by Tim Waggoner
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.
“Recognize this fellow? It’s Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead. He’s not much in the height department, but he kicks ass when it comes to bringing folks back from what Shakespeare called ‘the undiscovered country.’” He looked up at Trish and smiled. “Isn’t that right, sweetie?”
Trish opened her mouth as if she intended to reply, but all that came out was a thin stream of drool that fell onto the bacon.
Walter turned back to the brothers and grinned. “So, who’s hungry?”
* * *
From the outside, the NuFlesh Biotech office looked the same as it had yesterday, but as Sam and Dean got out of the car and headed for the door, it burst open and Dr. Martinez’s office assistant came running out. The slender woman looked absolutely terrified, and without realizing where she was going, she ran directly into Dean. She didn’t have a lot of meat on her, and the collision sent her stumbling backward as if she’d run full force into a brick wall. Dean managed to reach out and grab her arms in time to stop her from falling on her bony posterior.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Has something happened?”
He groaned inwardly. He hated it when people in horror movies asked stupid questions like that. Of course something had happened! Why else would she be running as if she had a pack of Hellhounds on her tail?
At first her gaze refused to focus on either Dean or his brother, and her lower lip kept quivering. He was beginning to fear that she’d taken the last exit to Loonyville, but then she spoke.
“It’s Doctor Martinez. He’s... he’s not well.” She tore free from Dean’s grip with surprising strength for such a petite woman and ran into the parking lot. If she had a car there, she didn’t bother with it. She just kept going until she reached the sidewalk and was gone.
“I’d say that definitely qualifies as a bad sign,” Dean said.
“You think?”
The brothers drew their pistols—both weapons reloaded and ready to go—and entered NuFlesh.
The reception area was empty, which made sense, as its usual sole occupant had just high-tailed it for the hills. Dean held up his hand for Sam to stop for a moment, and the two of them listened. At first Dean didn’t hear anything, but then he was able to make out a voice singing softly.
“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout.
“That’s a little creepy,” Dean whispered.
“More than a little,” Sam replied.
Together the brothers headed down the hall toward Martinez’s office. The singing grew louder the closer they got, the same phrase, repeated over and over in a childish singsong tone. Martinez’s door was half open, and Dean debated the merits of calling out to the doctor or going in silent, guns at the ready.
He didn’t have to make the choice, as the door opened the rest of the way and Martinez stepped into the hall. He stopped when he saw the Winchesters. If he noticed they’d drawn their pistols, it didn’t seem to bother him.
“Hello, agents! I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. What can I help you with?” His voice was a thick, liquid burble, almost impossible to understand.
Dean and Sam could only stand and stare. They’d seen some genuinely awful things in their lives, but this qualified for the top ten, easy.
Martinez’s skin had taken on a bright pink color that reminded Dean of the nasty slime fast-food burgers were made from, and it sagged from his bones like melting wax. The flesh had drawn away from his eyes and mouth, giving his face a skull-like aspect, and his hair had slid down the left side of his face like a toupee that refused to stay put. His ears dangled from thin pink strands that hung from his head like braids, and his fingers stretched all the way to the floor. The flesh from his legs had run out of his pants cuffs to overflow his shoes, making it look as if he had thick pink stumps instead of feet. His chin had become a long tendril that stretched past his chest and wobbled horribly when he spoke.
Dean turned toward his brother. “Sam, remember when I said this job reminded me of Frankenstein? I changed my mind. We are way into Reanimator territory here!”
Martinez went on as if Dean hadn’t spoken. “I hope you haven’t come for any samples of NuFlesh to compare with what you found on that nightmarish beast you showed me yesterday.” He spoke almost cheerfully in his burbling voice, as if nothing was wrong. “I’m afraid I traded the last of my supply to a special customer of mine. He provides me with a special unguent that relieves the itching caused by my burn scars and—”
That was the last word Martinez got out before his lower jaw detached from his skull and tumbled to the floor. It landed with a plop in the widening pool of pink goo that spread outward from his feet, and Sam and Dean scooted back to avoid contact with the disgusting substance. Dean had seen the Blob movies, and he knew how dangerous nasty goo could be. Pinkish slime continued running from Martinez’s skeleton, flowing like syrup, and individual bones came loose without muscles, ligaments, or cartilage to hold them in place. His form began to lose shape and fold in upon itself, though his eyes remained unaffected, darting back and forth in confusion, as if he’d finally come to realize that something was terribly wrong but wasn’t able to determine what. Then Martinez lost what little solidity remained to him, and his skeleton collapsed, leaving nothing but a pile of bones, his clothing, and a mound of watery goo. Only his eyes remained, housed in the skull, which sat lopsided atop the pink mound. They looked up at Sam and Dean, whatever emotion they might have held unreadable, until at last they too melted away to nothing.
“I’m never going to eat ice cream again,” Dean said. “Or chew bubble gum.”
Sam looked as if he might lose the gallon or so of coffee he’d drunk so far that morning. “I’m right there with you, brother.”
* * *
“I’ve been using the basement as a lab for weeks now, and I still haven’t gotten used to how chilly it is down here. Sometimes I feel as if I should be wearing a parka instead of a lab coat. But the cold’s g
ood for you, isn’t it, sweetie?”
She smiled down at her daughter. Bekah lay naked on the table, a white sheet covering her from the neck down. Even though it was just the two of them, Catherine wanted to give Bekah her dignity. Catherine might be her mother—not to mention a doctor—but Bekah was a teenager, nearly an adult, and her body was her own. The last thing Catherine wanted to do was treat her like a piece of meat.
Like you treated that poor dog? she asked herself.
That was different. That creature was a test subject, its only purpose to help Catherine determine how effective NuFlesh—with Conrad’s special “enhancements”—was at fusing body parts from different donors. Both Bekah and Marshall’s bodies had suffered severe damage in the accident, and it had been necessary to replace numerous organs, tissue, and in a couple cases, entire limbs. A good half of Bekah’s face had needed reconstruction, and only one of her original blue eyes remained to her. The other was now brown. Beneath the sheet, her body was crisscrossed by faint scar lines of NuFlesh indicating where Catherine had operated on her. She’d taken far more care with Bekah than she had with the dog, so the scars were hardly noticeable. She’d been even more careful with her daughter’s face, working diligently to ensure that the skin looked as smooth and natural as possible. When Bekah was... well again, Catherine wanted her to like what she saw in the mirror.
During the last few weeks Catherine had often felt more like a sculptor than a doctor, though with her medium being flesh instead of clay. Conrad had encouraged her to view her work that way.
We want strong, healthy bodies for your family, he’d once told her. That is, of course, the ultimate goal. At its best the human form possesses an elegance and beauty unrivaled in nature. So we want to make sure that not only are your loved ones restored to life, but that the bodies that house that life are worthy of the gods themselves.