Fic: Wild By Skye (9/27)
"Sam."
Sam groggily opened his eyes at his brother's voice. He looked up and saw Dean kneeling beside him, one hand on his shoulder. Morning had come, and while it was still very early, the forest was awash with the soft light of the rising sun, chasing away the night and, thankfully, the evil spirits with it.
For a second, Sam thought he'd had a very weird, very vivid dream, but the amulet hanging from Dean's neck, the detail that had been far too real when it was wrapped around a wolf's neck, made it all rush back at him.
The only thing Sam registered at first was that Dean was himself again.
"Dean!"
His brother's face was guarded. "Coast looks clear… think you're up for getting back to the car?"
Sam stared up at Dean, amazed that he would make that the first topic of conversation after what happened last night.
But a closer look at the 'please don't' light in Dean's eyes made Sam understand why. It would keep.
"Yeah, I think I'm good," Sam answered, and for half a second gratitude flashed through Dean's features when Sam didn't go there.
With Dean's help, Sam levered himself up off the ground and hobbled, bent at the waist and favoring his damaged side, in the direction of the Impala. It wasn't far from where they'd stopped. It was laughable in the day, with no spirits chasing them, to think they couldn't make it that much farther last night.
Sam's side told him just how much it wasn't laughable.
Dean took them back to their motel room where he tended to Sam's injury. The wound was cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. A pain killer and hot shower did wonders, and Sam was feeling almost decent by the time the medicine kicked in. Then the brothers turned their attention to the problem of dispatching the family of evil spirits that had so unforgivably waylaid them.
Sam wanted to kick himself when he realized just how much they might have found, and how much trouble they would have saved themselves, if they'd done any research beyond the most obvious and likely black dog scenario.
In more ways than one that day, modern technology saved their asses and the hunt. Some digging on the internet yielded the answers to the woodland Krueger family. The family was something of a local legend in the small community that was situated on the outskirts of the forest. Oddly enough, they were not a local legend for being monsters (though the tale of their unfortunate and untimely winter was there, too). While living, the Halderson family had been among the first residents who founded the town. Their homestead was the oldest in the county, the home of the Haldersons still standing after one hundred fifty years, and for those really dorky history buffs there were even GPS coordinates provided online for finding it.
Dean and Sam hiked straight to the decrepit old home and poked around the property until they found the family's private cemetery.
It was, honestly, one of the more gruesome graves Sam had ever had to dig up, and coming from a Winchester that was saying a hell of a lot. The Haldersons, a family of twelve, had been driven to cannibalism one particularly brutal winter. All the family members died around the same time. There weren't several graves; there was one mass grave. Bones of all of the Haldersons, from infants to adults and all the ages in between, were piled on top of each other in a pit.
Sam wondered who was sacrificed first. Did the smallest, the least likely to survive the winter, meet their end first? Or did the parents give their lives for their children, for all the good it did in the end? Had it been like drawing straws, or did anarchy grip the starved family of settlers? Had they died willingly for the sake of the others, or had they torn at each other like wolves?
At the thought, Sam had looked sharply and guiltily at Dean, his back to his little brother as he heaved shovelful after shovelful of dirt to the side.
Sam tried not to think about it and continued digging as best as his injury would allow, though admittedly Dean did most of the grunt work.
The mass grave took all day to dig up. As dusk was creeping dangerously close, they upended their bag of salt and a container of gasoline over the collected remains, struck a match, and watched the bones begin to burn.
Dean's features were savage and vengeful in the flickering flames as they stood over the grave and watched the Haldersons burn, but Sam had stopped being angry at the spirits for hurting him last night. After seeing the fine bones of the babies, he just felt tired and sad.
They got back to the motel room late and neither was in the mood to talk. Dean was tacitly avoiding the elephant in the room, and Sam couldn't shake the haunting images that uncovering the story of the Haldersons had unearthed.
By unspoken agreement, the brothers took their turns in the shower and crawled into the respective beds, anxious to simply put the grueling day behind them. Truthfully, cornering Dean for answers about his change didn't seriously occur to Sam. Finding out what had happened so many years ago to the Haldersons, and seeing the evidence of a family buried together, had been disturbing. He didn't think he could stomach anything more taxing that day. The whole day Dean didn't offer any openings for a heart to heart (if anything he went to great measures not to open that can of worms) about it, and for the time being Sam would accept that. He just wanted to sleep. He took another pain pill and waited for the numb, loopy sleep of the medicated to take him.
That night, Sam dreamed of skeletal figures with huge eyes and gaunt features ripping apart infants and dipping the pieces in barbeque sauce.
Ten
Sam groggily opened his eyes at his brother's voice. He looked up and saw Dean kneeling beside him, one hand on his shoulder. Morning had come, and while it was still very early, the forest was awash with the soft light of the rising sun, chasing away the night and, thankfully, the evil spirits with it.
For a second, Sam thought he'd had a very weird, very vivid dream, but the amulet hanging from Dean's neck, the detail that had been far too real when it was wrapped around a wolf's neck, made it all rush back at him.
The only thing Sam registered at first was that Dean was himself again.
"Dean!"
His brother's face was guarded. "Coast looks clear… think you're up for getting back to the car?"
Sam stared up at Dean, amazed that he would make that the first topic of conversation after what happened last night.
But a closer look at the 'please don't' light in Dean's eyes made Sam understand why. It would keep.
"Yeah, I think I'm good," Sam answered, and for half a second gratitude flashed through Dean's features when Sam didn't go there.
With Dean's help, Sam levered himself up off the ground and hobbled, bent at the waist and favoring his damaged side, in the direction of the Impala. It wasn't far from where they'd stopped. It was laughable in the day, with no spirits chasing them, to think they couldn't make it that much farther last night.
Sam's side told him just how much it wasn't laughable.
Dean took them back to their motel room where he tended to Sam's injury. The wound was cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. A pain killer and hot shower did wonders, and Sam was feeling almost decent by the time the medicine kicked in. Then the brothers turned their attention to the problem of dispatching the family of evil spirits that had so unforgivably waylaid them.
Sam wanted to kick himself when he realized just how much they might have found, and how much trouble they would have saved themselves, if they'd done any research beyond the most obvious and likely black dog scenario.
In more ways than one that day, modern technology saved their asses and the hunt. Some digging on the internet yielded the answers to the woodland Krueger family. The family was something of a local legend in the small community that was situated on the outskirts of the forest. Oddly enough, they were not a local legend for being monsters (though the tale of their unfortunate and untimely winter was there, too). While living, the Halderson family had been among the first residents who founded the town. Their homestead was the oldest in the county, the home of the Haldersons still standing after one hundred fifty years, and for those really dorky history buffs there were even GPS coordinates provided online for finding it.
Dean and Sam hiked straight to the decrepit old home and poked around the property until they found the family's private cemetery.
It was, honestly, one of the more gruesome graves Sam had ever had to dig up, and coming from a Winchester that was saying a hell of a lot. The Haldersons, a family of twelve, had been driven to cannibalism one particularly brutal winter. All the family members died around the same time. There weren't several graves; there was one mass grave. Bones of all of the Haldersons, from infants to adults and all the ages in between, were piled on top of each other in a pit.
Sam wondered who was sacrificed first. Did the smallest, the least likely to survive the winter, meet their end first? Or did the parents give their lives for their children, for all the good it did in the end? Had it been like drawing straws, or did anarchy grip the starved family of settlers? Had they died willingly for the sake of the others, or had they torn at each other like wolves?
At the thought, Sam had looked sharply and guiltily at Dean, his back to his little brother as he heaved shovelful after shovelful of dirt to the side.
Sam tried not to think about it and continued digging as best as his injury would allow, though admittedly Dean did most of the grunt work.
The mass grave took all day to dig up. As dusk was creeping dangerously close, they upended their bag of salt and a container of gasoline over the collected remains, struck a match, and watched the bones begin to burn.
Dean's features were savage and vengeful in the flickering flames as they stood over the grave and watched the Haldersons burn, but Sam had stopped being angry at the spirits for hurting him last night. After seeing the fine bones of the babies, he just felt tired and sad.
They got back to the motel room late and neither was in the mood to talk. Dean was tacitly avoiding the elephant in the room, and Sam couldn't shake the haunting images that uncovering the story of the Haldersons had unearthed.
By unspoken agreement, the brothers took their turns in the shower and crawled into the respective beds, anxious to simply put the grueling day behind them. Truthfully, cornering Dean for answers about his change didn't seriously occur to Sam. Finding out what had happened so many years ago to the Haldersons, and seeing the evidence of a family buried together, had been disturbing. He didn't think he could stomach anything more taxing that day. The whole day Dean didn't offer any openings for a heart to heart (if anything he went to great measures not to open that can of worms) about it, and for the time being Sam would accept that. He just wanted to sleep. He took another pain pill and waited for the numb, loopy sleep of the medicated to take him.
That night, Sam dreamed of skeletal figures with huge eyes and gaunt features ripping apart infants and dipping the pieces in barbeque sauce.
Ten