(no subject)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
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John wondered what was up with his boys.
The four of them - John, Dean, Sam and Caleb - were trekking out to the site where they had set up for the hunt tonight.
The woods were in the deep stillness of a cavernous winter. The trees were twisted black shapes against the frozen snow. The thick crust of frost on top of that snow broke and crunched under foot, making the group of hunters far too loud in the silent forest. An occasional track showed that they were not the only living creatures out here, but some inner sense argued that John and his boys were isolated and alone….
He was edgy from it.
And Sam and Dean weren’t helping. They had been normal enough this afternoon when they were setting up and scouting the area. They should have been tormenting each other. Dean poking and tugging at his brother, and Sam retaliating - and both of them driving him nuts, stretching his tolerance until he finally snapped.
Which wouldn’t do anything but make Sammy mad, and make Dean laugh.
But now they were both quiet, watchful, both of them in perfect hunter mode. It should have pleased him… but instead it just reinforced his feeling that something in this woods was wrong - something in his plans was wrong - and they were in trouble….
But the woods stayed quiet, and the boys stayed anxious, and John led them deeper into the shadows.
They approached the hunting site at four pm, right on schedule. That gave them about thirty minutes before heavy dusk, which would be about the same time of day the boys got taken as far as Jim had been able to figure. The site John had picked was a deadfall in the center of a wide glade. Something, a pest or disease, had killed off the trees in this area years ago. The fallen trunks and branches had then been picked up by water during some spring runoff and tossed into a high, loose cluster in the rough center of the glade. This afternoon John, Jim, Travis and Caleb had removed the center of the deadfall, leaving a large hollow surrounded by a tall, dangerously loose collection of dead wood. They had fashioned a narrow gap in the ring of dead wood, an easily controlled entrance to what would be the open killing zone on the inside.
While the older hunters were hauling wood, Dean and Sam had wandered around the woods, leaving Sam’s sent trail in a path right back to the glade.
Now, after a quick trip back to the house for a meal before the fight, John led the way back into the glade as the sun began to sink. John spared a quick look around the walls of the deadfall, and saw both Jim and Travis signal an ‘all clear’. The creature hadn’t shown yet, then.
John didn’t know whether to be more anxious or relieved that the hunt was still a go.
John wasn’t used to being anxious before a hunt. He didn’t like it. And he knew where the source was.
“So no sign yet?” Dean asked, not bothering to hide his hopeful tone. “Maybe the thing has moved on.”
John met his youngest’s eyes briefly, a slight, silent agreement over Dean’s overprotective nature - and how completely unlikely it was that the creature had given up a profitable hunting ground. Dean had made his feeling about this plan quite clear over dinner. Phrases like ‘half-assed’ and ‘cluster-fuck’ had been used.
John bit back the snarl that wanted to come. “Look, Dean, you and Caleb go get into position.”
“But-“
“Now.”
“Fine,” Dean huffed, obviously not pleased. He looked at Sam. “Look, you remember the plan, right? You just draw the thing in and then get the hell out of the way. No Bruce Willis moves, Sammy; you got me?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I got you.”
“This is serious, Sam.”
“I said I got you, Dean,” Sam folded his arms, meeting Dean’s glare with one of his own.
“Dean, take your position now,” John growled. The last thing he needed was Dean cranking Sammy up so high that the kid spooked before this even got started.
Dean glared at him, just to let him know how unhappy he was with this plan - and that boy was getting out of hand, it was time to rein him in - and turned to clamber into one of the hidden hollows they had installed in the wall of dead wood. John walked with Sammy into the center.
“Now you know the plan, right?”
Sam nodded, so keyed up that John could almost see the tension in him, even under the heavy coat. “I hang out here trying to look tasty. When the thing comes, I back up to the far wall. You and Travis will kick down the doorway to trap it inside. The others will be jumping down from the walls. I beat feet back behind Dean’s position and climb, and you guys cave it’s skull in with the iron bars you brought. Simple enough.”
Yeah, simple. Except for the part where Sammy would be on the killing floor alone with that thing; only for a few seconds, true, but any time without back up was dangerous. And Sammy would be the only one of them who would be weaponless. Oh, and, they had left only one place in the brush where Sam could get out, so if Sam wasn’t in position when it started, he would have no way to escape.
John began to see why Dean was less than happy about this plan….
He sighed. It wasn’t like they had a lot of other options. Sammy was their best bet. And there was no sense in loading his own worries onto the kid when the plan was already set.
He patted the boy on the shoulder. “Stick to the plan. Stay calm, and stick to the plan. This will all be over soon.”
Sam nodded, and John made his way to his own hidden perch near the narrow gap of a gate.
Leaving his youngest son alone and defenseless on the killing floor below him.
*
Sam was… bored.
The first ten minutes he’d been near freaked, edgy and hyper and pacing around the confines of the deadfall to burn nervous energy. After twenty minutes he’d settled - wary, but not nervous; aware, but not panicked. Now, with the sun all but gone, he was just bored.
He would have sat down, but the snow on the ground didn’t look all that inviting.
He started drawing doodles in the snow with the toe of his boot, but the snow was too frozen to really hold the shapes. Sighing, he gave up on the snow art, and started pacing again. Standing still just made him cold.
And frustrated. After all the arguing, after fighting with Dean just to get his chance to play bait, now the monster was going to be a no-show.
Sam’s cold boredom converted to the slow boil of frustration. He wanted to do this, he wanted to be a hunter, and now even the frigging monsters were against him!
It just wasn’t fair!
He kicked at a stick that had slipped from the pile.
Wait.
He’d been past this spot like a million times now. That stick had never been there. He looked up, but he was nowhere near any of the bolt holes where the other hunters were hiding.
So why had the stick fallen?
Sam scrutinized the jumbled wood, but it was hard to see anything in the dimming light. He stepped back and he could swear that the wall was sagging. Just a bit.
“Dad?” he called out. “Dad, I think something’s wrong.”
His only response was silence.
Sam ground his teeth in frustration. “Dad, I’m serious. I think there’s something wrong here. The wall looks different.”
Silence. A little shift from where Sam knew Dean was.
Sam huffed out an irritated breath. “Look! I am not making this up! There is something wrong here and I need you to listen to me!”
“Sam,” it was a low hiss from near the gap. “You are spooking yourself. Now calm down and quit giving away our positions before you get someone killed.”
Sam flushed, knowing his father was right. But there was something different about that wall.
Sam started to pace the wall, realizing that the snow was…churned up in spots.
Why the hell was the snow churned up? It looked almost like something had burrowed here.
He had come almost full circle when he saw it. Standing in the shadows to the far right, no where near the gap where it should have come in. Just a shape, a basically human outline in the dusk. Its fingers were wrong; as was the way its hands and arms just dangled from the hunched shoulders. His heart thudded. He could almost feel the adrenaline pumping as his breath came out in a fog that made it even harder to see for a second. He stumbled back a step.
How the hell had it gotten in? Wasn’t it supposed to have come through the gap? Then he saw the pile of dirt and snow in the gloom next to the wood and realized that it had dug its way under the wall. It had picked its entry point well. The hunters in the walls wouldn’t even know it was there, it was so concealed by the thick shadows caused by the encircling wall. It had cut him off from his retreat position.
The brief flash of panic was controlled as Sam thought about the plan. He may not be able to get to his appointed place, but he still had to lead it to the center of the ring, listen for the crash as the gap closed, then fallback… somehow.
Nothing had changed. He would just have to loop out farther to pull it toward the center. And then he would have to be at ground level during the fight. He could do this. He was hunter enough to do this.
He started back, aware of its gaze, wishing that it would step free of the shadows so that the other hunters could see it.
Until then, they wouldn’t even know he was in trouble.
Sam’s heart thudded painfully, and the creature’s face lifted as it sniffed after him.
“C’mon,” he hissed at it, moving further into the open, into what little light there was left. “C’mon.”
“Sam?”
It was Dean, quiet and worried, and confused by the sudden change in Sam’s behavior.
The creature didn’t react; it didn’t flinch, or glance at Dean’s position. It just stared at Sam - and Sam thought: it knows, it knows they’re here -
And it moved.
It stepped forward, into the fading light, and Sam almost wished it had stayed hidden. It was unclothed… but somehow didn’t appear naked. Its skin was thick, heavy and massive, a dingy gray mass that covered a thin, smallish body. The covering of skin had broken and reformed hundreds of times, leaving a lacework of twisted reddish tissue crisscrossing its flesh. All of its soft tissue had shriveled and died at some point during its long life, leaving behind rotted holes at its nose, its ears, its groin. Its fingers had withered, the flesh contracting to the bone and blackening, leaving it with small, bony claws. The tissue of its face had pulled back, its lips masticated, the hole of its mouth stretched into a perpetual, humorless and grim grin. Its eyes had …exploded, leaving swollen balls of congealed and rotting blood protruding from the sockets. And the worst part of it? Sam could see the human it had once been, underlining the twisted and decimated body that had belonged to the Dys for so long now.
It should have been blind, it - it should have been dead… but those rotted eyes swung toward Sam, and he knew the Dys could see despite them. The Dys was still pushing the body, still riding it, long after it should have failed - yet didn’t seem to realize that the flesh it inhabited was no longer capable of providing the sensations it thought it was having.
Sam knew it was insane by any human definition.
“Oh shit!” he heard Caleb say, “It’s in the wrong place! It’s here! It’s down there!”
Sam already knew that, thanks.
“No! Dean! Wait!” Sam heard Travis, and didn’t dare to turn as he heard movement. Everything was happening all at once - after boredom he was now overloaded. His head wanted to swing, he wanted to check on everybody, but he somehow knew that if he broke eye contact with the thing, it would be on him in a heartbeat. Sam took another step back as it advanced, adrenaline flooding his body. He was alone, unarmed, and out of position.
He was so screwed.
He saw his dad from the corner of his eye. He saw him leaning out from his bolt hole, ready to kick the support out and bring the brush down to fill the gap, trapping the monster, and his son, inside.
“John, wait! Sam’s not in position!” he heard Jim shout… and he could have told Jim that it wouldn’t matter - and he heard the crunch as the support went.
The gap closed as the dead trees collapsed inward…
The collapse of the wall didn’t stop with the gap, but continued, the brush falling in the tangle of dead wood breaking at the same places where Sam had marked the churned up snow. Sam gasped as the walls didn’t so much give way as compress, the loose wood dropping into itself as it shifted, turning the hidey holes of the hunters into wooden cages. Sam could hear Jim cry out from somewhere in the brush. He sounded hurt. He could hear the others cursing and wood cracking as they attempted to escape.
The creature made a noise, a low, grating sound that hit Sam like fingernails on a chalkboard. Sam felt a cold flush that had nothing to do with the outside temperature. It was laughing. The damned thing was laughing.
It had dug out the base of the deadfall. It had known what they were doing… and it had turned their plans back on them, catching the hunters in the thicket and leaving Sam alone and trapped on the killing floor. It hadn’t even minded the hunters being there. Sam wondered if this had been its own sort of ambush - take out the hunters that threatened its new territory and get a little dinner in the bargain.
“Polymetis,” Sam said, and it snorted that awful, wet laugher again.
“Sam!” he heard Dean shout, and he dared to glace back over its shoulder. Dean had moved early. He had already been climbing before John had brought down the support, so he hadn’t been trapped. He felt a mix of gratitude and fear.
Sam jerked his eyes back to the creature as Dean hit the ground. Too early. The others were still trying to make their way free of the wreckage. It wasn’t that he wasn’t thrilled to not be alone, but the plan called for the hunters to move in together. To come in and take on the Dys in concert… one-on-one this thing would rip everybody apart.
Oh, they were so screwed.
The Dys was staring at Sam; it moved forward, its posture screaming that it was done playing. It was staking its prey, now.
It really wanted Sam.
Sam saw Dean just over the things shoulder. He saw him raise the heavy, metal pipe - it had a dull orange gleam in the sunset - and step up quickly, silently. Dean brought the pipe down, face twisted with the effort, slamming it into the back of the Dys’ head. The creature howled, stumbling forward a step. It recovered quickly though, far too quickly, and it lashed out, catching and throwing Sam into the far wall, while in a twist of its body that happened so fast it looked like the same motion, it grabbed Dean, piercing his left shoulder and right arm with its withered claw-like fingers, and tossed him into the other side of the pen hard enough that the deadfall rocked. Dean dropped to the base of the branches and didn’t move.
Sam gasped and scrambled to his feet as the thing turned toward where Dean laid huddled, murder in its dead eyes.
“Dean!” he heard his father scream from somewhere. Sam was disorientated, but automatically flinched and dropped to the ground when the gun went off.
The creature rounded on the source, hissing in anger. Sam looked up in time to see his dad join them on the floor, pistol out, firing at the Dys and pulling its attention off of Dean.
The gun was ineffective. The Dys started toward John, hunched low and ready to kill. It jerked as the bullets hit, but all they seemed to do was piss it off. Sam edged away from them and toward his brother as it started for John.
Dean sat up, shaking his head.
John glanced at his son, and the thing jumped, pouncing from a little over 25 feet away.
John went down under it, screaming as its limbs hacked and slashed. Without a word, Dean shoved Sam aside and went for their dad, metal pipe in hand.
Sam knew he couldn’t help without a weapon. Bare hands wouldn’t even scratch that thing.
“Sam!”
He looked up, seeing Caleb caught right above him.
Sam started breaking branches.
Dean attacked the Dys, hitting it again. It screamed, barely hesitating as it threw Dean into the wall again with all the attention of a person swatting a mosquito. Then it grabbed John and heaved him up, hurling him after Dean. John hit the wall as dead weight, and smashed through it, leaving a broken hole behind. The wind that Sam had forgotten was blowing outside the deadfall whipped in, setting the dry snow swirling.
The last thick branch gave under both Sam’s and Caleb’s hands, and Caleb scrambled free of the debris. Further down the wall Travis was loose too, now, and helping Jim.
And the Dys was moving toward the hole - toward the fallen hunters. Toward Sam’s family. The whole hunt had started and gone so horribly wrong in less than three minutes.
Sam knew he was the reason it was here. He knew if he got its attention, if he made himself attractive to it again, it would abandon its attack on the others and come after him.
Sam knew there was only one way to distract it, to buy the others just a little time.
He turned to Caleb. “Take care of them,” he said, and bolted.
Sam raced toward the hole, toward the monster, and at the last minute threw himself into a long slide tackle, perfected during way too many hours of soccer practice, hitting the back of its knees. It worked here as well as it always had on the soccer field, sending the Dys off its feet and slamming it to the ground. The Dys reacted, screaming in its rage. Sam knew he hadn’t hurt it, he couldn’t hurt it, but he had sure gotten its attention.
Sam’s slide had taken him past the monster and through the hole. As Sam rolled to his feet he saw that he was now standing free and clear of the deadfall. He wasn’t far from the edge of the woods. The Dys had surged back to its feet, turning that bloody, dead gaze on him. He could read its renewed intent to kill him, to consume him, in those eyes.
And that was fine, just as long as it left Dean and Dad alone.
“I’m the one you want, remember?” Sam muttered. “So come get me.”
And Sam turned and ran, the Dys only a handful of steps behind him.
*
Sam didn’t have a plan. His only thought had been to get as far away from the other hunters as possible, as quickly as possible.
Now his only thought was to stay alive.
Night had fallen. The full moon and the reflective snow helped, but Sam was still trying to run full tilt in the dark.
The Dys was pacing him. Darting out of the trees to swipe at him, or knock him down. Sam was bleeding from a dozen little gashes. He had begun to think it was just playing now, trying to see how far he could go.
He was running - but it had been awhile, and he couldn’t catch his breath, the arctic snap in the air actually burned the tissues of his throat when he tried to inhale now. So he was slow and he was clumsy and he knew he was making mistakes…
The cold was sapping what skill he had.
The worst part was that he was pretty sure the Dys was just screwing with him.
He could hear it, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the trees - always too close for it not to know where he was. It was teasing him. Working him up. Sam remembered what Jim and his dad had said, about it liking the hormone rush of adolescents. He wondered if fear could cause that… he wondered if this was its version of tenderizing the meat.
Sam saw movement, just a flicker, and he ducked instinctively… almost quick enough as the thing reached out of the night and smacked him in the side of his head. He missed most of the blow, the glancing weight that did make contact not slowing him much. He turned and sprinted in a new direction.
It kept doing that, sneaking up and swiping at him, keeping him disorientated and bleeding. Keeping his adrenaline so high for so long that he was shaking from more than just the cold.
How long had it been? Had Caleb and Travis gotten the others back to the house yet? Was it safe to back-track yet? Head back toward the house and the wards and the weapons.
Were Dean and Dad okay?
Sam grunted as the creature hit him sideways, taking advantage of his distraction. He rolled with it, going after its eyes as it clawed at his chest. He made contact the same time it did, and they both screamed.
As it let loose of him, Sam scrambled away, spinning to be ready for the next attack.
It was gone. Again.
“Fuck,” Sam hissed. His hand automatically went to the gouges in his belly. Thankfully his coat had taken the brunt of the attack. He wasn’t bleeding much, he didn’t think. But now his coat was shredded. It would tangle against his legs and slow him down. Reluctantly he stripped it off and dumped it.
For a second he was just…
Angry.
Not just angry… he was furious. He was pissed, enraged, incensed. He was so mad he couldn’t see straight. He’d told them something was wrong! He’d told them! Before it ever happened! Jim had told John that he wasn’t in position, too.
John had kicked it down knowing he was out of position.
He was stuck out in the middle of a freaking frozen forest, coatless, in the dark…all because his dad and brother never listened to a single word he ever said. This monster was picking at him like a carrion bird pecking at a corpse….
And nobody was coming for him.
He hadn’t followed the plan. He hadn’t been in position when the gap came down, and he knew that his dad would blame him for it. He should have found a way to obey the rules and follow orders. He should have. Dean would have.
Even though he’d tried to tell them that something was wrong. Even though they hadn’t listened.
He was going to die because his dad couldn’t be bothered to listen to him, just once.
How much was it to ask to just be…worth hearing? Just for one night?
And just as suddenly the rage was gone - and he was only cold and hurt and alone in the dark.
The same way he always was.
The shadows flickered again, and it dodged out of the dark, taking advantage of his stillness. It hit him solidly in the chest, just below his clavicle. Sam screamed and fell, the pain of the snapping bone blinding him momentarily. It rolled him and they both went down, Sam struggling to keep it from ripping him apart, while it hissed and snapped and grabbed with its boney claws.
It picked Sam up and threw him, slamming him into a tree.
Sam slumped, disorientated, fighting the darkness that tried to seep into his vision.
He had to get up. Move. His father’s command. His father’s voice in his head, in his fear. Move, or it’ll take you right here. Get up. Move.
Sam tried to move. For what it was worth, Sam tried to move. But his arm didn’t want to work, and his right side felt like it was on fire, despite the cold. His body just didn’t want to work anymore.
It was going to kill him.
No.
Not his father’s voice this time, but his own voice - but somehow stronger than he had ever thought of himself. Surer.
You may be alone, and you may die; but damn it, you don’t have to go down without a fight. Quit thinking like your dad. You don’t have to be like him. He got you into this mess by thinking like a hunter. So don’t think like a hunter. Think like a monster.
Think like a monster.
Which was… not to think at all - in any real, human sense - but just to be. Just to want.
Sam knew he had it in him to be a monster. He knew all hunters had the possibility of going bad… especially him. He didn’t want to be a killer.
But he did want to live.
So he let it in.
*
“Hey. John? C’mon, wake up. You’re scaring your son.”
The last words caught John’s attention and he pushed his brain into functioning. His head hurt, his side burned, and his back ached. All signs of a hunt gone bad.
“Did we get it at least?” he asked blurrily, trying to make his eyes work.
Silence.
Well, that was answer enough.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Dean?” he called.
“He’s not here, John,” Jim answered, and John’s eyes shot open.
“Where is he?”
Jim sighed. “He’s fine. Getting stitched up by Caleb and Travis in the kitchen. That thing put a couple of gashes in his shoulder. It was you that had us worried.”
“I’m fine,” John said automatically, setting up and spending a couple of second breathing deeply to try and settle the vertigo that marched hand in hand with the pounding headache. He diagnosed mild concussion and dismissed it. He had some new stitches in his chest and shoulders. He remembered the Dys jumping on him, and figured his coat must have taken the majority of the damage. Which was better than his hide.
“Sure you are,” Jim sneered.
John forced himself to focus. He was on the couch in Jim’s living room. Jim was in the chair next to him, one leg splinted and propped up on the coffee table.
“Broken?” John asked.
“Fracture, most likely,” Jim answered. “I fell wrong when the branches came down.” He wouldn’t meet John’s eyes.
Suddenly something in the kitchen shattered and Dean yelled, “And I told you that I don’t care! I’m going back out now!”
John felt the slow sinking sensation of bad news not yet shared. “Jim? What’s wrong?”
Jim hesitated, and John bit back the angry panic. “Jim?”
Dean came storming out of the kitchen, pulling his coat on over his torn and bloody shirt. One side of his face was bruised all to hell. His spotted his dad on the couch. “You’re up? Good. I could use the help.”
“Somebody what to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Dean’s face twisted. “These jokers left Sammy out there. I’m going to go get him.”
John stood. “What?”
“We didn’t leave Sammy out there, Dean!” Jim argued. “Sammy ran -”
“Sammy ran?” John demanded. “The fool kid ran off?”
“No!” Dean snarled. “He did what he could to save us when your damned plan went fubar!”
“The thing was ready for us, John,” Travis said. “It took you and Dean out, and it was going to kill you. Sam distracted it, led it off into the woods and bought us enough time to get Jim out and get you guys taken care of. Kid saved our asses.”
“And you left him out there!”
Jim looked at Dean. “We did what we had to do. You and John were down, helpless. My ankle is broken. It took both Caleb and Travis to get us back here before you froze to death. If they had taken off alone, even if they found the thing, it would have torn them to shreds. Now that John’s awake, we…” he hesitated, “you,” he corrected, “can go… find him together.”
There was an awkward pause.
“How long?” John growled. “How long were we out? How long has it been?!”
It was Caleb that answered. “You’ve been out a couple of hours and change, John.”
“So my boy has been out in the woods alone with that killer for three hours?”
Silence.
“It doesn’t mean that he’s dead!” Dean shouted.
Jim cleared his throat. “Any normal kid would be dead by now, Dean.”
“For god’s sake, you’ve all been telling me that he’s not a kid - that he’s a hunter! I admit it, okay! He’s a damned good hunter, and if there was any way to keep himself alive, he would! He’s out there and he’s fighting, and I am going to bring him home. He did what he did to save us, and now he’s in trouble! We have to go NOW!”
John reeled. The idea that Sammy could survive three hours in the dark and cold being hunted by that thing… it was highly unlikely. This was his fault. Sammy was out there because of his screwed up plans. He should have been more careful, should have thought things through better, should have listened when Sammy said something was wrong.
“Dad!” Dean shouted. He glanced up to see his oldest shrugging into his coat and picking up a weapon. “Get with it. We move now.”
John hesitated a split second longer, then shook off the guilt. There would be time to deal with the fall out later. If there was still a chance to get to Sammy on time, he needed to move.
“Dean, get a flashlight. We’ll be trailing, so we’ll need to see. Who all’s coming?”
“I’m in,” Caleb said, and Travis nodded.
“Fine. We’re at least one man down, and neither Dean or me are moving as fast as we should be. This job was hard, now it’s harder. Still want in?”
Travis snorted. “Why are you still talking?”
John grabbed his coat. “Fine. Let’s move.”
“Be careful,” Jim said. “Watch your backs.”
*
Part 4