Five Years Later

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Bring Me Home

[writer's note] this chapters may be particularly triggering to anyone who has ever suffered from depression, anxiety, or been suicidal because of how devastated Cas is after Dean's death, so if you are worried, you shouldn't read--keep yourself safe! [end writer's note]

What had changed? He didn't know and there was no time to decipher what it had been because the growls of the walkers were beginning to resound down the hallway from the open bunker door. Joanna was crying, the sounds from those wretched monsters filling her young ears, and Cas began to feel worry set in him once again. The temporary joy had ended much too soon to give him anything lasting, but he had no time to dwell on that misfortune now.

Bravely, hearing the shouts of his friends dying from above, Cas grabbed little Joanna in his arms and looped the tote bag of canned food around his shoulders. He felt a surge of energy, something that he had not felt in a long time, and smiled. He was going to get through this for Joanna. Afterward, he would see where he was and what he could live for. Maybe, if he was lucky, to could be her. If Dean had found his consolation in her, perhaps Cas also could.

Someone was being torn apart on the stairwell—Cas could hear their screams. As he rounded the corner, Joanna crying in his arms out of fear, he saw Mandy lying there in the midst of many freshly bloodied walkers, gnawing with snapping jaws above her corpse. Lacey was screaming and was grabbing the rail of the stairs to keep herself upright. A walker was coming up behind her, and Cas was unsure of what to do. Instinctively, he reached for his knife and unsheathed it with his free hand after shifting Joanna to one hip.

"Lacey, watch—" Cas began, but the walker had come upon her before he was able to warn her appropriately. Eyes narrowed, he set forward on his journey, hoping desperately that he could make it up the stairs before the walkers turned their eyes upon him and Joanna.

He made the first half of the journey well, traipsing across the bloodied floor as he carefully treaded around the pools that had already begun to form, worried that he would slip and lose Joanna in the process. The walkers were so preoccupied with Mandy and Lacey's bodies that it was easy for Cas to slip past them, burying Joanna's face in his shoulder to shield her from the scene and additionally silence her crying into dim muffles.

He made it to the door with time to spare—the walkers were still completely occupied with their projects. Wincing, he threw the tote bag through the opened door and cringed as the cans clashed together outside in the grass. It was better than trying to get through the narrow opening with the bag and Joanna in his arms—he could only prioritize one and it was clear who it would be in that situation. Someone had failed to open the door all of the way—the light that had shafted through had only been able to light through a small crack that had somehow spread down to where Cas had been hardly five minutes ago, when he had his epiphany and both Mandy and Lacey were still alive.

There were dozens upon dozens of walkers outside—Cas wasn't sure how anyone had been able to make it through all of the mess or why he and Joanna had been left behind like that. It couldn't have been intentional—yes, perhaps on his part, but not Joanna's. Ron and Katharine were her parents—they were supposed to have charge of her. Had they made it out okay?

Cas could see Katharine in the near distance, piling bags into the Impala while Charlie, tears streaming down her cheeks, shot off walkers one by one to keep her safe. Two bodies were lying listlessly on the pavement, distracting walkers that dared come near the two of them. Cas could tell by the overturned ball cap and the way Katharine and Charlie were sobbing that it was a fallen Bobby and Ron. They hadn't made it.

Joanna was still curled up in his arms and he held her tightly against his chest, afraid she might fall from him into the mess of blood and gore that dwelled below them. He maneuvered effortlessly through the stragglers of walkers that ambled aimlessly around the bunker door, too preoccupied with sniffing out an entrance to be concerned with Charlie and Katharine.