Croatoan by Nikki Hall (ereader android .TXT) 📕

hand. She suddenly began to scream and threw the doctor aside, then threw Sam aisde as well, amazingly strong. She came at Sam again with a pair of scissors but I hit her over the head with a fire extinguisher, and she was knocked out. I smirked at Sam. "You owe me now, kid," I said. He smiled and let me help him up.
In the Waiting Room, the nurse began to pace and get nervous. "What if we all go crazy?" she asked.
"We just have to wait and see," Dr. Lee assured her. "I'm sure the rest of us are fine. Besides, the Marshal is bringing help, OK?"
"No, I can't, I've got to go," she said, starting for the door. I moved quickly and stood in front of the door. "Pam," the doctor began.
"No, you don't understand, my boyfriend's out there, I've got to make sure he's okay," she said, and keeps going. Sam touches her arm. "Just wait," he said. "I know you're upset, but it's safer if you stay here for now. Help is coming." Just then, we heard the Impala's engine. "Look," I said. "There they are." Pam gave me a pleading look, but sat down.
"Sammy? Open up!" Dean called from outside. I opened the door, and Dean and Sarge came in. "That's all?" I asked. "Where's the sheriff and the coroner?"
"Hey, he's the only sane one out there!" Dean was defensive, and that was OK with me. I would rather have him be defensive than oddly humorous. "What are we dealing with, do you know?" Dean's question caught us both off guard. I decided to take over then. "We're not sure," I admitted.
"Dammit, Ares. How can you not know?"
"The doc thinks it's a virus." Sam took over before I lost my cool, thankfully.
"OK, what do you think?" Dean turned to Sam, questions in his eyes. He could tell that Sam and I were already starting to work as a team, and maybe he was threatened by that. He had to know that one day, we'd each have to find our own partners. We were all destined for death one day or another.
"I think she's right." I let a sigh escape me with the sentence.
"And we think that the infected are trying to spread it by blood-to-blood contact." Sam let the revelation hang in the air. Dean swore under his breath, but I caught a few words that I choose not to repeat. It's not in my code to say that.
"Oh – but it gets better. The virus leaves traces of sulphur in the blood." Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean. "A demonic virus? What the hell, Sam?" We both shrugged. "It would

explain why I had a vision about this town," he said. I nodded. Sam had a point and Dean couldn't argue with it.
"How far do you think something like this can spread?" Dean asked us.
"I don't know, but Sam and I agree that there's no limit to this virus. It's not a normal virus that a doctor can help you fight off. It just pops up and makes you go all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on people." Dean laughed at my comparison. It was a poor joke, but any kind of joke was a relief in our situation.
"HEY!" Sarge called from another room. "We've got another one in here!"

*~5~*

We run into the room where Sarge is. "What the hell do you mean?" Dean's expletives were starting to annoy me, but I didn't say anything. He was probably just venting his frustration; we all were.
"The wife. She's infected." Sam looked away from Dean. I laid a hand on Sam's shoulder, and nodded at Dean.
"We've got to do something about this." Sarge interrupted our silent exchange with the obvious statement. "My neighbors were strong. Crazy strong.The longer we wait, the stronger she'll get." Pam, the nurse from earlier, paled. She had calmed down, but now she was getting antsy again when she saw Dean pull out his gun. "You're gonna kill Beverley Tanner?" Her voice was high-pitched and hurt my ears.
"Is there a cure?" Dean asked. Sam shook his head. "The doc doesn't know." Sam moved towards the door of the room that he had locked her in and opened it. She was huddled in a corner, and looked at Sarge with eyes that reminded me of a doe right before the wolf rips into it. It made my chest hurt, and I turned away.
"Mark, what are you doing?" she cried. "Mark, they locked me in here, it's them that are infected. Mark, please!"
"You sure she's infected?" Mark was hesitating, that much was apparent. Sam nodded. Dean, in anger, pushed past him and shot Beverly. I flinched a little. To me, it felt like murder, even though I knew she'd try and infect all of us if she had the chance.


Sarge, who we now knew was actually Mark, was looking through the blinds in the waiting room. "They're out there, waiting."
"For what?" I asked. He shrugged. Pam was walking by with some vials of blood. She dropped one and began to freak out. "Is it on me? Am I infected?" I looked her over and shook my head. "You're fine. Just be careful, OK?" She nodded at me.
"Why are we staying here? Please let's just go," she said.
"Do you want to get infected?" I was shouting and getting angry. "Those things are out there, just waiting for one of us to make that mistake. If you go out there, you're as good as dead."
"She's right about one thing," Sam pointed out. "We can't stay here, we've got to get to the roadhouse, somewhere. Let people know what's coming."
"How?" I raised an arm to the window. "Night of the Living Dead didn't exactly end pretty, you know. So, what? We just go out there with our guns? Our ammo will run out, and I can't use my only weapon in front of people, Sam."
"We ain't got a choice." Mark's voice made my head snap around to the window where he was sitting. "A lot of people up here are good with rifles, so we're easy pickings. Unless you people have explosives or something, we're just out of luck." That makes me point to the shelves of alcohol and other chemicals. "We could rig up some explosives."
Banging on the door interrupts my train of thought. I hear muffled screaming. "Let me in! Please!" Mark looked at Dean, then opened the door. A young man, the one that Sam described, stumbles into the clinic. "Dwayne? You OK?" Mark took over. He acted like the sergeant that he had tattooed on his arm.
Dean looked at Sam. "That's the guy I-uh," he made a gesture of slitting a throat. Sam nodded.
"Does anyone know where my mom and dad are?" A silence ensued. "Awkward," Dean muttered. I looked at the kid and pointed to a gash on his arm. Dr. Lee had come back into the waiting room and noticed it too. "Where did you get that?" Her voice had an edge to it. Like she didn't want any more of those things in her clinic. I couldn't blame her. I didn't either.
"I must have fallen and cut myself." Dwayne's voice jolted me back. I drew my gun and held it loosely at my side. It was loose enough not to be threatening, but in a good enough grip to shoot in a few seconds.
Dean looked at Mark. "Tie him up." Dean was being commanding, almost like his father. I glanced at Sam, who was paling more and more as the moments ticked by. "Wait." Dwayne started to protest, but Dean aimed his gun at him. "Did they bleed on you?"
"What? NO!"
"Doc, is there any way to tell?" I tried to diffuse the situation as quickly as I could, but what the doctor said next squashed all hopes of that. "With Beverly's blood work, the virus took about three hours to incubate. I wouldn't know unless he's been exposed more than that."
"Dean, Ares, I need to talk to you. Now." Sam was strained, his eyes darting around the room. We followed him into a doctor's office in the back. "My vision, Dean, it's happening."
"Yeah, Sam, I figured."
"You can't kill him, alright? Not yet. We don’t know if he's infected or not." I stepped in between them. It made me realize how tiny I was compared to the both of them. It was a little intimidating.
"Oh I think we're pretty damn sure," Dean argued. "Guy shows up middle of nowhere, got a cut on his arm, whole family's infected?"
"Alright, then we should keep him tied up and wait and see." I was trying to be the voice of reason, but the look in Dean's eyes told me he was determined to get his way. "For what? For him to Hulk out? Try to infect somebody else? No thanks, can't take that chance." He started to walk past Sam, but Sam stopped him. "Hey look man, I'm not happy about this, alright? But it's a tough job, you know that." Dean was trying to keep his voice to a low growl, but it was rising in volume. Fast.
"It's supposed to be tough, Dean!" Sam was yelling. I looked anxiously at the door, trying to say that we needed to be quiet. "We're supposed to struggle with this, that's the whole point!"
"Really? What does that buy us, Sam?"
"A clear conscience for one!"
"It's too late for that and you know it. Why do you think Ares isn't arguing? She knows that it's too late for us to have a clear conscience." He started, again, to walk back into the waiting room. "Dean, what the hell's happened to you? You might kill an innocent man, and you don't even care! You don't act like yourself anymore, Dean. Hell you know, you're