Jo Harvelle walked into the city bank. And from then on her bad day just got worse.
"Can I help you, miss?"
"I'd like to withdraw money from this account," She handed over a slip of paper to the teller. The teller pursed her blood-red lips as she carefully avoided Jo's grubby hand, smeared with what looked suspiciously like dried blood. The woman looked her over, in her ripped jeans and too-big flannel shirt.
"You're Joanna Harvelle?"
"Yes."
The teller counted out the money. "Sign here, please."
Jo scrawled her signature. "Thanks." She shoved the notes in her pocket, alongside the bottle of antiseptic and swabs from the chemist and artist's scalpel from the newsagents. It was about that time that the doors burst open. And in came the complimentary gun-wielding maniac.
"Everybody on the floor!" He roared. "This is a robbery!"
Oh, the originality. Her instincts screamed at her to lay this guy out flat, but she was facing the wrong way and her body was at the wrong angle for an attack. So instead of doing something stupid, she did something stupider.
"Get on the ground! You too, blondie." Footsteps behind her. "Are you deaf, girl?" Her back was to him. He smelled. Of dirt and compost and something sickly sweet.
"No." Jo said. "I've just decided that you aren't worthy of my attention."
There was a whimper behind her from one of the customers. The robber chuckled. "Tough chick, eh?" Rancid breath on her cheek. "I like tough chicks." Jo looked up to the teller's desk. Scissors. Guts. Bam.
He grabbed her bum. In that moment she arched forward and grabbed the scissors.
"Going to hurt me, little girl?"
"Only because you," Step back. "Keep invading," Arm up. "My personal space!"
Swing.
It went into him with a squelch it shouldn't have made. The gun clanged to the floor. There was a yell of 'get him!' from somewhere behind her as she spun. Jo could see him now. Masked, he was only a little taller than she, and not much heavier. But he wasn't done yet.
Buckling, he made one last lunge for her, his hands wrapping around her throat.
He raised his mouth to her ear.
"Help me."
And then he was gone.
The ambulance and police arrived, closely followed by the local media. Jo was sitting on a low decorative wall as the medicos looked her over. She had insisted she leave as soon as possible, and the officers had insisted just as strongly that she get checked for shock as well as giving her statement to the cops.
Jo had been up against hellhounds, banshees, apparitions and various demons, but she sat helplessly through the blinking lights and camera flashes, unable to react. Unable to move. And all through it she could hear people whispering. She saved us.
She took him down for us.
He had a gun and everything.
She saved us.
She's a hero.
"The Nightly News wants to interview you later." Said Officer Gabriel Forsyth, who had just taken her statement. "Should I give them the yes?"
Jo glanced over to them. The camera was trained on her face even from this distance. She was a hunter, who hung out with a wanted man. The last thing she wanted was her shapely figure splashed all over the evening news.
"No."
"You stopped an armed gunman."
"I killed him."
"You diffused a potentially violate situation, miss. While he was endangering the public, do you think we would have done any differently? Bask in the glory of the moment for a while. Everybody loves a hero."
Everybody loves a hero. But all she could think of was that she'd left him.
She'd left Sam, her hunting partner, broken and bleeding on the floor of their flat, promising she was only going to be gone for a little while, she was going to grab some more medical supplies and some cash for their next run.
'I'll be back soon. Hold on.'
"No. I have to go."
"But-"
"Do you need anything else? I really have to go."
"But-"
"Tell the news I'm sorry to put them at a disadvantage, but I'm sure they'll find something else to slap into their feelgood section. Like surfing squirrels or singing fish." She was losing her patience now. Gabriel could tell as she shifted her weight to her left leg, ready to swing out with her right fist.
He could tell that this was a woman who would not take kindly to being held up at gunpoint.
"Of course." He said. She turned and he watched as she vaulted the perimeter fence and strode to a sleek black car.
As the vehicle pulled out onto the open road, he wondered who she really was. This Joanna Harvelle, as tough as they came, who looked like she'd been in the wars only recently.
This girl, who had killed a man with a pair of silver scissors.
"Decay. That's what it was. I'm telling you, Sam, the guy smelt like he was death warmed up."
"You… downed him?"
"And the rest. They went into him as clean as you like. It was like cutting into a wet sponge."
"Well… there's always that possibility… a body dies and their muscle mass begins to break down."
"You're saying zombie?" The scalpel chinked against something metallic in his collar and Sam jumped. "Bite."
He bit down onto the scrap of leather to prevent himself screaming out or biting through his tongue as Jo dug around in his flesh. Bullets. They hurt twice as much coming out then they did going in. "God damn 15th century poltergeists. How the hell do they learn to shoot anyway?"
Sam glared at her.
"Are those tears in your eyes? Be a man, Sam. Ah, here it comes." With some twisting, the bullet popped out of the hole. San spat out the leather tongue and spent the next thirty seconds swearing vehemently.
"Why, Samuel Winchester, I'm surprised at you. My dad always told me not to use bad words when I didn't know what they meant."
"Just sew it up." Sam groaned. "And tell me more about your close encounter of the hygienically-challenged kind."
"Okay, I know I shouldn't really talk, 'cause I've been on hunts before where I haven't been able to get to a shower in forever, but this guy. It was totally weird." Sam flinched as the needle pierced his skin. "And then he was half falling on me and he asked for help. He could have strangled me, but instead he asked for help."
"You just stabbed him with scissors. Of course he wanted help."
"No, you're missing it. He went all rigid and his voice went a bit funny. It was like he didn't know where he was. And if you'd just been stabbed with scissors, would you really ask for help from the person who put them there?"
"Point." Sam stood, winced and stretched.
"Not too much movement with that arm. You'll pull the stitches out." Jo said sternly. "So. Zombie?"
"Maybe. What you said doesn't fit the profile, though. A zombie is essentially a dead body being controlled by someone using a brand of voodoo. But what you encountered sounded like there were two people somehow trapped in this one corpse."
"Cute. A personality disorder in the undead. That's a new one." She began to clean up after their home operation. Her hands were still wet with his blood. Thankfully, no major arteries had been grazed, or they'd really be in trouble. "You know, what does surprise me is that neither of us are surprised by this anymore."
Sam grinned. "Weirdness runs in the family." He sat back down facing her as Jo wiped her hands clean.
"I hate this part of the job. You can never get the blood out of under your nails." She complained.
"You hate this part of the job? What about me? You enjoy inflicting pain a little too much for my liking." He reached for his shirt. "So. You wanna go check out the crime scene?"
Jo's brows rose. "Are you mad?" She exclaimed. "The area is crawling with police, and is going to stay that way for the next couple of days at least. You can't go out there in case anyone recognises you."
"Did you see any feds?" He asked. Jo shook her head. "Then I'm fine. As long as you keep introducing me as Tom."
"You're crazy."
"Very possibly."
"You're gonna get us caught. You're gonna get yourself killed. You're gonna get me killed."
"Extremely unlikely." He gave her his most winning smile. "Are you really going to say no to me?"
"Come over here so I can put a bullet in the other side." She replied.
Yes, everybody loved a hero.
"We are so screwed." Jo murmured.