2021.05.03 - Nice Night for a Fire
The Winchester brothers have had plenty of coming and going in the past few weeks and months. After the business of accepting a golem, there wasn't really much kicked up around it. Things still continued to happen, all over the country, so the brothers ended up very mobile, addressing those. But they always came back again, to their best and most consistent lodgings and the place where it felt like they belonged.
Then, on an almost random visit with Skitch to his house, things started getting weird. Not in an interpersonal way, though being in the same house as Skitch and his mother was always a challenge for Dean, and though understated and slightly less so, Sam.
Things became weird with odd noises outside, scratching at the door so inconstant that every time it's checked, there's nothing. As night falls into full darkness, there's a feeling of unsettling and discomfort. Things aren't right, and even if no one can put a finger on it, everyone feels it. They are at the threshold of something possibly terrible going down.
Living with a golem hasn't been very exciting. You'd think with a supernatural bodyguard around, Skitch might have a solo adventure or two of his own while the brothers were off doing their thing elsewhere. But mostly, Isaac has sat motionless in Skitch's room, only stirring when the teenager addresses him directly.
So, for his part, Skitch has been sticking to his classes at the university and at Rowanwood. And giving Dean an enthusiastic and athletic welcome home whenever the brothers return. But otherwise, life has been pretty dull for the nerd alchemist.
Until tonight, and the Winchesters' visit. It's not ideal that Ma Skitch is in the house (at least for an energetic teenager), but any grumbling Skitch might have done about it has been forgotten with the weirdness of the sudden, strange noises. Which would be bad enough, but the noises have somehow 'activated' Isaac, who is beginning to slowly move around the house, pausing at every window to look outside.
"See, that's weird," Skitch says, not dressed at all for snything terrible in his loose board shorts and snug t-shirt that reads 'Geek' across the chest. He's sticking close to Dean, however, which seems safe enough. "He doesn't move at -all- normally, and now he's like Robocop on perimeter check."
"It feels like something's wrong," Sam comments, frowning as he looks out a window himself.
Dean regards his brother carefully, almost staring but not quite there. "You get any visions or somethin' you ain't told me about?"
That's time for Sam to make his patented "bitchface" in return, but apparently that isn't as important as the fact that whatever's happening, it's not good. He clears his throat and knocks a knuckle lightly against the wood frame of the window next to him. "I didn't think it was...uh, I mean, it wasn't coherent, and I didn't think it had anything to do with this place, here."
That makes Dean set his jaw and puff a sigh out his nostrils. "So what is it, you see that much?"
Sam shakes his head. "It didn't tell me much. That's why it was easy to dismiss."
"Hey." Dean turns to face Skitch. "Call Scooby. Make sure he's safe in here."
Skitch wrinkles his nose as the brothers talk, his attention flicking between them and Isaac as he lumbers around, not really helping with alleviating the 'something's wrong' comment from Sam. "It sounds like big rats or something," he says as the scratching rattles...something on the house, catching the golem's attention as much as Skitch's.
When Dean tells him to call Scooby, Skitch whistles sharply, looking around until the little French bulldog comes reluctantly out into the front room, ears flattened against his head as he slink to the sofa and attempts to wedge himself under it. Skitch watches, a bit enviously. "Wish I could do that."
"Yeah, somethin' ain't right. Skitch, get your mom and Scooby -- what's the innermost room in the house?" Dean puts his hand on Skitch's shoulder, glancing around them as Sam does much the same thing. "Gotta be no windows, no access from the outside of the house. Most defensible in the place."
Sam frowns, watching as Isaac keeps moving, restless, and Scooby tries to hide himself before anyone tells him to do so.
Outside, the scratching noises come back. It's irritating, but at this point it's also creepy. Eerie.
"That's the downstairs bathroom, I guess," Skitch says, frowning. "I've never really had to think about it." He bends to scoop Scooby into his arm and heads that direction, raising his voice. "Ma! You gotta hide!"
Oddly, Ma Skitch does not argue the point, moving immediately to the bathroom and taking Scooby from her son's arms as she goes. She pauses to touch Skitch's cheek briefly, then levels a very Pointed Look in Dean's direction before she disappears into the bathroom and shuts the door. The lock sets audibly, and Skitch sighs in relief before coming back to Dean's side. "They should be okay in there," he says with more confidence than his expression supports.
When the scratching resumes, Isaac freezes, turning to face the area where it's loudest. Then he goes statue-like, unmoving and alert in a way that's nearly as eerie as the scratching.
"See?" Skitch says, lowering his voice a bit. "Now imagine waking up to that sitting in the corner in the middle of the night."
Dean flashes a more confident smile than he really feels to Mrs. Skitch, looking like he could take on anything in a hand-to-hand fight and have a good chance of winning. Once she's out, though, Dean looks a little bit less sure of himself, which Skitch probably notices instantly.
Sam sure does. He wears an expression that just shows concern, but he's worried too. It's an increasingly dangerous situation. The tension is just stacking.
"You sure you wanna stay out here?" Dean quietly murmurs to Skitch, throwing an arm around him. "You got any weapons in here? I got some with me, always do, but we ain't gonna wanna head out to Baby's arsenal. There's something outside your house that I think is gonna try to kill everybody in here."
Skitch has been with Dean long enough to know that the confidence he offers Ma isn't completely honest, and he slides up against the older man and leans into him briefly, offering his a tight pull of his mouth that is the grimmest smile Skitch has ever smiled. Then he's pulling away, considering the question about weapons.
"I've got an axe and that sword you gave me for practicing up in my room," he says. "And a metal baseball bat." He's moving before he's finished speaking, bounding up the stairs two at a time. A couple of minutes later, he's coming back down, his arms laden with the stated items, along with a pair of jeans that he begins to put on once the weapons are on the coffee table.
Isaac shifts, then, and speaks in his thick, clay-like voice as he points at the place where the scratching seems deeper and more determined. "They come."
Dean shifts into business mode when Skitch brings down the weapons, though it was a tense couple of minutes just waiting to see if something would happen and they'd have to rush upstairs. Fortunately, that's not the case; both brothers breathe a sigh of relief, with Dean going to the trio of items.
"'K, Skitch, you take the bat. Sammy, you're gonna be best with the axe 'cause you're built." Dean reaches out to grab the sword by the hilt, hefting it in front of him and carefully getting the weight balanced out in his grip. "I'm gonna go for the sword." The hunter lowers his tone, looking to Skitch. "Skitch, can you throw on the floodlights outside when I give you the go-ahead? We should throw open the nearest door and rush 'em. Anything comes at you, you hit it hard as you can with that bat and run the other way, got it?"
It won't be long before someone takes action, judging by that insistent scratching. Dean would rather it be him.
Skitch takes up the bat and shoulders it as Dean and Sam take their weapons. "Flood lights?" he says, his tone incredulous. "Hello, my name is Skitch, and my mom's a waitress. We have a light over the garage door." He uses the bat to indicate Isaac. "Why don't we put him between us and whatever these things are?" He's already moving into position, though, getting next to the light switch and readying himself.
Isaac moves to stand near Skitch, flexing his massive hands and...growling? at the scratching. "Thules," he gravels, and there's a fury in his voice that sounds fire-baked. Then, before anyone can stop him (as if they could), he reaches for the door and wrenches it open with a metallic shriek of protesting hinges.
"Do houses not have floodlights anymore?" Dean looks to Sam, who just shrugs. They always had floodlights, but Sam probably doesn't remember that from being a baby, and Dean might not even remember it exactly as it was. It's been a long time. "Shit, turn on the lights!"
Since Isaac has forced the issue, it's apparently time for action. Dean rushes out, Sam close behind him, feeling a little bit like the tallest dwarf that ever walked the halls of Moria. Sam would comment on the Thules thing -- he knows his lore -- but there's no time. Whatever is out there is in need of ass-kicking.
And what is there is a zombie. It's a dead guy, obviously, but it looks like he's sad, angry, and tortured, which are the three things he's probably most feeling at any time.
It's also incredibly strong, grappling with Isaac immediately, and without much concern.
Skitch hits the lights when Dean says, the yellowy light indeed flooding the driveway and spilling into the house through the open door. "Hey, we do have a floodlight!" Skitch blurts, before he sees the zombie in the drive. "Holy Romero." He lifts his bat with far less confidence than he feels, which isn't much.
Isaac is a solid match for the zombie, his massive hands clamping on the pallid skin and holding it in place as it claws and bites at him. Grim-faced, the golem marches forward, out of the house, bearing the revenant slowly before him like a grisly, violent standard.
Skitch takes a chance, and glances over at Sam. "'Zombies' wasn't clear in your vision?"
"Have you ever had a vision?" Sam snorts back, lifting the axe and getting it ready. "It's not like they're super clear most of the time. They're pretty vague and disorienting. I'm lucky if I make out any details at all."
Hopefully, Dean reflects, no one is looking out to see what they're doing. This could get really messy and unpleasant, as well as being something of a massive spectacle, real quick. "Hey, uh, okay, so." Dean clears his throat, waving the sword in the zombie's direction. "We're gonna need to get this thing in its component parts real fast, and then we're gonna need to destroy those parts, probably by fire."
"Still," Skitch says, wrinkling his nose. "Zombies seem like they'd be hard to metaphor." He lifts the bat again, as the zombie howls and tries to ramp up its attack. Luckily, it seems the neighbors are either used to this type of commotion or have decided not to involve themselves. Either way, the surrounding houses stay dark as the gruesome dance unfolds.
Skitch nods at Dean's plan, and uses his bat to indicate the brothers' weapons. "Looks like you guys have the equipment for that," he notes. "I can help Isaac keep it distracted, maybe, so you can cut it up." He frowns, and considers. "Or, there's lighter fluid in the garage," he says. "I can try and get that, if that'll help."
Dean has to think fast, and that's something he's fortunately pretty good at. "Okay, can you get Isaac to get the thing into the garage? If he can make sure it doesn't kill one of us, we can hack it up and set it on fire. Concrete floor should be enough to keep it manageable. Just get everything flammable out of the center of the garage, if anything's there." He has no idea if anybody actually parks in it. About half the people he's met use their garages as storage, and the other half occasionally park there.
Skitch nods at the plan, watching Isaac as he grapples with the zombie. He says something in Hebrew to Isaac, who shifts direction and starts heading towards the garage. Skitch slips out the door, flicking his attention around the area outside before he darts in the direction of the outbuilding.
He almost makes it, too, only the zombie shifts its attention as he passes, and reaches out with lightning speed to catch the teenager's shirt, trapping him in the fury of the golem's embrace. Skitch makes a noise like a trapped...something, high-pitched in his surprise... and levels his bat on the thing's head -- to no effect. Still, he struggles to free himself, the sound of tearing fabric giving him hope, even if he's not immediately going anywhere.
"Hey, asshole! No touchy!!" Sam gets to say something cool this time, as he brings the axe down. It does take a lot of strength to cut through a human arm, and even though Sam is kind of built like a Hulk, he isn't able to do it the first time, or even the second one. But the third cut, that's the one that does it, with a little help from Isaac.
Fortunately, though this is a zombie raised through some unknown means, it doesn't have brain wi-fi. So without its command center connected, the hand will probably just drop off, sooner or later.
Skitch isn't used to being this close to the business end of an axe, so he quails a bit as Sam brings it down on the zombie's arm, shaking with each impact until he's suddenly free. Ignoring the hand dangling from his shirt like a security tag, he darts to the garage, making more of that high-pitched noise.
Once inside, he shudders, and knocks the hand loose, kicking it to the middle of the garage. Then he's clearing out a wide space, throwing things out of the way to make a fire area. He stomps on the hand as he passes it, just in case it's one of those Evil Dead Deadite zombie hands.
Outside, Isaac's expression shifts to one more murderous as Sam attacks, and there's a splintering sound as his grip on the creature's arm tightens.
"Good, good, go for it, Isaac!" Dean crosses to slightly behind Sam, reaching out to give his brother's shoulder a squeeze when that hacking at the arm is over. Can't be easy, he knows that. And he knows Sam never really took to it the same way he did, or the same way their father did...but that's a whole other can of worms.
Dean guides his brother to the garage door, reaching down to throw it up if it's been unlocked by Skitch. They need to get that thing in there right away. This could go even worse if they don't. "Hey, Skitch! Once you're done with that, go check on your mom and Scooby and make sure all the doors and windows are secure!" It's an unsettling realization he's had, that the zombie might not be acting alone. It's unlikely another zombie would be with it, but it's possible. And if not, something else might be with it...which is even more unsavory a thought.
The door, fortunately, is unlocked -- though there's no proof that Skitch is the one that did it. So when the door opens, it glides up with the rattle of its years, and allows Isaac access. The golem moves forward, his fist tightening with even more crunching before he just...tears the zombie's other arm free. Or almost free. It dangles uselessly from between Isaac's fingers as the golem drags it the rest of the way into the garage.
Skitch takes direction very well, especially when the danger level is Zombie. He nods at Dean, and slips out of the garage at the first opportunity. Pounding into the house, he checks the windows and the back door before he moves to the bathroom door. "Ma? You doing okay in there?"
"I'm fine, Sam," is the muffled reply. "You guys be careful, okay?" She sounds less freaked out than one might expect, and Skitch shakes his head.
"We are having a long talk later," he promises the door quietly, then heads back towards the open door.
"Everything good?" Dean calls to Skitch.
By the time the youngest member of the quartet returns, the garage door is shut (and locked, thanks to Sam's thoughtfulness about it) and the zombie is in the middle of the area, where everything has been cleared out thanks to Skitch. Dean leans the sword against the wall and just starts dousing the thing with lighter fluid, and it doesn't seem to care much. Whatever this thing is, it is not really alive. It's nigh-unstoppable by normal means, but there's nothing really going on in its head. It's an ambulatory corpse, with nothing in the way of a soul to drive it..
Is the zombie aware of its fate, or is the hissing it makes when the lighter fluid hits it just part of its zombie noises? That question will go unanswered, it seems, as Isaac pulls that dangling arm completely free and uses it to club the ghoul in the head a couple of times before tossing it down.
Something Skitch arrives just in time to see, and he stands without answering Dean's question. Then he blinks, and shakes his head a bit. "Yeah. They're fine. House is secure." He steps forward to club the corpse a couple of times, albeit uselessly. Isaac grunts, possibly warmly, and picks the zombie over his head and slams it to the concrete with a sound like a house of popsicle sticks collapsing.
"Get that bag of sand and keep it ready, got it?" Dean motions with his head to the various items, largely forgotten in a corner. "I don't think it's gonna go too far out of where the lighter fluid got, but I don't want your house to burn down because of somebody that's already dead."
Sam just starts for the bag, since he's sure he could lift it and isn't entirely certain that Skitch can.
"Okay big guy," Dean announces to Isaac, "step back outta the line of fire, so to speak, and we'll get this thing cookin'!"
Skitch could probably lift the bag of sand, but he's content to let the older Sam do the heavy lifting. He moves toward the workbench in the corner, though, and comes up with an actual fire extinguisher. Of course, it looks about forty years old. That doesn't stop him from lifting it in triumph anyway.
Isaac grunts at Dean's instruction, and he lifts a heavy-booted foot to bring it down on the ghoul's head, crunching it in a way that makes Skitch pale a bit. Then the golem is moving to stand near its master, folding its massive arms across its chest. The creature -- arm-less, broken, and with its head smushed, writhes angrily on the ground, howling its frustration as it continues to try to get to Skitch.
Dean stares, for a short while, at that. Then he flicks his lighter and tosses it to ignite the lighter fluid. It's a mercy, to be sure, at this point. Sam, having placed the heavy sack of sand down, moves to open the windows on either side. Don't want the scent of burning flesh to exactly build up, and there's no telling what the hell else is in that thing.
Dean takes a few steps back, watching it burn. He steps forward again, to kick his metal lighter out of the immediate area of the fire, and he closes it with another well-placed little kick of his boot.
Then he's closer to the very satisfied Skitch, with his fire extinguisher. "Somebody sent that thing, Skitch. And, weird little thing, but I'm pretty sure they sent it to kill you."
Skitch moves around Isaac to Dean when the older man moves towards him, and he wedges himself into that Skitch-shaped spot in Dean's side. He has his extinguisher ready, but the hunter's words have him staring into the fire with a haunted sort of look.
"If that's true, Ma can't stay here," he says, frowning deeply. "Even with Isaac here, we can't keep her completely safe." He inhales deeply though his nose, choking a bit on the fume of burning zombie. "Do you think the Hotel would let her stay there for a while? I know she'd be safer there." He doesn't seem that concerned for his own safety, oddly enough.
Then it hits him, and he blinks. "But why me? I'm not anyone special." He shoots a sidelong look at Dean and blushes a bit. "Relatively speaking, that is."
"Yeah." Dean wraps that arm around Skitch, patting his far side as they stand illuminated by the fire's glow. It would almost be sort of romantic, if the fire wasn't of an undead zombie creature. "Pretty sure they'd be cool with her at the Hotel. Or Rowanwood might be even better." He glances to Sam, who seems to agree with this suggestion.
There's a pop, and then it goes back to the usual roaring flames, dancing all along that form. It probably won't be enough to burn it like this. They'll probably have to take the remains out somewhere remote and really reduce it to ash, but this will be a good start to that, and it'll make the zombie unlikely to reanimate itself again.
"Yeah, but you are special, that's the thing." Dean's face is so serious. It's not usually so serious like that. "You get to be the boss of Mr. Feet of Clay over there, and I think we all knew it was just a matter of time before somebody got wind of it and got pissed about it."
Standing around the fire, it's an experience to bring people together.