Fallout Part One

"Fallout - the adverse results of a situation or action"

West of Fairplay, Colorado

5.45pm

The sunlight had quickly faded until the only illumination on the wooded backroad were the beams from Dale Mee's semi.

Not that Dale minded the darkness, in fact, he kind of liked the solitariness of it.

After twenty years of being a trucker, loneliness had often become his friend. And if he did get bored, well, there was always the CB or the radio to keep him wide awake.

He checked the dash clock and smiled. He had to be in Colorado Springs by the next day, but the way he drove, there would be time for that and plenty of wine, women and song too.

Maybe he'd even get himself into a brawl, just for the heck of it.

Of course, most of his fighting trucker buddies thought he was some hard-nosed ex-marine with an attitude. His tattoos helped with that impression.

The truth, though, was a little less action-hero and a lot more former rowdy biker with a rap sheet.

Dale brushed a hand across his long, greying beard checking out his facial hair in the truck's side mirror. Marlene, his long-time girl said he was starting to look like a freaking Yeti.

Yeah, right, I was thinkin' more ZZ Top myself…

Dale realized he was heading for a hairpin bend and tapped the rig's brakes, dropping the Mack down a gear. The truck grunted, but complied, thundering around the curve, air horn's blaring just enough to make Dale feel good.

There wasn't another soul on the road, probably wouldn't be until early morning now, so the trucker got to play God of the boonies.

Dale chuckled and then noticed something flash in the woods up ahead like a camera. There was a silhouette near the treeline too, but it was indistinct.

Some stupid sonofabitch hiker or tourist taking wildlife photos, maybe?

As his truck grew closer, the shape in the gloom moved, but far faster than Dale had expected.

One minute it was in the Colorado undergrowth, the next, it was smack bang in the middle of the road in front of him.

Impulsively, Dale slammed his boot on the semi's brakes, feeling the trailer behind him slew wildly like his unit was going to Jackknife.

Somehow, he kept it under control, even though his eyes were glued to the thing in front of him.

It wasn't a man.

And it wasn't an animal.

Dale thought he saw clothing, but he couldn't be sure, because there was also fur, and claws and…

And the most disfigured, gnarled features of any creature he'd ever seen in nature or the movies.

The stories on the radio about local Bigfoot attacks..? Dale's mind was screaming at him that there was no Bigfoot. His mind was screaming that this was a trick of light – a strange angle catching a bear and distorting the image his tired eyes were picking up.

But way down, Dale's deeper subconscious was yelling another desperate message.

Don't stop! Just don't freaking stop, or you're as dead as all those other poor wusses on the friggin' news!

Dale Mee lifted his boot from the truck's brakes and slammed the gas to the floor.

The thing in the road didn't look surprised, and it didn't attempt to escape the oncoming storm.

Instead, it just stared at the trucker, pained, dark eyes boring into Dale until he had to look away for a split second. The eyes looked so human, so tortured, but the mangled mass of fur, claws and sinew couldn't be a person.

Dale doubted man had ever looked so gruesome, even back when he was plain old Captain Caveman.

As he took his eyes from the road, Dale expected to feel the jarring crunch of bone and flesh on metal as his rig rammed the being. He'd felt it time and again before when he'd hit deer or some other woodland creature.

It wasn't a sensation he was proud of, and even when it was local fauna he was obliterating the ex-biker felt remorse.

But not tonight.

Some part of Dale actually wanted to kill the creature.

And yet he didn't.

The semi ploughed on into the night without a single judder or vibration. There was no indication he'd hit, or harmed anything.

Not trusting his own senses, Dale checked the huge side mirrors on the rig, but it was too dark to see if there was any roadkill back on the blacktop.

He looked down, realizing his hands were shaking on the wheel.

Dale Mee was scared, and that just didn't happen.

He let off the gas, just a little, noting the truck was still swinging slightly from his high speed maneuvers.

I need a drink. Hell, no, I need two!

The trucker wiped his sweating brow with the back of his grimy shirt sleeve and wondered if he dare tell anyone what he'd seen.

There had been deaths lately, rumours of something unholy out in the Rockies, but was he just letting the wild talk get to him?

Dale suddenly felt cold and told himself it was just nerves. He reached out to flick on the heaters, but something bumped on the back of the cab, taking his attention.

The noise came again like a steady knocking.

Maybe something's come loose with all the suddenly braking and accelerating?

But that wasn't what his mind was really thinking.

You didn't see it in the damn mirrors because it wasn't in the road anymore…

The thumping noise's direction changed.

It was above him now, taunting him with its presence.

You're imagining it, you dumbass!

Nevertheless, he reached down for the .45 he had stashed under his seat.

Dale's hand never reached the weapon.

A war whoop from on top of the cab culminated in some huge form swinging through the side window of the truck.

Dale felt the massive creature's weight slam him almost over into the passenger seat.

His foot pressed helplessly against the gas without anyone actually having control of the steering anymore and the Mack fishtailed madly across the road.

It hit one of the many potholes that littered the asphalt and the angle was too much for the already wildly slewing vehicle.

The truck rolled first, its trailer trying to follow but eventually snapping off at the hitch pin and grinding to a halt after leaving two large grooves in the road surface.

Dale didn't see it happen.

He couldn't, because inside the bouncing cab, the creature had already plucked out his eyes, squishing the juice from them between its malformed fingers like it was crushing grapes.

Dale tried to scream, tried to reach for the CB radio, but the being on top of him was smart enough not to let either event happen.

It grabbed his wrist, snapping it back until the bone in Dale's forearm shattered.

Next, it tore out the trucker's throat with its claws for good measure, blood spurting across the already smashed windshield like graffiti being sprayed from a can.

But none of these actions were by chance.

None were simply about self-preservation or the need to feed.

These were the actions of a sentient creature.

All-be-it an insane one.

When Dale had been reduced to a bloodied pile of remains, entrails leaking from the Mack's cab door, the creature finally calmed enough to reach over and turn of the ignition.

The engine died, and the wheels eventually stopped whirling around in midair.

The thing grunted then whined as if some part of it actually now regretted what it had done.

It's feral and yet somehow emotion-filled eyes spotted a flag on the back of the cab. The stars and stripes that Dale had lied and bragged he'd fought to protect.

The creature had no knowledge of why the flag was here, but the colors, the stars seemed to aggravate it again and it tore at the silk, tearing elongated claw marks through the banner until there was little left, like Dale.

It roared, jumping from the cab and vanishing into the Colorado mountain wilderness.

And tomorrow, the legend would grow.

Disused Trailer Park

Laramie, Wyoming

11.56pm

The rain wasn't hard on the ancient RV's windows, but its pattering was enough of a distraction to make Sam Winchester watch the water globules trickle down the crazed glass pane and roll off into oblivion.

It wasn't that Sam was bored, per se, but there was only so much hiding out from demons, leviathans and other supernatural beings any person could take.

Sam and Dean hadn't had a decent hot meal in a few days, and they hadn't had a clean and comfortable bed in a lot more.

Their most recent "acquisition" was an abandoned Winnebago on a trailer park that hadn't operated in about thirty years.

The "Winnie" was cold at night, they had a bucket for a john and a rusted oil lamp to illuminate the scene.

A relative cornucopia of luxury trappings.

Dean was absently playing Solitaire, randomly tossing the cards onto the RV's decrepit table, while Sam was supposed to be keeping tabs on what Dick Roman was up to while the laptop battery still had any juice in it.

Right now, though, Sam was letting the damp, encumbering outside world envelope him. There was just something so hypnotic about the sound of rain on a trailer or RV's roof.

"Sammy, you gonna toss me a bag of those chips before "Mickey" the mouse over there finds them?"

Sam broke away from the window pane and looked in the direction his brother was pointing with the toe of his CAT boot.

Sure enough, there was a tiny rodent staring at them both as if they should give up some goodies.

Sam couldn't help but smile. After all they'd been through, there was something just so innocent about the mouse it wasn't even funny.

He lobbed Dean a bag of chips from the brown paper shopping bag he'd collected earlier. Then he focused back on the laptop. "Nothing new from Roman," he sighed. "At least not that he's bragging in the open about."

"Which probably means Dick has a whole lot going down," Dean concluded, munching down a mouthful of Texas Pete Hot Sauce flavor chips. "Anything else interesting, before I go stir crazy in this tin can?" He threw down the last of the cards and opened up a beer.

"Actually, maybe," Sam said almost cryptically as he browsed several sights in three different windows. "There have been several sightings of a ghostly woman hovering through an old ghost town down in Colorado."

Dean winced. "Sounds just about as mind-numbing as this place. Dude, I meant real action, not some made up crap for tourists."

Sam's brow was creasing the more he read. "Seriously, Dean, this looks more than just locals drumming up some trade. Several different people have seen a woman clad in black at the old Buckskin Joe site just west of Fairplay. The woman doesn't speak, she just visits the graves in what would have been the old cemetery, then she shimmers and vanishes."

"So she's not freaking anybody out or trying to gank the natives?" Dean stuffed in some more chips. "Why would we waste our time on this when good old Dick is out there trying to turn the human race the way of the dodo?"

"Because the woman fits the description of a local legend called Silver Heels," Sam elaborated, reading as he talked. "And because up until now her apparition hasn't coincided with any other supernatural event."

Dean stopped munching. "Up until now?" He mumbled through a mouthful of potato.

Sam edged forward, excited by the possibility of a gig involving a real myth again. It had been awhile since they'd had that pleasure. "The last couple of times she's been spotted, gruesome deaths in the surrounding areas have followed. It's like she's some portent, or maybe even catalyst."

"Okay, so let's hear more about the so called gruesome deaths." Dean moved across to sit next to his brother, searching the laptop windows for pictures from Fairplay.

"Well, it looks like the last one happened just a few hours ago." Sam opened up the news flash item he was reading into a full screen. There were a few blurred images of an overturned truck with a Park County sheriff's department cruiser sat either side it, lights whirling. "The driver was found eviscerated. Bite marks, claw marks everywhere."

"Wild animal?" Dean tried to rationalize.

"Well, something climbed onto the truck and smashed through the side window to get to this guy. Not exactly bear behaviour," Sam pondered. "Not any kind of wild animal behaviour I know. And get this, his eyeballs were ripped out and popped like peas from a pod."

Dean grunted. "Eww, somebody's been watching way too much Jeepers Creepers." He composed himself. "And the other vics? How'd they buy it?"

"All torn to shreds like this guy." Sam opened up another image. "The locals are saying they have a Bigfoot on their hands. One even caught this photo after the first killing." He turned the laptop so his brother could get a full view.

The image was fuzzy, but clear enough to make out the thing was no bear.

Dean rubbed at his stubble. "Man, you know that is so not Bigfoot, right?"

"Agreed," Sam nodded "But it's also not a wild animal, it's not human and it's like no other supernatural creature we've encountered. Not even a Wendigo."

"Could be a guy in a suit." Dean took the last slug of beer and crushed the can in his hand. "Some people will do anything for money."

"C'mon, Dean, wearing a bear outfit is one thing, killing five people – no, not just killing, dismembering, that's whacked, even by our standards."

Sam pushed up from the moth-eaten seat he was on and began rummaging through another paper bag until he found a can of beans. There was no way to cook them, so it was either cold or share some of his sibling's infamous Texas Pete Sauce chips.

Sam took the beans, flopping back down as he yanked on the ring-pull.

Dean grimaced playfully. "Aww dude, poor old Mickey is gonna be ass-phyxiated if you chow down on those things."

Sam ignored him. "Look Dean, I figure this thing appearing has to be connected to the "Silver Heels" apparition, I just can't figure out the how or why. The locals are panicking and rumors and reports of Yetis and Sasquatch are rife. That's gonna bring in more tourists for this monster to feed on if we don't do something."

"Sammy, if we go out there the only Sasquatch in town will be you." Dean didn't sound swayed. "So, basically, you wanna put our asses on the line hunting a creature whose origins we have no idea about, and who likes to chow down on white meat every other night. Oh, and its best buddy might be the spirit of some chick from cowboy land who likes to haunt old graveyards, but we don't know why the hell she's suddenly hooked up with Mr. Longpiglover." Dean raised a brow and finally took a breath. "Did I miss something?"

Sam clipped the laptop shut and stuffed it in his holdall. "Yeah, you forgot to ask when we leave…"

Buckskin Joe

Frontier Ghost Town

Dusk…

Buckskin Joe, or rather what was left of it, wasn't anything like Dean had expected. A few of the old mill structures still remained, their wooden forms intertwined with the heavily treed landscape, but there were no other buildings left at all.

Anything that had actually survived from the original town had long since been removed to other attractions.

However, the one thing they needed was still here – the cemetery.

Unlike modern graveyards, the cemetery at Buckskin Joe was inset among the heavy foliage of the Rockies. Markers and tombstones were strewn everywhere under the coverage of the trees.

Some of the graves had ornate wooden fences around them that had stood the test of time and Mother Nature. Others had simple rocks and stones placed around them.

Some, as often seen in Hollywood movies were only marked by a plain wooden cross.

It was strange, and foreboding, even to a hunter as well seasoned as Dean.

"This place isn't exactly what I was expecting," he admitted, squinting through the pines and furs that encompassed their position. "I mean, graves actually in the woodland like this?"

Sam shrugged. "At least all this foliage gives us good cover."

"It's freakin' cold too!" Dean groused, eyeing the snow that covered some of the higher tree lines. "We could sit out here for days and see squat, you realize that?"

"At least we'll be harder to find for Dick's henchmen," Sam pointed out, only half-listening to his brother as his gaze scoured the cemetery in the dim light.

Dean huffed. Sitting in a cold graveyard waiting for a spook that probably was gonna be a no show was not his idea of a night out. And he certainly didn't feel any safer here from the leviathan than he would back at some nice warm motel room, or even the Impala's front bench seat. "Yeah well, I'd feel a whole lot better if I knew just what I was trying to gank. You got any more info on this Silver Heels chick we should know?"

"Plenty." Sam shifted slightly, the stone he was perched on apparently cold and wet against his jeans. "But I'm not sure if any of it is going to help."

"Well spill anyway, Sammy, because I'm already wishing I was back at our RV palace back in Wyoming."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Okay, so, Silver Heels was obviously not our spirit's real name. She was a beautiful dance hall girl that wooed the miners of Buckskin Joe nightly and they nicknamed her after the sparkling shoes she wore. When a smallpox epidemic hit the town in 1861, Silver Heels could have fled like many, but instead she stayed behind and tried to care for the sick."

"Regular Florence Nightingale, huh?"

"Yeah, except the legend says she eventually contracted the disease herself. She didn't die, but became horribly scarred. When some of the recovering miners went to thank her for all she'd done for the town, it's said she'd already vanished. Her cabin was empty and there was no sign of a body. A few years later, a heavily veiled woman was often seen taking flowers to the dead in the cemetery. Many believe it was Silver Heels come to pay her last respects."

"So, she freaked out when she saw herself in the mirror and shagged ass up into the mountains, huh? I can buy that. Chicks don't dig scars like us guys, huh?" Dean rubbed his hands together. He was getting colder as the evening went on, and he was yearning for something to eat already.

Just not a Biggerson's burger…hell, not any burger. His stomach grumbled at the thought of the grey goo that had oozed from his Tarducken slammer a few months back.

He pressed on with his questioning, trying to avoid thinking about it. "So when do we get to the part where Silver Heels is our kinda freak?"

"There have been reports of a black-clad, scarred woman wearing a veil here for years. She's said to bring flowers to the graves and to vanish into the mountain air if approached. It's only the last few nights, though, that her appearances have coincided with the creature attacks."

Dean stood up from his own rocky perch. There was only so much sitting he could do before he got fed up. "Well I'm not seeing squat. I figure we should split up. You take the left, I'll take the right, see if we can shake up our dance hall girl's tail feathers."

Sam nodded and drew a sawed-off shotgun from under his jacket. "Just remember she might not be alone, Dean."

The elder hunter huffed as he took off towards the nearest batch of graves. "Yeah, right, as if I'm gonna forget she has a buddy that likes to chow down on human butt like a freakin' Pac Man…"

The complaining continued as Dean melted into the oncoming night. "Not to mention, if this chick shows, we have no clue where the heck her bones are, so we can't exactly go salt and burn 'em unless you just invented a magic "dead-ass bone finder" while we were talking…"

Sam smiled and then took off in the opposite direction to his sibling.

…

Sam hadn't gone far when he felt something move slightly under his left foot. It was like stepping into a pile of manure, only gooier. "Aww crap…"

He looked down, expecting to see some kind of animal excrement, but instead it appeared to be the remains of something man-made.

What it had once been was a mystery, and would probably stay that way.

The thing was about the size of a small packing case, but it looked like it had been flattened and melted beyond recognition.

He kneeled, using his small penlight to examine the thing more closely.

Whatever it had been, it was now liquefied in most places, and in others it appeared to actually be part of the rocky surface it was situated on. Like the two items had become one.

Sam slipped a hand to his boot, retrieved a small hunting knife and pierced the "object." The blade slid in easily and came away covered in something akin to slime.

He cringed, wiping the knife on some nearby grass before sliding it back in his boot.

Using the penlight, he spun around on the spot, searching the woodland floor for any other strange anomalies, but there was nothing.

In his jacket pocket, he felt his phone vibrate silently and quickly checked the screen.

There was a message.

"Sammy, get your ass to the mill's eleven o'clock, we got action!"

Forgetting the bizarre gloop, Sam ran carefully through the graveyard to the back of the old wooden mill, watchful to avoid a watery old arrastra that had once been used here to extract ore.

He slowed as he reached Dean's position and took stock of what was going down.

Through the trees, he could see an uncanny apparition walking through the woodland towards the edge of the cemetery. It was a woman dressed all in black with a small bunch of recently picked mountain flowers in her right hand. She wore a veil, but Sam could see through it enough to note scars – lots of them.

This had to be Silver Heels.

Dean appeared from nowhere at his side, rock salt-filled shotgun in his hands. "Man, she's the strangest spirit I've ever seen. Look how the air around her seems to have an edge. Like she's some whacked out cut out from a photo. Hell, I don't know how to even explain what I'm seeing."

"It's like a weird aura," Sam agreed. "Like the air around her is actually shimmering and moving as she walks…"

Dean nodded. "But she's still not doing anything threatening, geekboy. Do we gank her ass anyway, or watch and see if the Pac Man appears?"

Sam considered it. They needed answers, but would following Silver Heels spirit give them any? "We follow her," he eventually decided. "There has to be some clue here. Has to be…"

He readied his own weapon and took point, walking in the invisible tracks of the spirit. Dean brought up the rear, every few seconds spinning around, his gaze scouring the underbrush for any unwanted activity.

As they gave chase, Silver Heels slowed at one of the rock surrounded graves and kneeled, carefully placing her flowers. It was hard to tell because of the veil, but Sam thought she was crying.

Were these the actions of a spirit who worked with a cold-blooded killer? He was finding it hard to believe. Nevertheless, he kept his shotgun aimed at the woman's form, anyway.

A form that seemed to be more like a hologram than any ghost he'd ever encountered.

As Sam pondered the fact, Silver Heels finally turned as if she'd seen, or sensed them.

Dean lifted his sawed-off instinctively, and as the Silver Heels moved towards them, he quickly let off two shells straight at her torso.

The veiled woman didn't flinch, and her form didn't dissipate.

In fact, the shower of rock salt seemed to reach her "aura" and then simply vanish, like she had magicked it away.

Sam paused, watching for a second, trying to appraise what was going down. Then, he too let off a couple of shells at the girl, but like his brother's they hit the iridescent edge around her and were simply swallowed into some unknown abyss.

Meanwhile, Silver Heels expression didn't even seem to register their presence. She looked sad, emotional, perhaps even lost.

Silver Heels simply walked on, straight into the path of both bemused hunters.

The question now, was what she would do when she reached them?