Just a Scratch
Just A Scratch
He slammed out of unconsciousness like a man thrown off a building, crushing every bone.
Not every bone…just his leg…the pain concentrated there, radiating outward to clench up every muscle, every tendon in his body.
“Gah,” he exhaled through gritted teeth, fisting his hands in…he didn’t know what. Garbage? Dry leaves? Didn’t matter. He just needed the pain to stop.
It was dark, the air moist, humid, hot…burning hot and smelly. He was wet, his layers of shirts soaked through, sticking uncomfortably to his hot skin. Perspiration dotted his face. He felt tiny droplets slide down along his hairline.
A whimper echoed close, skimming across cement walls.
“De…,” his plea sounded like a whimper of his own. He let his head flop to the side toward where the noise came.
A pair of swollen eyes stared at him from about two yards away. He could make out a huddled shape of fur in the low light streaming in from a grate high in the curving wall.
A dog. It whimpered again and sniffed gingerly at the wet dirt, or blood, possibly both on its misshapen hind leg.
“It broken, fella?” Sam’s voice crinkled rice paper thin. “I know the feeling.”
The mutt put its head down on its front paws and whined low in its throat.
Rot and sickness floated upon the cloying wet air like a sheen of oil skimming swamp water, misting the surroundings. A dark curved tunnel or sewer. They were in a sewage system in Louisiana, hunting…he squeezed his eyes into a squint. What were they hunting?
His gaze swept the dark tunnel, searching for clues his memory wasn’t giving up.
He was in a short tunnel, below another one if the drops of water and light coming from the grate indicated. Each end of the tunnel opened to a T-section in the sewers, neither he could see beyond the openings or where they led in either direction.
He felt exposed and vulnerable, lying helpless against the wall on a nest of garbage.
Anything could come through either of those entrances at any time-whatever it is they’re hunting-he prayed the first thing through was his brother.
His chest pinched with worry. There weren’t many things that could keep Dean from being already here. What had happened? How did he come to be injured in this small section of the tunnels with an injured dog and…he scanned about. There were more shapes pushed up against the walls, small and unmoving. A dead bird, its black wing fanned out stiffly. There were several skeletons of birds and rodents mostly. A decomposing cat. It looked like someone-or something-had dragged injured or dying animals in here.
He jerked, seeing a baby gator.
Pain ripped through his leg at the slight movement and a sudden flush of agonized tears blurred his vision. His breathing carved through the ache, sawing respirations with jagged tearing teeth.
~~~SPN~~~
He awakened to the sensation of something watching him. He didn’t remember passing out.
A large dark shape crouched near, leaning over him, blotting out most of the light coming in from the grate. A thick musk clung to the beast like a moist pelt.
Sam shrank back in his nest of garbage and the familiar sharp pain shot brutally through his leg. A giant paw-like hand reached toward him.
Sam whimpered when the beast touched him, pushing its large hand beneath the back of his head. Unable to defend himself, Sam’s face was lifted toward the creature, and…
A battered tin pan pressed to his lips, the side sweating with water.
Sam firmed his lips tight. No telling where the thing got that water from and tried to turn away, but the beast held him firm and continued to tip the pan.
As the creature drew closer, luminous gray eyes came into view, round as tiny moons, the black pupils slitted like a cat’s. Female. He had the vague feeling that she was female.
The palm beneath his head gave a tug on his hair, forcing Sam’s neck to arch. He gasped and the water drained into his mouth.
Swallow or choke. He swallowed.
At least the water was sweet, felt clean, not thick with mud or algae, but the danger of parasites crossed his mind even as he gulped the water down like a weak baby bird.
He actually stretched up for more, water on his dry lips and filling his belly a physical relief.
With his internal heat and the fever sweat drenching his skin, infection and dehydration would get him long before any swamp parasite took him out. At least the water was clearing his head of fuzz. If he could think, he could figure this out, maybe remember what happened to Dean…
The creature’s moon eyes blinked and Sam felt her lower his head gently back down. She had given him water and by the look of the menagerie of wounded and dead animals along the walls, Sam placed all his hope in an assumption that the beast didn’t want to harm him. She had probably carried him here after he was injured.
The hulking creature shifted back and stood. Blinking, Sam looked way, way up. She was huge. Wide shoulders, tufted in fur, hunched. Her head tucked in to avoid scraping the rounded ceiling.
Sam swallowed, his throat once again dry, and watched the thing lumber to the other side of the tunnel where the dog rested, and got his first clear look as the muted light spilled over the beast. She was broad, covered in fur that looked like it was shedding in spots, shiny and soft underneath like a grizzly’s that loses its thickest coat after a long winter.
Tanahog. Though they were less hogs, more a cousin to the sasquatch or yeti, but preferring the rich hunting grounds of marshes and swamplands, and twice as vicious.
If a tanahog had captured him, he shouldn’t be alive, but rather torn to shreds, and the rich marrow sucked from his bones.
Yet the creature across him, though large and strong enough to break his spine with one snap, sat placidly stroking an ill dog’s side with gentle care. She watched him with those big moon eyes. She, because he could see her clearly now. Definitely a female.
It didn’t add up with the Intel they’d gathered. He was remembering.
Gunthor, Louisiana, a small one-motel town on the edge of a thick bayou. Several people had gone missing, only one body recovered, sliced and diced with bite marks that didn’t fit a gator.
He and Dean had tracked the evidence to a pack of tanahogs that had left the swamplands to take up residence in the sewage systems, preying on the easy pickings of townspeople and any unfortunate pets that had gotten loose.
They were systematically searching the interconnecting sewage tunnels when…
He couldn’t remember what happened, how he got injured, or what became of his brother.
If Dean was okay, he’d be coming for him.
He needed a way to let him know where he was. Sam squeezed his eyes closed in irritation. Stupid. His brain really wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
Shakily, he moved his arm to get at his phone in his front jeans pocket. Such a small movement shouldn’t be taking this much energy out of him. Closing his fingers around it, he drew it out. The simple act of lifting it above his face so he could see the screen just about did him in. He couldn’t recall ever being so weak and shaky that it took everything in him just to look at a damn cell phone and all for nothing. The phone was dead, not just low signal dead, but out of juice dead.
He’d had a full charge before they entered the sewers. How long had he been down here for his battery to die?
He let his arm fall to his chest, let the phone slip form his fingers and slide down his side into the bedding of garbage.
~~~SPN~~~
He blacked out again. He must have because something was different.
It was hot, scorching furnace hot. His skin was dry like thin parchment and itchy from old dried sweat. No longer perspiring, but dehydrated with fever.
If he didn’t do something, he was going to die down here. His leg was swollen tight in the leg of his jeans.
He lifted his head, barely raising it up a few inches to see and move d his hand toward the bloody slit in the denim on his thigh. His hand shook.
Suddenly the creature was beside him, large sure hands pulling him up to lean his shoulder and head against the curve of the wall. It hurt, any jostle to his thrumming leg brought barbs of lightning agony jolting through his body.
Breathing hard through his nose, he set his teeth against it, hoping the tunnel and creature would soon stop revolting around him.
“Th-thank you,” he rasped, his voice as wavery as his stomach. She was his own Florence Nightingale.
Somehow sensing what he wanted to see, the tanahog snagged the tip of her claw inside the torn denim slit and ripped the material further. Sam cried out as dried blood and pus tore away from his skin. A black haze ground against the edges of his vision.
Lungs heaving, his entire focus bottomed out to the sharpness of the pain. Everything else dulled until the beast suddenly latched onto his shoulders and dragged him back down to lie flat and began throwing the garbage over him.
He didn’t understand what was going on. What had he done to incite her strange behavior? All he could do was lie there and breathe through the agony concentrated in his leg. Was she done with him and burying him alive beneath layers of filth? Beneath the pain and the raging fever, he couldn’t reason it out-until a different noise shuffled into their tunnel.
His tanahog whirled around to face a much larger one, lumbering into their space.
Hiding him. She’d thrown refuse on him to hide him.
The new tanahog roared, the thick guttural racket reverberated across the walls, loud and angry.
Trying to quiet his panicky breaths, Sam peered between moist newspaper and clumping leaves. The creature was huge, a head taller than the female. It’s furious round eyes glowed orange like the insides of jack-o-lanterns.
The female crouched in submission at the larger beat’s feet, which seemed to pacify his anger a bit. At least he stopped the eardrum-shattering bellows.
Except the abrupt cut off exposed the dog’s whimpers. The orange eyes locked onto the poor pup, and shoving the crouching female out of its way, the tanahog grabbed up the injured dog and snapped its neck.
The female wailed and lunged up to take the limp dead dog back, but the beast held it aloft like a school yard bully.
The female made a grab for it again and the creature shoved her hard enough to throw her across the tunnel next to Sam, where it leaned down to get into her face and growled, lips curled back over stiletto sharp incisors. He was so close, Sam felt the heated wash of fetid decaying ripe breath.
Moon eyes glazed in fear, the female curled over in a demonstration of submission, trembling and whimpering.
Satisfied with his dominance, the male swung the dog up and took a huge bit out of its side, watching the other creature for defiance, which never came. Still chomping, the tanahog grunted and shuffled out of the small access tunnel.
Florence curled over her knees, large head dropping to the floor as her wide shoulders shook with sobs.
Sam eased up, though the slight movement streamed agony through him. Leaves and bits of soggy paper slid off as he reached out and placed his palm on the tanahog’s elbow. “I am so sorry.”
Her head lifted, sad gray eyes turned toward him. She stared for a long moment before lowering her cheek near Sam’s side and let him stroke the top of her head.
~~~SPN~~~
He next awoke to a pungent odor. Not that there wasn’t already enough nasty smells, but this was new, sharper, overpowering the rest like burned or boiling broccoli.
He fought to flutter his eyes open and then fought even harder to get them to focus. He didn’t remember falling asleep again. His life had become disjointed moments of waking, hurt and alone.
Not alone.
Florence was here, slapping and smoothing some sort of brown leafy mud over his swollen leg. His entire thigh was encased in it.
“Flor…wha…?” His voice was transparent, a ghost of sound.
Seeing him awake, Florence pulled his shoulders up and began shoving some of the stinky mud into his mouth.
He didn’t have the strength to fight her. He was completely limp, unable to raise his arms or lift his head. It flopped back against her thick forearm.
He swallowed the mud, choking on the taste and was relieved when she gave him water next. He didn’t know when he’d eaten last, but he wasn’t hungry, was just too weak and nauseous. Probably wouldn’t be able to keep this crap down anyway.
He wasn’t going to last much longer.
He moved his hand across the litter pile to bump the creature’s large furred knee as she hovered over him. Seemed like since she lost the dog, he had now become her fixation.
“I need…outside. C-can you take me? My brother…”
The wide lips creased downward. The protruding line of her brow wrinkled and she gurgled a low kind of cooing.
Sam tried again. He had to make her understand he’d die if he stayed down here any longer. He was so weak, felt his life draining out with the hot moisture beading on his skin. Next time he closed his eyes, he feared there’d be no more waking moments.
“Florence, please. Please.” His head fell back with the last of his strength and his eyes closed. She wasn’t going to help him. She didn’t understand… and he still didn’t know if Dean was safe….
Then he felt himself lifted, large arms curling beneath his legs and shoulders and his world swayed back and forth by the tanahog’s slow slumberous gait.
~~~SPN~~~
Dean’s knees threatened to buckle. After three days of searching the old twisting hedged-together sewage system, he’d found it, the place the tanahog’s discarded their refuse. It was disgusting, much like the area beneath the nest of an eagle where cleaned bones, fur, and feathers of their prey were haphazardly discarded.
Except now that he found it, Dean couldn’t go in. His gaze landed on the muddy torn remnants of a lady’s pink sweater. He couldn’t…if he found Sam’s boot, or shirt…or anything…
Sweat pooled at the vee of his throat. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t find anything here of Sam.
But he had to be sure.
Bracing himself for the gruesome job at hand, Dean stepped into the dead-end tunnel and began sifting through the inedible remnants of lives lost.
Three days. Three days he’d been systematically marking the tunnels and searching for the kid. He wasn’t sure how they got separated in the first place. One second Sam was right behind him, chasing after the damn tanahog and then there was a second roar in an adjacent tunnel and Sam…Dean shouted for them to stay together but by the time he looked back his brother wasn’t there. Whether he was taken, or didn’t hear him over the racket the tanahogs made and went after the other, he just didn’t know.
Sam was simply gone.
But Dean would find him. He lifted a sleeve torn from a striped shirt and his breath stilled in his chest. Not Sam’s. Sweat dribbled down the side of his neck while he stared, trying to force the flow of air to move in his lungs again. Not Sam’s.
He moved on toward the back of the tunnel, his search through the rubble picking up speed as relief buoyed him, finding nothing of Sam’s here.
“That’s good, kid, that’s good.” If he wasn’t here, he was still alive. “But where the hell are you?” His growl bounced along the concrete walls.
He’d searched almost the entire system. He’d only gone to the surface once to check back at the motel in case Sam had made it out another way. He’d allowed himself two hours of sleep, filled a smaller duffel with weapons, energy bars, a few basic first aid supplies and water, lots of water, and a spray can of paint for marking and had been searching ever since.
He left the disgusting room, mentally noting how to get back to it for clean-up later, and picked up his search, moving into the lower older sections of the drainage tunnels. Within ten minutes he rounded a bend and came face to face with one of the beasts. They both froze where they were, staring at each other. Dean’s heart thudded to a stop because the creature had Sam.
In the monster’s massive arms, Sam looked like a sleeping child, his head resting on the furred shoulder, dark hair spilling forward over his cheeks and forehead. His arms hung loose, as did one leg. The other leg was straight and unbending, swollen tight inside the leg of his torn and filthy jeans.
Dean could smell the sickly sweet odor of infection from where he stood.
“Put him down.” Dean trained his Glock on the beast. He wouldn’t risk the shot if he had to, but the tanahog was so massive he could easily wing a shoulder or leg. He just didn’t want to startle the thing with a shot that might make her snap Sam’s spine in a knee-jerk reaction. “Hey, I told you to put him down.”
The way the tanahog’s arm curled around Sam and covered his chest, he couldn’t tell if the kid was breathing. He shoved that direction of thought down. Of course he was breathing.
“Now!” Dean barked again and this time the creature growled, squeezing Sam closer into her body.
Then her eyes flicked up just as Dean felt a stirring in the humid air behind him.
Jerking around, he found one of the large males coming up the tunnel.
“Whoa!” Gun up, he backed up toward the female and Sam. She was hissing, about as pleased to see the beast as Dean was.
Head lowered, the male gurgled out a string of growls that could only be demands, orange eyes intent…crap… intent on Sam. When Dean was standing right here in its path as easy pickings.
The female edged back a step, whining, and a terrible chill swept across Dean’s neck. The male howled.
This wasn’t about an easy meal. This was about dominance. The male wanted the female to give up her prize.
Not. Happening.
Another growl echoed behind them. Dean shifted sideways just enough to glance behind the female’s shoulder and still keep the male in front of them in his sights.
A second male was coming up from the other end of the tunnel.
Really? He hadn’t seen a tanahog for days and now all of a sudden they were gathering for a party.
The smell. The infection in Sam’s leg must have drawn them.
The female edged back against the curve of the wet wall, trying to make herself appear smaller, whining in distress.
When the male reached around to pluck Sam out of her grasp, Dean shot it point blank in the head, which usually got some kind of reaction...like dead. The bullet bouncing off the thick forehead and ricocheting into the wall wasn’t it.
Holy crap.
He couldn’t stop to take that in as he whipped his gun the other way and shot the first creature lunging at him, this time aiming for the hopefully less impenetrable leg. Lame, then maim, if you couldn’t outright kill.
Meanwhile the female set Sam on the wet floor and was rocking, sobbing while the other beast roared over her rounded back. Not good. Dean feared he’d lost his only ally and the only thing between Sam and the other creature.
The other beast stumbled but didn’t go down and Dean kept firing, emptying his entire clip into the same leg, whittling it down like wood, until finally the creature got the message and lurched back, growling its displeasure as it limped off into the dark, having a new wariness of Dean’s weapon.
“That’s right, bitch, stay the hell back until I figure out how to gank you!”
Pulling out a second clip, Dean shoved it home, swerving back toward the other beasts.
The female was on her knees, sniveling, but the male…
“Nooooo!” Dean shot the male pulling Sam up off the ground. Dean’s bullet hit the creature in the meaty part of the shoulder and the beast flinched back, roaring and dropping Sam, then grabbed for Sam again, catching his brother’s ankle in its claw-and that’s when the female roared to life.
Submissiveness gone, she barreled into the larger beast, throwing it back a few paces. Stunned, it took a second hit until the shock wore off and the two creatures really got started.
Which left Sam finally in the clear and Dean wasn’t losing that opportunity. Gun in hand, he dashed to him, worry and adrenaline tangled like acid in the back of his throat.
“Sam!” The relief of finally having hands on his brother after days of fearing the worse threatened to drag Dean’s legs out from under him. He pushed that down, knowing he only had seconds to get the kid clear of here.
Sam lay on his side, the pool of water beneath his cheek doing nothing to revive him. Heat radiated off Sam’s dry skin. Sweat-dried curls lay dark on his pale face. Dark lashes fanned over equally black smudges beneath his eyes.
But he was breathing. Kid was still breathing.
“Sam.” Dean shook him. With that leg he’d have to carry him anyway, but he wanted-needed-Sam to wake up. “Come on.” He slid the duffel off his shoulder and started pulling Sam up to haul him over his shoulders, glancing quickly at the snarling commotion behind. Beasts were still full on going at it, blood matting both.
The female had oozing wet slices across her chin, but she wasn’t backing down, had in fact, gotten herself between them and the male who was slowly losing steam.
A hot dry palm slipped onto Dean’s wrist, wrenching his attention back to Sam.
Kid’s eyes were open, looking at him in distress and disorientation. Thank God. The icy fear Dean had carried through the tunnels with him started to thaw. He held Sam’s chin. “Don’t try to talk. I have you now.”
Once more he leaned in to pull Sam over his shoulder, startled when the female reached over them both and plucked Sam up off the ground and took off down the tunnel she’d first emerged from.
Sonuabitch.
Dean had no idea where the other creature had gone, obviously run off by the female. He ran after the beast, pulling his Glock on her bulking retreating back.
“Stop!”
The creature plowed on, Sam swallowed up in front of her. The only thing he could see of his brother was his straight swollen leg bouncing with the tanahog’s stride.
“Stop! I will shoot you.” He would, hoping the beast wouldn’t fall forward onto Sam.
Suddenly she stopped. Dean stopped, the echo of his footsteps fading and he heard Sam’s raspy weak voice pleading with the creature.
Sam had somehow gotten her to stop. The creature swung around to face him, features sorrowful.
Dean shoved the gun into his waistband and held his hands up. “Please don’t take him. He needs help. If you hide him away again he’ll die.”
Weak and shaky, Sam’s fingers splayed over the creature’s heart, his soft eyes pleading. “My brother…please let…me go.”
Looking down into Sam’s face, the tanahog whined.
“Please.” Dean could barely hear the soft hush of Sam’s plea, while his heart ran a mile a minute, praying the kid’s patented eyes would work on the creature.
Rumbling low in her throat, she started walking back toward Dean, clearly saddened.
Holding his breath, Dean let her pass him and followed closely behind. She took him into another tunnel system he hadn’t yet scouted and turned into a dead end where another tunnel, more of a drainage pipeline, about four feet in diameter was set in the wall six feet up.
Daylight filtered through the slope from an opening Dean couldn’t see. The beast walked steadily to it.
“That the way out?” Dean asked. He would never be able to lift Sam up into that on his own.
A roar had both the beast and Dean spinning back toward the tunnels. The two males were back, a united front, fury shaking through their bulky masses.
The female screamed at them, turned and shoved Sam up into the pipe before rushing headlong into the other creatures.
Dean stared, momentarily stunned before he pulled out his gun and shot at the males, winging their arms to either side of the female. He didn’t want to get too close to the female who had gone berserk, whopping on both males.
He wasn’t sure she could be brought back from that rage and decided the better part of valor was getting his kid out of there while her fury was giving him that chance.
Taking a running leap, he caught hold of the pipe’s edge and pulled himself in. He crawled up and over Sam, careful of his leg in the confined space until he was on the other side of the kid’s shoulders and began pulling Sam farther into the pipeline while he edged backwards.
Sam screamed in agony, stiff leg scraping along the concrete. Dean hated doing it to him, but the pipe wasn’t big enough for him to reach down and support Sam’s leg. He had to get him out of this hole as quickly as possible and then get the kid help.
Pulling Sam beneath his armpits, Dean edged them both along backwards into the shaft of graying light. Glancing over his shoulder he saw a grate a few yards ahead. A wet sticky breeze washed into his back.
Snarls and growls echoed around the cement, chasing after them.
Weakly, Sam tried to turn back. “Have…have to…help her. Saved me.”
Dean didn’t see it that way. If the beast hadn’t hidden Sam away, he would never have gotten so sick. The infection had taken dangerous root.
“She’s holding her own, Sam. Can’t worry about her right now.”
“Bu-“
“No buts.” Dean hauled Sam back again, not that his brother had any strength to resist him. Every muscle went rigid along Sam’s sides. Sam’s head rocked back, digging hard into his sternum while the kid gasped breathlessly in pain.
Howls exploded across the cement. The male rammed its huge body against the sides of the pipe, reaching into it to get at them.
Dean scrambled backwards, dragging Sam’s long legs farther out of reach and felt for his Glock, though the female leaped onto the monster from behind, pulling it back in a jumble of shrieks and roars.
Sam’s pulse banged like a freight engine beneath Dean’s arm. His back thumped into the rusty grate. Dean twisted, slamming the flat of his hand against it. It didn’t budge, locked or screwed shut.
Beyond it he glimpsed wet dirt, ground sloping up on either side. The pipe spilled out into some type of banked ditch.
He slammed the heel of his hand against the grate again, the left side gave a bit rattling looser, or more rusted there.
“We’re close now, Sammy.”
He placed the nozzle of his gun right on the weakest bar and curled over Sam’s head in case the bullet bounced back, and fired.
Sam flinched at the close gunshot on metal and not wasting any time, Dean shoved it open with his fist and squirmed backwards, dragging them out of there until they lay in water-logged sand, looking up into a canopy of lean cypress trees. The noise from the battle within the sewage tunnels cut off, sound-proofed by the whistling hum of cicadas and rustling of wind through the trees.
They were in a ditch. The back of Sam’s head and shoulders rested on Dean’s stomach, the heat radiating off him hotter than a furnace.
He’d gotten Sam out of the sewers, but not out of danger.
His cell phone battery had died a day ago so getting help was going to be tricky. With a gentleness reserved only for Sam, he rolled him off him to the side, resting his palm over Sam’s shoulder. “I’m not going far, just a few steps to see where we’re at.” He told him, surprised when Sam murmured. He hadn’t expected any kind of response. Relief spilled into his chest, loosening the tightness there. “Hang on.”
The sight that greeted him at the top of the rise nearly dropped him to his knees.
A jogging path.
He knew this place, had scouted it out before entering the tunnels on the other side of town. It was a little city park on the edge of the bayou. He stepped onto the jogging path, nearly colliding with a woman in a cropped sports top and shorts, running to music blaring from her ear buds.
She jumped back with a screech. A couple guys playing Frisbee in the middle of the lawn area jerked around.
Dean held up his hands. “Help, I need help. My brother…” he stepped back to be non-threatening and glanced back down over the edge. “He’s hurt.”
Wary, the jogger sidestepped to look over the edge, eyes widening. “Oh my-“
The Frisbee players were making their way over.
“Do you have a phone?”
“Yeah, yes, of course.” The woman started reaching into her sports top. Normally, Dean would have stopped to consider that, but right now it wasn’t even a passing thought. “Call an ambulance and stay up top to show them where we are.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, scrambling back down the slope, quickly divesting himself of gun and blades which he stashed beneath a rock and got back to Sam.
Sam hadn’t moved, was still baking, still drifting in only slight fluttering whiffs of breath, but Dean had him now and help was coming. Help was coming and Dean had Sam now.
Part Two