Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, and not for profit.
Chapter 7 - nine kinds of crazy
"You can call me Dark," the one with the smirk says. " 'cause that's what I am." He nods at the others. "I made them, but you made me first."
I turn my head to the side, spit out a glob of dust and dirt. "Glad that seems to be workin' out for ya." My throat hurts, and so does my head.
Dark laughs and the rest of them move in a little closer.
I've seen this kinda thing in the movies. The good guy confronted by his evil twin, I mean. Never thought that much about it before. There's a lot of dumb stuff in movies, especially horror movies. I know that. If I see something stupid on screen I usually sit there and laugh like hell.
I'm not laughing now.
That crazy shine in their eyes is about the worst thing I've ever seen, because I know they're me. Every last friggin' one'a them. I can't pretend they aren't, can't pretend I don't know where all this crazy shit is coming from.
Thing is, I'm not the good guy. Tried to kill my own father tonight, remember? Heroes are strong and brave. I'm not.
I'm weak and stupid, otherwise those fugs at the rec center wouldn't have found their way inside my head. I was trained by my Dad to kill all kinds of supernatural bastards. I don't have any excuse, I don't have the luxury of fucking up like this, but I did it just the same.
My head clears enough for me to get a good look around. Everything's flat as a pancake, covered with light brown dust. No buildings, no trees, nothing. Figures. I had this all locked away. All of it. Locked up and here I thought I'd thrown the key away for good. I'm a freak, but I'm not a bad person. 'm not.
"Sure, you're not, Deano," Dark drawls. "You're only human." The sky overhead rumbles, and at first I think it's thunder. That's crazy, right? Thunder? Here inside my head?
He grins at me, and it's the same kind of smirk I'd give a cop or some other dumbass civilian. "Hey, loser. You hear that?" Dark jerks his head up towards the sky. "That's the sound of Dad doing what he does best." He kneels next to me as the others hold me tight. "He's ditching us."
I hear that sound again, and I finally get it. I do. It's the Impala.
Dad's leaving me. He's ditching me.
I wish I could say I feel good about it. I don't. I get so mad my throat closes up. Mouth's so dry I'm strangling for air. I wanna yell and scream and sob at the sky above (Dad, please, please don't leave me) but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let these freaks see me bawl like a bitch.
It's better this way. I'm not safe to be around. Dad's gotta get clear of me. It's all good…
"Well, not so good, sport." Dark leans forward and thumps my forehead with his knuckles, like he's thumping a melon.
What the fuck…
"¿Su cabeza es mi cabeza, recuerda?" He thumps his right temple with one knuckle. "Your head is my head, remember? All we really have to do is show up at Bobby's place. Bobby'll call Dad. The old man'll probably come by Bobby's place, just out of curiosity. Then we'll kill 'em both."
"You leave them alone. You got me. You don't need Bobby. Or Dad."
Dark snorts. "Aw, c'mon, Dean. Still the good son, huh? Even with your head all fucked up? Even after those fugs broke down all the walls inside you and let out the truth?" Dark rolls his eyes. "It's okay. You don't really mean that. You still wanna, don't you? I can tell. You still wanna see Dad beat half to hell." He leans in, and we're nose to nose.
I must be one sick fuck, because I do want to see that. This is Dad's fault. If he hadn't left me, I wouldn't be like this…
"You still wanna feel his blood on your knuckles," Dark reaches out and runs his fingers through my hair. "Give him back all the shit he's been givin' you all these years."
I don't even struggle. I tell myself that's because they're holding me tight and I can't move. It's a damn lie and I think we all know that, because some of the others start laughing.
"Fuck you. You hear me, you stupid bastard? Fuck you ---"
"Really? Ya wanna?" Dark's eyes widen like he's surprised or something. "Okay."
The others start crowding all around me then, licking at my skin, groping and pawing on me, all between my legs, all over my body. Yeah, I know. Technically, I'm playing with myself. I got fingers in my ears, they're tugging at my fly and the waistband of my jeans. Fucked up doesn't even begin to cover this. One of them tries to stick his tongue in my mouth.
When I snap at him with my teeth the bastard laughs like a damn hyena.
"Son of a bitch --- get off, you pricks, get the hell off me!" I'm growling and pulling at the ropes holding me down. That only makes them laugh and rub up against me even harder. Each time they touch me I remember something I did, or almost did, or thought about.
Sammy had the flu that time, and he was just a little kid. Couldn't have been older than four, maybe five. He wouldn't stop crying, I couldn't make him stop crying.
I thought about making him shut the hell up once and for all.
They're inside my head, they all are. I think about the stuff I stole, food mostly, sometimes clothes, blankets, that Sam and I needed while Dad was off hunting. It was easier when Sam was little, when he was too young to ask me where I got the stuff from. I'd steal toys and stuff that I thought he'd like, and we were too damn poor to buy. Got harder later on, like those Christmas presents I took that time when he was nine and was old enough to bust me. We needed things, so I took. It was my way of getting even with the world, I guess. I didn't take a hell of a lot, but even so Dad noticed. I know he did. He raised an eyebrow when he saw some of the stuff, but he didn't ask.
Maybe he should have. What the hell kind of father leaves his kids for weeks at a time like that?
There were times I wanted to...wanted to kick Dad's ass when he finally came back home.
Dark stands up, cocks his head to one side and smiles as the Impala's engine fades off into the distance.
He left me. He left me…
I pull against the ropes with my arms and legs, and a couple of the freaks with my face lose their balance, nearly face plant into the dirt. That almost makes me grin, until I look up and see this one standing by my left shoulder.
He's wearing jeans and this faded black AC/DC shirt I bought at a thrift store a couple of summers ago. We had a run of bad luck with the credit cards while we stayed in Cleveland, Ohio. It was one thing after another. Sammy caught a bug at school, brought it home, and I was hurling all over the place in no time. I sure in the hell couldn't go to school, but I didn't mind that. I couldn't hunt, either.
I blamed Dad. I didn't say anything, but deep down inside I blamed him just the same.
When we moved away I forgot to pack this shirt with my stuff. Left it in the apartment we rented. I dunno…wearing it made me feel weird. I can't explain it any better than that.
First thing I notice is that the dude wearing the AC/DC shirt's really pissed.
Second thing I notice is that pipe in his hands.
He nails me in the chest with it first, and he's frothing at the mouth, spit flying everywhere. That knocks the breath outta me, and that's only the beginning. Blows are raining down on me from all directions, hands, feet, sticks and more pipes, and I'm tied down, so where am I gonna go, huh?
I buck against the ropes and I can feel the tears on my face, but I'm mad and scared and pissed off all at the same time. I can't curl into a ball, try to make myself as small a target as possible, so I close my eyes and I'm screaming and cussing and promising to kill every last one of 'em. It's all bullshit, but I do it anyway. No whimpering, remember?
For a moment I think that maybe if they kill me it'll be all over. I get nailed in my right eye and that warm sticky stuff running down my neck can't be good. Got a busted lip from the feel of it, couple of busted ribs, judging from that sharp pain in the right side of my chest. I promise myself I won't scream out as they keep pounding on me.
I break that promise when the end of that pipe punches into the top of my left thigh, through my jeans, right down to my hipbone.
Everything goes white then, but I don't pass out. That's the crazy thing. I kinda…fade away. It's like somebody's slowly turning the picture and sound down all around me. I can still feel the blows against my body, but it's faraway, like it's in another room, happening to somebody else.
The sound comes back up some time later, and I'm curled on my side. My wrists and ankles are raw and bleeding from the ropes. My left hip throbs each and every time I breathe.
I don't know how I got loose.
One of the crazies, the one with the pipe that started this whole beatdown in the first place, is lying on the ground in front of me. He's gurgling and his eyes have gone stone white. His whole body is shaking and jittering like he's being zapped with an electric shock.
Takes me a few seconds to realize just what the hell I'm looking at. Then my eyes clear and I still don't believe what I'm looking at.
Dark's got his fingers stuck inside the other one's forehead.
The dude on the ground folds up onto himself, goes all wrinkled like a damn raisin or something, and I swear I hear this slurping sound as the rest of him gets sucked up into Dark's fingers like milkshake up a straw.
He sits up and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Sorry. I leak sometimes, y'know? Even when I was behind the wall I'd leak. The rest of 'em? They were small enough, they got through the cracks. I was too big. I couldn't." He sits back on his heels and stares me up and down. "Hey, don't give me that fish eye, all right? You're fucked up in the head. So what the hell else do you expect? Hearts and flowers?"
He gets up and walks over to me. I can't lift my arms, can't stop him when he reaches down and grabs me by the collar of my jacket.
"…don't touch me…don't you fucking touch me…"
"Now don't be like that. I'm not gonna do anything to you."
Next thing I know I'm on my feet, and he throws my right arm around his shoulders, puts his other arm around my waist. My left hip hurts like a bitch, and I can't put that foot flat on the ground.
"Where…where the hell are we going?"
"Got a treat for you, dude. 'm not exactly in a sharing and caring mood right now, so my boys had to go inside and sit this one out. It's just you and me. Think you're gonna enjoy the hell outta this." He grins at me again, and I'm too fucking tired and broken up to pull away. "We got places to go and people to see. Let's go."
I start limping pretty badly after a few feet. My left hip hurts so bad I'm leaning on him, but he takes it all in stride. Dark just grins at me and tightens his grip around my waist and my wrist. I'm not going anywhere. I sure as hell can't run off. "I knew you were comin.' Got just the thing to make you feel better."
"Jesus, don't you ever shut the hell up?"
I glance down (can't feel my toes on my left foot) and when I look up again everything has changed.
"Places to go" looks like Clifton Falls, Indiana. One main street, right off Interstate 27. In the dictionary next to "one horse town" there's a picture of the place, probably.
One thing is I don't remember is all these dead people walking around.
First one that walks by is older than Dad. Can't really tell how tall he really is, 'cause he's holding his head in his hands. The stump of his neck looks like it's been gnawed off, and his eyes track me as we limp by.
"You remember, this, don't ya, Dean?" Dark chirps. "Had some good times here, right? Good times."
Good times my ass. I remember this place.
I almost got killed here.
Seems the good people of Clifton Falls decided to spice up life by making a deal with a dyyunn when the main highway bypassed their quaint little burg years ago. A dyyun's a cross between an earth elemental and a witch. It likes to eat people and doesn't have any problem making deals to get its meals.
The town had a really good run of good luck after they sealed the deal, and to make sure the good times kept right on rolling they had to feed the beastie three sacrifices every six months. Yep. You guessed it. Me, Dad and Sam were passing through. We weren't about to serve ourselves up on the menu, and when the fugly didn't get fed, the fugly got irate.
The body count got pretty high. About twenty five people, I think. We were dodging the local cops and trying to kill the fucker at the same time. It ain't as easy as we make it look.
I see other walking corpses stumbling down the street. Some had their arms ripped out of their sockets, some of them were hollowed out the same way you'd scoop out a melon. I can tell by the way some of them look at me that they know who I am, and they look like they want a little payback.
This woman wearing a bloody pearl grey business suit stops in the middle of the street and glares at me, and I glare right back at her. She's ripped open, from her throat to her belly, and the top of her head's been gnawed off. She was the mayor of the town, older chick by the name of Karen Rice. She could have stopped it.
She should have and she didn't.
"Wasn't our fault," I growl at her. "You hear me, you dumb, greedy bitch? It wasn't." She just stands there with her eyes glittering flat and black as we limp by. "Who the hell makes deals with these fugs anyway?"
"Ah, don't mind them, dude." Dark doesn't miss a beat. "They were stupid and they paid the price. Speaking of which, I still think Dad shoulda charged some of these bastards for getting rid of the nasties in the first place. Hey, I'm just sayin'."
He doesn't miss a beat, doesn't stop talking. Just drags me along like a duffel bag. "I got all the toys I could think of. Mainly stuff you remembered all these years. We'll take it nice and slow. Ah hah, here we are."
"Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?"
I blink and I miss it. We're standing in the hallway of some hotel somewhere. Nice one, this time. Beige carpet on the floor, walls are painted off white. Looks fairly clean. Doesn't smell like urine or disinfectant. No chalk outlines on the floor or police crime scene tape on any of the doors. We stayed in a couple of nice places. I know we did.
"Hey. Here we are." Room 1042.
The pain in my left hip flares up as he walks me forward. We're through the door and I stand there wobbling as Dark reaches behind us and pulls it close.
The place is empty except for a king-sized bed and a wooden table nearby. The table is loaded with just about every cutting instrument I've ever seen, or used: axes, Bowie knives, icepicks, bayonets.
"Honey, we're home!" Dark calls out, and the man on the bed just blinks. He's spreadeagled on his back, tied to the bedposts by his wrists and ankles. I see a dusty, blood stained olive green t shirt, faded blue jeans with slash marks all over.
It's Dad.
"D-Dad?"
I nearly fall flat on my face. Dark comes up behind me and holds me up. "Easy, tiger. Told you you were gonna like this."
"What…what the hell is this? How'd Dad ---"
"How'd he get inside our head? Dude, that's what all parents do. That's how they fuck us up for life, y'know. He's not really Dad. Well, he is. He's everything Dad ever said or did to us, and we gotta get rid of him. It's the only way we're ever gonna have a life of our own. Got to cut it out. Nice and slow. It's like a cancer. I didn't wanna start without you."
I can't say anything. Can't think. I can't even hear my heart beat. I don't feel myself breathing, either.
"Here, Dean."
I barely feel it when something slick and metal slides into my right my hand. I stare down at it, blink slow and stupid, and I see it's a knife. It looks like a silver claw, and that's when I remember that Sam had one just like it.
He took it with him when he went to Stanford.
When he left me.
"You'll help me, right? I know you will." Dark puts his chin on my shoulder. "Say it. Say yes."
I stare down at Dad, and he stares right back at me. He's bleeding down the left side of his face.
I can't read his expression.
I think of all the times he gave an order and I obeyed, never questioned any of it.
All those damn times. And it never was good enough.
I was never good enough.
My throat's still sore, but I hear myself whisper. "Yes."
Two more chaps after this one, folks. Next chapter will be posted Thursday.