Ch 1 BB
Honestly, I never thought the end of the world (the real live end of the world) would be like this. And who would ever, I mean seriously, ever thought that those fucking Mayans were right? Exactly right down to the very first day that it started.
There was no ball of flame raining down from the Heavens (almost casually, I wondered what was left of Heaven, whether or not anything there was capable of tossing a comet or a holy bolt of lightning or whatever in our direction), there was no giant tidal wave that wiped out either or both of the coasts of North America, there was no earthquake that knocked Japan into the ocean, there was no meteor that destroyed giant portions of the Earth.
Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear
It was just this…the gradual decline of the human population due to famine, pestilence and war. Old buddies of ours, clearly having recovered from the loss of their fingers. Hell, they’d probably even got their rings back after my spectacular failure at Stull. Dean still refused to consider it a failure, considering my last-minute grasp of control that landed me and Adam (Michael, whatever, he’d sure looked like Adam when I grabbed his arm) in the Pit, but I’d meant to end Lucifer, not just trap him in the Cage. I didn’t do that, so I still counted it in the “lose” column as far as my incredibly long Ridiculous Stunts Meant To Save The World list went. You know, like how I’d set the motherfucker free in the first place, because I thought some demon bitch who I happened to be fucking and drinking was smarter and more trustworthy than my own brother. Yeah, trust your drug pusher over the brother that’s been taking care of you since you were an infant, genius move. Come on, it’s not like “Sam Winchester is a moron” is some kind of goddamn news flash by now.
War came first, and rained down like no one had ever seen before. The term “world war” was obsolete now, after everything that had happened. On December 21, 2012, it started with India and Pakistan, nukes to nukes, and no matter how bad everyone thought that might be when they’d speculated about the possibility, it was worse. So very much worse. Millions dead within the first day, and that was just from the detonations. Iran decided it wasn’t going to miss out on the fun, and launched its first atomic weapon at Israel the second they got the operation up and running, Israel retaliating immediately, and there you go, millions more, just gone in an instant.
Pestilence got its chance then. The fallout from the radiation created so much illness it was almost unfathomable. The consequences were spread far and wide. People with radiation sickness died slowly and painfully, as did the ones with missing limbs and horrific burn injuries and who didn’t have access to nearly enough doctors or medicine to tend to them properly. Even the ones whose immune systems had just been weakened by the poisoned air helped things along, falling prey to what would have been minor illnesses, then spreading those diseases while travel had still been possible. One person with an out-of-the-ordinary strain of influenza traveled from China to Australia, and a daisy chain of deaths from the flu virus killed tens of thousands within a span of a few weeks in both countries. A Palestinian woman tried to escape to South America not knowing she’d contracted smallpox, and another epidemic wiped out well over three hundred thousand people in less than a month. Rivers and lakes everywhere were turned toxic, leading to record-breaking outbreaks of malaria, cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever, even E. coli. Once rare but deadly diseases such as Hantavirus and Ebola, fucking leprosy were now commonplace, especially in lesser developed countries.
Famine had been on deck, and now its opportunity had come. With so many people sick and dying and dead, there were nowhere near enough able-bodied adults or even children left to tend to crops. Of course, there wasn’t much left to tend now that you could barely see the sun through the haze of dust that covered the sky. In North Korea and several African countries, where people were already starving to death every damn day before the bombs were getting dropped all over the place, the numbers of those who died from malnutrition multiplied exponentially. The few crops that were left to tend were ruined by the water supply which had been poisoned with radiation and filth. Food supplies dried up more quickly than anyone anticipated, even in the United States of America, where Pestilence had already dug in his claws. People were dying of starvation on every inhabited continent.
As it turned out, the folks who fell prey to Pestilence and perished as a result of a disease were luckier than those poor unfortunate bastards who slowly wasted away and died from hunger. Even luckier than those were the ones who just went poof when the bombs hit. For them, at least, it had been instantaneous, simply blinked out of existence instead of having to deal with prolonged suffering before they…what was it that Shakespeare had said in Hamlet? Shuffled off this mortal coil. As good a description as any, I figured. Sometimes I wondered, when my mind sought out poetry, whether or not any of those people had, indeed, slipped the surly bonds of Earth and touched the face of God. I’d always loved that one, though I had no recollection of President Reagan’s reference to it after the Challenger disaster that occurred when I was such a small child and never came across it until college.
It was fairly clear that not many people had paid attention to the importance of corn and its many uses until the United States, China and Brazil all had a failed crop at the same time. Food, fillers, ethanol, sweeteners, oil…Gone gone gone. The land of plenty had turned into the land of not much at all in no time.
Some governments lasted longer than others. Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Finland - they all held out for a good couple of months, at least. Obviously, the countries who had initiated all the bombing (and those geographically closest to them) lost their governments almost immediately in the aftermath of the retaliations. Initially, the governments that were still functioning in some way pled with their people to conserve, to persevere, to take in and assist their neighbors, and for just a little while, it had worked. Until those people who were used to having whatever they wanted got sick and fucking tired of having damn close to nothing and being expected to share what little they had with others. Then the governments slowly broke down, as a result of a restless constituency, officials dying off or being assassinated, or just due to giving up. The military and law enforcement presence, which had been making at least an attempt to maintain stability of some kind where they could, eventually disappeared. The televisions blinked off and the radios broadcasted nothing but static, and there were no more encouraging voices, only the inherent need to keep what you had and get more at any cost.
War was back in the game, now on a smaller scale. In every country, every city, every tiny little small town, people started turning on each other. The ones with weapons had a clear advantage over the ones without, and they used that advantage at every opportunity. So you had to shoot someone to get at their supply of canned food, or you had to beat someone to death so you could take their generator. None of it mattered anymore. It was every person for him or herself, for their children, their spouses, their parents. For the most part, civility and compassion were missing from society. Now and then you’d hear about someone still holding on, taking in children who’d lost their parents, trying to grow their own food, but those instances were getting to be fewer and farther between by the day.
The result was absolute chaos. Obviously. I saw it coming, so did Dean. We kept our heads down and hid out for the worst of it, silently using the few resources we had to keep a record of where we were likely to find food, how to recognize people who were sick so that we could avoid them, and catching word every time someone we knew got shot to death by a neighbor or perished from some ridiculous illness because they were injured and couldn’t get proper medical treatment in time to ward off sepsis or had contracted some crazy strain of the common motherfucking cold. One of our last contacts from the hunting world was taken out when lightning struck her house, started a fire, and she couldn’t get out in time because her smoke alarm and sprinkler system had been connected to the electricity that no longer functioned in the town where she lived.
Why does it always have to be water?
Why does it always have to be holy wine?
Destruction
Of all mankind
Death - well, we’d met Death before, and he’d never seemed all that interested in wiping out humanity, which was a shocker at first, before we got to know him. More interested in pizza and pickle chips and soda, in fact, surprisingly enough. Death wasn’t really so much into the whole “ending the human race” thing as his fellow Horsemen were. He was more like a mentor who encouraged us to look closer, dig deeper, carry on. I’d never had the courage to ask him why, and Dean had never had the chance (though he certainly never lacked the courage). We didn’t see him, though, through all of this loss and chaos and world-ending activity. I always figured he’d show up at some point, but just like so very many other things in my life, I’d been wrong about that. We just watched while the whole fucking world came crashing down around us and Death never bothered to show. And shit, who could blame him? So much reaping of souls in such a short amount of time, it was unlikely that he had any desire (or any opportunity) to visit my brother and me.
Nor did God, for that matter. I was more surprised about Death’s absence than I was about God’s. That in itself was a testament to how far I had fallen. It illustrated graphically how separated I had become from that boy, that teenager, that young man who still prayed every day and honestly believed those prayers were heard by God, or Angels or Saints or Whatever. What a fucking crock that had been. I’d have been better off spending that time brushing up on my knife-throwing skills or my lessons in how to exorcise demons for all the good it did. When everything was on the line, the two times before this when the world was going to end, God never lifted a heavenly fucking finger to help any of us stupid saps who believed in His Worthless Ass, just left us to the mercy of angels who thought they were doing what their Father would had wanted (if He hadn’t just fucking disappeared) and demons who would do anything to stop them.
I ain’t gonna sleep, I don’t wanna dream
About the things that I used to need
I ain’t gonna cry, or go on living lies
Castiel probably knew the answers to all the questions I had - not that I ever ran out of questions - but he was gone now too. Christ Almighty, I missed Castiel more than I had ever thought would be possible. Not only because his knowledge would have been helpful, but because he was Cas, our Cas, and we loved him despite everything that had happened, and he wasn’t here anymore. I didn’t know where he was, and Dean never wanted to speculate, probably because of their ‘profound bond’ or whatever it was that the two of them had. I hadn’t had the courage to ask about that either, because Dean would probably have ignored me for days or punched me in the face if I had. Castiel’s unexplainable and mysterious departure had hit me hard, sure, but it had knocked Dean over like a fucking freight train, and I didn’t know how to help him with that.
Getting punched in the face would not have especially bothered me, I had been pretty sure at the time, but the chance of Dean not speaking to me was not a risk I was willing to take. It wasn’t like there was anyone else around who would be all that interested in talking to me. Every now and then we ran into a straggler, some person alone who’d lost everyone they’d loved. I always offered for them to join us, and Dean always discouraged them from doing so.
He won every time. No one ever joined us. Life was me and Dean, on the road, like we had always been, except without any hunting to do. There were no monsters left, no ghosts, no witches. No people to save. Well, no way to save people, anyway. Not from this. No angels or demons, either, as far as we could tell. Just the two of us, no Bobby to call for advice, since Bobby was dead and cell phones didn’t work anymore.
The loss of Bobby, the man we’d considered to be almost like a father to both of us, was excruciating. Since there was no way to contact him by telephone, we’d simply made our way to Singer Salvage Yard near Sioux Falls, hoping for the best. Maybe he’d just been trying to stay under the radar, like we had. Pulling up to his house, the familiar sound of the Impala’s tires kicking up gravel, it was clear that we would not find what we were looking for. Bobby was on the porch, rapidly decomposing, his shotgun and ball cap stuck around what was left of him. We couldn’t tell if he’d been shot or just attacked, but it didn’t really matter. He was gone. Dean and I had carefully gathered his remains, including the trucker hat, and placed him on a pyre out in the yard. The last thing Bobby would have wanted would have been to return as a ghost or vengeful spirit, or anything else he’d spent years hunting; his corpse had to be salted and burned. After attending to that horrific duty, we went inside and saw that his place had been somewhat methodically ransacked by whoever had been there. All traces of food or blankets or towels or medication were gone.
Whoever had been there had decided Bobby was worth killing to get their hands on anything in his house that might be useful to him (or her or them). It must have been someone desperate, since Bobby had a reputation in the small town for being a cranky drunk with guns and guard dogs. We hadn’t looked for the dog, just hoped he’d had a chance to run away. Bobby’s unidentified murderer didn’t know about the panic room, though. I had my own exceptionally unpleasant memories of my time locked in that room, and I was certain Dean didn’t particularly want to go in there either. But we made our way downstairs, took the blankets, bottled water, canned soup and two pillows, bringing them out to the car before going back to the pyre.
Two pieces of wood were all we needed. Dean nailed the makeshift cross next to Bobby’s ashes. Yeah, maybe neither of us had much faith left, but the cross was instinctive him and to me. I grabbed a black Sharpie from the glove box of the car and recorded his name and the year of his birth and death on the horizontal beam, since neither of us could remember his birthday (what the hell kind of people were we anyway? He always remembered ours) and there was no way for us to determine the exact date of his death.
I went back inside and grabbed a blue and white cap of Bobby’s to keep as a reminder of him, of everything he’d done for us over the years. How many times had he pulled our asses out of deep shit? Or talked sense into us when one or the other of us had been acting like, as he would have said, ‘idjits’? I had no doubt that neither Dean or myself would have still been around to watch the world fall had it not been for Bobby Singer looking out for us since we were kids. Dean snatched up, unsurprisingly, Bobby’s journal and an envelope of photographs.
The vision of him attempting to protect his home and getting killed as a result was more than I could handle. Certainly more than Dean could handle. His death left us both with a hole in our hearts that would likely never be filled. Once we left, we just kept driving, but still grieving in our own silent ways.
None of that stopped us, at least for a while. Months passed and we kept moving, kept driving, kept finding places that had gas to fill the Impala’s quickly-emptying tank, kept finding places we could sleep at night. Neither of us wanted to face or admit or talk about the reality of the situation: it really was the end of the world. We’d been ready for it in years past; we’d planned for it while the seals were breaking and there was a war raging in Heaven, but not now. Right this minute, day, hour, week, month, I hadn’t been ready for it; Dean hadn’t been ready for it. But then, whenever we thought about the end of the world before, we figured we’d be gone with everything else. Maybe in a blaze of glory, like martyred superheroes, or some equally ridiculous scenario. Hell, that one time, I’d even tried it myself. We didn’t think we’d still be there to watch. Dean had caught that one glimpse into the future, courtesy of that asshole Zachariah, years ago. But this was nothing like what he’d seen on his trip to the “Here’s What Happens When Lucifer Wins” future, because we didn’t think Lucifer caused any of what we were seeing now.
And it was fucking depressing as all hell. Yeah, I know, maybe “depressing” isn’t a strong enough word to describe witnessing the collapse of civilization as I’d always known it, but it was all I could think about at the time. Those sweet, sleepy little small towns that I’d adored my whole life were mostly empty. All the big, sprawling cities that Dean had hated his whole life were war zones, blocks of people who were holding out bordered on all sides with blocks of people, even little kids, who were lying dead in the streets.
And I'm not missin' a thing
Watchin' the full moon crossin' the range
Ridin' the storm out
It didn’t take long before the electricity failed. I knew it was coming, just wasn’t sure how long it would take. Some places it was a month, some places it was two. Heading west was my crazy idea, this notion about how the Hoover Dam maybe could keep the lights on out in that part of the country and possibly even for a good long time. Dean was skeptical, but he agreed. It was warmer out there anyway, and neither of us were willing to pass up a chance to get someplace where we weren’t freezing all the damn time.
A major sacrifice had to be made, though, before our trip out west could commence. It was a long, long drive. Thousands of miles and surely many detours due to impassable roads and cities that weren’t safe to travel through. Dean’s baby got maybe, maybe, on all highway driving, 15 miles per gallon. She had to be left behind. I don’t think I’d ever seen my brother more inconsolable as he was at the moment when he agreed with my assessment on that particular situation. He loved that car more than just about anything in the world, but he wanted to stay alive as much as I did and he knew there was no way we’d be able to find enough gas to keep her moving all the way to the West coast.
Unloading the trunk, deciding what to keep and what to ditch, was a tough job in itself. Yeah, there were no more hunts, but we kept Dad’s journal and obviously as many weapons as we could reasonably carry.
I didn’t object when Dean gingerly placed Castiel’s folded up and moldy coat into the “keep” pile. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even comment on it, on account of that whole face-punching thing I mentioned earlier.
We’d always traveled light as far as personal belongings, a habit ingrained in both of us since childhood. I didn’t need my laptop anymore, since there were no internet connections to be found, but Dean didn’t say anything when I kept it anyway. One duffle each of clothing and toiletries, the bare minimum; that was what we’d always had, since we were kids, so no changes needed to be made there. An envelope of family photos that we’d gotten from Dad and from Bobby’s place was tucked into the side pocket of Dean’s bag, and a map, along with a list of likely sources of food and fuel was tucked into the side pocket of mine.
I kept Bobby’s cap and a couple of books. Not lore, just literature. Dean kept his cassettes.
I wrenched the plastic Army man out of the ashtray on the back driver’s side door and stuffed it into my pocket.
In the end, the Impala got a hunter’s funeral. Dean couldn’t stand the thought that someone would find her, take her, or strip her for parts, so one night on the side of a back road in the middle of rural Alabama, we pulled over. Dean was already openly crying, and I was having a hard time holding back my own tears. He poured the last of our rock salt and a liberal amount of lighter fluid all over her interior and, after spending a few moments just leaning against the frame having a quiet conversation with her, he stood back and threw his favorite lighter into the open front driver’s side window.
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run
Both of us stood there and watched the car burn, taking what small comfort we could in each other’s embrace, for almost an hour before we finally turned and got into the tiny diesel-fueled Audi that we’d hotwired and packed up. Thankful that our father had taught Dean to drive a car with a manual transmission, and that Dean had taught me, we started moving. As spoiled as we were by the automatic we’d been used to driving all these years, it didn’t take long for us to adjust to shifting gears and using a clutch.
It didn’t have a cassette player, but I figured we’d be able to find one somewhere along the way. Also, I could plug my laptop into the car’s cigarette lighter to keep it charged, and I’d long before downloaded lots of his stupid fucking Metallica and Motorhead and Zeppelin (ok, so maybe some of the Zeppelin was pretty good, actually) onto my hard drive, so Dean could still have the comfort of his favorite music even though it was coming out of the tinny-sounding speakers of my computer and not from a tape being played loud and proud in his beloved Impala. Just that little scrap, a small crumb of our old life, if I could give it to my brother, I would, no matter what it took.
Other people might not have understood what a blow it was for us to lose that car, but that was because the vast majority of other people didn’t grow up in a car, didn’t think of a car as being their home. Both of us, a few years apart, had lost our virginity in the backseat of the Impala. Dean when he was fifteen with Carla Palmer, me when I was seventeen with Jeannie Kline. Over the years, as children and adults, we’d experienced so much in that car that I almost choked at the loss. As kids, we had opened Christmas presents in Dean’s ‘baby’, slept next to each other in the back while Dad drove us to the next town, held pressure on each other’s wounds to keep blood loss at a minimum until we could get to the closest hospital emergency room or urgent care clinic. As adults, we had laughed until we cried, sang along to Bon Jovi waiting for Dean’s deal to come due, screamed at each other until our throats were raw. Hell, our first kiss was across the bench front seat seven months after he’d come to get me from Stanford. Let someone else try lighting the house they grew up in on fire and watching it burn to cinders because it’s a fucking necessity for survival, and then they can tell me how they feel about that.
Chapter 2