Supernatural: Carved in Flesh (23 page)

When they were certain the firefighters and emergency medical personnel had everything under control, Sam and Dean headed for the car, got in, and pulled out of the parking lot. One good thing about the place being destroyed: at least they didn’t have to settle the bill.

“I’m glad you managed to save the computer, but we lost all the other stuff we had in the room, including our extra clothes. All we got left is what we got on, which smells like smoke, and the crap we bagged up in the trunk, which smells like Frankenrot. I guess no matter what we do, we’re going to end up stinking until we can find time to hit a department store.”

“I’d rather stink than be stuck in a burn ward,” Sam said.

“No kidding.” A thought occurred to Dean. “What happened to the salamander? It looked like it died right after it burned its way into our room. Are they supposed to do that?”

Sam didn’t reply right away, and Dean wondered if his brother had slipped into another one of his mini-comas again. But when he glanced over at him, he saw his eyes were open.

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

Dean’s stomach dropped. He hated it when Sam did this to him. Both of them had a tendency to play things close to the vest at times, but Sam was the proverbial still waters that ran deep. When he finally felt compelled to confess something, it was usually because whatever it was had gotten so bad he could no longer keep it a secret. Dean steeled himself for whatever Sam was going to say next.

“I have death vision.”

Dean stared at his brother for a long moment.

“Say what?”

On the way to NuFlesh Biotech, Dean pulled into a coffee shop drive-thru and Sam ordered a large coffee with five shots of espresso. Then he changed his mind and got seven shots instead. Dean ordered a large pumpkin-flavored drink with whipped cream on top. When Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother’s choice of beverage, he said, “What? They only have pumpkin in the fall.” As far as Sam was concerned, Dean might as well have gotten a milkshake, but to each his own. Besides, he wasn’t one to be lecturing anyone about making healthy choices. His caffeine intake was verging on insane, and it still barely kept him functioning.

Dean had taken his revelation about possessing “death vision” fairly well, all things considered. Probably because he was planning to force Dippel to tell them how to cure the infection spreading through Sam’s body. Dean always felt better when he had a clear course of action to follow. But even though Sam had been the one to bring up the possibility in the first place, he wasn’t confident that Dippel would know of a cure, or if he did, that he’d share it with them. As old and powerful as Dippel was, they’d be lucky to kill him, and there likely wouldn’t be any time for questioning beforehand. There was a good chance this would be Sam’s last hunt, and while he had faced death on numerous occasions—even experienced it a few times—he knew this time it would stick. There was no Cass to heal him at the last minute with angelic powers, no mystic artifact, spell, or potion in their possession that could counteract the death-infection. Even if they had such an item, Sam wasn’t sure he’d want to use it. Magic that powerful came at a high cost, and it often had unexpected—and tragic—side effects. Like with Trish.

Sometimes death is better,
Sam thought.
A lot better.

* * *

The brothers shared a guest room in the Hansen cabin, just down the hall from Trish’s room, but neither of them got any sleep that night. Before, when they’d had trouble sleeping, it was because of Trish’s proximity. It was hard not to imagine her lying on her bed snuggled beneath the covers, and even harder not to wonder what she slept in, or if she slept in anything at all. But she wasn’t in her room that night, and she never would be again. Each of the boys had his own twin bed, and Sam lay on his, staring through the darkness up at the ceiling, or at least in the direction where the ceiling was. Heavy curtains blocked all light from coming through the window, rendering the room as black as the inside of a cave. Sam wondered if this was what it was like for Trish right now, surrounded by darkness and silence. Only in her case, morning would never come.

It wasn’t totally silent in their room, though. He could hear Dean breathing, and he knew from the volume and rhythm of the sound that his brother was awake. He had a pretty good idea what he was thinking, too. As the older brother, he viewed it as his responsibility to take care of Sam, and by extension, of anyone around him. He’d seen himself as the leader of their ill-fated expedition to the Herald House, and therefore responsible for how it had turned out. That meant he blamed himself for Trish’s death. Sam felt that he was equally responsible. After all, both of them had pretended that they’d gone hunting before, that they’d encountered ghosts and knew how to handle them. True, Sam had mostly kept his mouth shut while Dean lied, but he hadn’t contradicted his brother, and as far as he was concerned, that amounted to the same as lying. Some hunters they turned out to be. All they’d managed to do was dispel the ghost for a time, to wound it temporarily and make it retreat to wherever it was ghosts went when they weren’t manifesting on the material plane. It would be back, as deadly as ever.

Sam wanted to say something to make his brother feel better, or at least let him know that he didn’t blame him for what had happened, but he was afraid that anything he might say would be stupid and end up making Dean feel worse. So he lay in the dark and said nothing.

They’d carried Trish’s body back to the cabin, Dean holding her beneath the arms, Sam gripping her legs. It was the first time either of them had touched her, but Sam took no pleasure in it, and he knew Dean didn’t either. Trish was lighter than he’d expected, almost as if some part of her had departed when she died, leaving behind only an empty shell. Her father had been sitting at the kitchen table when they arrived, waiting for them, as if he’d sensed that something had happened. Something bad.

Sam and Dean carried Trish inside and laid her gently on the couch. When Walter Hansen saw his daughter’s body, the front of her sweater tacky with drying blood, he stood and stared at her for nearly five minutes without speaking. Several times Dean tried to say something, but each time Walter held up his hand to forestall him. Then without a word or even so much as a glance at either of them, he picked up his daughter, carried her out of the living room, into the kitchen, and then down into the basement. Sam and Dean trailed behind, unsure what to do. They stood in the kitchen, not daring to violate the sanctity of Walter’s workspace, which they’d never been invited into, and waited. A couple moments later, they heard the sound of Walter’s boots on the stairs. Sam had thought that this was it. Walter was going to come bursting through the door, yelling at them for having gotten his daughter killed. Then he heard the lock on the basement door engage, and a second later, Walter went back down the stairs.

Not knowing what else to do, they sat at the table and remained there until long after the sun went down. They didn’t speak, didn’t eat or drink. They didn’t do anything but sit and stare at the closed and locked basement door. Eventually, Dean stood up and headed down the hall to their bedroom, and Sam followed. They crawled into bed without brushing their teeth or anything, and they’d been lying there ever since, awake and silent.

In his mind, Sam saw the Rifleman’s horrible expression as he emerged from the darkness within Herald House, watched him raise his rifle, heard the thunderous sound of his weapon discharging. Replaying it once, twice, three times...

The next thing Sam was aware of was the smell of bacon frying, and he realized he must have fallen asleep. Some people drifted off while counting sheep, but he’d zonked out counting gunshots. If that didn’t make him a prime candidate for the funny farm, he didn’t know what did.

The room was still dark, thanks to the curtains, but he had the sense that Dean was sitting up on his bed.

“You smell that?” Dean asked.

“Yeah.” It was freaking him out, too. In the entire time they’d been staying with the Hansens, Walter had never made breakfast. Trish always had. Sometimes pancakes, sometimes French toast, sometimes eggs, but no matter what she made, she always fried bacon to go with it. Always.

“What should we do?” Sam asked.

“Check it out,” Dean answered, although he didn’t sound confident about his answer.

Sam didn’t blame him. The skin on the back of his neck was crawling, and he could feel a cold heaviness in his belly, as if he’d swallowed a hunk of lead.

Dean stood up and walked to the door, feeling his way through the dark. When he reached the door, he found the light switch and flipped it on. The overhead light came to life, and Sam squinted against its glare. He wanted to stay right where he was, but Dean was being brave, and that meant he should be brave, too—even if he didn’t want to. He climbed out of bed and joined Dean at the door. They’d both gone to bed in their clothes, so they didn’t need to change. Too bad. Sam would have appreciated any delay, no matter how small.

Both boys ran their fingers through their hair in an attempt too make it look at least a bit less mussed, and then Dean opened the door and they stepped into the hall. The smell of bacon was stronger here, and despite the situation, Sam found his mouth starting to water, and his stomach gurgled. He felt immediately ashamed. How could he be hungry after everything that had happened? But he couldn’t help it. Then Dean’s stomach rumbled, making Sam feel a bit better.

They walked down the hall into the kitchen. Walter sat at the kitchen table, sipping a mug of coffee, an empty plate before him. He looked up when they entered, and he smiled.

“Good morning, boys! Pull up a seat!”

He sounded cheerful, but his face was haggard and drawn. The flesh beneath his eyes was puffy and dark, and the lower half of his face was dotted with stubble. He didn’t smell too good, either, and he was wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday. Sam wondered when Walter’s last shower was. The man could definitely use one. But odd as it was to be greeted pleasantly by the father of a girl you’d gotten killed, odder still was the figure standing at the stove.

Sam froze when he saw her. From the back, she looked like Trish. Same height and build, same hair, same clothes she’d been wearing when they’d hiked to the Herald House yesterday. She was lifting bacon out of the frying pan with a fork and depositing it on a plate covered with a folded-over paper towel to soak up excess grease. Instead of a deep brown color, the bacon was charcoal-black, and Sam knew she—whoever she was—had burned it. When the plate was filled with bacon, she dropped the fork to the floor, as if now that she longer needed it, it had ceased to exist for her. Then she picked up the bacon plate and without bothering to turn off the burner, turned and walked toward them.

Sam’s gaze was drawn to the dark stain on her sweater first. It was dry now, and almost black, like the bacon she carried. Then he raised his eyes and forced himself to look at her face.

It
was
Trish. Her skin had a sallow cast to it, and her features were slack, utterly void of expression. And her eyes... they were wide and staring, and they looked glassy-hard, like marbles.

When Sam had been younger, he and Dean had taken a trip with their father. He couldn’t remember where to or for what reason. Just another long car ride, and another few nights in a hotel with only Dean to take care of him while their father was out doing whatever he had gone there to do. Somewhere along the way, they’d stopped for gas at a small out-of-the-way station. Sam had needed to use the bathroom, so Dean took him while their dad paid for the gas. The restrooms were located inside the station, and as Dean escorted him through, Sam was startled to see a fox standing on the counter. At first he’d thought it was real, the owner’s pet, maybe. Then after a second he saw that it stood perfectly still, and he realized it wasn’t a real fox, or rather, it had been real once, but it was no longer alive. It had been stuffed and mounted. It was kind of creepy, but also kind of cool. When he was done peeing, Sam made sure to walk by the counter so he could get a good look at the fox. Close up, he could see that some of the fox’s stitching was coming loose, and a fine coating of dust had settled onto its fur. But the worst part was its eyes. Glossy black and lifeless, they were like doll eyes, only worse, because someone had removed this animal’s real eyes and glued the fake ones into the sockets.

That’s what Trish’s eyes looked like now. Dead doll eyes.

He looked to Dean and saw his brother staring at Trish with an expression of shock. Sam was sure he looked the same. Neither of them made a move to take a seat at the table with Trish’s father.

She carried the bacon-filled plate to the table and stood there, staring off into space. She made no move to serve it.

Walter saw the brothers staring at Trish, and gave them a smile and a wink. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way—especially when you work with hunters. A lot of them can’t afford to pay me in cash, so they settle their bill the old-fashioned way: with barter. I’ve picked up all kinds of interesting objects over the years. Sometimes I sell them to hunters who can use them, but most of the time I just put them away, figuring maybe I’ll find a use for them someday.” He reached into his pants pocket, withdrew an object, and set it on the table. It was a small obsidian statue of a dog-headed man wearing an ancient Egyptian headdress.