THRUMP. THRUMP. THRUMP. Sam drove the van as his grandfather slept in the back. The road stretched out before him. Truth be told, he liked being without his brother. Hunting. Sam only wanted to hunt.
EIGHT
As Sam drove, he thought back to three months before.
He lay on the cold grassy ground looking up at the gray sky above him. A cold sensation was shooting from his back around his spine, and invading him through his blood. He was dizzy, as if someone was pushing him on one of those spinning carousels in a playground. His entire body hummed like a thousand tuning forks were being held to his bones. He tried to move his fingers, but wasn’t sure if he was able.
Thirty minutes went by before he could roll off his back and sit up. All around him the grass was scorched black and flattened by the epic fight between the two powerful angels. Everything was super bright, his eyes burned.
A car drove past on the nearest road, the sound startling him. He realized his ears were still ringing. He had no clue how long he had been gone. Or how he’d got out.
He pulled his shirt off his shoulder—but there wasn’t a hand-mark on him like Dean had had when he was brought back by Castiel. He didn’t have a bruise or a scratch on him. How had this happened? The last thing he remembered was jumping into the pit, and then a soul-searing pain. That was it.
He stumbled out of Stull Cemetery disoriented and alone. He headed north and hit Route 70. A big rig had picked him up and offered him a ride down the road to Topeka. Once in Topeka he had realized he wanted to check on one thing.
Sam caught the date on a flat-screen TV in a coffee shop and realized he hadn’t been gone for very long at all.
Though not much time had passed, there was a profound difference in the way Sam felt. Namely—great. He felt like his legs had a strange sense of purpose, like they were more self-assured. He held his body differently, he felt stronger, broader, more vital. Yes, there was definitely a difference in Sam.
He quickly realized the potential of his situation; he could be anyone, do anything. No one was waiting for him any longer; there was no one to tell him he was messing everything up—again. No one to tell him that he couldn’t do something or that he wasn’t living up to what was expected of him.
Like Dean.
For the first time in a long time, Sam felt free. But he needed to check and make sure. For that reason, he went to Lisa Braeden’s house and confirmed that Dean had shown up. He saw Dean, glass of Scotch in hand, sitting at the dinner table and Sam knew this was how it should be. Dean should be in there, and he should be outside. In the world. A new person.
It took him two days to get new credit cards and pick up a new Dodge Charger courtesy of some falsified loan documents. Sam didn’t want to go to any of their old haunts so he found a different black market, a small brick warehouse on the south side of Chicago, where he purchased a couple of unregistered guns. Sam knew what he had been brought back for. He was here to hunt. There was an ache inside him and he knew exactly what food to feed it: pure, unadulterated hate.
Sam holed up in a crappy motel with a new computer, he guessed Dean had kept his old one, and started combing the local news.
He stayed up all night, meticulously looking at each picayune site. And then he found an interesting little titbit. A whole spate of cow mutilations in a small town in North Dakota. Every animal was found drained of blood, the throat ripped out, but there weren’t any signs of tire tracks or animal prints. Could be a werewolf, or something cryptozoological. Whatever, it was a case.
Sam started his investigation by examining the dozens of comments on the news site. Just about all of them complained that the new sheriff, Sheriff Littlefoot, wasn’t doing anything to help the local ranchers. They blamed his inaction on him being an out-of-towner who didn’t understand the town’s need for answers.
Sam roared into town in his Charger, sussed out which ranchers had been victimized and swiftly interviewed them. Not that it told him much. The hard-working, hard-living ranchers were fed up with guys in offices not doing anything for them. They needed answers.
Posing as a park ranger, Sam rented a four-wheeler and went out to the site of the mutilations. The sky was big and the plains were wide. Even as he stood knee-deep in cow intestines, for the first time in a long time Sam felt he was enjoying his life.
That night Sam kept vigil on a barstool in the local saloon. He had been eyeing the cute waitress in the jean-skirt all night. She had given him a couple of glances, but nothing that told him she was interested. That was, until closing time rolled around.
Sam had downed what he thought was a good amount of beer, but he was as lucid and sober as he’d ever been. Her name was Jodi, and Sam chatted with her as she closed out her night and counted her cash tips. They shared another drink and then Sam invited her back to his motel room.
Sam was amazed. It was usually Dean who bagged the chicks. Sam had never had much of a taste for it. But something had changed. He enjoyed himself. In fact, it was the best sex of his life. And he didn’t understand why. The girl was cute, but by no means would you stop the car to look at her. She had a good body, but it wasn’t like she was a keeper. Sam couldn’t understand what had changed, until he realized that emotionally—he felt nothing.
He didn’t feel bad about leading her on and telling her that he had a new job in town and was looking to settle down with the “right girl.” He didn’t feel bad when he lied and said, yeah, he thought she was beautiful. He didn’t feel anything but pure physical pleasure. No guilt. Usually, if he had sex with a girl, he would immediately think of Jessica and the moment would be ruined. But now: nothing. No guilt. It was the most free he had ever felt in his life.
But more pressing things demanded his attention. He was pretty sure there was a werewolf in town somewhere. The question was—where?
The next morning he decided to visit the infamous Sheriff Littlefoot, posing as a fed this time, so as to outrank him. Sam walked into the sheriff’s dimly lit office. The metal blinds were cinched shut and made it difficult to see. The sheriff was a tall man of Native American descent. He was handsome but had grown paunchy around the middle.
“Mind if I open these up?” Sam said, moving toward the windows.
“Actually, I do. Sorry, stigmatism in my eye. Doctor says it’s best to keep the light low.”
“I’ve never heard that before,” Sam said as he made himself comfortable and let the Sheriff sweat a bit.
The Sheriff ran through the usual nervous questions and answers a small-town law officer asks when a federal agent is in their jurisdiction. “What was this about?” “These things happen all the time in ranching areas, it’s just wild animals.” “I’ve seen this a million times before and it’s usually over-active imaginations.”
Sam listened, then asked to look at the files and if the Sheriff would mind if he stopped by at his house to drop them off later.
The sheriff resisted, saying, “Me, my wife, and the boy might be having dinner.”
Sam assured him that he wouldn’t interfere, he just wanted to get the files back in the sheriff’s hands as soon as possible.
That afternoon, Sam sat outside the sheriff’s house until the evening. It was a nice neighborhood; kids played in the streets, mothers pushed baby carriages. Sam registered this and continued to gaze intently at the sheriff’s house. But the small clapboard house was silent all afternoon, the curtains drawn tight.
About seven in the evening, when the sun had gone down, and the prairies surrounding the town gave off a silver sheen, the lights inside the house clicked on, and the sheriff’s little boy came out to play for the first time all day.
Shortly thereafter the sheriff came home. Sam slid low in his seat. The sheriff gathered up his son and went inside.
Sam took out one of his new guns and made sure it was loaded with a silver bullet and then approached the house. As he got closer a sickening baying came from inside. Sam tried to peek through the window but the curtain
s were still drawn. He needed to find another way in.
On other side of the house, Sam pushed open the small bathroom window. Through the open doorway and down a hallway he could make out the faint outline of a regular living room, complete with a small TV and worn couches.
Sam silently hoisted himself in through the window and crept across the room. Across the hallway there was another, smaller parlor and behind that the kitchen. The baying stopped. Sam thought he could hear the slick, wet sound of teeth pulling flesh apart.
Pressed against the wall, he edged down the corridor until he was on the other side of the kitchen door. Sam knew he was going to have to act quickly.
Just as he was about to kick the door open, the sound of breaking glass crackled from somewhere in the house.
A chair scraped—someone was getting up in the kitchen to investigate the sound. Sam needed a way out.
He ran up the stairs, and pushed open the first door he came to. He hid in what looked like the kid’s bedroom. He waited a short while, then crept back down the stairs. Outside the kitchen door he drew in his breath, readied his gun then—
“This is my hunt, boy,” a voice whispered.
NINE
Sam spun around and came face to face with a man who looked very much like his grandfather. Sam had only seen Samuel in pictures, but the resemblance was unmistakable—though in the earlier photos Samuel had a lot more hair.
Sam’s face fell. He looked at the kitchen doorway on the other side of which he assumed there was a family of very hungry werewolves, then back at his long-dead grandfather.
Samuel leaned in and whispered in Sam’s ear, “Hope that’s not a silver bullet in there. The little one is a Native American god—you’ll need something else to kill it.”
Sam looked at his grandfather and then inclining his head to indicate the other man should follow him, he silently slipped out the front door.
Once outside, he checked to make sure his grandfather was behind and retreated a little way down the block. Then Sam turned and took a good look at the other man. No question, it had to be Samuel Campbell. He was broad and in good shape, and most definitely alive. But it soon became clear that Samuel had no idea who Sam was.
“Why you edging onto my hunt?” Samuel demanded. “Who sent you? Did Mark and Gwen think I couldn’t handle this myself? Jesus H. Christ, I’ve hunted for two lifetimes more than them, and they still coddle me like an invalid.”
“Hold on. I didn’t expect anyone else up here with me,” Sam protested.
“Well, obviously neither did I,” Samuel retorted.
“We can probably clear this up pretty quick,” Sam continued. “I’m John.”
“Well, John, nice to meet you. I’m Samuel Campbell.” Sam’s long-dead grandfather held out his hand.
Sam shook it, and smiled gainfully. He didn’t know who was pulling what but he wasn’t going to get caught in Hell again. In an instant, he raised the barrel of his sawed-off and cracked Samuel in the nose. Samuel dropped onto one knee holding his face, blood dripping onto the sidewalk. A couple out for an evening stroll quickly reversed their direction.
Sam pulled out a flask of holy water, grabbed Samuel’s chin and forced it down his throat. Samuel choked a bit, but he certainly wasn’t smoking from the inside out. The old man tried to get up but Sam kicked his legs out from underneath him. Samuel fell heavily onto the ground.
He was still trying to staunch his bloody nose when Sam grabbed him again and sliced his forearm with a silver knife. No sizzling.
“Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing?” Samuel cried.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Sam said, aiming his gun between Samuel’s eyes. “So you’re either an angel, a demon, or something in between. Which is it?”
“Jesus, boy. How do you know that?”
“Know what?” Sam said.
“How do you know I’m supposed to be dead?” Samuel said, pushing himself off the ground, while still trying to stop the bleeding from his nose and forearm.
Sam hesitated.
“Because you’re my grandfather,” he said eventually.
Samuel looked into Sam’s eyes. “Sam?”
“Dean told you about me?”
“Dean told me all about you; Stanford, your girlfriend, what a great hunter you are.”
“Dean said that?” Sam asked, truly skeptical that his brother would have complimented him.
“He said that you have a good head on your shoulders. You’re fast, but mostly people trust you. Kind face, I guess. You’re the brains, the yin to Dean’s yang.”
That’s one way to put it, Sam thought. “Yeah, well, he never told me that.”
“Where is he anyway?” Samuel asked. “I thought you guys were a team.”
“Yeah, um, not anymore. Dean decided to pack it in and settle down with his girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend? Really? Well, that’s wonderful. I would love to see him,” Samuel said. “But of course, things are a little different now. You know since... I’ve come back.”
“Yeah, how did that happened?” Sam asked. He needed to know. Two people from the same family being resurrected, one from a cage in Hell—surely it couldn’t be a coincidence.
“No idea. Woke up in a field somewhere. I called my niece—she was the only one I could think of that would be young enough to be alive—and she took me in. She was hunting. Met the group that she hunts with. Just sort of fell back into it.”
Samuel pulled Sam in for a hug.
“It’s great to meet you, son.”
Sam pushed him away. Enough of this family reunion crap, it was time to get back to business.
“So the kid is a god?” he asked.
“Yeah. No need to kill the kid though, just chase the god out,” Samuel explained. “He’s the incarnation of Malsum. It’s an Algonquin Cain and Abel story. The incarnation of Malsum comes every generation, takes the form of a wolf and mostly mutilates cattle as a kind of trick.”
“So you weren’t there to kill him?”
“Not at all. It’s just killing cattle, not people. We have to chase the god out while it’s in the wolf form, not as a child.”
“Then why were you sneaking into the house?”
“I was going to hide under the bed until he changed, then use this on him.” Samuel held up an elaborate bone and herb garland. “Wrap it around his neck, say a prayer three times and it’s supposed to send Malsum back to the dark world.”
“Let’s just wait in the car then. If he moves, we’ll get him,” Sam proposed.
They sat in Sam’s car for another hour or two. Sam wasn’t in the mood for talking, but after thirty-odd years of being dead, it seemed his grandfather had plenty of questions. Sam responded as politely as he could, but he kept to himself the fact that he had been Lucifer’s chosen vessel and had taken Lucifer on and jumped into the pit.
At around ten in the evening, the Sheriff’s little boy appeared on the front doorstep. Sam and Samuel hunkered down in their seats as the Sheriff and his wife carefully peered up and down the street. They then ceremonially kissed the child on each cheek and handed him what looked like a small snack. The child turned his back on his parents and in an instant turned into a silver wolf.
“But the god is a bad god, right?” Sam whispered.
“I guess so. He’s Cain,” his grandfather replied.
“Good,” Sam said. He got out of the car with his shotgun drawn. The Sheriff looked up, saw Sam, and yelled at the wolf to run. The wolf glanced at Sam and took off across the street and over the prairie beyond.
Sam was almost as quick. He ran swiftly after the creature, leaving his grandfather far behind.
The wolf leapt over a twelve-foot-wide irrigation ditch and kept going. Sam jumped, but hit the ground a little short, sliding down the embankment. But moments later, he found his footing and raced up the hill back onto the prairie. The wolf was far ahead now, so Sam leveled his gun and shot. The silver wolf went down.
&n
bsp; Satisfied, Sam approached his victim. The creature was breathing heavily, blood draining from the back of its leg out onto the dry ground.
“What did you do?” Samuel yelled breathlessly as he reached Sam’s side.
“Give me the wreath, you say the prayer,” Sam directed.
Samuel did as his grandson said. Sam wrapped the herbs around the wolf’s neck as Samuel said the prayer three times.
The wolf lifted its head one last time then laid it back down on the ground.
“You killed him, Sam. You killed a child,” Samuel said. “What is wrong with you? You don’t kill people!”
Sam looked down impassively at the wolf then unwrapped the herbs and bones from its neck. The body of the wolf disappeared and in its place was the young black-haired boy.
Silently, Sam scooped him up. The boy’s breathing was faint. Sam strode rapidly back across the prairie to the Sheriff’s house, put the child in his father’s arms, then got into the car. His grandfather was waiting in the passenger seat. Still without speaking, Sam started the engine and sped onto the highway.
Eventually Samuel broke the silence.
“You shot a boy,” he said.
“I killed a nasty god. The boy will be fine,” Sam replied. He gripped the wheel.
“The fact that you could have killed him means nothing to you? Who taught you that?”
“No one did. I did what needed to be done,” Sam said, staring at the road.
“What happened to you, boy?”
Sam shrugged. “I was sent to Hell.”
TEN
The rhythmic thrumming of the tires over the cracks in the Eisenhower-era road lulled Dean into a reverie. This stretch of sun-baked cement was like the thousands of miles Dean had logged with Sam at his side. Dean’s mind swerved again toward that afternoon at Stull Cemetery. He gripped the steering wheel tight and tried to forget. But like an unbalanced axle, he slowly got pulled to the side that his mind favored—Dean thought back to the days before Sam jumped.
Supernatural: One Year Gone Page 5