SPN Fic: Madness Is The Emergency Exit [Part Three]
Part Three
It's strange, suddenly being faced with a world to roam and no place where they’ll belong. There are a million signposts to a million places but they might as well go nowhere because the Winchesters have no fore-run destiny, no plotted course, no distinct goal, not anymore. So Sam buys a map, closes his eyes and stabs his finger at the thin paper.
Trapped by his fingerprint’s a pathetically tiny village in the middle of nowhere, Arizona. The weather’s melting hot, summer sun beating down on the roof of the Impala. They’re halfway there when the air-con chokes. Windows are instantly wound down but even the wind’s heated and sticky. Sweat drips down the neck of Sam's shirt and Dean's body heat adds another layer of discomfort but Sam doesn't care. He presses closer to his brother, slick skin sliding on his, a constant reminder that this is real; that he won’t wake in Palo Alto.
Hunts seem to find them on the way to Sam's fingerprint, moths to the flame. There are monsters everywhere, so many things to kill, so many things to salt and burn. Sam thinks he’ll die young because his heart’s never given a chance to slow down. Food becomes second thought as the brothers run on adrenaline blood and half-crazed laughter.
They reach Sam's fingerprint and the village’s even smaller than it looks on the map. There are almost two inns, one ramshackle and moss-covered, the other half-full of permanent residents who checked in and never bothered to check out. Most of the houses are peeling paint and splintered wood. A dog barks and children shriek as they play in the dust of the local playground. They quickly learn that strangers in the village are watched from beneath hat brims and out of the corner of narrowed eyes.
There isn't a hunt here. Dean grumbles and mutters about creepy buildings in small-town America and various horror flicks. They don't find a hunt but they spend a week in the village. There's something about this place, something that feels like a clock ticking down but no one knows what to. It's not the uncomfortable shiver of something that’s about to go wrong, more the heavy weight of something inevitable.
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The clock hits zero on their eighth day amongst the dust-painted farmers. Their evening haunt (and Sam loves the irony in that word) is the closest bar, the only bar, drinking themselves into the night with the locals. They’re forced alone, isolated on their own table among rowdy drinking groups swapping stories. The Winchester's don't complain. It's probably better that people avoid them. The brothers are more volatile when they're together, too flammable, too charged.
It’s better that people avoid them but sometimes they’re not that lucky. Friday evening comes hot and humid, air almost thicker than the liquor that’s being knocked back by the locals, happy that the week’s over. There are more than a couple of people drunk, stumbling like new-born giraffes across the bar.
"Hey there, big boy." A woman with tangled, straw-coloured hair falls into the empty space next to Sam in their booth. The brothers always slide together until there’s more space free than taken. "How’re you doin’ tonight?"
"Get off," Sam replies coldly, pushing away wandering hands. The woman looks vaguely gleeful at the apparent challenge but it's hard to tell if she's even aware of what's going on. "Leave."
"Oh com-on," she slurs, pawing at every inch of his body she can reach. "I juss' wanna see if you're propo-propor- the same size all luv’."
"Leave now," Sam manages to grind out again, shoving away her leg as she tries to loop it into his lap. "Go!"
She's about to open her mouth and speak again when Dean apparently decides he’s had enough. In a second he’s on the other side of the table, hauling the woman out of the booth by her arm. She doesn't hesitate before she starts screaming.
The townspeople's reaction is instantaneous. Two men rip the woman from Dean's grip and push her out of the way whilst a third lashes out, landing a punch on the elder Winchester's jaw. It’s clear that these people have been watching the Winchesters, waiting for the camera to focus so they can see why there’s a chill in the room when the brother’s enter. Now they’ll learn the answer.
Before he can think, Sam’s on his feet and steadying his brother. He brushes fingers over Dean’s face, making sure no bones are broken. It takes a moment to shake the stars away but then Dean’s grinning at Sam, something wild swimming in his green eyes.
There’s a moment’s exchange between them, muscles tensing, hearts already beating too fast. Then the world’s a blur of pain and anger. Everything’s red, rivers of blood and anger choking out reality and logic. Sam can’t see but he doesn’t really need to. He can feel Dean beside him, can feel the movements his brother will make before he makes them.
Mary’s screaming in his mind, louder than ever before, until she’s all he can hear. Everything else drops away, muffled by a thick blanket of screams. He lashes out harder, violence pounding in his ears, the pain in his fists distant and not completely real. It isn’t until something warm’s washing over his body, splattering against his face, slicking the floor beneath his feet, that he realises Mary’s laughing. And he’s laughing with her.
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It’s carnage, a massacre. There are no other words to describe it. Blood’s splattered across the floor, over the walls. It reaches the ceiling in red star-burst splatters, macabre imitations of the glow-in-the-dark stars Sam used to stick on the roof of the Impala. The bar looks like the crime scene of a lion circus act gone wrong and Dean’s tempted to laugh at that thought.
The Winchesters stand in the middle of the room, chests heaving in time, gazes filled with electric heat. Dean’s holding a knife, the one that he always keeps tucked in a sheath at his waist. Red drips from the blade in a base-line. Sam’s wielding a broken bottle, the glass slicing into his own palm, not that he notices.
Dean takes a step back, not bothering to look, just waiting for the collision against his brother’s solid presence. They meet and suddenly all the noise, all the screaming shouting laughing, all the dripping images and melting skin, it’s gone. Dean’s world has never been so quiet, so empty and yet so completely filled with everything that Sam is.
It’s too much; the peace that comes crashing down over the blood hunger death that gripped Dean’s mind and wouldn’t let go. Legs give in and he sinks to the ground, sitting in the cooling pools of blood that are there because of him and the violence in his heart. Sam crashes down beside him, presses tightly against his side. He buries his nose under Dean’s collar, breath hot on his neck. Mary stands above them and blood seeps into the threads of her nightgown until it’s no longer white. She’s smiling at them.
“Dean,” Sam’s voice is a whimper against his skin. “My hand hurts.” The smashed bottle’s still clutched in the taller man’s grip, blood welling up at the edges and flowing down Sam’s arm.
“Let go,” Dean mumbles, reaching over to pull the glass gently from his brother’s hand. A growl escapes from Sam and he instantly jerks his hand up to his mouth, sucking on the wound. Dean looks away, throwing the bottle as far as he can, listening with satisfaction to it smashing against the wall. Sickness rolls in his stomach as he thinks of Sam hurt, his brother’s blood on the sharp glass.
Sam drops his hands and uses his good one to pull Dean’s arm around his back. The elder Winchester’s fingers automatically grip his brother’s hipbone, digging in. Sam lets a contented sigh escape and pushes his nose back against Dean’s neck, teeth just lightly nipping at his collarbone. They stay like that for a long time, perhaps too long, as their hearts calm and minds plunge into oblivious peace.
It almost lasts. They’re jolted back to life by a truck engine and voices in the bar’s car park that filter through the door. More townspeople, late to the party. Dean’s instantly on his feet, displacing Sam and leaving a shape in the congealing blood spread across the floor. His brother follows him up, eyes narrow and fixed on the door.
They know enough to guess how this will end. Lynch mobs aren’t unheard of in small-town America and the brothers can’t hold back an entire town of sober renegades looking for vengeance. Sam stops thinking then, just grabs his brother’s arm and hauls him to the back of the bar. Sure enough, there’s a pantry there with a secondary gas canister. Dean’s hand wraps around Sam’s neck and his fingers dig into old bruises.
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It’s been a long week, problems every day with the crops, animals, other farmers. Bruce’s ready to fall asleep drunk, wake up drunk and remain drunk until Monday morning at least. It’s just his luck that the missus decides he needs to get the boys to finish painting the fence before he can start the weekend.
When they’re finally done it’s late, all the sounds of the night shrouding the bar as they pull up. Bruce frowns. Even after they clamber out of their utes on tired legs, the ruckus of the bar doesn’t reach him. All the lights are on but beyond that, there’s nothing to indicate that there’s a Friday night piss-contest going on.
They open the door and the first thing that Bruce thinks is they’ve repainted the place and red really isn’t working for them. Then all thoughts are gone and he throws up the freshly baked cookies his wife had given to her ‘hard working boys’ a few hours ago. Behind him he can hear the other men doing the same.
There are bodies everywhere, about a third of the town Bruce would guess. Smashed glass is sprinkled across the ground like fairy-tale glitter, a testament to how drunk the townspeople must have been. The bodies are mostly intact with only the occasional finger parted from its owner. Half the victims are clutching at their open throats, soaked in blood from where they writhed on the floor, slowly bleeding out.
But it’s not really the sheer number of bodies or the gaping wounds or the faces frozen in terror and desperation that makes Bruce double over retching. It’s the smell. The thick cloying stench of blood hangs in the air and Bruce‘s breathing in the death death dead that’s strew across the bar.
Through the blurry haze of tears and retching, he hears the roar of a car in the parking lot. Slowly he pulls himself upright and turns to the other two men. Both of them are still on their knees, strings of vomit trailing from their open mouths, eyes wide and Bruce thinks they’re probably in shock. He’s not sure what’s keeping him sane.
He’s never given a chance to find out. For a second he gets a glimpse of a black car pulling out of the parking lot, gorgeous and gleaming, nothing more than a shadow in the night. Then the fuse runs out and the gas tanks blow. The main structure of the bar explodes into a fireball, heat waves pulsing out from the centre. Instantly the carefully split liquors join the inferno, roasting the bodies they’re drizzled across.
The fire burns for an hour before anyone can put it out. The case goes cold after a few months.
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Silence falls between the brothers, caught in the adrenaline heartbeat pulsing between them. Sam doesn’t think he could speak, even if he wanted to, throat closed over from the thrumming ecstasy that has been threaded into every burning muscle. The metallic tang of blood fills the Impala, sending Sam’s fingers twitching in need for something that’s broken and bruised and perfect.
Once dawn’s creeping into the rear-view, Dean pulls into the next motel he sees. They get off as much of the dried blood as possible before going into the office and if the receptionist shoots them a worried glance, they don’t care enough to notice. In the room the brother’s sit on their chosen beds, facing each other but not quite making eye contact.
Something fragile has built up between them during the drive, something that’s neither a cord linking them nor a wall separating them. It’s the thick cloud of a shared sin suspended between uncertainty and disbelief. It’s the tug-of-war between denial and acceptance and neither has won because neither has been voiced. If you don’t speak about it, then maybe it never happened. If a tree falls in a wood and no one hears it, does it still make a sound?
Eventually Dean stands and walks into the bathroom. He’s moving slowly, perhaps weighed down by the satisfying burn of muscles rarely used. Perhaps tip-toeing around this fragile thing, breakable like the seal on a letter that could be exaltation or obituary. Sam doesn’t move, just sits staring at the slightly off-white bed sheets.
There’s something broken in Sam. It’s warped wood that creaks under feet, cracking more and more each day. It’s made of violence and written in someone else’s blood, driven by Mary’s screams until Sam has to destroy the world to make himself whole. Perhaps, in another life, in another mind, Sam would think he was insane or a demon, but he’s not in another life.
So Sam’s warped and twisted but so is Dean. They’re accidents waiting to happen in a world that only accepts perfection. They’re blemishes on life’s record, rats in the pantry, something that doesn’t belong because it’s not all there. Until they’re whole again, until they can find the needle to sow each other back together, the world’s painted red.
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Blood flecks dot the silver metal of the drain by the time Dean finishes in the bathroom. His skin’s clean, pink from where he scrubbed away the evidence of their sin. Screams are echoing in his head when he opens the door, last moments becoming a movie in his mind. Emotions tangle together until he can’t tell whether he revels or reviles in their slaughter.
Then he sees Sam, sitting on the bed with a crumpled look on his face, red smears on the sheets around him. The doubt vanishes. There’s nothing he won’t do for his little brother, no one he won’t kill. If this is who they are, blood washed down the drain, then Dean doesn’t care so long as Sam’s his.
The younger Winchester brushes past him on the way to the empty bathroom. Their skin meets for a second, hair pricking up in the electric current that will always spark between them. Dean ignores it, lets his brother fade out of his sight so there’s room in his head to think.
They’ll have to go, run, climb into the Impala and never stop driving. That’s nothing different. The world moves too slowly for the Winchesters to ever stop. West, Dean decides, west’s good. Put some distance between the brothers and the pyre they left burning. Put some distance between the roasting corpses and the ones who slew them.
It isn’t until Sam comes out of the bathroom ten minutes later that Dean realises he’s been standing in the middle of the room, staring at his bed, mind lost on the revisitation of slaughter.
“Dean?” Sam’s eyes are full of the uncertainty of newly found brothers. Mary stands behind him, a red smile on her face as she watches like a hungry audience waiting for blood. “Are you okay?” Hesitation. “Are we okay?”
It feels wrong, for some reason, to sleep in his bed tonight. The sheets just look wrong, too white or too stained or too - just too something. Instead he walks over and slips into Sam’s bed, still in his jeans and shirt. It’s a fairly comfy bed for the motel they have chosen, mattress eating the aches and pains that muscles complain of after a good massacre.
For a long moment nothing happens but silence, tension pulling the air tight around the brothers. Dean stops breathing and waits for Sam to choose what to do. The bed sinks at Dean’s back as the younger Winchester clambers in, long limbs somehow managing to fit in the space that’s left.
Breath comes easily then, released in relief and the certainty of newly found brothers. Dean lets his body relax and slide back until their spines meet in the middle. Instantly he feels the tension fall from Sam and they’re pressed together, caught in the limitations of their single bed meant for two brothers.
Dean closes his eyes and sleeps. When he wakes, Sam’s still there.
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The lines start to blur before them, good shifting into state highway 21, evil morphing into Illinois. The Winchesters glide through the changing landscape like Death himself, heralds for fire and blood. Sometimes they will pass through a town and leave nothing more than a corpse salted and burned, its victims safe once more. Sometimes they will pass through a village and leave the burning shells of buildings and too many bodies to bury.
Every time that Sam laughs, Dean knows this life will never end. They have fallen closer now, fallen into the middle of the bed, fallen off the edges of the world and into those dark places where no one dares to look.
It starts with a hunt. A real hunt this time, with baddies and they have to save the ones in the crosshairs. It starts with a nest of vampires who’re just a little too noisy and the Winchesters hear about them. It starts in Bobby Singer’s Scrap-yard with late afternoon sun projecting golden windows upon the floor.
They sit at the table with hands wrapped around beers that weep in the sluggish warmth. The brothers have just dropped in, were just passing through. Bobby tells them to stay the night, swap stories, let the world catch up to them. They sit around the table and talk about some things and avoid others.
There’s a hunt waiting for them on Bobby’s tongue. A vampire in Appleton, or that’s what it seems like anyway. There’s a body count stacking up, a wedding cake for the Devil. It’s definitely a vampire’s doing but no one’s sure how many there are. Maybe the brothers could go have a look? It’s only 8 hours away.
Dean looks at Sam and tells him they should take it, that it seems like fun. He doesn’t say the words, doesn’t need to. His brother knows what he means.
Sam agrees, reminds him that vampires are always fun, says that he needs a new machete.
He just got a new one, Dean complains. Like a good brother, Dean had found a brand new machete hanging in a farmer’s shed and gifted it to his Sammy. Together they had christened it in holy water from the farmer’s veins. But that’d been two months ago, Sam says. It’s been two months and the machete has been lost since then, embedded in - in - in someone’s skull?
Oh yeah, Dean remembers that. Fine bitch, he says, I’ll get you a new machete if you get me another beer.
Sam nods and stands up, heading off towards the fridge with a distinct air of satisfaction that makes Dean smile. He turns back to Bobby, focuses on the other people in the world. Lazily he knocks over his empty beer bottle, watching the sunlight swim through the glass and paint the table green.
“We’ll handle it Bobby.”
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Bobby doesn’t know what happened to those summer brothers who were made of dimpled smiles and freckles. He barely remembers them. Something came along and spread tar over their insides and now their souls are black and cracked. It twisted their brains and now the only way they can fit is together.
He still loves them, of course he still loves them. Bobby was never one to give up, never one to believe a broken man can’t be fixed. Now he looks at the brothers and their crooked smiles that form crooked dreams and he promises himself he’ll do better with these Winchesters. He promises himself that he’ll fix these men.
There’s something killing girls in Appleton. Well, it’s leaving bloodstains and little bits and pieces that come from more than one girl. Everyone says they’re dead now but people keep seeing them. Then people become bloodstains and ‘missing, presumed dead’. Bobby thinks something’s trying to make a home, trying to set up a neat little nest.
The Winchesters are the closest hunters that can handle it. The Winchesters and their black-hole eyes; Bobby suspects they could handle anything. He tells them the case, lets them decide.
Dean looks at Sam. He doesn’t say a word but Bobby knows that a conversation has passed between them. These brothers, born years between and raised inches apart, eternities fall in their exchanges when reality only passes in seconds. They’ll spend lifetimes in their glances while Bobby will only ever have one.
There’s the smallest inclination of Sam’s head and then he stands. Automatically Bobby flinches. The broken brothers don’t notice but Bobby knows he won’t forget. Guns without safeties but he promises himself, he won’t let them be destroyed.
“We’ll handle it, Bobby.” Dean’s empty bottle hits the table with a clink and Bobby grips his beer tighter.
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Appleton, Wisconsin. Sam thinks it’s a lot like Appleton, California… or is that Appleton, Minnesota? Whichever one has Fox River running through it. He looks out the window at the river and wants to laugh. They have been to too many cities and too many cities have faded into one. Dean mutters angrily and Sam could swear he says fucking apples.
It turns out that the vampires are holed up in an apartment block somewhere along the river - and yeah, there’s definitely more than one. They don’t bother learning exactly where. Blood trails lead the way up mould-encrusted stairs that creak under their feet. Shouting and laughter fill the air and this isn’t a subtle as Sam remembers vampires being.
In a few minutes it makes sense. The brothers don’t scout out the building; it’s just vampires and they’ve killed hundreds of those. They slink down the hallway towards the loudest voices and Sam’s carrying his two new machetes. He drops his chin to Dean’s shoulder, breaths a phantom whisper across his brother’s skin.
“On the first day of Christmas Sam’s true love gave to him, two new machetes and a vampire nest to buuuuurrrrn.” Dean’s lips pull into a smile and Sam can feel the excitement bunched in his brother’s muscles. He turns to smile at Sam and from some impossible angle there’s light reflected in his green eyes. Light’s reflected in Dean’s eyes or perhaps he has swallowed the fire again, swallowed the fire so Sam won’t burn alive.
Mary shouts in his ear then, screams a battle cry and somehow the sound’s coming from Sam’s mouth. They charge into the room, the Winchester brothers, Death’s foot soldiers. Inside thirty vampires turn to look and now Sam understands the lack of subtlety. If no one can stop you, why bother hiding?
The vampires are surprised, red eyes saucer-wide, a mirror for the oncoming storm. Heads roll like dice across the floor. Heads or tails, luck or chance? Fate hides her face as the Winchesters redecorate the room.
Sam’s machetes are like silver fire in his hands. They slice through the air, blood spraying from their slippery surface. He plunges his blade through the neck of a blonde woman. He skewers another as it - she - tries to sneak up on Dean. Mary laughs. Mary laughs and her voice the only thing Sam can hear over the sickly sweet sounds of death.
The vampires wake up soon, their senses catch up. They can smell the drizzle of their own blood, taste the irony as they lose their appetite for destruction. It doesn’t take long for them to start fighting back and Sam grins wider. He likes a little struggle in his massacres. It’s a scratch here or a gouge there. It’s teeth or nails or cold metal blades that skin can’t hold up against.
This is the perfect insanity, the ideal chaos that’s battle. This is knowing you have killed something but never seeing it fall. This is mayhem and the Joker’s paradise and it’s the only place where Sam knows he’s alive. The screams and shouts and death and laughter, they fade away until he can hear his own gasped breath.
On the other side of the room, Dean’s slicing and dicing. Sam can’t see him but he can feel every move his brother makes, can hear his heartbeat from a million miles away. There’s a link between them when they’re lost in bloodlust, something that Sam thinks has always been there, he just hasn’t always listened. There’s a link between them when they’re playing god and Sam knows everything that Dean does, says, thinks, is.
There’s a link between them and that’s how Sam knows when the crude knife slides so sweetly into his brother’s back. That’s how Sam knows that the wound, it won’t kill his brother but Dean can’t help himself from falling forward. Mary screams and Sam’s already moving.
The vampire’s still laughing when he slits his - its - throat. It’s laughing and jeering until suddenly it can only speak in gurgles. Slowly it turns to look at the younger Winchester, eyelids flickering over dead eyes. Sam reaches into the vampire’s red smile, wraps his hand around the knobbly spinal column, the ribbed larynx and pulls.
As the vampire falls to the floor, Dean pushes himself to his feet. In his hand’s the knife. No pain registers on his face as he sends the blood-stained metal into the forehead of the nearest fanged creature. His eyes flick to Sam, spine still clenched in his fist, and a grin stretches across his face. If no one can stop you, why bother hiding?
The battle, fight, struggle for survival doesn’t last long after that. Sam presses himself to his brother’s side, feels the electricity jump between their skins. They’re ship and anchor dancing in the storm. There are only nine vampires left, fearful and wary, slipping in their comrades’ blood as they circle the Winchesters.
The massacre, carnage, slaughter doesn’t last long. The brothers dart out to slash and hack then fold back together again. They’re Greek Hoplites lined up for war. They’re soldiers fighting side by side, each the only shield the other will ever need. They’re the eye of the storm, Death’s black legions.
The nine vampires become nine corpses. Sam strangles the last one with the spine that’s still in his hand. At his feet the wooden floor’s coated in a thin sheen of blood and Sam thinks that it’s probably dripping through the cracks to the room below. He likes that thought. Someone else should know about the war they’ve fought, someone else besides nauseous police officers and grim forensics. They won’t put this in the newspaper. Panic, sheer bloody panic.
There’s a slimy wetness against Sam’s skin and he didn’t realise it until now. Blood’s seeping through his shirt where Dean’s leaning against him and Dean’s leaning against him. Sam spins around, dropping his machetes in favour of holding his pale brother up from the floor.
“Fucker stabbed me in the back.” Dean’s voice is weak but Sam can hear the anger, the bubbling rage and indignation. Carefully he lets his hand slip around to smooth against the wound. Blood slicks his fingers, enough to worry about at some point but not enough to kill Dean, not enough to scare Sam.
Carefully he pulls his hand away, sees it dark red and a stab of anger spikes through him. No one’s supposed to harm Dean. No one’s supposed to harm Dean and it’s Sam’s fault that someone has. A hiss of anger escapes his mouth and Sam can’t stop himself from lashing out. His foot snakes out and half a vampire’s head rolls into the shadows with a squelch.
“Sammy.” His eyes meet Dean’s and the words are written in those green green orbs. Not your fault, Sammy. I wasn’t concentrating. Not your fault.
Sam stares at his brother and wonders when time stood still, wonders when time stopped trying to make sense of the Winchester’s lifeline. They’re caught in those moments when Sam was eight and Dean was older than time thought. Dean’s telling him it’s not his fault and Mary’s dead and gone and screaming in his ear.
She stands behind Dean now and Sam can see her. Mary’s standing behind Dean and smiling and Sam can feel that link between him and his brother. It tightens like a leash, pulling them in, pulling them into those dark places where no one but Mary can see them.
He presses his lips to his brother’s then. Sam’s not quite sure why, not sure if that was the next number in the sequence, instruction on the page. All he knows is that it feels right. Dean doesn’t stop him, doesn’t hesitate or stumble or stutter or blanch. Dean presses back and suddenly all the pain and the blood, all the screams and the massacre; it takes second place and it’s never been runner-up before.
Sam thinks he has been put back together by a giant hand. Sam thinks his brother’s the missing piece that fits his soul back together. Around them vampires splutter their famous last words as Death claims the Winchester’s victims and none of it matters. Not anymore. The world could stop and it wouldn’t matter. Not anymore.
When they break apart, Mary’s gone. Sam searches for her in the slumped carnage but she’s gone. It isn’t until the brothers are leaving, Dean leaning heavily on Sam, that he hears it. Her voice is strong and solid. No longer laughter or screams. Now meaningless whispers, bedtime stories told from another world. He can’t hear the words but it doesn’t matter. It feels like comfort.
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It starts in Appleton, Wisconsin with the bloody pulp of vampire under Sam’s shoes and it never stops. It’s as though the brothers finally realise that they still have cracks running through them, cracks that needed to be smoothed over, need to be filled in. There are spaces in their souls that the blood, death, and laughter just can’t fill. They don’t have plaster to fill the cracks so Sam’s tongue writes a new testament on his brother’s skin.
Dean crowds his brother against the wall when the night brings darkness. Sam throws his head back and moans his brother’s name until even thunder’s drowned out. Dean drags his nails down Sam’s back and Sam sinks his teeth into Dean’s shoulder. Together they’ll writhe on the standard single bed and there’s no telling where one begins and the other ends.
Nothing matters to them, not the whisperings of motel clerks nor the raised eyebrows of society’s kings and queens. They’ll bring Hell to the world, fertilise the Earth with blood. Their body count stacks higher, cars in a scrap-yard, tombstones in a cemetery. Part of them knows that what they’re doing is wrong, knows that their destruction seeps from the cracks in their sanity.
But there can’t be an end. For every human they leave alive Dean digs his fingers harder into his brother’s hip. For every building left intact they burn a village. For everybody that becomes ash, Mary laughs and dances in the flames.
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| Part Four |