Chapter Nine - Sam.
It was one o'clock in the morning and I was still sitting at my laptop, where I'd been most of the evening. I still hadn't found much on what could have got the victims from earlier. What I had found out was that where the deputy had got himself killed was an alien spacecraft like I'd told Dean, but it didn't tell you much on what drove the thing, or flew it, however you want to put it. From what I could gather, the ship was the alien, called the Harvester by some and the Oncoming Storm by others. It seemed as though these particular aliens loved livers. The iron in them gave them sustenance, seemingly.
I sighed tiredly and considered giving up until the morning. It didn't seem as though I'd be learning much more now anyway. I'd always had trouble sleeping, particularly lately, but there came a time when even I had to stop. I yawned as I reached for the last of my coke. I drained the can, before I got up to dispose of it.
It was when I was on my way back when Dean started talking in his sleep again. Up until that point he'd been sleeping peacefully for bout an hour, yet now he was quite restless.
"DEAN!" I shouted at him, but Dean didn't wake up.
He only said - "It's time!"
"Time for what, Dean?" I asked, tiredly, as I rubbed my eyes and yawned.
"It's time," Dean repeated.
"I'm too tired for games, Dean. I'm going to sleep. Tell me in the morning," I said, with another yawn - this one bigger.
Dean didn't reply, so I just headed for the en-suite bathroom to brush my teeth.
I didn't get that far beacause that was when Dean got out of bed and just stood there, staring blankly off into space.
"Dean?" I asked, suddenly feeling more than a little worried.
Dean didn't reply. He didn't even react, like he hadn't even heard me. He didn't even look normal. His usually handsome face was slack and the perfect picture of lights on, no one home. I'd never seen him like this - usually there was intelligence there, mixed in with a lot of cheekiness and charm, but now, nothing. The transformation was scary.
"Dean?" I asked, creeping over to snap my fingers in front of his face.
There was no response.
I waved my hand in front of his eyes, but there was not a flicker of recognition on his face.
"I'm sorry, Dean," I said, as I pinched him hard on his naked arm.
Nothing.
It was once again, as though I hadn't even done anything. I stared at him, wondering what the hell I was going to do, when Dean just suddenly walked out of the motel room wearing nothing but what he'd been sleeping in - his pyjama bottoms and nothing else.
"Dean!" I called out after him, but he didn't stop and he didn't even look back.
This was getting quite annoying and frustrating, mostly because I didn't know what was happening or even why it was happening; least of all to my brother. Weird things usually happened to me. I followed in Dean's footsteps quickly, hearing the familiar creak of the Impala's driver's side door opening and quickened my pace even more. I only just managed to hop into the passenger seat before Dean started the car and pulled out of the motel's parking lot.
"Don't worry. I'm coming!" Dean said, to no one, unprompted.
I risked a glance at my brother's face, but his green eyes were still wide and staring, his expression still blank and I wondered if my brother had finally suffered a nervous breakdown. I sat in silence util we pulled up by the side of the road somewhere, mostly because I didn't know what to say and only partially because I knew that whatver I said would go unnoticed, unheard. Wherever Dean wasin his own head right now was a place I couldn't follow and pull him back. All I could do was physically follow him and make sure he didn't come to any harm on the way.
The familiar bassy hum of the Impala's engine before Dean got out, slamming the door behind him. I sighed, got out myself, and prepared to follow. It was only when we started to move that I realized where we were - back at the field where the spacecraft had been found.
Suddenly this was starting to make a scary kind of sense. Going back to what had been happening and what I'd found out about it, I presumed that my brother, the usually cynical Dean Winchester, was possessed by an alien spacecraft, known as the Harvester or the Oncoming Storm. My God, if I was going to let that monster harvest my brother's liver.
I had no choice but to follow Dean down into the depths of the spacecraft, stopping only once to grab what I thought I might need from the boot of the Impala. I had a feeling I'd need some firepower. I also had a flashlight. Unlike Dean who was being guided by an alien presence, I couldn't see. It was dark, after all.
Even though I'd only taken a couple of minutes to grab what I needed, I still had a hard job catching up with Dean. My feet echoed after Dean's once I got inside the alien spacecraft and I soon saw him up ahead of me. He seemed to be going back to the room where we'd found the deputy.
Once there, he seemed to stand in front of a multi-patterned panel, before touching various parts of the panel with one had, like he was typing something. I watched for a few moments, wondering how dangerous this actually was, before tiny pinpricks of light started shining out of the panel - one each for Dean's hands and feet and one for his forehead. These lights were white. A red one was centre on where his liver was, growing brighter and brighter with each passing second.
"Dean! No!" I shouted, before running forward and tackling my brother to the ground with all the force that I could muster. It took all the strength I had to wrench him free of the white beams which seemed, as I thought, to be some kind of holding device. I passed though the red beam which burned my arm in the process.
"Dean? Are you okay?" I asked, my brother, not really expecting an answer but hoping for one anyway.
I didn't get one - Dean's face remained lax and lifeless. The lights behind us were getting brighter and I had to duck underneath the white lights, getting the things I'd grabbed from the Impala out of my pocket - the hand grenades. I pulled all the pins, arming them, before pushing them deep into the hole where the red light was coming from, getting burnt fingers in the process. If this worked, then the burns meant nothing. Once I'd pushed them all in, I ducked quickly away, to grab hold of my brother. I pulled him quickly to his feet and all but dragged him from the room.
"Come on, Dean, quickly!" I panted out, thinking as I did so that Dean was heavier than he looked.
Once I got to the rope to the outside, I hoisted Dean onto my shoulders in a fireman's lift and struggled as quickly as I could up into the fresh dark air. I could already hear the explosions starting behind me and that spurred me on to be quicker. Once getting back onto firm ground once again, I grabbed ont oDean and ran as fast as I could with his weight on my shoulders for the Impala. Not fast enough, though, for the grenades blasted behind me before we were even halfway to the car. I stumbled and fell with Dean on top of me, cursing hoarsely as Dean's weight drove the breath from my body.A chain reaction of ever increasing explosions rocked the night behind us, as mud and metal rained down around us; the night air lighting up red and orange.
"Where the hell are we?" groaned Dean from on top of me.
Up until that point I hadn't even realised that Dean was awake and hopefully back to his normal self again. He stood slowly and I relearned how to breathe without a heavy body on me.
"Why am I out in the middle of a field wearing nothing but my pyjama pants, Sammy?" Dean inevitably asked, looking as puzzled as he sounded.
"Don't ask. I'll tell you later. Let's just concentrate on getting you out of here. I have a feeling the show's not over yet," I said, as I got slowly to my feet and limped over to the car.
Dean knew better than to ask questions yet, even when there was one last explosion from the spacecraft behind us, before it finally fell silent forever.