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“Man, I hate rats.”
“Would you rather it was a ghost?”
“Yes.”
Dean had managed to shrug it off back then, the wave of panic that came to squeeze his stomach. It was only one rat, and the mounting fear ran away with it as the rodent scurried across the floor and out of the room. Away from Dean. He’s not so lucky this time.
He can’t bring himself to count, but they’re far too many for him to handle. They huddle together, squeaking, swarming. Dean can hear their teeth working and their claws scratching at the rotting flesh beneath them. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to see what remains of the human corpse lying under the famished clump, and yet he wonders if perhaps it wouldn’t be a prettier sight.
Beside him, Sam gives a disgusted grunt. The smell is revolting. “We should keep going.”
They should, but Dean can’t move. Manananggals are picky creatures; they will only eat the heart and liver of their victims and leave the rest for...well, in this instance, the rats. This lot is not the first they encounter. There’s five more of them, a string of decomposing bodies and hungry little fiends that stretches through the dark tunnels in the sewers underneath Madison, Indiana. There’s five more human bodies being devoured by bright-eyed rodents, making this the sixth, and Dean can’t move. Dean can’t breathe. Dean can’t think—not straight, anyway.
All Dean can think of is a story he read once in a book, about a cook that had cooked the son of a king in a pie then served the pie to the prince’s father; the king enjoyed it so much he had a second slice. The gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. For centuries he roamed the ruins of the fort, devouring his children, but his hunger was never sated and to this day people could still hear the rat children scurrying around trying to escape their father.
Dean doesn’t usually read horror stories, he has enough horrors in his everyday life. The book had been a fantasy novel that had a mostly-historical feeling to it; the author had snuck the horror tale into a scene. Dean had closed the book after that and never opened it again. He also thinks of that scene from Misery, where Kathy Bates cuts off the head of a rat and drinks its blood. He had walked out of the movie theatre as fast as he could without breaking into a full run and retched into a nearby alley. He would probably retch now, if only he could take a breath.
“Dean, what’s wrong?” He can barely hear Sam’s voice over the chewing of the rats, but the words register.
Dean doesn’t answer. He can’t draw enough breath to speak and even if he could, he would never let Sam hear the words that run through his head in response: “What’s wrong, Sam, is that she’s burning.”
* * *
Dean remembers that night in stark detail, a series of sharp edges and contrasts against the otherwise blurry images from his childhood. John always thought he hadn’t seen, but Dean only backed away, too horrified to do anything else, until his father had rushed up to him in the hallway to place his brother in his arms. Dean saw, and Dean remembers.
He remembers the flames and how unbearable their heat had felt even from a distance. He remembers the smells—sulphur and burnt something (please don’t let it have been her flesh) and fear. He remembers his mom pinned to the ceiling like some sort of saint, burning.
“Angels are watching over you,” she had said—like she did every night—just a couple of hours before the devil came.
Thirty-one-year old Dean knows nothing and no one had spared a glance, but four-year old Dean had taken his mother’s words and believed every syllable, and he had prayed. He prayed for the angels to sweep down to Lawrence, Kansas. He was sure they would, too: how could they not, when Satan was in his house and had brought a piece of Hell with him? What could those flames be, but demons? Four-year old Dean had no idea how close to the truth he was.
“Take your brother outside as fast as you can, don’t look back.”
Dean only half obeyed. It was the last of John Winchester’s orders he would disregard for a very long time. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him and brought Sammy to safety, but he did look back. They very next day, Dean looked back.
He slipped out of the first of an endless string of motel rooms while the rest of his broken family slept—Sammy the untroubled sleep of infants, John the exhausted sleep of the drained. He walked the streets of Lawrence, but he doesn’t remember the walk itself or if anybody took notice of a four-year old wandering by himself. He almost walked past the house; if it hadn’t been for the big tree in the front yard standing sentry to the desolation that once had been his everything, he wouldn’t have recognized the place.
He doesn’t remember what triggered his reaction. He remembers fear, confusion, and pain his young mind didn’t understand but his heart was all too eager to experience. No child should ever wonder, “Where do we go from here?” but four-year old Dean Winchester had grown up in the span of one fiery night, and he did; he wondered. And he panicked.
Panic made him do it. Panic made him seek refuge in the only place that bore no trace of the fire. The small tool shed John had built in the back yard showed no broken windows, no charred black stains where the flames had licked at the walls. In fact, the shed had no windows at all. It was dark inside, and quiet and silent. Dean hadn’t grown up enough to like silence.
Still he went to sit in a corner and didn’t move for he could never tell how long. Then he heard it—a scuffling sound coming from somewhere in the pitch-black darkness. For a moment he feared the flames were coming for him too, but no fire exploded. It was just a rat, he felt it scurry across his leg.
He was almost reassured by the presence of another living thing until he felt another run over his hand. And then another, against his foot. Three rats. Not as many as he would encounter twenty-seven years later, but they were an army to a four-year old who had grown older, but not old enough not to be terrified of things that move in the dark. He scrambled to his feet and bolted for the door...only to find it wouldn’t budge. His dad cursed that same door more that once, complaining about how often it got stuck. John had meant to fix it, but he never got around to it, and now Dean was trapped.
The rats scurried and squeaked and munched. Dean didn’t know what they were munching on. Nancy at school was terrified of mice and Phil had told her when somebody dies, rats eat their body underground. Nancy had cried and Dean had yelled at Phil to stop being such a liar, but now he wasn’t so sure Phil’s story had been a lie at all. His mind came up with horrible images. Was it someone’s body the rats were munching on? Would they eat his mom? He thought maybe, if he killed them, they would leave her alone.
But he couldn’t see, and all heroic purposes flew out the window when one of them ran up his leg. Dean might have screamed then, he doesn’t quite remember. All he knows is he fell against the wall and huddled back in his corner, as if that could hide him. Unlike him, the rats could see, and they found him. He felt their small paws clawing at his clothes as they climbed all over him. One of them nuzzled his neck; another’s tail slapped against his face; the third crawled along his back.
Dean didn’t move. Dean didn’t scream. Dean cried silent tears and barely breathed...until the door was wrenched open and a frantic John Winchester made his entrance. Framed by the doorway and silhouetted against the light from outside, he looked even more the hero to a child who already worshipped him.
* * *
Dean hasn’t thought of that night and day in what feels like a million years. They always hover just outside of his consciousness, but he never allows his thoughts to tip over the edge.
The gun fires before he can even realize he took aim. Satisfying shrieks erupt from the rats as they scatter. Dean was right: he did not want to see what lay underneath, but the sight is made a little more bearable by the three rodent corpses left by the bullets his trusted .45 fired off in quick succession.
“Dean!” Sam is looking at him like he believes he has gone insane and Dean thinks perhaps he has, just a little.
“I hate rats.”
The ”Seriously?” look on Sam’s face lets Dean know that’s not an explanation, but it’s the only one he has.
“They’re just rats, dude.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘just rats.’”
“What’s wrong with you?”
‘Too much.’ Dean shrugs. “Nothing, Sammy. Nothing at all.” He gets a firmer grip on his gun and keeps going.
Sam follows after a moment’s hesitation. Dean knows he’s only escaping further questioning because they have a job to do; there’ll be questions waiting for him later.
He can hear more rustling and squeaking behind him and knows the rats have reassembled and resumed their meal. He doesn’t even try to cover a shudder. John Winchester had burst into the tool shed all those years ago and saved the day. He had pulled the rats off Dean and took him outside into the light. John had freed Dean of the things that moved in the dark one last time before he began to teach him how to kill them—other things, that is. Dean still doesn’t know how to kill rats.
END