A Skill Hell Hath Trained | Part 3 (A)
Title: A Skill Hell Hath Trained
By: revenant_scribe
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,383
Pairing: Sam/Dean
[ Part Three ]
They took out a Woman in White in West Texas with two and a half kilograms of salt and a match, and a nest of Chupacabras in Arkansas with a shotgun and a little help from Dean’s were’ form. Sam didn’t even know Chupacrabras could be anything but solitary, even if Dean had been complaining about the stench of them being too thick for one creature. He was standing over one body, the shotgun hot and smoking in his hand when the second lunged at him from behind, and died with Dean’s sharp canines in its neck. By the time they were done there was a small bonfire at the edge of a fallow field and they were both breathing heavy but otherwise unharmed.
Three months and five hunts later they were traveling east, Dean behind the wheel and singing along, off-key and unabashedly loud, to a CCR cassette he’d picked-up somewhere outside of Franklin, in a shop that sold records, tapes, and novelty T-Shirts, and had a wall of kitchen appliances that supposedly had been used by rock stars. There was a Black Sabbath T-Shirt in Dean’s bag somewhere, and Sam had one that said ‘Eat Your Greens’ all in capitals that he still didn’t quite understand how Dean had talked him into buying.
The music was so loud that Sam didn’t hear his cellphone ring, but Dean turned the volume down and said, “Are you gonna get that?”
Sam scrambled for his cell, and when he discovered it hadn’t been the source of the call, had to make a grab for the glove compartment where he kept his dad’s phone before the call disconnected. “Hello?”
“Is this John Winchester?” a tentative female voice on the other end of the line questioned.
Even if he’d been expecting it, hearing someone asking for his dad made Sam cringe internally. He explained the situation in as few words as possible and then asked if he could help, and then had to encourage her to talk when the woman began to re-think her call.
“This may sound quite strange,” the woman continued, after Sam had persuaded her to explain. “I knew your father… well, I didn’t know him but … but he helped a friend of mine with a problem she was having…”
Sam thought she was being overly cryptic, considering she had been the one to call him, but figured he also knew the reason for her hesitancy. “I’m in the same line of work as my dad,” he said.
Her relieved sigh was audible over the line. “I thought I was crazy to call. When John told Mazy her problem was a poltergeist I didn’t quite believe it. Even when she said all the trouble went away after he helped her. But I think…I think I might believe it now…”
The woman, Anna Mitchells, was reluctant to give details over the phone, but she was persuasive and Sam figured since they were between hunts, it was worth checking out. Dean shrugged, “We’re heading in that directions anyway.” Sam settled back and Dean cranked the CCR again, and they drove.
Just outside of Bayfield, Wisconsin, in yet another crappy motel room, Sam slung his duffel in a corner and collapsed onto the bed closest to the door. The quiet hiss of the shower filtered into the room through the closed bathroom door.
Sam had yet to determine if Dean’s habit of showering more or less immediately once they had checked into a room was the result of his hedonistic personality or born out of the three years he had spent confined in his wolf’s form, undoubtedly dependent on lakes and small stretches of water to get clean. Somehow Sam could not imagine Gordon Walker wrangling a full-grown wolf in a tiny motel shower, let alone caring about a wolf enough to give it a bath.
“I’ll go pick up something to eat,” Sam said, without moving from his sprawled position on the bed, as Dean wandered out from the bathroom to search his own duffel for a fresh change of clothes.
“Get some pie.” Dean pulled out his shower kit from his bag and slung a towel over his shoulder.
Sam was unable to stop a smile from stretching across his face as he said, “Obviously.” After the time they had spent on the road together, he was more than aware of Dean’s love of pie. Whenever Dean was behind the wheel of the Impala Sam had to resolve himself to periodic detours, sometimes several hours out of the way, for the sake of a little Ma and Pa restaurant that served homemade pie that came highly recommended by the locals.
“Hey,” Dean said, emerging once more from the bathroom, having removed his T-shirt and belt. He leaned against the doorframe. “I was thinking, after this hunt, d’you think we should swing by Bobby’s?”
For all that he was only with the man for about two weeks, Dean and Bobby had fallen into an easy sort of friendship. The man had actually ruffled Dean’s hair before they’d left, and given him a hug, and though Dean had bitched and growled, he’d been smiling wide and easy as anything. They kept in touch, just like Sam had been doing since before John’s death, checking in and getting advice. Maybe the calls were a little more frequent since Dean had joined him, but nobody seemed to mind, least of all Bobby.
Sam shrugged, most of his focus going into trying to will his tired body to move. “Sure, we’ll swing round,” he said, then tipped his head in Dean’s direction. “Anything particular on your mind?”
Dean shrugged and disappeared into the bathroom, the obnoxiously bright purple door closing a moment later.
Anna Mitchells stood on the front steps of her blue two-story home as they pulled up. Her face looked tired and worn, weighed-down by worry and grief, but she stood tall and greeted them warmly. Sam suspected that they were her last hope, which was all but confirmed as she explained her situation.
Her grandson, Thomas, had gone fishing with a few of his friends. They’d taken tents and canoes and had intended to stay for two weeks, but that time had come and gone and there was no sign of them. The rangers had found the campsite where the boys had been staying, but everything had been destroyed, the tents ripped clear through and shredded, blood streaked across the fabric and striping the ground. The rangers had called off the search, confident it had been a bear attack.
“I’m so sorry,” Sam said, his voice low and thick. “That’s horrible.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging helplessly, her clasped hands pressed between her knees. “I just don’t believe it was a bear attack.”
Sam shared a look with Dean; he hated the cases that weren’t cases at all. When a grieving family member or friend called him because they needed to believe that there was something that could be done, some sort of mistake that could be righted. “Mrs. Mitchells…”
“I know animals, Mr. Winchester,” she said, drawing herself up perfectly straight and glaring imperiously at him. “I know bears. This was not a bear.” She stood up and went to a side table, opening a hidden panel and withdrawing a brown manila envelope. From the envelope she pulled a small stack of photographs that she passed to Dean.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sam continued. “I truly am. I just don’t see that there is anything we can do.”
“Sam,” Dean said, his tone interrupting him and making Sam pause. Dean handed him the photographs, each one presenting a different angle of the campsite. Sam couldn’t see anything particularly remarkable about the shots except the savagery of the destruction.
“We’ll check it out,” Dean said, his voice steady and smooth and it affected Anna Mitchells like a healing balm, her posture relaxing and her expression softening, even as it made Sam struggle to conceal his confused frown. “We can’t promise you anything, though.”
“I understand,” she said, sounding as if she actually did. “I just want to know what happened out there.”
“What was that about?” Sam asked as they walked back to the Impala. He had the photographs in his hand where Anna Mitchells left them, insisting they might come in useful.
“What?” Dean was on his way to the driver’s side of the Impala and paused. It was amusing how quickly he had taken to the car, and Sam was more than happy to share the driving, especially when the other man seemed to enjoy being behind the wheel so much.
Sam pulled the keys from his pocket and chucked them over the hood of the car, smirking as Dean caught them absently and opened the door in a movement so fluid he might as well have pulled the keys from his own pocket.
“We’ll check it out?” Sam mimicked, pulling open his own door and sliding onto the seat. “It’s not a bear?”
Dean started the car and looked over at him. “I doubt it,” he said. “The attack was targeted, only the tent was hit. The rest of the chaos was from the struggle. The kids probably tried to run.”
Sam shrugged, not seeing the problem. “So they brought food into the tent or something.”
“No,” Dean said. “Anna said they were experienced campers, they’d know better. Plus, check out the third photo, you can see the food pack strung up on a tree in the distance.”
Sam shuffled through the photos and noted the yellow pack, small and almost at the edge of the photograph. “Then the bear just wanted them.”
“What is this, The Ghost and the Darkness? Bears aren’t man-eaters; mostly they kill when they’re threatened or their cubs are threatened. On very rare occasions they’ll kill a human because food is scarce. Whatever attacked that tent knew what it was after, and it took it. Those kids weren’t killed there.”
“You got all of that from a photograph?” Dean shrugged, and pulled out onto the road. Sam stared at the other man’s profile for a moment and sighed. “So, if not a bear, what?”
“I dunno.” Dean said. “What would be living out in the woods and looking to munch on a bunch of campers?”
Sam frowned as he thought about it. “I’d say a Wendigo, but you don’t usually find them this far north.” He glanced at the other man, whose eyes were suddenly sparkling. “What are you so happy about?”
“Nothing,” Dean said, the edges of his lips twisting upward. He was practically thrumming with anticipation. “Just never hunted one of them before.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s no picnic. Besides, we’re not even sure that’s what it is. We should check out the library, see if there have been any other incidents in the park.”
A little research had Sam inclined to believe that there was likely a Wendigo lurking somewhere in Saint Croix National Park. The patterns of supposed bear attacks were too consistent to be ignored; long stretches of nothing followed a series of disappearances ranging in violence but never with any bodies left to recover. They packed a bag full of camping necessities, and another bag full of supplies for attacking the thing, as well as some back-up weapons in case it wasn’t what they were anticipating after at all.
“Do you think you can track it?” Sam wondered as they hiked through the woods.
Dean turned around, his eyes flicking open as his head dropped down, his nose no longer tipped into the wind. “What do you think I’m trying to do?” he snipped. “I’ve never hunted one of these things before. I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for. I figure I know what everything that should be living in these woods smells like, I’ll just follow whatever doesn’t smell like what I’m familiar with.”
Sam sighed, wishing Dean had something a little more solid to go on. “Fair enough.”
They trekked to where Thomas and his friends had camped, and then set out from there, Dean tipping his nose up periodically, scenting the air. Sam couldn’t help cutting glances over at the other man, but mostly he tried to focus on the map he carried, puzzling over any possible places the Wendigo might have made a home for itself.
When the shadows started to lengthen, they set up their tent and rolled out their sleeping bags. Dean made a fire while Sam scratched out Anasazi protection symbols on the ground around their camp. “I wish we’d brought stuff for s’mores,” Dean complained after dinner, poking at the fire to keep it strong.
“You’re a sugar junky.” In the distance, a wolf howled and Sam felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He tipped his head back and looked at the minute peak of sky he could see between the trees.
Dean took a long breath of the cool night air. “Nice night to be hunting an ancient psychotic cannibal.”
Sam grinned and rolled his eyes. “You think we’ll even be able to find him?”
“Sure I do.”
Sam quirked an eyebrow and glanced over to where Dean was leaning back against a gnarled tree root, perfectly cradled by the bark, his eyes closed and head tipped slightly back. “You sound confidant.”
“I am,” Dean said. He squinted open one eye and returned Sam’s gaze. “And do you know why?” Sam shook his head. “Because that’s not a wolf that’s howling.”
Sam jerked upright as the howl came again, this time quite close to the camp. It was a wolf, he would have bet anything at all that there was a wolf nearby, but there was no way he was going to argue with a werewolf on what was and was not a wolf howl.
Dean was no longer in his casual slouch, but he was still leaning back against the tree, both eyes open as he asked, “You’re sure those symbols will work, right?”
Sam glanced at the symbols, then back at Dean. “They should.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Dean stood up and had reached the edge of the camp before Sam caught hold of his arm and yanked him back. “What the hell?”
“Are you crazy?” Sam hissed. “He’s a better hunter by far at night. He has all the advantages.”
“What,” Dean scoffed. “He can see in the dark? He has a keen sense of smell? Bring it.”
“Wendigo are good hunters,” Sam said. “They’re better than good. Please. We have to wait until morning.” Dean frowned darkly but he sat back down.
They were quiet, the orange-red flames ducking and rising, casting enough heat to make both men forget the chill of the night. Sam fell into thoughts of his dad, memories of the first time they had been camping: it had been a hunt, of course.
“I think I must have been seven years old, and I was already stubborn as hell,” Sam said, drifting into an account of the trip, if only to pass the time. “My dad was a marine. He was tough as hell, and I wanted to be just like him.” His dad had been hunting a couple of black dogs, and Sam was pretty sure the only reason he had been allowed to come was because his dad knew some pretty solid sigils that were very effective when it came to warding off black dogs.
“I knew how to fire a gun and handle a weapon, more or less, but my dad usually left me with a friend, or sometimes on my own, depending on what he was after. This time, though, I was allowed to tag along, so long as I promised to stay in the camp. I don’t know if you’ve hunted black dogs before,” a glance at Dean told Sam all he needed to know. There was a knowing light in those green eyes and a wry grin on his face. “So then you know there’s a lot of waiting followed by the most ridiculously intense three seconds of your life.”
He sort of loved hunting black dogs for that reason. “That night, though,” he continued. “It got really cold. I was already pretty bundled up, and I remember being sort of irritated about that, because I had about four layers on, and there was my dad, in a long-sleeved shirt and a leather jacket, no hat and no gloves, and he wasn’t shivering at all. He kept checking with me, was I okay, did I want to wrap the sleeping back around my shoulders, and I kept saying, ‘No, dad. I’m fine.’ And just being a total brat about it.”
Dean snickered, and the sound, as well as the memory, made Sam grin. “I insisted on staying up to keep watch the minute I realized my dad didn’t intend to go to sleep. I was a shivering wreck in a matter of hours, and finally my dad put his foot down, and made me sit bundled in the sleeping bag, but by that point it was already too late. God, I’ve never been so sick in my life. My dad ended up having to take me to a friend’s place because I was such a mess. I didn’t even get to see a black dog.”
“Did your dad go back and get them?”
Sam huffed a laugh. “Yeah, he went back after he dropped me off. When I found out, I was so furious. I yelled at him. He said, next time if I wanted to go on a hunt with him, I should listen when he told me to dress warmer.”
“I bet that went over well.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “That was pretty much my relationship with my dad, right there. I think we were too much alike to be able to ever actually get along.” The day they’d gone after the demon, they’d butted heads. Hindsight made it look trivial, but Sam could remember that at the time, it had seemed like the most important thing in the world, that his dad acknowledge him as an adult who could make his own decision, who didn’t need to be issued orders and expected to fall in line like a soldier.
“The older I got, the worse it got,” he said. “I think he gave me the car just to get some peace and quiet. Figured if I went off on my own and started hunting, maybe we wouldn’t fight so much. Not that it helped. He had me check-in so damned often it was almost worse than when we were hunting together.”
Dean shrugged. “Parents like to worry.”
Sam snorted. “He didn’t like to worry. He liked to order me around.” Except, maybe that wasn’t exactly fair. “I think, after my mom, he was scared that something would happen to me.” Dean’s raised eyebrow eloquently read ‘I told you so’, and Sam threw a pebble in his general direction. “What teen wants to be told what to do? Especially after all the training he put me through. I kept saying, ‘let me go, I know what I’m doing, I can do it by myself’, and the one time he stepped back, I go and get him killed.”
Above them, the wind made the leaves dance and hiss. Sam sat listening to the sounds of the forest, Somewhere on the log he was using as a backrest, a cricket was chirruping in stuttering whirs.
“One of the first things he taught me,” Sam said, pushing away the echo of that memory, “was that it was good luck to hunt by a full moon. I think I was about four, so that’s how he explained to me. When I was older, he gave me something more concrete.”
“Which was what?”
“That supernatural creatures are a lot like any other kind of creature. They’re usually not too active during the day, they prefer the dark, the night. But something about the full moon makes them even more active than usual. If you hunt during a full moon, you’re pretty much guaranteed to bump into something.”
They lapsed into silence again, comfortable, filled with the sounds of the forest at night. “I was born under a full moon,” Dean said.
Sam glanced across the fire at the other man, then followed Dean’s gaze up to a gap of night sky visible between the high shifting canopy of trees. There was a full moon sitting above them, bright and white, so round and huge it felt like it would fall out of the sky at any moment.
Sam dropped his gaze when he felt Dean’s eyes on him. After a moment, Dean’s eyes dropped back to the fire. “Do you know they call the full moon in January the Wolf Moon?” Sam shook his head. “Native Americans had different names for all the full moons. But January is the Wolf Moon, because the hungry wolves would gather outside their villages and howl.” Dean flashed a wry smirk at Sam, “Fitting, don’t you think? That was the moon I was born under.”
Sam watched as Dean wiped his hand down his face, his head turned away as he gazed up at the night sky and the heavy moon suspended above them. “I didn’t even know we were different. Most of the village was pack. The things the elders would tell us, about being careful no one saw us shift, keeping things secret, it was like a game. We were pretty sheltered, I didn’t know much about what it meant to be a werewolf until the hunters came.”
His eyes flickered over to Sam, and Sam felt suddenly as if he should apologize for what he was, for how he had been raised and what he had become, but then Dean’s gaze drifted away and Sam forced himself to keep silent and listen.
“Our house was on the outskirts of the town, in the forest, near a river just deep enough that it was always singing, even when it got cold. It was beautiful, but I suppose it wasn’t the safest place. Not like further in town where the houses were closer together.
“I was four when they came. I don’t think it even occurred to them that there would be so many wolves in one place; I think that must have been why they panicked. It wasn’t a full moon, and my parents were always so careful anyway, I still don’t understand how the hunters could have known; but I suppose all that matters is that they did.
“I remember the heat and the smell of the fire. My grandmother got me from my room where I’d been sleeping. She took me downstairs; pulled open a hidden door beneath the floorboards of the living room that I hadn’t even known existed and hugged. She kissed my forehead and she said, ‘Run, Dean.’ She made me promise never to look back, and she gave me her necklace. Then she closed the passage and everything was dark, but I did what she told me to and I ran as fast as I could, and I never looked back.”
Sam swallowed thickly, tried to fight the roil of emotions inside of him. He’d been hearing tragic stories for as long as he’d been hunting, it was part of the job. He sympathized with every new story he heard, but Dean’s story was different, it felt different, somehow, maybe just because it was Dean’s.
It took him a moment, but when he was certain his voice would be steady he asked, “Did the hunters take out the whole pack?”
Dean shook his head. “No. They shot my parents and some of the others. They destroyed a fair portion of the town, not all of the houses they burned belonged to werewolves, but they did kill a lot of the pack. The rest of the town thought it was a forest fire; it was a dry autumn, and I suppose they had no reason to suspect anything different.” He shrugged. “That’s the story the sheriff had to offer and it was as good as any, I guess.”
He poked at the fire until it leapt up higher. “The pack alpha took me in and raised me. He tried to explain about werewolves, why the hunters would be scared of us. He talked to me about my parents a lot, too. He wanted me to stay with the pack when I came of age, but nothing felt the same. How could it? I left when I was sixteen, and I never went back.”
Sam couldn’t think of anything to say, but as he sat there, thinking about his own dad and the night John had been killed, he thought, maybe he didn’t need to. Dean wasn’t telling him about his past because he wanted to hear inadequate condolences or that he wanted to wallow. He trusted Sam with the story because he wanted to show that he understood. The isolation and impossible loneliness that came in the wake of losing his dad, of realizing that he had no family left alive; Dean knew it too.
It hurt, and it threatened to shake everything apart, but it wasn’t all consuming. Not if he didn’t want it to be. Sam thought of Bobby and his phone calls that somehow always managed to come when Sam was feeling so very alone. Of Dean, hedonistic, pie-loving Dean who’d run through a burning wood and never looked back because his grandmother had begged him not to. Sam didn’t want the grief to devour him. He didn’t want to be swallowed in the hunt. He didn’t want to be like his dad.
In the shadows by the camp, the Wendigo’s wolf howl echoed.
They were up with the first rays of the sun, an unsatisfying and bland breakfast washed down with too-strong coffee cooked over the fire they’d taken turns nursing all night. Sam took down the tent as Dean cleaned up the dishes and re-packed their bags.
The wendigo had stayed close through the night and Sam had kept his flare gun close to hand, even though the protective markings he’d etched around the camp seemed to be doing their job. Wendigos could be killed by fire, and after a bit of argument regarding method, they’d settled on the flares, trusting that a relatively controlled burst was a better bet, considering they’d be in the middle of the woods and it hadn’t been raining so much in the passed week.
“This way,” Dean said, after pausing for a moment to scent the air. Sam nodded and fell into step silently, his ears straining.
They were walking in the opposite direction from the rocky outcrop that the map indicated housed a series of caves. Sam had assumed the wendigo would prefer to make its layer in one of those caves because of the added security they offered. Not that he was an expert when it came to wendigos. He’d only hunted one before, and it wasn’t as if there was that many in existence. The last one had lived in a cave, but that might have been because it was Arizona, and the only other option was on the side of a cliff. Maybe preferred living conditions varied from one wendigo to the other.
They cut a zigzagging path through the brush, Dean periodically tipping his head back, his nose tilting up into the air. “Is that a track?” Sam said, slowing his steps as he pointed out the way the grass just ahead seemed dull.
Dean bent down to peer at it, but quickly dismissed it. “It’s old.”
Sam caught a closer look at it as he passed and thought that, no, it was not such a very old track at all. He cast a look at Dean, but the other man was paused up ahead, his eyebrow raised expectantly like he was waiting for Sam to catch-up.
When Sam fell back into step with him, Dean started up a steady monologue that started with an account of his first shift, when the fullness of the moon compelled the change and he’d raced through the woods and it had taken the elders three days to convince him to return to his human shape. Most of the stories, Sam realized, involved the forest, or camping, so Dean must have figured they were relevant or on-topic, despite being in the middle of a hunt and very much in danger.
By the time Sam realized Dean was picking his way, slowly and circuitously, to the lookout point that one of the rangers had spoken of the other day, when Sam and Dean had been getting their pass into the park. The vague suspicion he had been harboring began to solidify, and Sam found himself picking his way with greater confidence.
The trees began to thin somewhat, and to the right, there was a steady, though smooth incline, and when he was more or less satisfied with the flatness of the terrain, Sam called a halt so he could fish his water from the backpack and Dean tipped his head to the left where the ground sloped upward. “I’m gonna check that ridge over there, see what I can see.”
Sam frowned. “Don’t wander off too far. And if you taken and eaten alive, try to leave a bread crumb trail or something.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “There won’t be any need for you to play Gretel to my Hansel. The thing’s far away.”
Grabbing up a bottle of water, Sam tipped his body gratefully against a tree trunk and took a long sip, allowing himself a moment of rest. “Sam!” Dean called, and Sam jerked his head up.
“What?” He was already re-capping the bottle and stuffing it back into his bag.
“You gotta check this out!”
Sam rolled his eyes as he started walking, his arms worming the backpack into place. “This better be good,” he muttered, only to be slammed sideways and have the breath knocked out of him.
A gaunt, sallow figure loomed above him, its body stretched and skin leached of color like a rotted fish. It snarled, a warm puff of rancid breath across Sam’s face, as he lay there, back bowed awkwardly over his backpack, with food containers digging sharply into his spine. Sam twisted his arm round, tried to pull the gun from where it was tucked into his jeans but the weight of the wendigo kept him pinned.
Its mouth drew uncomfortably close and Sam flailed for the gun, hoping to dislodge the creature just enough so he could reach that little bit further. Then the creature’s body jerked sideways, leaving room for Sam to curse and scramble up, freeing his arms from his heavy pack as he grabbed for the flare gun.
The thing was hissing and issuing a shrill screaming keen as it wriggled and kicked, but Dean more or less had it pinned, the wendigo’s mouth held firmly between long canine teeth. “I can’t shoot it like that,” Sam said, trying to find an opening that didn’t put Dean at risk. Dean shifted and growled a warning, and Sam braced himself, aiming the flair and holding perfectly still, waiting.
The second Dean released his grip the wendigo was a blur of motion, vaulting to its feet and rushing to climb the nearest tree. Dean bit down on the closest part of the thing he could reach, a flailing foot. Sam fired, and the thing dropped back to the ground in a flaming, convulsing mass before crumbling up into dust.
Sam spent a few moments panting, wiping the hand that still clutched the flare gun across his mouth in case the wendigo had managed to drool on him. He cast a narrow-eyed look toward the wolf. “Did you know the whole time that he was following us?”
“The scent markers I was following the other day were all messed up. He must have realized how we were able to track him. What with the little show he gave us last night, I figured he would take the bait if we walked on by; less chance anyone else might get hurt, in case he has kept someone alive.”
Sam nodded and then tucked the flare gun into his pack, which he drew back onto his shoulders. The wolf followed as he crested the ridge that Dean had disappeared over, supposedly to see if there was a suitable lookout.
As it turned out, there was quite a view from the little rocky ledge, but Sam barely noted it as he gathered up Dean’s clothes that were strewn in contained chaos across the dirt. The wolf sat and watched the process. “How did you know?” Dean asked. “That it was coming, I mean.”
Sam snorted. “You were monologuing the whole way,” Sam said wryly. “Story after story about being in the woods, tracking things, hunting things. Plus we were heading in the opposite direction from the most likely place for the thing to establish a lair. I assumed you were trying to tell me something. Trap’s not much good if you sit down and lay it all out within earshot of the thing you’re trying to bait. I figured I’d just follow your lead for a while.” Sam shrugged. “Separating? Going to check out a view? Yeah, I knew something was up.”
“Are you gonna change back?” he asked, after a moment. The wolf seemed to consider the question before indicating that he would prefer to revert his human form, so Sam dropped the pile of clothes he’d collected by a tree whose branches were hanging low enough to offer a bit of privacy. “I’ll give you a moment, then.”
It didn’t take long before Dean, fully dressed and shouldering into his own pack, stepped back into view. “Okay, let’s check out those caves. They’re definitely where that thing was living. The stench was overpoweringly strong that way.”
The tromp back was quiet and Sam tried to brace himself for what he was likely to find. For all the horror stories he had heard from hunters about taking down a wendigo, it had been simple enough with only himself and Dean. He hoped their luck would hold just a little longer, and they’d find only survivors when they reach the lair.
His hopes fell when they reached the cave, the outside of which was decorated by bleached bones they had to pick their way through. Inside, a recent kill waited for them, blood and flesh scattered in a circle around a cavern of ribcage.
“Come on,” Dean said, with his nose tucked into his raised elbow trying to block out the smell, as they pressed further inward. “That’s not all the bodies.”
The cave opened up into a large chamber, where four more bodies were hanging from hooks, like pork slung-up in a walk in freezer. Sam grimaced and made a mental tally - all the missing staff and campers accounted for, then his eyes widened: one was breathing, his chest slowly rising and falling despite the wide gash across his belly.
“Holy shit,” Dean said, already climbing up to work the chains loose on one of the bodies. Three of the four, two boys and a girl were alive. The last had been bled to death, but it was better than Sam had been expecting.
“You’re okay, dude,” Dean was saying, as he helped the last kid down. “You’re safe. What’s your name?”
“Thomas Mitchells,” he said. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d make it. I didn’t think any of us would survive.” Dean was flashing a wide grin over at Sam, and Sam couldn’t bite down on a bubbling laugh, the rush of adrenaline and the success of a hunt finished and with survivors no less, filling him up.
“Dude,” Dean said, his grin wide and pleased as he followed Sam down the steps. “She gave us pie.”
“Yes, Dean,” Sam said, long-sufferingly. “She did give us pie.”
“This is awesome. I love this. No one ever gave me pie when I hunted before.” Sam knew Dean said ‘before’ and meant, with Gordon. Walker hadn’t seemed a terribly pleasant hunter in Sam’s opinion, and he doubted that the man ever attempted to play a sympathetic or even remotely compassionate role when he interviewed any person about a hunt.
Even if Gordon had been the sort of person to inspire a sense of gratitude in anyone he helped, Sam didn’t really have the heart to tell Dean that no one was likely to give a wolf a fresh baked pie.
“I got a biscuit once,” Dean was saying. “A dog biscuit,” he wrinkled his nose. “Let me tell you, it’s not the same.”
Sam chuckled as he slid behind the wheel of the Impala, glancing over at Dean who was still clutching the apple pie like it was some sort of treasure. Dean glanced over. “I guess you’re not much of a pie man.”
“Pie’s fine,” Sam said.
“Fine?” Dean snorted, like Sam’s utter lack of enthusiasm when it came to all things pie-related was somehow sacrilegious. “Maybe you would have preferred something else,” Dean said, his voice gone sly and teasing and Sam prepared himself for whatever might come next. “Bet Thomas Mitchells could have come up with a way to say thank-you that you might have enjoyed.”
“What?” Sam squeaked, his voice rising embarrassingly high as the statement, despite his attempt at mental preparation, took him completely by surprise.
“He sure had the hots for you, Sammy,” Dean continued, teasing. “I could smell it all over him.”
“You can smell that?” Sam asked, his voice going somewhat shrill. He cleared his throat and said, “Seriously?”
“Dude,” Dean said, his left eyebrow quirking upward as he cast a lingering look Sam’s way. “You’d be surprised.” Sam turned over the engine and concentrated very hard on pulling out into traffic, trying to ignore the sudden hotness in his cheeks that he knew meant he was flushed.
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART THREE (A) >>|
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,383
Pairing: Sam/Dean
[ Part Three ]
They took out a Woman in White in West Texas with two and a half kilograms of salt and a match, and a nest of Chupacabras in Arkansas with a shotgun and a little help from Dean’s were’ form. Sam didn’t even know Chupacrabras could be anything but solitary, even if Dean had been complaining about the stench of them being too thick for one creature. He was standing over one body, the shotgun hot and smoking in his hand when the second lunged at him from behind, and died with Dean’s sharp canines in its neck. By the time they were done there was a small bonfire at the edge of a fallow field and they were both breathing heavy but otherwise unharmed.
Three months and five hunts later they were traveling east, Dean behind the wheel and singing along, off-key and unabashedly loud, to a CCR cassette he’d picked-up somewhere outside of Franklin, in a shop that sold records, tapes, and novelty T-Shirts, and had a wall of kitchen appliances that supposedly had been used by rock stars. There was a Black Sabbath T-Shirt in Dean’s bag somewhere, and Sam had one that said ‘Eat Your Greens’ all in capitals that he still didn’t quite understand how Dean had talked him into buying.
The music was so loud that Sam didn’t hear his cellphone ring, but Dean turned the volume down and said, “Are you gonna get that?”
Sam scrambled for his cell, and when he discovered it hadn’t been the source of the call, had to make a grab for the glove compartment where he kept his dad’s phone before the call disconnected. “Hello?”
“Is this John Winchester?” a tentative female voice on the other end of the line questioned.
Even if he’d been expecting it, hearing someone asking for his dad made Sam cringe internally. He explained the situation in as few words as possible and then asked if he could help, and then had to encourage her to talk when the woman began to re-think her call.
“This may sound quite strange,” the woman continued, after Sam had persuaded her to explain. “I knew your father… well, I didn’t know him but … but he helped a friend of mine with a problem she was having…”
Sam thought she was being overly cryptic, considering she had been the one to call him, but figured he also knew the reason for her hesitancy. “I’m in the same line of work as my dad,” he said.
Her relieved sigh was audible over the line. “I thought I was crazy to call. When John told Mazy her problem was a poltergeist I didn’t quite believe it. Even when she said all the trouble went away after he helped her. But I think…I think I might believe it now…”
The woman, Anna Mitchells, was reluctant to give details over the phone, but she was persuasive and Sam figured since they were between hunts, it was worth checking out. Dean shrugged, “We’re heading in that directions anyway.” Sam settled back and Dean cranked the CCR again, and they drove.
Just outside of Bayfield, Wisconsin, in yet another crappy motel room, Sam slung his duffel in a corner and collapsed onto the bed closest to the door. The quiet hiss of the shower filtered into the room through the closed bathroom door.
Sam had yet to determine if Dean’s habit of showering more or less immediately once they had checked into a room was the result of his hedonistic personality or born out of the three years he had spent confined in his wolf’s form, undoubtedly dependent on lakes and small stretches of water to get clean. Somehow Sam could not imagine Gordon Walker wrangling a full-grown wolf in a tiny motel shower, let alone caring about a wolf enough to give it a bath.
“I’ll go pick up something to eat,” Sam said, without moving from his sprawled position on the bed, as Dean wandered out from the bathroom to search his own duffel for a fresh change of clothes.
“Get some pie.” Dean pulled out his shower kit from his bag and slung a towel over his shoulder.
Sam was unable to stop a smile from stretching across his face as he said, “Obviously.” After the time they had spent on the road together, he was more than aware of Dean’s love of pie. Whenever Dean was behind the wheel of the Impala Sam had to resolve himself to periodic detours, sometimes several hours out of the way, for the sake of a little Ma and Pa restaurant that served homemade pie that came highly recommended by the locals.
“Hey,” Dean said, emerging once more from the bathroom, having removed his T-shirt and belt. He leaned against the doorframe. “I was thinking, after this hunt, d’you think we should swing by Bobby’s?”
For all that he was only with the man for about two weeks, Dean and Bobby had fallen into an easy sort of friendship. The man had actually ruffled Dean’s hair before they’d left, and given him a hug, and though Dean had bitched and growled, he’d been smiling wide and easy as anything. They kept in touch, just like Sam had been doing since before John’s death, checking in and getting advice. Maybe the calls were a little more frequent since Dean had joined him, but nobody seemed to mind, least of all Bobby.
Sam shrugged, most of his focus going into trying to will his tired body to move. “Sure, we’ll swing round,” he said, then tipped his head in Dean’s direction. “Anything particular on your mind?”
Dean shrugged and disappeared into the bathroom, the obnoxiously bright purple door closing a moment later.
Anna Mitchells stood on the front steps of her blue two-story home as they pulled up. Her face looked tired and worn, weighed-down by worry and grief, but she stood tall and greeted them warmly. Sam suspected that they were her last hope, which was all but confirmed as she explained her situation.
Her grandson, Thomas, had gone fishing with a few of his friends. They’d taken tents and canoes and had intended to stay for two weeks, but that time had come and gone and there was no sign of them. The rangers had found the campsite where the boys had been staying, but everything had been destroyed, the tents ripped clear through and shredded, blood streaked across the fabric and striping the ground. The rangers had called off the search, confident it had been a bear attack.
“I’m so sorry,” Sam said, his voice low and thick. “That’s horrible.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging helplessly, her clasped hands pressed between her knees. “I just don’t believe it was a bear attack.”
Sam shared a look with Dean; he hated the cases that weren’t cases at all. When a grieving family member or friend called him because they needed to believe that there was something that could be done, some sort of mistake that could be righted. “Mrs. Mitchells…”
“I know animals, Mr. Winchester,” she said, drawing herself up perfectly straight and glaring imperiously at him. “I know bears. This was not a bear.” She stood up and went to a side table, opening a hidden panel and withdrawing a brown manila envelope. From the envelope she pulled a small stack of photographs that she passed to Dean.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sam continued. “I truly am. I just don’t see that there is anything we can do.”
“Sam,” Dean said, his tone interrupting him and making Sam pause. Dean handed him the photographs, each one presenting a different angle of the campsite. Sam couldn’t see anything particularly remarkable about the shots except the savagery of the destruction.
“We’ll check it out,” Dean said, his voice steady and smooth and it affected Anna Mitchells like a healing balm, her posture relaxing and her expression softening, even as it made Sam struggle to conceal his confused frown. “We can’t promise you anything, though.”
“I understand,” she said, sounding as if she actually did. “I just want to know what happened out there.”
“What was that about?” Sam asked as they walked back to the Impala. He had the photographs in his hand where Anna Mitchells left them, insisting they might come in useful.
“What?” Dean was on his way to the driver’s side of the Impala and paused. It was amusing how quickly he had taken to the car, and Sam was more than happy to share the driving, especially when the other man seemed to enjoy being behind the wheel so much.
Sam pulled the keys from his pocket and chucked them over the hood of the car, smirking as Dean caught them absently and opened the door in a movement so fluid he might as well have pulled the keys from his own pocket.
“We’ll check it out?” Sam mimicked, pulling open his own door and sliding onto the seat. “It’s not a bear?”
Dean started the car and looked over at him. “I doubt it,” he said. “The attack was targeted, only the tent was hit. The rest of the chaos was from the struggle. The kids probably tried to run.”
Sam shrugged, not seeing the problem. “So they brought food into the tent or something.”
“No,” Dean said. “Anna said they were experienced campers, they’d know better. Plus, check out the third photo, you can see the food pack strung up on a tree in the distance.”
Sam shuffled through the photos and noted the yellow pack, small and almost at the edge of the photograph. “Then the bear just wanted them.”
“What is this, The Ghost and the Darkness? Bears aren’t man-eaters; mostly they kill when they’re threatened or their cubs are threatened. On very rare occasions they’ll kill a human because food is scarce. Whatever attacked that tent knew what it was after, and it took it. Those kids weren’t killed there.”
“You got all of that from a photograph?” Dean shrugged, and pulled out onto the road. Sam stared at the other man’s profile for a moment and sighed. “So, if not a bear, what?”
“I dunno.” Dean said. “What would be living out in the woods and looking to munch on a bunch of campers?”
Sam frowned as he thought about it. “I’d say a Wendigo, but you don’t usually find them this far north.” He glanced at the other man, whose eyes were suddenly sparkling. “What are you so happy about?”
“Nothing,” Dean said, the edges of his lips twisting upward. He was practically thrumming with anticipation. “Just never hunted one of them before.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s no picnic. Besides, we’re not even sure that’s what it is. We should check out the library, see if there have been any other incidents in the park.”
A little research had Sam inclined to believe that there was likely a Wendigo lurking somewhere in Saint Croix National Park. The patterns of supposed bear attacks were too consistent to be ignored; long stretches of nothing followed a series of disappearances ranging in violence but never with any bodies left to recover. They packed a bag full of camping necessities, and another bag full of supplies for attacking the thing, as well as some back-up weapons in case it wasn’t what they were anticipating after at all.
“Do you think you can track it?” Sam wondered as they hiked through the woods.
Dean turned around, his eyes flicking open as his head dropped down, his nose no longer tipped into the wind. “What do you think I’m trying to do?” he snipped. “I’ve never hunted one of these things before. I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for. I figure I know what everything that should be living in these woods smells like, I’ll just follow whatever doesn’t smell like what I’m familiar with.”
Sam sighed, wishing Dean had something a little more solid to go on. “Fair enough.”
They trekked to where Thomas and his friends had camped, and then set out from there, Dean tipping his nose up periodically, scenting the air. Sam couldn’t help cutting glances over at the other man, but mostly he tried to focus on the map he carried, puzzling over any possible places the Wendigo might have made a home for itself.
When the shadows started to lengthen, they set up their tent and rolled out their sleeping bags. Dean made a fire while Sam scratched out Anasazi protection symbols on the ground around their camp. “I wish we’d brought stuff for s’mores,” Dean complained after dinner, poking at the fire to keep it strong.
“You’re a sugar junky.” In the distance, a wolf howled and Sam felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He tipped his head back and looked at the minute peak of sky he could see between the trees.
Dean took a long breath of the cool night air. “Nice night to be hunting an ancient psychotic cannibal.”
Sam grinned and rolled his eyes. “You think we’ll even be able to find him?”
“Sure I do.”
Sam quirked an eyebrow and glanced over to where Dean was leaning back against a gnarled tree root, perfectly cradled by the bark, his eyes closed and head tipped slightly back. “You sound confidant.”
“I am,” Dean said. He squinted open one eye and returned Sam’s gaze. “And do you know why?” Sam shook his head. “Because that’s not a wolf that’s howling.”
Sam jerked upright as the howl came again, this time quite close to the camp. It was a wolf, he would have bet anything at all that there was a wolf nearby, but there was no way he was going to argue with a werewolf on what was and was not a wolf howl.
Dean was no longer in his casual slouch, but he was still leaning back against the tree, both eyes open as he asked, “You’re sure those symbols will work, right?”
Sam glanced at the symbols, then back at Dean. “They should.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Dean stood up and had reached the edge of the camp before Sam caught hold of his arm and yanked him back. “What the hell?”
“Are you crazy?” Sam hissed. “He’s a better hunter by far at night. He has all the advantages.”
“What,” Dean scoffed. “He can see in the dark? He has a keen sense of smell? Bring it.”
“Wendigo are good hunters,” Sam said. “They’re better than good. Please. We have to wait until morning.” Dean frowned darkly but he sat back down.
They were quiet, the orange-red flames ducking and rising, casting enough heat to make both men forget the chill of the night. Sam fell into thoughts of his dad, memories of the first time they had been camping: it had been a hunt, of course.
“I think I must have been seven years old, and I was already stubborn as hell,” Sam said, drifting into an account of the trip, if only to pass the time. “My dad was a marine. He was tough as hell, and I wanted to be just like him.” His dad had been hunting a couple of black dogs, and Sam was pretty sure the only reason he had been allowed to come was because his dad knew some pretty solid sigils that were very effective when it came to warding off black dogs.
“I knew how to fire a gun and handle a weapon, more or less, but my dad usually left me with a friend, or sometimes on my own, depending on what he was after. This time, though, I was allowed to tag along, so long as I promised to stay in the camp. I don’t know if you’ve hunted black dogs before,” a glance at Dean told Sam all he needed to know. There was a knowing light in those green eyes and a wry grin on his face. “So then you know there’s a lot of waiting followed by the most ridiculously intense three seconds of your life.”
He sort of loved hunting black dogs for that reason. “That night, though,” he continued. “It got really cold. I was already pretty bundled up, and I remember being sort of irritated about that, because I had about four layers on, and there was my dad, in a long-sleeved shirt and a leather jacket, no hat and no gloves, and he wasn’t shivering at all. He kept checking with me, was I okay, did I want to wrap the sleeping back around my shoulders, and I kept saying, ‘No, dad. I’m fine.’ And just being a total brat about it.”
Dean snickered, and the sound, as well as the memory, made Sam grin. “I insisted on staying up to keep watch the minute I realized my dad didn’t intend to go to sleep. I was a shivering wreck in a matter of hours, and finally my dad put his foot down, and made me sit bundled in the sleeping bag, but by that point it was already too late. God, I’ve never been so sick in my life. My dad ended up having to take me to a friend’s place because I was such a mess. I didn’t even get to see a black dog.”
“Did your dad go back and get them?”
Sam huffed a laugh. “Yeah, he went back after he dropped me off. When I found out, I was so furious. I yelled at him. He said, next time if I wanted to go on a hunt with him, I should listen when he told me to dress warmer.”
“I bet that went over well.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “That was pretty much my relationship with my dad, right there. I think we were too much alike to be able to ever actually get along.” The day they’d gone after the demon, they’d butted heads. Hindsight made it look trivial, but Sam could remember that at the time, it had seemed like the most important thing in the world, that his dad acknowledge him as an adult who could make his own decision, who didn’t need to be issued orders and expected to fall in line like a soldier.
“The older I got, the worse it got,” he said. “I think he gave me the car just to get some peace and quiet. Figured if I went off on my own and started hunting, maybe we wouldn’t fight so much. Not that it helped. He had me check-in so damned often it was almost worse than when we were hunting together.”
Dean shrugged. “Parents like to worry.”
Sam snorted. “He didn’t like to worry. He liked to order me around.” Except, maybe that wasn’t exactly fair. “I think, after my mom, he was scared that something would happen to me.” Dean’s raised eyebrow eloquently read ‘I told you so’, and Sam threw a pebble in his general direction. “What teen wants to be told what to do? Especially after all the training he put me through. I kept saying, ‘let me go, I know what I’m doing, I can do it by myself’, and the one time he stepped back, I go and get him killed.”
Above them, the wind made the leaves dance and hiss. Sam sat listening to the sounds of the forest, Somewhere on the log he was using as a backrest, a cricket was chirruping in stuttering whirs.
“One of the first things he taught me,” Sam said, pushing away the echo of that memory, “was that it was good luck to hunt by a full moon. I think I was about four, so that’s how he explained to me. When I was older, he gave me something more concrete.”
“Which was what?”
“That supernatural creatures are a lot like any other kind of creature. They’re usually not too active during the day, they prefer the dark, the night. But something about the full moon makes them even more active than usual. If you hunt during a full moon, you’re pretty much guaranteed to bump into something.”
They lapsed into silence again, comfortable, filled with the sounds of the forest at night. “I was born under a full moon,” Dean said.
Sam glanced across the fire at the other man, then followed Dean’s gaze up to a gap of night sky visible between the high shifting canopy of trees. There was a full moon sitting above them, bright and white, so round and huge it felt like it would fall out of the sky at any moment.
Sam dropped his gaze when he felt Dean’s eyes on him. After a moment, Dean’s eyes dropped back to the fire. “Do you know they call the full moon in January the Wolf Moon?” Sam shook his head. “Native Americans had different names for all the full moons. But January is the Wolf Moon, because the hungry wolves would gather outside their villages and howl.” Dean flashed a wry smirk at Sam, “Fitting, don’t you think? That was the moon I was born under.”
Sam watched as Dean wiped his hand down his face, his head turned away as he gazed up at the night sky and the heavy moon suspended above them. “I didn’t even know we were different. Most of the village was pack. The things the elders would tell us, about being careful no one saw us shift, keeping things secret, it was like a game. We were pretty sheltered, I didn’t know much about what it meant to be a werewolf until the hunters came.”
His eyes flickered over to Sam, and Sam felt suddenly as if he should apologize for what he was, for how he had been raised and what he had become, but then Dean’s gaze drifted away and Sam forced himself to keep silent and listen.
“Our house was on the outskirts of the town, in the forest, near a river just deep enough that it was always singing, even when it got cold. It was beautiful, but I suppose it wasn’t the safest place. Not like further in town where the houses were closer together.
“I was four when they came. I don’t think it even occurred to them that there would be so many wolves in one place; I think that must have been why they panicked. It wasn’t a full moon, and my parents were always so careful anyway, I still don’t understand how the hunters could have known; but I suppose all that matters is that they did.
“I remember the heat and the smell of the fire. My grandmother got me from my room where I’d been sleeping. She took me downstairs; pulled open a hidden door beneath the floorboards of the living room that I hadn’t even known existed and hugged. She kissed my forehead and she said, ‘Run, Dean.’ She made me promise never to look back, and she gave me her necklace. Then she closed the passage and everything was dark, but I did what she told me to and I ran as fast as I could, and I never looked back.”
Sam swallowed thickly, tried to fight the roil of emotions inside of him. He’d been hearing tragic stories for as long as he’d been hunting, it was part of the job. He sympathized with every new story he heard, but Dean’s story was different, it felt different, somehow, maybe just because it was Dean’s.
It took him a moment, but when he was certain his voice would be steady he asked, “Did the hunters take out the whole pack?”
Dean shook his head. “No. They shot my parents and some of the others. They destroyed a fair portion of the town, not all of the houses they burned belonged to werewolves, but they did kill a lot of the pack. The rest of the town thought it was a forest fire; it was a dry autumn, and I suppose they had no reason to suspect anything different.” He shrugged. “That’s the story the sheriff had to offer and it was as good as any, I guess.”
He poked at the fire until it leapt up higher. “The pack alpha took me in and raised me. He tried to explain about werewolves, why the hunters would be scared of us. He talked to me about my parents a lot, too. He wanted me to stay with the pack when I came of age, but nothing felt the same. How could it? I left when I was sixteen, and I never went back.”
Sam couldn’t think of anything to say, but as he sat there, thinking about his own dad and the night John had been killed, he thought, maybe he didn’t need to. Dean wasn’t telling him about his past because he wanted to hear inadequate condolences or that he wanted to wallow. He trusted Sam with the story because he wanted to show that he understood. The isolation and impossible loneliness that came in the wake of losing his dad, of realizing that he had no family left alive; Dean knew it too.
It hurt, and it threatened to shake everything apart, but it wasn’t all consuming. Not if he didn’t want it to be. Sam thought of Bobby and his phone calls that somehow always managed to come when Sam was feeling so very alone. Of Dean, hedonistic, pie-loving Dean who’d run through a burning wood and never looked back because his grandmother had begged him not to. Sam didn’t want the grief to devour him. He didn’t want to be swallowed in the hunt. He didn’t want to be like his dad.
In the shadows by the camp, the Wendigo’s wolf howl echoed.
They were up with the first rays of the sun, an unsatisfying and bland breakfast washed down with too-strong coffee cooked over the fire they’d taken turns nursing all night. Sam took down the tent as Dean cleaned up the dishes and re-packed their bags.
The wendigo had stayed close through the night and Sam had kept his flare gun close to hand, even though the protective markings he’d etched around the camp seemed to be doing their job. Wendigos could be killed by fire, and after a bit of argument regarding method, they’d settled on the flares, trusting that a relatively controlled burst was a better bet, considering they’d be in the middle of the woods and it hadn’t been raining so much in the passed week.
“This way,” Dean said, after pausing for a moment to scent the air. Sam nodded and fell into step silently, his ears straining.
They were walking in the opposite direction from the rocky outcrop that the map indicated housed a series of caves. Sam had assumed the wendigo would prefer to make its layer in one of those caves because of the added security they offered. Not that he was an expert when it came to wendigos. He’d only hunted one before, and it wasn’t as if there was that many in existence. The last one had lived in a cave, but that might have been because it was Arizona, and the only other option was on the side of a cliff. Maybe preferred living conditions varied from one wendigo to the other.
They cut a zigzagging path through the brush, Dean periodically tipping his head back, his nose tilting up into the air. “Is that a track?” Sam said, slowing his steps as he pointed out the way the grass just ahead seemed dull.
Dean bent down to peer at it, but quickly dismissed it. “It’s old.”
Sam caught a closer look at it as he passed and thought that, no, it was not such a very old track at all. He cast a look at Dean, but the other man was paused up ahead, his eyebrow raised expectantly like he was waiting for Sam to catch-up.
When Sam fell back into step with him, Dean started up a steady monologue that started with an account of his first shift, when the fullness of the moon compelled the change and he’d raced through the woods and it had taken the elders three days to convince him to return to his human shape. Most of the stories, Sam realized, involved the forest, or camping, so Dean must have figured they were relevant or on-topic, despite being in the middle of a hunt and very much in danger.
By the time Sam realized Dean was picking his way, slowly and circuitously, to the lookout point that one of the rangers had spoken of the other day, when Sam and Dean had been getting their pass into the park. The vague suspicion he had been harboring began to solidify, and Sam found himself picking his way with greater confidence.
The trees began to thin somewhat, and to the right, there was a steady, though smooth incline, and when he was more or less satisfied with the flatness of the terrain, Sam called a halt so he could fish his water from the backpack and Dean tipped his head to the left where the ground sloped upward. “I’m gonna check that ridge over there, see what I can see.”
Sam frowned. “Don’t wander off too far. And if you taken and eaten alive, try to leave a bread crumb trail or something.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “There won’t be any need for you to play Gretel to my Hansel. The thing’s far away.”
Grabbing up a bottle of water, Sam tipped his body gratefully against a tree trunk and took a long sip, allowing himself a moment of rest. “Sam!” Dean called, and Sam jerked his head up.
“What?” He was already re-capping the bottle and stuffing it back into his bag.
“You gotta check this out!”
Sam rolled his eyes as he started walking, his arms worming the backpack into place. “This better be good,” he muttered, only to be slammed sideways and have the breath knocked out of him.
A gaunt, sallow figure loomed above him, its body stretched and skin leached of color like a rotted fish. It snarled, a warm puff of rancid breath across Sam’s face, as he lay there, back bowed awkwardly over his backpack, with food containers digging sharply into his spine. Sam twisted his arm round, tried to pull the gun from where it was tucked into his jeans but the weight of the wendigo kept him pinned.
Its mouth drew uncomfortably close and Sam flailed for the gun, hoping to dislodge the creature just enough so he could reach that little bit further. Then the creature’s body jerked sideways, leaving room for Sam to curse and scramble up, freeing his arms from his heavy pack as he grabbed for the flare gun.
The thing was hissing and issuing a shrill screaming keen as it wriggled and kicked, but Dean more or less had it pinned, the wendigo’s mouth held firmly between long canine teeth. “I can’t shoot it like that,” Sam said, trying to find an opening that didn’t put Dean at risk. Dean shifted and growled a warning, and Sam braced himself, aiming the flair and holding perfectly still, waiting.
The second Dean released his grip the wendigo was a blur of motion, vaulting to its feet and rushing to climb the nearest tree. Dean bit down on the closest part of the thing he could reach, a flailing foot. Sam fired, and the thing dropped back to the ground in a flaming, convulsing mass before crumbling up into dust.
Sam spent a few moments panting, wiping the hand that still clutched the flare gun across his mouth in case the wendigo had managed to drool on him. He cast a narrow-eyed look toward the wolf. “Did you know the whole time that he was following us?”
“The scent markers I was following the other day were all messed up. He must have realized how we were able to track him. What with the little show he gave us last night, I figured he would take the bait if we walked on by; less chance anyone else might get hurt, in case he has kept someone alive.”
Sam nodded and then tucked the flare gun into his pack, which he drew back onto his shoulders. The wolf followed as he crested the ridge that Dean had disappeared over, supposedly to see if there was a suitable lookout.
As it turned out, there was quite a view from the little rocky ledge, but Sam barely noted it as he gathered up Dean’s clothes that were strewn in contained chaos across the dirt. The wolf sat and watched the process. “How did you know?” Dean asked. “That it was coming, I mean.”
Sam snorted. “You were monologuing the whole way,” Sam said wryly. “Story after story about being in the woods, tracking things, hunting things. Plus we were heading in the opposite direction from the most likely place for the thing to establish a lair. I assumed you were trying to tell me something. Trap’s not much good if you sit down and lay it all out within earshot of the thing you’re trying to bait. I figured I’d just follow your lead for a while.” Sam shrugged. “Separating? Going to check out a view? Yeah, I knew something was up.”
“Are you gonna change back?” he asked, after a moment. The wolf seemed to consider the question before indicating that he would prefer to revert his human form, so Sam dropped the pile of clothes he’d collected by a tree whose branches were hanging low enough to offer a bit of privacy. “I’ll give you a moment, then.”
It didn’t take long before Dean, fully dressed and shouldering into his own pack, stepped back into view. “Okay, let’s check out those caves. They’re definitely where that thing was living. The stench was overpoweringly strong that way.”
The tromp back was quiet and Sam tried to brace himself for what he was likely to find. For all the horror stories he had heard from hunters about taking down a wendigo, it had been simple enough with only himself and Dean. He hoped their luck would hold just a little longer, and they’d find only survivors when they reach the lair.
His hopes fell when they reached the cave, the outside of which was decorated by bleached bones they had to pick their way through. Inside, a recent kill waited for them, blood and flesh scattered in a circle around a cavern of ribcage.
“Come on,” Dean said, with his nose tucked into his raised elbow trying to block out the smell, as they pressed further inward. “That’s not all the bodies.”
The cave opened up into a large chamber, where four more bodies were hanging from hooks, like pork slung-up in a walk in freezer. Sam grimaced and made a mental tally - all the missing staff and campers accounted for, then his eyes widened: one was breathing, his chest slowly rising and falling despite the wide gash across his belly.
“Holy shit,” Dean said, already climbing up to work the chains loose on one of the bodies. Three of the four, two boys and a girl were alive. The last had been bled to death, but it was better than Sam had been expecting.
“You’re okay, dude,” Dean was saying, as he helped the last kid down. “You’re safe. What’s your name?”
“Thomas Mitchells,” he said. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d make it. I didn’t think any of us would survive.” Dean was flashing a wide grin over at Sam, and Sam couldn’t bite down on a bubbling laugh, the rush of adrenaline and the success of a hunt finished and with survivors no less, filling him up.
“Dude,” Dean said, his grin wide and pleased as he followed Sam down the steps. “She gave us pie.”
“Yes, Dean,” Sam said, long-sufferingly. “She did give us pie.”
“This is awesome. I love this. No one ever gave me pie when I hunted before.” Sam knew Dean said ‘before’ and meant, with Gordon. Walker hadn’t seemed a terribly pleasant hunter in Sam’s opinion, and he doubted that the man ever attempted to play a sympathetic or even remotely compassionate role when he interviewed any person about a hunt.
Even if Gordon had been the sort of person to inspire a sense of gratitude in anyone he helped, Sam didn’t really have the heart to tell Dean that no one was likely to give a wolf a fresh baked pie.
“I got a biscuit once,” Dean was saying. “A dog biscuit,” he wrinkled his nose. “Let me tell you, it’s not the same.”
Sam chuckled as he slid behind the wheel of the Impala, glancing over at Dean who was still clutching the apple pie like it was some sort of treasure. Dean glanced over. “I guess you’re not much of a pie man.”
“Pie’s fine,” Sam said.
“Fine?” Dean snorted, like Sam’s utter lack of enthusiasm when it came to all things pie-related was somehow sacrilegious. “Maybe you would have preferred something else,” Dean said, his voice gone sly and teasing and Sam prepared himself for whatever might come next. “Bet Thomas Mitchells could have come up with a way to say thank-you that you might have enjoyed.”
“What?” Sam squeaked, his voice rising embarrassingly high as the statement, despite his attempt at mental preparation, took him completely by surprise.
“He sure had the hots for you, Sammy,” Dean continued, teasing. “I could smell it all over him.”
“You can smell that?” Sam asked, his voice going somewhat shrill. He cleared his throat and said, “Seriously?”
“Dude,” Dean said, his left eyebrow quirking upward as he cast a lingering look Sam’s way. “You’d be surprised.” Sam turned over the engine and concentrated very hard on pulling out into traffic, trying to ignore the sudden hotness in his cheeks that he knew meant he was flushed.
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|<< END PART THREE (A) >>|
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