A/N - EXHAUSTED! Sorry the updates are coming slowly, you guys. I really appreciate everyone who follows this story - your feedback is a great motivator. Thank you so much!
Chapter 23: Grim Reaping
Claire sensed the other kids' approach, their apprehension. "It's okay, he's just knocked out," she called without turning, unable to look away from Castiel. "He's alive," she added quietly, as if reassuring herself.
It seemed so quiet now, after all the violence. Claire's eyes ached, uncomfortably dry despite the rising lump in her throat. Crisis averted, she thought, numbed with relief. If she ignored the blood and the fact that he was lying in a road, Castiel almost looked like he was sleeping. He never slept; Claire had never thought to appreciate that about him. It made him look younger, a lot more like Jimmy Novak.
Claire didn't expect to be tackled from behind in a hug that would rock her forward on her knees. Long, dark hair spilled down Claire's front when Enid tucked her chin over Claire's shoulder and squeezed her tightly.
"Hey," Claire said in a shaky voice, lifting a hand to pat Enid's arm. "What's up?"
Enid laughed quietly, sounding a vibration against Claire's back. "Not much. You?" She pulled back until she was kneeling next to Claire, a steadying presence at her side. Enid's expression wavered when she got a closer look at Castiel. "Holy shit. They shot him. Like, a lot."
Claire turned her head at the sound of shuffling footsteps. The others drew closer, their shadows looming over the unconscious Castiel. "It looks worse than it is," Claire said, feeling uneasy by their frightened expressions. "Carl," she called, trying to catch his eye, "are you okay?"
Carl looked pretty far from okay, actually. He was staring at Castiel with a dazed expression, the blood-stained bandage on his face accentuating his paleness. Judith sat against his hip, painted red but without signs of discomfort except confusion. The was no trace of the angry wound that had only recently gaped through her chest and neck. It wasn't a sight Claire would soon forget.
"Not really," Carl said plainly.
"Cash," Judith spoke up suddenly. "Ca-aal, Cash!" The two-year-old pointed at Castiel with a stubby finger, slurring his name as usual. She wriggled in a way that said she wanted to be let down right now.
Her squirming seemed to pull Carl out of his daze. "Hey, hey, Judy. Calm down," he said gently, rocking her a little. "Cas can't play right now. He's sleeping." His lower lip wobbled. Then his breath hitched, almost in a sob. Looking straight at Claire, he asked, "He brought her back, didn't he?"
Claire nodded slowly.
"I think he's healed," Enid announced, moving Castiel coat lapel to uncovered more of the blood splattered shirt underneath. Her hand hovered over his chest before she tentatively peeled back a strip of fabric. "There's not a mark on him," she murmured, not sounding surprised at all. "Still, what a bunch of assholes."
"Dead assholes," Jake pointed out, frowning down at their unconscious friend. "Cas, you are one scary mother-"
"Leave him alone," said Claire harshly. Her eyes seemed to be drawn to the blood splatter on Castiel's cheek. Bits of gravel were stuck to it from when he had collapsed on the road before she managed to roll him over. "Goddammit," Claire whispered, struck by a sudden rush of anger. Pulling her sleeve over her hand, she began to swipe at his skin. "This was never supposed to happen," she said through gritted teeth. "He is not okay and he's not supposed to do anything stupid like blasting or healing-"
Enid caught Claire's hand. "I don't think that's helping."
"Sorry," Claire breathed. She glanced at Carl, finding him looking absolutely stricken. "Sorry," she repeated, almost in a whisper. "I'm glad Judith's okay. I am."
Then, to her horror, she burst into tears.
Claire stood up on shaky legs and turned her back to the others, covering her eyes so she wouldn't have to see them looking at her like she'd lost her damn mind. A hand touched her shoulder. Claire flinched, shrugging off the comforting gesture like it burned her. "Don't touch me," she said thickly, taking a shuddering breath to keep herself from sobbing. "You don't get it - this is all my fault."
"It's really not," Enid was quick to say.
"It is," Claire insisted, squeezing the bridge of her nose. Still the tears kept on coming. "All of it. I could've stopped the car and I didn't. And then Judith almost died and Cas almost died and we lost all our stuff..."
"That's not on you," said Carl quietly, giving her pause. "I distracted you."
Claire turned to look him in the eye. "No," she said, horrified. "I should've paid more attention to the road. If I wasn't driving so damn fast-"
"You were just trying to get us home," Carl protested, shaking his head helplessly. "I shouldn't have been so pushy about it."
"I saw the damn spikes-"
"Oh, will you stop?" said Enid sharply. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Carl and Claire in turn. "It was a freakin' ambush! You wanna play the blame game? Fine, I'll give you a hint:" her voice adopted a mocking gruff intonation when she quoted, "'Take the girls.'" She huffed, aggravated. "Give me a break. We're alive. We survived and we're gonna keep on surviving. You got that?"
Claire sniffed pitifully. "I don't think you'll make it home for dinner."
Enid rolled her eyes. "Don't be an idiot."
They all startled when a nearby corpse began to jerk and twitch. Oliver jumped away from it, dropping the stick he was holding in surprise. The walker, a pitiful-looking thing in nothing but a pair of soiled boxers, continued to spasm for several moments before settling, a buildup of hissing steam escaping from one of its ruined eye sockets.
"Ewww," said Oliver, suitably impressed.
"Jesus Christ," Jake said loudly, looking at the walker in undisguised horror.
"Pretty sure it was all Cas," Scott mumbled.
"Bite me, Scotty," Jake said before he turned to her. "Claire, what was that?" He spread his arms in a pointed gesture, indicating the bodies scattered about the road. The air smelled prominently of burnt flesh. "What the fuck happened to their heads?"
Claire returned Jake's expectant glare with wet eyes. "How should I know?" she demanded. She might have seen this sort of thing before (had done this sort of thing before, in a way), but she had no actual explanation besides 'oh, an angel did it'.
"You're the expert on Cas-stuff," Jake shot back.
"What? Did I grow wings all of a sudden?" Claire threw her arms out, exasperated. "I don't know. It's just-" she shook her head, braid flying- "a thing he does."
"A thing?"
"Guys," Mikey said, stepping up between them, face pale under his dark hair. "Can we freak out about this later?" His eyes darted around nervously. "This doesn't look like the safest place to be right now."
"He's not wrong," Enid said. "That blast probably bought us some time, but we're sitting ducks. We can't just wait here till Cas wakes up." Her expression turned thoughtful. "Hey, do you think the assholes had a car?" She moved to look in the direction their attackers had come from, past the crash site. "I could take a quick look."
Claire frowned, following Enid's line of sight. The fire was still going strong, gas spill spreading across the road and blocking anyone from going in that direction. If their attackers had a vehicle, it could only be on the other side of that fire blockade. But stepping through the fire would be suicide.
Going around, however…
"How do you plan on getting there?" Jake asked, raising an eyebrow.
Enid grinned. "Boost me up?" She touched one of the stone walls that lined the road.
"Figures," Jake sighed before stepping up to the task. "Come along, squirrel."
"Enid," Claire called the moment Enid had the high ground. Her voice was still a little wobbly from crying. "You get five minutes, so don't go too far. And be careful!" Enid gave her a thumbs up before disappearing over the edge.
"We should check the bodies for supplies. Guns, too," said Scott, fingering the strap of the rifle he had picked up. "I don't think they used up all the ammo."
"I'll stay here," Carl said. "Watch over Cas."
"Jake, keep him company?" Claire asked. Jake rolled his eyes but didn't argue. Claire turned to Oliver. "You too, kiddo," she said, ruffling the boy's hair. "You're in charge till I get back."
Grabbing Mikey and Scott by their shirts, she pulled them along until they were fumbling after her on their own, Mikey a little less enthusiastically than Scott. It was a short walk down the trench road to where the majority of the corpses were. Claire remembered that in the early days, looting bodies had been frowned upon. Now, it was a matter of course.
They didn't bother checking the walkers. Most looked like they'd been dead for quite some time. It was easy to tell the bodies apart, anyway. For starters, their living attackers hadn't had the chance to decay yet. On top of that, they were all heavily tattooed. Kind of badly, too, in Claire's humble opinion.
"You don't think they'll turn, do you?" Mikey asked, scrunching his nose at one of the fresh cadavers.
"Nah," said Claire from her perch over her own corpse. The eyes were a twisted, burnt mess. "It worked on the walkers, didn't it? I think their brains are mush." Just to confirm, Claire drew her blade and shoved it through the dead man's skull. It burst open, spilling black goo on the asphalt. Claire grimaced. "Case in point."
The next body Claire inspected didn't have the same burnt out eyes. Instead, the man appeared to have died from a bullet to the back of the head. Claire frowned, realizing that it must have been Scott's doing. In fact, a few of the men appeared to have died that way. At the time, Claire had thought the gunshots had been the men firing at the walkers, but now it appeared that while the rest of them were taking out the dead, Scott had kept his focus on the living
Claire looked at Scott, puzzled. "Not that I'm complaining, but…"
"You don't waste bullets on the dead," said Scott, matter of factly. "These guys," he jerked his chin at one of the shot corpses, "they were making a run for it." He shrugged. "I figured, if they weren't helping us take out the dead ones, least they could do was keep them distracted. Y'know, as grub?"
"This is freaky," said Mikey, raising his voice to get their attention. "Check this out. I think these guys were, like, Satanists."
The body he was looking over was easily recognizable - it was missing most of its head (the reddish beard remained mostly intact). Like the rest, the body was covered in chicken scratch tattoos. Mikey used his pocket knife to point out a particular one, half hidden in the ruddy chest hairs that poked above the man's dirty wifebeater.
"That's a pentagram, right?" Mikey said, squinting. "It's like a cult or something; they've all got the same tattoos."
"They're not Satanists - they're hunters," Claire said in realization, peering at the familiar design. "Monster hunters," she clarified, "Sam and Dean are ones, too. I guess it explains why this asshole kept going on about silver." Scowling, she gave the body a little kick. "They're supposed to be the good guys."
"I don't know, Claire," Mikey said, pulling his shoulders. "They really panicked."
"Not this dude," said Scott, jutting his chin to indicate the body sprawled at their feet. "And there was that one other, the guy who tried to stab Cas in the back…"
"Walt," Claire recalled, nodding. "Nice shooting, by the way."
"Thanks." Scott ducked his head shyly.
Mikey gestured at the tattoo again. "So, this is what, a badge of honor?"
"Anti-possession tattoo," Claire said, shaking her head. "My mom had one." She considered the crudely etched symbol. No doubt, it was the same design her mother had worn. Same five-point star, same little 'sun' around the edges. But the inkwork was sloppy, unlike her mother's discreet little tattoo.
"Your mom hunted monsters?" Scott asked, eyebrows rising.
"No, but she got possessed once." And wasn't that the Novak family curse. She clarified, "By a demon."
Claire had only met Sam and Dean that one time. That was when she had last seen her father alive (if not in the flesh). The Winchesters hadn't stuck around long, but they'd left Amelia Novak with a sketch of the demon warding. For that, at least, Claire was grateful. Amelia had breathed a little easier after getting the ink done. Even though her own mother, Claire's deeply religious grandma, had thrown a fit.
"I was supposed to get one just like it when I turned sixteen," Claire mused out loud. Except that by then, the world had ended. In the grand scale of looming threats, dead people with cravings took precedence over demonic possession.
"What about the rest of these?" Mikey continued frowning at the hunter's strange tattoos. "Do they mean anything?"
"It just looks like chicken scratches to me." Claire shrugged. "Cas would know."
Scott perked. "We'll show him when he wakes up. Mike, d'you still have that notepad?"
"It's Mikey," he said emphatically, sighing. "And yeah." Mikey pulled a small notepad and a little pen from his back pocket. He ripped the first two pages off, tossing them over his shoulder before handing the items to Scott. "I guess I don't need it, now that we've lost our inventory." He pouted.
It felt a little skeevy, but they tore off the headless asshole's wifebeater and overshirt so Scott could get a better look at the designs stretching across his chest, arms and protruding belly. Tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration, Scott quickly sketched out the different symbols, keeping them more or less true to form. Proportional, even.
"Got it. Now, turn him around. See if he's got more on his back," Scott said. He was proven right - the tattoos went all the way down the man's back, disappearing past his waistline. After a pause, Scott added, "Pants and underwear, too."
"Dude," said Mikey, aghast.
"What?" Scott argued. "It might be important." To himself, he muttered. "Better damn hope it's important."
While Scott creeped, Claire went to get Walt's silver knife. On closer inspection, it didn't look much like Claire's own angel blade. It was long and silver, but had a duller, matte finish and a jagged edge. Claire decided to show it to Castiel anyway, as there were runes etched on the base. Turning Walt's body around, she took his holster and sidearm too.
"We really have to go," Claire said, standing back up. "Where the hell is Enid?"
The sound of a speeding vehicle made all three startle. They jumped out of the way just as an ugly beige pickup truck shoved past the wreckage, the metal on the truck's side screeching in protest when it checked the burning metal husk. Claire caught a glimpse of long dark hair in the driver's seat when the truck rushed past them. The truck trampled over the bodies in its path before it pulled to a rough stop.
"Enid, what the hell?" Claire demanded, picking herself off the ground. "You could've killed yourself with that stunt!"
"But I didn't!" said Enid, grinning as she all but tumbled out of the driver's seat. She pointed at the fire. "Holy shit, did you guys see that? Not bad for a first timer, huh?"
Scott blinked at her. "You can't drive?"
"Um, I think I just did."
"I think I'm going to kill you." Claire said and threw her arms around Enid in a hug. Enid just laughed.
They wasted no time taking off after loading the truck. They grabbed what they could off the bodies, but it wasn't much; there were plenty of guns, but hardly any ammo was left. Castiel had remained stubbornly unconscious even as they carried him into the back of the pickup. Claire didn't hesitate to settle beside him, all too happy to leave the driving to Jake. Enid, Scott and Carl took to the back as well (the latter managing to bring himself to drop Judith in Mikey's lap in the truck's front passenger seat, squeezed together with Oliver who was none too happy about not getting a ride in the open).
Traveling in the back of a pickup truck had seemed like a refreshing change at first. They barely managed an hour before they were missing their van. It might have been crowded and stifling, but at least it had kept a roof over their heads. By noon, it was clearly turning out to be an exceptionally hot day. And while the heat was kept at bay by the wind, it didn't stop them from soaking up the sun.
"I miss my hat," Carl grumbled loudly, holding a hand over his face for a tiny bit of shade. His skin had already adopted a rosy tint.
Enid was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Scott, peering at the little notepad he had in his hands. "Hunters, huh?" Enid said, her long hair whipping about her face. They had already recounted their discovery to the others. "Some of these kind of look like the ones we drew in McLaren."
"What, the wards?" Claire glanced down at Castiel.
Carl frowned in consideration. "You think that's what spooked Cas earlier? If they've got their place mojo'd up like this, would he be able to tell? He said something about not liking the neighborhood."
Claire snickered. "Oh, I'm pretty sure Cas likes hunters alright."
"I'm pretty sure I don't," Carl said, snorting.
"I saw more of them," Enid blurted out. "Hunters, I mean. When I was out getting the truck. They never saw me," she added quickly, holding up a hand to stop Claire from asking. "There were walkers coming up the hill - they had their hands full."
Claire's mouth thinned. "Good."
They drove for another hour or so, just in the general direction of Alexandria, stopping often to search for supplies. There was little to be found. It appeared that the whole area had been picked clean. It didn't help that the truck seemed to be on its last legs, dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree and engine grunting and heaving alarmingly.
"No food, no water," Claire complained loudly, sitting cross-legged in the pickup's bed. Loose strands of her hair kept flying into her eyes. "And we're practically running on fumes. Those cheap motherfuckers."
"And no air conditioning!" Jake shouted at them from the driver's seat.
They almost missed the sign for the freshwater lake. It was a good thing they hadn't, as the lake itself was quite small and not at all visible from the main road. Following the unpaved road as directed by the sign, they endure the slap of overgrown tree branches with the promise of cool fresh water. Their luck held out: they got all the way down to the end of the trail before the truck died out with a final gurgle.
They found themselves in a tranquil little spot, surrounded by trees that created a fair bit of shade while being sparse enough that nothing could really sneak up on them. The lake itself was closer to a large pond, with a rocky shoreline and a wooden pier that just begged to be used as a jumping board.
"Oh, check it out," said Claire, focusing on what she had initially assumed to be shrubbery but was actually a trailer covered in vines and a heavy camouflage tarp. They circled the trailer for signs of any recent human presence. The windows were all boarded shut, the nails rusting. A fire pit near the trailer showed no sign of having been recently lit. Claire nudged a dented metal pot with her shoe. "I don't think anyone lives here anymore."
"Look," said Jake, lifting another tarp to reveal fishing supplies. "Hook, line and sinker." He pulled up a fishing rod, grinning. "Literally."
While the others combed the surrounding area, Claire and Carl took the task of rummaging through the trailer's contents. The lone walker inside didn't give them too much trouble, despite having once been an unusually large man (with a rather obvious bite wound on his neck).
"Just - crap," Claire said with a sigh, closing the little pantry door with a little too much force. The owner had been something of a hoarder, they discovered. Unfortunately, there was very little they could do with horse-shaped figurines and an unholy-sized collection of empty liquor bottles. The stuffy smell and the heat inside the trailer was giving her a headache. "No first-aid kit or anything, either, and um, Carl..." she turned to look at him, hesitating a little.
Carl stopped rummaging through the dead man's closet long enough to look at her questioningly. The blood that had soaked through his bandage had turned a dark brown. "What?"
"You've got to take that off. It might get infected," Claire finished reluctantly, motioning at her own face.
"Yeah," Carl said after a moment had passed. His face tilted away, he reached up to peel off the soiled bandage, wincing when the medical tape pulled at his skin. "The doc said I gotta start airing it out, anyway," he added with forced confidence.
"It's not that bad," Claire said immediately, wincing inwardly at how insincere she sounded. In truth, it did look pretty damn awful, even half-hidden under his long hair. Carl's eye was just… gone, leaving a scarred, angry red hole behind. Oddly, it looked somewhat like the messed up bodies they had left stranded on the road.
Carl snorted. "Come on, I don't think we'll find anything else in here."
A noticeable hush fell over the group the moment Carl and Claire stepped outside with their meager loot.
"No bandages," Carl said tersely, dropping a backpack full of oversized clothing at his feet. "Judith's still asleep, right?" he asked unnecessarily, as the toddler was obviously still snoozing in Mikey's lap.
"Dude," said Jake, staring openly despite the pointed glares Claire was sending his way. "When can you stop covering that shit with bandages, anyway? We should find you a real eye-patch. Like, with crossbones and everything. It'll look so freaking badass." He pressed on when Carl didn't say anything, "Eye-patch, man! Like Captain Hook."
"Jake," Carl said hesitantly, like he wasn't sure if Jake was making fun of him. "Hook was missing a hand."
"Pirates got eye-patches," Jake said stubbornly. "Just think about how cool you're gonna look. Or, you know, whatever. I'm kind of digging the cyclops chic, too." He shrugged. "What are y'all staring at, anyway? You've seen a hell of a lot worse. Look at Claire, she's got walker gunk in her hair."
Carl glanced at Claire, who fingered her stiff braid with a grimace. "You do have some gunk in your hair," he said, mouth twitching. His head was held a little higher when he turned back to Jake. "I guess I could wear an eye-patch. Just... no crossbones."
Jake hooted in triumph. "Awesome. We'll keep an eye out for you." He was about to return to his task of fixing up the fishing rod when he realized what he had said and began to snicker. "Keep an eye out. Get it?"
Carl punched him in the shoulder. But not very hard.