Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,13
bar, Bobby took a shot of whisky and glanced over his shoulder. “You boys recognize anyone?”
Sam looked around casually, too. “Nope.”
Gerald had returned to talking in a low voice, with Jason looking sicker by the minute. “You are disgusting,” Dean heard the wiry man say. “Now I know you’re full of crap. Ash would no more have done something stupid like that than cut off his hair. Besides, Ellen would have killed him for it.”
Dean and Sam perked up, exchanging glances. Their friend Ellen had owned Harvelle’s Roadhouse in Nebraska, a bar frequented by hunters. Ash had been a brilliant former MIT student who could hack into any computer system and use math and probability to figure out any kind of problem. But the most awe-inspiring thing about Ash had been his astounding mullet, which hung well past his shoulders. Jason was right: whatever Ash had supposedly done, Ellen would have killed him for it if it were dangerous. She’d lost her husband to hunting and wasn’t prepared to lose anyone else. Unfortunately, she had lost more—she and her daughter Jo had perished not long ago in order to save Dean and Sam’s lives.
A skinny, pale guy appeared from a back room. He pulled a bar rag out of the back pocket of his ripped denim overalls and started wiping down tables. As he got close to Gerald’s table, Jason got up. “Drink on your own.” He walked away, revealing a painful-looking limp.
Gerald called after him, “You ain’t any fun, Jason.”
Jason approached the bar and took a seat. After a minute, Bobby said in a quiet tone, “Heard you mention Ellen. You mean the bar owner?”
Jason raised his eyebrows. “You know Harvelle’s Roadhouse?”
“Indeed I do,” Bobby told him.
Jason looked sad, lowering his eyes. “Then you know Jo and Ellen are…” His voice trailed off. The bartender placed a beer in front of him.
After a moment of silence, Sam said, “We were there.”
Dean felt a punch to his gut at the mention of that day. He always did. He’d gone over it a thousand times, wondering what could have been done differently, how they all could have walked out of that town alive. But they hadn’t.
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “You sons of bitches. You’re the ones who left them to die?”
Boom. Punch two to the gut.
Dean shook his head, horrified. “We didn’t call in the Hellhounds.” He remembered the horror of seeing Jo mortally wounded, of the impossible decision to leave her there so she could take out as many Hellhounds as possible, thus buying them time and their lives. Her mother staying by her side. Jo was all she had left.
When Jason continued to look angry and dubious, Bobby added, “You think all three of us wouldn’t have traded places with them if we could have?”
Dean felt an unwelcome constriction in his throat and swigged down another gulp of beer. Bobby was right. He usually was.
Jason frowned, relenting. “I guess so. They were good people, the Harvelles.” He looked up, studying all of them. “You hunters?”
“Born and raised,” Sam told him. He held out his hand. “Sam Winchester.”
Jason shook it, lighting up. “Well, hell! I’ve heard of you! The Winchesters! You must be Dean.” He shook Dean’s hand with exuberance. “I’ll be damned.” He turned to Bobby. “And you?”
Dean watched the skinny bar hand as he wiped tables closer to them. He was clearly eavesdropping.
“Bobby Singer.”
Suddenly, the skinny guy dropped his cloth. “No friggin’ way! I thought I recognized you all! Three regular legends in my bar.” He grabbed Bobby’s hand and shook it so hard Bobby slopped some of his beer on the table. Then he shook Sam and Dean’s hands.
The bartender strolled over. “It ain’t your bar, Jimmy, you lowlife. You can barely scrub the floors right.”
Jimmy grinned good-naturedly. “This here’s Darla,” he said.
She nodded at them in greeting.
Jimmy leaned in conspiratorially. “She killed that vamp nest over in Carson City last month—you know, the ones who were preying on drunk customers leaving the casino over there?”
Dean lifted his beer and nodded it toward her. “Nice.”
“Nasty things.”
Jimmy drew closer, getting uncomfortably in Bobby’s space. “You here huntin’ somethin’?”
“Now Jimmy,” Darla said, “go back to cleaning the tables.”
He looked chagrined and said, barely audibly, “Okay.”
As he turned away, Darla said quietly, “Best to ignore Jimmy. He’s a little excitable.” She glanced around the bar. “Can’t remember that not everyone in here might want to hear what we talk about.”
“He means well, though,” Jason said in his defense.