The Winchester Boys and the Tremors of Doom - Chapter 3
Walking briskly across the gunfight set, Dean’s boots crunched in the fine gravel. He shouldered a .22 high-powered rifle on one arm, tucking his Colt 1911 into the belted waistband at his back; both weapons loaded with silver Accutip rounds-just in case. In step beside him, Sam toted a backpack laden with every ounce of gear he thought they might need and some they might not.
Watching Sam cram a rope, three flares, a full med kit, and a survival blanket into the pack, Dean had shaken his head and given Sam grief.
“Dude. We’re not going camping for Christ sakes. We’re gonna be back before night fall.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Sam had answered without looking up from his task.
“Whatever…” Dean had rolled his eyes and gone back to sharpening his Bowie, muttering, “Boy Scout,” beneath his breath.
By the time the group was reassembled, the sun was high in the sky and already making its descent towards the horizon. Time
was of the essence, as it wouldn’t be long before the sun would dip behind the hills and the valley would fall into shadow making their search that much more difficult.
Cahill stepped into the circle of men, raising his hat as a call for attention, and with it they all fell silent.
“Alright, everyone here? I’ve got walkies for each team.” He raised the black and gold Motorolas into the air and began distributing them among the team leaders. “We’ll be set up on channel 22, so y’all make sure an’ keep your ears on at all times. We’ve already misplaced two of our people. I don’t want anybody else goin’ missin’ on my watch. Got it?”
There was a low hum of sound in answer to his instruction, and then he plowed on.
“Team leaders, you know your quadrant. We’ll do a verbal check-in every half hour, but if any one of ya stumble upon anything, make sure the word gets around. We’ve got Lyn here at base, monitoring the radio, and should anyone need immediate assistance, Virgil’s got his Jeep gassed and ready to go. Any questions?”
The group shifted then, assembling into their teams without further coaching. Sam and Dean moved too, joining Cahill where he stood talking with a man whom the boys recognized as Carlos Massina, one of the missing boy’s fathers. If appearances were to be believed-and they were-Massina was a true cowboy. A broad shouldered man with long, muscular legs and a naturally narrow waist, he stood, feet set wide, head rolled back on his shoulders, and thumbs tucked behind and framing his too-large belt buckle. But his casual stance belied the tension that radiated off of him and the worry that was clearly visible in his brown eyes. It was easy for Sam to recognize that look. It was the same cock-sure attitude Dean had thrown up to distract from how truly scared he’d been about their father’s disappearance when he’d come for Sam almost a year ago. Like Dean, this was a man who was hurting and frightened and Sam knew right away that it was probably best to keep his brother as far away from him as possible. Dean wasn’t particularly known for his tact and the last thing they needed was him spouting off some inappropriate comment about how the missing boys were probably dead…or worse. Yeah. No…definitely keep Dean away from Massina.
“Change of plans,” Cahill announced when Sam and Dean joined them. “You’re with me,” he said, nodding at Dean, “but Stretch, you’re gonna go with Carl, here, on account that he needs an extra hand.”
Before Dean could even get a word out, Sam placed a placating hand on his brother’s shoulder, stopping the argument that he could see bubbling up in him. He met Dean’s eyes-which were quite clearly stating Dean’s disapproval of their separation-and answered, “That’ll be fine. We can cover more ground that way.”
Dean’s chin ticked to the side and he frowned, crossing his arms in a show of stubbornness.
“It’ll be fine,” Sam repeated for Dean’s benefit.
~~~
It would be fine. Dean knew that, but somewhere in the back of his head warning bells were sounding. It had only been a few days since the last time he and his brother had been split up, and that hadn’t turned out so well. Trapped in a house with a psychotic ghost-child, Sam and Sarah had nearly gotten themselves killed, and Dean had scrambled in panic to save them. So excuse him for having every reason in the world to be nervous about letting his brother out of his sight again.
Sam pressed a road flare into Dean’s palm, trying to quickly split up their shared pack. Dean slid the flare into his shirt pocket like an over-sized cigar and then took the bag from his brother and stuffed all the gear that Sam had been dividing back into it. He zipped it up and handed it back to Sam, holding onto the strap until he had Sam’s full attention.
“Be careful, lil brother.”
“Dean…”
“I mean it, Sam. You get hurt out there and I swear I’m gonna-”
“You’re gonna what?”
“Kick your ass, that’s what. You get hurt and I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“Oh-kay,” Sam taunted, not bothering to hide his grin.
“Just…”Dean took a deep breath and tried to rein it all back in; all the chick-flick feelings he was waving around for the entire world to see. He ducked his head, feeling his cheeks flare up in embarrassment. “Just take care of yourself, alright?”
“You too, Dean” Sam answered, no longer smiling when Dean glanced up at him. “See you back here in a few.”
“Yup.”
~~~
“What are you doin’ over there?”
Dean looked up from where he was trying hard to adjust the fit of his jeans in the saddle; fighting with the rough denim seam that was cutting off circulation to the bits Dean deemed extremely important.
“I thought you said you could ride.”
“No. You asked if I thought I can ride, and I said: ‘Sure. Why not?’ Those are two very different things.”
When Cahill had announced in town that his team would be heading out on horseback, Dean had nearly hummed with excitement. The thought of finally-after all these years-getting to mount up, Clint Eastwood style, and ride off into the desert sun had Dean grinning from ear to ear. Cahill had led his team-Dean and a wiry young man named Ronnie-out back to an honest-to-God stable where a trio of horses had already been saddled and were ready for the trail.
Two hours later, Dean was seriously rethinking the Josey Wales lifestyle. They had headed north out of town, searching the high ground north of the quarry first. It was rough, rocky land, dotted with high brush, short trees and lots of hills. Dean’s legs and lower back ached, his butt had long since fallen asleep, and he didn’t even want to discuss the tingly sensation of the seriously bad kind in his groin. Good damn thing he didn’t want kids, he thought to himself.
And as if the man could read his thoughts, Cahill shook his head, scowling.
“What?” Dean asked, feeling the weight of the other man’s disapproval. “We’ve been up and down these hills so many damn times, my ass doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.”
“Alright,” the older man grimaced, waving Dean off. “I don’t need to know what’s what with your backside, so just…keep that to yourself, will ya?”
Beside him, Ronnie snorted, drawing Dean’s unappreciative attention.
Ronnie, Dean had come to learn, was quite a bit younger than Dean had first assumed. He wasn’t a bad kid either; Dean might even go so far as to say he kinda liked the guy. They were similar in a lot of ways. Both were the oldest of their particular families, although unlike Dean, Ronnie had two little sisters, 14 and 16 respectively. Like Dean, Ronnie hadn’t finished high school, dropping out in his last year to go into the ‘family business’ just as Dean had done. Of course the little gift shop Ronnie’s family ran was a far cry from the Winchester way of life, but it didn’t stop Ronnie from being 100% committed. During their sweep of the lower hills, he had shared with Dean that his father had taken ill while Ronnie was still in school, and handling the shop on her own had been more than his mother could handle-not while having to care for Ronnie’s father and raise their three kids. So he’d quit school, gotten his GED, and gone to work in the shop, promising his parents that he’d look into college courses as soon as his father was back on his feet. That had been two years ago, and the following spring, Ronnie’s father had succumbed to the cancer and died, leaving the young man fully in charge of the business. With all that responsibility on his shoulders, it was no wonder he appeared older than his age. He was too thin, and looked too tired for his own good.
At nineteen, Ronnie was only a couple years older than the Massina boy and his friend. In fact, they had attended the same school, played the same sports. And small towns being what they were, Ronnie had admitted to knowing the missing boys fairly well-a fact that actually made Dean wary of the younger man. Not that he didn’t trust the kid to do the job. It was just that an emotional tie to one or both of the victims could spell trouble when the real danger arose.
Dean tucked his chin; his eyebrows rising high when he asked, “You got somethin’ to add to this?”
“You two remind me of those guys from that movie,” Ronnie shrugged, his mouth twisting into a mischievous smirk. “You know…Grumpy Old Men.”
“Who’s old?” Dean barked out. “I’m not old.”
“Naw, but ya are grumpy,” Cahill commented. “I only just met ya and I can tell that already,” he said over his shoulder as he urged his mount down the hill.
Ronnie followed suit, his laugh, a bright amused sound that echoed off the painted limestone rocks surrounding them. “I am a joy to be around,” Dean argued at their retreating forms. “A joy!”
~~~
The crew that Sam had been assigned to-Carlos’s crew-consisted of four men: himself, a young man named Angel, who didn’t appear to fit his name at all, a man Sam guessed was in his late fifties named Dodger, and lastly Carlos Massina, the father of one of the missing boys, Luke.
“So, you’re Lu’s brother, huh?”
Carlos looked up sharply, from where he was studying the map spread out across the seat of his 4wheeler and eyed Sam warily. “You know Lu?”
Sam nodded. “The motel was full because of the car show. Lu and Kate were nice enough to put my brother and me up for the night.”
Apprehension drained out of Carlos with a small warm-hearted smile. “They’re good girls,” he stated proudly. “They’re blessed to have found each other, and Luke and I are blessed to have them in our lives. My son, Lucas…he…” Carlos’s smile waned. He licked his dry lips and swallowed thickly, the fear visible in his eyes before he turned them back to the map. “He loves his Aunt Luz,” Carlos continued, shaking it off as though he hadn’t just nearly choked on emotion, although he wouldn’t meet Sam’s concerned gaze. “Loves her to the end of the world and back. Hell, she practically raised him after his mom and I divorced. Luke was only six years old when we split, and he didn’t understand why it was happening. I tried my best, but after his mother left, he needed a woman’s hand, and Luz was there for us. I don’t know that we’d have survived as a family if it hadn’t been for my sister. She saved us; me and Luke, and if we don’t get him back-”
“We’ll find him,” Sam assured, breaking off Carlos’s downward spiral of thought. “We won’t stop looking until we do.”
Carlos expelled a ragged breath and then shook his head clear. “How’d you get wrapped up into this anyway?” he asked, frowning. “You’re not from around here and as far as I know, you don’t know my kid.”
“No sir.”
“So why’d you volunteer so quick?” Carlos asked.
Sam shrugged, his mouth twisting up until the corner of his lip was tucked between his teeth and occupying his hands with his gear. He tied the bag down onto the rear rack of the Quad he’d been loaned while he considered his answer carefully. “That’s…just how our dad raised us, I guess.”
“You and your brother.”
“Dean. Yessir.”
“And you’re Sam?”
“Sam Winchester,” he nodded, presenting his hand.
Carlos searched Sam’s face, and once satisfied, reached across to take a firm hold of the proffered hand. “Carlos Massina. You can call me Carl. Everyone else does.”
“Okay, Carl. Where do we go from here?”
They had spent the better part of an hour carefully combing the quarter mile or so between the south end of town and the Massina farm. So far they had turned up nothing. “We go,” Carl turned the map toward Sam and tapped a forefinger on a spot marked on the color coded grid, “right here.”
He waved the two other men over and together they went over the next part of the plan. They’d start at the boys’ last known location; the fence line that skirted Massina’s property, spread out with 10ft between them, and work their way toward the hills.
They’d comb every inch of their 640 acre sector until Carl was satisfied.
Mounting their individual 4wheelers, Sam watched Carl closely. The desperation radiating off of the man was like heat radiating off the desert floor, and it motivated Sam in a way that surprised him. Finding the Massina boy alive and putting this family back together, felt as important to Sam as finding his own father had all those months ago. Maybe even more important, because this boy was an innocent; he needed their help and protection. And whatever words anyone used to describe John Winchester, innocent would never be one of them. He turned the ignition key over and pulled away, following Carl and his crew down the dirt road that would take them to the Massina farm.
~~~
“I ain’t never seen anything like this, Carl.” Dodger, a wiry, grizzled-looking man in his early fifties, looked up at Carl and shielded his eyes from the bright morning light from where he knelt on the ground. They had stopped along the Massina property where Dodger and Sam had quickly dismounted their vehicles to investigate the downed fence post.
Sam pressed down on the recently exposed end of the post, causing it to bounce loosely on stressed barbed wire. “The post’s been pushed up,” he said, not believing his own eyes.
Dodger nodded his agreement, stood up and dusted himself off. “More like it shot straight up out of the ground.”
The other member of the team, Angel, a stocky young man with tattooed sleeves, a neck tattoo and a cocky swagger, perked up at Dodger’s words. “How’s that even possible?” he demanded.
“It’s not.” Carl dismissed with a growl. He climbed off of his Quad and stomped over to the fence. “I pounded these posts myself, they shouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
“Does anybody smell that?” Sam asked frowning, just as Carl picked up the 4x4 post and wedged it back into its hole.
“Carl, wait,” Sam warned, reaching out to stop the older man, but it was too late. Carl gave the post a good push and gasped as the ground suddenly gave way in front of him. He stumbled, falling forward; his arms flailing wildly in attempt to right himself before he fell into the still-widening hole, and then he was tumbling backwards.
Carl hit the ground hard and had the breath knocked out of him when extra weight slammed down on top of him. Dazed and confused, he was pulled back onto his feet by multiple hands, patting and brushing him free of dust.
“You alright?” Sam asked apologetically.
“Fine. Fine,” Carl sputtered, pushing clear of the grabbing hands. He found his bearings and joined the others as they all leaned carefully over the newly formed pit.
Angel leaned out further, testing fate and the limits of gravity by tapping foot against the rim of the hole. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a hole, stupid,” Dodger chastised, pulling the young man back to safety.
“I know that,” the boy spat back, rolling his eyes. “I meant, what made it? You think it’s one of those sinkholes?” he asked, turning to Carl.
“Sam’s right, Carl. It stinks down there,” Dodger piped up. He stepped away warily, his mouth and nose twitching with distaste. “Smells foul. Dead.”
Angel too, backed away from the edge, shaking his head and looking worried. “I don’t like this. What if Luke or Brian are down there?”
“Only one way to find out,” Sam offered, hefting a rope out of his bag.
~~~
Truth be told, Dean was a little bummed. He’d always been a big fan of western movies and his idols growing up had been the traditional western heroes of the fifties, sixties and seventies: The Lone Ranger, Maverick, The Magnificent Seven, the outlaw Josey Wales. He’d loved the bond that the cowboys had with their horses and had been secretly hoping that he and Blossom would form a close and trusting partnership.
Unfortunately, Blossom seemed to be the one woman who wouldn’t be eating out of his hand any time soon. In fact, she seemed more likely to bite his hand off than eat off it, if the way she kept plowing straight through the tallest shrubs she could find was anything to go by.
“Really, Blossom? Really?” Dean griped as the grey mare once again ran through a waist high shrub that whipped against his shins like a wire brush. No doubt about it, the horse was evil.
Dean leaned forward. “Christo,” he whispered in Blossom’s ear. The horse snorted and tossed her head, but her eyes didn’t go black.
Maybe Blossom was possessed by an angry horse spirit. Dean tilted his head to one side, considering.
“Yo, Cahill? Are horseshoes still made out of iron?”
“Steel or Aluminum. Sometimes titanium or rubber. It really depends on the type of horse and the work they do.”
“Uh huh. So what would these horses be, uh, shoed with?”
Cahill adjusted his Stetson. “Shod. Not shoed.”
“Right. Yes. Thank you Quint Asper.”
Cahill’s lips twitched. “Our local farrier generally favors steel. Why?”
Dean flashed his most charming smile. “Just curious. I-” Blossom reared up, whinnying in distress, and tried to throw Dean off her back.
“Whoa there! Easy, girl, easy!”
Blossom tossed her head manically, her eyes wide and frightened. She whirled around and would have bolted back the way they’d come if Cahill hadn’t drawn alongside Dean and taken her reins. He talked to her in a calming whisper until she settled down some. She still looked about as spooked as a civilian who’d just seen their first poltergeist, but at least she wasn’t actively heading for the hills anymore. Dean frowned. Not that she’d been heading for the hills, as such. More like away from the hills. In fact, despite Cahill’s Horse Whispering act, Blossom seemed to be as close to the hills as she was going to get, digging her hooves into the loose, sandy dirt when he tried to lead her forward. And now the other horses were getting spooked too.
Dean heard the low, deep rumble seconds before the ground around him shuddered, sending up clouds of dust. Blossom reared back again and it took Cahill a good couple of minutes to settle her this time.
“No wonder the horses were so spooked,” he said. “Guess they could feel the pre-tremors or something.”
“Uh, Cahill?” Ronnie called from just up ahead of them. “I think you better come take a look at this.”
~~~
“Give me a little more rope,” Sam called up out of the hole.
Above him, Angel gave him a thumbs-up and passed the request on to Carl and Dodger who anchored the other end of Sam’s rope. They had secured him to one of the ATV’s hitches and lowered him carefully over the edge. Below ground, Sam lit his Maglite, adjusting it for the best coverage and passed the light around the cavernous insides.
His feet touched down in the loose dirt that had fallen from the surface, and it took him a moment to stabilize himself, stepping awkwardly and…wetly onto the bottom of the pit.
“Oh no...That can’t be good,” Sam groaned. He wrinkled his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, building up the courage to look down at what he’d stepped into. He puffed his cheeks, expelling his breath, and then cast the light down.
He swallowed thickly around the bile that rose. No matter how many dead bodies they’d run across in their lives, Sam would never get used to the gore of blood and tissue that always accompanied a particularly gruesome death.
“What is it?” Angel hollered from above.
“Cow,” Sam answered sickly. He cleared his throat and shouted up so they could all hear him, “Just a cow.”
He scanned the ground around him and shook his head in disgust. “Or what’s left of it, anyway,” he muttered.
Sam turned the flashlight to his left, staring hard down the dark length of what seemed to be an endless tunnel. Rotating, he found an identical tunnel. Eyeing the opening, Sam did some fast and dirty calculating and came to the conclusion that he really didn’t want to be underground with something that could make a five foot in diameter hole ten feet below the surface of the ground. Not without a helluvalot of fire power.
“Pull me up outta here!”
~~~
The mound was about five feet wide, running parallel with Murals Road and stretched out towards the mountains as far as the eye could see; which in flat scrubland like this was pretty far. Dean reached out tentatively and ran his hand across the top of the raised lump of dirt. A section of it collapsed under his touch and he snatched his hand back. When nothing attacked him, he peered down into a hole about ten-foot deep, before glancing back up at Cahill.
“You got any idea what could’ve caused a tunnel like this?” he asked the older man.
Cahill met Dean’s eyes, his jaw clenched. “Well it sure wasn’t a gopher or a chipmunk,” Cahill took his hat off and scratched at his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say manmade. I don’t know of any animal that’d make a tunnel that big.”
Dean got to his feet and brushed his hands off on the back of his jeans. “So,” he ran his tongue over his bottom lip and then grinned. “Wanna follow the tunnel? See where it goes?”
“How does that help us find the boys?”
Dean’s gut told him that whatever had made the tunnel-and he was willing to bet good money that it was a what, not a who-had something to do with the missing boys, but that wasn’t going to fly with Cahill.
“Maybe they fell in somewhere up the line,” he said. “Got hurt.”
Cahill ran a hand over his chin and frowned. Dean widened his arms. “Look man, I don’t know. But it’s…something. It’s part of our search quadrant anyway, so why not just follow the weird tunnel, at least as far as that rocky outcrop.”
Cahill nodded and then looked across at where Ronnie was standing holding all three of the horses. Dean knew just what he was thinking. The horses had refused, with much stomping of hooves and flaring of nostrils, to get any closer to the tunnel. He couldn’t imagine them being willing to follow it.
“How long would it take to walk there?” Dean asked.
“Not long, maybe ten minutes or fifteen in this heat.”
“Okay then,” Dean struck his best Indiana Jones pose. “We walk from here.”
Ronnie sniggered. “You want me to stay here with the elephants?” he held up the reins he was holding. “Make sure they don’t get stolen by the villagers?”
Dean rubbed at the back of his neck. This was a problem. Cahill may have thought the tunnel was man made, but Dean sure as hell didn’t. The way the horses freaked when they got close to it suggested some kind of animal; a predator that the horses instinctively knew to fear. And something that made tunnels five feet wide and ten feet deep? Something that size could take a horse; could carry off a cow. Something that size was definitely worthy of fear. And Dean was loathe to leave Ronnie by himself when something like that might just cruise on by.
So he suggested tying the horses to a bush. Cahill’s glare was scathing.
In the end, they settled for radioing in to Lyn to let her know what was happening. Cahill, as team leader, took the walkie, but left Ronnie with a flare. The cell coverage out here was non-existent, so if something happened, the kid would have to set off the flare and hope someone saw it.
“Okay, look,” Dean said, clapping Ronnie on the shoulder. “We don’t know what’s going on here. We don’t know who…or what…made that,” he gestured at the tunnel. “But if you see anything, hell, if something just don’t feel right, you send up a flare and you get the hell outta here. Alright?”
Ronnie nodded. “If I see a giant gopher, I promise to run.”
Dean ran a hand over his chin. “Yeah. Running is definitely the smart thing to do. If you can run, run. But remember this too: if it bleeds, you can kill it. And decapitation works on most things.”
Ronnie’s eyebrows shot up. “On all things Dean. We’re not in Toontown or a horror movie, you know.”
Dean’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You say that now,” he muttered, before slapping Ronnie on the shoulder again, then hoisting his backpack and going to say good-bye to Blossom.
“You trust your instincts,” he said as he stroked her nose. “You see anything hinky, anything at all, you bolt. Okay girl?”
Blossom snorted and nuzzled his hand.
Ten minutes later, Dean wrapped his dry lips around the neck of his battered metal canteen and slurped up the last of his water. The desert sun sure was a killer, even in October. Dean’s shirt was wrapped turban style around his head, his tee-shirt was wet with sweat, front and back, and he could almost feel the skin peeling off his nose and cheeks. He and Cahill strode together in silence, their boots clomping on the baked red dirt and dust kicking up from their feet in clouds of orange.
Now that Dean came to think on it, it was strangely quiet. No hum of cicadas, no bird calls, nothing.
Beside him, Cahill cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s got something to do with the copper mine. Maybe they’ve been illegally doing some kind of exploratory drilling or something?”
He looked at Dean with an expression that Dean had seen on civilians a lot over the years. He called it the ‘help-me-find-a-rational-explanation-for-something-that-makes-no-sense’ face.
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t they drill down? Why drill a long-ass tunnel?”
Cahill’s shoulders slumped and they walked in silence until they got to the base of the rocky outcrop, at which point the tunnel turned into a gaping, ten foot pit..
Cahill took his hat off and clutched it to his chest, before leaning over and gazing into the pit. “Goddamn,” he turned shocked eyes on Dean. “What the hell is goin’ on here? Is this some kinda sink hole? Maybe caused by that tremor we had earlier?”
Something about Cahill’s words triggered a flash of memory, but it was gone before Dean could pin it down. He stared at the hole and frowned. Sinkhole? He rubbed his chin and glanced across at the older man. “You think maybe an old mine collapsed and that line of raised dirt is, I dunno, some kind of after effect from that?”
“Maybe, I mean-”
“Cahill? Is that you?”
Both men looked up sharply. Peering out from a crevice in the rocks above was a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen; his face shock-white and his arm held at angle which Dean knew meant it was broken.
“Lucas! Thank God! Where’s Brian?”
Luke’s face collapsed and Dean moved, bounding around the hole and scrambling up onto the rock so that he could catch the kid before the rest of him collapsed too.
“Can’t’ve happened, s’not possible,” the kid muttered as he stumbled into Dean’s arms.
“I gotcha kid. It’s okay. We got a first aid kit. Gonna get a splint on your arm, alright?”
Luke nodded vaguely. “Think I got sunstroke,” he said. “I’ve been hallucinating real bad,” he giggled suddenly. “I thought I saw…I imagined…” he laughed again, the tone edging on hysterical, “but it’s not possible. Must’ve been heatstroke. Where’s Brian? You find Brian yet?”
Dean guided Luke down off the rocky outcrop and sat him in the rock’s shade.
“Drink,” Cahill handed him a canteen of water, which the kid attacked with gusto.
Cahill cleared his throat. “Been a while since I splinted an arm.”
“I’ve field-dressed a few broken bones in my time,” Dean admitted. “I don’t mind taking care of it. We got something to use as a splint?”
Cahill shrugged. “I’ll look for a stick.”
Dean pulled a triangle bandage out of the first aid kit and shook his head. “I’ll just splint it against his chest.
“This is gonna hurt a little,” Dean told the boy. “Take a deep breath,” he arranged the bandage under Luke’s elbow and over his shoulder, and then took hold of his hand and raised his broken arm slowly until the kid’s hand was level with his heart. Luke whimpered. “Easy, kid,” Dean said. “We’re nearly done.” He wrapped the bandage around the arm and tied it off. “So, you up to tellin’ us what happened?”
Luke shook his head. “I musta been delirious cuz what I saw…what I thought I saw…it doesn’t make any sense.”
“What do you think you saw?” Dean asked.
Luke rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. “Stupid,” he said. “Not possible. A nightmare.”
“Humor us?”
Luke looked straight at Dean, eyes haunted. “It was like that movie,” he whispered. “The one with Kevin Bacon and the…the graboids.”
“Tremors?” Dean’s eyes widened. “You’re saying…giant worms?”
“No. Course not. Cuz that’d be crazy,” Luke’s bottom lip quivered. “That’d mean-” tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his face “-that’d mean it ate Brian for real,” his face crumpled. “That it came outta the ground and swallowed him down,” he grasped at Dean’s shirt. “That didn’t happen,” he sobbed. “Please tell me that didn’t happen.”
Master Post / Next
Watching Sam cram a rope, three flares, a full med kit, and a survival blanket into the pack, Dean had shaken his head and given Sam grief.
“Dude. We’re not going camping for Christ sakes. We’re gonna be back before night fall.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Sam had answered without looking up from his task.
“Whatever…” Dean had rolled his eyes and gone back to sharpening his Bowie, muttering, “Boy Scout,” beneath his breath.
By the time the group was reassembled, the sun was high in the sky and already making its descent towards the horizon. Time
was of the essence, as it wouldn’t be long before the sun would dip behind the hills and the valley would fall into shadow making their search that much more difficult.
Cahill stepped into the circle of men, raising his hat as a call for attention, and with it they all fell silent.
“Alright, everyone here? I’ve got walkies for each team.” He raised the black and gold Motorolas into the air and began distributing them among the team leaders. “We’ll be set up on channel 22, so y’all make sure an’ keep your ears on at all times. We’ve already misplaced two of our people. I don’t want anybody else goin’ missin’ on my watch. Got it?”
There was a low hum of sound in answer to his instruction, and then he plowed on.
“Team leaders, you know your quadrant. We’ll do a verbal check-in every half hour, but if any one of ya stumble upon anything, make sure the word gets around. We’ve got Lyn here at base, monitoring the radio, and should anyone need immediate assistance, Virgil’s got his Jeep gassed and ready to go. Any questions?”
The group shifted then, assembling into their teams without further coaching. Sam and Dean moved too, joining Cahill where he stood talking with a man whom the boys recognized as Carlos Massina, one of the missing boy’s fathers. If appearances were to be believed-and they were-Massina was a true cowboy. A broad shouldered man with long, muscular legs and a naturally narrow waist, he stood, feet set wide, head rolled back on his shoulders, and thumbs tucked behind and framing his too-large belt buckle. But his casual stance belied the tension that radiated off of him and the worry that was clearly visible in his brown eyes. It was easy for Sam to recognize that look. It was the same cock-sure attitude Dean had thrown up to distract from how truly scared he’d been about their father’s disappearance when he’d come for Sam almost a year ago. Like Dean, this was a man who was hurting and frightened and Sam knew right away that it was probably best to keep his brother as far away from him as possible. Dean wasn’t particularly known for his tact and the last thing they needed was him spouting off some inappropriate comment about how the missing boys were probably dead…or worse. Yeah. No…definitely keep Dean away from Massina.
“Change of plans,” Cahill announced when Sam and Dean joined them. “You’re with me,” he said, nodding at Dean, “but Stretch, you’re gonna go with Carl, here, on account that he needs an extra hand.”
Before Dean could even get a word out, Sam placed a placating hand on his brother’s shoulder, stopping the argument that he could see bubbling up in him. He met Dean’s eyes-which were quite clearly stating Dean’s disapproval of their separation-and answered, “That’ll be fine. We can cover more ground that way.”
Dean’s chin ticked to the side and he frowned, crossing his arms in a show of stubbornness.
“It’ll be fine,” Sam repeated for Dean’s benefit.
~~~
It would be fine. Dean knew that, but somewhere in the back of his head warning bells were sounding. It had only been a few days since the last time he and his brother had been split up, and that hadn’t turned out so well. Trapped in a house with a psychotic ghost-child, Sam and Sarah had nearly gotten themselves killed, and Dean had scrambled in panic to save them. So excuse him for having every reason in the world to be nervous about letting his brother out of his sight again.
Sam pressed a road flare into Dean’s palm, trying to quickly split up their shared pack. Dean slid the flare into his shirt pocket like an over-sized cigar and then took the bag from his brother and stuffed all the gear that Sam had been dividing back into it. He zipped it up and handed it back to Sam, holding onto the strap until he had Sam’s full attention.
“Be careful, lil brother.”
“Dean…”
“I mean it, Sam. You get hurt out there and I swear I’m gonna-”
“You’re gonna what?”
“Kick your ass, that’s what. You get hurt and I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“Oh-kay,” Sam taunted, not bothering to hide his grin.
“Just…”Dean took a deep breath and tried to rein it all back in; all the chick-flick feelings he was waving around for the entire world to see. He ducked his head, feeling his cheeks flare up in embarrassment. “Just take care of yourself, alright?”
“You too, Dean” Sam answered, no longer smiling when Dean glanced up at him. “See you back here in a few.”
“Yup.”
~~~
“What are you doin’ over there?”
Dean looked up from where he was trying hard to adjust the fit of his jeans in the saddle; fighting with the rough denim seam that was cutting off circulation to the bits Dean deemed extremely important.
“I thought you said you could ride.”
“No. You asked if I thought I can ride, and I said: ‘Sure. Why not?’ Those are two very different things.”
When Cahill had announced in town that his team would be heading out on horseback, Dean had nearly hummed with excitement. The thought of finally-after all these years-getting to mount up, Clint Eastwood style, and ride off into the desert sun had Dean grinning from ear to ear. Cahill had led his team-Dean and a wiry young man named Ronnie-out back to an honest-to-God stable where a trio of horses had already been saddled and were ready for the trail.
Two hours later, Dean was seriously rethinking the Josey Wales lifestyle. They had headed north out of town, searching the high ground north of the quarry first. It was rough, rocky land, dotted with high brush, short trees and lots of hills. Dean’s legs and lower back ached, his butt had long since fallen asleep, and he didn’t even want to discuss the tingly sensation of the seriously bad kind in his groin. Good damn thing he didn’t want kids, he thought to himself.
And as if the man could read his thoughts, Cahill shook his head, scowling.
“What?” Dean asked, feeling the weight of the other man’s disapproval. “We’ve been up and down these hills so many damn times, my ass doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.”
“Alright,” the older man grimaced, waving Dean off. “I don’t need to know what’s what with your backside, so just…keep that to yourself, will ya?”
Beside him, Ronnie snorted, drawing Dean’s unappreciative attention.
Ronnie, Dean had come to learn, was quite a bit younger than Dean had first assumed. He wasn’t a bad kid either; Dean might even go so far as to say he kinda liked the guy. They were similar in a lot of ways. Both were the oldest of their particular families, although unlike Dean, Ronnie had two little sisters, 14 and 16 respectively. Like Dean, Ronnie hadn’t finished high school, dropping out in his last year to go into the ‘family business’ just as Dean had done. Of course the little gift shop Ronnie’s family ran was a far cry from the Winchester way of life, but it didn’t stop Ronnie from being 100% committed. During their sweep of the lower hills, he had shared with Dean that his father had taken ill while Ronnie was still in school, and handling the shop on her own had been more than his mother could handle-not while having to care for Ronnie’s father and raise their three kids. So he’d quit school, gotten his GED, and gone to work in the shop, promising his parents that he’d look into college courses as soon as his father was back on his feet. That had been two years ago, and the following spring, Ronnie’s father had succumbed to the cancer and died, leaving the young man fully in charge of the business. With all that responsibility on his shoulders, it was no wonder he appeared older than his age. He was too thin, and looked too tired for his own good.
At nineteen, Ronnie was only a couple years older than the Massina boy and his friend. In fact, they had attended the same school, played the same sports. And small towns being what they were, Ronnie had admitted to knowing the missing boys fairly well-a fact that actually made Dean wary of the younger man. Not that he didn’t trust the kid to do the job. It was just that an emotional tie to one or both of the victims could spell trouble when the real danger arose.
Dean tucked his chin; his eyebrows rising high when he asked, “You got somethin’ to add to this?”
“You two remind me of those guys from that movie,” Ronnie shrugged, his mouth twisting into a mischievous smirk. “You know…Grumpy Old Men.”
“Who’s old?” Dean barked out. “I’m not old.”
“Naw, but ya are grumpy,” Cahill commented. “I only just met ya and I can tell that already,” he said over his shoulder as he urged his mount down the hill.
Ronnie followed suit, his laugh, a bright amused sound that echoed off the painted limestone rocks surrounding them. “I am a joy to be around,” Dean argued at their retreating forms. “A joy!”
~~~
The crew that Sam had been assigned to-Carlos’s crew-consisted of four men: himself, a young man named Angel, who didn’t appear to fit his name at all, a man Sam guessed was in his late fifties named Dodger, and lastly Carlos Massina, the father of one of the missing boys, Luke.
“So, you’re Lu’s brother, huh?”
Carlos looked up sharply, from where he was studying the map spread out across the seat of his 4wheeler and eyed Sam warily. “You know Lu?”
Sam nodded. “The motel was full because of the car show. Lu and Kate were nice enough to put my brother and me up for the night.”
Apprehension drained out of Carlos with a small warm-hearted smile. “They’re good girls,” he stated proudly. “They’re blessed to have found each other, and Luke and I are blessed to have them in our lives. My son, Lucas…he…” Carlos’s smile waned. He licked his dry lips and swallowed thickly, the fear visible in his eyes before he turned them back to the map. “He loves his Aunt Luz,” Carlos continued, shaking it off as though he hadn’t just nearly choked on emotion, although he wouldn’t meet Sam’s concerned gaze. “Loves her to the end of the world and back. Hell, she practically raised him after his mom and I divorced. Luke was only six years old when we split, and he didn’t understand why it was happening. I tried my best, but after his mother left, he needed a woman’s hand, and Luz was there for us. I don’t know that we’d have survived as a family if it hadn’t been for my sister. She saved us; me and Luke, and if we don’t get him back-”
“We’ll find him,” Sam assured, breaking off Carlos’s downward spiral of thought. “We won’t stop looking until we do.”
Carlos expelled a ragged breath and then shook his head clear. “How’d you get wrapped up into this anyway?” he asked, frowning. “You’re not from around here and as far as I know, you don’t know my kid.”
“No sir.”
“So why’d you volunteer so quick?” Carlos asked.
Sam shrugged, his mouth twisting up until the corner of his lip was tucked between his teeth and occupying his hands with his gear. He tied the bag down onto the rear rack of the Quad he’d been loaned while he considered his answer carefully. “That’s…just how our dad raised us, I guess.”
“You and your brother.”
“Dean. Yessir.”
“And you’re Sam?”
“Sam Winchester,” he nodded, presenting his hand.
Carlos searched Sam’s face, and once satisfied, reached across to take a firm hold of the proffered hand. “Carlos Massina. You can call me Carl. Everyone else does.”
“Okay, Carl. Where do we go from here?”
They had spent the better part of an hour carefully combing the quarter mile or so between the south end of town and the Massina farm. So far they had turned up nothing. “We go,” Carl turned the map toward Sam and tapped a forefinger on a spot marked on the color coded grid, “right here.”
He waved the two other men over and together they went over the next part of the plan. They’d start at the boys’ last known location; the fence line that skirted Massina’s property, spread out with 10ft between them, and work their way toward the hills.
They’d comb every inch of their 640 acre sector until Carl was satisfied.
Mounting their individual 4wheelers, Sam watched Carl closely. The desperation radiating off of the man was like heat radiating off the desert floor, and it motivated Sam in a way that surprised him. Finding the Massina boy alive and putting this family back together, felt as important to Sam as finding his own father had all those months ago. Maybe even more important, because this boy was an innocent; he needed their help and protection. And whatever words anyone used to describe John Winchester, innocent would never be one of them. He turned the ignition key over and pulled away, following Carl and his crew down the dirt road that would take them to the Massina farm.
~~~
“I ain’t never seen anything like this, Carl.” Dodger, a wiry, grizzled-looking man in his early fifties, looked up at Carl and shielded his eyes from the bright morning light from where he knelt on the ground. They had stopped along the Massina property where Dodger and Sam had quickly dismounted their vehicles to investigate the downed fence post.
Sam pressed down on the recently exposed end of the post, causing it to bounce loosely on stressed barbed wire. “The post’s been pushed up,” he said, not believing his own eyes.
Dodger nodded his agreement, stood up and dusted himself off. “More like it shot straight up out of the ground.”
The other member of the team, Angel, a stocky young man with tattooed sleeves, a neck tattoo and a cocky swagger, perked up at Dodger’s words. “How’s that even possible?” he demanded.
“It’s not.” Carl dismissed with a growl. He climbed off of his Quad and stomped over to the fence. “I pounded these posts myself, they shouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
“Does anybody smell that?” Sam asked frowning, just as Carl picked up the 4x4 post and wedged it back into its hole.
“Carl, wait,” Sam warned, reaching out to stop the older man, but it was too late. Carl gave the post a good push and gasped as the ground suddenly gave way in front of him. He stumbled, falling forward; his arms flailing wildly in attempt to right himself before he fell into the still-widening hole, and then he was tumbling backwards.
Carl hit the ground hard and had the breath knocked out of him when extra weight slammed down on top of him. Dazed and confused, he was pulled back onto his feet by multiple hands, patting and brushing him free of dust.
“You alright?” Sam asked apologetically.
“Fine. Fine,” Carl sputtered, pushing clear of the grabbing hands. He found his bearings and joined the others as they all leaned carefully over the newly formed pit.
Angel leaned out further, testing fate and the limits of gravity by tapping foot against the rim of the hole. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a hole, stupid,” Dodger chastised, pulling the young man back to safety.
“I know that,” the boy spat back, rolling his eyes. “I meant, what made it? You think it’s one of those sinkholes?” he asked, turning to Carl.
“Sam’s right, Carl. It stinks down there,” Dodger piped up. He stepped away warily, his mouth and nose twitching with distaste. “Smells foul. Dead.”
Angel too, backed away from the edge, shaking his head and looking worried. “I don’t like this. What if Luke or Brian are down there?”
“Only one way to find out,” Sam offered, hefting a rope out of his bag.
~~~
Truth be told, Dean was a little bummed. He’d always been a big fan of western movies and his idols growing up had been the traditional western heroes of the fifties, sixties and seventies: The Lone Ranger, Maverick, The Magnificent Seven, the outlaw Josey Wales. He’d loved the bond that the cowboys had with their horses and had been secretly hoping that he and Blossom would form a close and trusting partnership.
Unfortunately, Blossom seemed to be the one woman who wouldn’t be eating out of his hand any time soon. In fact, she seemed more likely to bite his hand off than eat off it, if the way she kept plowing straight through the tallest shrubs she could find was anything to go by.
“Really, Blossom? Really?” Dean griped as the grey mare once again ran through a waist high shrub that whipped against his shins like a wire brush. No doubt about it, the horse was evil.
Dean leaned forward. “Christo,” he whispered in Blossom’s ear. The horse snorted and tossed her head, but her eyes didn’t go black.
Maybe Blossom was possessed by an angry horse spirit. Dean tilted his head to one side, considering.
“Yo, Cahill? Are horseshoes still made out of iron?”
“Steel or Aluminum. Sometimes titanium or rubber. It really depends on the type of horse and the work they do.”
“Uh huh. So what would these horses be, uh, shoed with?”
Cahill adjusted his Stetson. “Shod. Not shoed.”
“Right. Yes. Thank you Quint Asper.”
Cahill’s lips twitched. “Our local farrier generally favors steel. Why?”
Dean flashed his most charming smile. “Just curious. I-” Blossom reared up, whinnying in distress, and tried to throw Dean off her back.
“Whoa there! Easy, girl, easy!”
Blossom tossed her head manically, her eyes wide and frightened. She whirled around and would have bolted back the way they’d come if Cahill hadn’t drawn alongside Dean and taken her reins. He talked to her in a calming whisper until she settled down some. She still looked about as spooked as a civilian who’d just seen their first poltergeist, but at least she wasn’t actively heading for the hills anymore. Dean frowned. Not that she’d been heading for the hills, as such. More like away from the hills. In fact, despite Cahill’s Horse Whispering act, Blossom seemed to be as close to the hills as she was going to get, digging her hooves into the loose, sandy dirt when he tried to lead her forward. And now the other horses were getting spooked too.
Dean heard the low, deep rumble seconds before the ground around him shuddered, sending up clouds of dust. Blossom reared back again and it took Cahill a good couple of minutes to settle her this time.
“No wonder the horses were so spooked,” he said. “Guess they could feel the pre-tremors or something.”
“Uh, Cahill?” Ronnie called from just up ahead of them. “I think you better come take a look at this.”
~~~
“Give me a little more rope,” Sam called up out of the hole.
Above him, Angel gave him a thumbs-up and passed the request on to Carl and Dodger who anchored the other end of Sam’s rope. They had secured him to one of the ATV’s hitches and lowered him carefully over the edge. Below ground, Sam lit his Maglite, adjusting it for the best coverage and passed the light around the cavernous insides.
His feet touched down in the loose dirt that had fallen from the surface, and it took him a moment to stabilize himself, stepping awkwardly and…wetly onto the bottom of the pit.
“Oh no...That can’t be good,” Sam groaned. He wrinkled his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, building up the courage to look down at what he’d stepped into. He puffed his cheeks, expelling his breath, and then cast the light down.
He swallowed thickly around the bile that rose. No matter how many dead bodies they’d run across in their lives, Sam would never get used to the gore of blood and tissue that always accompanied a particularly gruesome death.
“What is it?” Angel hollered from above.
“Cow,” Sam answered sickly. He cleared his throat and shouted up so they could all hear him, “Just a cow.”
He scanned the ground around him and shook his head in disgust. “Or what’s left of it, anyway,” he muttered.
Sam turned the flashlight to his left, staring hard down the dark length of what seemed to be an endless tunnel. Rotating, he found an identical tunnel. Eyeing the opening, Sam did some fast and dirty calculating and came to the conclusion that he really didn’t want to be underground with something that could make a five foot in diameter hole ten feet below the surface of the ground. Not without a helluvalot of fire power.
“Pull me up outta here!”
~~~
The mound was about five feet wide, running parallel with Murals Road and stretched out towards the mountains as far as the eye could see; which in flat scrubland like this was pretty far. Dean reached out tentatively and ran his hand across the top of the raised lump of dirt. A section of it collapsed under his touch and he snatched his hand back. When nothing attacked him, he peered down into a hole about ten-foot deep, before glancing back up at Cahill.
“You got any idea what could’ve caused a tunnel like this?” he asked the older man.
Cahill met Dean’s eyes, his jaw clenched. “Well it sure wasn’t a gopher or a chipmunk,” Cahill took his hat off and scratched at his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say manmade. I don’t know of any animal that’d make a tunnel that big.”
Dean got to his feet and brushed his hands off on the back of his jeans. “So,” he ran his tongue over his bottom lip and then grinned. “Wanna follow the tunnel? See where it goes?”
“How does that help us find the boys?”
Dean’s gut told him that whatever had made the tunnel-and he was willing to bet good money that it was a what, not a who-had something to do with the missing boys, but that wasn’t going to fly with Cahill.
“Maybe they fell in somewhere up the line,” he said. “Got hurt.”
Cahill ran a hand over his chin and frowned. Dean widened his arms. “Look man, I don’t know. But it’s…something. It’s part of our search quadrant anyway, so why not just follow the weird tunnel, at least as far as that rocky outcrop.”
Cahill nodded and then looked across at where Ronnie was standing holding all three of the horses. Dean knew just what he was thinking. The horses had refused, with much stomping of hooves and flaring of nostrils, to get any closer to the tunnel. He couldn’t imagine them being willing to follow it.
“How long would it take to walk there?” Dean asked.
“Not long, maybe ten minutes or fifteen in this heat.”
“Okay then,” Dean struck his best Indiana Jones pose. “We walk from here.”
Ronnie sniggered. “You want me to stay here with the elephants?” he held up the reins he was holding. “Make sure they don’t get stolen by the villagers?”
Dean rubbed at the back of his neck. This was a problem. Cahill may have thought the tunnel was man made, but Dean sure as hell didn’t. The way the horses freaked when they got close to it suggested some kind of animal; a predator that the horses instinctively knew to fear. And something that made tunnels five feet wide and ten feet deep? Something that size could take a horse; could carry off a cow. Something that size was definitely worthy of fear. And Dean was loathe to leave Ronnie by himself when something like that might just cruise on by.
So he suggested tying the horses to a bush. Cahill’s glare was scathing.
In the end, they settled for radioing in to Lyn to let her know what was happening. Cahill, as team leader, took the walkie, but left Ronnie with a flare. The cell coverage out here was non-existent, so if something happened, the kid would have to set off the flare and hope someone saw it.
“Okay, look,” Dean said, clapping Ronnie on the shoulder. “We don’t know what’s going on here. We don’t know who…or what…made that,” he gestured at the tunnel. “But if you see anything, hell, if something just don’t feel right, you send up a flare and you get the hell outta here. Alright?”
Ronnie nodded. “If I see a giant gopher, I promise to run.”
Dean ran a hand over his chin. “Yeah. Running is definitely the smart thing to do. If you can run, run. But remember this too: if it bleeds, you can kill it. And decapitation works on most things.”
Ronnie’s eyebrows shot up. “On all things Dean. We’re not in Toontown or a horror movie, you know.”
Dean’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You say that now,” he muttered, before slapping Ronnie on the shoulder again, then hoisting his backpack and going to say good-bye to Blossom.
“You trust your instincts,” he said as he stroked her nose. “You see anything hinky, anything at all, you bolt. Okay girl?”
Blossom snorted and nuzzled his hand.
Ten minutes later, Dean wrapped his dry lips around the neck of his battered metal canteen and slurped up the last of his water. The desert sun sure was a killer, even in October. Dean’s shirt was wrapped turban style around his head, his tee-shirt was wet with sweat, front and back, and he could almost feel the skin peeling off his nose and cheeks. He and Cahill strode together in silence, their boots clomping on the baked red dirt and dust kicking up from their feet in clouds of orange.
Now that Dean came to think on it, it was strangely quiet. No hum of cicadas, no bird calls, nothing.
Beside him, Cahill cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s got something to do with the copper mine. Maybe they’ve been illegally doing some kind of exploratory drilling or something?”
He looked at Dean with an expression that Dean had seen on civilians a lot over the years. He called it the ‘help-me-find-a-rational-explanation-for-something-that-makes-no-sense’ face.
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t they drill down? Why drill a long-ass tunnel?”
Cahill’s shoulders slumped and they walked in silence until they got to the base of the rocky outcrop, at which point the tunnel turned into a gaping, ten foot pit..
Cahill took his hat off and clutched it to his chest, before leaning over and gazing into the pit. “Goddamn,” he turned shocked eyes on Dean. “What the hell is goin’ on here? Is this some kinda sink hole? Maybe caused by that tremor we had earlier?”
Something about Cahill’s words triggered a flash of memory, but it was gone before Dean could pin it down. He stared at the hole and frowned. Sinkhole? He rubbed his chin and glanced across at the older man. “You think maybe an old mine collapsed and that line of raised dirt is, I dunno, some kind of after effect from that?”
“Maybe, I mean-”
“Cahill? Is that you?”
Both men looked up sharply. Peering out from a crevice in the rocks above was a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen; his face shock-white and his arm held at angle which Dean knew meant it was broken.
“Lucas! Thank God! Where’s Brian?”
Luke’s face collapsed and Dean moved, bounding around the hole and scrambling up onto the rock so that he could catch the kid before the rest of him collapsed too.
“Can’t’ve happened, s’not possible,” the kid muttered as he stumbled into Dean’s arms.
“I gotcha kid. It’s okay. We got a first aid kit. Gonna get a splint on your arm, alright?”
Luke nodded vaguely. “Think I got sunstroke,” he said. “I’ve been hallucinating real bad,” he giggled suddenly. “I thought I saw…I imagined…” he laughed again, the tone edging on hysterical, “but it’s not possible. Must’ve been heatstroke. Where’s Brian? You find Brian yet?”
Dean guided Luke down off the rocky outcrop and sat him in the rock’s shade.
“Drink,” Cahill handed him a canteen of water, which the kid attacked with gusto.
Cahill cleared his throat. “Been a while since I splinted an arm.”
“I’ve field-dressed a few broken bones in my time,” Dean admitted. “I don’t mind taking care of it. We got something to use as a splint?”
Cahill shrugged. “I’ll look for a stick.”
Dean pulled a triangle bandage out of the first aid kit and shook his head. “I’ll just splint it against his chest.
“This is gonna hurt a little,” Dean told the boy. “Take a deep breath,” he arranged the bandage under Luke’s elbow and over his shoulder, and then took hold of his hand and raised his broken arm slowly until the kid’s hand was level with his heart. Luke whimpered. “Easy, kid,” Dean said. “We’re nearly done.” He wrapped the bandage around the arm and tied it off. “So, you up to tellin’ us what happened?”
Luke shook his head. “I musta been delirious cuz what I saw…what I thought I saw…it doesn’t make any sense.”
“What do you think you saw?” Dean asked.
Luke rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. “Stupid,” he said. “Not possible. A nightmare.”
“Humor us?”
Luke looked straight at Dean, eyes haunted. “It was like that movie,” he whispered. “The one with Kevin Bacon and the…the graboids.”
“Tremors?” Dean’s eyes widened. “You’re saying…giant worms?”
“No. Course not. Cuz that’d be crazy,” Luke’s bottom lip quivered. “That’d mean-” tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his face “-that’d mean it ate Brian for real,” his face crumpled. “That it came outta the ground and swallowed him down,” he grasped at Dean’s shirt. “That didn’t happen,” he sobbed. “Please tell me that didn’t happen.”
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