To The Beat Of The Devil's Drums [Supernatural]

The Game

Sam remembers his first nightmare from childhood of a clown. He'd only have been young, maybe five or six, when John had taken Dean and him to a carnival for the first time--what Sam now supposes must have been cover for a hunt, as John had left them to entertain themselves for most of the day and come back tired and irritable an hour after closing. Even so, Dean had seemed to enjoy it, dragging Sam round the hook-a-ducks and ring tosses and coconut shies, even managing to win a giant teddy bear for his baby brother. But then they'd come across the clown handing out balloons, and all Sam had wanted to do was bury his face in the teddy bear's fur and hide behind Dean's legs.

Dean had tried to reassure him it was just a clown: a man in face paint, not a monster, but that hadn't stopped the memory of the crazed crying eyes and bloated red mouth haunting Sam long after they'd gone back to the motel. That night he'd dreamt of a clown in the room, standing by the window, its perpetually weeping eyes staring cold and menacing towards him. He'd wanted to wake Dean, but when he reached out towards his brother beside him in the bed, there was no-one there.

Terrified, Sam had curled up into a ball, hiding under the covers and screwing his eyes shut until the monster went away. He dared peek out only occasionally to check if it was still there, but every time he did, there the figure would be. Each time it had advanced two steps closer, until finally Sam would look out from beneath the comforter and the clown was right there above him, grinning manically as it came to drag him away...

It wasn't a one-time dream. Every time Sam would wake screaming, and Dean would be there beside him; his big brother come to chase the monsters away. Dean would reassure him, tell him it was just a bad dream as he held him, soothing him, until Sam felt safe enough to go back to sleep.

Now, Sam watches as if inside that same nightmare, as the once-static clown begins to move. First, its body pivots, following the altered angle of its head, and then the sign bearing the garish advertisement falls from its grasp. The plastic hands fall with it, and what that leaves behind makes Sam's eyes widen. Metal tools extend from the plastic sheaths of its forearms: the right hand becoming a metal claw; the left, a blade that right now is rising up to strike towards Dean's head.

Dean reacts quickly, but not quickly enough. His gun is in his hand in an instant, firing two shots at the creature that is already too close for comfort, but there's a sharp clanging as the bullets punch past the faded plastic and strike what metal skeleton must be underneath. It doesn't deter the clown's advance, but the angle of the bladed arm is deflected, striking at thin air although the other arm immediately comes up close enough to knock the gun from Dean's grasp.

Dean stumbles backwards, hand quickly reaching for his machete despite it being the least suitable weapon possible for this situation. Sam draws his own gun, firing two more shots in a vain attempt to help his brother, but this time he sees the sparks as the slugs strike metal. Realising the futility of the shots, Sam darts forward with no real plan in mind other than get to Dean, but his path is suddenly blocked as he hears the rustle and snap of branches beside him, and then another unwelcome, hideous painted face emerges from the bushes.

Heart pounding, Sam raises his gun and fires again.

---

Dean draws the machete just in time to hack at the clawed hand reaching towards him, but all it earns him is a jarring vibration up his own arm as metal strikes metal. It does nothing to halt the clown, its expression unchanged as ever, yet somehow now there's a twisted glee in its inflated grin as the claw hooks into the front of Dean's jacket and wrenches sideways. The creature tosses him to the ground like a rag doll, hurling him several feet before he lands with a hard thud on the tarmac. Dean grunts, head spinning as the machete falls from his grasp. He's landed at an angle that leaves him staring past the clown towards Sam, where his brother is battling a second – second?! – creature the same as the first.