A/N: This story is part of a group of prompt stories dedicated to the wonderful, talented, generous Muffy Morrigan. We wanted to do something special to show how much her friendship means to us and how much we treasure her remarkable writing talent. She's a truly incredible person, always generous and helpful, and no matter what obstacles the universe chooses to put in her way, she just keeps writing and sharing the most amazing stories with us.

Thank you for always being there for me, sis. You're the best friend, mentor and sister a girl can dream of. Don't know where I'd be without you.

A/N II: Premise for the stories: Write a story of 200-1000 words, prompt words: vampire, bloody and squinch. Check out the other stories too, participating writers are TraSan, RoweenaC, DeansBabyBird, Manavie and abni. (If anyone else would like to join in, you're more than welcome!).

The stories will be posted at UnGen (supernaturalville (dot) net) too, with beautiful banners by CalUK – go check them out!

A/N III: I set out with every intention of writing a vampire story. I have no idea where this came from, but… I hope it'll make you laugh. Also, apologies to everyone waiting for updates on my other stories. I hit a bad case of real life and writer's block, but I hope to start working on them again soon. Thanks for your patience!

The Nest

Sam walked slowly through the silent hallway, senses strained to the limit in the almost completely dark building. Dean was upstairs, checking out a noise they had heard shortly after they entered the house, Sam could hear his brother's almost silent movements across the floor above him. They had arrived to the village on what they had thought was a vampire case, and a little research (in other words, Dean chatting up the local bartenders) had revealed this house to be the possible nest. From what Sam had seen in the rooms downstairs, however, he'd started to suspect it was an entirely different kind of un-dead creature they were dealing with. An open window he had discovered in a back room made him suspect at least one, and maybe all, of the creatures had escaped. As he stood looking out the window, he thought he heard a weird, mocking tune in the distance, but he discarded the thought and continued his search.

Suddenly he heard a loud thud from the room above him, then pain-filled screeches and what sounded like curses in Dean's muffled voice.

Sam sprinted up the stairs and down the hallway towards the room where he could hear Dean fighting. He barged against the door, stumbling slightly as it flew open to slam against the wall.

"Dean?" he said to the suddenly deathly quiet room.

"Shut the door, one of the suckers is still in here, don't let it get away!" Dean's voice sounded from somewhere on his right, his brother was hidden behind what he thought was a pair of large old bookcases. Sam quickly closed the door, cursing the time it took his eyes to adjust to the almost complete darkness of the room, but knowing his flashlight was off-limits as that would screw up Dean's already-adjusted night vision.

Then he froze.

His ears had picked up an almost inaudible sound, silent as a soft wind rustling in not-yet-dead leaves.

It was coming from right behind him.

He spun around, blinking, trying to force his eyes to penetrate the darkness before him, to see the monster before it attacked him. He had no luck, all he could see was darkness eddying in front of his retinas. He held up the machete before him, hoping it would hold the creature off for a few seconds and let Dean reach him in time.

"Sam! Drop!"

Sam had hit the floor almost before Dean said the last word. He heard the whistling sound of Dean's machete flying through the air, then a pain-filled shriek as it found its target. An instant later, he felt more than saw Dean jump across him, picking up Sam's machete in a fluid movement and finishing the job, adding another corpse to that night's body count.

He was about to push himself up when he felt Dean's hand on his arm, pulling him to his feet.

"Flashlight?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded, the adrenaline coursing through his veins rendering him breathless for the moment. He pulled the flashlight out of his pocked and flicked it on, letting the light flash over Dean. He felt his forehead contract into a worried squinch when he noticed Dean's bloody sleeve, but Dean just shook his head.

"Not mine, one of the suckers didn't take too kindly to being killed," Dean said.

"How many…?"

"I lost count. No more than I could handle, though. Let's take a look." There was a weird perkiness in Dean's voice. Sam frowned in confusion, then turned around to let the beam of light move around the room to reveal seven already-desiccating corpses strewn across the floor; whatever spell had kept them alive having lost its power and returned them to their original several-years-dead state.

Sam turned to look at Dean, raising his eyebrows in an expression of incredulity.

"Dismemberment? That's a new one."

"Well, I couldn't really nail all these bastards back into their gravebeds, could I? And hey, it worked!" Dean sent him a crooked grin.

"How did you realise they were zombies?"

"One of them kept coming at me, didn't react when I tossed it against the wall, didn't react to getting cut it with the machete. There's only so many things can do something like that."

Dean gave the sliced-apart rodent corpses a final disgusted look before turning to walk out the door.

"I HATE rats!"

The End