When they found me I didn't want to be human anymore.
I had been standing in the woods, covered in death, muttering "make it stop, make the screams stop" over and over. Apparently they'd followed my muttering but had mistaken me for a victim, so stained was I. They hadn't found any injuries, apart from a broken finger and raw knuckles. When I didn't answer their questions they chalked it up to shock—that I'd made myself forget everything.
I remembered every moment.
A child, travelling with his parents, no more than eleven yet I could still feel his scalp in my hand and his blood dribbling down my chin, tickling the skin of my neck. His mother's cries as I wrapped my fingers around her windpipe and squeezed would haunt me once my rampage ended. I'd sliced his father's throat. The waitress who had been about to greet me writhing beneath me as I raked my fingernails through her skin, her blood coating my hands and slicking the floor, the cook screaming with the sheer terror of pure pain as I drove a butter knife into his stomach, gutting him slowly, laughing as he thrashed. His last gurgled breaths made him cough blood and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. When people had begun to flee I'd run out into the carpark and smashed a guy's head into his car window as he tried to unlock the driver side door in an attempt to get away, his body falling heavily on the gravel, landing with a satisfying crunch. I'd found a rusty metal pole lying near the car, bashed a man's brains in with it, driving the end into another patron's throat until I saw a trucker about to escape and threw it, javelin style, into the cab of a truck, impaling him and causing him to crash. I'd found a gun at my disposal, and shot anyone trying to run. A guy trying to be a hero charged me, but I took him down with two swift moves, a knuckle in the right pressure point and a swift kick between his legs. He begged for mercy as I raised the gun, and I smiled, baring my teeth and pulling the trigger. There had been an elderly man, his walker the only thing holding him up, and I emptied the rest of the clip into his back. I gouged a woman's eyes out with a fork, and chased down a kitchen hand who had run into the woods trying to escape. I beat him to death with my bare hands, breaking my finger when he jerked his head to one side and my fist connected with a rock instead. I picked up the rock and brought it down on his head, blood and brain splattering wildly all over me.
I'd noticed his phone in the dirt, a call with 911 still in progress. Stumbling to my feet, I began to walk until my rage evaporated, leaving me stranded in the middle of the woods, covered in…I didn't want to think about it.
So the police ushered me away, attempting to wipe my face down, clean my hands, bother me with questions. I couldn't let myself talk, I couldn't allow myself to think. I didn't deserve to interact with another human being unless he was possessed by Lucifer. Then I would walk into hell without hesitation and allow myself to be tortured for the rest of time as penance for what I had knowingly done. But that wasn't the only reason.
I'd enjoyed it.
Every second, ever drop of blood, every kill. I'd loved the feel of blood against my skin, of the power I felt knowing I held someone's life in my hands and that I could crush it as simply as…that. I knew I had laughed, and it terrified me to realise I'd felt happiness—pure joy—as I'd massacred more than a dozen innocent people.
The police officer trying to talk to me lead me to the patrol car and I willingly sat inside. For all they knew I was a victim who'd managed to escape. I wasn't inclined to tell them otherwise.
They took me back into town to the station, sitting me down in an interrogation room with two detectives who spoke to me as if I were a child. I still didn't speak a word. Hours passed, and no one could glean a single fact from me. I couldn't move, and didn't dare look at anyone. A deputy came into the room at one point, sitting down opposite me and trying to make eye contact, stretching his hand across the table as if to console me, but thinking better of it when I flinched. I would never touch another human being again. He spoke in a soft voice.
"The F.B.I. are here to question you, ma'am. We're letting them in here in a couple of minutes. If you'd prefer someone else to be in here with you, just let us know, okay?" He waited for a few seconds, and got up when I remained silent, hugging myself, my arms locked like steel.
After a few minutes the door opened again and two men walked in. "Shit." I frowned, looking up to find Dean standing in the doorway, hand still grasping the handle, the other in his pocket. Sam was behind him, looking curiously over his brother's shoulder. They both wore tailored suits, Dean's a dark grey and Sam's a navy blue. They looked sharp, and utterly shocked when it registered that I was the anonymous witness to the gas station massacre. I didn't blame Dean for swearing.
They closed the door quickly behind them, Dean sitting in the chair opposite me. Sam pulled the extra chair over from the corner, and both stared at me. I knew I still had blood on my clothes, and most likely on my face, my hair, I'd seen in the reflection of the mirrored glass, was wild and stained with crimson and full of dirt. They'd cleaned my right hand and called in a medic to put my finger in a splint, wiping the blood from my knuckles and putting band aids on them. I'd started crying at one point, but had forced myself to stop. I was never going to wallow in self-pity while my soul bore this black stain. But my cheeks bore slight tear tracks, and I could feel my throat grow thick with more of them.
"What happened?" Sam asked.
I couldn't look at him, but I met his brother's gaze, trying to tell him with my eyes that Sam needed to leave. I wouldn't be able to talk about this with him in here. I think Dean understood, because he told Sam to give us a minute, almost forcing him from the room when he started to make a fuss.
Once the other hunter was gone I felt like I could relax a bit. That something about him that made the crazed me trust him made me feel comfortable, and I took a deep, steadying breath. "Now you're going to talk," Dean said, sitting back down after taking his jacket off. "And you're going to tell me everything."