The Winchester Code

Chapter 8 - Bacon

Bacon

Chapter 8

Sitting at the table surrounded by three men all just staring at me is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever done. The old man had introduced himself as Bobby. He had red hair and a scruffy beard, his face was lined with wrinkles and sun damage. He wore a baseball cap, hunters vest, flannel shirt and old jeans.
All three of the men had roughly the same style, although Dean was the best dressed, pulling off his thick jacket with a certain style that no one could replicate.
There was an uncomfortable silence that had settled over us. The only sound was the popping of fat in the frying pan on the stove, and the steady ticking of a clock that I couldn’t see.
Another minute passed and Bobby got up to check on the bacon. He made a point with the plates, rattling them against each other as he grabbed one from the cabinet and loudly scooped the food onto it, scraping the bottom of the pan. He dug around in a drawer for some cutlery and tromped back to the table, dropping the plate in front of me, the knife and fork clattering on the wooden table.
I looked at the food on the grey plate. Bacon and toast.
My stomach growled and I so badly wanted to eat the greasy goodness, but I held myself back. I rung my hands in my lap, trying to distract myself, feeling very self-conscious of the men watching me.
I was still dressed in my hospital gown, but it was no longer white. The sterile material was now brown with dirt and dried blood from the wounds in my arms that Bobby had patched up. There was also yellow stains from sweat, and what I assume to be my own pee.
My palms were slippery with sweat and I bit down on my lip, trying to keep myself from eating. After all, this was probably some kind of test. My stomach growled again and I averted my eyes from the plate.
I looked past Bobby and out the window behind him. I could see rusted cars piled high outside and just beyond the car yard, a bunch of trees. They were lush and full of leaves, although some had dried in the heat.
“Are you going to eat or what?” Bobby snapped, the first thing anyone had said since Dean had instructed me to sit on the wooden chair.
Taking Bobby’s question as permission, I picked up my knife and fork. They felt heavy in my hands and shook in my grasp. My sweaty fingers almost dropped them, but I clasped them like construction tools, bringing them down to cannibalistically cut the toast.
Before I knew it, I had inhaled half the meal. I could hardly bring myself to stop, even though my stomach was full, gorged on water.
“Slow down there, Bucko.” Bobby told me. I ignored him as I abandoned my cutlery and ate with my hands. I finished the second half just as quickly as the first, savouring the bacon flavour as I swallowed. I licked the remnants of my first solid meal since the house fire off my lips. By the time I had finished, I was able to think clearly for the first time since waking up.
I pushed the plate away from me to keep myself licking up the toast crumbs.
“Thank you.” I said, nodding my head at Bobby.
“You’re welcome.” He answers. His Texan drawl gruff as his looks.
We sat in silence for another minute as the boys no doubt assessed me. My stomach gurgled again, but this time, for the opposite reasons.
“You look like hell.” Dean finally told me.
“Have you looked at yourself lately?” I retorted without thinking. I saw Sam try to hide a smile. Dean looked amused rather than hurt, but he still shot a warning look at his brother.
I counted the steady tick-tick of the clock and looked down at my hands that had stopped shaking.
“What happened?” I asked, not wanting to sit through the silence any longer. I could remember most things, but some of it was hazy.
“What do you remember?” Sam asked in return.
My mind flashed back to the fire. To my dad pinned under the burning debris. To my mum burning on the ceiling. To Grace screaming as she boiled.
“The fire.” I answered, feeling sick to my stomach. Sam shifted his gaze. “I escaped and hid in your car.” I thought about that night. About Brad and how I had killed him. “Then there was that motel manager guy who tried to kill me and so I… What kind of a person carries a knife around in their pocket anyway?”
Bobby shoots an accusatory look at Dean, but he just shrugged it off.
“So you killed a guy.” Dean said bluntly. “He was already dead. What next?”
I was shocked at his tone. What did he mean he was already dead? Were they going to kill him if I didn’t? My stomach churns at the thought and I try to keep the feeling down while they continued the interrogation.
“Then you guys came and took me to the hospital, I guess. I don’t really remember that but…” I took a deep breath clutching my stomach. “I woke up and someone… tried to…”
“Are you ok?” Dean asked. I could feel it coming.
I pushed my chair back from the table and stumbled to the kitchen sink. Thankfully, the dishes were piled next to the sink and not in it.
“Eww.” All three men winced as I threw up the bacon and toast that I had so hungrily scoffed down my gullet. I swept my hair out of my face with one hand and coughed a little, turning on the tap with the other. I rinsed my mouth a couple of times with the water and splashed my face, still feeling sick, but not having anything else to throw up.
I slowly turned around to face the boys. All of them stared at me as if they’d just witnessed me give birth to an alien.
“Sorry.” I said quietly, my face flushing with heat. 
“It’s okay.” Bobby said.
I looked at my empty seat at the table. I still felt sick and frankly, I couldn’t bring myself to sit with them again. Instead, I turned back to the sink and ran the water again, and washed down the spray of my vomit from the steel edges. I let the water run another moment before I put the plug in the drain hole and reached for the washing liquid on the windowsill.
“What are you doing?” Bobby asked. I suddenly became aware that my entire back was exposed to these men. Everything from my shoulder blades right down to my soiled underwear that I didn’t even remember the colour of.
“Cleaning.” I answer, watching the soup suds froth in the water torrent.
“Mm-hm.” Dean mumbled, as if not convinced that I wasn’t planning on drowning them all in the dish water. “What else do you remember?”
I shut off the water and piled the dishes into the sink. I grabbed the sink brush sitting on the sill and started scrubbing at a plate.
“Zaviana!” Dean demanded.
“Zai!” I shot back, stacking a plate on the dish rack. “And when I woke up, someone else tried to cut my throat.”
I took a sharp breath as I thought about the events of the bathroom. The nurse, the tank, the blood, the – what was that- smoke?
The dish in my hand grew heavier as if it had morphed into the tank of oxygen. I heard the dull crack in my head as I remembered hitting the nurse with the tank, only this time, it wasn’t her that had been hit, it was me. Falling down, knocking my head on the basin before finally hitting the floor, the blood pooling, moaning for help…
I dropped the plate back in the sink. My hands were shaking again and I looked out the window, longing to run to the trees behind the car yard.
“Zai?” Sam asked. I shook my head as the other three faces of the hospital staff flashed before me.
The silence stretched on between us.
“There were three reported deaths at the hospital.” Bobby said with a sigh. I slowly turned my head to look at him as he explained how three nurses had died and a doctor was found unconscious in the stair well. He said that the doctor was in a critical state, under constant surveillance as he had accidently injected himself with Pentobarbital.”
“That was you?” Dean asked. Hearing the story had made me want to cry. I did that. I ruined their lives. I killed them! That doctor, his family would be worried sick! They wouldn’t know if he would survive or not! And those other people… all of them, dead because of me. I’m one person! One life compared to the five I’ve already ruined, and that’s not even including my own family!
“And then I woke up here.” I say, blinking back my thoughts.
The boys exchange looks. I lean against the sink. The cuts on my arms sing from the soup.
“The people you killed,” Dean asked, inspecting me closely. “You said they tried to kill you?”
“Yeah.” I answered my eyes moistening. “They said I should’ve died along with my…” I trailed off, quickly wiping my eyes, slashing soupy water into them. “Ah! My family!” I finished, trying to blink the detergent from my eye, giving an excuse for the tears.
“Did you notice anything strange?”
“You mean besides you guys?” I demanded defensively, sick of their questioning. Dean looked away and I watched as the muscles on his neck jump as he no doubt clenched his jaw.
“He means anything weird like cold spots,” Sam suggested, “black smoke. Did you smell rotten eggs?”
“What are you suggesting?” I barked. Bobby eyed me sceptically. I turned back to the sink and dropped my hands in the water, stinging my skin. “Yeah.” I apologised. “There was smoke. There was rotten eggs.” I look out the window again, remembering all five of the murderers. “They had black eyes. All of them.”
“Demons.” I heard Bobby mumble.
“What?” I asked, turning around.
“You’re safe here.” Sam said, ignoring my question. “No one is going to hurt you.”
“No.” I said, pressing the comment. “Did he say demons? Were those ‘things’ demons?” None of the men would meet my gaze. “TELL ME!”
“Yes!” Dean shouted back, standing from his chair. “Yes, they were demons!”
I looked at him, my mouth slack. I had heard them talking about heaven, that means angels, right? But I never thought of hell and demons.
“Demons are real?” I thought through my mouth, trying to fathom the information.
“Demons, witches, ghosts, vampires, werewolves. They’re all real. Those stories you were told as a kid? That monster hiding under your bed, that thing in your closet – all real.”
“We’re hunters.” Sam added. “We find those things and we kill them. We save people. That’s our job.”
I take a deep breath and hold it for a while.
“Okay.” I finally exhale.
“Okay?” Dean asked. “Okay?! We tell you that there are things lurking in the dark and all you say is ‘okay’!?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Okay. My family… it’s not like my mother went and glued herself to the ceiling.” I tried to say it with a smile, but a lump had formed in my throat as I thought about it. Sam exchanged a long look with Dean. I turned back to the sink and started wishing the last couple of dishes, my stomach twisted in a knot.
Bobby got up from his seat and I felt tears prickle my eyes again.
“I’m sorry.” He said, putting a hand on my shoulder. He reached into the sink and grabbed one of the few remaining dishes. “I’ll finish up here. Why don’t you go upstairs and take a shower? The boys will show you where it is.”
I nodded and let him take over.
“Dean,” He called over his shoulder. I brushed away a tear and willed myself not to cry. “Get her some clothes.”
“What?” Dean hissed. “But Bobby, there are only guys clothes here.”
I smiled at his concern. I just needed some clean underwear, I didn’t really care what sort. It’s not like I was wearing a bra at that moment anyway. Besides, I’m sure that they’d seen a girl without a bra on before.
“So give her guys clothes.” I felt my cheeks go red and I dropped my head.
“Come on.” Sam said, standing up. He led me out of the room and Dean followed behind, muttering stuff about clothes.