Dean's POV
The abandoned slaughterhouse in Omaha smelled like death, chemicals, and the kind of decisions you only make after three drinks and a head injury. I stepped over a shattered bottle, glass crunching under my boots as we moved deeper into the place. Rusted meat hooks swayed slightly in the breeze, creaking like they remembered the screams.
Sam's flashlight cut a path through the dark ahead of us. "Place gives me the creeps," I muttered, clicking off the safety on my sawed-off. "Like a haunted butcher shop."
"Fresh blood," Sam said, crouching beside a dark stain smeared across the concrete. "Still wet. Someone's been here—hours, maybe less."
I knelt down, dipped two fingers in the trail. Still tacky. I sniffed it—yeah, human. "Guess we found Hess's new funhouse."
We moved in sync—he took rear, I led us down a rusted stairwell that groaned under our weight. The basement was worse. Freezing cold, air thick with that sweet rot you only get when meat's long past expired. Formaldehyde, burnt rubber, and something acrid that stung the back of my throat.
Sam gagged, pressing a sleeve to his face. "You smell that?"
"Oh yeah." I nudged a syringe with my boot. The needle bent sideways. "Hess's signature blend—now in limited edition nightmare."
Then it came—a muffled scream. Not loud, but definitely human. Female.
Sam and I locked eyes.
Found him.
Sam's POV
The lab wasn't just a room—it was a secret, hidden behind a false wall in the sub-basement. Whoever built it wasn't expecting guests. But once we forced the wall open with a crowbar and some well-placed profanity, what waited on the other side made my stomach lurch.
White tile. Stainless steel tables. Racks of surgical tools too clean to be abandoned. I counted three IV stands, all dripping black fluid into empty blood bags. And dead center, on the operating table—
A girl. Late teens or early twenties. Her chest was cracked open like a med school cadaver. There was something glowing in her ribcage—pulsing like a heartbeat, except... wrong.
Dean inhaled sharply next to me, and I caught the twitch in his jaw. If I didn't say something, he was going to put a bullet in Hess's head.
"We need him alive," I whispered.
Dean didn't like it. He almost growled, but finally gave me a sharp nod.
We moved slow, silent—ducking behind lab carts and metal cabinets. Hess didn't even notice. He was too busy humming along to a tinny classical song coming from an old radio on the shelf. Some opera crap, probably. His hands moved in smooth, practiced motions, stitching the glowing organ into the girl's chest like he was darning a sock.
Then the floorboard under my foot creaked.
Hess turned, scalpel raised.
And that's when everything went to hell.
Dean's POV
Before I could shout, something dropped from the ceiling—nine feet of nightmare, stitched together with wires and black thread. Its skin looked like tanned leather, pulled tight over too many bones. And it was fast. One second, Sam was in front of me. The next, a meat cleaver the size of a snow shovel was swinging at his face.
"Sam!"
I tackled Hess, sending both of us crashing into the floor as the monster's backswing shattered a lab table like it was made of balsa wood. Test tubes exploded. Black liquid sprayed across the walls. The girl on the table screamed, her voice sharp and high.
Sam recovered fast, rolling up with his shotgun and firing three rounds into the thing's chest.
Didn't even slow it down.
"Dean!"
"On it!"
I clocked Hess across the head with the butt of my gun. He dropped like a sack of meat, twitching slightly.
Time for round two.
Sam's POV
The monster was a tank—stitched with metal reinforcement across its arms and spine, like Hess had crossbred Frankenstein with a battering ram. My shotgun blast took off its left arm at the elbow. It snarled and didn't stop—just used the bleeding stump as a club.
It hit me full-force in the chest. I flew backward into a steel cabinet, the breath knocked out of me. My ribs groaned in protest.
Dean came in low with his machete, slicing into its leg. It roared, spraying black ichor across the floor—but then turned, grabbed him by the collar, and launched him through the drywall like a cartoon character.
"Dean!"
He didn't answer.
I forced myself up, ribs screaming with every breath. I grabbed the nearest weapon—an old bone saw still caked with blood. Not ideal.
The monster turned to finish me.
"Hey, ugly!"
It roared, and I charged. I jammed the saw into its remaining eye socket. It flailed, howling, but I held on—kicked its knee backward, jumped on its back, and pulled.
Its head came off with a wet pop.
Black blood sprayed across the wall.
The thing crumpled to the ground, twitching once. Then it stopped.
Dean's POV
Sam stood over the corpse, still holding the saw like he was ready to go again. I crawled out of the drywall wreckage, spitting plaster and blood.
"Took you long enough."
He tossed the saw aside. "You're welcome."
The girl wasn't screaming anymore. Just breathing—shallow, rapid. Her eyes were glassy, but alive. That glow in her chest pulsed like a second heartbeat, slower now. Fading.
"Still with us?" Sam asked gently.
She blinked once. Her lips moved. I leaned in.
"He said it... belonged to the Lord of the Threshold," she whispered.
Sam and I exchanged a look.
Kharon.
Sam's POV
I checked her vitals. Weak pulse, shallow breath, but alive. Her body was trying to reject the thing inside her, but she was fighting.
"She won't survive another hour if we don't get her to Bobby," I said.
Dean was already moving. He slung Hess over his shoulder like a sack of fertilizer. "And what about him?"
I glanced at the scalpel on the ground. I wanted to kill him. Really, I did.
But this bastard had answers.
"Oh, we're definitely taking him."
Dean's POV
The Impala's trunk creaked open. I dumped Hess inside like a bad piece of luggage. He was waking up now, muttering nonsense—something about "finishing the cycle," "his lord's gift," and "the threshold must be opened."
I slammed the trunk shut.
Sam climbed into the driver's seat and peeled out, tires screeching.
"You think Marcus is in worse shape than us?" Sam asked, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.
I pulled a cigarette from my jacket and lit it with shaking hands. The glow of the tip flickered in the dark.
I exhaled smoke and leaned back.
"Doubt it."