Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,95
and Steven, who were lying a few feet away on stretchers. “They don’t have any wounds,” she said. “There was really a paralysis-causing gas leak down there?”
Dean shrugged. “Something did that to us. It wears off, though. I’m proof of that.”
“Jesus, this was the scariest time of my life.”
Dean thought about how lucky she was to have been in another part of the building. She’d been the first person the rescuers had found when the storm broke.
Sam appeared from behind one of the wrecked walls of the resort. The avalanche had decimated almost the entire lodge, leaving only a couple of pillars and one of the stone walls intact. Amazingly, the chandelier still hung from the only crossbeam standing.
Sam walked over to his brother. While Dean recovered feeling in his body, he and Bobby had been helping dig people out. He looked tired as hell.
“Grace is talking,” he told Dean.
Dean got up, hurrying over to her. Sam joined him.
“Dean,” she said, smiling when she saw him. “What the hell was that thing?”
Dean looked around carefully, then brought a finger to his lips. “I’ll tell you in a minute when we have more privacy.”
Bobby walked over too. He eyed Grace suspiciously.
“We know you’re not a ranger,” Sam told her.
Weakly, she lifted a finger to her lips, imitating Dean. “I’m out here tracking bear poachers,” she whispered. “It’s easier to check people’s permits and find out if they’re legit when you pretend to be a ranger. Some assholes have been killing bears to take their organs to sell on the black market as aphrodisiacs. I was tracking them up by Silverado Ridge. I found a bear killed, with its gall bladder missing. Then the trail just went dead, as if those guys had vanished. I thought you guys were the poachers at first.” She gripped Dean’s hand. “Do you think that thing got them?”
He frowned, realizing how close she must have come to the aswang on numerous occasions. “Could be.”
“So you’re just an animal rights activist?” Bobby said, trying to suppress a smile.
“What’s funny about that?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” he said quickly.
“And what do you mean ‘just’ an animal rights activist?” She eyed him irritably.
Dean grinned, happy to see her fire back.
Sam scanned the horizon. “Bobby, it’s getting dark. We need to stay on this thing’s trail before it vanishes completely. Everyone’s been pulled out of the wreckage who made it. We need to go.”
Bobby met his gaze. “Agreed.”
Grace wriggled her boot. “I can come, too. I’m fine.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? Move your legs.”
She couldn’t. She frowned. “You see those bear poachers, you tell me where I can find them.”
“Will do,” Bobby told her.
They suited up, got fresh water and a little more food. Dean still felt weak, but he knew they couldn’t lose the trail now. They had to find the aswang.
Donning their snowshoes, the three of them trekked off into the snowy forest to find Jason and end it.
SIXTY-THREE
Sam snowshoed along next to Bobby and Dean, grateful for the shafts of sunshine sneaking through the trees. Memories of the fight on the narrow ledge and Bobby cutting the rope surfaced and he pushed them away. The three of them were together, and in reasonably good shape, despite everything. Now they just had to find the aswang. They had started out in the direction it had flown, but had no further glimpse of it.
Bobby stopped next to a tree. “It makes sense that it needs a place where it can store its victims, eat them over a long period of time,” he said, obviously giving voice to a train of thought he’d been following.
Darkness flashed over Dean’s face. “With them paralyzed, it wouldn’t necessarily need to be a place where no one would hear screams. They wouldn’t be able to scream.”
“It wouldn’t have to worry about the smell, either, because it keeps them alive,” Sam added.
“Until it stuffs all the unused organs into a body and has it march out of the lair, at any rate.” Bobby winced. “So what does that leave us?”
“A mine, maybe,” Sam suggested. “But the lair doesn’t have to be underground.”
“A cabin, like the one I came across. But I didn’t see any evidence of it keeping victims there, just its eggs.”
“So it’s got a separate place where it caches its food. It’s secretive, so someplace reclusive where interested passersby won’t investigate.” Bobby lifted his woolen cap, rubbed his head, and replaced it.
“I still think a mine’s our best bet,” Sam insisted. “They’re mostly closed now