Supernatural: Carved in Flesh (11 page)

“Give me a sec.”

Dean reloaded his weapon, then stepped forward slowly, lowering the barrel until it was pressed against Frankenmutt’s head. He nodded to Sam, who walked over to the monstrous dog and prodded its belly with his foot. When the creature didn’t react, he prodded it harder. Still no response.

“Doesn’t look like it’s breathing,” Sam said.

“Since when does that matter in our line of work?”

“True.” Sam leveled his Beretta and put another round in the beast’s side. Its body bucked with the impact, but otherwise it didn’t move.

“I’m voting for dead,” Dean said.

“I’m good with that.”

Dean removed the shotgun from the creature’s head and waited while Sam retrieved the doll and his phone. Sam tucked the doll under his arm and turned off the crying baby sound effect on his phone, tucked the device into a pocket, and returned. The two of them then crouched down to examine the patchwork dog’s corpse. As ugly as the thing was, Dean expected it to smell like something that you’d find at the bottom of a slaughterhouse Dumpster, but it just smelled like a normal dog. He sniffed. Make that a normal dog covered in blood.

“The sections all look like parts of regular dogs,” Sam said. “Except for the face. That’s pretty messed up.” He trailed a finger along the line of hairless tissue between the dog’s right front leg and its shoulder. Similar lines crisscrossed the beast’s body.

“Doesn’t look much like scar tissue, does it?” Dean said.

Sam shook his head. “Doesn’t feel like it, either. It’s kind of... spongy.”

A line of the strange flesh circled Frankenmutt’s neck, and Dean reached out and touched it. It was firmer than normal skin, and when he pressed it in, it remained that way for a moment before slowly returning to its previous shape.
Weird.

“I see what you mean. It’s almost like some kind of... I don’t know, glue or something.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

Dean straightened, and the brothers regarded the body of the monster dog in silence for a time.

After a while, Sam asked, “Which end do you want?”

Dean considered for a moment. “Man, there’s no good choice here, is there?” He took another look at the creature’s distorted face and sighed. “I never thought I’d be saying this about an animal, but I’ll take the ass. Try not to get too much blood on you.”

They each took an end, lifted, and began carrying Frankenmutt out of the woods. Halfway back to the car, Sam stopped and turned his head sharply to the left.

Dean tensed, senses on high alert, ready for another attack. He looked in the same direction as Sam, but couldn’t see anything but trees and underbrush.

“What is it?” he asked.

Sam didn’t answer right away. He squinted, as if he were having a hard time focusing his eyes on whatever he was looking at. Finally, he shook his head as if attempting to clear it.

“For a minute, I thought... Never mind. It’s nothing. Let’s go. Frankenmutt’s not getting any lighter.”

The brothers continued lugging the dead dog, Dean unable to decide what bothered him more: that Sam’s arms were trembling with the effort of carrying his half of the creature—Frankenmutt was a big boy, but he wasn’t
that
heavy, not with the two of them sharing the load—or that it looked like his hallucinations were getting worse.

Just once, it would be nice if a hunt went down easy,
he thought.
We stroll into town, find the Nasty Whatzit, walk up to it, gank it, and stroll on out. No muss, no fuss.

Yeah, right. And maybe vampires would quit sucking blood and start chugging energy drinks instead.

* * *

He saw me.

Daniel wasn’t sure how that was possible. The living couldn’t see his kind, not even if he wanted them to. But the younger brother had stared right at him. Daniel had felt the youth’s gaze bore into him. For the first time in all his long existence as a Reaper, he’d felt exposed, and he’d slipped behind an ash tree to conceal himself. He’d felt absurd, hiding like that, as if he were... well, mortal.

But once the shaggy-haired youth went back to helping his brother cart the corpse of the dead dog-thing away, Daniel caught the whiff of death coming off him, and realized what must have happened. He waited until they were out of sight, and then followed after them, careful not to make too much noise. Again, he felt ridiculous taking such precautions, but he had no idea how sharp the youth’s death-perception had become, and he wasn’t going to take any chances.

He found what he was looking for almost right away. The dog-thing’s bullet-ravaged corpse had left a trail of blood drops in the brothers’ wake, but he wasn’t interested in those. It was the other trail that caught his attention. A thin wavering black line hovered an inch above the ground, thready and faint, like ink released in water. Daniel knelt to get a closer look at it. It was fading quickly, and he touched his index finger to a section of the shadow-line before it dissipated. He brought his fingertip, now smeared with a soot-like smudge, up to his nose. He sniffed a couple times before inserting his finger into his mouth. When he withdrew his finger a moment later, the tip was clean.

He was now certain what had happened to the younger brother, and it wasn’t good. At least, not for the boy. But as for Daniel... he might be able to make this work in his favor.

He stood and continued following the brothers, amending his plans to take this unforeseen, but not entirely unwelcome, development into account.

* * *

Peter Martinez sat in front of his office computer monitor staring at rows of data displayed on the screen. He wasn’t reviewing the information, at least not in the usual way. He’d purposely unfocused his gaze to the point where the numbers were blurry, and then he tried to relax and allow his mind to wander. He knew this data forward and backward, and he’d tried analyzing it using every logical method he could think of, without success. So today he’d decided to try a more creative approach. Instead of tackling the problem in a linear fashion, he was going to try turning his subconscious loose on it. As much as scientific advances were a result of step-by-step processes, they also were born in sudden unexpected bursts of insight, the fabled and often sought after Eureka! moment. Today Peter hoped to cultivate a moment of his own.

His office wasn’t very large, nor was it impressive. If it hadn’t been for the nameplate affixed to the wall outside, no one would have guessed that this was the office of the CEO and Head of Development for NuFlesh Biotech. Though considering that his office was located in a strip mall between a sub shop and a license bureau, and that the business had a total of five employees, including himself, he didn’t see much point in putting on airs. He wore a long-sleeved red pullover and jeans, a step below corporate casual, which was fine as far as he was concerned. He was a scientist, not a stockbroker. He wore a full black beard, partially because he thought it made him look more intelligent—and a bit roguish—but mostly to hide the burn scars that covered the lower right half of his face. He did all his “paperwork” virtually, and aside from the computer, the top of his desk was empty. He had a few books on the shelf behind him, none of which he’d touched in who knew how long. His doctoral diploma hung on one wall, while on the opposite was a framed poster—a large black-and-white photo of Einstein sticking his tongue out. The poster was supposed to remind Peter not to take everything so seriously, but today the sight of it only pissed him off. He couldn’t afford to let the stress get to him. Not if he wanted to create the optimal conditions for a subconscious breakthrough. And he badly needed one.

Two years, seven months, eight days. That was how long he’d been struggling to solve this particular problem, and at this point, he was willing to try almost anything. The financial state of his company wasn’t exactly “robust,” as the corporate types would put it, and if he didn’t make some progress on the new formula soon... He thrust the thought from his mind. Worrying about money was no way to relax. He gazed at the screen and allowed his breathing to become slow and even, and before long he felt his body relax against his office chair. That’s when it kicked in.

The Itch.

It began on his right shoulder blade, little more than the sensation of a feather brushing against his skin. He could ignore that. But it soon spread across his entire back, his chest, down his right arm, up his neck and across the right side of his face, building in intensity until it felt as if a thousand ants were crawling over his skin. That he
couldn’t
ignore.

“Don’t scratch,” he whispered. He gripped the armrests of his chair tight, fingers digging into the padding. He knew from long, painful experience that not only didn’t scratching make the itch go away, once he got started, he wouldn’t be able to stop until he’d clawed bloody runnels in his flesh. Even then the itching would continue.

Peter knew it was common for burn victims to experience discomfort like his, even long after their burns had healed and scar tissue formed. In his case, that had been almost three decades before. He’d gotten his scars as a result of a house fire caused by his idiot of a stepfather falling asleep on the couch one night while smoking. Peter and his mother got out of the house in time, but his stepfather hadn’t made it. His mother hadn’t lasted long, either. She’d died en route to the hospital, not from her burns—severe as they were—but from a heart attack. Peter had only been eleven at the time. Even though twenty-seven years and more operations than he cared to think about had passed since then, the Itch, when it came, was as bad as ever.

The many doctors and specialists he’d seen over the years had prescribed a variety of remedies for the Itch: topical lotions to stretch and loosen the scar tissue, hypoallergenic lotions, anti-itch creams like hydrocortisone, and analgesic creams such as lidocaine. None of them worked except lidocaine, and even that only managed to take the edge off the Itch. There was only one treatment he’d ever found that provided relief, and he’d used up the last of it a couple days before. He’d tried contacting his supplier, but so far the man hadn’t responded to any of his voicemails or texts. If he didn’t get in touch soon, Peter didn’t know what he was going to—

His desk phone rang, and the sound made him jump. He snatched the receiver off the hook and answered the call, speaking through gritted teeth.

“Damn it, Allison! I
told
you I didn’t want—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Martinez. I know you asked me not to disturb you, but Mr. Dippel is here, and I thought—”

“Send him in.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

He didn’t like being brusque with his office assistant, but he couldn’t help it. When the Itch was upon him like this, it took everything he had not to scream. He remembered one of his doctors telling him that while he was certain the itching was real, it couldn’t possibly be as intense as Peter reported.

I’m confident there’s a somatic component at work here,
the doctor had said.

Peter wasn’t an MD, but he was a biochemist, and he’d known damn well what the doctor had
really
meant.
Psychosomatic.
Unlike most people, Peter knew that psychosomatic sensations were real, but they were caused by mental processes rather than disease or injury. The simplest example was the stomach pain some people experienced before a stressful event, such as an important exam or presentation at work. The pain was real, the physical processes that caused it were real, but it was triggered by stress. Peter’s understanding of what the doctor had said didn’t mean he agreed with it, though.

There’s a strong correlation between people who experience somatic pain and those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The fire you survived...

Peter shoved the memory away.

With every fiber of his being, all the way down to the subatomic level, he was certain that the Itch was solely the result of the terrible injuries he’d suffered as a child, and not related to his emotional state in any way, shape, or form.

Normally he would have gone into the outer office to greet Dippel, but he feared that if he took his hands off the chair’s armrests, he’d start digging his fingernails into his skin and wouldn’t be able to stop. So he sat and gripped his chair even tighter and waited. A moment later there was a soft knock at the door. Peter tried to say,
Come in,
but the words came out as a pained grunting. They were enough to get the message across, though. The door opened and Conrad entered.

“Hello, Peter. As always, it’s good to see you. Please, don’t get up. I can see that you’re... concentrating.” Conrad gave him a thin smile as he took a seat in the chair in front of Peter’s desk.

Peter was struck anew by the strength of Conrad’s presence. Whenever the man was in the room, everything seemed to gravitate toward him. People’s attention, for one thing. It was hard as hell to take your eyes off him. It took an effort even to blink. But it was more than that. The air flowed toward him, leaving the rest of the room hot and stuffy, and he drew in light as well, illuminating himself more brightly while deepening the shadows everywhere else. It was as if he exerted his own manner of gravitational pull, one that was somehow more psychic in nature than physical. It was a ridiculous idea, Peter knew—he was a scientist, for God’s sake!—but it was one he couldn’t shake.

As always, Conrad wore a suit and tie, making him look more like a business owner than Peter. If it was possible, the man appeared even more cadaverous than the last time Peter had seen him, and not for the first time he wondered if Conrad was battling some sort of disease, cancer maybe. But despite his appearance, the man always seemed to be alert and filled with energy. After nearly thirty years of having people look at his own burn scars first before noticing there was a human being attached to them—if indeed they ever noticed—Peter certainly knew better than to judge by appearances. One thing he liked about Conrad, in fact, was that the man never seemed bothered by his scars. It wasn’t that he was able to put aside his disgust, which was what most people who considered themselves enlightened did. Conrad was well aware of Peter’s scars, but he wasn’t repulsed by them. He always met Peter’s gaze, and never averted his eyes. Peter even occasionally had the uneasy feeling that Conrad
liked
looking at his scars.