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Season
Two
Episode
Nine: Enemy Territory
By
Kittsbud
Part
One
Vietnam,
Unnamed Province
1969
Ryan
Grayson moved through the thick underbrush, his ears
pricking at every slight sound that permeated the darkness.
His mind filtered out the ominous and frequent cricket
chirps and other intermingling jungle noises, only focusing
on anything that could be the unseen enemy.
This was Grayson’s
second tour in Nam, and out of the current group he
was the most seasoned. Almost every other man in the
platoon was a raw recruit, and that included the lieutenant
that seemed to be glued to his side.
Grayson paused, signaling
with a hand movement for his men to stop. He hunkered
down in the gloom, eyes darting from bush to bush for
signs of the Viet Cong.
Something was wrong here.
Ever since he’d jumped from the Huey at their
LZ Grayson had known it. The co-ordinates he’d
been given didn’t match the mission he’d
been briefed for earlier in the day.
The
friggin’ chopper pilot been smokin’ too
much damn weed again…
But Grayson knew the pilot
well. He knew Larry Emerson would never put men’s
lives at risk that way. No, this was something else.
Something that was far more personal.
Grayson leaned his M16
carefully on his knee as he squatted, keeping a finger
poised on the trigger. “Something’s wrong
here, LT,” he addressed the terrified officer
at his side. “I don’t know where the hell
we are, but this isn’t what we were briefed for…”
Lt. Grant felt his hands
begin to shake. Officer school hadn’t prepared
him for the horrors of this war – nothing had.
This was his first real patrol, but it didn’t
mean he hadn’t already witnessed some of the ghastly
injuries men returned from the field with – if
they returned at all.
Grant took a breath and
fumbled in his breast pocket, tugging out a map of the
area in a plastic protective covering. He looked at
it, squinting to see the area he’d marked in red
when their C.O. had briefed them. “There’s
no ridge here…”
Grayson huffed. “Tell
me something I don’t freakin’ know…”
When Grant scowled back he locked eyes with the officer.
Grant wanted to play soldier. Hell, maybe he was some
relative of the famous civil war General, but one thing
he was not, was in control. “Sir,” Grayson
feigned respect. “We’re way out of our depth
here. We should head back to our LZ and call the choppers
back in. Pop some smoke before our asses get fried…”
Grant
pushed the map into the strap that had been tucked over
the brow of his helmet and shook his head. He would
prove who was in command, no matter how scared he was,
no matter how much his hands shook. “Captain Mitchum
made it quite clear how important this mission is, and
I fully intend to finish the reconnaissance before we
head back. What’s the matter, Sergeant?
Getting jittery?”
Grayson ignored the jibe.
He’d seen enough rookie officers fry to know that
Grant wouldn’t last long in the field, and besides,
right now there was much more on his mind.
This
patrol was wrong, all wrong, and it wasn’t the
idiot in charge that was going to screw it up –
it was Grayson’s conscience. I should never
have opened my mouth; at least, not until it was all
out in the open…
“Riggs,
take point, double time it!” Grant gestured for
one of the new men to head up the patrol, ignoring any
caution that Grayson may have used, or suggested.
The young soldier nodded
and began scurrying ahead of the group, his eyes and
mind focused on proving himself to his C.O.
“Riggs! DOWN!”
Grayson decided to push aside his lieutenant’s
orders, knowing they would get men killed – his
men killed. “Down, dammit!” His last cry
was loud and guttural, ignoring the usual code of silence
he hammered into all rookies.
Riggs’ boots skidded
in the soft loam as he faltered, unsure just who to
listen to. His right foot edged sideways just a thousandth
of an inch as he turned, and the movement was enough.
The army issue boot caught on a heavily camouflaged
section of wire that had been spread across the dirt
path.
BOOM!
Riggs’ body erupted
outwards in a shower of meat and blood that had once
been a naive nineteen year old. Red ooze splattered
the remaining troops, tiny strips of flesh and tissue
raining down on the men like a bloody version of the
Fourth of July.
“Shit!”
Grayson pushed his lieutenant to the ground with a harsh
shove and rolled until a nearby bush gave him refuge.
“Take cover!” The friggin’ Gooks
will have heard the explosion. They’ll be on us
any second…
Young men who should have
been home with their parents or studying in some high
class college began to dive for the underbrush that
might save their lives.
Gunfire blasted from the
tree line, short staccato bursts illuminating the darkness
as each round was discharged.
The enemy had found them;
but then tonight, for Grayson, there were two kinds
of enemy.
The
soldier brought his rifle to his shoulder, carefully
aiming for the bright bursts of light that showed him
where the Vietnamese were hiding. He tugged back on
the trigger letting his M16 empty all thirty rounds
before ramming in another clip. We shouldn’t
even be here…
As
youngsters fell around him, their bodies torn to shreds
by enemy fire, all that Grayson could think of was revenge.
He wasn’t a violent man by nature, and yet when
he’d been dragged into this Godforsaken war he
had embraced it. He had made it his mission in life
to save as many kids’ souls out here as he possibly
could. Most of the teens in his unit came from his home
town or the surrounding area, he felt like he knew them,
owed them his allegiance. And for what? To be betrayed
by a monster who never gave a damn…
An
explosion rocked the ground to Grayson’s right,
and as he turned he realized Grant had taken a direct
hit from a mortar shell. Only a charred crater remained
where the officer had been hunkered behind a fallen
tree trunk. Coward was hiding…but then, he’s
not the only coward out here…
The Sergeant grabbed his
last clip from the belt that hung loose across his chest,
jamming it into the M16. With his free hand, he yanked
a grenade from the same belt, pulling the pin with his
front teeth so roughly he chipped two.
He was
one, and the enemy was legion, but Grayson wasn’t
going down without a fight. There was no question that
he would die here along with the rest of his men. No
question that the platoon would be annihilated. But
still, the soldier clung on to one gnawing thought as
he made a wild full frontal assault at the Vietnamese.
The Viet Cong weren’t
responsible for the extermination of the platoon; they
hadn’t sent almost fifty grunts, a fairly useless
lieutenant, and three sergeants to their doom: someone
else ultimately had.
And
if there was a way back, just like his Momma had insisted
since he was a kid, then Ryan Grayson would find it.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death…
And someone, some day,
would pay.
* * * *
Oxford,
Nebraska
Present Day
Katherine McBride waited
patiently for the overhead traffic lights to turn green.
She was tired - eager to get home for the night after
a late shift, and if she had been sure the local Sheriff
wasn’t around, she may just have run the light.
The thing was, Burt Caldwell
always seemed to be around when you least expected it,
and the forty-something-year-old cop had a crush on
Kat the size of the local golf course – which
considering Oxford’s tiny proportions was pretty
big.
“Just gotta wait
a little longer to crash into bed…” Kat
tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, suddenly feeling
vulnerable in the dark on her own. She was a nurse at
the local medical center, and normally driving home
in the early hours didn’t bother her. Hell, she
was used to the dark, to the long hours, to the gore
she was sometimes presented with during her shifts.
Tonight,
though, she shivered involuntarily and inhaled with
relief when the lights finally changed. Getting
spooked by a traffic light from hell, now there’s
a first!
Kat
took a left and accelerated harder than usual, her foot
almost slipping to the floor in her haste to find sanctuary
from the ominous darkness of the Nebraska night. She
wanted to get home to the safety of her bedroom, where
her trusty Beretta was waiting in a bedside drawer.
The
nurse took another deep breath and let her eyes stray
to her car’s clock. The Beetle’s dashboard
glared back at her, the luminous fascia showing it was
2.25 a.m. Just five more minutes and I’ll
be parking down the driveway laughing at my own paranoia…
Kat glanced back up and
her lips instantly shaped to form a wide “O”
as shock and surprise took a hold of her senses.
Someone, or something
was in the road in front of her little VW, and there
was no room to brake or veer - no time to look into
the eyes of the thing she was about to hit. Still, Kat
rammed both feet down on her car’s brake pedal,
all her weight, her strength willing the Beetle to stop
in an impossible distance. She saw a flash of green
and the bright glint of something metallic. Then, whatever
had been in front of her car was gone.
Kat
closed her eyes, trying to calm her own panicked breathing
before climbing from her vehicle. I hit someone!
I must have, and yet…I didn’t feel anything.
Living
in the country had taught Katherine a lesson early on.
You hit an animal, even a rabbit, and you’d feel
the impact through the whole car. But I had to have
hit them!
Kat forced her eyes open
and yanked at the VW’s door handle, knowing if
someone lay injured she was their lifeline until an
ambulance arrived. As the door creaked open and she
stepped out on to the blacktop, her knees almost buckled
beneath her.
Whatever, whoever her
car had encountered now stood a few feet away, staring
towards the center of town as if Kat didn’t exist.
He wore a dated Rangers uniform that had seen better
days, and a relatively clean M16 hung from a shoulder
strap.
Maybe
he’s going to a fancy dress party?
But
before the soldier even turned, Kat knew different.
He had walked right through her car, and unless he was
the next Houdini that made him something Kat didn’t
even believe in. No such thing as ghosts. No such
thing as ghosts. Kat mentally repeated the mantra
until she thought her brain would burst from the effort,
but the raggedly dressed soldier remained in front of
her like a stone sentinel.
Kat wanted her legs to
back up so that she could retreat into her car and drive
home. Maybe if her muscles had actually followed her
brain’s orders she could have pretended the little
roadside reverie had never happened. The thing was,
as much as she wanted to leave, the bedraggled soldier
was mesmerizing.
“Who
are you..?” The nurse cocked her head a little,
her voice cracking with pent up tension and fear. She
needed to understand what she was seeing, needed answers.
Was he here for her? Hell, was he even really here?
Too many shifts, too many hours…I must be
losing it…
Finally, the soldier turned
and Kat caught a glimpse of his uniform more clearly
in the moonlight. There were stripes on his arms that
signified he was a sergeant, and along the right side
of his brow an old, but very visible scar ran a good
two inches in length.
Blues
eyes locked with Kat’s but didn’t linger
on her dainty frame. Instead, Grayson looked beyond
her to something behind the Beetle she drove. He made
a gesture with his hand and then caught his M16’s
strap, tugging it up and slipping his finger into the
trigger guard.
Kat’s
heart missed a beat and she tasted the rank flavor of
bile rising from her throat. He’s going to
kill me…
Grayson ignored the terrified
woman’s blank stare and wide pupils, his attention
still focused on something beyond the nurse.
Kat blinked and finally
dragged enough inner courage from somewhere to turn
and see what the phantom was watching so intently. She
didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see
for fear the sight may be worse than something from
her clinic’s E.R. but still, the compulsion took
over her.
Beyond Kat’s car
was an intersection, and beyond that a vast expanse
of corn that stretched as far as the eye could see.
At least two feet above ground, a fine mist had appeared,
hovering, lurking; hiding the undead.
As she watched, the strange
glowing fog began to form into shapes, each one kitted
out in a uniform and carrying some form of weaponry.
The long dead Rangers moved as they formed from the
vapor, coalescing into one group, one platoon, one ethereal
presence.
Kat’s lips quivered,
but this time, try as she may, she couldn’t make
her throat form any words, not even a scream to let
the world know she was alive and very terrified.
Eventually, the rogue
platoon joined their leader, ignoring the nurse as if
it was she who was the fleshless spirit. The men formed
either side Grayson as if they were creating a skirmish
line, and with one gesture from the sergeant they pushed
forward, the bizarre mist still following them like
an aircraft’s jet trails.
Kat
let out a breath, No such thing as ghosts, no such
thing, but Grayson knew otherwise.
The lead spirit paused
mid-step as if hearing Kat’s inner chant. He spun
expertly around, keeping his rifle pointed to the ground,
and then smiled – a wide, toothless, fleshless
grin as his face reverted to that of a rotting cadaver.
Finally, Kat’s nerves
gave way and she screamed, continuing her pitiful, hoarse
yelps until Sheriff Caldwell found her cowering in the
roadway almost thirty minutes later.
* * * *
Casper,
Wyoming
Downtown Bar
Dean took a look at the empty shot glass and then let
it slide from his fingers onto the bar. The glass clattered
onto the pitted wooden surface and joined a multitude
of its empty brethren.
Empty.
Dean huffed. The drained,
innocent looking receptacles were a reflection of him.
The demon was gone, eradicated by its bastard father,
but at what price? What good was it that he was free
if it meant losing his brother?
The
question made a burning sensation well in his throat
and he glanced up, smiling wickedly at the pretty young
barmaid. “Hit me again, sweetheart…”
He pushed one of the glasses forward with his forefinger,
noticing the way his hand swayed as he made the gesture.
Hmmn…maybe I should grab a stool…
“Dean, don’t
you think you’ve had enough already?” The
voice was Sam’s, questioning, worrying –
knowing the cause of his sibling’s melancholy
behavior. “We should head back to the motel. I’ve
found something interesting…”
Dean
failed to turn, instead running a shaky hand through
the front of his hair. Sam knew he was drunk, hell,
Dean knew he was drunk, but that didn’t
change anything. The thoughts running through his head
were there every waking hour, nagging, biting,
and churning far more than Haris’ spawn even had.
The whiskey wasn’t going to change that, either.
In fact, he wondered why he was even pouring it down
his throat like water, because all it was going to give
him was a four alarm headache later.
Sam
was going to die. Hell, Sam was going to die
for Dean, just like Melissa had. And, as usual,
he was helpless.
The hunter’s eyes
locked with the girl behind the bar. It was obvious
she didn’t want to serve him anymore. Was that
fear he saw on her face? He blinked, realizing for the
first time that the girl actually looked a lot like
Melissa. Or maybe it was just his inebriated mind playing
tricks?
“Dean…”
Sam pushed again, and this time his staggering brother
turned to face him.
“You don’t
get it, do you? Everyone around me dies, Sammy. I’m
like some friggin’ pariah or something. I couldn’t
save Melissa…I can’t save you…”
Sam’s
eyes darted to the grimy bar floor. Maybe he didn’t
need saving. Maybe this was his destiny. Either
way, he’d been through this very same conversation
so many times over the last few weeks that he didn’t
want to continue it again – especially not in
front of a bar full of strangers.
Dean had been through
a lot, endured a lot. Sam’s deal with Haris and
then Melissa dying at the hands of the Wampus Cat had
been the last straw that had finally broken his brother,
but there was no changing the past. What had happened
was already set in stone, including the deal he would
soon have to pay up on.
“Melissa wasn’t
your fault. If she hadn’t summoned that thing…killed
those kids…” It was a weak response, but
there was simply nothing more to give.
“And I suppose the
deal you made wasn’t my fault either?” Dean’s
face was blotched with red as he struggled to keep down
his temper. It was bad enough Sam had kept the deal
from him for so long, but for his little brother to
keep brushing it off, wanting to hunt, wanting to act
like it had never happened – that, Dean couldn’t
take.
“It
was tearing you apart, killing you from the inside like
some demonic cancer. Would you have stood by and watched
if it had been me? Would you?” Sam’s
voice raised an octave and he abruptly realized some
of the bar customers were staring at them.
At least Dean in his drunken
state had an excuse to shout and be rowdy, but all Sam
had sipped all night was an iced Coke that had soon
become warm in the heat of the inn.
Dean swallowed hard and
looked away, caught in his own trap. Dean would die
for Sam, of that there was no doubt. It was just impossible
to accept that his brother would soon be giving up body
and soul because he’d gotten careless. “My
sorry ass isn’t worth saving. You should have
taken the necklace off and let Haris’ kid take
me. Anything rather than make a deal with that yellow-eyed
bastard…” He wobbled a little, the room
around him suddenly deciding to take a quick spin. “Demons
lie, Sammy…”
A tiny smile crept across
Sam’s features, just for a second. “So do
hunters,” he murmured, thinking of how he had
removed the necklace only long enough for Haris to extricate
his child instead of handing it over to the yellow-eyed
monster.
Dean’s brow furrowed
and he slumped onto the bench seat next to Sam, eyes
gradually trying to focus on the file in front of his
brother. “Sammy, forget this hunting crap. We
gotta find a way outta that deal. Maybe we should call
dad…” The hunter hiccupped, putting the
back of his hand to his mouth as he brought up a mouthful
of an earlier meal. “I knew I shouldn’t
have had that second burrito…”
“No.”
Sam ignored the sickly complexion that was creeping
over his brother and tapped the manila file on the table.
“No dad,” he concluded. “But I do
think we should look into this. I don’t know…I
just have this feeling.”
“Feeling
as in ‘let’s make a deal with a demon?’
Huh, Sammy? Cos, I ain’t liking where your feelings
take you lately…” The elder hunter eased
back until he was leaning heavily against the rear of
the torn seat he’d perched on and his eyes fluttered
with sudden fatigue. “You gonna spill or do I
gotta try and figure out which of the three folders
I’m looking at is the real one?” Dean belched
and grinned, his earlier anger dissipating as the liquor
took hold and his vision blurred.
“Oxford,
Nebraska,” Sam offered up, relief creeping into
his expression as he realized his very drunken brother
was relenting on his anger. “Locals have seen
a ghost platoon walking the streets at night. Multiple
hauntings are rare, Dean…”
“Platoon?”
Dean’s brow creased and he eased forward with
a grunt to look at the now open folder. “Says
here the sightings are since some dudes’ bodies
were found in Vietnam and brought home for burial?”
He squinted, realizing that no matter how hard he tried
to focus, the printed words were not going to stop swimming
like sharks before his eyes. The more Sammy filled him
in, the better, or he may just get sea sick, or more
likely whiskey sick.
“From
what I’ve found, most of the guys in the unit
were from around Oxford. It’s a tiny town - pretty
amazing they all ended up together…” Sam’s
gaze drifted as if he had suddenly gone back in time.
Had the men been drafted, or had they joined up? He
could almost see them in his mind in uniform as they
were shipped overseas to a war that could never be won.
Just like mine and Dean’s war…
“Pretty amazing
they all came back together too, Sammy.” Dean
leaned back again, unsure how long he could make coherent
conversation without diving for the nearby bathroom.
“You sure this isn’t some prank or local
scare because someone read in the paper the bodies had
been found?”
Sam shook his head. “I
don’t think so. None of the people who’ve
seen the platoon are the type to get flustered quickly.
The last one, Katherine McBride, was a nurse from the
local clinic. Definitely not the type to panic. I think
we have a real mystery here…”
Or
you’re clutching at straws – anything to
keep your mind of the stupid deal you made, Dean
thought, a sudden burst of annoyance pushing through
his alcoholic stupor. “So, why do you think a
bunch of guys who died in Vietnam would haunt there
own town, Mr. Know It All?”
“I…I don’t
know,” Sam admitted, his gaze moving back to the
folder. “Like I said, I just feel something…drawn
there somehow…”
“Jeez,
I knew using the name Beckett back in Raleigh was a
mistake. Now you think you gotta leap into every gig
as if you’re there for a reason, save the day
and leap out again.” Dean rolled his eyes and
felt his stomach churn. Whoa, definitely shouldn’t
have had the burrito…
He
stumbled to his feet and tottered momentarily before
gaining his balance by holding out both arms to steady
his swaying body. “Gotta pee, dude,” he
muttered uncertainly, unwilling to admit he was probably
going to be sick. Tough guys don’t puke…
Sam watched as Dean floundered
across the room and vanished quickly into the bathroom.
It didn’t take much to guess that he probably
wouldn’t make it out again under his own steam.
While he was sleeping off the excesses, Sam could head
the car towards Oxford and hope his brother accepted
the gig without further question when he awoke.
I
can’t just sit around and wait for Haris…I
can’t…
While Sam was on the road,
working, killing evil, he could at least push aside
the stark truth of his future – the reality that
soon he would have no future.
“Maybe this will
just be a quick salt and burn,” he said to no
one in particular as he picked up the Impala’s
keys from where Dean had dropped them. But then, for
the Winchesters, when was anything that simple?
* * * *
Cold air blew in from
the open window, blasting Dean in the face until he
felt almost awake – almost. Even as he slouched
in the Impala’s passenger seat, he had to wonder
just how much whiskey it had taken to knock him out
this way. He could normally drink the best hunters under
the table - apart from his father and Joe Bearwalker,
and walk away without so much as a headache.
The
four-alarm hangover that had been plaguing him for the
past hundred miles was telling him he had drank a hell
of a lot more than usual. Or maybe Sammy slipped
me something. Wouldn’t be the first damn time…
Except,
Dean knew there was no reason for Sam to drug him again.
No, the hangover, the guilt was all his own. He’d
downed the whiskey to mask his problems, to hide the
inevitable of what was going to happen to his brother,
sooner rather than later, because of me!
“Dean?”
Sam looked over and was relieved to see the elder hunter
finally awake. He hated to see his brother this way
– hated knowing that maybe he had only a few shorts
weeks of seeing his brother at all. Can’t
think like that…
“Yeah, I’m
awake, Sasquatch.” Dean stretched, feeling a kink
in his neck where he’d lain at an angle against
the door. “How long did I sleep?”
“Long enough…”
Sam slowed, pulling the Impala onto a small verge at
the side of the road. There were no street lights, only
corn fields as far as the eye could see. “We’re
just outside Oxford. I tried to find us a motel, but
the place is tiny and it’s late. Maybe we should
head for the next town and find somewhere there?”
Dean
shook his head. He’d had enough sleep, enough
nightmares for one day. “Not worth the trip.”
He yawned, finally becoming fully alert. “May
as well check out where our nurse chick saw The
A Team. When we’re done we can sleep in the
car till morning.”
Sam nodded, letting his
eyes fall on the corn wafting in the evening breeze.
“Dean, back at the bar…” He shifted
uneasily on the Chevy’s bench seat, unsure how
to approach the downward spiral in his brother’s
behavior without causing yet another argument.
“Dude,
forget about it. I just needed to down a few after Melissa,
okay?” Lies. He needed the drink, needed
to hide behind the thin veil of refuge it gave. Except
I didn’t hide. I went to the john and made a call
you’re not gonna like, Sammy.
In retrospect, maybe he
wasn’t going to like what he’d done back
in Casper, either. Whiskey could make a man do a lot,
but running for help, hell, that wasn’t something
Dean Winchester did very often.
Sam
looked at his brother, but the mirthful glint had gone
from Dean’s eyes just as surely as it had when
the demon had been on board. It was hard to tell what
he was thinking anymore, hard to know if he would make
it if Haris carried on with the deal and took Sam as
payment. And he will…
“Will you quit looking
at me like that? I’m starting to get worried here…”
Dean’s mouth edged into a smirk, but the snark
that usually flowed in torrents had merely been a thin
trickle of late.
It
was the first time Sam had ever known his brother this
way, and it scared him. He’s likely to do
something stupid if anything happens to me…
“Sammy,
I don’t think we need to go looking for our mystery
platoon…” Dean sat up straighter in his
seat and stared almost vacantly from the Impala’s
side window. “Dude, Children of the Corn has
nothing on this picture…”
Sam’s brows rose
and his pupils widened as he looked across to the still-blowing
sheaves that danced under the moonlight’s all-encompassing
glow. From their center, something was stirring, something
that walked – no hovered – over a thin stratum
of fog.
“It’s the
ghost platoon…”
Dean
bobbed his head, lowering his window to get a better
view. “Yeah, not exactly Rambo material
if it takes a whole bunch to come back and get a few
scares…”
“I still don’t
get the why. Why haunt their hometown? Nobody here could
have caused their deaths all those thousands of miles
away. It was a war, Dean.” Sam’s gaze followed
the ghostly troop as they moved closer, weaving in and
out of the corn as if they still had physical form.
“Maybe they don’t know they’re dead?”
“Ya think? Cos,
dude, they gotta have noticed there are no freakin’
gooks around here.” The hunter paused, realizing
he wasn’t even funny. “There’s something
we’re missing. Something big. You sure your freaky
vision thing isn’t telling you anything. I mean,
you said you were drawn here, right?”
“Nothing, Dean,
but I think we’re about to get a chance to find
out.” Sam nodded and he winced, nodding towards
the outside of the car. The platoon had changed direction
and the full width of their patrol had begun to encircle
the Impala.
A
figure wearing sergeant’s stripes stood at their
head, his bright red-flecked eyes fixated on Sam, as
if he knew the hunter from a past life.
Dean’s expression
changed and his brow knitted in concern. “Dude,
is there something I’m missing here? ’Cause
that freak is looking at you as if he wants to make
you his bitch.”
Sam shook his head, but
couldn’t find any words to explain the dead soldier’s
fascination with him. “Maybe he senses my gift?”
“Maybe,” Dean
agreed, pushing open the creaking Chevy’s door
with a grunt. “Or maybe he’s one of Haris’
legions of dead minions come to collect your sorry ass…”
The hunter headed for the trunk, ignoring the fact that
the ghostly sergeant was moving closer.
“It’s not
my birthday.” Sam joined his brother and accepted
the pump action shot gun he was given without question.
“Yeah,
well how long is it gonna take to seep into that thick
Stanford skull of yours that demons friggin’
lie? Sammy, he could collect anytime…maybe
he lured you here for just that. Maybe this whole friggin
platoon’s mission is a little soul collection
for that bastard.”
No, he can’t take
me yet. It’s all part of the master plan. I just
don’t know what that plan is. Sam inhaled. “This
isn’t about Haris, trust me.”
Dean cracked the barrel
of his own weapon and slid in two rock salt-filled shells.
The slight clicking sound as they slipped into place
was comforting, even though he was surrounded by almost
fifty dead men. “Might wanna tell that to the
red-eyed dude with the barrel of his M16 pointed at
your head…”
Sam’s eyes flicked
upwards in time to see the sergeant’s face transform
from human to some maggot-filled husk. But even then,
the eyes glowed a fiery red that seemed to spark and
flare in the stark light from the moon.
“…the
children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth
generations…”
The sound appeared to
emanate from the soldier, but there were no lips to
form the words, only a bony-white jaw that struggled
to open and close without any muscle tissue to move
it.
Sam couldn’t take
his eyes from the sight, couldn’t dive behind
the relative safety of the Impala, even though the spirit
had singled him out and had an M16 aimed at his skull.
“Sammy,
DOWN!” Dean heaved his shotgun up ready to fire,
but Sam didn’t move. He had been brought here
for a reason, and if that reason was death, then it
was time he embraced it. No more running, no more back
alley deals.
The young hunter outstretched
his arms. “If you’ve come for me, then take
me…”
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