Author's note: Thanks again to everyone who's reading this. A special thanks to everyone who has reviewed and thank you to everyone who's reading Julia's Heart. A couple of people have asked me if you can get the free eBook without a Kindle. There is a free Kindle app that you can get from Google Play or the Apple Store for your smart phone or tablet and that will allow you to download eBooks from Amazon and read them. It's how I read most of the books I buy myself, in fact.
Here is Act Two. There will be two more after this, finishing up on New Year's Eve. I should maybe mention that, if you're a fan of cartoons, there are a number of Easter eggs hidden in the story.
Have a great night!
Looney Toons
by
Elfinblue
Act Two
The Impala careened down the road.
Dean leaned his head against his side window, trying to see out. The window was up and he couldn't spare the time to roll it down. Outside, the first school bus, flashed past.
Sam cranked down his side window and leaned out.
"Okay, there's a curve coming up. Get ready!"
"Air steer!" Dean barked.
"What?"
"Air steer! I'll follow you!"
"Right."
Sam put his hands up, as if he were controlling the car with an invisible steering wheel, and began turning it, craning his neck to see out the window. Dean switched his entire attention to Sam's hands, mimicking their motions with the real steering wheel.
The Impala rocketed around the curve, hugging the guard rail. Behind them, the air horn sounded again as the out-of-control semi rode their back bumper. Sam's face was tense as he peered out the side window but Dean was almost preternaturally calm, all his attention focused on Sam's hands. He followed his brother, perfectly synchronizing the movements of his steering wheel with Sam's every move.
Loaded school buses flashed past Dean's window. They round another curve, and another, and then...
The road leveled out.
"There's a parking lot coming up," Sam said, "in five... four... three...two... now!
Dean spun the wheel and the Impala swung off the road, into a "Dancing Dawgs" hot dog stand parking lot. Her back end slid wildly and the semi thundering past, barely missed her. The car straightened out and rolled to a stop. The black film slid down the glass and disappeared under the hood, leaving no trace that it was ever there.
"The hell, Sam?"
"Dude, I don't know!"
Dean reached for his door handle, then glanced up and stopped with a groan. "Crap!"
There were police lights in his rearview mirror.
Dean rolled down his window and summoned a smile for the deputy, a tall, pale-skinned redhead.
"Problem, officer McKimson?" he asked, checking out the cop's nametag.
The cop answered him in a deep Southern drawl. "You tell me. You look, I say, you look like about two miles of bad road."
"About that, yeah."
"Dean Warner?"
"Yes, sir. This is my brother, Sam."
"I stopped you fellows because the tint on your windshield is way too dark."
Dean and Sam exchanged a glance.
"There isn't any tint on my windshield."
"Son, I say, son. Don't try to snow me."
He leaned in the window and looked out through the windshield, then stood up and looked in through the windshield, shocked.
"Well, barbecue my hamhocks!"
"Must have been a trick of the light."
McKimson looked at the windshield closely, suspicious and trying to figure out how it was done.
"You sure you didn't have some kind of temporary tint on this thing?"
"Absolutely. No offense, sir, but this baby's a classic. No way I'm gonna douche her up with window tint."
McKimson sighed. "She is a beauty. What is she, '68, '69?"
"'67," Dean said, not trying to disguise his pride.
"'67! Wow. You know, me and my brother-in-law are rebuilding a '73 Charger. Charlie wants to chrome the engine!"
"No way!"
Dean's horror was real and Sam, sensing an impending car dude conversation, let them fade into the background. He glanced around, then leaned forward, focused on the windshield. Three black dots appeared in a line next to the roof strut, low down. Three more appeared on the wing window, a little higher. The first three disappeared and then reappeared, still higher.
Sam leaned out the window to look at the strut.
Baby Fang was crawling up the strut, flat, a moving drawing, black on black. Only his claws protruded into three dimensions, touching the glass on either side of the strut.
Sam leaned closer, fascinated, and a paw sprung up from the strut, claws slashing at Sam as he lunged back into the car.
Frantically he cranked the window up. He paused for a moment, breathing hard, then turned and looked behind him.
Dean and McKimson were staring at him, bemused.
"Problem, Samantha?"
"There was a draught." Sam said, aware of how lame he sounded.
"You'll have to forgive my sister. She doesn't like the wind to mess up her 'do."
"Looks to me like you need to take that boy to a barber."
"You know, I've considered it. But I'm afraid I'd have nothing left but a pair of giant sneakers and a pile of hair."
McKimson laughed, then shook his head as a little sports car flew past on the highway.
"Dang fool thinks he's Speedy Gonzales! Sorry 'bout the misunderstanding, boys. Have a nice day!"
McKimson ran for his car. Dean held his fake smile until the cop had taken off after the speeder. Then he turned to Sam, suddenly intense.
"Sam?"
"Roll up your window!"
Dean complied without question.
"Baby Fang's on the car! He was-he was flat, like a drawing. And then, suddenly, his claws were just there, slashing at me."
"He get you?"
"No, I'm good."
There was a burst of motion outside the Impala. Baby Fang's tail suddenly arched down, the stinger buzzing against Dean's window and spewing black all over the glass.
"Oh! I am so gonna gank this little bitch!"
"Good plan. But first, how are we gonna get out of the car without getting slashed?"
"We'll just have to both roll out at the same time and take our chances. Wait!"
Dean rummaged in the back seat and came up with two canisters and two flasks.
"Salt and holy water? You think that'll work against this thing?"
"We got anything else?"
"No, I guess not."
"Okay, then. Count of three. One... two..."
As the brothers talked, the Impala sat alone in the middle of the lot, the only other vehicle an old motorcycle in the far corner. A black liquid spilled off the car's right rear quarter panel, shimmered on the black asphalt and was gone.
The car doors crashed open and Dean and Sam rolled out and rose. Hunters on the prowl, they stalked around the Impala.
"It was on the roof," Sam said.
They approached cautiously and Dean splashed the roof with holy water. Nothing. They examined the roof, trunk, hood, sides. Nothing.
"Gonna have to check underneath." Dean's voice was grim.
Sam took up a guarding stance. "Be careful."
"Come on, Sam. You know me. Careful's my middle name."
Sam snorted but didn't bother to comment. Around them the black asphalt shimmered and maybe it was just heat rising but then, again, maybe it wasn't.
Dean gingerly lowered himself to the ground and eased under the car.
*SPN**SPN**SPN**SPN*
It was a shabby little food joint, not new but clean. In the mid-afternoon it was almost empty. Only one employee was present, a big, burly biker type wearing a tight white tee shirt, a white apron, a paper hat and a dancing hotdog nametag that read GEORGE.
George was getting ready for the evening rush. He dropped a basket of frozen corn dogs into the fryer, hit a timer, then moved to a table, where he busied himself filling red and yellow squeeze bottles with ketchup and mustard. His back was to the fryer, so his first hint that something wasn't right was the roiling, hissing, popping sound of liquid hitting hot grease.
George turned and stared in disbelief at the thing that was straddling the fryer. It was vaguely reptilian, with claws that gripped the sides, denting the metal. Its tail was curled high over its back, its long neck thrust forward and down, disappearing into the hot oil.
It raises its head, its mouth full of corn dogs. Oil dripping from his baby face, it turned and looked at George. For a long beat they simply stared at one another. George was shocked and terrified. The monster seemed mildly interested, chewing placidly. Then it swallowed its corn dogs, sticks and all, and smiled sweetly at George, tipping his head from side to side.
George hesitantly smiled back.
It bared its teeth.
*SPN**SPN**SPN**SPN*
When the screams started, Dean slid out from under the car and he and Sam ran for the hot dog stand. They ran through the door and stopped. The entire kitchen, the prep tables and cooking equipment, the walls, and even the ceiling were streaked with red.
The lone employee was backed up against the table, still clutching a ketchup bottle. He started babbling immediately. "It was there! It was right there! I heard the grease and I turned around and it was there!"
"Right. Right," Dean said. "But which way did he go?"
The employee (his nametag said George) was still gibbering. "And it had it's head in the fryer! It's head! In the fryer!"
"Yes, we know," Sam said, soothingly. "Which way did he go?"
"And then... and then... it smiled at me!"
This time the brothers shouted in unison. "Which way did he go, George?"
George pointed. "Thataway."
Following George's directions, Sam and Dean raced past him into the hot dog stand's wash area-a small space with a prep sink, a triple-sink with one end full of soapy water, storage racks and a water heater alcove.
Baby Fang clung to a rack full of pans, his grip bending the steel shelf. He bared his fangs and hissed.
"Oh, you little bitch."
Baby Fang snarled and launched himself at Dean's head. Dean ducked and Baby Fang nearly landed in the soapy water, teetering on the edge of the sink. Hissing and shrieking in distress he flung himself away, landing in the water heater alcove.
"He doesn't like water," Sam noted. He tossed holy water at the monster. The water hissed as it hit him and Baby Fang shrieked, but shook it off.
"Let's see how he feels about salt." Dean stooped and drew a line of salt across the alcove's opening, then stepped back. Baby Fang watched, smug, leaned down and licked a line through it.
"So much for salt. What about...?"
Taking a grease pencil from one of the shelves, Sam drew a devil's trap in front of the alcove.
Baby Fang hissed and pulled back.
"He doesn't like that," Dean said.
"Maybe if we can get him into it he'll be trapped."
"I got an idea." Dean cupped up a handful of the soapy dishwater. Baby Fang shrieked again in distress, melted flat against the wall, climbed it in an instant, and disappeared into a ceiling vent. "Crap!"
Sam and Dean burst out of the hot dog stand and looked around wildly, then looked up.
A power line crossed the highway. Baby Fang scampered along it like a mutant squirrel. Traffic was heavy, cars speeding past. Baby Fang reached a point above the roadway, balanced for a second, then dropped down onto a speeding car and disappeared.
Dean lunged towards the Impala, but Sam stopped him.
"We'll never catch it. Not that way. Did you even see which car it landed on?"
"No." Dean was disgusted. "I was hoping you did. Now how the hell we gonna find it again?"
With the monster out of their reach for the time being, Sam and Dean returned to a badly shaken George.
"What was that thing?" George asked.
"It was a...uh..."
"A Tasmanian devil!" Sam said quickly.
"Yeah! That's it! A Tasmanian devil."
"It...uh..." Now Sam faltered and Dean picked up the narrative.
"Escaped! From a zoo up the coast."
"That was a Tasmanian devil?"
"Absolutely!" Sam turned his patented "Trust Me" gaze up a notch.
"It had its head in the fryer!"
"Yeah," Dean sighed and gave him a tired smile. "They're tough little monsters!"
"The important thing is, it's gone and you're fine," Sam said. "So just try not to think about it. Okay?"
"Okay," George agreed doubtfully.
They started to leave, but then Dean stopped and turned back.
Oh, by the way...did you say something about...," he grinned, "corn dogs?"
*SPN**SPN**SPN**SPN*
As the Impala raced along a busy highway, a black truck approached in the opposite lane, one vehicle among many. The two vehicles passed one another. In that brief instant when they were side by side, a black liquid jumped from the side of the truck to the side of the Impala and disappeared into the black paint.
*SPN**SPN**SPN**SPN*
As twilight spread over the rest area, Sam and Dean sat on the hood of the Impala. There was an open cooler on the ground in front of them and each had a bottle of beer. Sam balanced his laptop on his lap. Dean was focused on a brown paper bag with the Dancing Dogs logo on it. He offered Sam the bag. Sam frowned and Dean shrugged, pulled a corn dog from the bag and took a bite.
Sam made a face. "You know, the monster had his head in the grease those were cooked in."
Dean considered, looking down at his corn dog. "He took it out again." He took another bite. "You got anything?"
"You're disgusting. Yeah, maybe. Thune has a studio near here, in an old lighthouse. He bought it after it was decommissioned in '59 and used it up until a few years ago, when he started painting with jelly and putting cadmium yellow on his toast."
"So he'd probably have been working there when he painted Baby Fang. It's as good a place as any to look. We'll check it out tonight."
"We'll have to be careful." Sam said. "It's right off a main road. We're bound to be seen."
"It's right on the coast, right? Anybody asks, we'll just tell 'em we're fishing."
"Okay, and if we find the monster, then what? Holy water wasn't really effective. Salt didn't work at all."
"It just so happens, I have a couple ideas about that. It really didn't like the soapy water back there."
"So, what? You wanna wash it to death?"
"Well, I was thinking-"
"And your head hurts?"
Dean ignored his little brother's attempt at humor. "- and I figure, maybe this monster is some ultra-powerful ancient nasty. But the body it's in is just ink and blood. It's a friggin' stain, Sam. And I say we clean it up."
He jumped down from the car hood and Sam followed suit. As they got ready to leave, Dean pulled a denim jacket out of the back seat and slipped it on. Before getting into the car he leaned against the door and nodded towards a billboard that loomed over them. It said, VISIT YOUR NATIONAL PARKS.
"You know, we ought to do that sometime."
"You want to go to a park? You hate camping."
"I'm not saying camp, just drive through and look, y'know? Yellowstone, Grand Tetons. We should visit Yosemite, Sam."
*SPN**SPN**SPN**SPN*
It was dark by the time they got back to their hotel. The parking lot was full and they were forced to park a good distance from their room. They got out of the Impala, arms full of grocery sacks, and walked, shoulder-to-shoulder, towards their door. Before they could reach it, Dean was approached from behind by a strange woman.
"I just love your jacket!" she said.
"Oh, why thank you! Thank you very much!"
Sam frowned at him, puzzled, and Dean shook his head and shrugged.
A few more steps and Dean was stopped by another woman.
"That is such an awesome jacket!"
"Oh, why thank you!" Dean was charmed and turned on his own charm. "You're too kind."
"Dude! What the hell" Sam objected. "It's just a jacket!"
"I don't know, Sam. I guess, maybe, when you're as sexy as I am, you can make anything look good."
He had no sooner finished speaking than he was accosted by a geeky teenage boy, a kid of about fifteen with acne, braces, and very weird hair.
"Dude! I totally love your jacket!"
Smile frozen, Dean lifted his chin in a gesture of thanks and caught Sam's smirk from the corner of his eye.
"Shut up, Sam."
Sam, grinning, raised one hand to protest his innocence, but then Dean stepped in front of him to open the hotel room door and Sam's expression changed from amusement to horror.
Baby Fang had painted himself across the back of Dean's jacket. As Sam stared, aghast, the monster blinked twice, smiled an evil smile, and then disappeared, seeping through the fabric and into Dean's clothes.
TBC