SPN FIC - They Always Come Out in the Dark
For jdsgirlbev: John, the Big Damn Hero.
CHARACTERS: John, OCs
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 720 words
THEY ALWAYS COME OUT IN THE DARK
By Carol Davis
"Mister," she says, her voice a squeaky whine. "Mister, are you a cop?"
She's been hanging onto his left arm, her small, pale hands clamped tight around his elbow, for a good half a minute now. He'd shake her off (will certainly need to shake her off before too much more time goes by) but there's such pure terror on her face that he hasn't brought himself to do it. Just a kid, he thinks; sixteen, maybe seventeen. Nobody here is much older than that - not the ones who are lying silent and bloody on the glistening tile around the pool, or in the pool itself, or the ones who are still alive and screaming.
He's always heard you feel a lot more vulnerable when you're naked, and these kids certainly look like they feel that way, all of them in bathing suits, a couple of the girls in bikinis, strung-together bits of cloth no bigger than his palm.
Maybe that made them look tastier.
Maybe it didn't.
Doesn't make much difference at this point.
Her lips go on moving, frantically asking that same question. It's tough to hear her over the screaming.
Hell, maybe she's stopped making any actual sound at all.
She's hanging on so tight he's starting to lose feeling in that hand. Time to drop the baggage, he thinks, but when he glances at her, all that seems important is that she's only a kid - and the only thing that's making sense to her is that he's a cop who's come busting in here to save her.
"Honey," he says, "you need to get back now. Go on back there with your friends."
She doesn't respond, not in any kind of a way. Her gaze doesn't shift. Her eyes don't reflect that she's heard the instructions, or understood them.
That happens, he was told a long time ago.
They freeze.
Just plain freeze up. You don't get to do that. Not if you want to walk out of there. Not if you want anybody else to walk out of there.
It's sometime close to one in the morning, the best part of the night when you're sixteen or seventeen, school's out, the air's warm and close and you're surrounded by friends. He left that kind of thing behind a long time ago, but he remembers it well enough. Thought, once upon a time, that his boys would have this kind of night someday.
Not exactly this kind of night, of course. One where half the people around you are dead, or dying.
The real cops are coming, most likely summoned by the frantic call of a neighbor; he can hear the whine of their sirens in the near distance, maybe six or eight blocks away. They'll be here in half a minute, will come barreling in with guns drawn.
And they'll chase away the thing that's been lurking in the shadows, over there by the garage.
The thing that's probably still hungry.
He's no kind of a cop. No uniform, no badge. His name's not on any civil service roster. He's something else entirely - someone who knows that thing out there in the shadows won't be taken down by a gun.
Someone who's aware of what that thing is.
Quickly, firmly, he uses the thumb of his right hand to break her hold on his elbow. "GO," he commands as he spins her toward the little sheltered area near the back door - as he shoves her in that direction with the fist that's curled around the only weapon that will take down the creature that's slaughtered her friends. Already turning away from her, he hears her cry of dismay, one that's likely to dissolve into weeping. She'll cower, he figures: this little, pale, red-haired girl in the yellow-and-white bathing suit.
Cower. And cry.
While he runs away from her, in pursuit of that thing.
With luck, the cops will stay here. With luck, it'll take them a while to expand their search for the cause of this mayhem. There's a fair chance they'll believe he's the cause, but that's not worth worrying about right now.
"Mister?!?" she calls after him, high and shrill, but he pays no attention.
He's got a job to do, and only a few hours of darkness left to do it in.
* * * * *
CHARACTERS: John, OCs
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 720 words
THEY ALWAYS COME OUT IN THE DARK
By Carol Davis
"Mister," she says, her voice a squeaky whine. "Mister, are you a cop?"
She's been hanging onto his left arm, her small, pale hands clamped tight around his elbow, for a good half a minute now. He'd shake her off (will certainly need to shake her off before too much more time goes by) but there's such pure terror on her face that he hasn't brought himself to do it. Just a kid, he thinks; sixteen, maybe seventeen. Nobody here is much older than that - not the ones who are lying silent and bloody on the glistening tile around the pool, or in the pool itself, or the ones who are still alive and screaming.
He's always heard you feel a lot more vulnerable when you're naked, and these kids certainly look like they feel that way, all of them in bathing suits, a couple of the girls in bikinis, strung-together bits of cloth no bigger than his palm.
Maybe that made them look tastier.
Maybe it didn't.
Doesn't make much difference at this point.
Her lips go on moving, frantically asking that same question. It's tough to hear her over the screaming.
Hell, maybe she's stopped making any actual sound at all.
She's hanging on so tight he's starting to lose feeling in that hand. Time to drop the baggage, he thinks, but when he glances at her, all that seems important is that she's only a kid - and the only thing that's making sense to her is that he's a cop who's come busting in here to save her.
"Honey," he says, "you need to get back now. Go on back there with your friends."
She doesn't respond, not in any kind of a way. Her gaze doesn't shift. Her eyes don't reflect that she's heard the instructions, or understood them.
That happens, he was told a long time ago.
They freeze.
Just plain freeze up. You don't get to do that. Not if you want to walk out of there. Not if you want anybody else to walk out of there.
It's sometime close to one in the morning, the best part of the night when you're sixteen or seventeen, school's out, the air's warm and close and you're surrounded by friends. He left that kind of thing behind a long time ago, but he remembers it well enough. Thought, once upon a time, that his boys would have this kind of night someday.
Not exactly this kind of night, of course. One where half the people around you are dead, or dying.
The real cops are coming, most likely summoned by the frantic call of a neighbor; he can hear the whine of their sirens in the near distance, maybe six or eight blocks away. They'll be here in half a minute, will come barreling in with guns drawn.
And they'll chase away the thing that's been lurking in the shadows, over there by the garage.
The thing that's probably still hungry.
He's no kind of a cop. No uniform, no badge. His name's not on any civil service roster. He's something else entirely - someone who knows that thing out there in the shadows won't be taken down by a gun.
Someone who's aware of what that thing is.
Quickly, firmly, he uses the thumb of his right hand to break her hold on his elbow. "GO," he commands as he spins her toward the little sheltered area near the back door - as he shoves her in that direction with the fist that's curled around the only weapon that will take down the creature that's slaughtered her friends. Already turning away from her, he hears her cry of dismay, one that's likely to dissolve into weeping. She'll cower, he figures: this little, pale, red-haired girl in the yellow-and-white bathing suit.
Cower. And cry.
While he runs away from her, in pursuit of that thing.
With luck, the cops will stay here. With luck, it'll take them a while to expand their search for the cause of this mayhem. There's a fair chance they'll believe he's the cause, but that's not worth worrying about right now.
"Mister?!?" she calls after him, high and shrill, but he pays no attention.
He's got a job to do, and only a few hours of darkness left to do it in.
* * * * *