Supernatural Fresh Meat

FIFTY




Grace reached up and wiped the fluid from her face with one sleeve. “Jesus, Dean! What the hell are you doing?”

Dean crept closer. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to stabilize him before he goes into shock.”

Dean moved toward them at a crouch, still unable to stand. He could see now that Jason’s stomach had been torn up by something sharp. His shirt and jacket lay ripped open, and a bloody, ragged wound gaped in his abdomen. Next to Grace lay an open medical kit. She was in the middle of preparing a gauze pad to apply pressure.

When she did, Jason cried out again in pain.

“You’re more of a wuss than an incontinent kid at a summer camp,” she told him. “This is nothing. I bet you cry over paper cuts, too.”

Dean knew Grace was lying to Jason, trying to force him to fight against the pain. It was no paper cut, and Dean was sure he’d seen the glistening white of Jason’s intestines before Grace covered them with the pad.

“Anyone else need help?” she asked Dean.

“There’s a guy back there with a pretty bad head wound.”

“How many people are down here?”

“Three others that I saw.”

She frowned, leaning over Jason and applying tape to the gauze pad. “There have to be more. I saw at least seven people when I ran down here.”

Dean glanced around. “They might be buried. I’m going back to double check.” He spoke to her back as she bent over Jason. “What about Jimmy?”

“Who?”

“That skinny guy who punched him out,” Dean said, pointing at Jason.

Grace stared around, looking haunted. “God, I don’t know. It all came down so fast.”

“Don’t be alone with Jimmy,” Dean told her.

Dean heard a sizzling sound. He stared down at Grace’s arm. Some of the spice concoction was dripping from her sleeve. It fell on Jason’s exposed stomach, the flesh there sizzling and bubbling. He groaned, stirring, only partially aware of his surroundings.

Jason is the aswang.

“Grace.” Dean hooked his thumb out the door. “That guy back there with the bad head wound—I think you should come take a look now.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m almost done here.” She attached the bandage to the ragged cut, then stepped away. “He needs stitches,” she said to Dean. “How long, you think, till they can dig us out?”

Dean ushered her past him and she started down the dangerous corridor.

“It’s going to be a while,” he said. “With the road out, rescuers will have to come in on foot.” He thought of Sam and Bobby. “And we’ve got other problems.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Jason, who grabbed his stomach and writhed in agony.

“How long were you in there with him?” Dean asked as she started crawling out.

She furrowed her brow. “Just a few minutes. He was unconscious when I found him. He hit his head pretty hard, too.”

“I think we should give him some space.”

“Space? That’s the last thing he needs.”

“Listen, Grace, there’s something you don’t know about him.”

They crouched down, moving down the destroyed hallway to the hole at the end. A scrambling sound behind them made Dean turn. Jason still lay on the ruined floor of the room, pretty out of it. But something moved in the wall above him. Debris rained down. A chunk of insulation tile fell into the room.

“Is the place coming down again?” Grace asked, and for the first time Dean heard real fear in her voice.

Then an air duct panel banged open and a hand came out.

“Help!” a man said.

Jason stirred on the floor, sitting up.

“Hold on!” Dean said to the guy. “We’re coming.” He put a hand on Grace’s shoulder. “Stay here.”

Dean squeezed back down the hallway, moving as quickly as he could, placing and extracting his feet among all the wiring and exposed foundations.

The man in the air vent started slithering out, his arms and face covered in blood.

Jason jumped to his feet so lightning-fast that Dean hardly saw him move. One moment he was lying down, the next he was at the air vent. He grabbed the man’s arms, wrenching him down out of the hole.

“What the—” the man said. He slammed down onto the floor, and Dean recognized him from the locker room earlier.

“Jason!” Dean shouted, but Jason didn’t even turn around as he bent over the man. Dean jumped over debris as a long, snaking tongue extruded from Jason’s lips. Jason flipped him over and the tube attached itself to the man’s back. As Dean reached the doorway, he heard a horrific sucking sound, seeing organs pumping up the proboscis into Jason’s mouth. He chewed, eyes rolling back in his head with delight.

Dean pulled out the concoction, spraying Jason with it. It sizzled and burned his skin, and Jason screeched.

He turned on Dean, eyes narrowing in the darkness. That familiar coppery glow erupted in the gloom. Jason swallowed and Dean watched, horrified, as the wound Grace had treated sealed up instantly. Wings ripped free of the parka.

Dean doused the aswang with the mixture. His victim lay motionless on the floor, and Dean could hear someone else moving through the vent. “Stay back!” he shouted at them. “There’s a fire on this side!”

“What?” a voice asked, muffled by all the ductwork.

“Dean, what’s going on?” He heard Grace’s voice behind him.

“Go back!” he shouted at her. He glanced over his shoulder, saw her emerging from the narrow passageway. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around, shoving her backward.

An agonizing pain erupted in his side. He looked down to see the proboscis attached below his ribs. He poured the spices on it, and it detached. A hot, searing pain burned in the wound. Jason stared at him, keeping his distance.

Dean tried to grip the jar with the spices, but no matter how tightly he held it, it wasn’t tight enough. It kept slipping. Jason wavered in the corner over the man. Dean’s body listed to one side, and he grabbed part of the wall to steady himself. A sweeping dizziness overcame him, and his legs felt rubbery and uncertain under him. He fell to his knees, head bobbing under an incredible weight. He tried to focus on Jason in the dim light, but the creature swayed and loomed and all his features became blurred and mixed together.

“Dean!” he heard Grace call behind him. “What’s wrong?” But her voice was muffled and muted, and he could barely make out the words.

He opened his mouth to tell her to stay away, but found he couldn’t speak. His tongue weighed too much and filled up too much of his mouth.

Dean slumped forward, over a broken snowboard. He felt his hands go heavy and useless, falling down inside the debris of wiring and plaster. He blinked, trying to breathe. Jason stepped forward and took the concoction out of Dean’s useless fingers. Dean tried to resist, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. He lay there, feeling heavy and useless, his mind going numb.

Jason stepped over him toward the door. Dean heard Grace screaming in the dark. Then blackness stole over him, sweeping him away into oblivion.