Fic: House of Cards: State of Grace 2/6
I know you feel helpless now,
I know you feel alone.
Well that's the same road,
The same road that I'm on.
~~HoC~~
Mustang, Nevada,
October 25th, 2008
The cab driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, eyes crinkling up with concern.
"You sure you want me to drop you here kid?"
Sam nodded.
"Your funeral."
The careless words sent a spike of heat through his veins, cutting through the chill that seemed to have settled into his blood ever since he'd woken up to find his brother gone.
Wordlessly, he flipped a few bills at the cabbie and climbed out, slamming the door behind him and listening to the car peel away. He stared at the bar, doubt suddenly plaguing him, reluctance dogging his heels as he slouched slowly towards it. Gravel crunched underfoot, ground against his already frayed nerves and scraped them raw as he shivered, tried to tell himself it was because of the cool morning air.
The tall buildings towering on either side of the bar shaded it and he instinctively knew the scruffy, squat building wouldn't see sunlight for several hours still. The gloom didn't stop him frowning at the battered sign above the door, the neon tubes sagging and blackened where they weren't smashed completely. The windows dark, gaping mouths barred by heavy grilles, the thick, coarse glass stained and smeared as he peered in, his keen gaze picking through the room.
He noted the worn stools, lined up under the bar, both as battered as the exterior of the building. The floorboards, once gleaming, were rough and warped; the tables scattered through the long, narrow room wobbly and deeply scarred. The dirty glasses behind the bar dimly reflected back distorted images of the posters on the walls, faded and ripped, band logos still just about visible on some. He hated it on sight, knew his brother would have loved it from the moment he set eyes on it. "You wanna hustle pool, Sammy, pick a place where they've got more to lose by callin' the cops than you'll ever take from ‘em."
"Dammit, man, where are you?"
Sam straightened, raking his eyes over the surrounding buildings, hoping to find something, anything that might offer a clue as to his wayward brother's location. There was nothing. The taller facades loomed over him, glass blank and dark where it wasn't boarded up. Most were office blocks, vacant signs peeling away from the doors, locked behind heavy steel grilles that were rusted shut.
Sighing, he scrubbed a hand through already dishevelled hair, prickles of unease chasing each other down his spine. Turning back to the bar, eyes adjusting to the gloom, his breath caught as he glimpsed a familiar gleam of chrome hulking in the shadows at the far edge of the parking lot. Tucked into the corner formed by a low wall and the neighbouring office sat the Impala, sleek and dark. A grin split his face at the sight. He closed his eyes for a second; drunk on relief as he broke into a trot across the empty lot, certain he'd find his brother, sprawled out on the backseat with the mother of all hangovers.
Halfway there, he stumbled, heart dropping to his stomach like a rock as he got a clearer look at the car.
"No. Oh no."
Jagged edges glittered at him, broken glass shattering under his shoes as he staggered to a halt, the driver's window nothing more than a razor-toothed maw gaping at him, the hood dented, the windscreen above it cracked in a starburst.
His hand trembled as it brushed over the wing, the world suddenly tilting around him. He knew the backseat would be empty, knew there was no way his brother would willingly leave his baby, their home in this sorry state.
Sam leant heavily on against the door, stomach churning, acid searing his throat, boiling up as he saw something dark running along the cracks in the windshield.
Blood.
He twisted aside, bent double, one hand clutching at his stomach, the other fisted hard against the cold metal as if he could never let go. Heaving dryly, he spat out the foul taste and finally straightened, head spinning as he swiped his hand across his mouth, reaching in through the broken window to unlock the door. He thought his heart would just give up and break as he felt the familiar groan shiver through the handle when he swung it open, breath hitching in a dry sob as he slipped behind the wheel.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, hefted the slight weight in his hand uncertainly.
No. If he could answer, he would have called.
But he didn't stop his fingers from slipping the cover open, couldn't stop them dialling the number from memory, his stomach somersaulting as he listened to the ring tone buzz once, twice, three times. He pressed the phone against his ear, desperate hope making his fingers tingle, but he dropped it as if it burned him as he heard the familiar, curt order play out.
This is Dean. Leave a message.
Sam stared at the phone on the seat beside him, barely seeing it through the tears stinging his bloodshot, weary eyes. He waited for it to disconnect automatically, finally dragging his arm across his brow as the tiny screen went dark.
Ducking under the steering column, he pried at the cover, one fingernail tearing away before it finally came loose and clattered to the floor of the foot well. Grabbing it, he lifted it carefully, placed it gently on the seat next to him and turned back to the exposed wires, yanking them free and pulling a small knife from the sheath in his boot. He paused, blade tight against one, biting his lip.
I'm sorry, Dean. But I gotta find you, and I gotta be mobile to do it. I'm sorry.
He closed his eyes as he sliced through the wires, fingers trembling as he fought down the memory of his brother's voice beside him, coaching him patiently. If you can ‘wire her with your eyes closed, Sammy, you can do any car. He worked by touch, the sharp ends of the cut wires prickling his skin, the edge of his blade skimming a line of dark red across the pad of his thumb as he stripped the plastic away. The spark as he struck the exposed copper together was bright against his eyelids and he flinched, tapped the wires against each other again and again until the engine grumbled to life, the radio blaring at him. His hand shot out before he'd even opened his eyes, stopped short an inch from the dial as he froze, breath locked in his chest, vision blurring.
He sat there for a long moment, listening, trapped, unable to move, to even breathe until the last bars of the song died away. The stale air escaped him in a hot, shaking rush and he left the radio as it was, turned back to the wheel and shoved the car into drive, leaving a long strip of rubber behind as he peeled away.
~~HoC~~
Waterbury, Connecticut
August 8th, 1996
He stood in the dark, elbows propped on the top of the open door, steadying the binoculars glued to his eyes. Through the lenses, John watched the bar intently, the car park quiet, mostly full of battered pick-ups and rusting muscle cars. He deliberately ignored the contrast between those sad, tired relics and the Impala, waiting sleek and dark beside him. A part of him ached to see them in their glory days, the part that looked back fondly on long days spent buried under the hood, Dean beside him and he longed for nothing more than the feeling of grease and oil under his nails instead of blood and ash.
Shrugging his shoulders irritably, he shook off the feeling of nostalgia and focussed again on the pack of bikes parked in the shadows at the edge of the lot. A jacket slung across the back of one seat had been like a flag, catching his attention as he drove past the bar a half-hour ago, the logo folded and partially obscured. He'd seen just enough to make his heart thump victoriously in his chest as he cruised on down the road, swinging up into the forested hills above the town and working his way through them to his current vantage point, hidden between two wilting beech trees, knee deep in drifts of last years dead leaves that crunched underfoot.
The Immortals
Scrawled with flair above a death's head with an ironic grin, the signature was unmistakeably the one described by the people he'd interviewed.
He could see the jacket now, just, the high-powered binoculars straining to pick up the logo in the shadows. Letting the focus wander back across the parking lot, he froze as he saw the bar door open, a group of a dozen figures striding confidently out of the brightly lit room, the arrogant swagger in their stride matching their bikes perfectly. He grinned, baring his teeth unconsciously in a feral snarl as he pinned the leader of the gang in the centre of his view. The revenant swung one leg over the saddle of his bike - an old, immaculate Indian, the hunter noted - then paused, seeming to sniff at the air.
John didn't move, felt sure his blood had turned to shattered ice, carving through his veins with every laboured pump of his heart as the dead man turned his head slowly, staring back through the distance between them.
Can't see me. No way he can see me...
The mantra echoed in his head unconvincingly but he couldn't stop the shudder that crawled down his spine.
The revenant cocked his head, pale blue eyes glittering in the night as he stared at the hill. John saw the charisma in that stare, the indefinable certainty the dead-man carried with him; as if, just by seeing him, you knew this was a man who had been somewhere most never even dreamed of, and had brought a part of that place back with him when he returned.
He shrugged a little, turned away and John felt the breath whoosh out of his lungs in a dizzying rush as he heard the distant sound of the engines snarl into life, watched as the revenant gathered his followers with a single, sweeping glance. They roared out of the parking lot, whooping and yelling and the hunter scrambled back through the scrub, trying to keep his binoculars trained on the bikes as he half-crawled to the Impala, waiting a few metres away. He slipped behind the wheel and tossing the binoculars to the seat beside him, twisting the key in the ignition, revelling in the powerful thrum of the engine.
His knuckles turned white around the steering wheel as he barrelled down the rough road, the wide muscle car barely squeezing between the high banks of the cutting, but he didn't dare slow down until he bounced onto metalled road again, roaring through the edge of the town and swinging onto the road the bikers had just departed on. Then he eased back on the gas and let the road unwind before him, searching the night ahead for the roving crimson galaxy of their lights.
He yawned once, shook himself and frowned, reaching forward to the radio. He still hadn't changed the tape in the deck, would never tell his boys that he never did change it when he had to leave them, as if playing his son's music over and over and over again was some kind of charm to keep them all safe until he got back.
He smiled a little, tapped out the beat against the wheel, not caring that he was hopelessly out of time, imagining Dean belting out his alternate versions to the lyrics, leaving Sammy helpless with laughter in the back seat. A sigh surprised him and his eyes flicked over to the dark mirror before he could stop them. The bearded face staring back at him was lined, creased with melancholy as he realised, as he always did, just how much he missed his sons.
A red glow ahead dragged the sad, rueful smile from his lips, turning his eyes hard and cold as they focussed on the cluster of lights a half-mile down the road. They flared suddenly, brake lights augmenting the running lights of the bikes and he let the car drop back a little more, until he could only just see them slow further and turn.
"Crap," he muttered, knowing suddenly he wasn't the only hunter tonight. His foot pressed down hard on the gas again and he peered down the turning the revenants had taken, heart turning to ice as he saw that it was a driveway, twisting up to a large farmhouse.
One hand darted down to the gun tucked between the seat and the door and he dragged it up, snapping out the magazine and checking the feel of the rounds inside by touch alone. The cool iron steadied the pounding in his chest, eased the dizzying rush of adrenaline and he pulled off the road into a small lay-by, killing the engine and swinging out of the car with quick grace. Wrenching open the trunk, he loaded up another pistol with the consecrated iron that would at least slow the dead men down, the iron disrupting the hold their spirits had on their bodies, the blessing interfering with the unholy spell wrought to raise them from their graves.
One pistol was tucked into his waistband, snug against his spine, the other clutched loosely in his hand as he buckled his machete in its sheath around his waist and dumped a large bag of salt into a deep pocket. One quick tap at his ankle to reassure himself that the knife he always carried was where it should be and he turned, slamming the trunk and locking it, breaking into a quick trot as he headed into the woods.
Following the road, he slowed as he saw the lights of the house, and then broke into a dead sprint when a scream ripped through the night. He didn't spare a breath for the curses flowing non-stop in his head, just hurdled the last of the scrub, bursting out onto the lawn and tearing across the neat grass to the porch, slamming through the shattered door. He slid to a halt, gun held in rock steady hands, leading his sight as he swept the hallway, the eerie silence and stillness making his hackles rise.
Too late.
John shook his head, refusing to entertain the thought though his nose twitched as he caught a thick, coppery scent on the air. Then engines roared outside, sputtering and snarling to life, shattering the obscene silence.
"Fuck!" he yelled, spinning back to the door and glaring after the bikes, automatically counting them as they peeled away down the drive out of sight, stomach twisting in indecision as he saw three bikes separate, turn right back down the road they'd come from earlier, a cold premonition clenching through his nerves.
...eight, nine, ten... ten?
The uncertainty left him, the foreboding pushed aside in favour of the greater, more immediate threat. His fingers tightened around the grip of the pistol and he turned back to the house, creeping across the heavy carpet and up the stairs, his back barely brushing the wall. The metallic smell grew stronger the higher he climbed and he scowled, lips curling in disgust as he saw the first drips of blood plopping down from the top step to splash onto the next. His boots squelched in the saturated carpet and his stomach turned once, ruthlessly ignored for the moment, forgotten the instant he heard a low snigger rise from behind the door at the top of the stairs. He leant forward, put one eye to the crack and peered into the charnel house that had once been a bedroom.
Two figures knelt on the king-size bed in the middle of the room, oblivious to his glare and approach as he slipped silently through the door. The gun thundered in his hand, the shots finding their cold, dead hearts and knocking them both flying to twitch and shudder on the floor, revealing the gory mess they'd been feasting on. John stared at it, felt his hands drop, the gun dangling loosely from his fingers. Every instinct screamed at him to finish the job but he couldn't move, couldn't tear his eyes away from the ruin of lives, spread out before him, teeth marks visible in the bone and shredded flesh.
A coughing grunt broke the hold the horror had on him and he turned his gaze once more on the revenants, pumping round after round into them as they screamed and flailed and jerked under the onslaught, finally lying still as the chamber clicked emptily again and again. He swiped a trembling hand across his damp cheeks, sniffing as he drew the machete free from its sheath but he snarled as he swung the blade down and grinned horribly as their heads rolled free.
He never looked back at the bed as he pulled the knife from his ankle sheath and sliced his way down to the ruin of their silent hearts, ripping them free and tossing them into an oozing, dead heap, sprinkling them with salt and lighter fluid. He choked a little on the foul smoke that rose from them as they burned, watched until all that was left was ashes, the light of the greedy fire sparkling from the tears in his eyes, the tears that he refused to let fall.
Then he turned, his stare as empty as that of the long-dead on the floor and dowsed the whole room with the last of the salt and lighter fluid. The flames were licking up towards the ceiling as he walked steadily, calmly back down the stairs. By the time the Impala screamed past the end of the drive, the fire raged fiercely into the night, sealing the blinding fury that burned into him and seared the anger and hate a little deeper into his heart.
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