Dean Winchester || SUPERNATURAL (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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damned_institute2009-09-01 10:51 am
kindalikedit) wrote in damned_institute2009-09-01 10:51 am
Entry tags:
Nightshift 43 - Morgue
[From here with Sam]
The morgue door took a few more hits before it, too, slammed open, and Dean was just glad they hadn't built stronger doors 'cause his leg was starting to get tired.
The morgue was just as cold as the last time they'd been here, his breath coming out white in the chilled air as he stepped inside, taking the right and just automatically assuming Sam would take his left in order to clear the room. They hadn't got attacked last time they'd been here - really, stalked, yeah, but not actually attacked - but apparently dead people could walk and Dean didn't want to get jumped by a zombie or a spirit just 'cause he got lazy. There wasn't much he could do with a bowie knife: just paying attention to your surroundings was really just half the battle, especially if you knew what to look for. Dean didn't head immediately over to deal with Kal and Harry until he was satisfied that there wasn't anything hiding in the shadows.
Dean shone his flashlight on the drawers, counting them out to where he remembered the two bodies were.
One was missing.
"Kal's missing," Dean said, frowning. The dead kid's body was just gone - empty label - and he checked, too, pulling the shelf out, but it was empty. "We're too late for him."
That was usually the part where you'd want to hunt down that body wherever they took it, but checking the other drawer, he could see Harry was still there. At least, according to the label. When he opened up the shelf, he'd been expecting the other patient's body to roll out, just like it had the night before.
He hadn't been expecting to find the dead man in a box, a lid sealed over it. Dean didn't open it at first. Boxes? Dean didn't like it when the stiffs came in small boxes. Meant they were in pieces, for some reason or another, and while he'd seen his fair share of messes, it didn't mean he had to like it, and he supposed the only plus side was the morgue was so cold that it wouldn't be...well, "ripe" was one way of putting it. Dean took a second to steel himself for whatever gore was gonna definitely be in there and then opened the box, pulling the top off and - yeah, Harry Osborn was definitely in pieces, big and small, and some of it he couldn't even tell what it was. Dean thought he could see was what could be the remains of arms and legs, but a lot of it was just a frozen, red pulp with some blackened bits and pieces, like it'd been partially burned.
"Looks like it wasn't enough he got gored," Dean said quietly. What'd happened? Why would you do this to a guy who was already dead? If it was a hunter, he'd get it, but this didn't look like a hunter's MO to him. Hunters would do the SOP with a traditional salt 'n burn with any remains, not this, which didn't look like he'd been torched the right way at all to him.
If Harry's spirit had been possibly pissed then, Dean was pretty sure he was even more pissed off now.
The morgue door took a few more hits before it, too, slammed open, and Dean was just glad they hadn't built stronger doors 'cause his leg was starting to get tired.
The morgue was just as cold as the last time they'd been here, his breath coming out white in the chilled air as he stepped inside, taking the right and just automatically assuming Sam would take his left in order to clear the room. They hadn't got attacked last time they'd been here - really, stalked, yeah, but not actually attacked - but apparently dead people could walk and Dean didn't want to get jumped by a zombie or a spirit just 'cause he got lazy. There wasn't much he could do with a bowie knife: just paying attention to your surroundings was really just half the battle, especially if you knew what to look for. Dean didn't head immediately over to deal with Kal and Harry until he was satisfied that there wasn't anything hiding in the shadows.
Dean shone his flashlight on the drawers, counting them out to where he remembered the two bodies were.
One was missing.
"Kal's missing," Dean said, frowning. The dead kid's body was just gone - empty label - and he checked, too, pulling the shelf out, but it was empty. "We're too late for him."
That was usually the part where you'd want to hunt down that body wherever they took it, but checking the other drawer, he could see Harry was still there. At least, according to the label. When he opened up the shelf, he'd been expecting the other patient's body to roll out, just like it had the night before.
He hadn't been expecting to find the dead man in a box, a lid sealed over it. Dean didn't open it at first. Boxes? Dean didn't like it when the stiffs came in small boxes. Meant they were in pieces, for some reason or another, and while he'd seen his fair share of messes, it didn't mean he had to like it, and he supposed the only plus side was the morgue was so cold that it wouldn't be...well, "ripe" was one way of putting it. Dean took a second to steel himself for whatever gore was gonna definitely be in there and then opened the box, pulling the top off and - yeah, Harry Osborn was definitely in pieces, big and small, and some of it he couldn't even tell what it was. Dean thought he could see was what could be the remains of arms and legs, but a lot of it was just a frozen, red pulp with some blackened bits and pieces, like it'd been partially burned.
"Looks like it wasn't enough he got gored," Dean said quietly. What'd happened? Why would you do this to a guy who was already dead? If it was a hunter, he'd get it, but this didn't look like a hunter's MO to him. Hunters would do the SOP with a traditional salt 'n burn with any remains, not this, which didn't look like he'd been torched the right way at all to him.
If Harry's spirit had been possibly pissed then, Dean was pretty sure he was even more pissed off now.
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They didn't come across anything, though. The room was clear, no sign of whatever it was that'd followed them around the last time.
Sam turned around when Dean announced that one of the bodies was missing. That wasn't a good sign. Had the body been moved? The morgue was cold enough to function as long term storage, so he didn't see why the body would've been transferred out that fast. It wasn't as if there were anyone here to claim the body, anyway unless...it'd been one of the visitors who'd shown up. Who knew?
Okay, but the other kid, that wasn't right, either. He exchanged a look with Dean. The container didn't exactly offer a clear view as to what was inside, but it was transparent enough to hint and—yeah. Not a whole lot left up to the imagination. Definitely not anything left up to the imagination once Dean flipped off the lid.
Sam winced even as he peered inside, tucking his gun away to free up a hand. The limbs were recognizable, but that was about it. That was curious, though. He'd have expected the guy to have been chewed up or something because that would've made sense—maybe some creature lurking out there had an appetite for the dead; God knew ghouls did all the time—but this? This was definitely the sign of someone having been blown up, judging from the charred bits of flesh and the fact that the guy was in chunks. Like he'd stepped on a mine or had a hand grenade launched at him. And where would someone have gotten something like that? Death by explosion generally wasn't a supernatural occurrence in the same way bullet wounds generally weren't, either. People did those things.
Unless it was a demon, but even then—
"Yeah," Sam replied, still thinking. "Guess not."
Anyway, the guy had been dead. Some rituals called for the use of the dead, but they sure as hell didn't involve blowing the dead person up. In fact, this whole thing seemed pretty pointless.
Unless...
Unless.
He chewed his lip, then glanced up at Dean. "You know, some people were claiming they saw former patients last night."
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It didn't explain how he ended up in pieces, though, 'cause Dean knew Sam was thinking the same thing. Sure, maybe Zombie Harry rolled out of the morgue and decided, y'know what, getting killed all by his lonesome was totally uncool and maybe he'd want some company. But how the hell had he been blown up? Explosives weren't exactly something you could pick up at the supermarket (in separate pieces, that was another matter), and he just didn't think that the majority of the patient population here would even know how to jury-rig themselves some explosives, much less under the pressure of the dead rising like that. Still. The fact was Harry was dead - again, except probably more permanent - and they weren't gonna figure out what, or who, got him that second time around just by standing around gawking at the remains. Even if Harry was just little more than a gore pile, Dean still didn't feel right until he knew his spirit had been laid to rest and he wouldn't spend years haunting this joint. They'd only run into one zombie before this, and that chick had to be staked to her own damn coffin to get killed, which was leading to another shitty thought.
What if he's awake? Like, he was all blown up but he couldn't die?
Shit.
Man, this was already complicated when Harry had been the garden-variety dead. Not knowing if he was dead like before or a zombie too blown up to pose a threat was just giving Dean the beginnings of a headache. And it wasn't like they could suss up a silver stake, either, which only left the alternative of salting and torching whatever was left and hope that it'd work.
The problem, like Sam said earlier, was whatever was left of Harry looked pretty frozen to him.
"Point is, we can't leave him like this, Sammy," Dean said, touching the handle of the box and pulling it a little closer. He forced himself to take a good long look, and deal with the fact yet another person he knew and talked to was dead. Dean's face was still in the feeble light from the flashlights, before he put on a tight smile. "Probably's gonna be a bitch tryin' to get him to burn though when he's solid like this. We could see if he fits in a microwave and hit defrost?"
Maybe it was a bit douchey, even for him, but hell if it wasn't being more practical than the alternative of sitting his ass in the corner and crying about it. Dean knew plenty that he couldn't afford that. There were still other people out there they had to protect and maybe he couldn't save Harry, but he could save other people from turning into Harry's future victims by nipping this in the bud right now. He'd only been half-joking too. Burning bones or their usual remains wasn't that hard. Trying to burn a body that had been more or less fresh was another thing entirely.
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Of course. Was it also possible that Harry had sought out people he once knew? Revenants were all mindless to a degree, but they always retained parts of their former selves. Something they'd been fixated on or that were especially important to them, and people tended to fall in that category.
Though he supposed at the moment, none of that really mattered. They had a body (or pieces of a body, at least) to take care of and no actual way to do that.
For a moment, he just peered at the remains, too, along with Dean. Then he heard the words defrost and microwave, and snapped his gaze up. That wasn't—
He leveled a stare at his brother, silent for a good several seconds.
"What," he protested finally. "No. We are not putting him in a microwave, Dean; he's not yesterday's dinner in a Tupperware. We'll find another way."
Though what that could be was another issue entirely. Admittedly, Dean's idea wasn't a bad one from an entirely practical perspective. But. Seriously, still. It was wrong. There weren't very many things Sam considered as such anymore, but microwaving exploded body parts was one of them. Besides, were they just gonna snag this container and trek down to the kitchen? Provided they even made there in the first place because Sam wasn't so sure carrying some charred and bloody remains, no matter how frozen, was the best plan in an institute full of potentially bloodthirsty creatures.
Anyway, defrosting might be effective, but not very efficient, if it meant they had to go all the way downstairs while carrying the necessary supplies. And really, he didn't think a container meant to store frozen body parts was designed to be microwavable.
—Why was he even considering the logistics of this? He shouldn't be considering the logistics of this.
"Look, we'll just—" Sam rested a hand on the edge of the drawer, exasperated. Salt and burns were supposed to be the easier part of any hunter's job. Routine. It shouldn't have required this much problem solving. "We'll just burn him twice. Do it in the next room so it's not as cold. I mean, there's not..." He hesitated. "You know. As much of him as we originally thought."
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Carrying Harry was a two-hand job. Dean headed over to one of the doors leading into the autopsy rooms, waiting for Sam to white knight it open for him 'cause it wasn't gonna open itself.
If Harry was still undead, so far he wasn't actually doing anything aside from sit in the box and do his best hamburger-slash-roadkill impression. For a "hunt", he was so far easy to deal with, and the hardest parts had just been hoofing it in Doyleton and getting the supplies to deal with the body - or, okay, maybe that was a lie, 'cause all he'd done was stir up crap in that grocery store and then spend all night high in the sky, thanks to that skank doctor. Technically he hadn't actually done anything aside from just act like human luggage for his brother. Dean still couldn't remember much of that night - although it was loads more than the night he got possessed - and it was almost like he'd just gotten shit-faced wasted, right down to the part where Sam had to hold him over the toilet.
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Heiji shuddered a little as they entered the Morgue. Obviously it was a little colder in there than it was on the outside, for obvious reasons. But really, the intercom announcements were what was unsettling him the most. No doubt he'd have a lot to think over later. Now, the case at hand.
"O-kay," Heiji began, pulling out the note again. "Genjyo Sanzo, A.K.A., Lucas Crane." The detective began the search for the right locker, leaning down to check the lowermost lockers. No doubt Shinichi would take issue with Heiji making him look at the ones further down, he thought with a smirk.
"Shout if y'find 'im."
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Part of him was excited to actually be on a case again, to feel useful and not completely overwhelmed in a place where his brains were, suddenly, less valuable than what sort of weapons--if any--he knew how to use. But part of him was a little apprehensive, too. The odds were stacked against them here. There was no chain of evidence, no police backup. Their only link to the case was the body, and what if it wasn't even there?
Luckily for them, it was.
The detective had been muttering darkly about checking the lower drawers when he hit paydirt. They had a body.
"Hey. I think I've found him."
Genjyo Sanzo was a younger man than Shinichi had been expecting. When he'd heard the name he'd imagined an old monk, but this guy couldn't be older than twenty-five or so. Not that it mattered anymore; Sanzo wouldn't be getting any older. His clothes were covered in blood, so much that he couldn't make out specific entry or exit wounds in the dim light. In spite of the gristly scene, Shinichi found himself smirking slightly. He was back. After nearly a week of feeling like his life was spinning out of control, he felt almost normal again. Solving murders was what he was best at, what he'd devoted his life to. It was all logic and science observation and intuition. Hard facts, not leaps of faith and horrible shapeshifting monsters that liked to disguise themselves as little girls.
"We'll have to cut the shirt off. He's been stabbed, yeah, but there's too much blood here to tell where or how deep."
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As the wounds were revealed, Heiji gave a soft, low whistle. "Damn, this guy did a number on him."
Bruised and bloodied wrists, a stab wound to the shoulder, one nasty one to the stomach. "I think we're dealing with a professional, here," Heiji said with a frown. "There are injuries on his wrists, but no defensive wounds. Looks like there was a struggle, but Sanzo didn't put up a good enough fight."
Heiji picked up Sanzo's hand and looked over the wounds again. He frowned a little. "Hey, c'n I get a light, Kudou?" he asked, dragging Sanzo's hand over closer to Shinichi. "'M I seein' things, 'r is that gunshot residue?"
Sure, Sanzo's hands were pretty covered in blood (sadly, probably his own), but Heiji thought he could make out black particles further up the priest's wrist and somewhat on the back of his hand. "Was he shootin' at his attacker, maybe?"
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"Looks like it could be," he said, frowning down at the body. "But where the hell did he get a gun? Those aren't exactly easy to come by here. Looted a house in town, maybe?" Doyleton seemed like a place where people would keep guns in their homes.
Especially if zombies came out every night.
"And yeah, I think we are dealing with a professional. Look at his stomach." Shinichi pointed down at the wound. "It's deep, but--" with his free hand, he reached under the body, feeling along Sanzo's back. No matter how many times he did this, he could never quite get over the feeling of how cold and stiff corpses felt. "--It's not a through and through. The culprit probably twisted the knife to get the best results. After that, all he'd need to do was wait for Sanzo to bleed out."
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"Fuck..." Heiji swore, looking down at Sanzo. "Guy was a fighter, that's f'r sure. Stab t'the shoulder or the abdomen didn't keep 'im down."
The detective looked down at Sanzo, sighing a little. He hadn't even known the guy, but still--he wasn't much older than himself or Shinichi or Kaito. And to be killed in such a brutal way, and have all of his fighting go to waste? ...just another day in paradise, he supposed.
"Question is, if he was firin' off a gun t'protect himself--which would explain why he wasn't s'good at fending off close-combat attacks--did he hit his attacker?"
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"Definitely a fighter. Hell, he probably lasted a couple hours before full exsanguination. Might even have been able to walk a ways. And with those zombie things...there are no other wounds on his body except for the fatal ones. That means that he either found cover or he fought them off while bleeding to death. That's pretty badass, I'm not going to lie."
Shinichi smirked. "If that's the case, we'll be able to narrow our pool of potential suspects way, way down. You can explain away knife wounds and bite marks in this place, but gunshot wounds are a hell of a lot harder to explain. But we've got to act quick; we don't want them healing."
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"So, going back t'the killer. He either held a grudge," Heiji said. "Or maybe he's one of those 'kill f'r pleasure' guys. Th'type of sicko who gets off on pain or seeing other people suffering. If that's true, we gotta move even faster. Gunshot wounds are one thing, but a trail of bodies is another. Would look bad if this turned into a serial murderer case on our watch."
Heiji sighed, running a hand through his hair and frowning down at Sanzo's body again. "'M surprised he lasted long, though. Maybe he thought someone was gonna come help him. Everythin' was so crazy, though.
"Well," Heiji continued, straightening up from his position hunched over the body. "Dunno if we're going to make any headway until we talk t'someone about his final moments. And what type of person he was. Hopefully they won' clear this away, s'we can look at it again if necessary."
He couldn't believe this. Was he actually feeling something other than complete neutrality towards a victim? Usually, he'd do his sympathizing or pondering of the case after it had been solved--but the fact that he'd been there, that maybe if he'd been in the right place he could have prevented it, was weighing on him. How was this any different from back home, though?
Maybe because back home, he'd never considered the possibility of ending up in one of those drawers himself.
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Or impossible.
"Well, he had friends, right? What do you think the odds are of one of them being there when he died?"
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"'n considerin' they're sure he was murdered? Chances're good. Though with wounds like these, I'd call murder too. Jus' not like a stranger to point out, 'Oh hey, this guy was killed' to someone like Homura. I mean, the world was fulla zombies--only a friend would care."
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Dealing with crazies was harder than dealing with sane people. They didn't follow the same rules, didn't have the same motives. And they didn't usually feel remorse.
"True. We should talk to those friends first, try to figure out who was there. If someone was with him when he died..."
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Here it was. He started searching methodically, looking through any cabinets that looked like they weren't built to hold bodies.
He sighed with relief when he found what he was looking for. All Armand's personal effects were here. He carefully took the sword, and after a moment of thought, Armand's diary and hair ribbon. He'd never been sentimental, but... he didn't know why, he just wanted to keep those things.
He probably shouldn't do this, but it was an impulse he couldn't fight down. He started looking to see if Armand's body was there as well.
His face settled into a default neutral when he found the right one, opening it to reveal the body of his friend. All the wounds were there, cleaned of all the blood that had flowed from them. He focused on Armand's face, having to work hard to keep his own features unmarred by emotion. So many memories and so much guilt were all trying to make him break.
He reached out to touch Armand's hand. He'd watch over his friend tonight.