Spooks and Shotguns: Nightmare
John leaned against the wall, watching his boys sleep on the bed, intertwined as closely as they could. The alcohol he’d nursed a few hours back was blurring the edges of the pain, softening the breathtaking ache in his chest. A long distant part of his mind knew this still wasn’t healthy, that it was wrong to get this drunk when he had the boys to keep an eye on, but the date had snuck up on him, and the gut-wrenching pain and shock when he realized it had made him stutter in his tracks, hand pressed to his chest as his ring glittered in the dusk.
Two years ago, his beautiful bride, the stunning mother of the most amazing kids on the earth, the woman who had shocked him by agreeing to marry a simple mechanic, had been murdered.
He’d known, even as he had stared at her, that this was a nightmare of the worst kind. The kind you can’t wake up from. Everyone had said that he was asleep still, dreaming when it happened, because that sort of thing just didn’t happen. But he’d known what he’d seen, and as much as it had killed him to, they left Lawrence.
Missouri had told him about the darkness. His gut reaction was to run…bundle up his boys, and run to the furthest reaches of the earth. Anything to protect the now-silent toddler and the baby that would never know his mother. Even as the thought had flickered through his brain, though, he’d known it was impossible. Even Missouri had confirmed it.
That thing had killed Mary, and the deepest part of his gut, the one that had never steered him wrong, whispered that it would come for his boys.
He knew the moving was hard on Dean, that the kid didn’t understand what was going on, constant upheaval after four years of steady normalcy, but how do you explain to a kid that you’re moving around because it’s not safe? Because there’s a fucking bull’s-eye on your family?
He snorted in the quiet, scrubbed a hand over his face. The same way you try to explain that Mommy isn’t coming back, trying to explain to a kid that had no closure of any form. Mary had been so burned, so charred that there wasn’t much left after the fire. Not enough for a casket, in any case.
He vaguely remembered the fights with her brother, the screaming matches as John refused to attend the funeral, refused to allow the boys near the mourners. Hell, they’d even fought over the idea of a headstone.
It was stupid to put up some marble, when there wasn’t anything there to mark. Just empty, virgin ground.
No, it was easier to live with the whispers of his ghost-bride, to twist his wedding band, watch her out of the corner of his eye as she frowned at him. Hunt, kill, and keep moving.
That was the only thing left he could offer her.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Previous (Indulge) Home Next: Secrets