Chapter 16 – Strigoi mortIn a small city in Nebraska, the night had fell over every house in the village and he forest that surrounded them was now all dark. From someone secured in their house, the forest seemed silent and calm, as if there was nothing that could harm them; but that was not the thought of a young man in the woods trying to escape from something that no one could abscond from. The sound moved around the forest in a straight line, or so did the man think. His feet did their best not to stumble on any rocks and his heart did all it could to feed oxygen to the muscles that tried so hard to give to the man the velocity he needed to run away from what was chasing him. There was only one audible breath and it belonged to the 30 year old man who was in town for a camping trip with his brothers and some friends. He had left the camping site to make a call to his wife that was at her sick mother's house back in Montana. His feet did their best not to stumble on anything, but their best was not enough. The man fell but nothing attacked him, not immediately. He stood up and he could still hear the amazingly loud sound of a beating heart, a muscle working slowly but very, terribly, impossibly loud. He looked around and saw nothing, but then he heard a noise and some leaves fell from the trees. As soon as the man turned his green eyes to the top of the trees, he was attacked and his scream was heard throughout the forest. Dean was already in town waiting for his brother in a diner. Dressed in a black suit, Dean Winchester was sitting at a booth, drinking some hot coffee and enjoying a piece of cherry pie when the door opened and he looked up. His brother was wearing his black suit with a blue tie but he did not come alone. Behind him came his small stature girlfriend, with her hair straightened and tied up in a beehive, wearing a simple and long sleeved black dress. Anyone would consider her a very serious and important lady if they just didn't look at her feet for she was wearing a pair of red sneakers that reminded Dean of a teenage girl. "What the hell are you doing here?" Asked Dean, surprised, getting up and, with a smile, hugging Marie with the most welcoming embrace. "I got a week off. Did you miss me?" "Yeah, right." Dean joked, as the three of them sat on the table. "Are you joining us on the case?" "If you'll let me." "Sure, sure… Just don't screw anything up." "So, what's the case?" Wanted Samuel to know, still entertained by the fact that Dean completely ignore his brother's arrival. "Three people have died in the forest this last week. They appeared with bites on their necks." "So, vampires." Supposed Sam. "But get this: their hearts were missing; they were ripped out of their chests." "What the…?" Said Marie. "A new body came in this morning; we have to go check it out." "Okay. I'll go do some research of local history and pass deaths, maybe something like this happen before." "Are you scared of dead bodies?" "No. But you're portraying FBI agents. There aren't any FBI agents travelling in groups of three, from what I've heard. Bring me a souvenir." She joked, at the end. "Alright, let's get some lunch, then." In a couple of hours, Dean and Sam were showing their fake badges that easily got them access to basically everything. Under the alias of John Simons and Louis Wells, the Winchester brothers entered the morgue and were shown the freshly found but not as freshly killed body. It was a thirty-five year old man who was missing for three days before his remains were found. Once again, the man had a maximum of two drops of blood and the heart was ripped out the chest, His sternum was cracked and the bones of his thorax were opened reminding Sam of the blood eagle so commonly known as a Viking torture. On the neck, one impression of teeth, but not just fangs, the whole set of teeth, like a human bite, but from a person whose teeth were all broken and similar to spikes – perfectly triangular shaped and seriously far apart from each other. In the open wound on the thorax, on the massive hole the dead man's body had, Dean found one nail, a nail that… well: it was just a normal nail. Maybe this monster was human shaped. The motel room would be found empty if anyone went inside. Marie had given up the research on the internet and decided to visit the town's library, where she grab every single book about the weird crimes and myths that followed the village. FBI agents Simons and Wells met Marie at the library and discretely passed her the finger nail. She rose her eyes from the books and looked at them: "It's a human nail. That was in the body?" "Yes, stuck in a freaking human prime rib." "Well, putting that aside, I did some old fashioned research on this town's history." Marie turned an old discredited book towards the boys. "Line 15." Five years ago I received firsthand the testimony of a local woman that had been terrorized by such a creature. When she was only 24 years old, Kelly (let's call her that in order to keep her real identity a secret) was victim of spouse abuse. I was her neighbor for the 5 years she had been married and I can assure you the man (lets name him Al) knew how to keep his violence a secret. On a cold night of October, Kelly came to me with her clothing drenched in blood. The dress that was once white and that made her seem like she was some heavenly creature was just as red as the lipstick color every other women wore that time. She had killed her husband and she found I was the only person she could trust. I decided, fortunately or not so much, to help her conceal her husband's death. I had never thought a creature so sweet as Kelly could ever do what I found she had done. The knife was still in Al's dead body. The kitchen was a sea of blood for she had stabbed her husband at least 20 times. We buried him under the oak tree the man used to stand underneath while he drank a full bottle of whiskey every Saturday night. We decided to forget what had happened and Al's name was not referred between us two until a very cold December night. The police closed the case and just took it for granted Al ran away. No one ever knew Kelly was under spouse abuse for as long as she was and I never really took what she did against her. One very cold December night, Kelly knocked on my door, desperate. Her eyes seemed ever so frightened. 'I have seen Al' she said to me. I told her I didn't understand what she meant and she began to explain, still shaking like she was a very week and fragile plant under the most terrible storm. Kelly told me someone knocked on the door and that, when she answered, no one was there. As she closed the door and turned around, she found her husband's rotting corpse sitting in the living room. The light from the fireplace made him seemed even more horrible. When she turned on the light, he was gone and that's when she ran to me. I took her as a fool. I honestly did not believe her but perhaps I should. Only 4 nights after that, 4 nights of 4 days without even a sight of Kelly, I went to check on her. She refused to talk to me. Only latter would I find that Al didn't just appear that first night, but every single night for a month. Every time I saw Kelly, she seemed more week and fragile, as if she was, indeed, a small plant in the middle of the most vicious storm; a plant that was losing the battle against the wind. One afternoon I decided to visit her and what I found was more disturbing than that October night. Kelly was lying on the ground and looked so pale, as if there was no blood on her veins. Her chest had been ripped open and her heart was missing, but her eyes was closed, as if Kelly found her death was the best ending her story could have had. "I know, it sounds a little crazy, but I then did some research and I found an article about Paul Williams a man that was reported missing in October 1932 and, a month older, an article about Eleanor Williams and her missing heart… and blood." "Hm." "That book is all about Strigoi Mort. They die, come back to life and kill people. They were first known for draining the life out of their remaining family members until they died, but then stories were born where they suck out the blood of people. I found only a couple of testimonies where the Strigoi ate the hearts and in those articles it was told that they ate the hearts for they could only be killed if their hearts where removed. They are pretty much ghosts, but with bodies and a thirst for blood and flesh." "I believe this is the least credible case we have ever had." "What about the fairies?" Asked Sam to Dean. "Oh yeah… Nothing beats the fairies." Marie laughed and then finished: "Although they use their rotting bodies, their hearts remain pretty fresh and their flesh only decays to level of mummy state and they stay that way for all eternity. Killing them is said to be pretty easy. They sleep during the day in their graves and can be killed if you cut off their hearts and burn the body." "That's it?" "Yeah, the tricky part if just finding out what it is." "So… All we need to do is find out were Paul Williams is buried?" "I figured that out already. Or I think I did. Their house still exists and guess what you is visible in the hills behind the house, less than 16 yards away." Marie spoke her final words while handing out to Dean the immensely old journal where Eleanor's death was reported. The picture that was printed along with the words describing the crime was of Williams's old house and the hills behind it. "The oak tree." That had been the quickest and weirdest research on a case ever done, but the leads were solid. They waited to the next morning, for the sun was coming down, and hoped there was no new body. Although they wanted to stop the killings, fighting a Strigoi during night time was said to be one of the dumbest things a hunter could do and since they had no clue whom the next victim was, there was nothing to be done. Usually the legends talked about Strigoi only attacking members of their family, but the myths also talk about unicorns shooting rainbows of their asses and vampires being afraid of garlic pizza. They decided to attack the place at 6 am; probably the time when the streets would be almost empty for everyone was still getting up. Fortunately for them, the field where the tree was at was turned into a green park, but the place where the tree stood was untouched. With no one yet at the park, luckily for the hunters, the Winchester brothers started to dig and it was only at the 3rd attempt, almost at 7:30am when they found something. People were starting to arrive: a couple got to the park and found the three unknown people digging up something and picked up the phone two minutes ago, probably to call the police. The station was 10 minutes away: they still had sometime. The creature seemed to be sleeping soundly, almost as if it was dead (and during the day, it really was). Marie opened the mummified chest and found a red and beating heart. She took a cloth out of her bag and covered the heart and main veins; underneath it, she cut off the heart and blood gushed out in a significant amount but not as enough as in a human body. Her hands and the piece of cloth were completely red as Sam stood by and watched for people approaching or a police car. The quickly set fire to the body and ran to the car that stood 5 yards away. "Drive, drive, drive!" They would stay in town for another day, just to make sure no one died. Some would put in question if the killer wasn't Eleanor, but there was no possibility: she had no heart. Two days from there, the Winchester brothers would be back hunting in a duo and Marie back at the Hospital, taking care of people instead of ripping hearts out of dead bodies.