pixel_0 | Crescendo of the Moon: (9/?)

Previous chapters can be found here.

Nine

The air conditioner in the library sputtered and groaned with metallic clanks approximately every ten minutes before it blasted out a puff of hot air amidst feeble attempts at cool air. Dean, from his reclined position in one of the reading chairs, cast low-lines glances in the direction of the appliance and decided it sounded like it needed new transmission fluid. After the first few times of the grating noises, he began to wonder if it weren’t preparing to explode and kill them all. If, of all the places he had to die, it would be in a library, he planned to issue a complaint with the people in charge when he reached the other side.

He sighed when the cool air gradually returned to gently touch his skin, and he looked out the large windows where the sun was beginning to sink in the sky. Glancing at his watch, he gave a dull groan, learning that Sam had been gone for more than two hours, lost to the books and his fervent quest for research. In the time since they had separated upon entering the library, Dean had managed to pull a dusty children’s book from the nearest shelf and flip through it lazily. A growing headache gnawed at the corners of his brain, and when he tried to focus on words, the pain only increased in intensity, so he resorted to looking at the colored pictures.

Across one of the pages, a small, green lizard wearing a goofy smile and cartoon eyes was shown eating a bug, while the caption read in big, friendly letters, “Today, Freddy eats flies. Freddy likes to eat flies. They taste good.” Dean smiled wryly, just a slight curve at the corner of his lips, thinking that famed published authors had gotten something wrong at last. No, he thought, Freddy has chosen me and thinks that I taste good. Flies are the least of Freddy’s dinnertime orders.

He averted his eyes from the book to lift one edge of the crimson blotted gauze on his hand. The skin there was blotched in crusted red patches where he had cut away the scales, and when he pressed his fingers against the sores, they were still swollen and painful. Quickly, he glanced around to make sure that no one was watching him, and he looked back down at his wounds. For a flash of an instant, there appeared to be blue dots on the edges of the dried blood, but when he turned his hand at a different angle, the colored marks disappeared. He shook his head, trying to convince himself that he was merely seeing things in the poor lighting because he had managed to permanently remove the scales from infecting his body.

Just as he had closed the child’s book in his lap and rested his head against the back of the chair to doze while he waited, Sam’s voice blasted through his fatigued mind. “Dean? What are you doing? You can’t sleep in here.”

Dean opened his eyes weakly, lifting his head to see Sam, who carried a pile of dog-eared books under one arm, glaring down at him. “Who says I can’t? There’s no ‘No Sleeping, Please’ signs posted.”

“It’s a library,” Sam retorted huffily, as if Dean had committed an illegal action against the state. “You sleep, you look like some homeless bum.”

“Like I don’t already? Hell, I look like a homeless bum who’s just been in a street fight.”

The acknowledgement of his injuries seemed to hurt Sam, who looked away from Dean’s face and toward the pile of books he had brought. He cleared his throat and sat down on the table next to Dean’s feet. “I found nothing on the actual things,” he said, refusing to admit openly that the “things” were massive lizards, which had nearly killed his brother. “But, I found out some interesting stuff about the city. Perhaps there’s a connection.”

“Perhaps.”

“What about you? Find anything?” Sam asked.

“Flies taste good.”

“What?” Sam’s eyebrows shot up to hide beneath his bangs in surprise along with the pitch of his voice raising several levels. Had Dean not been so exhausted, he would have laughed at the comical shock on his brother’s face. Instead, he lifted the old children’s book from his lap and waved it idly in the air near Sam’s face.

“Freddy likes to eat flies. Apparently, he doesn’t like Dean flesh.”

“That’s not funny,” Sam shot back angrily, snapping the book out of Dean’s hand.

“Funny enough.” Dean shrugged, then swung his legs off the table and leaned forward in his chair to bring himself closer to Sam who was glaring at him through the angry eyes of a four-year old prepared to throw a temper tantrum over his favorite toy. “So, what’d you get, Darwin? Tell me all ‘bout our reptile friends, please.”

“I told you, I didn’t find anything on them, exactly. City statistics that I think are interesting considering…everything.”

“Shoot.”

“All right. There have been numerous child disappearances and deaths over the years. This one,” he said, pulling a green bound book from the middle of his stack, “says something about this city having one of the highest percentages of child disappearances across America. In comparisons of cities of the same size, it, I think it’s second or third—”

“To what? Other cities?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know,” Sam grumbled, slightly frustrated. “It didn’t list the names of the other ones.”

“Derry, obviously is number one.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Stephen King? Derry, Maine?” Dean waved a hand dismissively. “And you think you’re so well educated. If anybody knows things about the supernatural bullshit we hunt that man must have—”

“You read Stephen King?”

“I’ve dabbled.”

“Anyway,” Sam continued in a distracted tone, “there’s all the child disappearances. Occasionally, the kid will be found dead, but not always. The wounds are similar to what you had, and they’re usually written off as mountain lion or something like that. I went online and did a search for the deaths in this city, filed it down to just children, and I can’t really find any similarities between all of them.” From one of the larger books, he pulled out a crisp white stack of paper that was smooth beneath his fingers. “Aside from their ages, they’re all of different races, genders, backgrounds…Nothing in common.”

“You searched any farther than the city?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Sam looked up at Dean, then chewed on the corner of his lip quietly and averted his gaze to the floor.

“Sam? What about the other cities?”

Finally, Sam sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah, I did. There’s these types of deaths across the country, possibly further, but I didn’t search outside America.”

“How many we talkin’?”

“Lots.”

“Lots? What happened to college boy statistics?” Dean mocked, but beneath his false audacity, he felt his insides slip over one another in a cruel warning that his questions were going to lead to undesired answers.

“Hundreds. Hundreds, Dean. I’ve got data from the sixties when they first started tracking this stuff, and there’s hundreds.”

“Then why aren’t people standing up and taking notice?”

Sam shrugged. “Because they can write it off as something else? Up north, bear attack. On the coast, shark attack if it’s near the water. Mountain lion, hell, even wolverines if you want to be honest. Okay, maybe some of the attacks really are other animals, but I don’t think all of ‘em are. They don’t see the lizards like we did, Dean. They’re not going to automatically know there’s something like this that’s killing people.”

“People are morons sometimes.”

“They’re not morons. It’s no different than anything else we do. They don’t really believe Bloody Mary pops out the mirror at them or they can get possessed on an airplane…or, hell, what about the Wendigo? This is like that. What did they think it was? I don’t remember now…Bear attack? They just don’t…they don’t see everything and so they try to put the easiest explanation on it that they can.”

“So what? We gather the names of the families here and go and talk to ‘em? If they don’t know it’s the lizards from Hell, they probably won’t be of any help anyway,” Dean responded. “This isn’t like the Wendigo at all. This is across the goddamned country, Sam. And when did the Wendigo ever exclusively hunt certain people?”

“Yeah, well, you’re right. There’s got to be a reason why specific children are attacked and not. It’s like they’re chosen by these things.”

Oh Sam, if only you knew. “You really think our scaly friends are that intelligent?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past these guys right now,” Sam answered. “All the attacks are on kids between the ages of four and thirteen. But like I said, there’s different ethnicities, different locations—some urban and some rural—, different genders…just different everything. You’re obviously an exception to the rule in that you first of all, survived the attack, and that you’re, well, older.”

Dean rose to his feet, stretched as much as he could without straining his sore muscles, and looked down at Sam, who was still sitting on the table. “Look, let’s go and get something to eat. I’m starving. Then, if you really want, I guess we can go and talk to the parents whose children got nabbed. Maybe we’ll see something that the official police boys didn’t.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam responded, sounding a little bit disappointed as if he had wanted to stay in the library longer. Reluctantly, he followed Dean out the doors and into the quickly falling shadows of dusk.

They ate dinner at a small restaurant, and Dean poked his fries into their thick ketchup quietly. He drew bright red trails around the edges of his plate until Sam pointed out that Dean had already said that he was starving but hadn’t eaten anything. Dean didn’t respond that he suddenly wasn’t hungry because the hamburger reminded him of the way his own muscles had been eaten and even the ketchup seemed to have taken on a greater gruesome meaning. Instead, he voiced complaints of nausea, sipped at the glass of water he ordered, and asked for the check.

When a girl at the table across from them winked suggestively at Dean, he barely managed a weak smile in return before pushing himself away from the table and walking out the door. Sam stopped chewing on his own fries and wondered how he could have been so blind to his sibling’s problems.

Later that night, after both of the brothers had been sleeping easily, Dean abruptly awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of his name called from the darkness. For a moment, he refused to move and remained lying with his eyes opened. Then, he pushed himself to a seated position and finally, slid his legs out of bed and walked to the partially opened window.

Rolling in on the late night wind, his name slipped through the window and he knew that they were beckoning for him once again. He glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who was sleeping quietly with thick brown hair cascading down on his eyes in slumber. Still exhausted from his consecutive days of not resting, Sam had fallen into an impenetrable and extreme sleep, and Dean doubted that he could be easily roused.

Turning his attention back to the window, Dean lifted the pane until it was fully opened, and he was able to see across the desert. Except for the rolling wind and the summoning whispers, the world was silent and still, watched only by the scattered stars above. He had just closed the window to block out the call and began to walk back to his bed, when the voice came again, echoing through his mind, You know he’ll never understand, Dean.

Sam stirred and rolled over onto his other side, long limbs draping off the bed in their size. In the pinched illumination of the night, one side of his face disappeared into the dark shadows of his pillow, while half of dark stubble and closed eye glowed in the pale lighting.

We understand, Dean. Don’t you see? We belong together. He is your brother by blood, but we are your brothers by choice. And that means so much more, oh yes, it does.

I have hunted you, he thought, somehow knowing that even though his words were not spoken aloud, they would be heard nonetheless. I have hunted the likes of you and killed you effortlessly. What makes you think I won’t do it now?

Because you know that we are different than mere monsters of the night. You looked into our eyes, did you not? And when you looked at us, did you recognize yourself? Who did you see in us, Dean?

Dean remained silently, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady.

Did you see your father in all his glory, covered in the blood of thousands he has killed? Did you see your mother while she was alive and loved you, but burned in a fire that has consumed your life to this day? Perhaps your brother even? Or was it your own eyes staring back at you?

I won’t hurt Sam.

We are not here to hurt him. We are not here for him. We are here only for you. He does not see the world as you have.

He must never know.

No, there is no reason for him to know. Keep him there and lie to him as you will. We don’t mind, Dean. We won’t tell. It is your choice to tell him, but you won’t tell either. You know the truth would destroy him. You are everything to him, and to discover that you are so different, he would never look at you the same way again.

Dean shook his head and did not reply. The voices came again.

Dean, you know what it is we see in you. It is too late now to turn back to the life you once lived. Walk with us as you would walk with him.

Dean looked back to his own empty bed, white tousled sheets glowing in the light, and then back to his younger brother. Swallowing twice, he found that even on the second gasp, the large lump in his throat was still pinching his air and threatening to suffocate him. He placed his hand on the windowsill and met the stars’ eyes.

The room spun in shades of midnight and Sam.

Hours later, Sam awoke to the taste of cotton in his mouth and the sound of the neighbors in the next room fighting. He groaned when he glanced at the clock to see that it was still early enough that he should have been sleeping, and he threw an arm across his eyes. Disgusted, he rolled onto his opposite side to face Dean’s bed, and his slit eyes scanned the jumbled covers on Dean’s bed. When he realized that Dean’s bed was empty and the bathroom door was open, he sat up with a terrified jolt. Dean’s pajamas were thrown in a heap on the floor, and his duffel bag was gaping open, spewing clothes across the bed.

Frantically, Sam leapt from his bed and ripped his own clothes from a bag before bolting for a weapon. As he flew out the door, his feet barely touching the floor, Sam couldn’t stop the thought from entering his mind that perhaps, this time, Dean did not want to be found.

Chapter Ten

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allstar12.livejournal.com

Nooooooooo. Dean, go back with Sam! Awesome chapter, the things "talking" to Dean gave me chills .. and you kinda grossed me out when Dean was picking/inspecting his hand. I could just picture it and it was kinda gross. LOL. And Dean reading children's books is priceless.

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Crescendo of the Moon: (9/?)

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