Verbum Caro Factum Est : 5
XIII.
March 19
Gracian Restoration, Yemassee, South Carolina
“Dean. No. Please.”
“Sam, don’t. It’s gonna be okay.”
Sam cast his eyes up several times, trying to land in Dean’s eyes, but somehow they always fell short. They landed on a blank spot on Dean’s shirt, his arm, his neck, his jacket.
“No,” Sam replied. “No… it’s not.”
He watched helplessly as Dean turned around and faced her, watched him go down, knew there were no more eyes to avoid, ever.
The bathroom door banged open and the coffee pot slammed back down on the burner. Sam’s arm shot up reflexively and slapped into the window blinds over the couch. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“Sleeping Beauty is joining the living! Good afternoon,” Dean grinned from the kitchen, cup of java rising to his lips.
“Don’t start,” Sam said blearily. “I was up the rest of the night going over stuff with Hal after you crashed over here with your ass hanging out.”
Dean eyed him coyly, “Aw, you peeked.” He headed to the table with a plate of cold cuts and had to raise it over his head to avoid Sam’s reach.
“What? I don’t get breakfast in bed?” Sam smiled.
“I only work for cash.” Dean took another gulp of coffee. “Hurry up and take care of that third leg. I’m leaving in fifteen.” He set the plate down and pointedly shook the corner of the newspaper.
Sam swallowed and got up to hit the shower.
XIV.
Pruitt House, Saint Helena, South Carolina
“My daughter doesn’t remember anything more than what she’s already told the officers,” Mrs. Pruitt sat with her hands crossed primly in her lap, but there was fire in her eyes. The girl, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, was sitting beside her on the sofa, knees drawn up to her chest and one foot in a cast.
Adjusting the lapels of his jacket, Dean nodded. “Yes, ma’am, but the fact is that your daughter’s case has been linked to other reports in the county,” he paused for effect, “the kind that could be a matter of life and death.”
Dean was really going in for the kill, not with the mom, but to draw the girl out, and Sam noted the shift of her feet on the cushion at Dean’s words.
“They didn’t hurt me,” she said quietly.
Words to respond were slow in forming on Dean’s lips and he looked at Sam.
“They?” Sam prompted. “What did they look like?”
“What does it matter what they looked like?” her mother said calmly, “they told us nothing like that could exist. She was out there for days with nothing. No water, no food. The therapist said that it was perfectly normal to hallucinate after an ordeal like that. She needs to rest. I truly don’t see why this is necessary.”
The girl tucked her chin into her chest and Sam glanced at Dean.
“Yes, we understand that Mrs. Pruitt. We’re very sorry to disturb your daughter.” Dean rose abruptly and buttoned his jacket, bringing the mother to her feet in response. He stepped forward, took her elbow gently and whispered, “We’re working with the department in charge of her case. Now, to best help your daughter’s long-term treatment, I need to see her room. You know, make sure there’s no post-traumatic stress, no self-destructive behaviors…”
The girl’s mother hesitated and glanced at Sam, who gave her a curt nod. She got a strange look on her face when she looked in Sam’s eyes and she let Dean lead her out of the room.
Sam turned to the little girl. She was looking back at him with deep interest.
“Your name is Samantha?” he leaned forward and crossed his fingers over one another.
She nodded.
“My name is Sam.”
“You told my mom your name was Keith Moon.”
“Pretty sharp,” he smiled, then acquiesced with an engaging eye roll. “Sam’s my middle name - what my friends call me.”
“Oh.”
“Is it okay if we talk about this? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Looks like you broke your ankle.”
“I tripped.”
“Okay.”
The clock on the mantle ticked the seconds loudly, the silver weight spinning one direction and then the other.
“They were just dogs. I don’t know why I ran. It was stupid,” she said finally.
“Is that what they told you?” When she didn’t argue that, Sam bounced his thumbs off his joined palms. “You weren’t far from a neighborhood - someplace you could get help. Why didn’t you go for help, Samantha?”
“I was just scared, okay?”
“It’s okay to be scared. And we’re glad you’re okay.” He watched the movement of her eyes. “It looks like you made the right choice.”
“I’m not stupid,” she huffed.
Sam waited.
She folded her arms. “There were two of them and they had red eyes and they were big and black and they came up out of the ocean and chased me down the beach and I couldn’t,” she choked, “I couldn’t run fast enough so I dropped my bike and I tripped over a branch or something and I crawled under an old dock where they couldn’t get me, but they just wouldn’t leave.” A tear escaped and ran down her cheek, flushed bright with fear. “They wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Okay,” Sam said gently. “Thank you for telling me.”
She nodded and stared at a flowered pillow on the chair next to Sam’s hip, swiping at her face with trembling hands.
“And I believe you,” he added earnestly.
She stared at him with glistening eyes and wiped her nose. “Thanks,” she sniffed.
“Go easy on yourself and take care of that ankle, okay?” he said as he stood up. “That’s a long time to go with an injury like that; one of the bravest things I’ve ever heard of.”
She nodded and smiled weakly.
Back in the Impala, Sam loosened his tie. Dean slumped in the seat for a second before shifting up and turning the key. “I don’t know which was worse, Sam, seein' that poor kid's room or havin' to listen to her mom explain it away. I wanted to smack her upside the head.”
“She was just trying to protect her, Dean.”
“She’s livin’ in a dream world is what she’s doing. Not lettin’ her daughter tell her what really happened, not lettin’ her move on. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s not healthy.”
Sam gave him a one-eyed stare.
Dean did a double-take from picking his teeth in the rearview mirror. “What?”
“Nothin’.”
“You worried about her? Think she’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “Yeah, probably.”
“Alright. Then we need to get back to Hal’s and figure out what around here jives between that old church and two black dogs, not just one,” he gripped the steering wheel meditatively, “and why they’re not after my sweet ass.”
Sam closed his eyes.
XV.
March 20, evening of the Spring Equinox
Old Sheldon Church, Sheldon, South Carolina
The cemetery was technically on the mainland, but the recent downpours left standing water in more than just the ditches along Old Sheldon Church Road. The turnoff to the church was unmarked and finding it at night would have been difficult enough under normal circumstances. Bobby’s worry about washouts on their way out here were unfounded so far, but the moss on the trees hung low enough to grab the antenna of the Impala and give it a slimy brown carwash.
The walkie-talkie in the Impala crackled with Gracian’s voice. “You young’uns see it yet?”
A few beats of silence passed as they rounded a lazy turn. The moss was thicker and big flakes of it broke off and hit the roof with eerie thuds.
Dean held down the talk button and squawked back. “I think I just saw a yeti.”
A break in the trees appeared ahead of them on the left. Sam took the walkie and Dean glanced at him and nodded.
“Yeah, think so,” Sam responded.
Dean guided the Impala into the break and the first splash of water hit the tires. He resisted the urge to gun the engine, but left her to her own devices, the Impala picking her way through slime and sludge like an old pro. “Be careful, Bobby,” Sam added.
The headlights of the Chevelle started bouncing through the dense fog behind them as Bobby and Gracian took another route to the right and followed along, making their own set of tracks. After a few more yards, Sam saw something appear in the flash of Bobby’s headlights. As he brought the walkie up, Bobby’s voice came on, “I think we got it.”
Dean turned gently to the right and they all drove up to a fence surrounding a small plot. A mass of dimpled red brick loomed in the background. The fence was broken in so many places, there was no way it was keeping anything out, but the gate was in perfect repair. A keyed padlock still barred the entrance to anything larger than people on foot.
Sam got out carrying the walkie, bolt cutters, and a flashlight. Fighting his way through the mire to the gate, Sam held the flashlight between his knees and clamped down on the heavy chain with the bolt cutters. It broke apart with one forceful squeeze. Sam pushed one side open and waited for both cars to drive through.
When they were close enough to illuminate the skeletal building with the headlights, Bobby and Gracian got out, armed with flashlights, an iron-tipped spike and shotguns. Dean popped the Impala’s trunk and loaded his favorite sawed-off with more of Bobby’s consecrated iron pellets.
They walked quickly. Dean was in front, sweeping the area, and Sam took up the rear. The mist seemed to be growing thicker.
“I thought there was gonna be babes out here dancing naked,” Dean wondered aloud. “Where is everybody?”
“It’s not exactly a secret what’s been goin’ on around here. If what we heard is true, people are blamin’ this place,” Bobby observed and redirected. “I thought this was a historical landmark.”
“It is. Armies burnt it down in the Revolution and again in the War Between the States,” Gracian agreed. He talked without looking at anyone, slogging his work boots through the mud and scanning the trees, flashlight steady. “The visitin’ chaplains, ‘cause they never had a steady one here, used to get told ‘bout strange visitations sometimes, floodin’, livestock disappearin’, things as such, whenever they was here. It was always somethin’ hunters could trace to somethin’ else. But they never rebuilt it. There’s only one official service here a year now.”
“When’s that?” Sam asked, picking his way behind Bobby.
“In a couple days - Easter. Few years back, after one service, someone said they found one of the mortuaries standin’ wide open. Bricks of the Bull family crypt lyin’ stacked neat-like to one side and all. Never actually found it to be true, but the story cycles through now and again.”
Sam shot a questioning look at Bobby, who frowned noncommittally.
Using the beam of his flashlight to scan the crests of the arches, Gracian added, “Never hurts to check. Looks a mite more abandoned since I been by last.”
Dean caught Bobby’s attention and then startled, darting his flashlight and his eyes to something above Bobby’s head. When Bobby looked up, a large wet skein of moss smacked him square in the face. He swatted it away with a spewed breath and shined the concentrated beam of his own flashlight in Dean’s face. It reflected off Dean’s huge white smile.
They reached the center of the cemetery. All four flashlights moved to the mortuary at the same time, like a waltz of effort, shafts of light plucking their way through the stones. A set of three waist-high crypts stood beside each other, but none were yawning empty mouths. There were no stacked stones, or much of anything else, visible in the deepening fog.
Dean shifted his pack and scanned the sanctuary and the field behind it. “Please, tell me there’s gonna be a good reason I’m wearing slime up to my armpits,” he muttered.
Sam looked over at Dean. His shoes and the edges of his pants were a shiny greenish-brown, the same as Sam’s, but he looked edgy. Behind Dean, shadows from the flashlights moved strangely in the distance, fluttering through the trees, like moss had given way and floated to the ground. Sam lowered his voice, “Dean.”
All three of them looked at Sam. He glanced behind Dean and then met his eyes, but kept his head and his flashlight facing forward as much as possible.
They changed direction slightly and headed for the church. Bobby waved his flashlight to signal that he would keep an eye out while the rest of them were inside. The walls were the only thing remaining and those were mostly columns. The church had been very ornate once, for a place of intermittent worship, and the openings for the windows reached nearly to where the roof should have been.
“Ol’ Billy Bull himself is in a buried crypt inside the church. He had it built on his land, so there’s not much he didn’t afford himself,” Gracian chuckled and stepped through. “Looks okay…”
Dean’s face was set and he cocked his shotgun with one hand. “Last one in is a rotten-”
Eager, red eyes formed in the fog behind Dean. Outlines of claws appeared. It paused long enough to look Sam dead in the eye. They were laughing red eyes, laughing at Sam. He was going to die.
“Dean!”
Dean whirled around to face the coal-black monster. Then he was gone.
“DEAN!”
“Good God,” Bobby breathed and raced after what only appeared to be a black shapeless cloud retreating into the woods. Gracian was hard on his heels, shouting Dean’s name. Sam was rooted in shock until he heard a shotgun blast in the distance, to the left of where Bobby and Gracian had run, closer to the road.
He ran toward the sound like nothing could hold him to the ground, lost a shoe in the mud, tripped and lost his flashlight, but kept a tight grip on the gun. He was too breathless to call after his brother, but he kept running. He heard a shout and another shotgun blast that made him stop and turn again.
“No,” he whispered. “Dean!” He tried to gauge where the sound had come from and he knew he was headed back toward the road, but there was nothing to follow. “Dean! Answer me!”
There was a tenuous swoosh of air over his head as an owl on the wing swooped down in front of him to catch a mouse and lift it away silently. The wind lifted the dank moss and the leaves in the heavy oak trees, shadowy arms clawing at the emptiness around him. His lungs screamed as he held his breath, listening desperately. “Dean!”
“Here! Sonuvabitch!” Dean’s voice was strong, but muffled. Sam’s heart leapt into this throat. He broke through tangled undergrowth, vines and scrub trees scratching at his face, his shoeless foot feeling every thorn, every fallen branch and every invisible hole, but he kept running until he saw Dean lying on the ground, his empty shotgun aimed at two black beasts.
They were larger than anything Sam had imagined. When they saw him, they loomed closer over Dean’s bloodied body. Saliva dripped from the fangs of one, though it made no sound.
“Come and get it, you freak,” Dean whispered.
Sam lifted his shotgun with one smooth motion and blasted both barrels of iron at once.
They didn’t howl or shriek. They didn’t run. They just stared. Then, as if called, they turned and were swallowed by the depths of the fog.
Sam lunged forward and dropped the gun. “Dean…”
Dean was stretched out haphazardly in a gully. As he got closer, Sam could see a pool of blood reflecting in the moonlight and seeping underneath Dean’s jacket, soaking the brittle leaves. Sam made his way down the incline but lost his balance and he fell in a heap, his hand landing hard on Dean’s chest. Dean’s body jack-knifed reflexively and he heaved onto his side and vomited into the bushes. Sam held him upright as the tremors shook him and when they passed, Dean wiped the tears away and winced. “Aww. This is so not good.” He looked down at his shredded jeans and t-shirt and groaned.
“Dean, let me.” Sam steadied his voice. “Just be still.” Propping Dean’s back against his legs and chest, he stripped off his own jacket, hoodie and t-shirt and shivered in the wet cold. Gently, he pulled Dean’s jacket away and without looking pressed on the worst of the wounds on his sides. “Hey. Come on. It’s not even that bad. Hey. Give me your arms. Dean. Give me both your arms, man. You have to hold these.”
Dean complied and did his best to press in with his arms, but they seemed to be moving of their own accord, a sign of shock they both recognized and neither of them voiced. Sam laid him down again and took quick stock of the gashes on his legs, rolled him gently onto his side toward the worst of the wounds, hoped he wouldn’t find the same on his back, took a deep breath when he did.
“I thought Swamp Thing only went after hot chicks,” Dean groaned.
“Your point is?” Sam teased flatly. He reached down and held both of Dean’s bloodied arms to his sides for him and strained to hear any sign of Bobby or Gracian.
Dean was pale. “I can-” He lifted his head and sputtered blood from his mouth. One hand reached toward his side. “Uh, no, I can’t.”
“Okay, okay, easy. I’ve gotta go get help.”
“No.” Dean grabbed Sam’s arm with his other hand, his red fingers twisting Sam’s wrist tightly. “Don’t-”
“It’s gonna be okay-” Sam put his hand over Dean’s and tried to loosen his grip.
“Fuck,” Dean gasped. “No, it’s not-”
“I can’t carry you alone, not like this. And you can’t walk. We need Bobby and Hal.”
“Sam, please…” then Dean swallowed and his eyes fluttered closed.
Sam jumped up. He flipped up his cell phone and got a weak signal. He speed dialed Bobby, pulled a flare from his jacket and cracked it in half in the damp air, prayed, sucked air between his teeth when the line clicked.
“Bobby. Look west. Yeah. Can you see us?”
CHAPTER 6
March 19
Gracian Restoration, Yemassee, South Carolina
“Dean. No. Please.”
“Sam, don’t. It’s gonna be okay.”
Sam cast his eyes up several times, trying to land in Dean’s eyes, but somehow they always fell short. They landed on a blank spot on Dean’s shirt, his arm, his neck, his jacket.
“No,” Sam replied. “No… it’s not.”
He watched helplessly as Dean turned around and faced her, watched him go down, knew there were no more eyes to avoid, ever.
The bathroom door banged open and the coffee pot slammed back down on the burner. Sam’s arm shot up reflexively and slapped into the window blinds over the couch. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“Sleeping Beauty is joining the living! Good afternoon,” Dean grinned from the kitchen, cup of java rising to his lips.
“Don’t start,” Sam said blearily. “I was up the rest of the night going over stuff with Hal after you crashed over here with your ass hanging out.”
Dean eyed him coyly, “Aw, you peeked.” He headed to the table with a plate of cold cuts and had to raise it over his head to avoid Sam’s reach.
“What? I don’t get breakfast in bed?” Sam smiled.
“I only work for cash.” Dean took another gulp of coffee. “Hurry up and take care of that third leg. I’m leaving in fifteen.” He set the plate down and pointedly shook the corner of the newspaper.
Sam swallowed and got up to hit the shower.
XIV.
Pruitt House, Saint Helena, South Carolina
“My daughter doesn’t remember anything more than what she’s already told the officers,” Mrs. Pruitt sat with her hands crossed primly in her lap, but there was fire in her eyes. The girl, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, was sitting beside her on the sofa, knees drawn up to her chest and one foot in a cast.
Adjusting the lapels of his jacket, Dean nodded. “Yes, ma’am, but the fact is that your daughter’s case has been linked to other reports in the county,” he paused for effect, “the kind that could be a matter of life and death.”
Dean was really going in for the kill, not with the mom, but to draw the girl out, and Sam noted the shift of her feet on the cushion at Dean’s words.
“They didn’t hurt me,” she said quietly.
Words to respond were slow in forming on Dean’s lips and he looked at Sam.
“They?” Sam prompted. “What did they look like?”
“What does it matter what they looked like?” her mother said calmly, “they told us nothing like that could exist. She was out there for days with nothing. No water, no food. The therapist said that it was perfectly normal to hallucinate after an ordeal like that. She needs to rest. I truly don’t see why this is necessary.”
The girl tucked her chin into her chest and Sam glanced at Dean.
“Yes, we understand that Mrs. Pruitt. We’re very sorry to disturb your daughter.” Dean rose abruptly and buttoned his jacket, bringing the mother to her feet in response. He stepped forward, took her elbow gently and whispered, “We’re working with the department in charge of her case. Now, to best help your daughter’s long-term treatment, I need to see her room. You know, make sure there’s no post-traumatic stress, no self-destructive behaviors…”
The girl’s mother hesitated and glanced at Sam, who gave her a curt nod. She got a strange look on her face when she looked in Sam’s eyes and she let Dean lead her out of the room.
Sam turned to the little girl. She was looking back at him with deep interest.
“Your name is Samantha?” he leaned forward and crossed his fingers over one another.
She nodded.
“My name is Sam.”
“You told my mom your name was Keith Moon.”
“Pretty sharp,” he smiled, then acquiesced with an engaging eye roll. “Sam’s my middle name - what my friends call me.”
“Oh.”
“Is it okay if we talk about this? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Looks like you broke your ankle.”
“I tripped.”
“Okay.”
The clock on the mantle ticked the seconds loudly, the silver weight spinning one direction and then the other.
“They were just dogs. I don’t know why I ran. It was stupid,” she said finally.
“Is that what they told you?” When she didn’t argue that, Sam bounced his thumbs off his joined palms. “You weren’t far from a neighborhood - someplace you could get help. Why didn’t you go for help, Samantha?”
“I was just scared, okay?”
“It’s okay to be scared. And we’re glad you’re okay.” He watched the movement of her eyes. “It looks like you made the right choice.”
“I’m not stupid,” she huffed.
Sam waited.
She folded her arms. “There were two of them and they had red eyes and they were big and black and they came up out of the ocean and chased me down the beach and I couldn’t,” she choked, “I couldn’t run fast enough so I dropped my bike and I tripped over a branch or something and I crawled under an old dock where they couldn’t get me, but they just wouldn’t leave.” A tear escaped and ran down her cheek, flushed bright with fear. “They wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Okay,” Sam said gently. “Thank you for telling me.”
She nodded and stared at a flowered pillow on the chair next to Sam’s hip, swiping at her face with trembling hands.
“And I believe you,” he added earnestly.
She stared at him with glistening eyes and wiped her nose. “Thanks,” she sniffed.
“Go easy on yourself and take care of that ankle, okay?” he said as he stood up. “That’s a long time to go with an injury like that; one of the bravest things I’ve ever heard of.”
She nodded and smiled weakly.
Back in the Impala, Sam loosened his tie. Dean slumped in the seat for a second before shifting up and turning the key. “I don’t know which was worse, Sam, seein' that poor kid's room or havin' to listen to her mom explain it away. I wanted to smack her upside the head.”
“She was just trying to protect her, Dean.”
“She’s livin’ in a dream world is what she’s doing. Not lettin’ her daughter tell her what really happened, not lettin’ her move on. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s not healthy.”
Sam gave him a one-eyed stare.
Dean did a double-take from picking his teeth in the rearview mirror. “What?”
“Nothin’.”
“You worried about her? Think she’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “Yeah, probably.”
“Alright. Then we need to get back to Hal’s and figure out what around here jives between that old church and two black dogs, not just one,” he gripped the steering wheel meditatively, “and why they’re not after my sweet ass.”
Sam closed his eyes.
XV.
March 20, evening of the Spring Equinox
Old Sheldon Church, Sheldon, South Carolina
The cemetery was technically on the mainland, but the recent downpours left standing water in more than just the ditches along Old Sheldon Church Road. The turnoff to the church was unmarked and finding it at night would have been difficult enough under normal circumstances. Bobby’s worry about washouts on their way out here were unfounded so far, but the moss on the trees hung low enough to grab the antenna of the Impala and give it a slimy brown carwash.
The walkie-talkie in the Impala crackled with Gracian’s voice. “You young’uns see it yet?”
A few beats of silence passed as they rounded a lazy turn. The moss was thicker and big flakes of it broke off and hit the roof with eerie thuds.
Dean held down the talk button and squawked back. “I think I just saw a yeti.”
A break in the trees appeared ahead of them on the left. Sam took the walkie and Dean glanced at him and nodded.
“Yeah, think so,” Sam responded.
Dean guided the Impala into the break and the first splash of water hit the tires. He resisted the urge to gun the engine, but left her to her own devices, the Impala picking her way through slime and sludge like an old pro. “Be careful, Bobby,” Sam added.
The headlights of the Chevelle started bouncing through the dense fog behind them as Bobby and Gracian took another route to the right and followed along, making their own set of tracks. After a few more yards, Sam saw something appear in the flash of Bobby’s headlights. As he brought the walkie up, Bobby’s voice came on, “I think we got it.”
Dean turned gently to the right and they all drove up to a fence surrounding a small plot. A mass of dimpled red brick loomed in the background. The fence was broken in so many places, there was no way it was keeping anything out, but the gate was in perfect repair. A keyed padlock still barred the entrance to anything larger than people on foot.
Sam got out carrying the walkie, bolt cutters, and a flashlight. Fighting his way through the mire to the gate, Sam held the flashlight between his knees and clamped down on the heavy chain with the bolt cutters. It broke apart with one forceful squeeze. Sam pushed one side open and waited for both cars to drive through.
When they were close enough to illuminate the skeletal building with the headlights, Bobby and Gracian got out, armed with flashlights, an iron-tipped spike and shotguns. Dean popped the Impala’s trunk and loaded his favorite sawed-off with more of Bobby’s consecrated iron pellets.
They walked quickly. Dean was in front, sweeping the area, and Sam took up the rear. The mist seemed to be growing thicker.
“I thought there was gonna be babes out here dancing naked,” Dean wondered aloud. “Where is everybody?”
“It’s not exactly a secret what’s been goin’ on around here. If what we heard is true, people are blamin’ this place,” Bobby observed and redirected. “I thought this was a historical landmark.”
“It is. Armies burnt it down in the Revolution and again in the War Between the States,” Gracian agreed. He talked without looking at anyone, slogging his work boots through the mud and scanning the trees, flashlight steady. “The visitin’ chaplains, ‘cause they never had a steady one here, used to get told ‘bout strange visitations sometimes, floodin’, livestock disappearin’, things as such, whenever they was here. It was always somethin’ hunters could trace to somethin’ else. But they never rebuilt it. There’s only one official service here a year now.”
“When’s that?” Sam asked, picking his way behind Bobby.
“In a couple days - Easter. Few years back, after one service, someone said they found one of the mortuaries standin’ wide open. Bricks of the Bull family crypt lyin’ stacked neat-like to one side and all. Never actually found it to be true, but the story cycles through now and again.”
Sam shot a questioning look at Bobby, who frowned noncommittally.
Using the beam of his flashlight to scan the crests of the arches, Gracian added, “Never hurts to check. Looks a mite more abandoned since I been by last.”
Dean caught Bobby’s attention and then startled, darting his flashlight and his eyes to something above Bobby’s head. When Bobby looked up, a large wet skein of moss smacked him square in the face. He swatted it away with a spewed breath and shined the concentrated beam of his own flashlight in Dean’s face. It reflected off Dean’s huge white smile.
They reached the center of the cemetery. All four flashlights moved to the mortuary at the same time, like a waltz of effort, shafts of light plucking their way through the stones. A set of three waist-high crypts stood beside each other, but none were yawning empty mouths. There were no stacked stones, or much of anything else, visible in the deepening fog.
Dean shifted his pack and scanned the sanctuary and the field behind it. “Please, tell me there’s gonna be a good reason I’m wearing slime up to my armpits,” he muttered.
Sam looked over at Dean. His shoes and the edges of his pants were a shiny greenish-brown, the same as Sam’s, but he looked edgy. Behind Dean, shadows from the flashlights moved strangely in the distance, fluttering through the trees, like moss had given way and floated to the ground. Sam lowered his voice, “Dean.”
All three of them looked at Sam. He glanced behind Dean and then met his eyes, but kept his head and his flashlight facing forward as much as possible.
They changed direction slightly and headed for the church. Bobby waved his flashlight to signal that he would keep an eye out while the rest of them were inside. The walls were the only thing remaining and those were mostly columns. The church had been very ornate once, for a place of intermittent worship, and the openings for the windows reached nearly to where the roof should have been.
“Ol’ Billy Bull himself is in a buried crypt inside the church. He had it built on his land, so there’s not much he didn’t afford himself,” Gracian chuckled and stepped through. “Looks okay…”
Dean’s face was set and he cocked his shotgun with one hand. “Last one in is a rotten-”
Eager, red eyes formed in the fog behind Dean. Outlines of claws appeared. It paused long enough to look Sam dead in the eye. They were laughing red eyes, laughing at Sam. He was going to die.
“Dean!”
Dean whirled around to face the coal-black monster. Then he was gone.
“DEAN!”
“Good God,” Bobby breathed and raced after what only appeared to be a black shapeless cloud retreating into the woods. Gracian was hard on his heels, shouting Dean’s name. Sam was rooted in shock until he heard a shotgun blast in the distance, to the left of where Bobby and Gracian had run, closer to the road.
He ran toward the sound like nothing could hold him to the ground, lost a shoe in the mud, tripped and lost his flashlight, but kept a tight grip on the gun. He was too breathless to call after his brother, but he kept running. He heard a shout and another shotgun blast that made him stop and turn again.
“No,” he whispered. “Dean!” He tried to gauge where the sound had come from and he knew he was headed back toward the road, but there was nothing to follow. “Dean! Answer me!”
There was a tenuous swoosh of air over his head as an owl on the wing swooped down in front of him to catch a mouse and lift it away silently. The wind lifted the dank moss and the leaves in the heavy oak trees, shadowy arms clawing at the emptiness around him. His lungs screamed as he held his breath, listening desperately. “Dean!”
“Here! Sonuvabitch!” Dean’s voice was strong, but muffled. Sam’s heart leapt into this throat. He broke through tangled undergrowth, vines and scrub trees scratching at his face, his shoeless foot feeling every thorn, every fallen branch and every invisible hole, but he kept running until he saw Dean lying on the ground, his empty shotgun aimed at two black beasts.
They were larger than anything Sam had imagined. When they saw him, they loomed closer over Dean’s bloodied body. Saliva dripped from the fangs of one, though it made no sound.
“Come and get it, you freak,” Dean whispered.
Sam lifted his shotgun with one smooth motion and blasted both barrels of iron at once.
They didn’t howl or shriek. They didn’t run. They just stared. Then, as if called, they turned and were swallowed by the depths of the fog.
Sam lunged forward and dropped the gun. “Dean…”
Dean was stretched out haphazardly in a gully. As he got closer, Sam could see a pool of blood reflecting in the moonlight and seeping underneath Dean’s jacket, soaking the brittle leaves. Sam made his way down the incline but lost his balance and he fell in a heap, his hand landing hard on Dean’s chest. Dean’s body jack-knifed reflexively and he heaved onto his side and vomited into the bushes. Sam held him upright as the tremors shook him and when they passed, Dean wiped the tears away and winced. “Aww. This is so not good.” He looked down at his shredded jeans and t-shirt and groaned.
“Dean, let me.” Sam steadied his voice. “Just be still.” Propping Dean’s back against his legs and chest, he stripped off his own jacket, hoodie and t-shirt and shivered in the wet cold. Gently, he pulled Dean’s jacket away and without looking pressed on the worst of the wounds on his sides. “Hey. Come on. It’s not even that bad. Hey. Give me your arms. Dean. Give me both your arms, man. You have to hold these.”
Dean complied and did his best to press in with his arms, but they seemed to be moving of their own accord, a sign of shock they both recognized and neither of them voiced. Sam laid him down again and took quick stock of the gashes on his legs, rolled him gently onto his side toward the worst of the wounds, hoped he wouldn’t find the same on his back, took a deep breath when he did.
“I thought Swamp Thing only went after hot chicks,” Dean groaned.
“Your point is?” Sam teased flatly. He reached down and held both of Dean’s bloodied arms to his sides for him and strained to hear any sign of Bobby or Gracian.
Dean was pale. “I can-” He lifted his head and sputtered blood from his mouth. One hand reached toward his side. “Uh, no, I can’t.”
“Okay, okay, easy. I’ve gotta go get help.”
“No.” Dean grabbed Sam’s arm with his other hand, his red fingers twisting Sam’s wrist tightly. “Don’t-”
“It’s gonna be okay-” Sam put his hand over Dean’s and tried to loosen his grip.
“Fuck,” Dean gasped. “No, it’s not-”
“I can’t carry you alone, not like this. And you can’t walk. We need Bobby and Hal.”
“Sam, please…” then Dean swallowed and his eyes fluttered closed.
Sam jumped up. He flipped up his cell phone and got a weak signal. He speed dialed Bobby, pulled a flare from his jacket and cracked it in half in the damp air, prayed, sucked air between his teeth when the line clicked.
“Bobby. Look west. Yeah. Can you see us?”
CHAPTER 6