Back From The Dead

Look For Me

"Who?" I said, "who told you to look for me?"

"I don't know," Charlie said.

I wasn't bad at reading people and I felt like she was telling the truth.

"So who's in Lebanon?" I said and put the knife back in my pocket.

A couple walked by and I knew they saw what just happened. I didn't care.

"Sam and Dean Winchester. They're hunters too."

"I've heard of them," I said and tried to remember all the things I heard about them.

Dying, coming back. Killing Death. Meeting God. Meeting God's sister. I could go on for hours about what I heard about the Winchesters. Most people assumed those stories were made up, at least for the most part. I thought they were true. I think it was because most hunters were just that, hunters. They find monsters and kill them. But some hunters witness things that the normal, witch-killing, vampire-slaying, hunters couldn't even dream of.

"Good," Charlie said, "so will you help me?"

"Sure," I said and shrugged.

For some reason I felt excited. I hadn't traveled with anyone in a long time, and meeting the Winchesters felt like quite a big deal. We waited an hour at the bus stop. I tried to get some more information from Charlie, but I realized she actually didn't know anything. She remembered everything from before three years ago, but the time after that was a blur. Mostly darkness, some faint memories but nothing that could help us in any way. The memories were of her friends, as if even though she had been dead, she had seen them. She'd seen Dean killing those who killed her. She'd seen Sam speaking to a boy named Jack.

"Maybe I was a ghost."

"No you weren't," I said, "that's different."

The bus arrived and we got on it. Charlie had no idea so I gave her a fake one of mine. In the dark we looked kind of similar and the bus driver did not really seem to pay attention so he waved for us to walk on into the bus when I put down a hundred dollar bill. The trip was a little over three hours and I fell asleep almost immediately. I wanted to know more about what happened to Charlie, but I couldn't bring myself to stay awake any longer.

I woke up when we drove past a sign that said we were leaving Fort Riley. I willed myself back to sleep, but when I woke up again when we drove near Cawker City I decided I slept enough and stared out of the bus window for the remaining half hour of the trip. Charlie was asleep next to me. I wondered what happened to her. She told me she remembered how she died, and I was kind of amazed at the ease with which she told me how she was knifed to death. Then again, it hadn't stopped her from coming back to life.

As I was staring at traffic signs that lit up when they were caught by headlights, I thought about the insane situation. I had witnessed some weird things, but tell anyone you're traveling with... what was she? A zombie? That you're traveling with a zombie, and they'll run away screaming.

Charlie moved in her sleep and I hoped she wouldn't wake up. I didn't feel like talking yet. My mind was going in circles, thinking about what I could possibly say to the Winchesters. Thank them? I didn't think they even knew that I had ever met John, let alone that he was the reason I was alive. Last I heard was that he died, still trying to catch that son of a bitch that got Mary. I heard some stories about Mary, that she came back. I had tried to get into contact with John's sons. I didn't know exactly why, but I had gotten to Sioux Falls and Bobby Singer, who I'd known because of John, gave me Dean's number. I decided not to call in the end. I wouldn't know what to say. I told Bobby not to mention it to them.

The lights in the bus flickered and without hesitation my hand went to my gun that I carried in the inner pocket of my jacket. But it was false alarm. The lights flickered once more and then turned on, and the bus driver announced over the speaker phone that Lebanon was only ten minutes away. I woke up Charlie and told her we needed to get our stuff together.

Exactly ten minutes later Charlie and I were standing next to each other on an empty sidewalk across from an abandoned bus stop. We were the only ones that got out of the bus at this stop, and the fact that it was Topeka - Lebanon didn't help either. The bus driver had told us there were some shops and a diner to our left, so we started walking.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes," Charlie said, "you?"

"Yeah," I said, "so how do you know the Winchesters?"

"It's a long story," she said.

"We've got time," I said and gestured at the empty road in front of us.