Out of Harm's Way - Part 2

[sylvia_bond]

Title: Out of Harm's Way - Part 2
Author: Sylvia Bond
Series: Aunt Sissy Universe
Pairing: None
Rating: G/Gen
Wordcount: 14,616 (Parts 1, 2, and 3)
Summary: Ramona Blessing meets up with the Winchester boys and becomes someone new in the process.
A/N: Oh man, this story was so much fun, and just seemed to come all of a peice. I had thought I would be writing stories about the boys as they are in the show, but after seeing Something Wicked about 20 times, I could not resist the whole idea of writing about the Weecheseters. (There are two companion peices to this story. They are Safe From Harm and In Harm's Wake.)

“So Dean,” she said, during a lull, where there were just those reporters and weird scientists talking, “what does your father hunt?”

She might as well have dropped a severed head in their midst for their reaction to it, a question she had already asked once without results. They stiffened up in front of her like a pair of fence posts. Sometimes, you could ask a question people really wanted to tell you the answer to, but wouldn’t. Then, later, you asked it again, they were so grateful to spill their guts it was almost embarrassing. Not so the Winchester boys. Silent as a grave, as the saying went, and neither of them turned around.
“We can’t tell you, Aunt Sissy,” said Dean. “It’s a secret, it really is.”

“We already told you that,” added Sammy in a voice that would have put a teacher to shame.

“And when will he be back, then?” She asked this to the back of their heads.

“In a few days,” said Dean. He said the answer as though it at been learned by rote.

“A few days,” added Sammy for good measure.

She made herself sit back against the cushions of the couch. A few days was more than she had counted on to watch two boys to whom she was not related, with whom she shared no past. But she couldn’t take them back to an empty motel or turn them back over to Social Services. When and if John Winchester called her, she would be giving him a piece of her mind.

During Mothra, she noticed that both boys were sagging against the couch, their heads falling back against the cushions near her feet, and as it was coming on to nine o’clock, she wondered if it was too early to suggest that it was bedtime. When did little boys go to bed anyhow? She remembered that as she got older, bedtimes got later and later. As to how long it took two boys to get ready for bed, she did not know. She never remembered being a problem for her parents, but perhaps boys were different.

“Is it bedtime?” she asked, deciding that a question put to the issue would be the easiest way. “Or maybe getting there?”

The movie ended as she said this, and she watched as Dean turned to his brother and socked him, more gently than not, in the arm.

“Bedtime, Sammy.”

Both boys got up and so she turned off the TV, took up her bowl and led the way upstairs. When they’d put their bowls in the sink and ran some water over them, she turned to look at them both.

“Do you guys have anything to sleep in?”

“No,” said Dean. His shoulders hunched up as he told her this.

“No?” She asked. “But what’s in the backpacks?”

“It’s my fault,” said Dean.

“Well, okay, Dean, it’s not a crime or anything-”

“It is. When they grabbed us, they said pack your things. I got toys and books for Sammy and comics for me. There wasn’t enough room for clothes an’-”

At ten or eleven, the boy was taking an awful lot of responsibility on himself. She opened her mouth to tell him so.

“I like my toys,” said Sammy, taking a deep breath. “I’ve got a Superman doll, and checkers, you know. They’re magnetic so you can play them in the car. We have an Impala, that’s what Daddy drives, and he said-”

“Sammy,” said Dean, giving him a poke with a sharp and sudden elbow. “Shut up, okay?”

Taking a breath, Ramona realized she had to change the subject or the brothers were going to fight. Not over whether Dean had packed right or not, but strangely, instead, over what could and could not be said.

“Look, I’ve got some t-shirts that I’ve never worn, and a guest bedroom you can sleep in.”

“That’s okay,” said Dean, almost too quickly. “I’ll sleep in my clothes.”

“I want a new t-shirt to wear,” said Sammy, ignoring Dean.

“I got a few you can have,” said Ramona, grabbing the backpacks and gesturing to the living room and the stairs that led up to the third floor. “Maybe even one with a dog on it. I think it’s a whippet or something.”

“That’s good,” said Dean, grabbing hold of Sammy to follow her up the stairs. “Sammy likes dogs.”

“This room’s a little girly,” said Ramona, opening the door at the top of the landing to the green and pink color scheme, brass bed, and pink-toned walls. “But, here it is, with your own private bathroom. Who’s for a shower?”

“Me,” said Dean, taking the backpacks from her. “Sammy just has to brush his teeth. I’ll help him do that.”

“Okay, I’ll go get the shirt.”

She left them to it, realizing that she was starting on one of her rare headaches, that she needed aspirin, and remembered, quite fondly, why she liked living alone. The aspirin she got, along with a long drink of water, staring at herself in the mirror, trying to understand why she looked so worried. Then she went to look for the t-shirts, which were buried in the closet, in a box in the back, where all the t-shirts she didn’t like were buried. She found a bright blue one she would not be sad to part with and got up to toss it on the bed, along with a clean nightie. Then, taking the shirt, she walked down the little hallway and knocked on the guestroom door, which was now closed. It was a private pair she had picked up, but that was okay. Better than them running screaming through the condo and upsetting the neighbors and breaking HOA regulations by being too loud.

“Dean?” she asked, knocking. “I’ve got a shirt.”

“Just a sec, Aunt Sissy.”

She could hear the sound of running water, and then some thumping as Dean hurried to the door and opened it. A private person herself, she did not demand to be let in as she imagined someone else might. As someone at Social Services might, damn them.

She held out the t-shirt.

“No dog on this one, I’m afraid, but it should be nicer to sleep in than jeans. You sure you don’t want one?”

Dean took the shirt, and in the light from the bathroom, she could see the opened backpacks on the bed, and that Sammy was standing in front of the mirror brushing his teeth, the way a six year old would. Up, down, slowly, slowly. Both boys seemed to have adapted rather well, rather too well, and it was disconcerting to think that they’d picked her rather than some whacko. How did they know she was safe and would take care of them?

“Okay, then,” she said, managing to stuff all of her questions away in a corner of her brain. “There are clean washcloths and towels in that cupboard to the left of the sink, and shampoo and stuff under the sink, if you need it. And if you need anything, I’ll be just down the hall, okay?” She pointed behind her.

“Thanks, Aunt Sissy,” he said, those eyes more green in the almost darkness of the nearly closed door.

“Why do you call me Aunt Sissy, anyway?” she asked, thinking she could get some information out of him that might help her fix him and his brother in her mind where they made more sense.

He shrugged, flicking his eyes in the direction of his brother, who was still brushing his teeth. Then he looked at her again, his head angled towards his shoulder. And then she got another smile, this one that lit the lights in his eyes and his face and made her wonder how few people got the smile she was seeing now. “I dunno, you kinda look like an Aunt Sissy. And Sammy had a feeling, you know, that you would be okay with us.”

“Well,” she said, “he picked right, this time, but you boys should be more careful about going with strangers. There’s a lot of evil out there, Dean, and you have to be careful. You know?”

There was a long darkness in his eyes as he looked at her now, which made him look years older and far sadder than any eleven year old should be. And behind the expression seemed to be all manner of things that he wanted to say to her, now, in the partially darkened doorway. But habit, or perhaps the influence of a currently-absent father, kept him from uttering a word.

“Okay, Aunt Sissy, we’ll be careful. Honest.”

He started to close the door and she let him, looking at the whiteness of the wood and reminding herself that this was why she was not a parent. There was simply too much you could not do for people, and especially kids. She just hoped the dad called and soon. Whatever was going on with the Winchesters, it was beyond her to help.

She walked back down the hall as she heard the shower start up and thought that she might sit in the soft green easy chair in her room and make some notes about tigers that had been floating in her head for the past few hours. It was far too late, and she was far too tired, to start up the computer at this late hour, and the writing out the notes would settle her nerves. From the shelf, she pulled out a clean, white pad, picked up a pen, and settled herself in the chair. With a flick, she turned on the standing lamp, and, uncapping the pen, began to cover the sheet with her sprawl. As she wrote, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the snow coming down like bits of lace in the streetlight. There was no wind packing the snow up against the condo, but it could turn into a blizzard, even this early in the year. She hoped not, for how would John Winchester come get his boys if the world was packed in snow? Blast that man.

Then she looked up. In the doorway stood Sammy, the blue t-shirt down past his knees, one hand rubbing his eye too fiercely, the tender mouth pulled down in a frown.

“What is it, Sammy?” she asked, getting up, tossing the pen and paper aside. He scared her with how still he was standing there.

“I don’t feel too good, Aunt Sissy, and Dean’s in the shower already. He’s locked the door.”

Oh, lord. A sick child on top of everything else.

“You going to throw up, you think?”

He nodded, hair falling like black ribbons across his eyes. And he looked sad, which just killed her.

“C’mon then,” she said, getting close enough to take his hand. “You can throw up in my bathroom, it’s nice and clean.”

He already had a hand to his mouth by the time they made it halfway to the toilet, and she managed to throw up the lid and the seat and guide his head just as the half-digested macaroni and cheese and ice cream (chocolate) came pouring out of him. This was her fault, she knew it, letting him eat that much and that fast on an empty stomach. As she helped Sammy kneel down and pulled his hair back from his face, she just hoped that Dean’s stomach was not as delicate. Or that he had enough sense and could throw up by himself.

She could feel Sammy shaking under his hands and realized that the little sounds he was making was because he was crying as he threw up. He looked up at her, tears and snot tracking his face, and she reached up to grab the hand towel to wipe his face with when more stuff came out of his mouth. Barely able to help him aim, some of it got on his shirt, and as he plucked at it, he smacked his head on the porcelain.

“Sammy,” she said, “Sammy, it’s okay, it’s okay.” His face was hot where she touched him, and she knew she had to help him cool down so that he would calm down and finish throwing up and get it over with. With another grab, she got a clean washcloth, and as she got up, she tipped the handle to flush the sick away. Running cold water over the cloth as fast as she could, she realized her hands were shaking.

When she knelt back down beside Sammy, she made herself take a deep breath.

“Sammy,” she said, wiping the back of his neck with the cool cloth, “people throw up all the time, it’s okay.”

He was trying to nod and, hoping he was done throwing up, she tipped his head back and wiped his face. Slowly, the way her mother used to do with her when she threw up. Then, turning the cloth around, wiped his face again. Slowly. Then his neck.

“Okay?” she asked. “Better, Sammy?”

Nodding, he swallowed, and when she pulled him to his feet, he did not resist. Then she flushed the toilet again for good measure, and spread the used washcloth on the rack.

“This shirt has barf on it,” said Sammy, looking at her as if it were her fault. Damp hair curled around his ears, making little horns that stuck out.

“Well, I have plenty of others, so just come with me.”

She took his hand and led him out of the bathroom. She let go of him long enough to dig and came up with the purple shirt with the whippet on it.

“This is going to be really big, but it’s got a dog on it, see? And you can keep it, how would you like that?”

Without answering, he peeled off the dirty blue shirt, and let it drop to the floor. She picked it up without remarking that this was not a hotel, and tossing it over her shoulder, helped him on with the purple one.

“I like dogs,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what Dean told me” she replied, feeling herself smile, even as her racing heart slowed, making her realize how very, very tired she was of babysitting. She tossed the blue shirt in the hamper.

“But here now, we’ll get you something to make your stomach settle down, okay?”

He nodded and followed her into the bathroom, where the medicine cabinet revealed not one but three unopened bottles of the pink stuff, as she liked to call it. She went through times of needing it and then not needing it, and always liked to have plenty on hand. Opening a bottle, she poured out half a capful and handed it to Sammy.

“Drink it up, and if you aren’t asleep in a little while and want more, I’ll give you some, okay?”

Sammy drank it without a single protest.

“Thank you, Aunt Sissy,” he said, handing the now empty cap to her.

She felt herself frowning. Such a polite boy, for one so young. What was he, six? Seven? The seven year olds she knew weren’t that nice.

“Bedtime?”

“Yep.”

She took his hand just as the door to the guest bedroom banged open and the sound of pounding footsteps came at them.

“Sammy?!” This bellowed out as if from the lungs of a grown man.

“In here,” she said, pulling Sammy forward. “Dean?”

Dean appeared around the corner, hair still wet from the shower, his dirty t-shirt sticking to him. Out of breath, wide eyed, and white, like all the blood had been bleached out of him.

“I’m not supposed to let him out of my sight,” he said, his hands reaching out.

“He was here, Dean,” she said, letting go of Sammy. “He was sick and threw up.”

“Mac and cheese,” said Sammy, looking as regretful as a hound dog as he went towards his brother. “An’ ice cream.”

“Gross, Sammy” He socked Sammy in the arm. “Letting someone watch you barf like that? Just gross.”

“Dean!” said Ramona, now shocked.

“People throw up all the time, Dean,” said Sammy, and she could hear him add: Aunt Sissy says so.

Mollified now that his brother was safe, some of the color came back into Dean’s face. “Yeah, but Sammy? He can really hurl when he barfs.”

“Okay, okay.” She’d had enough. She needed a shower herself now, and resolved that she would get the boys into bed, and not think about them until the morning.

No, she would not even wonder if she had enough eggs or oatmeal for them.

“Bedtime, then,” she said, making shooing motions with her hands. And, true to form, Dean took Sammy under his wing and hustled the both of them off to the guest room. She listened for the slamming of the door, and the click of the lights going out, and then went into the bathroom to turn on the shower. She planned to stay under the hottest water for at least half an hour, gas bill be damned.

The shower helped, as did the clean nightgown and the bathrobe that she pulled tight around her waist. She combed out her wet hair, and then went downstairs to check the lock on the back door and window. Then she went to the fireplace and flicked the switch to turn it off. Then she realized there was someone standing by the front door.

It was a man, and he was just closing the door behind him. In one second, she saw that he had boots on, had tramped in snow, had dark hair, and was holding a machete. Her breath left her as she flew down the hall, bare feet not making any traction, reaching for the phone. Thinking that she needed to dial 9-1-1, thinking that she needed to, but that her fingers, suddenly without any feeling at all, couldn’t tell the pound sign from the nine. His boots thudded behind her, and she was grabbed and flung away from the phone. And then backhanded into the wall.

The shock of it stilled her, as her wet hair stuck to her face, as her cheekbone began to sing with the blow, and her mouth filled with an odd coppery taste. Before she could put all of this together, he had shoved her against the wall, and slammed the sheathed machete against her throat.

And there they stood, her head pounding, chin forced up, looking into brown eyes so dark and serious and filled with hate and anger that she couldn’t catch any air in her lungs. She could feel his breath on her neck, the slow drawing of hot solid air and he opened his mouth.

“You tell me where my boys are, or I unsheathe this right through your spine.”

She did not doubt him. Could not, not while he stood so close to her that she could feel his heart pounding against hers. The terrycloth robe was no boundary to the cold night still clinging to his jacket, or the heat of his skin pushing through it. Or of the fury that pulsated all up and down his length.

Maybe it was her stillness. Or maybe it was his awareness that with the sheathe of the machete pressed so hard against her neck, that she could not speak, even if she wanted to. He released the pressure on it, his wrist flexing back, his eyes narrowing for a fraction of a second as he watched her.

“My boys,” he said, his voice sounding like rocks grating on rocks, with a slow push of energy behind it.

A swallow and a gasp, and she made herself look at him.

“They are upstairs,” she said, somehow feeling that if she said the slightest thing wrong, he would be covering the wall behind her with blood and feel no remorse for it. “In bed, asleep.”

In his eyes, then, she saw something that told her that she wasn’t going to die. It wasn’t that he relaxed, or pulled away, or dropped the machete. No, it was in his eyes, still brown and dark and angry, but the hate was gone, rather like a layer of dirt and grit had been washed away. A muscle moved in his jaw, and then he blinked.

“Talk to me.”

She had to swallow again, and wished he would take the machete away.

“Social Services kept calling this number,” she said. “I tried calling them back, but they were always busy. So I went down there, and they somehow seemed to feel I should take the boys, or else-”

“Foster care,” he said. It was almost a grunt. “That’s the usual drill.”

Not allowing herself to agree wholeheartedly with him, nor launch into a lecture about the way to keep Social Services out of your business, she nodded.

“And then Dean-”

Something in his eyes flickered, and it stopped her. In that second, when she mentioned the boy’s name, the anger went away, replaced by something, some light, so incredibly soft, she wanted to reach into his eyes and touch it, as though it were made of brown velvet.

“Dean, well, he called me his Aunt Sissy, and, well, they thought your boys belonged to me. I had to take them,” she added, “or they would have been separated.”

“Aunt Sissy?” asked the man, who she belatedly realized was John Winchester, and somehow, it explained a whole lot about the pictures in the motel room to have him come in like this. Like one of those survivalists she read about, armed to the teeth and on fire with purpose. He was almost smiling.

“Yeah, he said-” Then she stopped. “Who is Aunt Sissy?”

“Aunt Sissy is you,” he said, dropping the machete and turning to put it on the kitchen counter. Then he turned back to her, and she saw, as his protective wall dropped away, how tired he was. “Aunt Sissy is the woman on the street who will give you directions when you ask her. She’s the nice lady in the nice coat who is safe to go to when you need help. When you’re seven or ten and your dad is…busy. I taught them that.” There was an appeal in those eyes now, and a flicker of a shrug that reminded her of Dean. Then he ran his hand through his dark hair, stirring it up like witchweed, and it curled around his ears exactly like Sammy’s did.

“Mr. Winchester,” she said, ducking her head so she could look up into his face. “Your boys are safe, as safe as I could make them.”

It was almost the wrong thing to say. His hands balled into fists and she thought he was going to hit her again. The way his mouth turned down in a frown and the darkness came back into his eyes made her sure of it. Then he looked at her and stilled, suddenly, and she realized that she’d made a sound and clutched the bathrobe closer to herself. There was the ice of fear in her chest and she knew, knew that he could whip the machete out of its case faster than she could track it and cut her open with one hand. He could, if he wanted to. And he still might. Still might.

But it was not at her this anger was drawn. No, he turned away, away from her, from the machete on the kitchen counter. Tramping melting snow across her living room carpet, those jacketed shoulders broad, fists at his sides. Looking at the ceiling as if looking for an answer there. Then he turned back to her, scrubbing both eyes with the heels of his palms, and she caught it in that second, what had upset him. A good father did not leave his children in the care of strangers. It would almost have been easier for John Winchester, she guessed, if she’d been mean to his kids. Or careless with them and lost them along the way. Then he’d have something to get mad about, someone to take it out on. As it was, she was Aunt Sissy, the nice lady in the nice coat and she had played her role well. His anger had no where to go but in. She watched as he shoved it down.

Then he looked up at her, those dark eyes soft, through dark lashes, and he did his best to smile. There were crinkles next to his eyes as he did this, and a flash of good, strong teeth.

“Thank you, Aunt Sissy. I’ll get them, and we’ll go, if you’ll show me where they are.” His voice was whisky-soft.

She opened her mouth a little way, not really sure why she was going to say no, when he stopped her. Hand up, palm flat.

“We’ve been enough trouble. We’ve got beds aplenty back at the motel, so-”

“Mr. Winchester,” she said now, her voice sounding crisp against the softness of his. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s late. And it’s snowing. And this is Colorado, and you don’t mess around with weather like this. You can sleep on the couch. And your boys can sleep until morning.”

This took him aback, she could tell, his brow furrowing as he considered this.

“Evidently,” she continued, taking advantage of her upper hand, “they didn’t have lunch today, because Sammy said he was bad, and Dean had a fight with the lunch lady about it, so, well, Sammy threw up everything I fed him, and Dean insisted on sleeping in all his clothes. I think they could use some uninterrupted sleep right about now, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Sammy threw up?” This burst out of him. “Is he okay?”

She nodded. “Just too much food, too fast. Homemade macaroni and cheese, and several helpings too many.”

“Ah,” said John Winchester, in a way that told her he was quite familiar with his son’s preferences. “By scratch, that’s what he likes.” He was smiling to himself now as he said it, and she could see that, without the machete in his hand or the dangerous fire in his eyes, he was a very good-looking man with a dark, Heathcliff air about him. Still unsettling to have in her living room, but something in her gut told her that since she’d taken care of his boys, he would not hurt her. Why she would consider allowing him to stay after he’d struck and then threatened her was another mystery.

As if reading her mind, he came close, closing the distance between them in two strides. She backed up, holding up her hand, wanting him to stay away. Allowing for his love of his sons was not the same thing as wanting him near her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean-” He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers against his palms. Considered them for a moment. She heard him breathe in and out slowly. “I was scared for my boys. I shouldn’t have hit you, that was wrong.”

She waited for him to continue, to tell her that threatening her with a deadly weapon was wrong too, until she realized, in the ensuing silence that, in John Winchester’s world, he’d used the force that needed to be used. And would do so again, were the circumstances to warrant it.

“Thank you, Mr. Winchester-”

“John.”

“Thank you, John, for saying that, but now, since you are sleeping on my couch, you will need to take off your boots before you track any more snow into my house.”

Ramona watched as this worked its way behind his eyes. She folded her arms across her chest, and tried to look stern. “And put them on the foyer, if you will. This is not a hotel, you know.”

Now he was laughing under his breath as he sat on the couch and did as he was asked. It occurred to her for a second that his pants were awfully dirty and that her living room couch was awfully pale, even after all these years. In the grand schemes, it didn’t matter, and she knew it, so she kept her mouth shut.

“Jacket,” she said when he was done.

He stood up to take it off and when he looked for somewhere to put it, she led the way into the kitchen. To the chairs around the farm table where the boys shoes and coats were draped. As he looked at them, he frowned again and she figured he was being washed with yet more guilt.

“Can I see them?”

Of course he would want to check on the boys, as any parent would. She nodded and gestured to the stairs. Waited for him to proceed her, and followed him up.

“Through that door,” she said.

He opened it slowly and from the light in the hallway, they could see both boys were asleep, Sammy curled under the covers on the outside of the bed, and Dean on top of the covers on the inside, flat on his back. Without a sound, John moved forward towards them, touching each of them on the forehead, pushing Sammy’s hair back. Moving his thumb along Dean’s jaw. As gently as any mother with her child. Then he turned to her.

“You are right to let them sleep.” He came out of the room and closed the door behind him.

“John, are you hungry?” she said in reply, swallowing the lump in her throat.

The question was ordinary, even if the circumstances were not. She could count the years since she’d last had a man in her place overnight, not so long ago, but long enough. And surely not a man such as this. Whose solid neck pushed past the collar of his flannel shirt. Whose five o’clock shadow only added to the firm line of his jaw. And that smile. Lord. Now she knew where Dean got it from.

“Got any more mac and cheese?”

“By scratch, sure. A whole bowlful.”

She led him downstairs and made him sit at the table and heated the meal up for him, part of her wondering what she was going to tell her mother about this, if anything. Then she served him everything his boys had had, including the glass of milk, and sat down to keep him company, leaning her head on her hand. In the single light of the kitchen, with the snow falling outside, a little wind whisking it up to the glass, her stomach began to settle down. Finally. She might need some pink stuff for herself later, but for now, it was good. There was a man at her table, enjoying his meal, his hand curled in a fist around his fork, the other hand balanced against his thigh. Ready for whatever. Just like his boys.

Thinking to catch him while he ate, she asked the question again.

“So just what is it you hunt, John Winchester?”

“Evil,” he said, and then she saw the tightening of his face at the slip.

“Evil?”

“Forget I said that.”

“Too late,” she said. “And just sos you know, your boys didn’t reveal as much as you just now did.”

His mouth laughed at that, even if his eyes didn’t. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do.” She reached up to push her almost-dry hair back from her face. Patted the sore spot on her cheek. “I really do. Besides, I think you owe me.”

“Owe you?”

“I picked up your boys, and took them out of that hell hole. I held Sammy’s head while he threw up. I didn’t shove Dean away when he slipped his hand into mine and called me his Aunt Sissy.”

“He’s a flirt, that one.”

“Don’t change the subject. Just give me the basics. What is with you Winchesters?”

He answered her with silence, but continued to eat, and she got the feeling he was trying to formulate what to say. She watched the line of his jaw as he chewed. Finally, he laid down his fork, took a last swallow of milk, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He saw her watching him, and then dipped his head in apology.

“Sorry. Sometimes I forget about napkins.”

Ramona nodded in response. Sometimes she forgot about them, too.

“So?”

“So.” He pushed away his plate with his hands, and then folded them together on the table. “Here it is. I hunt evil. I hunt evil that hides under the bed, and in the closet, and on the roads. I hunt evil that takes the form of nightmares and dark legends. I hunt what scares us.”

It was like a story, one that he knew well, and that she didn’t. Because of that, he was leaving information out, crucial bits that would pull his story together.

“For example?”

John Winchester took a deep breath as though he were uncomfortable with her question. Or, perhaps, because he was searching for a perfect way to tell her.

“Okay. You know that fear you had as a kid that there was someone in your room, coming to get you while you were in bed at night?”

She thought back. Yes, she had had a fear like that, about a creepy old guy dressed in black who was just waiting for her to drop her guard. It was odd, though, to be thinking about it as an adult, even though the hour was late. What was odder still was the fact that the man sitting next to her was waiting with a serious expression on his face for her answer.

“Yeah, I remember. It was an old guy, dressed in black. He used to stand there at the end of my bed.”

“Him, right. Well, he’s real, and he hunts kids. Sucks the life right out of them. That’s what I was hunting. I couldn’t catch him.”

“You’re talking about it like it’s real.”

“It is real. Just ask Dean. He tried to shoot at the thing and couldn’t. I dragged the boys here, to get them out of the way, tried to go back and get it, but, well, I couldn’t find it. It went into hiding.”

The words came out of his mouth in a rush, as though he’d been holding them back for some time, and couldn’t stand the taste of them anymore.

“That can’t be possible.” She was sure of this, as she got up to clear away the plates and bowls. Her kitchen was a disaster area, but as she stood in it and looked across the counter at the back of John’s head, she knew he believed in what he was saying, even if she couldn’t. And if he did, his boys did.

“So what about your kids. Do you drag them hither and yon hunting this thing?”

“No.” His voice was tight. “Not anymore. I’m keeping them well away from that one.”

“What don’t you keep them away from?”

He got up and picked up his glass and the bowl of leftover green beans. There was an almost apologetic look on his face as he took in the spread of dishes on her countertop.

“I’ll help you with this,” he said.

She waved her hand over it as if she could make it all disappear with a magic spell. “Never mind that. Are you telling me that there’s more than one evil thing out there, stalking us all?” As she asked this, she realized she had just discounted the warning she’d given Dean earlier that night, because if he was hunting with his father, then he couldn’t be careful. Couldn’t avoid evil.

“Yeah. Too many to count.”

The moment between them was still. So still, she could hear the snow falling against the window and the beat of her own heart. And in John’s eyes she could almost see a reflection of herself as he looked at her and asked her, without words, to believe him. But she couldn’t. Still, in true writer fashion, she could keep asking.

“Everything else being what?” she asked.” Her breath left her in a rush.

“Well, like everything,” he said, stepping away to lift the lace panels alongside the back door to look out at the patio. It was something to do, she realized. He needed something to do with his hands.

“Like what?”

There was another long pause. Instead of answering, he finished clearing off the table, and she thought about making some tea, and then decided against it.

“Why don’t we sit in the living room,” she said. She led the way towards the couch, flicking the fireplace on as she passed it. Then she sat on the couch, tucking her legs up under her, and motioned for him to sit at the other end.

“Should I turn off the lights so we can see the flames better?” he asked.

“If you like.”

He turned off all the lights but the one over the stove in the kitchen. The fireplace now glowed bright. On socked feet, he padded back over to sit on the couch, and in the flicker of the gas flames, she could see the gleam in his eye.

“You’ve been waiting to tell someone this, haven’t you.”

She heard his low laugh. “Yeah. I’ve told a few people. They seem to believe me. Some have even joined in the hunt.”

“Hunt for what?”

Another pause followed that question, and she turned to lean her head on her hand and stare at the fire as if she had all the time in the world. After interviewing so many people she’d learned that sometimes, you just had to let the story come out the way it would. You couldn’t force it.

“You know that house that every town has?”

“Which house?”

“The house that’s just plain bad. It looks bad, it feels bad. You don’t even want to walk past it. Every town has that house. Well, I go into that house and get whatever’s bad out of it.”

“Whatever’s bad being….”

“Oh, a ghost maybe, or some unclaimed spirit. Sometimes it’s an entity, or ghoul of some sort. I go in and get it. I kill it.”

“You kill it? How on earth do you kill a ghost?”

“I find the body. I salt and burn the bones. I put it to rest.”

In the silence he said, “I see you shaking your head.”

“Well. It is rather hard to take this all in.”

“Okay, then, here’s another one. You know the story of the troll under the bridge that can take people and keep them. Well, trolls are real, and you can get rid of them.”

“Trolls? Aren’t they Norwegian or something?”

“Oh, no. They’ve got ‘em here too. They come out at night and steal your breath away. Like, in California, they call them colupes.”

“This is weird. Look, you could give me examples all night, and I’m still not going to believe you.”

Out of Harm's Way - Part 3