Fic: Drive

[summergen-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Drive
Author: diva5256
Recipient: spn_summergen*
Rating: PG-13 for some naughty words and references to sex
Warnings: Choose not to warn
Summary: Hunter Tamara hunts and finds the demon that killed her child.

* Mod note: Where the original recipient has withdrawn from the challenge, stories are posted to the community as a whole.



Drive

You drive. At first it’s all you can do. North, South, East, West; whichever way will get you to the Nebraska state line fastest, whichever way will put Bobby Singer and John Winchester’s goddamned reckless sons in your rear view mirror forevermore.

You can’t be in the same state that Isaac died in. It makes your skin itch, little pricks like hell fire.

In Oklahoma you drive through the same gas station twice before you realise that you don’t know where you’re going. You could go back to the house, the permanent residence that you and Isaac maintained up in the Wichita Mountains, but it won’t be home anymore. The place was already haunted by Hope’s soft cries, the capricious little gurgles and giggles you’d swear on your life you could still hear. Now the old ghosts have company, Isaac’s smooth even touch the spicy sandal wood smell of his shower gel; those spectres are too fresh to face. No, you don’t belong in the house anymore.

You don’t even belong in this strange country with its mountains and its deserts and its prairie skies without Isaac. Yet the only people you call kin wouldn’t claim you as one of their own anymore. You don’t fit in that old no-breathing-room flat with your mother and your sisters and their flat South London vowels and modest Brockwell Park dreams. You have reached way up beyond the top of Brixton Hill and the view of the Old GPO tower. You’ve left the temperance hall, the jerk chicken shops and the honey-sweet marijuana smell that dances through the Victorian terraces behind. Now you’ve seen the end of highways, the End of Days approaching. No, pretty little Tamara who ran away with her big strong American man doesn’t belong there anymore. But she doesn’t belong in horror-movie gas station in a clapped-out car in the dusty Midwestern sun either.

You pay for your gas and buy a fifth of whiskey whilst you’re at the counter. You crack the cap open when you’re back inside the car and swallow down a good half of the bottle before putting the Toyota into gear. If this is where it ends, then this is where it ends. Death doesn’t scare you now. You’re no longer a wife and mother. You’ve served your purpose. Today you are defunct.

Still, you make it to Michigan in one piece. You don’t know how.

You find your way to the lake where you and Isaac made the promise four years ago; that you would find the thing that took Hope from you and make it feel unknowable pain, that you would be the one to stare into its beetle-black eyes and watch the light go out. You finish the whiskey and throw the bottle in the lake. You walk to a bar and drink tequila shots till long past midnight. You dance with a guy. He’s a good five years younger than you, collar of his shirt unbuttoned in the heat of an Indian summer, and stubble that burns across your cheek when he leans in to kiss you. You take him back to the car and fuck him in the back seat, a swift animal rut that doesn’t make you feel alive. When he’s gone you feel hungry.

You wake up the next morning with the ache of a hangover crawling up your spine and settling on your shoulders like a solid wooden cross. The sunlight feels like its clawing your head open, a pick axe digging, but you will not let the pain obscure your purpose. The promise of revenge stings in your gut, stronger than grief and Jose Cuervo, and now you know what you must do.

You have work to do.

You track down your first suspect by a riverside in Louisiana. Her shrill screams ricochet off the wilting canopy of bayou trees as you pour the salt down her host’s gullet. Her skin sizzles and spits, like oil hitting a burning-hot frying pan.

“It’s not me,” she chokes, as you douse her hair with holy water, watching it shrivel and spark.

You pause to wipe the sweat from your brow and a tower of black smoke bursts from her mouth. The body falls to the floor. You check for a pulse, but you know it’s too late. She was a little girl, clad in a pale pink Bratz t-shirt and cute little cerise leggings. Her wrists are adorned with little plastic star bracelets, the kind that come free in cereal boxes, or as prizes for carnival games. The thought makes you gag. Hope would be old enough for these things now.

After that you become more precise. You research in more detail. You spend hours in every hick town library you pass through and every seedy truck stop Internet cafe you see, learning the myths and legends until demon habits and hierarchies rolls off your tongue quicker than your own name.

You now know who you’re looking for. She is the personal chef to Lilith, the very first demon herself. Now you know who she is, you will make certain that the one who feed your daughter directly into the mouth of the beast is the one will pay.

You visit any hospital where a baby may have gone missing.

The hunting world goes on around you but you don’t care. There is only one goal now.

When you’re in New Hampshire Bobby Singer calls to tell you that Dean Winchester’s dead.
When you’re in Kansas Rufus Turner calls you to tell you that Lilith has begun to break the sixty-six seals.

When you’re in Maryland Dean Winchester calls you to tell you that actually he’s alive and kicking thank you very much and that there are only three seals left to break.

“Then let them break,” you say. You don’t need anymore time. You’ve find your woman. She’s wearing the meat of a NICU nurse named Cindy McKellan at a hospital in Ilchester.

You get off the highway an exit early to stock up on Costco Rock Salt. You steal holy water from a small Catholic church on the outskirts of town. You book in to a cheap motel and prepare your weapons. You call in a favour from an old friend who delivers the Palo Santo to you specially.

But when you get to the hospital she is gone. You stake the place out for four-eight straight hours. You don’t leave the car for coffee or food. You don’t get out to pee. But she never comes and she never goes. A quick search of the local newspaper reveals she is missing and your heart falls in your chest.

The hunt is on again.

But two days later her half burnt remains are discovered near an old out of use convent, the place ablaze with lighting storms and nearby cattle deaths up the wazoo. But that’s not what scares you. Although the corpse had been entirely drained of blood, she had been wrapped in salted cloths before she was burnt, like Isaac, and you’ve only met two people who dispose of a body that way. The trademark gives them away; the Winchesters have beaten you to it.

You go back to the hotel and take a cold shower. You let your self cry for the first time since Isaac died, letting it hit you in gulping, phlegm-ridden waves until your feel like your entire respiratory system went through the washing machine on a spin cycle.

You don’t remember getting out of the shower and falling asleep, but soon the sun is peaking through the curtains, beckoning you to get up and get out. It seems brighter, fierier than before, the sky tinged an ominous blood-red, but you tell yourself your eyes are playing tricks on you. You pack your stuff and head for the highway.

You remember her address from the hospital records. You don’t know why you’re sitting outside the house and watching florists arrive, each with a bigger, plusher bunch of lilies or freesias, white, pristine, death flowers, just like the ones your friends brought to your door in the week following Hope’s death.

“Can I help you?”

You nearly jump out of your skin. A tall gruff-looking man is standing beside your car. He would be good-looking if his face didn’t have a worn expression and if his eyes weren’t dragged down by deep bags. A little boy of about three of four is hiding behind his legs, face smooshed into an overstuffed teddy bear’s ample buttocks.

“No – I- I’m sorry...”

“I’m Matthew McKellan, that’s my house, if you’re looking for...”

“I...um...I worked with your wife,” you lie “and I wanted to come and say how sorry I am.”

“It’s...” Matthew McKellan sighs, “...thank you.”

You nod and wave at each other. The little boy is beginning to scream and you watch Matthew pick him up in your rear view mirror as you drive away.

It can’t be long before all the seals will have broken, if they haven’t already. The world is ending. You keep driving.