Chapter Text
The road leading into the small, rural town of Bethany Burrow is surprisingly modern. John had been expecting some monstrosity of a gravel-and-dirt path, as many of these middle of nowhere townships tended to have. With a population of seven thousand and dropping, Bethany Burrow was by all means one of those small towns stuck between larger cities, with a fairly sizable transient population.
John turns down the warbling radio (and he should really get that buzzing fixed, next time he’s somewhere for more than a week) and peers over his dash. The old cartoon pine air freshener, which at this point smells less like ‘fresh mountain pine from America’s great forests!’ and more like John’s 1996 Ford Bronco’s leather seats, swings lazily in the dimming sunlight. It’s later than John wanted to get here at. Couldn’t be helped, though, since he’d had to stock up on pretty much everything. When Bucky had called to give him pointers on Bethany Burrow his first words were a warning.
“It’s the full package,” Bucky had drawled into his phone. “Missing people, unusual murders, anomalous sightings, unnatural seasonal weather. Problem is, we have no idea what would cause all of that at once. Might be multiple things.”
“Sending me straight back into the fray, Sarge?”
That had drawn out a long suffering sigh from John’s former commanding officer. “Just be careful, and don’t try and kick the big bad on your own, Walker. Should be more of a recon mission, get to settle down for a couple months.”
Unfortunately that’s not really John’s style. He can’t stay in some nondescript white picket fence house anymore, can’t rent out a proper place to live in. Every time he walks past an empty bedroom he mistakes it for a nursery. When the sun falls, the dining rooms look like they’re painted red. He can’t get the wide, terrified eyes of Lemar and Olivia, staring up at his kitchen ceiling, empty and frozen eternally in death. The only thing that makes the rotting rage in his belly better is when he’s putting a damn bullet in one of those things that go bump in the night.
He pulls the car into the driveway of the first diner he sees. It’s a rickety, single floor building with a peeling paint sign that says Foster’s Fries in a bright bubblegum pink. Someone has made a half-hearted attempt at setting up tables outside on the sidewalk, though the picnic tables look like they haven’t seen human use in a year. A bell jingles when John pushes through the creaky glass door.
“Welcome to Foster’s,” a young woman greets him lazily. Her accent is distinctly out of place in a sleepy American town; maybe British.
She eyes John with some interest. The name tag on her apron says her name is Ava. She cocks her head to the side, flicks a stray strand of hair out of her face and gives him a thin smile. “Can I get you a table?”
John glances around the place. There is a smatter of tables and benches, booths against the windows, with red gingham table cloths and old glass bottles of ketchup everywhere. An elderly couple sits at one of the tables, and a handful of teenagers are huddled in a booth.
“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Just me.”
Ava points him to an empty booth. She disappears behind the counter for a second before she returns with a paper menu in one hand and a jug of water in the other.
The menu is simple, with only a short list of items. Pancakes, waffles, sides, salads, burgers, fries.
“I’ll get the classic cheeseburger with onion rings,” John tells Ava quickly. His stomach grumbles, reminding him that he hasn’t had food beyond a couple of lost pringles chips since that morning. “And a lemonade.”
Ava nods. “You alright with pink lemonade? It’s the only one we have. With a little umbrella and lemon slice on top.”
“... That works,” John says after a moment. Ava smirks at him and taps the pen against her notepad.
The lemonade is indeed pink, with a bright red paper umbrella and a quarter slice of lemon on the rim. John grimaces at the garish coloring, though it doesn’t keep him from taking a sip. Ava comes back around with his meal a few minutes later, balancing a huge platter of food on one delicately manicured hand.
“Here you go,” she drawls. “Threw on some curly fries for you on the side, they’re our specialty. Are you passing through town?”
John shrugs noncommittally. “Thinking about hanging around for a little bit,” he says. “Any recommendations for motels?”
Ava snickers. “The Burrow’s tiny, stranger. What are you even looking for? You don’t strike me as the type of man to wander around.”
John’s shoulders tense up at that. She’s right- John had never been a big road trip guy, not before everything went to hell in his life. But she doesn’t know that, can’t know that. He works his jaw. “Travelling for work.”
“Huh,” she says, clearly skeptical. “Well, there’s the old bed and breakfast down near Shostakov’s, but I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Bed bug infestation. If you’re willing to drive out ten minutes you can sleep at the church.”
“The church?”
Ava shrugs. “The priest who runs it has let travelers stay overnight before. He is a bit of a nice weirdo. Went to high school with him, so I can at least assure you he’s not a serial killer.”
“What if I’m the serial killer, tryin’ to off some poor religious sack?”
She rolls her eyes and turns on her heel. “You can try, but Bob’s stronger than he looks. Wouldn’t recommend it.”
John watches her walk away before he pops a fry in his mouth. It’s greasy, salty, with a kick of cayenne. The burger is fairly nondescript, though John still scarfs it down. He always forgets how hungry he gets on the road. When he had been living in Custer’s Grove…
Enough. The night is getting late, and he better get to that church Ava mentioned before the priest guy goes to bed.
John tucks a few twenties in the bill and heads out. Back in his car, he looks up the local church on Maps- there are two in the area, one Catholic and the other Protestant. The one Ava had recommended is probably the Catholic one, which is understandably smaller. Custer’s Grove was a larger town than Bethany Burrow, and it still had been largely white and Protestant. John would guess that the priest in town here probably only got a couple dozen parishioners on the regular. Despite that, the church itself looks to be larger than expected for such a small town.
The road up to it is fairly hilly. John swears when his car catches in a groove in the packed dirt road, and only manages to keep it from swerving into a ditch thanks to reflexes honed via six years in the army.
A gothic stone building pokes through the foliage, oddly serene in an eerily quiet forest. Branches sway in offbeat waves, heavy with yellowing late summer leaves, bleeding into pale reds. The grey of the church exterior is stark against the multitude of color, and when John parks off the side of the road leading up to the small church, he finds that the building looks even more imposing up close. It is a monolith against the darkened sky, old arches and stained glass panes glinting under the last streaks of sunlight.
The church doors are unlocked. Despite their age and weight, they swing inwards with barely a noticeable creak.
Inside, the church is modest. Rows on rows of old wooden pews, an antique confessional booth to the side. Tapestries hang from the walls, depicting no Biblical story John recognizes. The altar is simply designed, a white marble platform sparsely adorned with black gilding, a cross and two winged statues carved from the same kind of stone standing behind it. The winged statues may be some artist’s avant garde attempt at angels- there are too many wings and no human limbs in sight, just a tightly furled mass of feathers in place of the typical cherubic human form.
A young man dressed in a black shirt and slacks stands near the cross, sweeping. His dark curls fall across his shoulder and white clerical collar, framing a pale, drawn face and steel-blue eyes. The priest (and John is fairly sure this is the Bob that Ava had mentioned) straightens when he notices John’s entrance.
John clears his throat. “Hey uh, Father Bob? Bobby? Ava told me to come find you for somewhere to crash tonight. Thought I’d stop by and see if you have the space.”
“Um. It’s Father Robert, actually,” Bob says haltingly. “Or just Bob. Wait, who- who are you?”
John smirks a little. The guy looks so painfully awkward, what with the way his knuckles are white around the broom and all. He steps further inside the church.
“John Walker,” he offers. A chill settles on his arms, perhaps from all the cold stone in the church. “I’m in town for a few days, looking for a roof to sleep under for a bit. Not tryna cause any trouble.”
Up closer, Bob looks much younger than John had expected. He thought becoming a priest took longer than whatever it must’ve taken for this man.
“I can house you until you get back on your feet,” Bob says quietly. “What do you offer in exchange?”
John scowls. “I’m not- not homeless or whatever you’re thinking. Work brought me into town.”
Bob’s stare is getting unnerving. John shifts uneasily on his feet, something screaming in him to keep his eyes on the priest. His instincts have never betrayed him before, so John does as they say.
“Alright,” Bob says eventually. “I have an extra bed in the clerical house out back, bring your car around and we can talk over the details.”
“Got it,” John mutters. He shakes his head roughly, trying to get rid of the lingering chill. He spares a glance for the priest as he leaves the church. Nothing about the man seems abnormal.
The clerical house is a nondescript, two story building with harsh dark grey walls and a slanted black shingle roof. It looks a lot more modern than the church, Bob standing in front of the dark red front door. He waves at John.
Once he’s done parking, John jogs up the steps to where Bob is fidgeting.
“You got a donation box or something I can add to?” John ventures.
Bob shakes his head. “We don’t need more money,” he says. “Besides, this is more of a favor for Ava than anything. If you have the time, I can use some help around the church- if you know how to use those hands, of course.”
He beckons John inside. John trails behind, smirking.
“Oh, I can definitely show you how my hands work, Father.”
Bob flushes. “For fixing things, John.”
John swallows the shit eating grin threatening to rise to his face. The priest reminds him of some of the new soldiers he used to train, all skittish and doe eyed. Bob is skinnier than most of them, obviously, a lanky figure swaddled in black and white, and a lot prettier than most of his fellow army grunts. It makes him itch to tease him, prod him and see how he jumps.
Inside, the clerical house opens up to a square common area and a narrow hallway that ends in a staircase. The furnishing is sparse, with a heavy, old wooden table pushed to one side and a stiff leather sofa on the other. There is no TV, just a wall full of bookshelves and a small window framed with navy blue curtains.
Bob beckons to John.
“The guest rooms are down here, next to the kitchen. You’re welcome to use anything on the first floor- within reason- but the second floor is private.”
The kitchen looks barebones as well, clean and well kept but with little sign of use. John jerks his chin towards it.
“Do you not cook often?”
Bob shrugs. “I- I don’t have reason to.”
He doesn’t elaborate and John lets the subject drop. Groceries might be a necessary purchase if he’s going to have to stay in town for longer than a few days. John starts up a mental list as Bob unlocks the door to the guest room.
The room has a single bed, with a thin mattress and pale blue sheets. It reminds John of the military barracks, in the way there’s only the essentials; a bed, a small dresser, a writing desk. An antique wooden cross hanging above the bed is the only decoration. It’s a lot better than crashing in his old car, though, so John isn’t about to complain.
“Good night, John,” Bob says. “Feel… feel free to knock on my door upstairs if you need anything.”
“Thanks for the shelter, Father Robert,” John drawls. “Sweet dreams to you too.”
He hears Bob huff a sigh as the bedroom door swings shut behind him. John listens to the footsteps grow distant before he tosses his bag into a corner and kicks off his boots.
Sleep finds him easily that night. The nightmares are a different matter entirely, of course, but it’s not like John isn’t used to them.
The next day, Bob gives him the address for the Shostakov’s hardware store. John takes it with a nod and grin that feels halfway sewn onto his face. The shower is cold, at first, and that at least wakes him up a bit before he heads out to do his shopping.
Shostakov’s Hardware and Hunting is a flat, cold war era concrete building, with a large neon sign on top of it. The parking lot is oversized in the way countryside strip malls tend to prefer, though the only stores in this complex seem to be a rundown grocery, a doctor’s office that looks permanently closed, and the hardware store.
Alexei Shostakov (from whom the store seems to have taken its name) is a large man. Very large, if the way he towers over John is any indication, given that John is not a particularly small man either. He introduces himself with a wide grin and amiable laugh when John asks for some rope and hunting equipment.
“Haven’t seen you around town before,” the man says brightly. His accent is faded, but still distinctly Russian. John vaguely notes how his daughter (“This is my Yelena!”) trails behind them with wide, observant eyes.
“Yeah, I’m just stopping by for a short while,” John answers. “Staying in the church by the forest up north.”
Alexei pauses. He turns suddenly, and the ladder he’s balanced on wobbles precariously before Yelena pushes it back into place with a suffering sigh. Her father doesn’t even seem to notice.
“… the church?” he asks John. There is a glint of wariness in his face, though not necessarily hostile.
John shifts on his feet.
“Er, yeah. Why, is something wrong with it?”
“No, of course not. Just… try to keep some things to yourself there, alright?”
“What?”
Yelena cuts in before Alexei can answer
“Don’t mind my dad,” she says quickly. “Bob grew up with me and my sister, he’s a good guy. Moved into town around the same time too.”
She shoots Alexei a look, which has the old man scratching his beard awkwardly. He coughs.
Alexei hops back down with the iron bars John had been looking for cradled in his arms. John reaches out automatically to take them, but Alexei just shakes his head and leads him back to the cashier counter.
“ Bob is great, sure. Fine young man, love him like my own. But…” Alexei trails off as Yelena elbows him in the side.
“Dad.”
Another warning look, and Alexei throws up his hands in surrender. He mutters something in Russian as he putters away, leaving Yelena to take John’s credit card.
John doesn’t get to ask anything else about Bob and his little church after that. Yelena is unfailingly polite, but she is obviously protective over the reclusive priest, and it’s not like John is some trustworthy local to her.
Once he’s stocked up, John decides to start tapping into the local police comms. It’s not hard to toss the tiny recorder into the back seat of the police car parked in front of the nearest Dunkin. People think it’s an exaggeration, how many police officers wander and end up at donut shops. It’s really not.
The other cars are harder to hunt down. John used to like the air tags or whatever before they started letting everyone and their mothers know when one’s following you around. It’s a reasonable change for regular people, but John’s not about to learn some damn hacking tricks to use mass produced tech like that. Nowadays he just takes note of the police cars, especially in small towns like this, and the gossip from locals. It’s easier in the South, with John’s… everything. The blonde hair, the scruffy beard, the blue eyes and flannel. Sometimes he lets his childhood drawl slip out, just to get those gossipy Southern grandmothers on his side.
The first couple days are boring. John researches the area’s history, makes friends with the nice old librarian in town. He learns that the Burrow (as they call it) has been slowly emptying out over the years. Almost half the people from a decade ago had left or died, which explains all the abandoned houses. It’s a sleepy town, hundreds of similar ones in the state. But six families have gone missing in the area in the past two years. In a city maybe that’s less of an anomaly- not here, though. Not in a town where half the locals can trace their ancestry back six generations and only two miles out.
Then the local elementary school (the only one, really) goes up in spectacular flames.
John snaps to attention when it happens, mostly because the sleepy police officer, Smith, who drives the car John bugged, shouts in alarm. The noise is overpowering over the shitty mic, crackling through jumbled phrases as Smith seems to speed to the scene.
He follows them from a distance. It’s a little chaotic as John parks at the pharmacy across the street and watches the children get ushered out by their teachers, panic and confusion clear as day on their wet little faces. Tension crawls up John’s neck as he watches. He should be in there, helping, like he was trained to do. Before he found out that there are worse things than fires that kill little boys and girls.
His son would’ve been around their age, he thinks. Still small. Not as small as his coffin ended up being.
The thought has him itching for a drink. He can’t, not yet. He has to wait until the fire dies, until the firefighters pull out the few unconscious people from the wreckage. There’s no way to tell if they’re dead, going to die, or living, and John’s hands tighten on his steering wheel.
When the townspeople start hovering nearby in curiosity, John decides to make his way in with the crowd.
“Terrible,” an elderly man mutters to his wife. “This never used to happen before those…”
“Shh,” his wife hisses.
John lurks for a bit longer. No casualties as of yet, it seems, though everybody seems to be shaken as they begin to disperse. The school is too damaged to be used for the foreseeable future. Several teachers are pulled away by the medical responders for smoke inhalation, and the students are corralled into groups as they wait for their families to collect everyone. It’s messy, chaotic, and it’s also the third large fire in town in the past six months.
His notes on the Burrow are still sparser than desired, but even so John can tell something is causing all these incidents on purpose. It’s not normal for a town of this caliber to have so many disasters, one after another.
It’s a tactical decision, then, to sneak into the smoking ruins of the school after dark. Small town police have left the scene by that point. All John wants to do is check if there are any signs of something supernatural, and then try to figure out if it’s the kind of monster he can handle on his own. Nothing dangerous.
The school stinks of burnt plastic and cheaply built walls, and it shows. The peeling, blackened interior doesn’t help the overall worn, outdated look, and John briefly thinks maybe the fire can be an opportunity for the town to rebuild a nicer school for the kids. It looks like most of the fire had been centered near the east side of the building, where the teachers sounded the alarm. It was a big fire- big enough that it’s odd that nobody was really hurt during the chaos.
John circles through the hallways, shining his flashlight left and right. Schools at night are always a bit creepy, but a post-fire, blackened shell of a school at night is worse. The smell, too, is horrible. He hopes there wasn’t any asbestos in the walls or something. There is a faint stench of rotting eggs in every corner, and it only gets stronger the deeper east John ventures.
That should’ve been the first sign. The only sign John needs, really, but unfortunately for everybody involved, John is a man of action and not of faith.
So he’s taken by surprise by the balding, rotund man in a singed suit who comes barrelling through the cafeteria doors. John shouts in alarm, instinctively slamming the back of his head into the man’s face. The guy’s latched onto his back, pudgy arms tightening like a vice around John’s neck.
John’s motto is to not kill regular humans, even if they are a serial killer. He’s not sure if the man currently trying to choke the living daylights out of him is a human, though, not just because of the sudden violence but also the level of strength he’s displaying. Not to stroke his own ego, but John is well aware he should be able to neutralize an out-of-shape middle-aged man on a normal day. With a grunt, he chucks the man (creature?) forward and over his head.
A fist snags in John’s collar as the stranger topples to the ground, taking John with him in his momentum. John tries to slam his heel into the man’s gut, and succeeds, but the man doesn’t even react to a blow that would have even werewolves recoiling for a second.
“What the fuck,” John manages, as the thing doesn’t even make a sound as it lunges at John’s abdomen. His fingers are like goddamn iron, or something, and a searing pain shoots up John’s torso as the stubby nails somehow tear through his skin like tissue paper. John grabs the man’s arm and twists, a little too harshly. One of his own wrists squeaks ominously, though the resulting sickening snap of the attacker’s forearm is satisfying enough that John thinks the fight is over.
He kicks the other man away and staggers to his feet. Blood seeps sluggishly from the gouges left on his stomach, making him wince. John grabs for his gun with his good arm.
But the other man is faster.
John’s thrown against the wall as the monster (for only a monster would be able to move a clearly broken arm like that) lurches and slams into John’s side. His .45 is knocked out of his hands in the ensuing struggle. John gasps in pain as the same fingers from before start to carve their way into his shoulder, moving dangerously close to John’s windpipe.
He glances down at the creature’s bulging eyes. They’re human, or should be human, but they aren’t. The veins have popped so long ago that the brown streaks in the whites are almost a dark black, and John breathes in a noseful of rot and sulfur as he pushes his thumb into the man’s eye socket. It doesn’t even faze whatever he is. He’s still fucking smiling.
Then a gunshot rings out, unexpectedly, and John watches in relief and dubious horror as the remaining eye flashes pitch black before the corpse collapses, letting go of John’s neck.
Behind him, John can only make out the silhouette of a man for a moment. Cast in dim, reflected light from John’s flashlight on the floor, he sees the robes and the flash of a clerical collar first. Then he sees the smoking shotgun, or maybe that’s the black smoke pouring from the demon’s discarded body playing tricks on John’s mind.
It’s the priest. Father Robert. Standing there with a gun in his limp hands, cradled almost awkwardly as Bob steps forward with a furrowed brow.
John takes a deep, shaky breath, then grins sharply.
“Fancy seeing you here,” John drawls. “Father.”
Bob pulls the car up to a bar. A very sketchy country bar, from the looks of it. John pokes his head out of the passenger side and whistles.
“I thought you priest types were supposed to be, dunno, celibate and bookish and shit.”
The car door slams with a thud, shaking the old SUV like a tiny earthquake. Bob walks around the car to John’s side and nods his head towards the bar.
“What, did you want me to leave you back there? Didn’t look like you were having much fun with that demon.”
He says it mildly. John snorts and hops out of his car, cradling his sprained wrist close to his chest. Bob starts walking away and John hurries to follow him.
“So you do know about them,” John says, curious.
“Demons?”
“The supernatural. The creepy crawlies, the things that go bump in the night. Monsters, whatever you like to call them.”
His hand falters on the bar’s door as Bob pushes it open. “… No, I don’t,” he says with a strange sense of conviction. “Those don’t exist.”
John scowls. “Bullshit, you just filled a demon’s chest with a dozen fucking salt bullets. Nobody just has those lying around their house.”
The priest opens his mouth as if to defend himself, only to snap it shut when Yelena ambles up to them. She’s dressed in a smart suit, fully black, with smoky blue eyeliner and slicked back hair. With a pop of gun she grins at Bob.
“Well, well, look who’s here. Usual seats at the bar?”
She eyes John curiously for a second. Bob smiles awkwardly and nods. “Yeah, that works. I’m just, uh, showing John around town.”
“Right,” Yelena says with a smirk. “I got you.”
They’re ushered towards the bar, the bartop surprisingly clean for how run down the place looks on the outside. Bob slides in and Yelena pulls out an ipad. John follows, a little gingerly, his poor bruised knee screaming when he settles on the stool.
“Two beers,” Bob says quietly. “And some wings. Thanks, Lena.”
John waits until Yelena passes them two glasses of on-tap beer and disappears into the back, before he turns to Bob with a raised eyebrow.
“You don’t believe in the supernatural?”
“Monsters aren’t real, John,” Bob answers immediately.
“So you’re saying I just killed a man, and not a demon fucker wearing some poor bastard’s body like goddamn lipstick?”
“Language,” Bob mutters, then flinches when John slams his fist into the counter.
“You’re lying to me, Bobby. I know you are. Look at me, damnnit,” John growls. He moves before he can rethink it, leaning forward into the other man’s space.
Bob swallows, refusing to meet John’s eyes.
“It’s… they just can’t. I don’t know what that was, but it can’t really be a demon. I just called it one because-”
“I thought you religious folk believed in this, the whole God and hell down under business. No? You a nonbeliever, reclusive little priest like you?”
They’re too close. Bob exhales slowly, and John can see every flutter of his long eyelashes as Bob searches for words.
“... and what if I am?”
John pauses. “Huh. Then we’ve got that in common.”
“You grew up Catholic?”
“Nah,” John says. “The other kind. Grew up pretty close to here, actually. Didn’t believe in any of it, really, until… well. Now I know that even if there isn’t a heaven up there, no god watching over us, hell is real. And it sucks, Bob, I know, but I can’t run away from it.”
He shifts back away from Bob, grabbing the cold glass. His therapist would’ve had a field day with how John reacts to Bob. Something about the younger man just rubs John the wrong way. The cold fizzing of his beer slides like ice against a red hot iron, curdling in his gut. It’s shit beer, but it’s shit beer he knows well.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re running from,” John says. “But those bastards are real, and if you’re not going to help me, stay out of my way.”
Bob frowns. “You can’t hurt people in town.”
“I would never hurt something that’s not a monster.”
The other man flinches at that. Bob swallows, John watching as his Adam’s apple slowly moves downwards.
“Okay,” Bob says after a moment. “I’ll help.”
“You don’t have to, I’m just saying-”
“You almost died back there, Walker. Forgive me if I don’t- don’t wanna let you run around the Burrow alone.”
John smirks. “Alright, Father Robert. As long as you don’t go running for the hills at the first sign of action.”
Bob rolls his eyes, but his shoulders relax as Yelena returns to pass them their wings. He thanks her quietly.
“I’m pretty decent with horror movies, actually,” Bob says to John, after a couple bites. “And you’ll need a local for some things.”
“Real life ain’t a movie, Bobby,” John replies.
“Big words for a man whose ass I just saved.”
“... I had it handled.”
“Uhuh.”
“You’re not fighting them with me, though, okay? I’m not dragging a civvie to their death.”
“I’m stronger than you think,” Bob says with a sigh. “But alright. I’ll leave the slaying to you. You’re gonna need help with figuring out who the demons are, no? That last one- that was Principal Boyd. Upstanding member of the community, at least until he decided to commit mass arson.”
John leans back in his seat, whistling. “We need to do some research. On that, and, uh, some other stuff too.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve never actually fought a demon before. I know the signs- sulfur, black eyes, the whole shebang- but they don’t always show those off.”
Bob’s mouth hangs open as he searches for words, incredulous. John coughs awkwardly.
“Look, in theory the classic exorcism should work. Holy symbols, sacred grounds, whatever the works.”
“... How well do you know your exorcisms?”
He doesn’t know them at all, but it’s not like John’s stupid. He’s perfectly capable of memorizing some ye old Catholic chant. Instead of answering with that, though, John shrugs.
“You’re not really filling me with confidence here, Walker,” Bob says warily.
“Well, forgive me if there ain’t a ton of demons running around down south of Philly,” John says, saccharine as he can be. “Just follow my lead and help a brother out, and we’ll be fine. Also, call me John.”
“Whatever, John .”