Supernatural Fresh Meat (10 page)

Nearer now, he saw that the wounds were sealed with some kind of glistening adhesive, almost like super glue. Deep gashes covered the man’s chest, stomach, and kidneys.

“Sir?” Grace tried again.

Still he marched onward.

She shucked off her jacket and draped it over his shoulders. If he felt the gesture, he didn’t give any indication. He walked right through a bush, the branches scratching his legs. Bile and blood dribbled down his back from one of the wounds.

“I’ve got to get him back,” Grace told them.

“He might be our vic.,” Bobby said, “the one who disappeared this morning.”

“I’ll see that he reaches help.”

The man tripped on a log, regained his balance, and kept walking.

“I’ll go with you,” Bobby offered.

“That really isn’t necessary.”

The man walked face-first into a tree trunk, stepped to the side, and continued on.

“I really think I should. I need to question him.”

“I don’t think this guy’s going to be fit for questioning any time soon.”

“Still,” Bobby insisted, “I’d like to help.”

“Fine,” Grace said coldly. “But hurry up.”

Sam and Dean walked alongside them. Sam stared around the forest, feeling eyes on him. “Agent Plant and I should stay out here, keep looking for signs of the killer.”

“Good idea,” Bobby said. “I’ll call you when I learn something.”

Sam nodded at him and watched as he disappeared over the next rise with the ranger and the marching man. He pulled out the map. “We need to make camp, Dean. We’re dead center where the attacks have been happening.”

Dean looked around. “Some place defensible.”

They walked around, settling on a flat spot where they would be able to see anything approach. No trees stood overhead, so they could avoid surprise drop-in visits this time.

Sam built a fire while Dean walked around the perimeter, setting up an early warning system with some tripwire so they could hear anything approach on foot.

The sun sank low and cold came with the darkness. Sam could smell sage on the wind. They sat down on their sleeping bags, watching the smoke rise and curl up into the black sky. The embers glowed bright yellow and orange and Sam watched them pulse and fade.

Something rustled in the bushes and they leapt up, braced for a fight. A doe came through the underbrush, stepped over a log, and stared at them.

“It’s just Bambi,” Dean said.

“That’s Bambi’s mother.”

The deer disappeared back into the underbrush. They sat down again, tense, waiting, trying to conserve their strength. The stars came out, more dazzling than Sam had ever seen before. The Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon, a glowing cloud of light.

Dean made a line of Molotov cocktails next to the fire, waiting to be lit. Sam fiddled with his flamethrower, checking it for the twentieth time in the last hour.

In the distance they heard a swooping noise, like a huge bird sweeping over the forest. It faded away.

“Did you hear that?” Sam asked.

Dean nodded, getting to his feet.

The noise of beating wings returned, louder than ever. Sam jumped up, eyes scanning the starlit sky. The beating grew thunderous and Sam spun around, trying to find the source. “What the hell?” Then it faded, tapering away softly, the wing beats barely discernable.

Sam was just looking back to Dean with a shrug when something blocked out the sky above him. Where stars had been, a dark shape descended, reptilian wings outspread. Glowing coppery eyes gleamed in the darkness. At the last second, two clawed feet whipped out and caught Sam by the shoulders. Talons hooked into the flesh below his collarbones. He cried out, thrashing, grabbing at the leathery feet. White-hot pain erupted in his chest muscles as the claws tore through him. The thing wrenched violently to one side, and Sam struggled to keep his balance. As he thrashed, he felt his feet leave the ground. He kicked, feeling pebbles cast away from his boots, then suddenly his feet swung free. He grabbed his knife out of his jeans pocket. Stabbing upward, he felt the blade sink into the tough flesh of an ankle. Warm liquid rained down over Sam’s hand and dribbled thickly onto his head. He dared a look down, seeing twenty feet of yawning space between him and the ground.

“Sam!” Dean yelled, rushing forward. He slung his flamethrower around to his back and pulled out his rifle.

Sam tried to look up, to make out what had him, but he couldn’t see anything more than a black silhouette against the stars.

He heard the crack of a rifle, then another shot, and suddenly the thing banked and weaved. The pain in Sam’s shoulders erupted and he bit back a cry. It felt like any second his collarbones would snap and the claws would tear through his muscle, sending him crashing to the earth.

As the creature banked rapidly to the left, another rifle shot rang out. It pitched forward. Sam watched as the ground sped toward him, alarmingly fast, too fast, and a huge, jagged rock loomed up in the foreground. He was going to hit it. Face first. He clenched his teeth against the pain as he careened toward the granite. Air streamed over him, causing his eyes to tear up. Sam put his legs out, hoping to buffer the crash, and suddenly the thing turned. For a moment it hovered, rising and lowering in the air with each powerful flap of its wings. Every time they sank and rose again, Sam could feel his flesh tearing.

Then the talons slid out and he plummeted downward. The last thing he saw before he hit was Dean whirling around to fire the rifle again, while the dark shape closed in on him.

THIRTEEN

Dean fired the rifle, unable to make out the creature’s dimensions in the dark. He thought he managed to hit it at least once, but it sure as hell wasn’t slowing the thing down.

Sam landed hard next to a fallen log, and Dean started backing away, hoping to lure the creature in his direction. “C’mon, you son of a bitch!” he shouted.

He felt a blast of air from its wings before he heard it. Clawed feet knocked him flat on a bed of pine needles and branches. He clutched his rifle to his chest, rolled, and got up on one knee. He didn’t see his attacker. If the thing would just get low enough, maybe he’d be able to spot it against the trees. Fighting something jet black against the night sky was not getting the job done.

Another whoosh of air blasted him from behind and a sharp pain bloomed in his arm as the creature grabbed him and threw him like a sack of wet noodles.

Dean’s left arm windmilled as he flew through the air, but he managed to keep hold of the rifle. His back hit a tree trunk and he slid down the rough bark. He landed hard on his side, brought up the gun, and fired it point-blank into the dark shape above him.

Nothing. Not even a whimper.

A blinding wave of fire erupted to Dean’s left. Sam stood with his flamethrower, the entire arc of fire enveloping the creature.

“Right on!” Dean shouted, jumping to his feet and punching a fist into the air. “Nice going, Sam!”

The dark shape shook, wings flapping as it rose into the sky. It darted to the left so fast Dean didn’t actually see it move. Then it darted back to the right. The flames went out.

Dean pulled out his .45 and fired the entire clip into the creature while Sam hit it with another blast of fire.

It rose higher, wings beating in the darkness. Running back to his pack, Dean found his shotgun loaded with rock salt, then ran back. With a deafening blast, he fired two rounds into the creature as it tried to fan out the flames. Plummeting backward, it fell to the ground, its feet kicking. Dean saw a glimpse of leathery flesh, narrowed, coppery eyes and a hulking torso of muscle. Then it took to the air again, wings outspread.

Dean grabbed more shells out of his jacket pocket and opened the breech of the gun. When he snapped it together again, the creature had vanished in the darkness. He and Sam waited, braced, staring into the sky. The wing beats grew louder and Dean aimed the muzzle of his shotgun at the sky, searching the surrounding trees, waiting for the telltale silhouette to block out the stars. The whoosh of air sounded louder and louder. Dean knew it was on top of them, somewhere, waiting to swoop in for another attack.

Then the sound stopped.

He got out his flashlight and shone it at the tops of the trees. But the thing hadn’t landed, at least not that he could see.

They waited, moving closer, till they stood back to back.

“Nothing hurt it,” Sam said. “Not bullets, not iron, not fire.”

“Or rock salt.” Dean pointed in the direction it had disappeared. “What the hell was that? A friggin’ pterodactyl? It sure as hell wasn’t a wendigo.”

Blood seeped down Sam’s chest and back. He could feel it soaking through his shirt. “That thing could fly, Dean.”

“I noticed! It was ready to carry your ass off to feed its little dinosaur babies.”

“What the hell was it?” Sam sounded a little shaken. “I’ve never heard of something that could do that. Have you? It had talons and leathery wings. And it didn’t make a sound. Even when I stabbed it, and you shot it.”

“And you set it on fire.”

Dean rested the butt of his rifle on the ground. “Whatever it is, we’re going to find out how to kill it and finish this job.” He pulled out his cell to call Bobby, but couldn’t get any reception.

“I think I might need some stitches this time,” Sam said.

“Let’s go. I can’t reach Bobby. We need to figure out what this thing is.” Dean checked his .45, then slung the rifle onto his back. Sam winced as he gathered his gear up. Then they hiked into the darkness, searching the sky.

FOURTEEN

Bobby and Grace finally reached her truck, parked at the Finder Mountain Trailhead. The man still hadn’t said anything.

They had to fight to get him into the cab of the truck. He only wanted to walk forward. Finally, Bobby bound his legs together and hefted him onto the bench seat. The man stared forward, eyes blank, his legs continuing to move as if he were walking. He kicked the gearshift and kept shuffling his legs. Grace hurried around to the driver side and Bobby squeezed in next to the man. They had draped Grace’s jacket over him, but because he refused to stay still, that was all they could do. He reeked of old blood and something else, a chemical smell Bobby couldn’t place.

“Can you hear me?” Bobby asked him for the tenth time as Grace fired up the truck. She pulled out onto the gravel road. “What’s wrong with him? I mean, other than shock?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it—those cuts all over him.”

“They’re not cuts, they’re puncture wounds.”

The truck jostled over a pothole, but the man seemed oblivious. He kicked the gearshift again, knocking it into neutral, and Grace cursed. “This is taking too long. We need to get him medical attention a.s.a.p.”

The gravel road ended at a county highway and she turned toward Truckee, accelerating quickly. Bobby studied her face as she drove. Her chin stuck out defiantly and her cheek held a smear of mud. Her hands on the steering wheel were sticky with the man’s blood.

She drove faster. Soon the lights of Truckee gleamed on the horizon. A few minutes later they pulled into the ambulance entrance of the E.R. Bobby stepped out and called to two nearby paramedics. “A man’s been hurt.”

They rushed over, gently pulling the man from the cab of the truck. “What happened?” one asked.

Grace stepped around to join them. “We don’t know. Found him like this up on Finder Mountain Trail.”

“Why are his legs tied together?” one of the paramedics asked, eyeing them suspiciously.

“He wouldn’t stop walking,” she told him. “We had to do that to get him in the truck.”

One paramedic rushed off and returned with a gurney. They lifted him onto the stretcher and he kicked, trying to walk. His eyes stared upward, glassy and blank.

Grace and Bobby followed them in, watching while an E.R. doctor took over. He wheeled the man into an examination area and pulled a blue sheet across for privacy. Bobby and Grace stood waiting tensely on the other side.

They didn’t wait long. The doctor threw open the blue curtain and called, “Code Blue! Crash cart, stat!”