by Tim Waggoner
“Shut up, Lori.”
The father, Darrell, kept his gaze trained on the Winchesters as he spoke to two of his companions.
“Phillip, Kate—get their machetes. Lori and I have them covered. If their hands so much as twitch, they’re dead.”
“Damn straight,” Lori said.
Phillip and Kate stepped into the circle, Phillip looking considerably less thrilled than his mother. Phillip took Sam’s machete, and Kate took Dean’s. The Mark of Cain sent a momentary jolt through Dean’s arm as the older woman pulled the machete from his hand, as if protesting the weapon’s loss. I know how you feel, Dean thought.
Phillip and Kate stepped back out of the circle, knelt, and stabbed the machetes into the ground. Then they stood and gripped their own weapons tighter.
Dean had to keep from smiling.
Mistake one: They should’ve thrown the machetes as far away as they could. Mistake two: They should’ve searched them for other weapons. Both brothers still had their guns, along with knives sheathed against the sides of their legs, hidden by their pants. Looks like these ghouls aren’t so smart after all, Dean thought.
“So you’re Phillip Carson,” Dean said to the younger man. “I’m not surprised you’re overweight. Bet you were snacking on all those organs you stole from the funeral home. What’s wrong? Don’t like the way free-range carrion tastes?”
Phillip bared yellow teeth, raised his knife, and took a step toward Dean. His mother grabbed hold of his shoulder and stopped him.
“My son strayed from the path,” Darrell said, “but he has renewed his commitment to our ways, haven’t you?”
Phillip glared at Dean, but he sounded calm enough when he answered, “Yes, Father.”
“Why did you bury these people out here?” Sam asked. “To make their… meat taste better?”
Dean knew Sam was stalling for time. No matter how intelligent supernatural beings were, they tended to be more basic than humans, almost elemental, like wild animals or forces of nature. They focused on one thing—whatever they fed on in order to prolong their unnatural lives—and that focus was often so intense it bordered on obsession. And while these ghouls were different than any the brothers had encountered before, they remained ghouls, which meant that filling their bellies was all they truly cared about.
“The meat tastes best when it dies a natural death,” Darrell said. “No disease or trauma. Plus, leaving them exposed to the elements seasons them. It gives them a nice outdoorsy taste. And this way, they get some of the toxins out of their systems before we feed. Alcohol, caffeine, drugs—both prescription and illegal—junk food… All of them spoil the flavor of the meat.”
“Meat must be untouched and must die of natural causes,” Kate said.
“Sounds like the ghoul version of kosher,” Dean said.
Dean caught his brother’s eye and gave a slight incline of his head toward the Latina woman. Sam gave an equally slight nod back. Message received.
“We’d prefer to plant you with the rest of our crop,” Darrell said. “But I think the two of you will be a lot less trouble if we just go ahead and shoot you. We won’t be able to eat you then, but that’s the way it goes. You can’t always have your meat and eat it too.” Darrell grinned. “Ready, Lori?”
Darrell glanced at Lori, and she glanced back at him—and that’s when the brothers made their move.
Dean dove forward at the same instant that Sam dove backward. Dean twisted in the air, pulled his gun from his waistband, and fired at Darrell as he hit the ground on his back. The round struck the ghoul in the middle of his chest, and he staggered backward from the impact, although he managed to maintain his grip on the shotgun. Dean knew Darrell wouldn’t go down. Ghouls weren’t only stronger and faster than humans, they were more durable too. It would take a lot worse than a single bullet to the chest to slow down a ghoul for any length of time, and no amount of bullets would kill a ghoul. Only decapitation could do that. But Dean wasn’t trying to kill Darrell. Not yet, anyway. He was trying to buy his brother time.
Dean didn’t wait to see how Darrell had reacted to his attack. Still lying on his back, he swung his gun toward Lori and fired once more. His aim was a bit off, and although he was aiming for the woman’s core, the round struck her right shoulder. She jerked back, but she didn’t stagger. She did, however, drop her 9mm, which was good. If he could grab hold of it, he would be able to fire with both hands, John Woo style.
But Kate and Phillip didn’t stand by motionless while Dean attacked their family members. They lunged toward him, Kate wielding her hand scythe, Phillip his knife. But before either of them could strike Dean, Sam shouted, “Don’t move or the meat gets it!”
All four ghouls froze, and Dean turned his head to look at his brother. Sam was crouched next to the Latina woman, the barrel of his 9mm pressed against the side of her head. The woman gasped and began whimpering.
“The meat gets it?” Dean said.
“Shut up,” Sam muttered, his gaze fixed on the Carsons. Both Darrell and Lori were bleeding from their wounds, although not as much as might have been expected. Neither seemed concerned that they’d been shot, though. They, along with Kate and Phillip, were staring at Sam with wide-eyed horror.
Dean knew Sam would never hurt an innocent, but he didn’t need to—all that mattered was that the ghouls thought he would ruin their “food,” at least long enough to give Dean a chance to act.
With the ghouls’ attention focused entirely on Sam, Dean dropped his gun to the ground, moved swiftly into a crouching position, and launched himself between Kate and Phillip. He grabbed the handle of the machete Phillip had taken from Sam and yanked it out of the ground. Once he was behind the ghouls, he turned and reached for the second machete, which was stuck in the ground between Darrell and Kate. He took hold of it with his free hand and rose to a standing position, now armed with both machetes.
The ghouls realized what was happening, but they reacted too late. Fast as they were, they only managed to turn halfway around before Dean swung the machetes, the Mark singing in his blood. A few seconds later, the ghouls lay on the ground, bodies and heads separated. Dean wasn’t even breathing hard.
Not bad, he thought. The cuts were clean and straight, and he’d put the ghouls down before Darrell could fire his shotgun. And as fast as he’d taken them down, it might just be a personal record.
“Dean?”
“Hmmm?” He didn’t take his gaze off the dead ghouls right away. Sam had to speak his name a second time, louder and more forcefully, before he finally turned to look at his brother. Sam’s concern was written all over his face, and Dean had to work to keep the irritation out of his voice as he said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go into berserker mode. Like I keep telling you, I’ve got it under control.”
But even as he spoke these words, he felt the Mark pulsing. His head throbbed in time with the pulse, and accompanying the throbbing was a word, repeated over and over.
More.
THREE
Normally, the Winchesters avoided calling the authorities for help. The police, firefighters, and paramedics were not trained to deal with the sort of threats that were part of what Sam often thought of as “the family business,” and they tended to ask a lot of questions the brothers found more than a little uncomfortable to answer. But with the three surviving prisoners in such bad shape, Sam hadn’t wanted to risk digging them out and driving them to the nearest hospital—which, according to his phone, was thirty-six miles away. Dean agreed, and Sam called 911, gave the dispatcher a very truncated and heavily edited version of the situation at the farm, provided the Carsons’ address, told her to make sure someone brought shovels, and then disconnected. The brothers then buried the ghouls’ remains and waited until they saw the lights of emergency vehicles and police cars approaching. They then headed back across the field the way they’d come—but not before assuring the woman who’d first caught their attention, the only one of the survivors who was fu
lly conscious, that she was going to be okay.
Now the brothers were once more in the Impala, driving on Route 70 toward Kansas and the Men of Letters Bunker, which these days served as their base of operations as well as their home—in many ways, the only real home they’d had since they were children.
Dean sat behind the Impala’s steering wheel—as usual—and stared out at the road rushing toward them.
Sam wanted to ask Dean how much the Mark had influenced him during the encounter with the ghouls, but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea right now. That it had influenced him to some degree, Sam had no doubt. Magic that powerful couldn’t be denied simply by force of will, not entirely anyway. He thought of the way Dean had killed the four ghouls. Dean was a highly skilled fighter, as he damn well ought to be after a lifetime of hunting and killing monsters. But the speed and savagery with which he’d slain the ghouls had been frightening, but not as frightening as the smile on Dean’s lips as he’d decapitated the monsters in record time. Dean insisted he had the Mark under control, and while Sam had his doubts, he’d seen no evidence to the contrary.
“I wonder what the town’s medical examiner will think if the bodies of those ghouls ever turn up,” Dean said.
Sam shrugged. “The same thing they all think. Whoever it is will note the anatomical anomalies in their report, consider writing a scholarly paper about the discovery, before eventually deciding their colleagues will think they’re crazy and then they’ll forget about it. Or at least try to.”
One of monsters’ greatest advantages—perhaps the main one—was that people didn’t want to believe in them. So whenever someone encountered a supernatural being and lived to tell the tale, no one in authority would credit their story and they found themselves ridiculed at best or institutionalized at worst. Most witnesses kept their mouths shut and did their best to sleep at night, knowing what they now knew. And if they felt compelled to tell their stories, they did so in tabloid newspapers, on paranormal websites, or on their own blogs. Leaving behind the ghouls’ remains wasn’t going to result in a worldwide realization that monsters were real. At most, it would lead to a few puzzling comments on four autopsy reports that a handful of people would read and everyone would ignore.
Dean turned on the radio and Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster” blasted out of the speakers. Dean bobbed his head in time with the music and pounded the steering wheel as if he were playing drums. Sam settled back against the passenger seat, looked out the side window, and ignored the music while he thought.
During the encounter with the ghouls, Dean had made a joke about their dietary practices being a monstrous version of the Jewish concept of keeping kosher. There had been no indication that the ghouls’ preference for meat that died a natural death had any religious basis, but he supposed it was possible. Not long ago, the Winchesters had learned that some werewolves worshipped Fenris, the giant powerful wolf of Norse legend. Maybe it wasn’t as uncommon for monsters to have their own religions as Sam and Dean had thought. After all, a lot of monsters mimicked humans or had once been human. Why shouldn’t they long for the guidance, approval, and especially the love of some higher power?
Humans had invented hundreds, maybe thousands of religions throughout history, and many had centered on the worship of powerful monsters who styled themselves as gods. These monsters used their worshippers as nourishment, whether physically, mentally, or a combination of both. Sam and Dean had encountered numerous “gods” during their careers as hunters, and although they were a hell of a lot harder to kill than garden-variety supernatural entities, they could be killed. The closest thing to a true god the brothers had ever encountered was the God—the Judeo-Christian-Islamic one—and even then they’d only encountered His servants, the angels. Hell, Castiel—the brothers’ closest friend and ally—was an angel. Not only were angels real, so was Heaven. The Winchesters knew this because they’d visited Heaven on several occasions. But the Big Man Himself was missing and had been for thousands, maybe millions of years. But both Sam and Dean weren’t sure how to view God. Was He the supreme being, the creator of the universe, as advertised? Or was He something else?
One night, not long after the angels had been cast out of Heaven by Metatron, he and Dean had been up late drinking and trying to figure out how to deal with the whole mess. At one point, Dean had mused that if gods with a lowercase G were in reality monsters, maybe God with a capital G was simply the first and biggest monster of them all. Sam had not found the thought especially comforting.
Sam’s thoughts continued along these lines for several more minutes, and before he realized it, he found himself falling into a memory of the first time he and Dean had encountered a god—although at the time, they hadn’t realized what it was.
* * *
“Make yourselves at home, boys.”
Sam and Dean exchange glances before giving the woman a pair of smiles. Sam adds a “Thanks” for good measure. The woman smiles back, but her gaze is measured, assessing them. Sam remembers their dad once telling them that you can always recognize hunters by their eyes. Hunters are always watching, John Winchester said. They never let their guard down, not all the way.
Julie Underwood definitely has a hunter’s eyes, Sam thinks, and the intensity of her scrutiny makes him uncomfortable. It isn’t as if she’s seeing them for the first time. She met them at the hospital and drove them here to her home. But she always seems to be judging them, as if she doesn’t quite trust them. Maybe it’s his imagination. Dad said she was a friend, not to mention a hell of a good hunter. He said they’d be safe with her, and Sam has no reason to doubt him. Still, he doesn’t like meeting her gaze.
Julie is in her early forties, not much over five feet tall, with an unruly nest of short brown hair. She has a round, kind face—except for those eyes. She wears a brown flannel shirt unbuttoned over a light gray T-shirt, jeans, and brown boots. No make-up or jewelry, not that she needs any. Sam thinks she’s pretty without them. Sam and Dean stand just inside the doorway of Julie’s home. Her living room looks ordinary enough, Sam thinks. Couch, TV, a couple of chairs, curtains for the windows, carpet on the floor. At least, he thinks it’s normal. It’s not as if he and Dean have spent a lot of time in people’s houses, and they don’t really have one of their own. They’re on the road with their dad part of the year, which means they spend a lot of time in hotel rooms. Sam’s seventeen now, and the nomadic aspect of the hunting life—most aspects of it, really—is starting to wear more than a little thin for him.
Each brother carries a threadbare knapsack that contains extra clothes and toiletries. The bags—which are far from full—hold all the possessions the Winchester boys have in the world.
Julie doesn’t live alone. She has two children, both roughly the same ages as Sam and Dean. They stand in the living room, looking at the new arrivals with a mix of curiosity and mild suspicion. They don’t have hunters’ eyes, not quite. Dean has them, has for quite a while now. Sam wonders if he does too. He’s not surprised to find himself ambivalent about the thought. He’s had mixed feelings about hunting as long as he can remember, and those feelings have only grown stronger the older he’s gotten. Neither Stewart nor Gretchen Underwood resemble their mother much. Both are taller than she is, and each has blond hair. Like their mother, they both wear their hair short. Stewart wears glasses, but Gretchen doesn’t. Their faces are narrower than their mother’s, their features sharper. Sam figures they favor their father, but there’s no sign of him around, not even any family photos framed and hanging on the walls, at least not in this room. Maybe their dad is out on a hunt, or maybe he and Julie are divorced. But Sam thinks it’s more likely the man is dead. Hunters tend not to die of old age. While most people consider it polite to ask about the health of family members when talking with a friend, such questions are considered rude and insensitive in hunter culture. All hunters suffer loss and the last thing they want to do is reopen old wounds. Sam understands this well. Even tho
ugh he was only an infant when it happened, he doesn’t like talking about how their mother died. He doesn’t even like thinking about it. So he’s not going to worry about what happened to Mr. Underwood. If Julie, Stewart, or Gretchen wants him and Dean to know about it, they’ll tell them.
Stewart wears an AC/DC T-shirt, which Sam knows Dean will approve of, and Gretchen wears a long-sleeved white shirt, the neckline low enough to reveal a portion of her chest but not so low as to show any cleavage. Gretchen is pretty in a different way than her mother, and it’s a way that he likes
All three of the Underwoods have trouble standing still. They shift their feet, reach up to touch their faces or brush back their hair, cross then uncross their arms. They’re so full of energy that they almost seem to vibrate. Sam thinks that if he closes his eyes and listens closely, he’ll hear an electric hum coming from them. They speak a bit too fast, their eyes wide, and they blink too often. It’s like the whole damn family has downed massive quantities of coffee and are suffering from a caffeine overdose. Sam doesn’t bother looking at Dean to see if his brother has noticed the Underwoods’ strange behavior. He knows he has.
Julie turns toward her children.
“Kids, this is Sam and Dean Winchester. Their father, John, is a friend of mine.”
Stewart and Gretchen both frown at their mother’s use of the word friend, and Sam doesn’t blame them. Mary Winchester has been dead a long time, and while John hasn’t shown any interest in remarrying, Sam knows his father is no saint. This is something else he doesn’t like to think about, but he’s glad to see the idea that John and Julie might have been lovers at some point bothers Gretchen and Stewart as well.
“John came to West Virginia tracking a pack of werewolves that left their hunting grounds in Ohio. Why the idiot didn’t call me for help with the wolves, I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s because he’s a badass,” Dean says defensively.
