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

On A Wire

There's a welcome relief that comes with the feeling of fresh air on his skin. Dean's heart pounds as he runs, but he doesn't stop until he's put a good distance between himself and the monster back there. He slows to a walk again, gulping down air as he tries to recover. His breaths come heavy and painful, but he's glad to still be drawing them at all. A hand flattens over his chest and he winces at the tenderness, bruised ribs protesting his touch. His heart's still racing, but he thinks the beta blockers have helped. He spent a good hour in the office block where he's sure his heart rate was comfortably in the sixties. Sammy must be okay, then...right?

The thumping at his chest reminds him that that's probably not the case, and he suddenly hates himself for running so fast. It's not like there were any good options available.

He focuses on trying to calm down as he continues on a steady walk down towards the boating lake, although adrenaline still pumps with each nervous beat of his heart. He hates how he's exposed in the open like this, but he hopes that at least means he'll be able to see any danger coming early. Not that it does anything to help him defeat it.

Thoughts of her previous victim manage to creep into his mind as he walks. He almost feels like he knows the kid, remembers his face from the missing person reports: sandy hair, blue eyes below a slightly too-large forehead, pale, acne-plagued skin. Just a typical teenager. All he'd wanted was to explore an abandoned theme park for kicks with a couple of friends. An uncomfortable feeling turns Dean's stomach now that he knows what happened.

The two friends who bailed got lucky. Then the body of a third one turns up drained of blood and dumped in a field, and the final one... Well, the final one must still be here somewhere. Dean's blood suddenly runs cold.

How long had the kid played the game before losing, Dean wonders? How long has he been playing it now? It must be over twelve hours, at least. Long enough that Sam must be hovering dangerously close to death's door, and Dean himself is just a bundle of pain and injuries struggling to keep going.

Next time Sam says it's not vamps, Dean thinks he'll listen.

He makes it the rest of the way without running into trouble. The cable car station, it turns out, is sat just on the shore of the lake. A thick layer of mist hangs over the water, making it difficult to see far up the hillside, but The Flatliner still stands out in its dominant position high above the park. That's where Dean's headed.

"So, you thinking Egyptian or Aztec?" Sam decides to ask as Dean makes his way up the wooden ramp to the station entrance.

"I don't know." He doesn't, but at some point he's going to have to make sense of everything he found on the computer if he wants to win. He's getting Sam back, and then he's going to kill her. One way or another.

"We've dealt with Egyptian gods before," his brother's voice says, and Dean can half imagine a comforting presence at his side to go with it. "The Egyptians believed the heart would be weighed on a scale after death. I guess she seems to be weighing up yours."

"Is that what you'd call it?" He doesn't look sideways for fear of crushing the illusion. "I'm not dead, yet."

"Or there's the Aztecs. They sacrificed a lot of hearts. Sacrificed a lot of people by flaying, too."

"I guess that suits Buffalo Bill back there."

When Dean gets to the entrance he's forced to turn, realising Sam was never there after all. He'd known it from the start, yet he still feels an irrational disappointment and loneliness at knowing he's on his own.

He pushes open the door and heads along the ramp that continues inside up to the boarding platform. A rope barrier runs down the middle, no longer needed to organise a line when no parkgoer has stepped foot in here in years. Dean's eyes dart about, scanning for danger, but he's keeping an eye out for a fuse box or something marked with a high voltage warning.