Dead on the Bayou Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
The next morning found Sam and Dean standing outside the door of Jane Evans, the woman whose husband had gone missing two days earlier. Dean scowled in his suit. He still thought it was silly playing dress-up but couldn't deny that it lent credibility when they pretended at being FBI. Sam knocked on the door again and stepped back when it opened to reveal a fairly attractive woman in her forties. Blonde hair swept back from a high forehead and blue eyes stared up at them.
"What do you want?" She asked, to the point and crossed her arms. "If you're more reporters I have nothing to say to you."
"No, ma'am." Sam gave her his best smile and Dean let him work his puppy dog eyes to soothe her. "We're from the FBI. We have some questions about your husband's disappearance if you wouldn't mind. We promise not to take too much of your time."
Her face softened slightly at Sam's smile and she sighed. "Oh, well I guess that's alright. Come on in." She moved aside to let them walk past. "Just give me a minute? Let me get Sarah up in her room. She doesn't need to hear this."
"Of course." Sam smiled and watched as she picked up the little girl who had been behind the door and headed up the stairs. They went into the living room and Dean glanced around with a low whistle. There were cows everywhere. The sofa and chair were covered in little cows, cow figurines sat on the table, there were even several cow sun catchers hanging in the window.
"Dude, I bet you her kitchen is covered in cows too." Dean smirked and Sam shook his head.
"Ducks." Sam said and shrugged.
"No way, man. Cows." Dean punched his arm. "Bet you twenty."
Sam snorted and gave a quick nod as Mrs. Evans came back down the stairs. "Make yourselves comfortable. Please." She gestured to the sofa. Dean dropped onto it but Sam gave her another smile.
"I'm sorry. Would you mind if I got a glass of water?" Sam gave a cough that had Dean smirking. "My throat's a little dry from the weather."
"Oh by all means. Please, help yourself." She waved him toward another door and sat in the chair, looking to Dean. "I've told the cops all I know which wasn't much."
"I'm sure." Dean pulled out a notebook. "We just like to cover all the bases. Now, I understand you think he may have just run off?"
Her face tightened but she gave a nod. "My husband is…well he's a jerk." She sniffed and brushed a strand of hair from her face. "I'll be blunt. He screwed around and I knew it but with Sarah…well I wasn't willing to ruin her life just to get back at the asshole."
Dean nodded. "So, um…you don't think anything could have happened to him?" He glanced up the stairs. "There was mention in the report of something your daughter may have seen."
"Oh well, she's just a kid. I mean really." She laughed. "A black horse in chains? You can't put any stock in that."
"Every detail could be important." Sam said as he came back in the room carrying three glasses on a tray and smiling. He went and sat beside Dean, setting the tray on the table and looked at his brother with a smirk. The tray and the glasses were decorated with ducks. Dean groaned and rolled his eyes, wondering if he was ever going to live it down. "Would you mind if I spoke to her?" Sam asked Mrs. Evans.
She thought about it for a moment but another look in Sam's eyes had her nodding. "I suppose that would be alright. Just don't upset her."
"Of course not." Sam stood and handed a duck covered glass to Dean.
"It's the second door on your right at the top of the stairs." She told him as he left.
Sam jogged up the stairs and smiled at the door with little pink hearts on it. He knocked softly and opened the door at the quiet 'come in'. "Hi there." Sam went and sat beside the little blonde girl on the bed. "My name's Sam. Is it ok if I ask you some questions about your Dad?"
She smiled shyly up at him. "I'm Sarah." She couldn't be more than ten and her wide blue eyes looked innocently up at him. "You a cop?"
"Not exactly." Sam smiled down at her. "Can you tell me what you saw the night your Dad went missing?"
Sarah looked down at the bear in her hands and sniffed. "Mom doesn't believe me. Neither did the police."
"I promise I'll believe whatever you tell me." Sam said seriously. He knelt in front of her and crossed a finger over his heart in the timeless child's gesture. Sarah giggled at him.
"Well, Daddy put me to bed and we heard a horse." She looked over to her window and back at him. "He told me to stay in bed and he went out but…but I didn't stay in bed." She bit her bottom lip.
"It's ok, sweet-pea. I won't tell anyone." Sam said softly and smiled, pushing long hair off her face where it had fallen.
"I looked out my window and I saw Daddy in the back yard. There was a horse." Sarah said softly and looked at him from under her lashes. "It was a big black horse, like in Daddy's stories only it had chains hanging off it." She squeezed her bear. "It had red eyes. I saw 'em I swear."
"I believe you, Sarah." Sam sat beside her again and put an arm over her shoulders, comforting. "Did you see anything else?"
"Uh-uh." She shook her head. "Just Daddy followed after it. He didn't even look back at me." She sniffled and leaned her head into Sam's shoulder. "It just led him into the forest and he was gone."
Sam hugged her to him for a moment and then tickled under her arm until she giggled. "Thank you, Sarah."
"Are you gonna find my Daddy?" Sarah asked him as he rose to leave.
Sam stopped and looked back. He wanted to lie to the trusting, bright blue eyes she gave him. He smiled. "We're going to try, sweet-pea." She nodded and Sam left her there, making his way back downstairs with a heavier heart. Sarah's mother met him at the bottom of the stairs.
"Is she alright?" She asked Sam and he nodded.
"Misses her father." Sam shook her hand. "Thank you."
She started up the stairs and turned back. "If you find the bastard bouncing under some floozie, do us all a favor and leave him there."
Sam watched her disappear up the stairs and rolled his eyes when Dean snorted behind him. "Dude sounds like a real winner."
"Speaking of winners." Sam turned and held out a hand. "Pay up."
Dean stared at him and clenched his jaw. "You got lucky, hot shot." He dug a twenty out of his back pocket and slapped it into Sam's hand.
Sam chuckled. "Suck it. I was right." He made a show of folding the bill up and tucking it in his pocket with a huge grin. He opened the front door and waved Dean through, taking the hit to the back of his head with another laugh.
"Shut up." Dean groused as they headed for the car. "Just for that, we come back here tonight and you don't get a flashlight."
"You really think the horse, whatever it is, is still around?" Sam asked as he slid in beside his brother.
Dean shrugged. "Probably not but we might be able to find something." He looked over with a smirk. "The mother said they were going to stay at her parent's place tonight so, no witnesses to us tramping around the back lawn into the woods."
"Sarah said she saw the horse. Big, black, covered in chains with red eyes." Sam told him and knew he'd be doing more research when they got back to the motel. "She said her father just followed it into the woods and never even looked back."
"Huh." Dean turned on the radio. "So, some sort of mind control then cause what Dad's gonna leave his ten year old alone in the house?"
"Ours." Sam said simply and then threw his hands up to show Dean he wasn't trying to start an argument. "Just saying."
"Yeah well…don't." Dean smiled tightly at him.
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Night had fallen an hour past and thick cloud cover blocked the moon from sight as the Winchester brothers rounded the Evans' house. Dean strode carefully, flashlight playing along the ground while he scratched at his eyes with the other hand.
"Knock it off, Dean." Sam bumped his arm. "Leave it."
"This stuff smells like ass." Dean grumbled but dropped his hand. "Tell me again why I've got St. John's…warts on my friggin eyelids?"
"St. John's Wort." Sam corrected with a smirk and resisted the urge to rub at his own eyes. "It'll prevent the Pookha from using a glamor on us."
Dean shook his head. "Dude, how are we even supposed to take something seriously with that name? A Pookha." He laughed. "Are you sure that's what it is?"
Sam nodded. "Closest fit I can find with what little we know." He stopped and slapped at Dean's arm, pointing to the ground. "Hoofprints."
"Leading that-a-way." Dean nodded and started towards the forest behind the house. On the left it rose up into low hills while on the right it fell lower and Sam had said it was nothing but Bayou in those trees for miles. "Please let the trail go up." He said softly, not wanting to spend the night splashing through water in the dark.
"The Lore's divided on Pookhas." Sam said and ignored the amused snort from his brother. "Some of them are actually supposed to be beneficent."
"Well not this one." Dean retorted and had to slow his stride to follow the path in the underbrush.
"Yeah, some of them can be really nasty. They like to pick on unwary travelers and they're expert shape shifters."
"Awesome." Dean growled. "So we don't even know what to shoot at."
"Well, it'll be black whatever shape it's in and probably have red eyes." Sam shrugged and shone his light nervously through the darkened forest as he followed Dean. "They're supposed to have the power of human speech too."
Dean stopped at a narrow path and his shoulders drooped. "Dammit."
"What?" Sam came up beside him quickly and shone his light to the ground. The hoof prints clearly led off to the right and down towards the Bayou. He sighed. "Should have brought hip waders."
"This sucks." Dean led the way down the narrow path and took out his gun, seeing Sam do the same. They were both loaded with iron rounds and had machetes at their hips. They'd have to shoot it to slow it down and take its head to kill it. At least with Faerie creatures you knew iron would always work for something.
The wind picked up as they walked, alert to the sounds of the forest around them; crickets chirping and a few enterprising owls somewhere off in the distance. The path they followed sloped sharply down and the ground beneath their feet became spongy and soft, covered in pine needles and leaves. Pines gave way to Cypress trees rising above them with their thick boles, narrow trunks and wide hanging limbs draped in Spanish moss. The ever rising wind swung the moss to and fro above them as rain began to fall; not a gentle rain but hard, falling in sheets to batter against them.
"I don't like this." Sam said over the hiss of the rain and saw Dean nod in agreement. "Must be another storm like last night." It had rolled in over their motel and then quickly blown itself out.
"That's it." Dean stopped at the edge of an expanse of water twisting beneath the Cypress trees. "Trail ends here." He looked out into the Bayou and sighed.
"Kids' father has to be out here somewhere." Sam said and with a groan and went ahead of Dean, stepping into the brackish water up to his calves. "At least it's not cold." He bent his head against the wind driven rain and heard Dean curse behind him.
Dean followed Sam out into the shallow water reluctantly. If he thought Sam would agree he'd bustle them both back to the car until the weather cleared but he knew the daughter had worked her way into Sam's soft heart. He snorted. Sam wouldn't quit until they'd found something now. "Eww." He groaned, stepping in something soft under the water that sent up a strong smell of ammonia quickly torn away by the wind. "I don't even wanna know what that was." The wind changed direction suddenly, blowing directly into their faces as hail the size of golf balls started to pelt down through the trees, splashing loudly in the water. The hairs on Dean's neck stood up giving him a bad feeling and he lurched ahead to grab Sam's arm.
"Sam, I don't like this." Dean shouted. "We gotta go back."
Sam ducked against the hail pelting his head and nodded. He didn't want to but Dean was right. They couldn't hope to find anything in this weather. "Okay, let's…" He trailed off as the wind suddenly began to roar. It sounded like a freight train bearing down on them. He watched Dean's eyes widen in recognition with his own as the freak rain, wind and hail suddenly put themselves together in their heads. "Oh shit." Sam breathed.
Dean grabbed tight hold of his arm and started dragging him back the way they'd come as the air became heavy, pressing down on them, the hail leaving stinging welts on their heads and necks. The roaring became louder, the wind pushing back on them now it had switched directions again. Dean looked up briefly and froze. "Son of a bitch." Through a gap in the Cypress branches, a funnel was descending from the heavy clouds above. Wind driven debris began to slam into them.
Sam grunted as a stout limb tangled in his legs, dropping him to his knees and ripping his arm from his brother's grasp. 'I forgot', he thought to himself in that moment. 'I forgot it was tornado season down here'. He had no time for more thoughts as the wind seemed to grab hold of him and fling him back into the driving rain.
"SAM!" Dean shouted above the noise but even he could barely hear his own voice. He tried to thrash through the water after his brother, following the direction he had been thrown and grunted in surprise when something large and heavy collided with his back. He was knocked into the water, sliding beneath its surface to scrape along the bottom and came up sputtering for air. His breaths were ripped from him by the fierce, howling wind as a huge, dark shape with red eyes suddenly bore down on his chest, pushing him back beneath the surface.
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