The Killing Moon
9. Whistle and I'll Come to You
All they can see from the camp is the crazed turmoil of bushes and trees shaking, but Sam can hear his brother shouting and that's enough. He leaps to his feet, is tackled and brought crashing down by Bobby, and has such a sense of déjà vu it makes his head swim.
"Oh no you don't," Bobby growls into his face. "You stay inside the circle, boy. Your brother can handle it."
Sam struggles wildly, tries to buck Bobby off, yells for his brother. He's tossing Bobby about like the old man's a ship on stormy seas, vaguely hears him shout, "I ain't losin' both of you, kid."
And then he sees a rock hard fist flying down and knows no more.
Running through these woods is getting fuckin' old, Dean thinks as he sprints after the thing he barely glimpsed as it grabbed Hudak and lifted her up as easily as if it were swinging a toddler onto its shoulders. And he knows there isn't a hope in hell of catching the thing, that it's too far ahead, and that he's been running for a couple of miles and Sam and Bobby are too far behind to be any use, assuming they're stupid enough to follow, but he runs so fast his leg burns and still he runs, heaving in painful breaths.
He hears the dogs, no, no fuckin' dogs, keep it together, pathetic fuckin' drunk, thinks that maybe if he hadn't been wallowing in his own self-pity he'd have known the feeling of being watched meant exactly that, and if he hadn't been terrorizing the woman the way Lee had terrorized him, scared yet, Gabe?, maybe he'd have seen something, some clue, maybe he'd have noticed the dead zone, the petrified stillness, if he hadn't been up in her face giving it that. He hollers her name at the top of his lungs, shouts at the damn thing to come back here right now, fucker, as if it ever would, but he can't hear the noise any more and it's so far ahead he knows he'll never catch it and he'll never find her on time, and he-
-trips over something lying in the dirt, slams down in a belly flop that knocks what little air is left in his lungs right out, and jagged pain shoots through his ribcage. He pushes up on his hands and hears frenzied clicking, shakes his head to get some sense back in there and realizes it's Hudak he tripped over.
Her teeth are chattering, and she picks herself up and wobbles over to collapse down on her butt beside a tree as Dean pushes up to his hands and knees, and then he sees her look past him, sees her eyes widen in horror. He doesn't look back at what he knows is right there, he crabs his way over to the woman, wraps his arms around her, tries to hide her from it, pressing her into the bark, so close now he can feel her breath on his left cheek and hear her teeth even louder as her jaws clack out her fear like morse code. He can feel every hair stand on end, feel his skin crawl, knows it's as close to him as he is to Hudak, and on his right cheek he can feel stinking, searing, brimstone breath.
He doesn't look at it, but he can see that Hudak is doing just that, gazing at primeval, monstrous death as it reaches out, wrapping long fingers around her arm and tugging, almost gentle, trying to ease her out from behind him. Dean holds her even tighter, won't let it have her, and she can't tear her eyes away from it; he can see that she's fascinated, repelled and horrified all at the same time, because it's looming up in his peripheral vision and he can see that it's studying, examining, analyzing. It's intelligent, and now it's cocking its head to consider Dean, squinting as its eyes bore into his, and he winces, squeezes them shut.
The thing growls, starts to pull harder at her arm, starts to fucking insist, and Dean thinks she might be muttering at him not to let it take her. He feels her tremors, feels the panicked flutter of her eyelashes on her skin, feels her fear and loathing. He slides his hand up her body, and he's sorry, so, so sorry, because Bobby and Sam are never going to get there on time.
"Kathleen, ssshhhhh," he soothes in the barest whisper, as he tenderly presses cold steel up under her chin, because it doesn't kill you, it keeps you alive, and then it eats you piece by piece, a bite at a time.
He will never let that happen.
"It's fine," he breathes, while its eyes burn into his cheek. "It'll be fine…"
He shifts his face just fractionally, so his forehead is pressed against hers and her eyes are even closer than before, locked on his. She creeps a hand up, folds her fingers around his wrist, and her grip is rock steady.
"It's okay," Dean murmurs again, and she closes her eyes.
"Kin…"
Because it is intelligent, and it can speak. Not just mimic.
Hudak blinks her eyes wide open again, her vision tracking to Dean's right, where the thing is nestling its head on his shoulder.
Its breath is moist on the hinge of his jaw, and Dean feels his stomach do a slow barrel roll as it flicks out a wet, fleshy tongue to touch his cheek, trail along it, taste. He's only waiting for it to lay his spine open to the bone, but it isn't doing that at all. Instead, it's tracing the tip of a claw along his jawbone, it's turning his head, and it's staring, Christ, longingly into his eyes as it speaks again, a low, drawn-out, mournful and unearthly whisper-rasp that he thinks sounds almost like him.
"Kin…"
And it whirls and is gone so fast he barely sees it move.
They sit, and Dean clings to her, and his can hear his breath puff out in tiny, whistling gasps. And Hudak carefully eases his hand, the gun, down from under her chin, maneuvers his arm over to the right.
Dean cries out harshly, involuntarily, drops the weapon and scuttles away from her on his butt, frantically scrubbing the thing's slimed-on mark off his cheek as his guts cramp energetically and he retches into the dirt, gut-wrenching dry heaves.
After he's finished he reaches a hand up, rubs his belly, spits lumps before he can speak. "I'm sorry," he husks out. "I'm sorry I scared you before. DTs…"
Hudak's voice is dry and faint. "Dean. Don't be so fucking ridiculous."
He smiles, sort of, but he can feel himself shaking as she stares at him, whitefaced.
"We're alive," she chokes out, in sheer disbelief. "We're alive. But what the fuck was that?"
"Wendigo," he says, and he spits again.
"That's not what I meant," she says. "What the fuck was that?"
He flops back onto his butt, shrugs, helpless. "Adoption?"
She shakes her head. "It knew you, Dean. It knew you."
"That's not possible," Dean protests, but they can't hear him over their excited back-and-forth babble.
"Kin? It said kin?"
"Yeah. It was studying him, creepy as hell, like it had him under a microscope or something…"
"And you say it licked him?"
"Yeah, stuck out its tongue, Christ it was black, dripping with this slime, and it was like it tasted him or something…"
"And it said kin?"
"When it licked him, was it like it was marking him or something? Like territorial pissing?"
"Yeah, and its eyes, they were like, on fire, all red, glowing, and it stared at him like it was staring right into his soul…"
"Kin? Why would it say kin?"
"Well, you tell me, I mean, you know more about this than I do…"
"Did it sniff him, breathe in his scent?"
It's garbled, Dean can't keep track of it, and it's getting muffled because he's pressing his palms up to his ears.
"Kin… that don't make a lick of sense…"
"Unless! Unless!"
"Well, what?"
"They turn into monsters because of the cannibalism, don't they? And the Benders fed him human flesh, so maybe…"
And Dean thinks, don't you see me, don't you know I can hear you, hear everything, don't you know what you're saying, what it's doing to me? He bolts, sprints for his pack, hears his brother call his name.
"Dean, what, what's up, you okay?"
And now he is, now that he's feverishly unscrewing the cap, feeling the hot burn of it blister its way down his throat and-
"Oh no you don't, boy."
Bobby snatches the bottle, hurls it against a tree, where it smashes into pieces, the booze trickling down.
Dean finds he's aghast, can't believe it. "What the fuck? Why would you-"
"Because you aren't getting hammered this time, kid," Bobby barks, and his voice is firm, brooking no damn argument. "I told you. It stops. I am not interested in finding you choked to death on your own vomit."
"But-"
"But nothing," Bobby cuts him off. "I don't care if the damn thing proposed marriage and wants a fuckin' Peewee league's worth of kids with you. There will be no drinking on this hunt. No more drinking, period."
Dean bounces up onto his feet without even thinking, is full sure he might even be baring his teeth as scorching, bitter fury bubbles up like lava, fit to blow the top of his head off. "Why should I-"
"Because the words left my fuckin' mouth, Dean," Bobby roars then. "That's why. And because I'm sick of seeing this play out every single night, you drinking yourself into a coma, taking damn crank on top of it-"
Dean howls out some noise he knows can't even be described as words because it's incoherent, unintelligible, and he slams into Bobby, feels him sway with the force but somehow find his balance. The rock-hard impact of the old man's knuckles on his jaw is so much more than the sheer force of the blow that sends him sprawling in the dirt, because in twenty years Bobby has never laid a finger on him in anger.
He spits blood, stares up, and Bobby's expression is appalled, stunned, shattered disbelief.
"Dean, son-"
And Dean erupts, spewing flame and ash. "Yeah, you beat it out of me!" he hollers, as he pushes up, starts towards Bobby again, sees him hold out his arms, palms up in a gesture of surrender. "Whup me good, stick it to me like that sonofabitch did, teach me a fuckin' lesson-"
"You've had worse fuckin' ideas lately!" Bobby shouts back.
The minute the words leave the old man's mouth Dean can see Bobby realize what he's said and regret it but he can't stop himself, and it scathes out of him, a torrent of rage. "You got no idea. I'm stuck in this, you're on the outside looking in, you got no fuckin' clue, old man." He stabs a finger at his brother. "Neither does he. I'm stuck in it, Lee fuckin' Bender, the extended dance mix, every time I close my fuckin' eyes, and I can't sleep, I need some sleep, but old Lee, he's the gift that keeps on giving…"
He can hear his voice falter and trip over itself, gone breathless and hoarse, "Just please let me, let me fuckin' go, give me the red pill this time and let me out, out, let me be." He stops a foot away, fists his hands over his eyes. "You're not my dad," he chokes out. "You're not my dad." He can feel his knees buckle, knows he's starting the slow, hopeless slide down, and Bobby reaches out and catches him and hugs him close and tight in the warm circle of his arms, and he's safe and maybe soon it'll be over. "I want it to be over," he mutters, scrubbing his eyes hard with the heels of his hands. "Bobby. Bobby. Dad."
The old man hugs him close. "I got you, son. I got you," he croons. "Bobby's here, I got you…"
Sam is frozen in place as Bobby jerks his head, motions towards the fire, Dean still slumped in his arms. "We need to get him lying down, he's lost his legs," he says softly.
Sam shakes himself back into motion, starts towards his brother, eases an arm under Dean as Bobby starts to walk him over to the fire and Hudak throws down a bedroll.
And that's when it floats in: the voice, the voice of something dead and rotting, and in the same instant, Sam feels Dean suddenly tense under his hand. Sam flinches, can't believe it. He knows damn well he killed him, sank the knife in, twisted it, felt the crunch. And then it dawns on him.
They mimic human voices.
"Fuck," he breathes. "That thing is using Bender's voice."
And from what Sam remembers, it's damned note-perfect as it grinds out of the monster, Gabe what the fuck you doin' boy, Gabe get it done boy, hey Gabe don't make me mad at you boy, you scared yet Gabe, teach you a fuckin' lesson, that feel good purty boy, you like it when ole Lee does that…
Dean is still for a few seconds and then he explodes in a frenzy of flying fists and feet, and choked-out distress. An accidental backhander sends Sam flying, and Bobby, still gripping Dean tight, collapses down on to his butt, Dean struggling on top.
"Knock him out!" Bobby yells. "Do something, I can't hold on, knock him the fuck out, now!"
Dean is wriggling free, about to rabbit, and Hudak throws herself across his legs, but just as Sam's leaning over, fist pulled back, his brother saves him the trouble and slumps into a dead faint, head lolling on Bobby's thigh.
And it's quiet again.
Except for Lee Bender's voice.
Why are sounds louder at night, Hudak wonders, and she thinks that maybe it's because she's alone in the tent. It damn well isn't her imagination, she knows, because the sounds pierce through the blanket she has clutched to her ears as if the thing is standing right next to her speaking through a megaphone.
She muses that it must be because there's less ambient noise at night, so the cricket chorus has no competition and when some intruder wanders too close and the chirping stops, the lightest tread of paw and fall of hoof can be clearly heard. And it has always been a comfort and she has lain here in the woods too many times to count, feeling a connection with nature, feeling like she's a part of something bigger than her life.
Sounds are louder at night.
Especially these sounds.
Fuck connecting with nature. "Christ," she mutters. "Stop. Please stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
Sounds are louder at night.
Lee please stop-stop-stop-stop…
Her tears soak the blanket.
Sam stares down at his dad's journal, studies the crazy stick man who walks like an Egyptian across the center of the page, shivers as Hudak's account of how the thing marked its territory on his brother resounds in his head. He's on a learning curve, fast finding out a lot more than he wanted to know about wendigos and way more than his dad wrote down in the urgent, crammed-in blocked print that spills off the pages.
The canvas walls of the tent aren't enough to block out the noise and he's had an awful sick flutter in his gut for the last three hours as it transpires that his dad was wrong. Wendigos don't just mimic voices. It turns out that wendigos can mimic desperate cries, muffled whimpers, agonized gasps, frantic struggling, the thud of fists on flesh, strained grunts of effort, hoarse groans of release and even shell-shocked silence before it starts up again, all performed in glorious surround-sound.
It's dialogue now, not the one-sided conversation from Dean's - Gabe's - dreams. It's the missing half of the equation, with all the extra sound effects; it fills in the gaps, and Sam thinks how unbelievably stupid he was to have longed to know, to have thought for even one minute that it might help him understand what happened, help Dean, when there is no comprehending it. There is only confusion, horror and despair, broken occasionally by imitation-Missy's voice floating in, high-pitched protests, and isn't it just the pip that the brat who tried to drag his brother to Hell with her had tried to protect him from her own brother's attacks.
And fuck, the worse thing of all: Sam-help-Sam-help-Sam-help-Sam-Sam-Sam, a dull, hopeless monotone muttered out at full volume in his brother's voice, because in the midst of all that misery and terror Gabe had somehow been Dean, and had called for him. Not for the fucking dog. For him. Because Sam knows exactly what it sounds like when his brother calls for him in his suffering, and some small part of him has always wanted to know if it happened in these woods. Now he knows for sure, and so help him, he wants to file a retraction. Because the truth hurts, hurts so damn much he wants to weep from it.
Bobby sticks his head through the tent flap, face drawn, glances immediately at Dean, who's still dead to the world. To all intents and purposes he's sleeping like baby, features smooth and relaxed, free of all tension in a way they haven't been since he was lying half-dead at the Bender farm.
"He showing any signs of coming round?" the old man whispers.
Sam shakes his head, whispers back. "Is this normal sleep, you think? He seems so peaceful…" He wants to think that some benefit might come from his brother's collapse, that he might wake up renewed somehow, as if a few hours of sleep can equip him with the defenses he's going to need to withstand the constant looped playback of Bender's assaults.
Bobby shrugs, helpless. "I don't know, kid. Jesus, I hope it is and that he stays out of it till the damn thing's gone."
"Do you think it will go?" Sam says, suddenly appalled at the thought this might possibly go on twenty four-seven. "It's just… it seems like it's doing it for a reason. Not to lure him out - if it wanted him it would have taken him earlier, don't you think?"
Bobby considers. "These things are sadistic, Sam. They use the mimicry to deliberately taunt, to terrify, to drive their victims insane precisely so they'll lose it and race out there into the woods, right where they can grab them. But, God knows, I have no clue why it didn't do that when it had him right under its nose."
Sam chews the inside of his cheek, thinks. "Do you think it could be trying to communicate with him?"
The old man sighs deeply. "I haven't got a clue, boy. Must've missed the National Geographic special on wendigos. But why would it want to communicate? Makes no sense." He pulls off his cap, swipes his sleeve across his brow. "I'm just hoping the thing'll get tired and piss off, to be honest, so we can regroup and get your brother out of here come daylight. I don't give a damn if it's trying to reach out and touch someone."
He pulls his cap back on, tugs it down. "Listen Sam," he says then, voice steady. "Dean absolutely cannot hear this. If he starts coming round, you need to put him back out again. If that's a problem for you, then you call me the minute he moves or makes a sound. I will not have him listening to this, even if I have to knock him into next week to make sure he doesn't."
Sam nods, even if the thought of it makes him feel even sicker. "But Bobby," he hisses as the man backs out. "At some point he's… I mean - we can't keep knocking him out. At some point, he's going to hear it."
Bobby stares back and his eyes are defeated. "I know. But not tonight, Sam. Not tonight."
Hudak has been trying to sleep, ends up pulling her bedroll out of her tent and outside, right up next to the fire's comforting glow, Bobby a reassuring presence close by.
The old man leans over, throws a handful of twigs on the fire and it crackles in glee, sending sparks up into the trees. He's making as much noise as he can, pottering, rustling, snapping the kindling as he tries to drown out some of the worst of it.
She pulls rolled up wads of tissue paper out of her ears, looks out into the woods "I wish I'd brought my earplugs," she mutters. "This is… it's… it's private. Should be private. He seems like Dean guards his privacy. Christ. How the hell is he going to cope with this, that we know. Instead of just know."
And right on cue, another loop starts up, a three-hander this time, teach you a lesson Gabe, no Lee please don't Lee no, Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam, leave him be Lee you're hurtin' him, teach you a lesson Gabe, Sam please help Sam-Sam-Sam…
Bobby can take no more, jumps to his feet. "Shut the fuck up," he shouts out into the trees, and a split second later his voice floats into the camp from outside as the thing executes a perverse backatcha and tells him to shut the fuck up himself. "Christ," he mutters, sitting down heavily. "Thing has a sense of humor. That's all we need."
Sam pokes his head out of the tent, squinting in the dark. "Bobby? Bobby?" he hisses. "Are you-" He stops as he sees the old man still close by. "Jesus. Don't do that. I thought you'd gone out there after it."
Bobby grimaces. "Sorry, kid," He looks from Sam to Hudak. "That was monumentally fuckin' stupid," he concedes ruefully. "It has my voice now, could use it against us."
Hudak considers for a minute. "So no heckling the wendigo, I guess."
It's singing now, a soaring cover version of Dean's acid trip from the Benders' camp so many weeks before, and they all look at each other, three sets of eyes locking simultaneously.
"It was there all along," Sam breathes. "It was stalking them. Watching them." He shakes his head, backs into the tent again.
"It's watching him now," Hudak says uneasily. "Watching all of us. I can feel it looking right at us." She shudders, turns onto her side, pushes up onto her elbow. "What Dean said about this thing, Bobby… how much of that was true? I mean, I know he was dicking me around some."
"That he was," Bobby allows. "Like I said, Stephen King version, but essentially it was all true far as we know. Though I don't go with the woods spirit theory."
"But it has - superpowers? Can it do all those things he said it could? Run that fast? Is it always hungry?" Hudak bites her lip as she recalls the thing squatting down behind Dean, the way it grinned at her, its fangs dripping, the way it studied Dean, the way it absorbed itself in him its eyes roaming over his face almost hungrily. "Christ, Bobby. I think I must be having some sort of delayed shock reaction or something. I think I was so fascinated by this thing and what it was doing, I didn't even register what I was really looking at."
Bobby snorts. "Don't get too fascinated, Kathleen. It craves flesh, just like Dean said… it's insatiable, and it'll go to any lengths to get it. It's the perfect predator - speed, endurance, infrared fuckin' vision, for Christ's sake. I've heard tell its ears are so keen it can hear the beating of its victim's heart, hear the blood pumping in their veins. Lore is they can uproot trees, call up ice storms, tornadoes even."
He falls silent for a minute, stares at the flames, and they both notice at the same time that the night is quiet.
"Do you think it's-"
But it hasn't.
Please Lee please stop don't please, Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam…
"Christ," Bobby breathes. "Thing can throw its voice like Shari fuckin' Lewis. Well, fuck off, Lamb Chop. Fuck right off."
His voice is a strangled mix of rage, hurt and grief, and for the first time it suddenly occurs to Hudak that while she's been sitting here with her gut curling in sympathy for Sam having to listen to his brother's rape, Bobby has been effectively listening to his son's. "Bobby," she starts. "I know this must-"
"No. Don't." A muscle jumps in his cheek. "I'm handling it. I am. Just the sitting here, waiting for sunup, it's - time wasted."
She swallows. "Will it go when the sun comes up?"
He shrugs. "It should. They're creatures of the dark, the sun burns their eyes, burns their skin. Like vampires."
"You're saying vampires are real?" she pokes softly.
It's weak at best, but Bobby smiles. "Best time to track the thing is the day, but we'll need to get Dean back to town first. Sam and me can deal with it."
Hudak glances away from the fire into the inky blackness of the woods. "Where does it go in the day?"
"They like it underground," Bobby says. "It'll be holed up in the mines, most likely. We'll track it down, don't worry."
Hudak knows she's gaping. "The Mesabi iron range? That's over a hundred miles long, Bobby, and three miles wide - how can you possibly hope to find this thing? It'll be like searching for a needle in a haystack."
"Yup, but most of it's open pit," he says. "Not too many deep mines, but they're all in this area. It's where I was hunting this thing when I saw Dean after Bender snatched him."
Hudak wonders for a minute if it was Bender who killed the other hikers at all. "This thing, if it's been out here all along I guess it could have killed those hikers before. And not Bender."
"It's possible," Bobby says after a second or two. "But your G-man buddies found wendigo and human teethmarks on those bones."
She sighs. "I was just sort of hoping. That maybe if this thing killed them then maybe he didn't… they didn't… feed him that." She shudders, glances up to where the moonlight is bathing the night in a ghostly reddish glow. "Red moon," she says. "It's like it's an omen or something."
"Hunters call it the killing moon," Bobby remarks. "Red lightwaves pass easier through the atmosphere. Makes the moon look red sometimes. Blue don't pass as easy, gets scattered. That's what makes the sky blue." He throws more twigs on the fire. "Could be a problem for us. Wendigo lore says the thing goes back to sleep in the time of the killing moon… could be months or years before it wakes up again."
Hudak sits up, pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "You know, Dean held onto me, Bobby, and it wanted me, pulled at me, and he wouldn't let go," she murmurs. "Its claws… it could have cut him in half with a single swipe, and its fangs, Jesus. It could have sunk them right through his skull with no effort whatsoever. But it didn't." Her throat is dry, voice thick with sheer horror. "Christ, this thing snuggled up next to him like it just found its baby. I'm not exaggerating. It was happy to see him. I'm not imagining it, Bobby. It knew him."
She lets it hang there as Bobby stares at her.
"I know what you're thinking," he says finally. "But there is no way it's Bender. No. Way. He was dead, we both checked him. These things don't come from dead people far as I know. Something else is going on here. Maybe it's like Sam said, and it was out there watching and can sense that Dean - partook of the flesh, so to speak. Or it saw him do it."
Hudak snorts as she considers it. "So if we could just find one of these dead hikers and snack off them it would be like immunization or something. That's a comforting thought. Or maybe we could each sacrifice a finger. Or maybe just you and Sam could. Sam eats yours, we share Sam's. Would a sliver of flesh do, you think? Or just blood? We could-"
"You think too much, Kathleen."
She rolls her eyes, concedes, and right on cue, it starts the next verse.
Don't hurt me Lee please no, get over here boy, leave him be, no-no-no…
And then it's quiet, and the abruptly choked-off despair hits Hudak square in the chest and hurts like she imagines a bullet would, because it's so clear what the silence implies.
"Coffee's ready," Bobby says softly, hooks the pot off the flames and pours the contents into a couple of tin mugs. "We might as well be wide awake." He passes her cup over, and his hand is shaking.
"Sounds seem so much louder at night," she says bleakly.
"It's cooler," Bobby says. "Cool air bends sounds back down towards the land, right into your ears. Daytime's warmer so the sound goes up over your head, over your ears." He sees the look she throws him. "Sam asked a heck of a lot of questions when he was a kid."
She warms her hands on the cup, sips. "Bobby. If this thing was - well, if it had you. If you had a choice. And you had a gun. Would you… so it wouldn't… would you…"
"Blow my own head off to avoid getting eaten piece by piece?" he says, his voice almost placid. "In a heartbeat."
"Would you kill one of us?" Hudak presses. "For the same reason? If it had us? Would, uh, would Dean do it, you think? Kill one of us so that thing wouldn't-"
"Why are you asking me that, Kathleen?" he cuts in, his eyes narrowing suddenly. "Did something happen out there to make you ask me that?"
Hudak takes a sip of her coffee, and she can still feel the press of cold metal against the underside of her chin. "No reason," she says. "Nothing happened."
She thinks maybe he knows she's lying.
Next
All they can see from the camp is the crazed turmoil of bushes and trees shaking, but Sam can hear his brother shouting and that's enough. He leaps to his feet, is tackled and brought crashing down by Bobby, and has such a sense of déjà vu it makes his head swim.
"Oh no you don't," Bobby growls into his face. "You stay inside the circle, boy. Your brother can handle it."
Sam struggles wildly, tries to buck Bobby off, yells for his brother. He's tossing Bobby about like the old man's a ship on stormy seas, vaguely hears him shout, "I ain't losin' both of you, kid."
And then he sees a rock hard fist flying down and knows no more.
Running through these woods is getting fuckin' old, Dean thinks as he sprints after the thing he barely glimpsed as it grabbed Hudak and lifted her up as easily as if it were swinging a toddler onto its shoulders. And he knows there isn't a hope in hell of catching the thing, that it's too far ahead, and that he's been running for a couple of miles and Sam and Bobby are too far behind to be any use, assuming they're stupid enough to follow, but he runs so fast his leg burns and still he runs, heaving in painful breaths.
He hears the dogs, no, no fuckin' dogs, keep it together, pathetic fuckin' drunk, thinks that maybe if he hadn't been wallowing in his own self-pity he'd have known the feeling of being watched meant exactly that, and if he hadn't been terrorizing the woman the way Lee had terrorized him, scared yet, Gabe?, maybe he'd have seen something, some clue, maybe he'd have noticed the dead zone, the petrified stillness, if he hadn't been up in her face giving it that. He hollers her name at the top of his lungs, shouts at the damn thing to come back here right now, fucker, as if it ever would, but he can't hear the noise any more and it's so far ahead he knows he'll never catch it and he'll never find her on time, and he-
-trips over something lying in the dirt, slams down in a belly flop that knocks what little air is left in his lungs right out, and jagged pain shoots through his ribcage. He pushes up on his hands and hears frenzied clicking, shakes his head to get some sense back in there and realizes it's Hudak he tripped over.
Her teeth are chattering, and she picks herself up and wobbles over to collapse down on her butt beside a tree as Dean pushes up to his hands and knees, and then he sees her look past him, sees her eyes widen in horror. He doesn't look back at what he knows is right there, he crabs his way over to the woman, wraps his arms around her, tries to hide her from it, pressing her into the bark, so close now he can feel her breath on his left cheek and hear her teeth even louder as her jaws clack out her fear like morse code. He can feel every hair stand on end, feel his skin crawl, knows it's as close to him as he is to Hudak, and on his right cheek he can feel stinking, searing, brimstone breath.
He doesn't look at it, but he can see that Hudak is doing just that, gazing at primeval, monstrous death as it reaches out, wrapping long fingers around her arm and tugging, almost gentle, trying to ease her out from behind him. Dean holds her even tighter, won't let it have her, and she can't tear her eyes away from it; he can see that she's fascinated, repelled and horrified all at the same time, because it's looming up in his peripheral vision and he can see that it's studying, examining, analyzing. It's intelligent, and now it's cocking its head to consider Dean, squinting as its eyes bore into his, and he winces, squeezes them shut.
The thing growls, starts to pull harder at her arm, starts to fucking insist, and Dean thinks she might be muttering at him not to let it take her. He feels her tremors, feels the panicked flutter of her eyelashes on her skin, feels her fear and loathing. He slides his hand up her body, and he's sorry, so, so sorry, because Bobby and Sam are never going to get there on time.
"Kathleen, ssshhhhh," he soothes in the barest whisper, as he tenderly presses cold steel up under her chin, because it doesn't kill you, it keeps you alive, and then it eats you piece by piece, a bite at a time.
He will never let that happen.
"It's fine," he breathes, while its eyes burn into his cheek. "It'll be fine…"
He shifts his face just fractionally, so his forehead is pressed against hers and her eyes are even closer than before, locked on his. She creeps a hand up, folds her fingers around his wrist, and her grip is rock steady.
"It's okay," Dean murmurs again, and she closes her eyes.
"Kin…"
Because it is intelligent, and it can speak. Not just mimic.
Hudak blinks her eyes wide open again, her vision tracking to Dean's right, where the thing is nestling its head on his shoulder.
Its breath is moist on the hinge of his jaw, and Dean feels his stomach do a slow barrel roll as it flicks out a wet, fleshy tongue to touch his cheek, trail along it, taste. He's only waiting for it to lay his spine open to the bone, but it isn't doing that at all. Instead, it's tracing the tip of a claw along his jawbone, it's turning his head, and it's staring, Christ, longingly into his eyes as it speaks again, a low, drawn-out, mournful and unearthly whisper-rasp that he thinks sounds almost like him.
"Kin…"
And it whirls and is gone so fast he barely sees it move.
They sit, and Dean clings to her, and his can hear his breath puff out in tiny, whistling gasps. And Hudak carefully eases his hand, the gun, down from under her chin, maneuvers his arm over to the right.
Dean cries out harshly, involuntarily, drops the weapon and scuttles away from her on his butt, frantically scrubbing the thing's slimed-on mark off his cheek as his guts cramp energetically and he retches into the dirt, gut-wrenching dry heaves.
After he's finished he reaches a hand up, rubs his belly, spits lumps before he can speak. "I'm sorry," he husks out. "I'm sorry I scared you before. DTs…"
Hudak's voice is dry and faint. "Dean. Don't be so fucking ridiculous."
He smiles, sort of, but he can feel himself shaking as she stares at him, whitefaced.
"We're alive," she chokes out, in sheer disbelief. "We're alive. But what the fuck was that?"
"Wendigo," he says, and he spits again.
"That's not what I meant," she says. "What the fuck was that?"
He flops back onto his butt, shrugs, helpless. "Adoption?"
She shakes her head. "It knew you, Dean. It knew you."
"That's not possible," Dean protests, but they can't hear him over their excited back-and-forth babble.
"Kin? It said kin?"
"Yeah. It was studying him, creepy as hell, like it had him under a microscope or something…"
"And you say it licked him?"
"Yeah, stuck out its tongue, Christ it was black, dripping with this slime, and it was like it tasted him or something…"
"And it said kin?"
"When it licked him, was it like it was marking him or something? Like territorial pissing?"
"Yeah, and its eyes, they were like, on fire, all red, glowing, and it stared at him like it was staring right into his soul…"
"Kin? Why would it say kin?"
"Well, you tell me, I mean, you know more about this than I do…"
"Did it sniff him, breathe in his scent?"
It's garbled, Dean can't keep track of it, and it's getting muffled because he's pressing his palms up to his ears.
"Kin… that don't make a lick of sense…"
"Unless! Unless!"
"Well, what?"
"They turn into monsters because of the cannibalism, don't they? And the Benders fed him human flesh, so maybe…"
And Dean thinks, don't you see me, don't you know I can hear you, hear everything, don't you know what you're saying, what it's doing to me? He bolts, sprints for his pack, hears his brother call his name.
"Dean, what, what's up, you okay?"
And now he is, now that he's feverishly unscrewing the cap, feeling the hot burn of it blister its way down his throat and-
"Oh no you don't, boy."
Bobby snatches the bottle, hurls it against a tree, where it smashes into pieces, the booze trickling down.
Dean finds he's aghast, can't believe it. "What the fuck? Why would you-"
"Because you aren't getting hammered this time, kid," Bobby barks, and his voice is firm, brooking no damn argument. "I told you. It stops. I am not interested in finding you choked to death on your own vomit."
"But-"
"But nothing," Bobby cuts him off. "I don't care if the damn thing proposed marriage and wants a fuckin' Peewee league's worth of kids with you. There will be no drinking on this hunt. No more drinking, period."
Dean bounces up onto his feet without even thinking, is full sure he might even be baring his teeth as scorching, bitter fury bubbles up like lava, fit to blow the top of his head off. "Why should I-"
"Because the words left my fuckin' mouth, Dean," Bobby roars then. "That's why. And because I'm sick of seeing this play out every single night, you drinking yourself into a coma, taking damn crank on top of it-"
Dean howls out some noise he knows can't even be described as words because it's incoherent, unintelligible, and he slams into Bobby, feels him sway with the force but somehow find his balance. The rock-hard impact of the old man's knuckles on his jaw is so much more than the sheer force of the blow that sends him sprawling in the dirt, because in twenty years Bobby has never laid a finger on him in anger.
He spits blood, stares up, and Bobby's expression is appalled, stunned, shattered disbelief.
"Dean, son-"
And Dean erupts, spewing flame and ash. "Yeah, you beat it out of me!" he hollers, as he pushes up, starts towards Bobby again, sees him hold out his arms, palms up in a gesture of surrender. "Whup me good, stick it to me like that sonofabitch did, teach me a fuckin' lesson-"
"You've had worse fuckin' ideas lately!" Bobby shouts back.
The minute the words leave the old man's mouth Dean can see Bobby realize what he's said and regret it but he can't stop himself, and it scathes out of him, a torrent of rage. "You got no idea. I'm stuck in this, you're on the outside looking in, you got no fuckin' clue, old man." He stabs a finger at his brother. "Neither does he. I'm stuck in it, Lee fuckin' Bender, the extended dance mix, every time I close my fuckin' eyes, and I can't sleep, I need some sleep, but old Lee, he's the gift that keeps on giving…"
He can hear his voice falter and trip over itself, gone breathless and hoarse, "Just please let me, let me fuckin' go, give me the red pill this time and let me out, out, let me be." He stops a foot away, fists his hands over his eyes. "You're not my dad," he chokes out. "You're not my dad." He can feel his knees buckle, knows he's starting the slow, hopeless slide down, and Bobby reaches out and catches him and hugs him close and tight in the warm circle of his arms, and he's safe and maybe soon it'll be over. "I want it to be over," he mutters, scrubbing his eyes hard with the heels of his hands. "Bobby. Bobby. Dad."
The old man hugs him close. "I got you, son. I got you," he croons. "Bobby's here, I got you…"
Sam is frozen in place as Bobby jerks his head, motions towards the fire, Dean still slumped in his arms. "We need to get him lying down, he's lost his legs," he says softly.
Sam shakes himself back into motion, starts towards his brother, eases an arm under Dean as Bobby starts to walk him over to the fire and Hudak throws down a bedroll.
And that's when it floats in: the voice, the voice of something dead and rotting, and in the same instant, Sam feels Dean suddenly tense under his hand. Sam flinches, can't believe it. He knows damn well he killed him, sank the knife in, twisted it, felt the crunch. And then it dawns on him.
They mimic human voices.
"Fuck," he breathes. "That thing is using Bender's voice."
And from what Sam remembers, it's damned note-perfect as it grinds out of the monster, Gabe what the fuck you doin' boy, Gabe get it done boy, hey Gabe don't make me mad at you boy, you scared yet Gabe, teach you a fuckin' lesson, that feel good purty boy, you like it when ole Lee does that…
Dean is still for a few seconds and then he explodes in a frenzy of flying fists and feet, and choked-out distress. An accidental backhander sends Sam flying, and Bobby, still gripping Dean tight, collapses down on to his butt, Dean struggling on top.
"Knock him out!" Bobby yells. "Do something, I can't hold on, knock him the fuck out, now!"
Dean is wriggling free, about to rabbit, and Hudak throws herself across his legs, but just as Sam's leaning over, fist pulled back, his brother saves him the trouble and slumps into a dead faint, head lolling on Bobby's thigh.
And it's quiet again.
Except for Lee Bender's voice.
Why are sounds louder at night, Hudak wonders, and she thinks that maybe it's because she's alone in the tent. It damn well isn't her imagination, she knows, because the sounds pierce through the blanket she has clutched to her ears as if the thing is standing right next to her speaking through a megaphone.
She muses that it must be because there's less ambient noise at night, so the cricket chorus has no competition and when some intruder wanders too close and the chirping stops, the lightest tread of paw and fall of hoof can be clearly heard. And it has always been a comfort and she has lain here in the woods too many times to count, feeling a connection with nature, feeling like she's a part of something bigger than her life.
Sounds are louder at night.
Especially these sounds.
Fuck connecting with nature. "Christ," she mutters. "Stop. Please stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
Sounds are louder at night.
Lee please stop-stop-stop-stop…
Her tears soak the blanket.
Sam stares down at his dad's journal, studies the crazy stick man who walks like an Egyptian across the center of the page, shivers as Hudak's account of how the thing marked its territory on his brother resounds in his head. He's on a learning curve, fast finding out a lot more than he wanted to know about wendigos and way more than his dad wrote down in the urgent, crammed-in blocked print that spills off the pages.
The canvas walls of the tent aren't enough to block out the noise and he's had an awful sick flutter in his gut for the last three hours as it transpires that his dad was wrong. Wendigos don't just mimic voices. It turns out that wendigos can mimic desperate cries, muffled whimpers, agonized gasps, frantic struggling, the thud of fists on flesh, strained grunts of effort, hoarse groans of release and even shell-shocked silence before it starts up again, all performed in glorious surround-sound.
It's dialogue now, not the one-sided conversation from Dean's - Gabe's - dreams. It's the missing half of the equation, with all the extra sound effects; it fills in the gaps, and Sam thinks how unbelievably stupid he was to have longed to know, to have thought for even one minute that it might help him understand what happened, help Dean, when there is no comprehending it. There is only confusion, horror and despair, broken occasionally by imitation-Missy's voice floating in, high-pitched protests, and isn't it just the pip that the brat who tried to drag his brother to Hell with her had tried to protect him from her own brother's attacks.
And fuck, the worse thing of all: Sam-help-Sam-help-Sam-help-Sam-Sam-Sam, a dull, hopeless monotone muttered out at full volume in his brother's voice, because in the midst of all that misery and terror Gabe had somehow been Dean, and had called for him. Not for the fucking dog. For him. Because Sam knows exactly what it sounds like when his brother calls for him in his suffering, and some small part of him has always wanted to know if it happened in these woods. Now he knows for sure, and so help him, he wants to file a retraction. Because the truth hurts, hurts so damn much he wants to weep from it.
Bobby sticks his head through the tent flap, face drawn, glances immediately at Dean, who's still dead to the world. To all intents and purposes he's sleeping like baby, features smooth and relaxed, free of all tension in a way they haven't been since he was lying half-dead at the Bender farm.
"He showing any signs of coming round?" the old man whispers.
Sam shakes his head, whispers back. "Is this normal sleep, you think? He seems so peaceful…" He wants to think that some benefit might come from his brother's collapse, that he might wake up renewed somehow, as if a few hours of sleep can equip him with the defenses he's going to need to withstand the constant looped playback of Bender's assaults.
Bobby shrugs, helpless. "I don't know, kid. Jesus, I hope it is and that he stays out of it till the damn thing's gone."
"Do you think it will go?" Sam says, suddenly appalled at the thought this might possibly go on twenty four-seven. "It's just… it seems like it's doing it for a reason. Not to lure him out - if it wanted him it would have taken him earlier, don't you think?"
Bobby considers. "These things are sadistic, Sam. They use the mimicry to deliberately taunt, to terrify, to drive their victims insane precisely so they'll lose it and race out there into the woods, right where they can grab them. But, God knows, I have no clue why it didn't do that when it had him right under its nose."
Sam chews the inside of his cheek, thinks. "Do you think it could be trying to communicate with him?"
The old man sighs deeply. "I haven't got a clue, boy. Must've missed the National Geographic special on wendigos. But why would it want to communicate? Makes no sense." He pulls off his cap, swipes his sleeve across his brow. "I'm just hoping the thing'll get tired and piss off, to be honest, so we can regroup and get your brother out of here come daylight. I don't give a damn if it's trying to reach out and touch someone."
He pulls his cap back on, tugs it down. "Listen Sam," he says then, voice steady. "Dean absolutely cannot hear this. If he starts coming round, you need to put him back out again. If that's a problem for you, then you call me the minute he moves or makes a sound. I will not have him listening to this, even if I have to knock him into next week to make sure he doesn't."
Sam nods, even if the thought of it makes him feel even sicker. "But Bobby," he hisses as the man backs out. "At some point he's… I mean - we can't keep knocking him out. At some point, he's going to hear it."
Bobby stares back and his eyes are defeated. "I know. But not tonight, Sam. Not tonight."
Hudak has been trying to sleep, ends up pulling her bedroll out of her tent and outside, right up next to the fire's comforting glow, Bobby a reassuring presence close by.
The old man leans over, throws a handful of twigs on the fire and it crackles in glee, sending sparks up into the trees. He's making as much noise as he can, pottering, rustling, snapping the kindling as he tries to drown out some of the worst of it.
She pulls rolled up wads of tissue paper out of her ears, looks out into the woods "I wish I'd brought my earplugs," she mutters. "This is… it's… it's private. Should be private. He seems like Dean guards his privacy. Christ. How the hell is he going to cope with this, that we know. Instead of just know."
And right on cue, another loop starts up, a three-hander this time, teach you a lesson Gabe, no Lee please don't Lee no, Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam, leave him be Lee you're hurtin' him, teach you a lesson Gabe, Sam please help Sam-Sam-Sam…
Bobby can take no more, jumps to his feet. "Shut the fuck up," he shouts out into the trees, and a split second later his voice floats into the camp from outside as the thing executes a perverse backatcha and tells him to shut the fuck up himself. "Christ," he mutters, sitting down heavily. "Thing has a sense of humor. That's all we need."
Sam pokes his head out of the tent, squinting in the dark. "Bobby? Bobby?" he hisses. "Are you-" He stops as he sees the old man still close by. "Jesus. Don't do that. I thought you'd gone out there after it."
Bobby grimaces. "Sorry, kid," He looks from Sam to Hudak. "That was monumentally fuckin' stupid," he concedes ruefully. "It has my voice now, could use it against us."
Hudak considers for a minute. "So no heckling the wendigo, I guess."
It's singing now, a soaring cover version of Dean's acid trip from the Benders' camp so many weeks before, and they all look at each other, three sets of eyes locking simultaneously.
"It was there all along," Sam breathes. "It was stalking them. Watching them." He shakes his head, backs into the tent again.
"It's watching him now," Hudak says uneasily. "Watching all of us. I can feel it looking right at us." She shudders, turns onto her side, pushes up onto her elbow. "What Dean said about this thing, Bobby… how much of that was true? I mean, I know he was dicking me around some."
"That he was," Bobby allows. "Like I said, Stephen King version, but essentially it was all true far as we know. Though I don't go with the woods spirit theory."
"But it has - superpowers? Can it do all those things he said it could? Run that fast? Is it always hungry?" Hudak bites her lip as she recalls the thing squatting down behind Dean, the way it grinned at her, its fangs dripping, the way it studied Dean, the way it absorbed itself in him its eyes roaming over his face almost hungrily. "Christ, Bobby. I think I must be having some sort of delayed shock reaction or something. I think I was so fascinated by this thing and what it was doing, I didn't even register what I was really looking at."
Bobby snorts. "Don't get too fascinated, Kathleen. It craves flesh, just like Dean said… it's insatiable, and it'll go to any lengths to get it. It's the perfect predator - speed, endurance, infrared fuckin' vision, for Christ's sake. I've heard tell its ears are so keen it can hear the beating of its victim's heart, hear the blood pumping in their veins. Lore is they can uproot trees, call up ice storms, tornadoes even."
He falls silent for a minute, stares at the flames, and they both notice at the same time that the night is quiet.
"Do you think it's-"
But it hasn't.
Please Lee please stop don't please, Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam…
"Christ," Bobby breathes. "Thing can throw its voice like Shari fuckin' Lewis. Well, fuck off, Lamb Chop. Fuck right off."
His voice is a strangled mix of rage, hurt and grief, and for the first time it suddenly occurs to Hudak that while she's been sitting here with her gut curling in sympathy for Sam having to listen to his brother's rape, Bobby has been effectively listening to his son's. "Bobby," she starts. "I know this must-"
"No. Don't." A muscle jumps in his cheek. "I'm handling it. I am. Just the sitting here, waiting for sunup, it's - time wasted."
She swallows. "Will it go when the sun comes up?"
He shrugs. "It should. They're creatures of the dark, the sun burns their eyes, burns their skin. Like vampires."
"You're saying vampires are real?" she pokes softly.
It's weak at best, but Bobby smiles. "Best time to track the thing is the day, but we'll need to get Dean back to town first. Sam and me can deal with it."
Hudak glances away from the fire into the inky blackness of the woods. "Where does it go in the day?"
"They like it underground," Bobby says. "It'll be holed up in the mines, most likely. We'll track it down, don't worry."
Hudak knows she's gaping. "The Mesabi iron range? That's over a hundred miles long, Bobby, and three miles wide - how can you possibly hope to find this thing? It'll be like searching for a needle in a haystack."
"Yup, but most of it's open pit," he says. "Not too many deep mines, but they're all in this area. It's where I was hunting this thing when I saw Dean after Bender snatched him."
Hudak wonders for a minute if it was Bender who killed the other hikers at all. "This thing, if it's been out here all along I guess it could have killed those hikers before. And not Bender."
"It's possible," Bobby says after a second or two. "But your G-man buddies found wendigo and human teethmarks on those bones."
She sighs. "I was just sort of hoping. That maybe if this thing killed them then maybe he didn't… they didn't… feed him that." She shudders, glances up to where the moonlight is bathing the night in a ghostly reddish glow. "Red moon," she says. "It's like it's an omen or something."
"Hunters call it the killing moon," Bobby remarks. "Red lightwaves pass easier through the atmosphere. Makes the moon look red sometimes. Blue don't pass as easy, gets scattered. That's what makes the sky blue." He throws more twigs on the fire. "Could be a problem for us. Wendigo lore says the thing goes back to sleep in the time of the killing moon… could be months or years before it wakes up again."
Hudak sits up, pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "You know, Dean held onto me, Bobby, and it wanted me, pulled at me, and he wouldn't let go," she murmurs. "Its claws… it could have cut him in half with a single swipe, and its fangs, Jesus. It could have sunk them right through his skull with no effort whatsoever. But it didn't." Her throat is dry, voice thick with sheer horror. "Christ, this thing snuggled up next to him like it just found its baby. I'm not exaggerating. It was happy to see him. I'm not imagining it, Bobby. It knew him."
She lets it hang there as Bobby stares at her.
"I know what you're thinking," he says finally. "But there is no way it's Bender. No. Way. He was dead, we both checked him. These things don't come from dead people far as I know. Something else is going on here. Maybe it's like Sam said, and it was out there watching and can sense that Dean - partook of the flesh, so to speak. Or it saw him do it."
Hudak snorts as she considers it. "So if we could just find one of these dead hikers and snack off them it would be like immunization or something. That's a comforting thought. Or maybe we could each sacrifice a finger. Or maybe just you and Sam could. Sam eats yours, we share Sam's. Would a sliver of flesh do, you think? Or just blood? We could-"
"You think too much, Kathleen."
She rolls her eyes, concedes, and right on cue, it starts the next verse.
Don't hurt me Lee please no, get over here boy, leave him be, no-no-no…
And then it's quiet, and the abruptly choked-off despair hits Hudak square in the chest and hurts like she imagines a bullet would, because it's so clear what the silence implies.
"Coffee's ready," Bobby says softly, hooks the pot off the flames and pours the contents into a couple of tin mugs. "We might as well be wide awake." He passes her cup over, and his hand is shaking.
"Sounds seem so much louder at night," she says bleakly.
"It's cooler," Bobby says. "Cool air bends sounds back down towards the land, right into your ears. Daytime's warmer so the sound goes up over your head, over your ears." He sees the look she throws him. "Sam asked a heck of a lot of questions when he was a kid."
She warms her hands on the cup, sips. "Bobby. If this thing was - well, if it had you. If you had a choice. And you had a gun. Would you… so it wouldn't… would you…"
"Blow my own head off to avoid getting eaten piece by piece?" he says, his voice almost placid. "In a heartbeat."
"Would you kill one of us?" Hudak presses. "For the same reason? If it had us? Would, uh, would Dean do it, you think? Kill one of us so that thing wouldn't-"
"Why are you asking me that, Kathleen?" he cuts in, his eyes narrowing suddenly. "Did something happen out there to make you ask me that?"
Hudak takes a sip of her coffee, and she can still feel the press of cold metal against the underside of her chin. "No reason," she says. "Nothing happened."
She thinks maybe he knows she's lying.
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