Crescendo of the Moon: (4/?)
Previous chapters can be found here.
Four
The next morning, Dean stood in the bathroom after showering and examined his wounds in the daylight. For as much pain as he had felt when the creature had attacked him, he was surprised to discover the marks were fairly shallow. His skin, as if to prove the superficiality of the cuts, was already stitching itself together into pink and swollen blotches. He was still confused about why it felt as though the creature had been scraping its teeth against his ribs. But what troubled him the most was what he had avoided with Sam the previous night.
Alone in the growing sunshine, he felt safe to recall the sensations that he had fallen under when he had touched the monster’s iridescent scale. There had been the sound of something wet and thick being torn, flesh from muscles, and a child had cried in a high pitched shriek of fear. He had heard the frantic beating of his own heart that had encompassed everything when he picked up the scale. While the beating of his heart grew to a deafening volume, he had felt hot blood running over his limbs as if he had been cut on his entire body. Tracing the elliptical holes on his skin, he continued to hear a strange rasp of a voice through his head. Even though it wasn’t in any language created by humans, he understood its message nonetheless. The words told of death over all. He couldn’t even form sentences from what he refused to believe the large reptile had supposedly told him. Yet, like an unforgettable nightmare, the words nibbled on the edges of his pained mind.
The child’s wailing would not stop.
Haphazardly, he grabbed the edges of the toilet and vomited his last meal, sickened by the intoxicating sounds running through his memories. His breathing was sharp and quick, and he struggled against the weight of his own chest to inhale. When he at last stood to wash off his face at the sink, fighting off the rising nausea, he glared at himself in the mirror to gain control of the situation again. By the time Sam knocked on the bathroom door to ask if he was okay, Dean’s hands were trembling so badly he shoved them in his pockets to avoid questions.
When Sam had picked up breakfast at a local coffee shop while Dean was in the shower, he had learned from the young waitress that there was a local community college less than thirty miles from the motel. As Dean drank the black coffee Sam offered him, Sam explained that they needed to go the biology lab to ask one of the professors about the scale. It was the only way they would be able to fully examine it and know what they were against. To Sam’s surprise, Dean didn’t argue with his plan or even make a snide comment about Sam’s need for a return to a collegiate environment. Dean simply replaced the lid on his coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grabbed his keys. He stood to his feet, a little uneasily at first, but Sam assumed that being attacked in the middle of the night would do that to a person, and Dean asked, “You ready to go or what?”
Sam forced himself not to gape at his brother’s sudden ability to cooperate without an argument.
At the campus, Sam, who was already accustomed to college life, did the majority of the talking, while Dean gazed at the sun through the tinted windows and chewed on his lower lip uncomfortably. The names of the courses Sam rattled off with such ease only further convinced Dean that students had their own secret language. Even with the biology professor they managed to find, Sam talked easily and casually enough to give the appearance of a well-meaning student. Fortunately, though, the professor believed Sam’s ramblings and took them to one of the open laboratories where he viewed the scales under a microscope.
The professor, a man with balding silver hair, muttered to himself as he adjusted and fussed with the lens of the microscope. When he stopped turning the dials, gave several unintelligent grunts, and then said, “Well, that’s interesting.”
“Interesting?” Dean quipped after remaining silent for long. “Interesting how?”
The professor looked up in slight surprise, seeming to notice Dean for the first time since the brothers had approached him after his lecture had ended. “Where did you boys say you got these?” he asked, ignoring Dean’s question and looking at Sam instead.
“In the desert,” Sam quickly answered. “We were doing some research on the, um, the different families of lizards in the area and found these on the ground. We didn’t recognize them…and hoped you might.”
The professor pursed his lips and removed his glasses from his face. He rested one hand on the black laboratory table and picked up the scale with a long pair of dissection tweezers in the other hand. Turning the scale over in the light, he looked back at the brothers. “Well, I have to admit, I’ve never seen anything like these before.”
Sam shook his head, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been doing lab work a long time in this field. Thought I’d seen every kind of reptile out there, but this?” he said, with a dramatic gesture at the glittering scale that caught the light and scattered it across the tiled floor. “This is something completely new.”
“So, you don’t know what kind of creature it came off?” Dean asked.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t. And I’d tell you to go to somebody else, but I don’t think there’s anybody else in the nearby area who can answer your question. Not only is the scale larger than any of the lizards’ around here, but the coloring and texture are incredibly unique as well.” Seeing that Sam and Dean were not following him, he explained, “Have you ever seen a lizard, or even a snake perhaps, shed their skin?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered, “it’s white.”
“Exactly. Those come off as if in one piece, white and thin strips. Scales don’t normally fall off until they’re ready to be shed. Like hair, really. Also, the fact that this one is so, well like I said, it has a unique color to it like I’ve never seen.” He paused and rubbed his thumb over the top. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it belongs to something else entirely.”
“What’s that?” Dean pressed.
The professor chewed on the end of his glasses in frustrated contemplation before speaking. “It’s nothing.” He gave a half-hearted laugh that sounded bitter. “Not something an educated man of science would say.”
“We’d still like to hear your opinion. At least as a suggestion,” Sam replied, using his most convincing tone possible.
The professor sank down onto one of the nearby stools, crossing his corduroy legs over one another after he had sat. He stared down at the scale, which was nearly as large as his thumb and when it caught the light just right, it shimmered across the tanned skin of his face. Then, hesitantly, he looked back up at the boys and ran a hand through his graying hair before answering. “Dinosaurs.”
“Dinosaurs?” Sam echoed.
“The only time I’ve ever seen a scale this big is when I went on an expedition with a friend of mine. A paleontologist, that is. We found some scales encased in amber there, and this, well, this looks just like those. Except this is clearly new and in such good condition, I just…”
“Is it possible that there’s still creatures like dinosaurs out there?” Sam asked.
The man shook his head. “No, not that we don’t know about. These lizards would have to be bigger than anything around here.” He looked at Sam and gave him a curt nod. “Based on the size of this scale, it’d be probably about as big as you, I’d imagine, and how could we not notice something like that?”
Dean shot a raised eyebrow over to Sam, and Sam knew that he was thinking back when such a creature had attacked him so precisely with possible fatal aims.
Seeing that the professor was becoming more distressed as he thought about the situation, Sam extended his hand politely. “Well, my friend and I here have to get going. We’ve got class to catch.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” the professor replied, seeming to snap out of his troubled state. “I’m sorry about all that talk about dinosaurs and what not. I think all the books are getting to me.” He forced a laugh as he shook Sam’s hand and gave the scale back to him. “I’d suggest taking that to the state university to see if they know more than me. It’d be a longer drive, but if you really want to know, that’d be the right path.”
Sam nodded politely. “Thank you for your time, sir.” Dean, too, thanked the man, and they exited the laboratory together as Sam handed the scale to Dean who, careful not to touch it with his bare fingers, returned it with the others in the plastic bag in his pocket.
“So, dinosaurs, huh?” Dean said. “How off do you think he was?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “But you saw the guy. Either he’s completely crazy or something, because the idea really upset him.”
“You saw how big that bitch was last night, Sam. It took up more of the bed than I did. I’ve got a bite mark larger than half my chest, so we’re dealing with somethin’ big.”
Sam shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Dinosaurs.”
“Maybe it’s not dinosaurs, Spielberg.”
“What?”
“Jurassic Park? Steven Spielberg? That movie was freakin’ awesome.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam replied, feeling slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t made the connection instantly when Dean had first made the comment.
As they exited the air conditioned building into the harshly lit sun again, Dean pulled a pair of sunglasses from his jeans pocket and his keys from the other. He missed the presence of his coat with all of its convenient pockets, but considering the heat, his leather jacket just was not feasible to wear.
“So,” Sam began, as Dean unlocked the car, “what do you think we’re dealing with?”
Dean, eyes guarded by the black frames, looked over the hood of the car at Sam and frowned in confusion. “Not sure. Never seen or heard about anything like this. All I know is that it’s big, pissed off, and probably after us.” He fought back the blasting of the screaming child and the deafening beating of his heart he had heard when he first touched the scale, and he slapped the car’s hood in mock bravado. “Let’s rock ‘n roll.”
Chapter Five
Four
The next morning, Dean stood in the bathroom after showering and examined his wounds in the daylight. For as much pain as he had felt when the creature had attacked him, he was surprised to discover the marks were fairly shallow. His skin, as if to prove the superficiality of the cuts, was already stitching itself together into pink and swollen blotches. He was still confused about why it felt as though the creature had been scraping its teeth against his ribs. But what troubled him the most was what he had avoided with Sam the previous night.
Alone in the growing sunshine, he felt safe to recall the sensations that he had fallen under when he had touched the monster’s iridescent scale. There had been the sound of something wet and thick being torn, flesh from muscles, and a child had cried in a high pitched shriek of fear. He had heard the frantic beating of his own heart that had encompassed everything when he picked up the scale. While the beating of his heart grew to a deafening volume, he had felt hot blood running over his limbs as if he had been cut on his entire body. Tracing the elliptical holes on his skin, he continued to hear a strange rasp of a voice through his head. Even though it wasn’t in any language created by humans, he understood its message nonetheless. The words told of death over all. He couldn’t even form sentences from what he refused to believe the large reptile had supposedly told him. Yet, like an unforgettable nightmare, the words nibbled on the edges of his pained mind.
The child’s wailing would not stop.
Haphazardly, he grabbed the edges of the toilet and vomited his last meal, sickened by the intoxicating sounds running through his memories. His breathing was sharp and quick, and he struggled against the weight of his own chest to inhale. When he at last stood to wash off his face at the sink, fighting off the rising nausea, he glared at himself in the mirror to gain control of the situation again. By the time Sam knocked on the bathroom door to ask if he was okay, Dean’s hands were trembling so badly he shoved them in his pockets to avoid questions.
When Sam had picked up breakfast at a local coffee shop while Dean was in the shower, he had learned from the young waitress that there was a local community college less than thirty miles from the motel. As Dean drank the black coffee Sam offered him, Sam explained that they needed to go the biology lab to ask one of the professors about the scale. It was the only way they would be able to fully examine it and know what they were against. To Sam’s surprise, Dean didn’t argue with his plan or even make a snide comment about Sam’s need for a return to a collegiate environment. Dean simply replaced the lid on his coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grabbed his keys. He stood to his feet, a little uneasily at first, but Sam assumed that being attacked in the middle of the night would do that to a person, and Dean asked, “You ready to go or what?”
Sam forced himself not to gape at his brother’s sudden ability to cooperate without an argument.
At the campus, Sam, who was already accustomed to college life, did the majority of the talking, while Dean gazed at the sun through the tinted windows and chewed on his lower lip uncomfortably. The names of the courses Sam rattled off with such ease only further convinced Dean that students had their own secret language. Even with the biology professor they managed to find, Sam talked easily and casually enough to give the appearance of a well-meaning student. Fortunately, though, the professor believed Sam’s ramblings and took them to one of the open laboratories where he viewed the scales under a microscope.
The professor, a man with balding silver hair, muttered to himself as he adjusted and fussed with the lens of the microscope. When he stopped turning the dials, gave several unintelligent grunts, and then said, “Well, that’s interesting.”
“Interesting?” Dean quipped after remaining silent for long. “Interesting how?”
The professor looked up in slight surprise, seeming to notice Dean for the first time since the brothers had approached him after his lecture had ended. “Where did you boys say you got these?” he asked, ignoring Dean’s question and looking at Sam instead.
“In the desert,” Sam quickly answered. “We were doing some research on the, um, the different families of lizards in the area and found these on the ground. We didn’t recognize them…and hoped you might.”
The professor pursed his lips and removed his glasses from his face. He rested one hand on the black laboratory table and picked up the scale with a long pair of dissection tweezers in the other hand. Turning the scale over in the light, he looked back at the brothers. “Well, I have to admit, I’ve never seen anything like these before.”
Sam shook his head, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been doing lab work a long time in this field. Thought I’d seen every kind of reptile out there, but this?” he said, with a dramatic gesture at the glittering scale that caught the light and scattered it across the tiled floor. “This is something completely new.”
“So, you don’t know what kind of creature it came off?” Dean asked.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t. And I’d tell you to go to somebody else, but I don’t think there’s anybody else in the nearby area who can answer your question. Not only is the scale larger than any of the lizards’ around here, but the coloring and texture are incredibly unique as well.” Seeing that Sam and Dean were not following him, he explained, “Have you ever seen a lizard, or even a snake perhaps, shed their skin?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered, “it’s white.”
“Exactly. Those come off as if in one piece, white and thin strips. Scales don’t normally fall off until they’re ready to be shed. Like hair, really. Also, the fact that this one is so, well like I said, it has a unique color to it like I’ve never seen.” He paused and rubbed his thumb over the top. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it belongs to something else entirely.”
“What’s that?” Dean pressed.
The professor chewed on the end of his glasses in frustrated contemplation before speaking. “It’s nothing.” He gave a half-hearted laugh that sounded bitter. “Not something an educated man of science would say.”
“We’d still like to hear your opinion. At least as a suggestion,” Sam replied, using his most convincing tone possible.
The professor sank down onto one of the nearby stools, crossing his corduroy legs over one another after he had sat. He stared down at the scale, which was nearly as large as his thumb and when it caught the light just right, it shimmered across the tanned skin of his face. Then, hesitantly, he looked back up at the boys and ran a hand through his graying hair before answering. “Dinosaurs.”
“Dinosaurs?” Sam echoed.
“The only time I’ve ever seen a scale this big is when I went on an expedition with a friend of mine. A paleontologist, that is. We found some scales encased in amber there, and this, well, this looks just like those. Except this is clearly new and in such good condition, I just…”
“Is it possible that there’s still creatures like dinosaurs out there?” Sam asked.
The man shook his head. “No, not that we don’t know about. These lizards would have to be bigger than anything around here.” He looked at Sam and gave him a curt nod. “Based on the size of this scale, it’d be probably about as big as you, I’d imagine, and how could we not notice something like that?”
Dean shot a raised eyebrow over to Sam, and Sam knew that he was thinking back when such a creature had attacked him so precisely with possible fatal aims.
Seeing that the professor was becoming more distressed as he thought about the situation, Sam extended his hand politely. “Well, my friend and I here have to get going. We’ve got class to catch.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” the professor replied, seeming to snap out of his troubled state. “I’m sorry about all that talk about dinosaurs and what not. I think all the books are getting to me.” He forced a laugh as he shook Sam’s hand and gave the scale back to him. “I’d suggest taking that to the state university to see if they know more than me. It’d be a longer drive, but if you really want to know, that’d be the right path.”
Sam nodded politely. “Thank you for your time, sir.” Dean, too, thanked the man, and they exited the laboratory together as Sam handed the scale to Dean who, careful not to touch it with his bare fingers, returned it with the others in the plastic bag in his pocket.
“So, dinosaurs, huh?” Dean said. “How off do you think he was?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “But you saw the guy. Either he’s completely crazy or something, because the idea really upset him.”
“You saw how big that bitch was last night, Sam. It took up more of the bed than I did. I’ve got a bite mark larger than half my chest, so we’re dealing with somethin’ big.”
Sam shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Dinosaurs.”
“Maybe it’s not dinosaurs, Spielberg.”
“What?”
“Jurassic Park? Steven Spielberg? That movie was freakin’ awesome.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam replied, feeling slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t made the connection instantly when Dean had first made the comment.
As they exited the air conditioned building into the harshly lit sun again, Dean pulled a pair of sunglasses from his jeans pocket and his keys from the other. He missed the presence of his coat with all of its convenient pockets, but considering the heat, his leather jacket just was not feasible to wear.
“So,” Sam began, as Dean unlocked the car, “what do you think we’re dealing with?”
Dean, eyes guarded by the black frames, looked over the hood of the car at Sam and frowned in confusion. “Not sure. Never seen or heard about anything like this. All I know is that it’s big, pissed off, and probably after us.” He fought back the blasting of the screaming child and the deafening beating of his heart he had heard when he first touched the scale, and he slapped the car’s hood in mock bravado. “Let’s rock ‘n roll.”
Chapter Five