ENTITY (Chapter Two)
"What— what the hell was that?" Dean blurted out. He stared out the windscreen at the dirt road that led to hell knows where. They had come off the main road, metal-winged it over a ditch and landed hard on a secondary dirt road. Dean had gathered his stunned wits at that point and wrenched the wheel out of a spin, managing to gain traction in the loose gravel before sliding to rib-cracking stop in the centre of the secondary road. He released a hard breath and jerked his attention to his equally stunned brother.
"Sorry," Sam whispered, his wide eyes locked with Dean's. "I didn't mean—".
"Sorry?" Dean hacked out a derisive laugh, shoved his door open and extricated himself from the car. He ducked his head back into the cab. "You got a death wish? Christ, Sam. Jesus fucking Christ."
He paced from the car, unable to still the violent trembling. He made it several steps before he spun and stalked back. He wrenched Sam's door open. "Out."
Sam stared dumbly. Dean growled, grabbed his brother's arm and forcefully hauled him from the car. Sam melted against the Chevy, an agonized groan escaping his lips. Dean released him. He breathed hard, his hands shaking. "You're riding in the back."
"Dean."
"Get in the back."
"You can't take me back to Stratford."
"Would you rather I left you to bleed to death in the car? You know what, don't answer that. Back seat, Sam, and don't try anything. I'll tie your damn wrists together if I have to."
"She's in my head, Dean. The girl I saw in the vision. She's scared and she needs me. I think she's connected with me somehow and…." He kneaded at his brow, then wiped with shaking fingers at the blood that trickled from his nose. "The hospital can't fix this, Dean. And if… I don't know how much more I can take."
"You just made me crash the car," Dean said. He gesticulated to the Impala as his voice rose. "This eloquent speech might have worked better, hell, let's say somewhere before you almost killed us."
"I didn't mean to cause a crash."
"Well you did. So now what do you want me to do? You've got my attention, what the fuck do you want me to do?"
"Take me to Perryton," Sam answered simply.
Dean clenched his fists, glared at his brother then prowled to the front of the car. He paced the width of it, clenching and unclenching his fists. His jaw ached with tension. They could not return to Stratford. Dean now knew that, but he wanted Sam to wilt under his rage – to agree to medical intervention. Dean could deal with an aneurism, he could deal with a shaven-headed Sam, a belligerent and whiny Sam, a drugged to the eyeballs Sam, but Sam. This he could not deal with.
Dean sucked in a pained breath. When he finally exhaled, his body weakened and he sagged. He returned to Sam and crouched before him. The younger man sat on the ground with his head down and knees drawn up.
He touched the younger man's knee, dismayed to see his own hand shaking. He settled it and gently clasped. "What happens when we reach Perryton? To you, I mean. This connection the kid has with you, what if it's not help she's after, what if it's something else? What if there isn't even a kid?"
Sam looked up, his eyes, pain glazed and dizzied, glistened with tears. "I don't know. I just know there's a child that needs us."
Dean retracted his hand and gestured toward the misted fields. Rain now fell in a light, frustrating fuzz that obscured the decidedly shitty vista and did little to help Dean's souring mood. "I don't find that particularly reassuring," he said darkly.
"I don't have a choice."
"How do you know that? How can you possibly know that?"
"I know, Dean. I just know."
Dean's mouth went dry. Something caught in his throat and he swallowed convulsively. "Like you knew there was something in our old house in Lawrence?"
Sam nodded fractionally and his mouth pulled down. "We need to go."
"Yeah," Dean agreed, with all the enthusiasm of man facing the firing squad. He pushed to his feet. "I'll check the car. You okay here?"
"Hmm." Sam closed his eyes and rested his head against the Impala's door. Dean hesitated. "Are you hurt, I mean… in the crash?"
"No."
Dean accepted that, though the younger boy's pain tightened features made him ache. He quickly checked the car and found it relatively undamaged. No crumple zones and pissy suspension to collapse on impact. He stuck his head under the bonnet, satisfied that all seemed to be in order. He ducked his head back up, surprised to see Sam standing, albeit clutching at the passenger side door. He had a waxy, pasty look on his face.
"You gonna puke?" Dean asked as he reached his brother's side.
"I think…."
"Okay. It's okay. It might help."
"Car."
"You'll be washing it if you puke on it."
Sam bowed his head and clutched at Dean's jacket. He listed and Dean reflectively braced his hands against his brother's upper arms, using the leverage to gently ease Sam back against the car. He sensed Sam's knees weaken and tightened his grasp, bracing his kid brother between his own body and the Chevy's rear door.
"Don't fight it, Sam. If you need to, you need to."
Sam groaned and clumsily pawed at Dean, alternately pushing and pulling. Dean tightened his grasp. "Easy, it's okay. You're okay." Lies, falsehoods and other bullshit. Sam presently defined the word misery. He was far from okay.
"God, I hate… this," Sam said, then abruptly broke from Dean's grasp, took two staggered steps and dropped to his knees. He groaned miserably, his face a sickly shade of washed-out grey, before he hunched forward and retched.
Dean reached out, then winced and looked away. He shoved a hand through his short dirt-blonde hair and scanned the horizon. The misty rain picked up, washing out the landscape and blurring contour and form. Shitty nothingness for miles all round. He shivered and wiped at his face as he risked another look at his brother.
Sam knelt in the same spot, his jeans soaking up moisture from the muddied ground. As Dean watched, Sam spat and shakily swept the sleeve of his shirt across his mouth. He had not yet thrown up, and Dean almost wished he would. It might give some well needed relief.
Sam leaned back, raised his head and wearily considered his surroundings. He squinted, his shoulders tense. Dean retrieved a bottle of water from the Impala and offered it to him. Sam took the water and gingerly swallowed a few times. He looked no better than he had, but the convulsive swallowing seemed to have stopped.
"We gotta go," he said tiredly.
Dean helped him up and guided him to the car. "Is this freaky kid in your head like Ellicot was?" he asked as he held the door open.
Sam slid in. He shirked down in the seat and rested one hand on his stomach. "You need to get headrests fitted, Dean."
Dean raised an eyebrow and made his way around to the driver's side. He slid in and eyed his brother. Sam had turned to the side, facing Dean, his arms hugged around his stomach and his eyes partially closed.
"You okay?"
"No. Can we go?"
"Headache?"
Sam's eyes closed. "Dean."
Dean started the engine. "Isn't it a bit convenient that you saw an address on an envelope? I mean, this isn't a kid we're dealing with. It's some freakin' fugly critter that's gonna soon have an ass full of rock-salt."
Sam grimaced and clutched at his head. Something far too close to a whimper reached Dean.
Dean swallowed hard. He touched Sam's shoulder and squeezed gently. "We can still get you to the hospital, get you checked out just in case—"
"No."
"Cos if you're wrong and your head explodes…."
"No."
Dean's eyes watered and he bit down on his lip. He retracted his touch and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Okay, okay," he said, then turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. He cocked his head, cursed and tried again. Sam's foot started a low, staccato tapping on the floorboard. The starter motor clicked, turned over and the engine fired, coughed and died.
Sam groaned and fisted a hand in his jacket, the knuckles white. "Can't you make it go?"
"I'm trying."
"Try harder." Sam sounded desperate. Scared.
He turned the key and held his breath as the engine spluttered and clicked. It did it two more times before Dean slammed his hand against the steering wheel. "Son of a bitch."
"Dean?"
"Hang on."
He popped the bonnet again and ran a second visual check. He spied the loose wire, cinched it back in place and dropped the bonnet. He slid into the driver's seat, pumped the accelerator and turned the ignition. The engine caught first kick then purred flawlessly. "That's my baby." He shifted into drive and eased the car from the dirt track and back to the blacktop.
"Just so you know," Dean said, his tone deliberately casual. "If you pass out, I'm taking your ass straight to the nearest ER. No stopping off to Render Street, Perryton for some freaky mind-bending kid."
"Just drive, Dean."
"Okay, just thought you should know, is all."
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Sam did not lose consciousness but Dean suspected it had more to do with the thing that had a hold on him rather than Sam's own fortitude. Regardless, it left Dean unable to follow through on his threat to deliver Sam to an ER, and all too soon they arrived in Perryton, Texas. Darkness had fallen and the rain had eased. Dean's sour mood had darkened along with the descending night.
As Dean brought the car to a smooth stop in front of a house two doors down from the one Sam had identified in his vision, he ached to smash something, to kill something. Breathing hard, he scanned the house. It stood quiet and dark, the curtains pulled open but no lights shone forth. Dean knew the thing was in there. He felt it in the suffering that leached from his kid brother, the stench of his sweat, of his blood and the hideous grating breaths that seeped from the tortured boy. The need for revenge throbbed rich and hot in Dean's veins. He allowed his gaze to skim over his brother's huddled, shuddering and pain-wracked form and his murderous rage escalated.
He drew in a calming breath and touched Sam's shoulder. Sam moaned softly and Dean's stomach twisted. "Stay here."
If Sam heard him, he did not respond.
Dean prowled to the rear of the Impala, hoisted a bag full of weapons to his shoulder and peered up and down the street. Stinking suburbia met his heated gaze. Neat white painted houses, porch lights on to greet suit-clad husbands or wives returning to their whining toddlers and raucous barking dogs. He slammed the trunk, hunched his shoulders and moved toward the house.
He gained entry to the house via the rear window and found himself in a bedroom, the bed neatly made, a soft toy dog carefully placed on the pillow. He ached to shoot the stuffed animal on principle alone. He did not – it would make too much noise. He braced the shotgun, his fingers clenched tightly around the weapon as he moved quietly through the house. His passionate anger ripped away as he came across the kitchen. He gagged and hurriedly retreated, his flight instincts in over-drive. He backed into the opposite wall, his stomach churning. He clutched the weapon, his fingers grasping and ungrasping reflexively.
"Christ," he gasped. His vision blackened and his knees weakened. Sam had seen that – had seen it happen. All of it. Dean swallowed back bile and pushed off from the wall. He shakily re-entered the kitchen. Immediately he gagged and covered his mouth, his squinted eyes taking in the brilliantly bloody display.
Blood liberally hung from the ceiling – long mucous-like strands tethered by jellied blobs that vaguely resembled human organs. One particularly pleasant looking strand might have been the wall of an intestine, but Dean did not look long enough to confirm his suspicion. He swept his gaze over the walls, the floor, the windows and dried blackened blood reflected back from all surfaces. Dean's eyes shifted restlessly as he struggled to fix on something that did not threaten to bring his breakfast up through his oesophagus. His nostrils flared as the metallic stench invaded his sinuses.
He covered his nose with one forearm and reviewed the scene before him with as much distance and objectivity as he possibly could. Body parts lay strewn, some hacked into barely recognisable chunks while others seemed almost lifelike in their entirety. Every cutlery draw had been torn open, the contents emptied and splayed across the kitchen. Carving and paring knives protruded from walls, from cupboard doors, even from the faceplate of the microwave oven. Dean counted twenty, every one of them stained with gore.
Beneath the table, the top decorated with a neatly placed setting for four, protruded a single sneaker clad leg. Dean fixed on it and almost whimpered. He forced his recalcitrant limbs forward and crouched, hand over mouth, as he lifted the tablecloth back and up. Nausea assaulted him and gagged and turned his head away.
He retreated then – no lives to save, no fugly critters to nail with a gun barrel full of rock-salt. He moved back through the house and methodically searched every room. Photos in the living room showed the family prior to their deaths – apple-pie Texans with a blue eyed, brown haired daughter. He memorized the child's features.
Upstairs, he searched the two bedrooms and a bathroom. At the end of the hallway, he turned back, prepared to continue. He took a single step and stopped, forced into inactivity with the realization that he had no more rooms to search. Nothing else to find. No kid. No chainsaw massacre wannabe. No way to end Sam's pain.
It hit him suddenly and forcefully – an image of his kid brother, barely conscious and bleeding, in the passenger seat of the Impala. Finding the house, the son of a bitch responsible for torturing Sam, and killing it had been Dean's plan. Now, he had no plan.
Dean fell heavily against the wall and slid down, his head in his hands. He shuddered, struggled to breathe, to find enough energy to start the search over though he knew it to be a pointless exercise. His breath whistled as his sinuses clogged. He tilted his head back and deliberately cracked his skull hard against the drywall. Again and again until the pain muddied his vision and the tears blurred. He stopped, stared up, choking on his own desperation. His bruised consciousness took a moment to recognize what he saw, then his eyes narrowed and he sat up. "Son of a bitch," he said softly.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Sam's pain-dulled consciousness jolted with a sharp energy that tore a scream from him. His body convulsed, his heart shocked into a wild palpitation. Panicked, he held his breath as he fought to retain some thread of consciousness. As he started to go under, the pain vanished, leaving the young hunter breathless, stretched out, his raw nerves misfiring with a static-like pain. He languished under it, weak and hurting, his breaths slow and shallow as his heartbeat gradually normalized.
His dulled gaze tracked slowly. Gradually, sensations breezed back. Cold came first. He shivered and muscles in his side cramped. Nausea chimed in next and the bitter taste of bile forced a reaction. He reached out blindly, bashed his knuckles into the doorframe of the Impala before finding the door release. He tugged it as bile stung the back of his throat. His knees hit the grass before his brain registered that he had left the car. He threw up, disoriented and half blind. Needles of cold air cut through the sweat soaked clothes, pinched at the dried blood on his face and whipped at his hair.
He hugged his stomach with one arm, the other braced against the ground to stop from falling face first into his own sickness. He spat and swallowed, curling in on himself as another spasm tore through his gut. On one level he understood the physical sensations but overall he understood very little. His brain malfunctioned, circuits fried, memories a jumble of pain and confusion. He retched again, the spasm driving deep through the muscles of his abdomen and knifing a cold, sharp pain across his lower back. He sobbed, unable and unwilling to take any more. It had to end. Mercifully, it did.
Panting, he raised his head and squinted into the darkness. Houses, cars, pale street lights and somewhere close a dog barked. His breath hitched. He scanned the shadow veiled suburbia for his brother, the first thread of conscious panic skating over his chilled flesh as two shapes appeared from the darkness. Loping, one tall and one shorter. Sam fell back. He blindly grabbed at the Impala's passenger side door.
"Dean?" he called, his voice plaintively panicked. He craned his neck, searching in and around the car for his brother. His hand slipped against the cool metal. He half-fell, his breath whistled and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
The taller figure carried a gun that swung loosely with each loping stride. Sam sidled back – a fumbled crab-crawl that pushed him hard against the Impala.
"Dean. Dean!"
He licked his lips and blinked hard to clear the dizzying fog. Too much pain for too long left Sam with no reserves to fight or flee and he languished beneath the catastrophic weakness.
"Dean," he called again, but the name choked out as a torn whisper. He drew his knees up, trying to draw into himself, to make himself less of a target. The taller figure skidded to a stop before Sam and the weapon clunked to the ground. Sam's attention flicked to it, numbly fascinated then he flinched and raised his arm higher, protectively. "Don't," he warned.
"Sam."
"Dean?" Sam gaped and squinted.
"Sammy, you okay?"
Sam choked on a relieved sob. His arm dropped like jello into his lap and he melted against the Chevy. "Oh, God, I thought—" He licked his lips and shuddered. Dean dropped to one knee and Sam finally focused well enough to see his brother's face. Dean's normally stoic mask had slipped, revealing wide-eyed anguish and fear. It broke Sam and he could not bite back the sob that escaped his lips. He grabbed at Dean's jacket like a life-line, fisting his hand in the leather. He panted roughly, tears building in his eyes.
"Sam?" Dean sounded scared. "Are you hurt?"
Sam shook his head, his throat constricting. He tightened his grip, crushing the soft fabric between his fingers. His eyes watered and he lowered his gaze as he tugged his brother closer.
Dean hesitated, then leaned in. He grasped the nape of Sam's neck, gently squeezing as he drew Sam's head down, dropping his own until it met his brother's crown. "It's over, Sammy. It's over."
Sam trembled, gripping his brother's jacket for all he was worth. He hunched his shoulders and willed himself not to cry, not to break down, not to completely fall apart. With an effort, he unfurled his fingers from his brother's coat. He patted at it, but could not entirely let go.
Dean drew back, his eyes suspiciously moist. "Can you get up?"
Sam shrugged, not trusting himself to speak.
"Sam, you need to try," Dean encouraged.
Sam glanced over his shoulder and noticed someone with his brother. He tried to see, distracted as Dean extended a hand toward him. He shakily took it, grunting as Dean hefted him up. The effort exhausted the younger hunter and he listed, his chin resting on Dean's shoulder and his eyes slipping closed. He felt Dean shift around and the change in balance forced Sam to move. He bowed his head, his mind spinning in viciously nauseating circles. He had taken one small step when he grabbed at his brother again. "Stop, stop." Dean did, but the damage had been done. Sam groaned as vertigo roiled his stomach and cruelly splintered his fragile consciousness. He felt his knees give way. He managed a soft apology before he crumpled, his mind blackening.
End Chapter Two