Judas Is the Demon I Cling To

I stood with my low back against the Impala’s grille, letting the metal rub against my skin through the thin fabric of my t-shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared down the seemingly endless stretch of asphalt before me, trying to ignore the uproar that from within the car.

“Don’t you touch me!” Anna’s scream was an odd mix of a panicked shriek and an indignant command.

“No! Stop it! Stop it! Leave him alone! Leave me alone!”

I winced as I heard the sound of a body part connecting with the solid, leather covered back of one of the front seats. What the hell is going on? I let myself wonder, but still didn’t turn around. I almost didn’t want to know.

“Damn it!” I heard Dean’s distinctive, low growl call out in pain. “Sit your ass down!”

The sounds of struggle became less pronounced. I sighed deeply, letting the breath whoosh through my nostrils. I turned my head to the left slightly as the sound of the Impala’s back door connecting with its frame reached my ears. A low groan followed it. I fought my urge to laugh.

“You okay?” I called over my shoulder before letting myself settle back into my former position.

Dean’s hard soled boots clomped on the asphalt as he rounded the front corner of the Impala and came to stand beside me. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. His left hand was pressed against his ear. I shifted my weight and pivoted toward him so I could get a closer look, but he turned away and pushed himself onto the Impala’s hood, sitting down and shaking his head firmly.

“I’m fine, Sammy.” Even as he said it, he winced.

I dropped my arms to my sides with a sigh.

“Dean, at least let me look.” I pushed away from the car and walked in front of him to his left side before he could protest.

I moved close to him, looking at his hand. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong… I squinted at the small gap between his middle and index fingers and saw it.

Running through the natural gap in his fingers, was a small trail of wet, red liquid. Blood. I pulled back a bit and looked at Dean in shock.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Thank you, Watson.” He growled back, glaring at me. “That bitch bit me.”

I stared at him in shock. I could feel my mouth beginning to form into a large oval. And deep within my stomach, I began to feel a strange bubbling. The kind that only accompanies laughter.

I bit down on my lip, trying to keep the bubbling chuckles inside. I snorted once from the effort, causing Dean to shoot an enraged glance in my direction. I glanced down at my boots briefly, collecting myself before focusing my attention on his wound once more.

“Move your hand so I can see better.”

Dean grunted and pulled his hand away. As he did, I could see that most of his palm was stained a dark red. My eyes widened in disbelief as I looked from his hand to his face. Dean shrugged.

“It’s not that bad. Probably just a gusher…”

I shook my head in disbelief before raising my eyes and directing my attention to his ear. It was completely covered in blood.

Jesus. My eyes widened as I looked at the wound. I backed away a bit.

Dean’s ear lobe had been partially torn away by Anna’s teeth. It hung, stretched and useless, from the rest of his ear. Dangling like a strange, fleshy earring.

I shook my head once more, clamping my lips shut as a small wave of nausea washed over me, the hot, coppery smell of blood poisoning my nostrils.

“You’re going to need to get this sewn up.” Trying to ignore my vaulting stomach, I reached out and gingerly grasped the piece of flesh, pulling it out and touching it to the place where it should have connected to the rest of the ear, just to be sure that the entire lobe was there.

“Great.” Dean winced as I let the piece of skin fall back.

“Did she do this…”

“As I was restraining her? Yeah.” Dean grunted and shifted away from me.

I turned and looked through the Impala’s windshield, staring into the backseat where Anna sat. Her eyes, which had been so cool, so uncaring, now burned with a fiery wildness that was unlike anything I had ever seen. Her jaw was clenched tight, her blood-covered lips pulled taught into a snarl. Her chest heaved up and down and her nostrils flared as she took in quick, labored breaths. Every few seconds she thrashed back and forth violently. I was unsure if she was convulsing, or just trying to free herself from the rope Dean had used to bind her.

I shuddered. I couldn’t believe that this animalistic looking woman was the same as the one who had sat before me, so full of arrogance and composure, mere minutes earlier.

Everything had been going fine. We were at an impasse.

What had gone wrong?

______________________________________________________________________

Anna had been ready to talk to us. To me, anyway. She had been willing to answer our questions.

We had been able to over-look the fact that she was sitting before us, unharmed and talking, when she should be dead. Besides that small detail, she seemed pretty normal. Not possessed. Not a ghost.

We weren’t sure what she was mixed up in, but at least she’d seemed like a somewhat predictable being.

But everything had gotten so out of control. As with anything that Dean and I did, it couldn’t stay normal. It couldn’t stay predictable. Not for long.

______________________________________________________________________

“So, what were you doing in the middle of the road?” I asked curiously, taking a small step toward her.

Anna cocked her head to the side and laughed.

“I was trying to get hit.” Her grey eyes flashed with bitterness and intense sorrow. “But you see how well that worked out. I should have known, anyway.”

She glanced at Dean momentarily, taking in his reaction as well.

“My other attempts have failed in much the same way.”

I felt my mouth open, but no words came out. I worked my jaw for a moment, trying out different questions in my head. Anna watched patiently.

Finally, I found the question I wanted.

“Why didn’t it work?” I thought for a moment longer before rewording it. “Why didn’t you die?”

She laughed. A choked, pathetic noise.

“It’s one of the terms of the curse, apparently. But I keep hoping that maybe. Some way…”

“Wait,” Dean cut in, his voice filled with skepticism, “what curse?”

Anna turned her attention to him, opening her mouth in preparation to answer. But before she could say a word, she began to shake violently. Her face began to contort as if she were in pain. I started to take a startled step toward her, my hand outstretched, but the pained, furious howl that ripped out from between her lips stopped me.

“Anna?”

The shaking became more and more violent. As I watched, Anna threw herself to the ground, cursing and screaming. But not at me. And not at Dean.

“No! Let me go! I’ll never follow you! You can’t take them! Stop hurting me!”

It was as if she were screaming at some unseen presence. Or force.

More like she’s screaming at something inside herself. I realized.

She began to claw at her skull with her dull fingertips. Her eyes grew wide and wild and she began to foam at the mouth.

Dean had jumped back from her, dropping his sawed-off in the process. I had stood in the same spot, frozen in horror at the scene playing out before me.

In all reality, it shouldn’t have shocked me. Not only had I seen worse, but this was also coming from a woman who should have been dead. Nothing she did should have surprised me. But this did.

As she continued to writhe in the grass and gravel on the roadside, her screams changed. They came out more strangled, less forceful. She began to make a strange, sorrowful hiccupping sound after each scream.

Before I could react, Dean flew around me and flung the passenger-side door open, rummaging around beneath the seat for something.

“Sam! The rope!”

I stood, staring, my brain working hard trying to make sense of what he had just yelled to me.

“What rope?”

Dean growled audibly and I heard a hollow thunk. Whipping around I glimpsed Dean, half in and half out of the Impala, a tin of salt at his feet, the lid knocked off and the salt spilling out onto the asphalt, mingling with the gravel that covered its berm.

“Dammit, Sam! The rope. The one with the binding spell on it!”

My brain flickered to life, the wheels beginning to churn into motion as I stepped around Anna’s ever convulsing body.

“The one Bobby gave us? It’s in the trunk.”

“Here!” I heard a rough jingling. Dean flicked his wrist, sending the Impala’s keys flying through the air toward me. I reached out and caught them deftly, choosing the one for the trunk by feeling along the teeth rather than looking down.

As I stepped around Anna, she let out a strange, cackling laugh and swiped for my ankle, her fingers grabbing hold of the fabric of my jeans. The sudden contact made me jump away. She lost her feeble grip and fell back into convulsions, balling her hands into fists and smashing them against her temples.

“Stop. Leave me alone!”

I tried to ignore her shrieks as I made a wide circle around her, coming up on the left side of the Impala’s tailgate. I jammed the key into the lock and glanced up at Dean. He looked at me, his face full of astonishment, before glancing back at the woman on the ground.

I head the lock click and pushed the heavy trunk up quickly. It groaned on its hinges and nearly fell back down onto my head. I brought my left hand up quickly to support it as I rummaged through the trunks contents with my right. At first, I didn’t see the rope anywhere.

Shit. I heard Anna let out a blood-curdling scream and stood up abruptly, knocking the back of my head against the trunk in the process. I stepped back, holding my throbbing head as my vision blurred and blackened. I heard Dean let out a loud shout. I shook my head, trying to clear the fog away. My vision began to return to normal, and I looked off in their direction.

Dean was kneeling on the gravel. No, actually. One knee was on the gravel. The other knee was pressed against Anna’s back. He had managed to flip her onto her stomach and restrain her wrists in his hands as she shook and fought. He ground his teeth together, fighting to hold her restrained. He glanced up and caught my staring gaze briefly.

“Get that damn rope!” He hissed through his clenched teeth as Anna writhed and attempted to roll beneath him.

I leaned down into the trunk once more, wildly throwing extra clothes and bags of research books and hunting materials out of the way. A large portion of the trunk bottom could already be seen from all the haphazard rearranging I was doing. My heart began to hammer within my chest and my head throbbed even more.

Where is it?

“Sam!” Dean cried out frantically.

It’s not here. I shoved at one of the gun crates frantically, attempting to move it in one shove.

“Sammy! Any day now!”

I pushed on the crate again, and it slid across the carpeted bottom of the trunk, leaving a space between it and the side of the trunk just big enough for me to slip my arm into. I held my breath.

“Goddamn it!”

My heart plummeted to my shoes as the tips of my fingers brush against something that felt distinctly like rope.

I blew a sharp breath of relief through my nostrils and grabbed it up quickly, slamming the trunk down and running toward Dean.

“It’s about damn time!” He looked up at me, his face red and sweaty from the strength he was exerting to keep Anna contained. “Help me.”

Dean took his knee off of her back, but still kept a firm, two-handed grip on her wrists. I knelt beside her and placed my hands on her shoulders. Dean stepped backward, pulling her to her feet from behind, while I pushed her upwards, steadying her while she thrashed and howled. As she came to her feet, she attempted to lunge toward me, her teeth barred like some sort of animal.
Dean practically jumped backward, yanking her arms. Her body followed and she slumped sideways, nearly falling to the ground once more. I reached my arm across and caught her, keeping her upright. She turned her face to me.

Her eyes were full of extreme terror and pain, like a cornered, wounded animal in the face of a hunter. Yet her mouth was stretched into a sadistic grin and a maniacal laugh pealed from her lips, followed soon after by a sorrowful gasp.

It was the single most heartbreaking, frightening thing I had ever seen.

“You!” She snarled before howling in pain. She stood before me, drenched in sweat, her close cropped head hanging low, her chin nearly meeting her chest as she heaved in breath after breath.

Dean jerked his chin in my direction. I looked down at the rope in my hand before handing it off to him.

He yanked Anna away, taking advantage of the lull in her convulsions and walking her toward the car. Before they rounded the front of the Impala, Anna lifted her head and let it loll back over her shoulder. Her eyes met mine, and heard her voice clearly inside my head.

Help me.

_______________________________________________________________________

Dean breathed out swiftly through his mouth, startling me from my frightening musings. I turned to look at him, noting handkerchief he had pressed against his ear. I kicked at the ground beneath my feet.

“So. What’re we gonna do with her?” I asked quietly, looking down at the ground.

“Do with her? What do you mean?” Dean shifted his weight against the grille.

“I mean while we’re on our way to Ohio. Or wherever it is that we’re going.” I brought my head up and studied my brother’s face. “We can’t have her kicking you in the back of the head while you’re trying to drive.”

Dean looked at me in astonishment. His eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His mouth screwed up into a puckered mess, causing his nose to wrinkle. He looked surprised and disgusted.

“Sammy, she just tried to attack us.” He brought his right hand into the middle of his chest and removed the handkerchief from his ear. “Hell, she tried to bite my ear off, and you wanna discuss who gets shotgun?”

He shook his head gravelly and reached behind back, lifting up his jacket to retrieve the handle of his sawed-off. He flicked it upward and cocked it.

“Nah, Sammy. That bitch is getting iced.”

I turned away and looked at her through the windshield once more.

She had stopped convulsing, for the moment. She leaned forward in the seat, her head hanging over her knees. She shook from exhaustion and I could see the sweat that covered every inch of her. She looked so pitiful. So helpless.

She can’t have meant it. She couldn’t have been in control… She brought her head up a bit, and I could see that her cheeks were stained with dirty tears.

Help me.

“Dean, I’m not so sure she was even in control back there.” I placed a hand on the barrel of his gun, my eyes pleading with him. “Seriously. I think she needs our help.”

He sucked in his cheeks, deep thought written all over his face.

“Come on, Dean. Don’t tell me you can’t see that there’s something wrong. That we need to help her.” I pled with him, trying to coerce him into making the right decision.

He looked up at me out of the corner of his eye, one eyebrow cocked; his index finger playing against the sawed-off’s trigger.

He was seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel, somewhere deep within his mind. I just needed one more decent point to convince him that we should help Anna.

“Anyway, it’ll be just like a job, right? I mean, we figure out what’s wrong with her, we find the cure, she’s safe and we’re doing the job. Saving people.” I didn’t add hunting things. Didn’t have to. Dean knew our father’s mantra just as well as I did.

He gave me a long, steely look before flicking the sawed-off up and emptying the chamber. I allowed myself a long sigh of relief. Dean shifted again and returned the sawed-off to its holding place in his waist band. I turned and glanced back at Anna.

She was sitting up, alert now. Whatever that strange episode had been, she was passed it now. She stared directly at me, with an intensity that made me a bit uncomfortable. I managed a weak, awkward smile. Her stare lightened and she smiled back, a bit embarrassed.

Thank you.

The sound of Dean shuffling and pushing away from the Impala caught my attention and I turned back in time to see him cross in front of me. He stopped and turned to face me as he placed his hand on the door handle.

“If this bitch starts acting up again while we’re trapped in the car, I will kick your ass.” He raised his hand from the handle and used it to point at me in warning.

I rolled my eyes and laughed, pushing away from the grille as well and moving around the front to the passenger’s side.

“Yeah, yeah.” I pulled the door open and stepped inside, groaning as I tried to find the least uncomfortable way to squash myself into the small space.

The Impala’s engine roared to life as Dean turned the key in the ignition. No noise came from the seat behind us as we pulled off the berm and back onto the long county road. All I could hope for was a peaceful ride to Ohio with as few mishaps as possible.

And for the answers to all the jumbled questions in my head to somehow appear.