! Weird."
"Speakin of weird, gotta show you somethin'." Dean turned, gesturing for them to follow.
Sam and Kevin traipsed after him, through the hallways, until they came to one of 'the doors'.
Had they told Kevin about the locked doors?
Sam couldn't remember, but what ever Dean's crackpot scheme was, Kevin had better things to do than waste hours trying to open one of them, like he and Dean had.
Sam was just opening his mouth to dissuade his brother, when Dean turned the handle and swung the door wide open.
"You did it?" Sam asked, inwardly, a touch annoyed.
He was better with locks than Dean. He'd been so sure, if either of them was going to crack one, it'd be him.
Dean and Kevin were already through the door; his brother bitching to the boy about how much time they'd sunk into trying to open the locked doors, only to walk by and find it randomly open.
"Could it have unlocked when the bunker locked down then reset, when the angels fell?" Kevin suggested.
Dean caught Sam's eye over Kevin's head, silently asking if Kevin's theory held water.
"It's possible."
"Hmm. Better check the others."
Down the corridor from the unlocked door, they came to another, one that resembled the front entrance to the bunker.
"Is that—?"
"Yip." Dean tried the handle, found it locked then pulled out his bunker key and unlocked it.
It opened with a familiar ponderous creaking thunk, sounding just like the other, outer door.
Beyond the door was another short hallway and a pair of large, metal sliding doors.
"Freight elevator, warded up the ass."
Kevin stepped forward to run his hands over the embossed metal doors with a whistle.
Behind the doors the elevator rumbled in its shaft, called up by the lever Dean pulled.
"These … these symbols they're not like anything I've ever seen," Kevin said softly his hand moving over the metal, "they look like a combination. I didn't even know you could do that—"
Sam stepped in closer and peered over Kevin's head, fumbling in his pocket for his phone, started to take photos of the warding.
"It's almost like, who ever did this, mixed half a dozen symbols, from half a dozen different warding systems and distilled them down to their base essence..."
Kevin looked back at him over his shoulder and nodded in excited agreement.
"Yeah," Dean brushed them both aside, "trust you two geeks to go creamin' your panties over the damn elevator door."
The doors pulled back, opening into an unlit cab.
"Need to replace the bulb." Dean muttered, pulling his maglite from his jacket pocket, clicking it on.
Sam peered into the metal box and felt his heart rate ratchet up a notch.
Since the cage, the return of his soul and his cage memories, he'd struggled with enclosed spaces.
Mostly it wasn't an issue. He could push through.
But there was something about the lack of lighting in there and the weird wardings on the doors that made him reluctant to enter, despite his curiosity.
Dean must have noticed his nerves. "Seriously?" He asked, then jumped up and down heavily inside the cab, broken glass crunched under his boots.
"It's a freight elevator Sammy, it's built to carry a ton, the Men of Letters made things to last.
You look like you're worried the cables gonna snap." He scoffed.
"And now I'm worried the cables gonna snap, thanks Dean." Kevin muttered darkly, stepping into the cab, and sidled up close to the wall.
Reluctantly Sam stepped into the elevator cab behind Kevin and fixed his eyes on the beam of Dean's maglite to steady himself; only to have his gut twist as the doors slid shut. His traitorous mind chose that moment to dredge up a memory of Lucifer's wings raised above him in a smothering canopy, aflame with angelic grace.
All that awful, twisted radiance and the way it had seared at his very soul...
God! How badly that light had made him wish for the darkness, despite how the darkness meant he didn't know exactly how close Lucifer was, or what he was going to do next...
Sam bit down, hard, on the inside of his cheek as the cab lurched upwards. Felt pain and tasted the copper bloom blood on his tongue, fighting to control his panic. Counted his thudding heartbeats.
The elevator reached its stop, the doors slid open and light spilled in from outside.
Dean was yammering on about something, but Sam couldn't follow his words.
He stepped out of the elevator quickly, looking around with his heart thudding like a trapped thing, inside of the meat and bone cage of his ribs.
The elevator had taken them up to a large storage area filled with old junk, there were crates and barrels everywhere, a sloped ramp and a chain hoist hanging from the cob-webbed ceiling.
Incongruously, the impala sat in the middle of the space. Seemingly the only object untouched by the smothering layer of dust, and the march of time.
The sight of the car sitting there under the lights; it settled the frantic nervous thing crouching inside Sam's chest.
He took a deep breath and stepped towards the impala, felt something shift under his boot.
Lifting his foot, Sam looked down to see a shiny silver hex nut.
It seemed out of place on the dusty, debris strewn floor, shiny silver against the dirty concrete, untouched by rust.
Bending down he picked it up, eyes trailing to another silvery object further on, this one a screw.
Sam tracked a dot dash line of small silver objects.
While Sam's eyes traced the shape made by the trail, Dean stepped up to the impala and yanked his keys from where they hung, in the Impala's trunk.
What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.
First the car's rear number plate swung lazily to one side, moments later it broke lose completely, and clanged loudly onto the floor.
The rear bumper followed next.
Then, things seemed to speed up. The storage room was suddenly filled with sound, the air split by the clash and clang of metal falling onto concrete.
The car's doors fell from their hinges with a squeal.
Dean lunged forward to catch the closest one in his arms. He clutched it against his chest in a kind of dumbfounded shock, as the Impala's hood popped open, then, catapulted off the car completely with an almost cartoonish spronging sound. Launched six feet into the air, before landing on a pile of dirty sacks, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.
One of the glossy black side panels went next, slanting away from the cars frame, it fell from the Impala's body like a petal falling from a dying flower.
Kevin jumped back, out of the path of a wheel which bounced a few feet, then rolled away from the car, across the concrete floor, hit the far wall and fell on its side coming to stop.
One of the cars headlights popped from its housing, and swung almost grotesquely from the wires, like an avulsed eye.
Dean just stood there, arms wrapped around the door, swaying slightly, a small pained whine emanating from his slack jawed mouth.
…
After a few moments it stopped, and silence fell.
Slowly, Dean lowered the door from his arms to the ground, leaned it carefully against a nearby concrete pillar.
Crouched, slumping on his knees in the dust to retrieve a wing mirror, where it had fallen.
Dean stayed that way for a long time. Hands smoothing restlessly back and forth along the stem that should have attached the rounded chrome bowl of the wing-mirror to the Impala's body.
Finally, Sam shook off his own shock. Stepping closer to where his brother was crouched, "Dean?"
Dean swung hastily to face him, a feral look reminiscent of after he returned from purgatory plastered on his face.
His eyes were flat and filled with an almost absent vitriol, his lips drawn back to bare his teeth in a soundless snarl.
Sam stopped dead, found himself stepping back in shock, hands raised.
"Why?" Dean demanded after they had stared at each other for long minutes of silence.
"I didn't, I wouldn't. D-Dean come on! Think about it, I didn't even know where she was."
Dean swung towards Kevin almost mechanically. Sam stepped between his brother and the prophet protectively. "It wasn't Kevin."
Dean frowned and laid the wing-mirror gently down on the concrete again.
Then, stood abruptly.
"Sonofabitch!" Dean wheeled around and stormed out, leaving Sam and the prophet of the Lord gaping in his wake.
"Ummm, Sam? What just happened?"
"Not sure Kevin," Sam's eyes picked out the symbol made of bolts, nuts and screws once more, "but, I'm beginning to think I was wrong about Dean being the cause of all the weird stuff that's been happening lately."