Supernatural Fresh Meat

FIFTY-TWO




Dean’s head bobbed down, jerking him awake. He tried to open his eyes, but they were crusty, as if he’d been asleep for days. He meant to bring a hand up to wipe the sleep away, but it wouldn’t move. He forced his lids apart. Dim light filtered into his world. A red exit sign glowed above him. He was sitting against a wall. His gaze traveled down his body, expecting to find his hands bound, but they hung limply at his sides. His feet weren’t tied, but he couldn’t move them, either.

He looked around for Grace, but couldn’t see her. In one corner, the man still lay under the hole of the air duct. Now two other people lay next to him, Bill and Steven, heaped together in a pile.

“Hey,” he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t work.

He couldn’t see Jason. His ears heard nothing but the roaring of blood through his veins. He didn’t know if he had gone temporarily deaf, or if it was just that quiet down there. No one whimpered for help now. The naked wires that had sparked before now hung dead and black below the exit sign.

Realization dawned. Something in Jason’s saliva had paralyzed him. Dean willed his little finger on his right hand to move, just a little bit. He stared down at the pinkie intently, begging it to move.

It didn’t.

The sound of shuffling in the narrow hallway outside brought Dean’s attention to the ragged doorway. Relief flooded through him that he could still hear.

Ragged, labored breathing rose and fell above the shuffling sound. Jason appeared in the doorway, pulling something through after him. Dean closed his eyes, not wanting to tip Jason off that he was awake.

He watched through barely opened eyelids as Jason backed into the room. The aswang had abandoned his human form completely. Dean saw the familiar clawed feet, the leathery skin.

Jason dragged a body into the room. He hefted the body up as if it were a pillow and threw it down with the others. It was Don, the mountain manager. His open eyes stared at Dean, his mouth parted. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, and Dean knew that, like him, Don was conscious but couldn’t move.

Dean wondered where Grace was. Had she been able to get away? Fear pushed in on him. Even if she had, she was trapped under here with everyone else.

Jason labored over to the air duct, pushing aside broken skis and poles. He peered inside, then pulled out a flashlight to check it. Dean could see that a ragged wound ran the length of his back. The collapse of the building had done a number on him. Blood and bile seeped down the aswang’s back.

He stooped over the ski patrol guy, elongated snout emerging once again.

Dean tried to shout, willed his body to jump up and fight. His eyes darted over the room and fell on the container of spices, but it lay on its side, empty.

Jason ripped off the man’s parka and the slithery proboscis attached itself to his back. As a sucking sound filled the room, Dean’s eyes met the mountain manager’s in the gloom. Fear gleamed in Don’s eyes. Dean blinked at him. It was all he could do.

As slurping filled the confines of the room, Dean looked back at the aswang. The bulky shapes of organs slithered up the slender feeding tube and Jason swallowed eagerly. The snout detached, probed along the man’s naked back to another spot. Dean heard Jason sniffing in the darkness. Then the circle of teeth at the end bit down. As the aswang sucked down another organ, Dean heard something that made cold sweep up his back. The man was still breathing. His puncture wounds glistened in the dim light, sealed up by the adhesive saliva Bobby had described. Dean saw the unmistakable rise and fall of his breathing. Jason was taking his time, harvesting only those organs humans don’t immediately need to survive. He’d do the same to all of them, and then move on to the ones they did need.

Dean blinked furiously. He had to get the hell out of there.

Jason stood up, apparently sated, for now. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to let him know he was conscious.

Don let out a tiny mewl, and Dean had to look. Jason wheeled on Don. The snout whipped out, attaching to the side of Don’s face. Something pumped out from Jason’s mouth, down the tube, passing into Don’s flesh. His terrified eyes went wide, and then they closed. Jason jerked the snout back, leaving a ring of needle teeth holes in Don’s cheek.

Dean shut his eyes as Jason stepped over the men and entered the narrow hallway leading out of the room. After, he sat in the gloom, listening to the sound of the others breathing raggedly around him, trying to make out as much as he could, but he couldn’t see the faces of anyone except Don, who was now unconscious.

Movement in the vent caught Dean’s eye. It was on the periphery of his vision, but he could just see part of the hole the unfortunate man had left in the wall. Two pinpoints of light flashed in the dark.

At first Dean thought it was a flashlight, someone coming through again, thinking this side was safe. He tried to warn them off, tried to lift his heavy head, but nothing worked. Then the pinpoints grew larger, the shuffling sound growing closer. A face swam up from the darkness. The two points of light became eyes, flashing reflectively in a gaunt face.

Jimmy.

Dean tried to thrash around, tried to stand, but all he could do was lean against the wall with his head down, staring out of the corners of his eyes.