First Hunt

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 I think that was the first time Sam and I ever spent a whole day apart from each other. Before that day we'd do school, come back to whatever hotel we were in, eat, do school work and sleep. I never really thought about how he must have felt once I started going out hunting on my own and he was stuck alone for days on end. He never complained though, never bitched me out for not being back on his birthdays some years, skipping a few Christmases, hell we never had a Thanksgiving. I really did follow in Dad's footsteps I guess. He let me grow up, it took me years to do the same for him. I still remember how off it felt to wake up that morning and not see him in the other bed, like something was missing. Clouds were blotting out the sun and there was a hint of rain in the air. He knew he should walk back and either go to the store or get back indoors, the weather fit his mood though. I doubt I'll melt. The wind picked up, blotting out the sound of his footsteps but he just pulled his collar up and kept walking.

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Morning came too fast, he wasn't ready. He woke up before Dad did and just stared at the ceiling thinking while trying not to think. Cursed objects, this ghost seems to go after girls. How are we going to find it? It won't come to us, we're guys. How is Dad going to get us into the house? Can I lie well enough? The people who died, Dad said their necks were broken. Is that how it died? Maybe someone killed it that way? Questions pummeled his mind, his hands felt clammy and his stomach started to churn. This is stupid. Dad will figure it out and tell me what to do. He couldn't stand just lying there anymore and decided to get up and take a shower. Hopefully when he was finished Dad would be up and they could get moving again. If he didn't think, he wouldn't be afraid. If he wasn't afraid he wouldn't screw up and everything would be fine.

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Yup, that's when it all started. The burying myself in a job to hide from everything. Before then I didn't hide as much from Sam. Hell, once he found Dad's journal I figured it would be pointless. We both knew what we had to watch out for. After that hunt, when I felt that I was a complete failure, even though Dad said I wasn't. That's when I started really pushing things down. I knew too much then, I'd seen things, done things. I couldn't explain it to Sam, didn't want to. How could I tell him what happened? Dad covered for me when we got back to Bobby's, I wish he hadn't. Drops of rain landed on his head, he just ignored them.

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Dad had gone out and gotten them some coffee while he'd been in the shower.

“Here you go,” Dad said, handing him a cup. “I'll go clean up, we'll get breakfast then do the next part of this.”

He sipped the coffee and waited, not sure what he was supposed to do. Dad came back out, got dressed, gathered his gear bag, they grabbed some donuts and snacks at a gas station and headed to the house.

“Yesterday when I talked to the police I got all the details on the deaths. Here.” He handed Dean a stack of folders. “Dean, look at me.”

He caught Dad's eyes and realized that Dad was looking at him like he did Bobby, like an adult, a fellow hunter. Part of him felt a surge of pride, the other part was terrified of what was in the folders.

“There's pictures in there, pictures of the victims. You won't ever forget them once you look at them. It's ugly, brutal and will tear at you in ways I can't describe. Just remember that the thing that did this to these people, it's hurting too. Something made it into this. It's evil now, but it wasn't always that way.” Dad looked away from him and out the windshield, “Most spirits, someone did something so horrible to them that they can't leave. Some are just evil, true, but they were once a person, a person like us, like your Mom.”