Films About Ghosts (4/4)

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It should have taken forever to cross the seemingly endless desert, but it only took until sundown before I spotted a glimmer on the horizon.

Looked like this part of my mind wasn't completely empty, after all.

I broke into a staggering run when I spotted it. The desert wind had sucked all the water from my body and my skin felt dry and tight across my arms and my face, but I knew I was getting close. I lifted my hand to my amulet, bouncing against my chest, and felt it start to warm.

"I'm coming, Sammy."

The sun dropped fast, and with it the temperature. I feared I would be left to fend for myself in the dark, but the stars appeared the moment the sun vanished, a thick, bright field of them covering the enormous black bowl of the sky, more than I'd ever seen in the real world, even on the most remote of roads. The starlight turned the desert gray, but lit it just as well as the sun. I felt rejuvenated by it, lifted up by the cool breeze it brought.

For the first time since I confronted Lilith, I really believed I could do this.

I kept running.

*

From a distance, the wall looked like a massive stained glass window done up in brown, green, and white, an abstract tiled mosaic dividing the desert. As I got closer, the white went clear, and the tiles took on distinct shapes, speckled here and there with torn and faded paper.

The entire thing was made out of bottles. Empty fifths were nestled in next to longnecks and forties, and here and there I even spotted the occasional old jug. They were mortared together with what looked like coffee grounds and blood, staining even the clear bottles a gritty brown at the edges. The wall stretched maybe four stories up at its highest point, the top edge undulating roughly into the distance, probably circling the entirety of my subconscious. I stopped a few feet from it and reached out a hand, but pulled back before actually touching it.

"Well. That's disgusting."

Something growled behind me, and I felt my heart seize up and leap into my throat before I slowly turned, keeping my hands up and open.

It stood only a few yards away, crouched down on its front legs, teeth bared as it rumbled like a lion. Deeper, even -- fucker was the size of a goddamn polar bear, though its matted fur was black, not white. Its ears were laid flat back on its head and its tail stretched taught, the tip not even flickering as it stared me down. Worst of all, it had friends.

Fucking wall was guarded by hellhounds.

"Nice puppy," I tried, though it came out as more of a squeak. Alistair and Lilith, Meg and the white-eyed Sam, they all scared the everloving shit out of me, but none of them held a damn candle to a goddamn hellhound. Hell, I could barely look at a small dog some days without remembering the feel of those massive claws ripping into my thigh as Lilith's hound dragged me off the table, the slice and burn of its teeth as they shredded my chest. That was the thing about hellhounds: they didn't just rip you open. Their claws and teeth burned in your wounds like acid, a feeling that lingered long after they'd finished with you. I more than froze when I saw that hellhound. I was like a damned mouse in front of a snake. I didn't stand a chance.

The hellhound tensed to spring as its buddies began to howl. I couldn't bring myself to look, but I had a feeling that more of them were coming, circling in from every direction. These bastards weren't going to let a single fucking entity out through the wall.

I guessed maybe that was the point. I had to have put them there, right? These were my hellhounds, my nightmares. They guarded my wall.

It took everything I had in me, more than I would ever have thought possible, but I straightened, lifted my chin, and made eye contact. The hellhound's eyes were an unholy miasma, yellow and red and black swirling around and around almost hypnotically, igniting a primal terror at the merest glance. I held its gaze, anyway.

"Down."

The hellhound cocked its head, looking for all the world like a confused labrador.

"Back. The fuck. Down," I commanded, throwing as much weight and authority into my voice as I could muster. "I'm not afraid of you."

The hellhound pounced.

I must have blacked out, or maybe locked the whole thing away in its own tiny booze-bottle cage somewhere out in the middle of that fucking desert. I honestly couldn't tell you what happened between the hellhound leaping forward and Jo yanking it off of me, her pale lips curled back from her teeth as she wrestled it to the sand.

I pressed my hand to my chest, rubbing it down over my t-shirt, and was startled to find it whole. The memory of gashes, of that ever present burn, had seeped down past my ribs into my lungs, and I was having trouble breathing.

-- going on?

He's fighting --

"I'm trying!" I yelled, and when I looked up, Jo was there, her hand stretched down to me, her stomach a gaping, bloody mess. Behind her, the hellhounds cowered back.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

I grabbed her hand and let her haul me to my feet, my other hand still pressed tight to my chest. I winced as I straightened, then stared past her to the hounds. "How did you --"

"You almost had 'em," she said. "You shouldn't have lied. You have to learn to trust yourself."

"Thanks, Yoda," I mumbled, staring down at the gash across her stomach while I tried to catch my breath. "Where'd you come from?"

"I stick close to the hounds," she said. "We have an understanding."

"They killed you."

"You can't blame the dog for the master's orders." She smiled. "Hey. It's good to see you."

I shook my head, ducking my chin and panting through my nose. "Not s'posed to be here."

"Nope. Doesn't mean it's not nice to see you, anyway." She raised her hands to my face, cupping my jaw. "Hey. Hey, stop trying, okay? Just let it happen."

I stared back, confused. My chest was still locking up, and it felt like something was jammed in my throat, keeping me from taking a full breath. "I can't --"

"Relax. Look at me. Just forget about it, okay? Stop fighting."

I opened my mouth, wanting to tell her that I couldn't. That I didn't know how. That all I'd ever done my entire life was fight and if I stopped now, then it was all over. I might as well not even exist.

Then I realized she meant my breathing. I snapped my mouth shut again, held her eye, and tried to force myself to relax. Slowly, so painfully slowly, my chest opened back up, and I could feel air rushing in and out again.

"That's it, Dean." She smiled. She looked so much younger when she did that, like the pissed off kid who'd first punched me at the Roadhouse.

She'd probably punch me again if she heard me calling her a kid.

"Hey," I said, when I no longer felt quite so much like I was inches from flying to pieces. "When did you get so smart?"

She shrugged. "Maybe it's a dead thing. Or maybe I always kind of was, and you just never noticed."

"Nah," I said. "Must be 'cause you're in my head."

She snorted and let me go. "So what're you doing here, anyway? You're usually on the other side."

"Took a wrong turn in Albuquerque." Or was it New Haven? "Trying to find my way back."

"Can't help you with that one," she said. "I've been working the wall with the dogs for ages, now. Never did see a door."

"What about Sam?" I asked. She looked up, tilting her head.

"Which one?"

Just how many did I have in here? "The real one."

She shook her head. "Haven't seen him, either, but you could try the dogs."

The hellhounds growled softly. I felt cold. "I'm not sending hellhounds after Sam."

She lifted her hands. "Right, sorry. Forget I mentioned it."

I nodded, then lifted my hand to my chest, where the amulet was meant to be resting. It wasn't there. I'd gotten so used to its absence over the years that I hadn't even noticed when I lost it.

The hellhounds growled again, and I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed. "You gotta be kidding me." I turned slowly, gathering my courage before looking over.

The leader of the hellhounds, the big ass fucker who'd tackled me, gnawed on a broken leather cord, something golden winking in the starlight at the corner of its glistening lips.

Jesus fucking Christ.

"Jo," I said, eyes still glued to the amulet. "Jo, make it give it back." She didn't answer. I looked up. "Jo!"

She was gone.

I was going to have to get the amulet back myself.

Fuck.

*

"Okay," I said, eyes once more locked on the amulet dangling from the hellhound's jaws. "Okay." I almost added I can do this, but that'd just be asking to get mauled for lying all over again. "Uh. Nice doggy?"

The hellhound crouched down, dropping my amulet between its front paws and gnawing happily on the cord.

"Wow, I am really not going to put that back on, again." I swallowed and started inching forward, hands out and open. "Easy." I wasn't sure if I was saying that to the hellhound, or to myself. "Easy does it."

What did Jo say? I had to learn to trust myself. Because this was all in my brain and so it was all just an extension of me. The wall, the hellhounds, the amulet, it was all just me.

I was so fucking messed up. I mean, I'd known that for years, but it was a little different to have it suddenly proven by the giant nasty nightmare on four legs using my one way out of here as a chew-toy. I had to think through this. I had to get to the truth.

Because, you know, the truth had always been so good to me and my family.

I took a deep breath, holding out a trembling hand. "Okay. Okay, so that means, what, I secretly don't want to leave? That I like getting tortured by my enemies for all eternity? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I've done that before. And it sucked."

The hellhound's ears were cocked forward. I thought maybe that meant it was listening to me. Guess I at least knew if I was getting it right or not.

"That's not it, is it?" I asked it. "This isn't because I want to be here. It's the head injury. The leviathans bashed me so hard that I'm punishing myself -- dammit no." I ran my hand through my hair, wincing as a flash of pain sparked behind my eyes. "No, please. That can't be it. I can't -- I don't deserve this."

The hellhounds howled, and I opened my eyes again. "I don't deserve it," I said again, more firmly this time. For a moment it was as if I was in a motel room, staring myself down. Somehow, it was easier to yell and scream and shoot at another version of me than the hulking beast I was trying to talk to, now, but it seemed to be working. The lead hound was looking up, the amulet clenched between his paws, his tail giving a tentative swing. "I know I'm fucked," I told it, words spilling out now that I'd gotten them started. "I always have been. I should be locked back up in that psych ward we left Cas in. My head's so full of fear and pain and -- and hate that I can barely find my own way out. But I don't deserve it. I'm -- I'm better than this."

The hellhound didn't pounce. It slowly stood, head lowered, and crept forward, the amulet once again dangling from its teeth -- and dropped it at my feet, its tail wagging.

"Holy shit." I stared down at it, wondering why I'd thought it was so large and so scary, before. Damn thing wasn't even a hellhound, not really. Not even a Black Dog. Just a big, scruffy street mutt. "I guess I wasn't lying that time, huh?"

The dog huffed a soft "woof!" I slowly crouched down, stretching out my hand to grab the amulet. The dog leaned forward and I froze, but it was only sniffing at my hand.

You can't blame the dog for the master's orders. "You're keeping folks back, huh? Making sure none of the nasties get through?" Hellhounds were the most vicious, terrifying creatures I could think of, save only the leviathans. Of course I would have them around to keep the other scary shit back.

I lifted the amulet and clenched it in my hand. It was warm to the touch. I was close.

"Thanks," I said to the dog. "I think I've got it, now."

And I turned back to the wall, the amulet locked in my fist, and I reached out to press my other hand against the cool glass.

*

Rain.

The rush of tires against wet pavement.

Leather and gun oil and whiskey.

The purr of her well-tuned engine.

*

I yanked my hand back, blinking against the blinding light of the sun reflecting off the wall.

"The hell?"

I tried again.

*

Soft hair and softer skin. Coconut and lavender. A panting breath and a lingering kiss.

*

"Shit." I stepped back from the wall again, running my free hand through my hair. "Shit, no. I can't do that."

The amulet grew hot in my fist, and I nearly dropped it.

"Dean!"

"Sammy." My hand clenched so hard the amulet burned my fingers, and I turned. "Sam!"

He was there, running up along the wall. His hair was long and brushed back from his face, his sideburns just on the edge of turning into full mutton-chops. His shoulders could span continents. He towered over the hellhounds, which parted before him like water against the bow of a ship. As he jogged to a stop in front of me, I let the amulet drop from my now-singed hand. I didn't need it, not any more. This was it. This was really him.

"Sam. I've been looking for so long --"

"I know." Sam pulled me into a hug, pressing my head into his shoulder, holding me there both just too long and not long enough before pulling back. "I know, Dean. I found you. I finally found you."

"It's pretty fucked up in here."

"You don't know the half of it."

I thought about the road and the mountain and the never-ending desert. I tried to picture what the other half might be like and shuddered.

"Can we get out of here, already?"

"Yeah." Sam smiled, a poor imitation of the full blown grins I remembered from when we were young. Neither of us had made it through life unscathed. I wondered what his head space looked like, if it really had libraries and klaxons, or if it was a lake of fire like the white-eyed Sam had said. I knew I didn't want to know. "Come on." Sam offered his hand, and I pressed mine into his, wondering if this would be like an angel deal, if Cas would now somehow zap us back to the waking world. Instead, Sam turned towards the wall and walked right into it.

Scratch that. He walked right through it.

I held on tightly to his hand, wondering if he knew some secret, illusory entrance like the walls in Labyrinth or something. But where he'd gone right past the bottles as easy as if they were nothing more than light and air, my hand struck solid glass.

*

The air from the heater was musty and warm. Almost time to change the filter. Not in the next town, maybe, but the one after that.

Easy, sleepy guitar seeped its way out from the radio in tune with the gentle vwoosh of the windshield wipers.

*

I yanked my hand away with a hiss, shaking it out and breathing hard. Sam stood on the other side of the wall, broken and warped by the shape of the bottles, staring down at his own hand.

"Dean!"

I shook my head. "I can't get out that way, Sam!"

Sam pressed his hand flat against the wall, and though I watched his face carefully, I couldn't see any sign that he was affected by it the same way I was.

Made sense. It wasn't his wall.

"You're going to have to break it down."

I closed my eyes for a moment, and felt him watching me through the wall. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"What?"

"When it felt like someone was there, like there was something following me. At the road, in the woods. That was you, right?" I opened my eyes again when he paused. He stared back at me and swallowed, his shoulders twitching.

"Yeah. Probably."

He'd always been a pretty crappy liar.

I thought of that thing, whatever it was, getting out past the broken down wall. The very idea made my chest seize up even harder than the hellhounds had. "I can't do it, Sam."

"I'm not leaving you here!"

I swallowed hard. "Maybe you have to."

"Dean, no."

"Wall's here for a reason. I fucking built it myself, didn't I?"

"But it's going to kill you, Dean. Your body is wasting away!"

"Maybe it's supposed to."

Sam had both hands against the bottles, now. Whatever let him slip through last time didn't seem to be working both ways. He pounded against the wall, and it barely shuddered. "Dean, please!"

"Dick Roman. Did we get him?"

"Yeah. Yeah, Dean, the leviathans are gone."

I shrugged. "Then we're done, right? Nothing -- nothing to come back for."

"Are you kidding me?" Sam pounded harder, but all he got for his efforts was a dull, empty thud. "Dean!"

"I can't, Sam! I -- Jesus, when yours came down it almost broke you!"

Sam pressed his palms flat on the wall again and leaned his forehead against it, eyes closed. "I know. But you're stronger than me."

"I'm really not."

"You are, Dean. Do you think I could have lasted thirty years?"

"You lasted longer!"

"I wasn't given a choice, Dean! If I'd had the chance to get out, to turn the tables, I would have taken it in a heartbeat! I always would have, but you -- you held out. For thirty years you refused to let Hell change you. And even after it did, you didn't let it keep you down. You built this wall with blood and tears and -- apparently a shit-load of alcohol and caffeine but you did this. You can do it again. You can hold all this crap back and live your life, but only if you break through, now."

I stared at him, breathing hard, my hands fisted at my sides. I didn't say a word. There was nothing to say. I couldn't even tell him he was wrong. I just didn't know.

He was so certain, though. He stared back at me, pressed up against the outside of the wall, his eyes wide and hopeful, and in him I could see all the other Sams, the twelve year old kid with the bad attitude, the vicious demon who could turn an entire woods against me. The boy I'd always known, and the man I spent years trying desperately not to meet. Sam was all grown up, had been for years. But somehow, he still needed me.

"Fuck you, Sam." He scowled, mouth working, and I continued before he could bitch me out. "If this fucks me up even more, I'm kicking your ass."

Sam nodded quickly. "I'll let you. Just come back to me."

I backed up several paces, looking the wall over for weak spots. It was solidly constructed, but I knew it could crumble with just the right point of pressure. I couldn't believe I was about to do this on purpose. I took a deep breath, set my feet, and with my arms held high above my head, I ran full speed at the wall, slamming into it shoulder first.

*

She wrapped herself over me, our bodies somehow fitting precisely together on the Impala's back seat. Her hips ground into mine in perfect rhythm with the music and the rain. She was every woman I'd ever loved wrapped into one: Lisa's compassion and Cassie's pragmatism; Jo's enthusiasm and Anna's empathy; Ellen's ferocity and that amazing nipple trick that Annie had picked up god knew where. We could live our entire lives together on that backseat, spend a decade between notes from the radio, eons in a single roll of thunder. The Impala was our eternity, our paradise.

And it hurt more than anything else I'd ever imagined.

It wasn't real. More than that, it never could be. The woman didn't exist, not without Lisa's know-it-all attitude and Cassie's inflexibility, Jo's naivety and Anna's martyr complex, Ellen's over-protective nature and Annie's wandering affections. She was a copy, everything that could have made her real lost somewhere in translation.

"Carmen," I whispered against her lips. "I'm sorry."

And I rolled out from underneath her. The car dissolved around me as she screamed, and suddenly I was rushing at the asphalt, my body smacking against and then through it with the sound of shattering glass. The screams grew louder, escalating into an unholy shriek as everything I'd kept locked inside, all the fear and the anger and the hatred and the darkness, it all came rushing forward in a vast wave, crashing into me and sending me spinning, wrapping me in a prickling haze, like I was wearing a coat of needles, like my body had been asleep for ages and I was just now --

Waking up.

*

I burst forward and upward with a choking gasp and wondered why it felt like deja vu. I gagged, expecting to feel something -- a vine or maybe a thumb -- pressing down my throat, blocking my airway. Save for the tickle of a tube running up my nose, my breathing was clear.

Stop fighting, Jo whispered, and I tried, oh god, I tried. I coughed and heaved, trying to roll onto my side, but my body wouldn't listen. It twitched and twinged, and for a moment I thought I was wrapped in barbed wire, locked into place by the needles pressing into my skin.

It wasn't barbed wire, though. It was only an IV.

"Dean." Sam was right there, leaning over me. I expected him to look exhausted, like he hadn't slept in days, but instead he was bright eyed and chipper, smiling down like he thought he'd never see me again. Of course, he'd had the easy part: it hadn't been his dream. I wanted to resent him for it, but I couldn't find the energy. "You're okay," he said. "You're in the hospital. They just took you off the ventilator this morning, so your throat might be a little funky."

That smile. Fuck. I hurt everywhere, but there Sam was, grinning away. I had the irrational urge to smack him, to scream and pull away.

Everything hurt.

My chest heaved and I licked my lips. They burned at the touch of my tongue, and for a moment I thought I could feel threads still dangling, the stitches cut but not pulled. Sam raised the back of the bed and some of the pressure on my chest let up. He swooped in with an ice chip, letting it linger on my chapped lips while he waited for me to crack my mouth open and take it in. The whole time, he kept talking. "You made it, man. You broke your way back through. It's over now. It's all over." He reached for something over my head, but I couldn't bring myself to care what.

Waking up in a hospital was always bad. It hurt, no matter how much morphine or oxycodone or whatever they pumped into me, it ached deep down in my bones, further than even the hellhounds could reach. Hospitals after a head injury were even worse. Concussions brought my guard down, and something always slipped out.

It wasn't slipping, this time. There was nothing left to slip past. I could feel it in my lips where the ice touched them, in my ribs which seemed to scream and warp with every breath. It was in my limbs where Meg and Bela and the Ruby's had carved their initials, where the fire had burned and the vines had wrapped and the sun had beaten down. It was barreling out, grinding the shattered remains of my wall into so much empty sand.

It wasn't something. It was everything. All the pain, the horror, the guilt, the fear, the grief, the sickness, and the rot that lurked at the bottom of my soul, everything I'd tried so desperately not to think about or remember since Cas yanked me out of Hell. It was all there. There was nowhere left to hide.

All I'd wanted was not to feel anything. Now I could feel it all.

"Woah," Sam said, and suddenly he was swooping in again, this time with tissues. He pressed them up to my cheeks, scraping against my over-sensitized skin. My breath hitched and my eyes burned and if I could have, I'd have pulled away. "Woah, I got you. It's okay. I got you, man."

What's up?

Nothing.

Sam ran his hand up over my forehead, slipping his fingers into my hair as he continued to wipe the tears off my cheeks. I stared down at the sheets, waiting.

"Are you okay?" was the stupidest question we could ask each other, but that didn't mean we didn't ask it. That we didn't check in, make sure we stayed at the right level of really-seriously-not-freaking-okay.

And then Sam dropped his head and looked at me, looked me right in the eye, and instead of asking, he just said "I know."

Just two words, but suddenly I could breathe again.

What's up?

I'm lost.

Stop fighting.

I can't.

I know.

The End

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