Day of the Dead Chapters 3 and 4
Day of the Dead Chapter 3
Dean’s anxiety grew with each footstep. The beam of his flashlight fanned back and forth across the quiet street. Come on, Sam. Where are you? He passed the little park on one side of the street, a row of adobe style houses on the other side. The park was small and open with very little trees or bushes. It had a little play area that had one slide and a swing set, and two or three picnic tables scattered about. There wasn’t really any place to hide anything-or anyone. He’d swept the flashlight beam across the area and walked on, anxious to get off this wrong street and get back to the motel. Sam had to be back there by now and Dean wanted to be the first one to tear into him over this little disappearing stunt.
He was about to head around the corner house and go onto the next street when a niggling little feeling made him turn around and flash the beam down the road once more at the same time he pulled his Glock out. Bright eyes reflected in the light, watching him. Stupid cat.
Swinging back around, his flashlight cast a wide beam and Dean froze, catching sight of something. He jerked the flashlight back, playing it over one of the picnic tables. Something lumpy was on the bench and he had a feeling he knew what it was.
He ran into the park, over the soft desert soil, and scooped the hoodie off the bench. No no no no, dammit Sam. His fingers curled into the worn fabric, the evidence that something was very wrong. He frowned at the little orange bundle of marigolds on the table, knowing what they were used for. The entire town was covered in the blooms. Dean’s fear meter kicked up a notch. Aw, Sammy, what were you doing?
Okay, okay, I’m gonna find you. Dean cast the light out into the night, far into the quiet wilderness where it bounced off the little hills. Ah, hell, if his brother went off that way . . . Clenching down on the low throb in his gut that that thought brought, Dean crouched down, balancing the handle of his gun on his knee while he cast the light over the ground, searching for tracks. The sole patterns of Sam’s sneakers were easy to pick out. Dean followed the tracks away from the table where the kid had backed up, shuffled around in the dirt, then moved forward-walking straight-
Shit! A woman appeared in front of him, just floated out of thin air, not two inches away. Acting on pure instinct, Dean let himself roll back onto his butt and fired.
#
John was coming back down the crowded street, shards of apprehension slicing at his chest. It was after midnight and Sam was missing. His youngest child was missing on The Day of the Dead, the day Mary died when something had come after their family. John wasn’t going to lose his boy to this gawd-forsaken day too. Not while he had a breath left in his body.
He angled his broad shoulders sideways to get past a strolling mariachi band when the blast of a distant shot echoed across the air. Attuned, John would recognize the sound anywhere, even if the people around him only registered the melody of joyful trumpets and guitars. Dean.
John took off like a bullet, jostling his way through the crowd, ignoring angry grumbles in his wake as he left the center of activity behind to burst into the quiet neighborhood streets. The motel was straight ahead, but he’d told Dean to take one of the roundabout ways to look for his brother. He knew the left road ended up toward a park while the right led into a seedier part of town.
Come on, Dean, let me know where you are, buddy. Making a quick decision, John ran to the right.
And an apparition pulsed out of the air, blocking his way. A young Hispanic woman.
John had the salt palmed with his next inhalation.
“No! Please. Por favor. Don’t throw that. I came to help.”
John’s fingers remained curled around the canister. “Where’s my son?”
“Please. He promised you would help me.”
John’s brow arched. He didn’t want to trust her, but damn if that didn’t sound like something Sam would promise. And at this point, John was willing to hedge all bets. “All right. First my son.” He didn’t know exactly what Sam had promised her or if a promise had even been made, but if it meant getting to his youngest, John was more than ready to back his child’s play.
“I’ll take you to him.” The spirit winked out of existence.
“Son of a-“
“This way,” she called from the corner leading into the left street.
John ran after her and she disappeared again, reappearing farther ahead down the road. Perfect. He was playing follow the leap-frogging ghost. Hang on, sons. I’m coming.
#
Dean couldn’t wait for his dad. He’d picked up Sam’s trail and he wasn’t about to wait. But he couldn’t be stupid either and make things worse. Scooping up several rocks on the run, Dean sped back to the street. Right next to the sidewalk where John couldn’t miss it, Dean hurriedly piled the rocks on top of each other, then placed a long stone near the base to mark the direction he was headed in. As a final touch he placed one pebble on top. One for Dean. Two pebbles if the marker had been left by Sam. It was the best he could do to guide his dad. He wasn’t waiting any longer.
Tracking his brother in the dark was difficult, but not impossible, and Sam’s prints were still fresh, easy to follow. Actually the only prints out this way. As Dean walked farther away from town, his uneasiness grew. Why the hell had Sammy come out here on his own? Dean pulled out his pouch of rock salt, knowing the answer to that. If that spirit back at the park was any indication of what was going on, Sam wasn’t exactly alone and that made all sorts of things skitter around inside Dean’s gut.
He raced up another hill, feeling every muscle in his thighs working. The usual sounds of nature were eerily quiet as laughter and music from town carried oddly loud on the air.
Dean came over the hill’s cusp and his heart jerked painfully in his chest.
Not two yards away from him, lower on the incline was Sam. Held upright by the beefy paws of some Neanderthal sparking ghost clamped around his head. Dean could clearly see Sam was on the losing end. His toes angled downward, dragging in the desert sand. His arms were hanging, yet there was nothing limp about him. The kid’s muscles were coiled tight, jerking in tiny rhythmic spasms. His eyes were nearly rolled up inside his sockets and his mouth gaped in a soundless scream.
Dean moved in an eruption of fury. “Hey, Pancho Villa!” Running headlong, he flung a fistful of salt out at the same moment he crashed through the dispersing ghost, slamming into Sam instead, carrying them both downhill in a snarl of arms and legs. They hit the bottom with a jolt.
Where Sam’s screams had been silent before, he was now shrilling at the highest decimal point of his young lungs, back arching off the ground, the back of his head digging into the ground.
Dean went to push himself up off his stomach and felt the give in his arm, instantly recognizing he’d broken it. Pulling it in to his body, he rolled the other way to get to his knees and lean over his brother.
“Sam! Sammy!” With his good arm, Dean grasped onto Sam’s shoulder, trying to hold him still, but the kid wasn’t responding. His eyes were huge, dilated. And the screams . . . Dean had never heard such a piercing wounded sound come out of his brother . . . and the scream wasn’t letting up. Whatever had a hold of Sam scared the hell out of Dean.
Day of the Dead Chapter 4
John barely glanced at Dean’s rock marker, noting it pointed in the same direction the spirit had just been in. Good boy, Dean. He felt the little hitch of pride as his boots kicked up sand behind him as he flew across the little park. The woman appeared in the distance, blue dress glinting in the moonlight, as she waited on top of a small rise.
John raced after her, leaving the park to head out into the desert, tamping down the sudden spike of fear that his youngest had gone out here. He barely had his emotions under control when a soul-shattering cry punctured the night. Oh, God, Sammy. John’s heart slammed up into his throat at the prolonged agony in his son’s scream. It didn’t stop, just wavered in and out with inhalations, without a rift in the intensity. John sprinted up the first hill, side-hopping down the other side to race up the next knoll, panic urging him on. What was happening to his son to make him sound like that?
Before he reached the woman at the top of the hill he climbed, she vanished. John plowed over the spot she’d been on and came to an abrupt halt. His boys were down in that ravine near a ramshackle hut, the beam of a flashlight illuminating them in shadow and gilt. Dean was on his knees, desperately trying to hold Sam who was thrashing stiffly on the ground, screaming shrilly enough to make his throat bleed.
John didn’t realize he’d been moving, practically sliding down the slope. He just knew he was getting down there to his sons. He slid onto his knees on the other side of Sam, flinging dirt.
“Dad!” Tears spilled down Dean’s cheeks even as a flash of relief cracked his devastated features.
John took hold of Sam, dragged him into his arms. His young body was clenched as tight as a fist, bending his spine backwards even within the circle of John’s arms. “What happened?”
Dean shook his head. He had to shout over his brother. “A ghost had him. Was doin something to him! I don’t know. He had his hands fastened to Sam’s head, and Sam was . . .” Dean’s chest was moving up and down, too fast. He swallowed, shook his head again. “I flung salt at him. The ghost exploded. Sam and I rolled down the hill, and then Sam started screaming. Dad, I can’t make him stop! He won’t stop! Somethin’s still got a hold of him!”
John reached over to reassure Dean, gripping his arm. At the contact, Dean involuntarily hissed, flinching back.
“Broken?”
Dean nodded. “Think so, but it can wait.”
It would have to. John nodded acceptance of that fact. “We’ll fix this. Don’t worry.”
Dean didn’t say anything, just stared at his writhing, screaming brother. The veins in Sam’s neck and forehead were bulging and even though his voice was giving out, fading into a hoarse rasp, the sound was just as potent. How much more of this could his body take? There was a very real possibility of his thirteen-year-old having a heart attack. They had to get him away from here, figure out what was going on fast. John was tempted to hit him, knock Sam out, but feared that might lock him further into the nightmare of whatever was going on.
John shifted, getting his feet underneath him to stand when Dean called out.
John’s head snapped up. He caught a glimpse of the woman even as he saw Dean fling out his arm, tossing salt. “Dean, no!”
Too late. The spirit dispersed. Salt rock particles dropped on them, reflecting in the flashlight’s glow like crystal raindrops. John curled over Sam’s head to shield him, but the salt still splattered them both.
Sam gasped, a long painful shudder and then his coiled body sagged.
John and Dean both stared, barely breathing.
“Oh, God. Of course.” John dug into his jacket for his own salt canister. “Whatever’s happening is because of a ghost.” He poured half the entire contents of his can over Sam’s chest, scooped some up and rubbed the salt across the boy’s forehead. “Come on, Sammy. Come on, Son.”
Dean leaned closer, his fingers fanning into his brother’s sweaty hair. “Sam, it’s time to wake up. I’m gonna kick your scrawny ass if you don’t.” John smiled at that.
The eyes moved beneath the closed lids. Encouraged, Dean sank his hand farther into the kid’s hair. “That’s it, come on. Wake up for me. Come on, Sam. You’re scarin the crap out of me here.”
Dark eyelashes fluttered. Slowly the lids slid open, revealing those mossy colored eyes, so much like his mother’s.
The relief was fleeting as the kid’s body started tensing again. He cried out, “De . . .”
Dean was practically hovering over Sam. “I’m right here. Sam, it’s okay. I’m right here.”
“De . . .”
“Come on, Sam.” The desperation in Dean’s voice stabbed its way into the center of John’s heart.
“De . . .” Sam’s eyes were huge, frightened, unfocused. It hurt to see that kind of fear in his child’s eyes. Sam started flailing around. His hands grasped onto John’s arms in a vice-like grip. “De . . . De . . . Diegooooo!” he screamed.
John locked gazes with Dean. “We’re getting out of here now.”
#
Dean trailed behind his father, holding his injured arm to his chest even as he held the flashlight to light the way in front of his dad. John carried Sam the entire way, up and down the knolls, only stopping long enough to adjust his hold on Sam each time the kid arched too wildly.
His brother was back to screaming, if you could call the raw scratches of sound rasping out of Sam’s throat a scream. Dean steeled his nerves against it, clenching his arm more tightly. And when they finally stepped into the parking lot, Dean thought he’d never been more ecstatic to see a motel in his life.
His dad stopped at the door, arms occupied with jerking Sammy. “Can you get to your key?”
“Yeah, Dad, I got it.” He had to let go of his arm, fingers twisting into the collar of his shirt to keep his arm up while he dug in his pocket with his other hand.
And the woman in blue appeared, between them and the door.
“No, Dean,” John warned. “She helped me find you.”
He barely had any salt left anyway, but that didn’t stop him from reaching inside his jacket for it.
The woman pointed at Sam. “He promised he’d help me.”
“What’s wrong with him?” John snarled. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. Who’s Diego and what is he doing to my son?”
“You have to help me.” Her eyes were pleading. “You must free me from Diego first. You cannot help your son. If he stops hurting Sam, Diego will come for me again.” She started weeping. “Please let me have one night.”
Dean cocked his head. She wasn’t making any sense.
John hitched Sam higher in his arms. “Diego murdered you.”
Her gaze snapped up. She nodded.
“You’re forced to relive it over and over, aren’t you?” John’s voice was quiet.
“Sí.”
“But somehow, because of Día de los Muertos your murder has been transferred to my boy.” The vein in John’s forehead stood out. “My son is reliving your murder.”
The ghost’s chin trembled at the violence underlying John’s tone. “Sí. Yes. All of our deaths.”
“All?” Dean flinched at his dad’s sharpness. “How many murders is my son reliving?” John seemed to crumble at that. His shoulders slumped as though Sam’s weight finally got to him, but their dad only shifted the kid higher, pulling him closer, and rested his forehead against the sweat-soaked head that was even now rolling against his shoulder.
“Dad!” Dean pointed at the spirit. “This is her fault! She did this to Sammy. I say we burn her bones and make it stop.”
A horrified expression crossed the apparition’s features and she blinked out.
John shook his head. “She’s not doing it. It’s Diego.” John glared at the door. “He’s the one we’re gonna salt. But we need to find him.”
“Sorry, Dad.” Dean unlocked the door, feeling miserable. “You were trying to get the information from her and I blew it.”
John carried Sam inside and laid him gently on the closest bed. “It’s okay. We’re going to find him.” Sam’s hands scrabbled in the comforter, his body twisting, curling in on himself. The hoarse screams had turned into guttural cries.
John pulled out the large salt canister from the duffle on the floor. “Pack this around him.”
Dean immediately began pouring the fine salt granules on his brother. “Can we give him something?”
John was at the phone, punching in numbers. “I’m afraid that might hurt him more, trap him further.”
Sam bucked up suddenly, his hands clawing at his throat. Sonsabitch, he looked like he was being strangled and Dean couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The hell he couldn’t. He poured a generous amount of salt across Sam’s neck. Surprisingly it appeared to help. Sam’s breathing eased and his hands flopped back to the mattress.
Dean swiped a weary hand down his face. He felt John’s presence behind him. “Yeah, Caleb,” John spoke in the phone receiver. “I don’t care. Check out AMA. Just get your ass out of that hospital bed and get to researching. Diego. No, I don’t have a last name. I need this done yesterday. I am calm!” John pulled the receiver away for a moment, closed his eyes. He placed the phone back to his ear. “Just . . . be as quick as you can. Sam’s suffering. Yeah, I will. And Caleb, thanks.”
John set the phone back in its cradle. A deep weariness seemed to have settled into the creases at the corners of his eyes. A warm hand slipped onto Dean’s shoulder and squeezed. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Son. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Dean stiffened at that. Part of him didn’t want his dad to leave him alone with Sam. He didn’t know what to do. What if he couldn’t bring Sam out of another strangling fit? But Dean understood that John Winchester had to go. His dad had to take out the Big Bad that was doing this to his brother.
His dad must have felt him stiffen because he gave Dean’s shoulder another squeeze. “You’re doing fine. I wouldn’t trust Sam’s care to anyone else. You can do this. You good?”
“Yeah.” Dean nodded. “I’ll take care of him, Dad.”
“I know you will. Think you can wrap your arm on your own?”
“Sure.”
“Good. I’d do it, but I-“
“Can’t spare the time. I know. Don’t worry about me.”
John sighed. “I will always worry about you. That’s my job.” He smiled sadly. “But I know you can handle yourself. I’m going over to county records.” Which at this late hour meant he was breaking in. He pulled the first aid kit out, placed it on the table where Dean could get to it easier. “We’re going to find this SOB and then Caleb and I are going to torch his demented murdering ass.”
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Five