Supernatural Fresh Meat

by ALICE HENDERSON

  THIRTY-SIX

  Grateful for his snowshoes, Bobby trekked through the powder with Sam walking beside him. At first they had walked single file, taking turns in the lead, but the wind was so powerful that the person behind could never hear the person in front unless they stopped and turned around.

  Every twenty minutes or so, Bobby pulled out the map and compass and checked their location. Not only were they hiking into an unknown area, but the snow fell so intensely beneath such a low cloud cover that he wasn’t able to check for landmarks. The battery-operated device that he’d sneered at before had now come in handy more times than he could count. He stopped, pulling out the GPS unit from the warmth of his pocket and powering it on.

  He waited while it found their location, then waited another thirty seconds while it averaged readings, making the outcome more accurate. He checked the map against the coordinates. They were on the right track, thankfully. To save time, they were trailblazing, not sticking to any known route. It had seemed like a good idea at first, but now Bobby would have welcomed a marked trail in the blizzard. While any sign of a trail would have been lost beneath the feet upon feet of snow, the forest service regularly marked them by leaving small metal placards in trees.

  “How we doing?” Sam yelled above the gale, lifting his goggles. Bobby could only make out Sam’s eyes. Snow completely encrusted his balaclava, and his hood was pulled low over his hat.

  Bobby struggled with the map as a sudden gust tugged at it. He knelt down, smoothing it back. They needed to go another 1.7 miles northwest, and they would intersect the trail on which they’d last seen Dean. Of course, that had been more than a day ago. Now it was light, but Sam and Bobby had hiked through the bitter darkness, only the effort of trekking through the snow keeping them warm. That first vague glow in the east had been a welcome sight to Bobby. It would be a hell of a lot easier to navigate in the daylight.

  He turned off the GPS unit, got out his compass to ensure the right direction to head in, and folded up the map. He pointed in the direction they’d been heading and nodded to Sam. Sam lowered his goggles back in place, and they trudged on in silence.

  The crunch of the snow beneath their feet filled Bobby’s world. His breath frosted beneath his fleece face covering. He was glad they’d brought snow goggles as the world around them grew brighter and brighter. He couldn’t make out the sun overhead, the clouds were too thick, but the diffused light gave everything an almost ghostly glow.

  It was obvious Dean and Jason wouldn’t be out in this. Even with their tents and warm bags, they would likely have sought shelter of some kind. Bobby knew there were a few backcountry cabins out this way, and hoped Dean had found his way to one of them.

  The lack of sleep burned Bobby’s eyes, making him want to rest. But first they had to find Dean, then he’d get a few hours of shut-eye. He had to know Dean was all right.

  The powdery snow was easy to walk in, and the snowshoes made it simple to ascend and descend the steep hills that separated them from the trail they sought. They walked up forested knolls and crossed a few areas of exposed granite.

  As they summited a rounded section of rock, Bobby’s snowshoe slid on a patch of ice beneath the powder. His foot slipped out from under him. At the last minute he lashed out with his trekking pole, saving himself.

  “Nice moves,” Sam told him.

  “Thanks. Don’t think I’ll be applying for a spot on the Ice Capades any time soon, though.”

  They continued on in silence once again, then Bobby stopped to check the map. Still they couldn’t see any cliffs or landmarks around them. The mist crept through the forest, making it impossible to see more than twenty feet in front of them. The GPS unit told Bobby they were still on the right track.

  “0.6 miles to go!” he called to Sam above the wind.

  They walked on, Bobby looking forward to reaching terrain that Sam might recognize. Then they could start searching for Dean’s trail.

  The wind buffeted Bobby’s back and snow spiraled around him, landing on his eyelashes. His fingers felt warm inside the thick mittens as he moved with the trekking poles, working himself into a rhythm. They crested a small hill and descended the other side, moving around tremendous boulders and a few stunted trees. At the bottom, Bobby spotted a trail running to the northeast and southwest. Trees had been cleared out for it, forming a perfect tunnel through the snow-laden forest.

  “Look familiar?” he asked Sam.

  Sam looked both ways, studying the area. “I don’t know… Everything looks so different in the snow, and I can’t see into the distance.”

  Bobby hooked his thumb toward the southwest. “You think the car’s back this way?”

  Sam squinted. “Maybe. Sorry, Bobby, it all looks so different.”

  Bobby pulled out the GPS unit and checked their location. They were right where Bobby thought, according to the map. They’d intercepted the trail Dean had been using. Two miles to the southwest was likely the Impala.

  “If he made it back to the car, he would have driven out, or at the very least recharged his phone and called us,” Sam said.

  Bobby tightened his mouth. “So you’re thinking he hasn’t made it back to the car?”

  “Maybe he didn’t even try in all this.”

  Bobby looked up at the heavily snow-laden trees. “You could be right.”

  “He might be hot on the trail, reluctant to lose it,” Sam suggested.

  Bobby pointed up the trail. “I say we rule out that he’s back at the car, and go check it out.”

  “Good idea. If it’s still there, we come back and follow the trail, searching for any sign of him.”

  Bobby nodded. “Right.” He considered separating, one of them trekking back to the Impala to see if it was still there. But in this storm, finding each other again might be impossible.

  Bobby had never been in a snowstorm this bad, and he was starting to worry about Dean. He knew he could take care of himself, but even the most experienced outdoorsman could get hopelessly lost in whiteout conditions like this.

  As they set off toward the last known location of the Impala, Bobby hoped that Dean had held on to his map and compass, because without it, he could be freezing to death even now.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Dean stepped around a tree, suddenly sinking up to his knee, even with the snowshoe on. “What the hell?” He struggled to pull his foot free.

  “It’s a tree well,” Grace told him, hooking a hand under his arm and hefting him upward. “Snow collects at the base of a tree, and it gets really powdery and deep. People have been known to suffocate in them.”

  “Great. I’ll keep that in mind.” He extracted his foot, then gave the tree a wide berth.

  They’d been walking for over two hours, the progress painfully slow, while the storm raged on. He had hoped they’d come across some sign of Jason. Dean dismissed images of the hunter lying frozen at the base of a tree. Jason could easily have gotten hopelessly lost. He wasn’t even entirely sure Grace knew which way they were going. She kept staring off into the distance, waiting for clouds to part. Sometimes they waited more than ten minutes, just standing and staring. Then they’d either move on without getting a glimpse of landmarks, or the landmarks would be treated with the briefest of looks before Grace hurriedly jotted down notes and studied the map again.

  They entered a very dense section of forest. Dean had slipped more than once on strange shapes under the snow, logs and huge rocks. Once he’d even stumbled over what turned out to be an old mine car. At least that meant they weren’t the first humans here, though it felt like it to Dean.

  All he could hear was the wind sighing through the trees. They hadn’t seen a single sign of human habitation since they left the cabin.

  “How are we doing?” Dean asked Grace when she stopped again to look at the map.

  “Good, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, it’s hard. I’m pretty much having to use dead reckonin
g.”

  “That sounds about as cheerful as I feel.”

  “It works, that’s the good part. You just try to keep track of the distance and time you’ve traveled. Well, it works most of the time. Unless you’re a complete idiot, which I’m not.”

  “As long as this doesn’t end with one of us slicing the other open for warmth, I’m game.”

  “Don’t worry. You smell better on the outside.”

  He peered over her shoulder at the map while she consulted it. His breath frosted in the air. Beyond them, the clouds slid through the tree trunks, creating an unsettling, eerie landscape.

  Dean had been watching for the gaunt figure, but hadn’t seen any sign of him.

  “Okay.” She checked the bearing with her compass. “Let’s head slightly to the northeast. It’ll take us around a massive ridge that we can’t see, but is only a half-mile away from us right now. If we keep going straight, we’ll be looking at an impossible ascent. So instead we’ll skirt around the base. It’ll still be a bit steep in parts, but we’ll go around the worst bits.”

  Dean quickly compared his own map to hers, seeing what she was talking about. The last thing he wanted to do was to be completely lost if they somehow got separated. He stared around, tried to get his bearings. Behind him, according to the map, was that ridge, ahead of him this ridge. It seemed impossible in the whiteout. He stuffed the map back in his parka pocket.

  They started climbing at a slight angle. The snowshoes which at first had felt cumbersome and awkward now felt like part of Dean’s feet. They hissed in the powder when he stepped down, and the metal teeth on the underside made climbing easy.

  He glanced around the snow as they walked, searching for another blood trail, but not seeing anything but white. He put his sunglasses on as the whiteness grew too much to look at. With his scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth, though, the lenses kept fogging up. Having to choose between squinting and having a numb face, he chose the numb face. He couldn’t afford to go snow-blind.

  He thought he heard something moving behind them and spun around. Only forest greeted him, their tracks vanishing into its depths. He continued on, hearing a distinct rustling behind them again. He jerked around, stopping.

  By the time Grace noticed he’d stopped, she was thirty feet ahead of him. “What is it?” she called back.

  He stared around the forest, then turned to her and pointed at his ear.

  She glanced around, then over to him. “What is it?” she repeated in a whisper.

  “I thought I heard something. A rustling.”

  She scanned the area. “It’s probably your parka hood. It can play tricks on you in the wind, making you think you’re hearing things as it flaps against your head.” She pulled hers down, exposing her ears. “Mine does all the time.”

  Dean lowered his hood and listened. All he could hear was the wind. It howled around them, instantly chilling his face and exposed head.

  They stood for five minutes, just listening, until, reluctantly, Dean pulled his hood up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  She did the same and started out ahead of him.

  He followed in her footprints, taking advantage of her trailblazing to stare around them furtively. He did not relish the idea of a fight. He was more trussed up than the little brother in A Christmas Story. He thought if someone knocked him over in all his gear he’d just land on his back like a turtle, feet and arms flailing ridiculously.

  Then he had the unmistakable hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling of being watched. He stopped, whirling around.

  Behind them, staring out from a tree some thirty feet away, was the gaunt figure. He stood just at the range of visibility, with tendrils of grey sweeping around him. The hood was still pulled low over the face, but Dean could just see inside it now, making out a pale face and a pair of snow goggles.

  Instantly, Dean grabbed his rifle and fired. The man moved fast, but Dean was pretty sure he’d hit him in the upper arm. Mist swallowed the retreating figure, but Dean was not going to let him get away this time. He was tired of checking over his shoulder every two minutes.

  “Stay here!” he shouted to Grace, then took off running on the snowshoes in pursuit.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Dean reached the spot where he’d seen the man. Dark blood in the snow meant he’d definitely hit his target. He ran on, pack thumping against his back.

  He followed the blood, glancing up into the trees to be sure nothing dropped down on him. The drops got farther and farther between, indicating the man could run fast. He came upon a patch of disturbed snow, a big puddle of blood in the middle of it. Dean circled the area, looking for another drop, but didn’t find anything. Heavy snow cascaded around him, already starting to obscure the blood patch.

  Dean pressed himself against a tree and peered out cautiously, eyes searching for any hint of motion. He didn’t see anything. He waited, listening. Then he turned to retrace his steps, disappointed. The last thing he wanted on top of everything else was that thing out there, tailing them. And where was Jason? Dead? Frozen?

  As Dean turned to rejoin Grace, he looked back at the disturbed snow. Was it possible the thing had buried itself?

  He reached down, finding icy chunks of older snow under the fresh powder. He felt an old log and a few bushes, but nothing animal. Finally, he turned back, and found to his alarm that the snow had already completely obscured the blood trail. He could barely make out the depressions where his snowshoes had been. He followed his route back, finding Grace sitting down on a stump in the snow.

  “You okay?” she asked, standing up. “What did you shoot at?”

  “I thought I saw something.”

  “And by ‘something’ you mean serial killer?”

  Dean was quiet.

  “So you leave me here to fight the killer on my own?”

  “No, I left to fight the killer on my own.”

  “While he doubles back and makes a meat rug out of me to match his scalp throw pillows.”

  “He might be more of a leg bone end table kind of guy. Haven’t decided yet.”

  “Thanks for that.” She glanced around nervously. “So it’s nothing?”

  “It was something, but it’s prowling, not attacking for some reason.”

  “Well, that makes me feel loads better.” She started walking again, hurrying. “On toward the avalanche zone.”

  Dean checked behind them once more before slinging his rifle around to his back. He reached into his pocket, feeling the reassuring weight of his silver .45.

  They came to the edge of the dense section of forest and entered a small meadow with a few dead trees standing stark and grey against the white.

  They were halfway across it when Dean heard the now-familiar deep rumble of another avalanche above them.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Sam looked around at the quiet, snowy forest as they made their way toward the Impala. At least that was the direction he hoped they were heading. If it weren’t for Bobby’s GPS, they would have no idea where they even were. Everything looked so different. He knew he’d walked this very path with Dean not too long ago, but with everything covered in snow and the clouds obscuring anything in the distance, Sam found it difficult to get his bearings.

  As they walked, they looked for signs of Dean. The only thing that let Sam know they were actually on a trail was that the trees had been cleared on either side. The path wasn’t very wide, and more than once he and Bobby had to walk single file through trees and around massive boulders.

  They weren’t saying much to each other. He knew that both of them worried about Dean, about the storm, and most of all about Dean being out in it with the aswang. He hated that he couldn’t warn Dean about Grace. His only hope was that he wasn’t with her right now. She could be luring him into anything. He hoped his brother’s hunter sense was tingling, but Sam’s and even Bobby’s hadn’t gone off in her presence. She was good.

  He watched Bobby’s back as they moved single file again
, going up over a little rise. They hiked down it, another featureless area in this whiteout. Sam had no idea how far they were from the Impala.

  Bobby stopped, pointing ahead. “I think I see something!”

  Sam followed his hand, and thought he did, too—a long, low line of black something in all the white.

  “It’s the fence! The one by the parking area!” Bobby called back to him.

  They moved forward, renewed vigor to their steps. Sure enough, it was the parking lot. They’d actually found it. Sam felt like a minor miracle had happened.

  They snowshoed past the fence and looked at the parking lot. Two huge lumps of snow provided the only relief to the flat expanse of the trailhead lot. The lumps stood exactly where Jason’s truck and the Impala had been parked. To be sure, Sam crossed to the shorter one and lifted some snow off the side. The entire thing was absolutely buried. He dug down to the driver’s side door, his mitten finding glossy black beneath. He cleared off a window and peered in. It was the Impala.

  “It hasn’t moved since we left,” Sam noted.

  Bobby checked out the hulk of snow that was likely Jason’s truck. He cleared off the driver’s side window. “It’s Jason’s, all right,” he said. “I recognize the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.” He stepped back and took in the sheer amount of snow on top of the vehicle.

  Sam frowned. “The fact that Dean hasn’t called could be because his phone is dead or that he lost it.” He glanced toward the trail they’d come from. “Either way, it means he’s out of contact, and if his phone’s dead, then he’s in a place with no electricity.”

  “Which could be very cold.”

  “We need to find him.”

  “We’ll have to track him. Gonna be hard as hell in this storm, but we have to try.”

  Bobby headed back to the trailhead a few feet away, and Sam joined him. They stared at the intensely falling snow, which had already partially filled their tracks in just a few minutes.