A G.E.D.

The moon hung over the dense woods surrounding Payson, casting long shadows across the landscape. The rustling of leaves was the only sound breaking the stillness. Dean Winchester stood in the clearing, his breath coming in slow, measured bursts after a grueling fight with the werewolf. The body lay motionless, its threat extinguished. Dean wiped the blood and sweat from his face, surveying the scene with a distant, almost indifferent gaze.

He looked down at his hands and saw the blood, quickly checking over the wounds he’d received. The worst was a scratch on his shoulder and along his ribcage. No bite marks.

As he finished making sure there were no other wounds, a faint, unsettling sound caught his attention: the sharp grinding and clanking of metal. He turned to see the clockwork droid emerging from the shadows. The droid was in shambles from the encounters over the last two days, moving with a disturbing, jagged gait.

( No. Seriously. Thanks Liliana. )

[NFB. Open for texts, phone calls, robocalls, spam, etc.]

It had been a long couple of days. The portal to Idaho had a connecting portal with a layover in New Hampshire of all places. (Why did a portal business need connecting portals let alone layovers?) By the time he got to Bonners Ferry, he had lost most of the day. Talking to the local police was worthless as they didn’t even bother to consider the exploding hearts as anything but a metaphor. Luckily the coroner was able to give some details but it was a lot of slogging through old microfiche copies of the local newspapers and articles about potato crops before he could find anything worthwhile.

Dean now stood in front of the freshly dug grave before him, the rotten stench of decay wafting up from the coffin below. He grimaced but not because of the smell. This whole digging things up gig used to be easier.

He poured the salt over the skeletal body barely paying attention to the task. The ritual was second nature. Salt the bones, burn the remains, send the ghost packing. Simple, clean, done. The only difference here was the creepy ass clockwork droid lying next to the grave that Dean had picked up at the Consortium. Something that was going into the pit as soon as the fire was lit.

Dean uncapped the kerosene, his movements methodical, almost detached, as he doused the bones. He reached into his jacket pocket for a match when a noise—a subtle whirring, like gears grinding together—caught his attention. He turned and looked at the creepy droid lying next to the grave whose eyes were now glowing an unnatural red.

( Son of a bitch! )

[NFB. Open for phone calls, texts, etc.]