Thanks so much for the wonderful response to this story. I'm really glad you all are enjoying it. Here's a little more. Warnings here. That gore I mentioned...yeah.
Forgot to mention, I don't own the boys, the song. Nope. Nada. Just toying around with them. Oh, also have no idea if a place like this exists. If it does...yuck. So read this, close your eyes and see what it feels like for Sam. Let me know what you think.
Again, enjoy and have a happy Easter if yours hasn't rolled around yet. You all made my birthday wonderful!
Chapter 1: Night Falls and I'm Alone
Ten days earlier…
Dean rolled down the window, letting the warm summer air into the car. He pulled in a breath and released it.
"What's up man?" Sam said, looking at his brother.
Dean smiled. "Nothin. Nothin. I'm just enjoyin' the summer. Wide open road, sun's shinin'. 'S warm…we're on our way to a new hunt. What more could a guy want?"
"You're… perky." Sam said, the smile Dean wore echoed on his own face.
Dean ignored him and turned up the radio, humming along with Guns-n-Roses. Sam turned his head with a chuckle and went back to researching the case.
He was still reading when he felt the car slow into a curve. "Pit stop." Dean said, pulling into a gas station. He and Sam got out of the car, stretching long legs and cracking backs before they walked into the building. Sam cut away to go to the restroom while Dean walked to the cooler and eyed the drinks, going for an iced tea, while collecting two bottles of water for later and a Sprite for Sam. He walked over to the checkout counter and paid for the drinks, two bags of M&M's and a granola bar. The woman behind the counter smiled at him, leaning over in her low cut tank top, as she reached for and rang up his purchases.
"Well, well, you do like your M&M's don'cha? Anything else, sugar?"
"Twenty dollars worth of gas." Dean handed over a credit card, leaning forward to appreciate the view she offered as she ran the card. She handed it back to him.
"You stayin' in town?"
"Sorry, just passin' through." Dean said.
She pouted, her rich red lips still turned up at the edges. "Shoot. And here I was hopin' out paths would cross again."
"Well, you never know, sweetheart. I pass through a lot of towns."
"Well, then you'll have to let me know when ya come back." She took his hand, just barely raking his skin with long burgundy nails. She turned over his hand and wrote her name and number across his palm, her fingertips sliding over his when she released him. He smiled that megawatt smile, glancing down.
"I'll see ya next time…" he glanced down, "Lena." Dean took his purchases and walked out of the store. He tossed his food on the front seat and went to the back of the car, lowering the license plate to pump gas. A black Pontiac pulled in, the big sixties something Catalina catching Dean's appraising eye as quick as the cashier did. His lips quirked at the plates, DIE 1983. He nodded to the driver and his passenger as they got out, one heading for the bathrooms around the side of the building, the other heading inside. Dean pumped the gas and got into his car, waiting on Sam. He dug out a package of the peanut M&M's and tore open the bag, sticking four of the candies in his mouth. He cracked the seal on his iced tea and washed them down.
He got back out of the car, deciding Sam had had enough time to make himself pretty. He opened the bathroom door, "Sam, get a move on. I wanna cross the Louisiana border before sunset!"
No answer. "Sammy?" Dean moved further into the room, the smell of stale urine and cheap soap assaulting his sinuses. Dean checked the stalls, and the corners, going outside and looking around the building, thinking Sam had decided to stretch his legs. Dean stepped forward, something cracking under his boot. He moved his foot and saw the familiar black and gray of Sam's phone. Dean picked it up, seeing the crack across the screen, the electronic device blinking before going dead.
Dean looked around, worry streaking through him. He never saw the source of the heavy weight that slammed into the back of his neck. He never felt the ground rushing up to meet him. He never felt himself being rolled over and dragged behind the convenience store.
Dean never saw the cashier, Lena, come out of the store and lean over him, delivering a harsh back hand before straightening and kissing the driver of the Pontiac, her eyes matching his, deep voids of black, as her ruby lips worked over his.
***
Sam groaned, his back and neck hurting instantly as consciousness returned to him. He tried to get his bearings, his vision blurry, although he realized it was dark, scarily dark, around him. "Mnn, Dean?"
Sam waited for his brother to say something, turn on the light, be a smartass about Sam falling asleep in the car…anything. Instead he was met with silence. "Dean!" Sam stood on shaky legs, belatedly realizing he was cold. As he stood up, his head cracked off a low ceiling, making his world spin. Water dripped down his hair and seeped into his collar. "Oh, what the hell?" Sam cried, his hand shooting up to just above his bowed head, where it met with the slimy feel of wet, rotting wood. He yanked his hand away from the slime and wiped it on his jeans, feeling where they had already drawn damp from his time on the floor. He shoved his hands into his pockets, finding them empty of the items he always carried, his flashlight, lighter, knife and small flask gone.
"Dean!" Sam called again, trying to get a response, to pin down his location. "Hello! Can anyone hear me?" Sam walked his way around in the darkness, waiting for his blurry vision to adjust to the near pitch black.
As he called out, his words bounced back at him, making his head pound. He reached blindly out, finally finding another slimy wall, forcing himself to drag his hand along the surface, trying to find an entrance, a light, something to give him some clue where he was.
He walked away from the wall, blindly searching for the other corner of his prison. The floor beneath his feet groaned and he lightened his steps, finally making it across the room, his back and neck protesting the position. His questing fingers found a door knob and his heart soared. He turned the knob and pulled, hands grasping at the rusty feeling metal, but the door refused to budge. Sam pulled as hard as he could, but was unable to get out. His hand slipped off the knob and he crashed to his back on the floor, his head smacking off the boards. He felt the boards beneath him shift and groan before they cracked and gave way beneath him. He felt himself falling, just before he plunged into icy water, his breath robbed from him on a whoosh that left him involuntarily pulling in mouthfuls of rancid water.
The jolt had him kicking for the surface of the cold water and he broke through in a wave, spluttering and gagging. Something bumped into him from behind and nearly shoved his head beneath the water again. Sam treaded water to stay on the surface, the chill seeping through to his bones and trying to freeze him solid. His sodden jacket began to pull on his arms, making it harder to swim and he shrugged out of it, missing it instantly as it was lost to him. He turned when something bumped him again, as if it was floating into him. A human body, the face just visible, and bloated beyond recognition came into his line of sight just inches from his face, a dim outline he could only make out the approximate shape of. Sam jumped back, another bump being felt as something lurked just beneath the surface. Sam shoved the rotting flesh away, the clammy, bloated faces and missing eyes, exposed bone, gray from the water, making Sam gag.
He swam past them in a panic, in the dark, having no idea how he was going to get out of the water. Bumping into three more floating bodies and dismembered limbs, Sam was hyperventilating by the time he managed to reach the side of the water filled pit. His cold hands reached up and grasped at the wall of his water filled prison and tried to pull himself up. Instead, the rotted wooden walls gave way, dirt and still more body parts caving in on him, some just bone, others fleshy and new the cold slowing decomposition to near nothing. A heavy corpse slammed into him, sending him crashing back into the murk again. He fought the corpse off of him, waves breaking over his head as it finally sank and let him free. Sam spluttered and coughed, feeling his stomach rolling. He gripped the wall again, a rock sticking out letting him finally get a firm hold. He pulled himself up, groaning and shivering until he finally managed to grasp the floor he'd fallen through. He felt someone grip his sodden shirt and pull him from the dark, disgusting place back into his original prison.
He fell to his side, curling in on himself and coughing, his stomach roiling before finally emptying itself. He vomited rancid water and bile, having nothing else to throw up. "D-d'n." Sam slurred, his eyes closing, shivers racking his frame. The person standing over him threw a moth eaten, damp blanket over him. Dark eyes watched the youngest Winchester succumb to unconsciousness, his brother's name on his lips.
***
Dean's eyes refused to open, even though he could see the red tinge on the other side of his lids, letting him know Sam had left the drapes open again. "Sam." He groaned, irritated. He threw an arm up over his face to shield them and the smell of warm leather woke him abruptly. The throb settling into his head let him know that something was wrong. His eyes popped open and he sat up too quickly, vertigo making the room spin.
"What the hell?" He cried when his eyes finally focused and the world stopped whirling. He was in a shed, lying on a pile of plastic tarpaulins. Dean made it to his feet, staggered and shot a hand to the back of his head when he felt the stickiness of dry, flaking blood holding his collar to his skin. He hissed when his fingers brushed a nasty swelling around a cut at the base of his skull. Dean dropped his hand and went to the door against the far wall, twisting the knob. The knob turned but the door didn't budge. He slammed his shoulder into the wooden surface, nearly hitting his ass when the door didn't even rock in its frame.
"Damn it!" he cursed, turning from the door and looking for something to aide his escape. His eyes finally lit on a double bit axe leaned against the corner post of the shed. He grabbed the axe and hefted it, before swinging it at the door. The blade bit deep, but didn't split the door as he'd hoped. He heard a metallic clang on the other side of the door, knowing there was something barring him in.
He pulled the axe back again and tried a different spot, the head of the axe going clear through this time. He worked the blade back through and swung again, widening the hole. Dropping the axe, he worked his arm through up to the elbow, feeling the metal brace across the door. He gripped it, the gash the axe made in the metal biting into his palm, but he lifted the brace and left it fall to the ground outside the shed. He pushed the door open and made his way towards the convenience store which he realized the shed was behind. He walked into the store, looking for the clerk. He found her laying on the floor behind the counter, blood long dried on her ruby lips, having leaked from her mouth. As Dean knelt, checking for a pulse he knew he wouldn't find, a whiff of sulfur crossed his nostrils.
"Demons." He cursed, turning from the store and running towards the Impala, which thankfully was untouched. He slid behind the wheel and fired the engine, pulling his cell phone from his pocket.
"Yeah?"
"Josh. I need help. Sammy's gone."
"Sammy?! Where are ya, kid?"
Just outside Greenville, Mississippi. Headed for Shreveport and a hunt."
Alright. I'm in Biloxi myself. I can be there by tomorrow mornin'."
"Hurry Josh, I think somethin' bad is goin' down. There was sulfur in the store."
"Can ya track him?"
"Ah," Dean rubbed his pounding head, "No. Found his cell. It's busted. I spent a couple hours locked in a shed. Someone hit me from behind."
"Look, find somewhere, hole up an' rest a bit. You can't find him alone, so just wait 'til I get there."
"Thanks man, I think I'm gonna call Bobby though. See if he knows somethin' about a black Catalina. I saw it just before I got ambushed."
"You say a Catalina?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I got passed like a bat outta hell couple days ago by a Catalina."
"You think it's the same car?"
"Dunno. Like I said, Dean, rest up a bit, clean up. I'll be there by sunrise."
"Okay man. Just get your ass out here ASAP." He cut the connection with Joshua and fired the engine, pulling away from the convenience store. He flipped open his phone again and dialed his friend. "Hey Bobby."
"What's goin' on Dean?"
"Sammy. He's missing."
"What?!"
"We went into a roadside store. He hit the head and I got us some grub and gas and he never came outta the bathroom. I went to look for him and someone tried to take my head off my shoulders. Josh is on the way out to me. Listen, I need you to do something for me."
"Name it kid."
"See if you can find anything out about a black Pontiac Catalina. Think she's a '68. Georgia plates Delta, India, Echo, one, nine, eight, three."
"Got it. I'll call ya."
"Thanks, dude."
"Dean? Ya find Sam; ya get your asses out here."
"Gotcha." Dean snapped his phone shut, pulling the Impala into the Sunset Inn. He got out and walked into the office, seeing the clerk behind the counter thumbing through a magazine. She looked up when he walked in the door, smiling.
"What can I do for you?" she asked.
Dean studied the brunette for a moment, before finally shaking his head. "I need a double room for a few days."
"Okay." She turned to the reservation book and then looked for a set of keys. "Fifty two. It's around back, last on the right. Most comfy bed is furthest from the door. It's new, hasn't been broken yet. People are kinda rough with stuff if it's not theirs." Dean distractedly handed over a credit card and signed when she handed him the receipt.
Uh…thanks."
"Just let me know if you need anything at all…sugar."
"Yeah…thanks." Dean said, walking from the office back to the Impala. He lowered his body into the seat and fired the engine, and circled the motel. He parked close to the room and went to the trunk, digging through for his duffle and the weapons bag. He grabbed Sam's bag from the trunk with his own and the bottles of water from the front seat before heading into the room.
He threw the bags on the first bed and ran a hand over his hair, walking into the bathroom. He did his best to wash the dried blood from the back of his neck, the cool water stinging the cut that turned out smaller than he'd feared. He washed his face, looking into the mirror with water dripping from his stubble and making the dark rings beneath his eyes glisten. Worry looked back at him from the glass.
***
Sam's eyes opened, the smell around him instantly making him gag. He shrunk into himself as he dry heaved, pain shooting through his abdomen. The musty, moth eaten blanket was discarded as memories slammed home in Sam's mind. He stood and lurched away from his position, shoved his way along the back wall, before collapsing, his back colliding with the moist wood. He shivered, arms coming up to protect his head as the memories assaulted him.
Sam slapped Dean and motioned to the restrooms at the back of the store. He walked down the hall and into the bathroom, relieving himself. Sam walked to the washbasin, glancing into the mirror before he decided to wash his face. He turned on the water and stuck a hand under it, waiting until it cleared. The cool water felt good against his hand and he leaned over, splashing water on his face. It woke him up. He caught a slight whiff of iron in the water, the odor of rust. Ignoring it, he ran wet fingers back through his hair, smoothing it back from his face. He turned off the water and just reached for the paper towel dispenser when he felt solid arms close around him from behind.
"Gah. Get off!" Sam fought, shoving backwards away from the sink, water dripping from his chin onto his chest and soaking into both his shirt and his assailant's arm. He rammed the person behind him into the wall and gasped when the abuser turned him around and slammed him into the tile wall. Sam saw stars and groaned, momentarily losing the fight against his attacker. Sam cried out when he felt a stinging pinch in the side of his neck. The dark blue tiles of the wall blurred as his legs went numb quickly followed by the rest of him. He sighed and slumped against his captor, his eyelids sagging as he struggled to stay conscious, head rolling back against the man. The man looked over Sam's lolling head into the surface of the mirror, his black eyes catching the dim overhead bathroom light and shining maliciously. Sam's eyes widened in fear before they rolled back and fell closed.
Sam's back bumped off the wall with each rapid breath he pulled in. He sat there, he didn't know how long, lost to his memories. Finally his surroundings encroached on him and his mind cleared. He lifted his head, shaking arms still protecting his face as he looked around the darkness that closed in on him. "No. Nononono." Sam whispered, his hands coning up to his face, rubbing over the accumulated muck. He couldn't see his fingers when he pulled them away from his face. He smelled rot on his flesh, felt heat burning deep within his skin. "Where am I?" Sam lowered his arms a little more, looking around the dark room, the feeling of blindness suffocating him. "God, where am I?" He finally stood, staying against the walls as he worked his way around the room again, trying to find a source of light, an escape. The floorboards groaned beneath his feet and he felt fear surge through him. Heat built within his body, the sickening weakness becoming more pronounced. His body shook and he wrapped his arms around his middle, shoulder scraping the moldy wall as he worked his way around his prison, unable to see, and struggling to commit his surroundings to his foggy memory. Sam's shuffling feet tripped over something unseen in the pitch and he fell hard, his head cracking off the boards as he hit. Something sharp bit deep into his stomach, just to the right of his navel.
***
Dean's head tossed on the pillow ten minutes after he lay down, after having spent hours going over everything from the impending hunt to what happened in the minutes until he'd been hit. Exhaustion made him seek the bed, not wanting to, but knowing he had to rest to be at one hundred percent when his brother needed him. His eyes tightened, lines of distress aging him beyond his years as his dreams got the better of him.
He walked into a room, deep darkness seeming to smother him. The smell of rot and mold, death and suffering, choking him as it seeped into his pores. He walked deeper into the shadows, the floorboards protesting loudly beneath his feet. Unable to see, he fiddled in his pockets for the small flashlight he always kept there, not finding it. He reached a hand out, feeling dank air ahead of him as he staggered deeper into the bowels of the chamber.
Finally reaching a wall, he felt the slime of rotting boards, lichen and mold beneath his fingers. He trailed his hand blindly along the wall, shuffling his booted feet as he made his way along the wall. His left foot bumped into something that gave, something soft and he turned slightly, looking down, unable to even see a shadow of what he bumped into.
Dean swallowed, the smell of the room now in his throat, making his stomach churn. He gradually crouched, fingers searching for the top of what he bumped into. He remained on his feet, refusing to put his knees on the spongy feeling floor. Finally his fingers nested in something soft, but greasy feeling. Dirty. The stringy surface followed a contour, cold and clammy, as Dean's fingers worked further down over. He realized with a sinking feeling in his gut that he was feeling hair. "Sam?" His word echoed around the darkness, bouncing off of something in the shadows, enough to come back at him and chill him to the bone. Dean leaned forward, feeling further along the tips of the hair, feeling as it curled around his fingers, gave way to eyebrows and clammy skin, cheekbones that felt too prominent for his brother, cold, scarily cold.
Dean felt bile rush up his throat as he felt muck coating the skin, the flakes of mud-stuff-he didn't know what- chipping off beneath his fingers. He felt the bump of a mole, just where he knew it would be, horror streaking through him. He reached his other hand out and found a jaw with no effort as Sam's face stood out in his mind, every line and curve long memorized, fingers working lower, finding that point that he needed to find so desperately beneath the too cold skin. "Come on." again, his words echoed back at him, his heart sinking as he couldn't find what he was looking for. There was nothing there. Forgetting his cares, he sank to his knees and pulled his brother into his arms. "NO! NNNOOOOOOO!"
***
Sam groaned, the pull of consciousness unwelcome as pain and fever seeped into his muddled awareness. He rolled onto his back, gasping as he felt something prod at his insides, a heavy, intrusive weight that gouged its way into his abdominal wall. His head pounded out a beat that matched his thundering heart feeling the lethargy of fever rolling through him.
His prison, still pitch black and smelling of mold, rotted wood and decomposing flesh seemed to close in on him. Tears leaked from the corner of his useless eyes as he prayed for his brother to kneel at his side, to pull him into his arms. He had no idea what time it was, hell, what day even. All he felt was pain, fear and an all consuming need for his big brother's presence.
He bent a knee, pulling it towards his chest in an attempt to ease the pain, stopping when he felt it twist inside him, when he felt something scrape across his shirt, as if something shifted across his abdomen as it lay heavy against him. When it moved he cried out, feeling the- whatever -poking him shift and twist inside him.
He moved a hand blindly to his torso, first resting long fingers over his heart and feeling the organ slamming against his ribcage. The hand drifted lower, brushing over his ribs, his stomach before finally finding the source of his pain. His hand bumped something smooth and hard as it lay against him, a narrow part digging into his stomach like a splinter. Unable to see, he mapped the object with the pads of his fingers, truly blind in the inky black. His fingers brushed the warm oozing hole in his stomach and he gasped, breathing as deeper blackness threatened to pull him under. They closed around a cylindrical object about as big around as a dime. As his fingertips moved away from his skin and up the object by increments, his mind forming a grainy image, he found that it narrowed almost imperceptibly before widening into a knob like protrusion that wiggled beneath his fingers, his breath catching on a stifled cry of pain. He continued his quest when the pain subsided, feeling the knob turn into something that reminded him of a ball type hinge or joint. He swallowed, his breath coming faster as his fingers still moved. They roved over another joint, his skin touching another cylindrical object that ran parallel with the one he was now combing over joined to it by what felt like a block shape made up of small knobs and parts. The distance between them narrowed as they joined with the blocky shape.
The picture fully formed in his mind and he gagged, grabbing the object impaling him and ripping it away from him. He never bothered to stifle his scream as he threw the skeletal hand into the darkness, his cry drowning out the clacking sound it made as it hit the wall and clattered to the floor. Tears coursed down his filthy cheeks and he sobbed, crab crawling backwards until his back slammed into the wall. He pressed his filthy hands to an already inflamed wound to staunch the welling blood.
"DDEEEEEAAAAAANNNNNNN!" Sam screamed, begging for help, begging for his brother, tears falling from his eyes as a little bit of him cracked beyond repair.
***
Dean sat up on his bed with a cry, the knock on his door jarring him from his dreams of Sam, of the darkness.
He wiped uncontrolled tears from his cheeks, his eyes clearing as they fell on the bedside clock, the digital glow reading four a.m. The knock sounded again, more persistent. "Dean!" The door rocked in it's frame, threatening to burst in. Dean slid from the bed and crossed the room opening it to reveal a panicked looking Joshua, his leg stopping mid air as he moved to kick the door again.
"Damn, boy!" The hunter said, dropping his massive booted foot and brushing his long hair back behind his shoulders. The retired military man shoved his way through the door, his duffel in hand, body nearly filling the door frame as Dean moved aside, then shut it behind him. "You look like hell warmed over. You get any sleep at all, Ace?"
"Well, what can I say. Head injury… dreams weren't exactly 'bout my own personal Hooters girls."
Joshua looked around the room, seeing papers, weapons and Dean's jacket and flannel scattered around the room. "What blew up in here?" Dean grabbed his flannel shirt and put his tanned arms in the sleeves, rolling them up to his elbows.
Dean threw the papers aside at the table and turned to the dresser where the coffee maker sat. He slapped the pouch of coffee into the basket and filled the carafe with water from the bathroom, dumping it into the water basin. He flipped the switch and ran a hand back through his disheveled hair as the hunter dropped his bag on the floor near the untouched bed where Sam's pack sat, the smooth sides of the duffel and square bottom letting him know that, like always, the boy folded all of his clothes and there was a heavy book, an actual knowledgeable read, packed at the bottom beneath the clothes and the knife with the curved blade that he himself had given Sam for his sixteenth birthday.
"Look, I didn't have a real good night, so can ya stow the jackass for an hour or so?"
Looks like both the boys had a bad night. I'll post more on Monday, after I get my greenhouse ready to go for spring. Leave me a review if you liked the chapter!