The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep
3. The Lost Boys
From his vantage point, Sam sees the man lean down and heft Dean's limp body over one shoulder before he, the kid, and the dog vanish into the trees on the other side of the river.
And he's frozen in that moment of seeing his brother disappear, even though his mind is bellowing at him to move, move, fucking do something, anything, but just move.
But his body won't obey. It's as if he's rooted to the spot and eons of time pass by… he grows old, long gray hair and beard, leathery skin, clawed fingernails, vines growing up his body, birds nesting in his hair, squirrels gamboling at his feet… because he froze for so long he became a part of this place, a monument to his lost brother. And hikers pass by and point at the local landmark: the boy whose grief turned him to stone.
And then it all just bubbles up and Sam is on his knees, much as Dean - Dean! - had been, God, only twenty minutes ago, retching so hard he knows that any moment now he'll be feeling his balls at the back of his throat. Once done, he collapses in the dirt, fisting great handfuls of soil and dead leaves, slamming his hands on the ground, no, no, no, no.
The sun rises.
Water gurgles.
Trees rustle.
Birds sing.
Insects buzz.
All the sounds of the earth are like music…
Sam wants desperately to believe his brother is calling him, somewhere in his head. Help me! God, somebody help me! Sam! Sam!
And so he picks himself up, and dusts himself down, and starts all over again.
Movement.
Rocking.
The world is upside down and his eyes see the earth streaking past at a terrifying speed.
He can smell the coppery scent of his own blood. He hurts: a screaming burn, like bolts of electricity coursing through his body, please no… not that, not again… His head throbs. Fuckin' Scanners head… explode at any minute… aspirin, dude…
There's someone just there, a hazy image at the furthest reaches of his mind and he's squinting to see who it is, but his eyes don't seem to be working and even though the blur's lips move he can't hear what it's saying. He strains to hear but there is something closer, noise looming up in a cacophony, louder and louder. It distracts him from the blur… who are you? He knows the blur matters in some way. But it hurts to think and when he lets the blur slip away it doesn't hurt so much, so he lets it go and it fades into the distance until it's just a speck on the horizon.
Sam needs to get to the other side of the river and there's no way he can swim it, so he sets off at a steady, energy-conserving trot upstream, hoping to find shallows, a bridge, even one of the cops who should be swarming around the Bender place by now. And somehow finding the very shallows he seeks not ten minutes after he starts out makes it so much worse because if they'd only gone in that direction and crossed there, they might have been able to throw the dogs off the scent for long enough to shimmy up a tree.
Sam carefully picks his way across, because slipping and bashing his brains out won't help, and once he's on the right side Dean's side of the river, he forces himself to stop and think, think beyond the ice-cold fear and burning-hot panic, the dizzying need to find his brother now.
He needs something he can use for killing.
For a long moment, Sam looks downstream. Then he heads into the trees, walks purposefully back towards the Bender farm, his mind feverishly racing through all of the possible eventualities should he walk into the FBI and local law enforcement the deputy spoke of. And then he glances to his left and sees salvation in the shape of the patrol car, abandoned just far enough into the woods to conceal it from any road traffic. Gun, he thinks. In the trunk. And wheels. And he feels a surge of hope that now at least he has a chance to catch up.
He jogs up to the empty car, and his knees almost give way in relief when he sees the keys in the ignition. No need to hotwire, thank fuck. He reaches in through the open door, grabs them, trots around to the trunk, unlocks it… and a screeching whirlwind explodes out of it, ramming into him and knocking him flat on his back while fists flail in his face and feet fly everywhere.
And then, almost immediately, "Sam? Sam Winchester?"
Sam risks peeling his hands away from his face and stares straight up at Deputy Kathleen Hudak, straddling his hips, hair and eyes wild. "They took my brother," he tells her.
And saying it makes it real. And Sam brings his hands up to cover his face again and hollers out his anger and loss.
He isn't moving any more.
But he still hurts, shards of agony shooting up his leg and arm, his head throbbing mercilessly.
He hears voices, cutting in and out, like he's twirling the dial on the car radio, snatches of a conversation interrupted by bursts of static and a sparking throb in his head… pretty bad off… wrap his leg… bleedin' like a stuck pig… messin' up his pants…
And then a face looms right up into his, voice deafening him, booming so loudly in his head he sees stars and whimpers from pain that sizzles every nerve ending.
"What's your name then, boy?"
Someone… someone trying to help him?
"Smm…?" he murmurs, long and slow on the sound, on the sheer effort involved in forming it with dust-dry tongue and lips.
"I said, what's your name?"
"Hrts…" he slurs, as red hot needles pierce his brain. "P-pls… hp… hrts…"
And then they touch his leg and he screams and bucks, and his fingers scrabble at… soil? Leaves? And he floats off on a sea of smarting agony, but even though he knows he must surely be dying, it's not as important as the fact that suddenly hits the microscopic part of his brain that's still lucid.
He doesn't know the answer.
He doesn't know his name.
But suddenly a soft voice is crooning low in his ear.
"Gabriel. Your name is Gabriel. And angels are watching over you, my sweet baby boy…"
Angels are watching over you…
And he drifts off to the soft voice, turning his cheek into the soothing hand.
"It's a bad idea."
Hudak stands her ground even as Sam reaches behind her into the trunk of the patrol car, grips hold of the barrel of what feels like a standard police-issue assault rifle, and finds himself brandishing a shovel.
She gestures in the direction of the farm. "Sam, the FBI-"
"Isn't an option for Dean," he cuts in. "I think you know that." His voice stays level, calm, steady. "Gun. I need a gun. Where's your rifle?"
"Sam, this isn't Detroit," Hudak says patiently, like she's talking to a recalcitrant child. "Nothing happens here…" She trails off and shrugs at the irony. "The only reason I even have the shovel is for roadkill. That's as exciting as it gets around here. Usually."
Sam takes deep, grounding breaths, closes his eyes for a second, then starts walking.
"Wait! Wait a minute! Oh…"
Glancing back, Sam sees the woman sitting down very suddenly on the ground, face distinctly greenish.
He knows she needs his help, that he can't just leave her. Knows what not leaving her means for his brother.
He walks back, grips her upper arm and heaves her to her feet, supporting her as they walk. "Get in the car," he says wearily. "You need a doctor. I'll drive you back into town."
And then all of a sudden she stops in her tracks, says, "Doctor."
"They knocked you out, yes?" Sam says. "You need to get that looked at."
"No! No, I mean yes, yes, they knocked me out," she answers, and then words tumble out of her mouth, fast and urgent. "It's just what you said about the doctor. Listen, these folks keep themselves to themselves, I've never even seen them in town. But there was a bag in the house full of pill bottles, prescriptions…"
Sam doesn't follow, and huh? must be written all over his face, because she rolls her eyes and continues.
"Drugs. Prescriptions. The town doctor must know them." She sees he's unimpressed and huffs at him. "Well it's a start."
It's a reach, is what it is.
But reality bites. Sam feels lost without his brother at his back. He doesn't have a plan, it's years since he really did this, and Dean is the tactician. There really is no hope in Hell that he'll be able to catch them up now. So he helps Hudak into the car, starts the wagon up and reverses slowly out of the woods and onto the trail, even as his gut curls up and every instinct screams at him that he's abandoning his brother.
"Follow my light. Yes, I've treated the Bender boy for several years now, Deputy, but I honestly don't think I can help you out here… Any headache? Photosensitivity?"
"Headache, yes. Lights okay. Looked like some pretty heavy-duty meds up at the Bender house, Doc. Tranquilizers. Lithium… isn't that for manic depression?"
Swenson gives Hudak a measured look over the top of his spectacles. "There's a limit to what I can tell you, Deputy. You know that. Patient confidentiality. Ice on the bump and you know the drill: back here if the headache gets worse."
Hudak lays it on the line. "Look, this is going to be on the national news tonight. It's hills-have-eyes stuff. Even if those drugs are legal it's not going to look good if some reporter somewhere gets a sniff of the fact that the town doctor might have known something funny was going on out there."
"That sounds like a threat," the man says, his tone chilly enough to remind Hudak why she drives to Grand Rapids Healthcare any time she needs a medical consult.
"That's because it is a threat," she snaps. "A boy's life is at stake. These monsters have been killing boys up there, including my brother. Do you really want to get sucked into this?"
The man is silent for a minute before exhaling long and slow. "The drugs were for the son. The younger one… Lee, as far as I can remember. He has… psychiatric issues. That's all I can tell you."
Hudak pushes even so. "What could this mean for the boy he took?"
Swenson frowns. "Well, his mood is controlled by the meds. He always seemed docile when I saw him. But he needs to take the meds… the old man was pretty good at making sure that happened."
Joining the line to the next dot, Hudak asks, "And what if he doesn't take the meds?"
"His mood will cycle up and down," Swenson concedes. "He'll be anxious, irritable, potentially aggressive… his sex drive might increase."
"God." Hudak abruptly rises to her feet. "Lee has taken this boy, Doc… you need to level with me on this. Does he have any homosexual tendencies that you know of?"
The doctor stares back at her for a minute, his expression gone thoughtful before he responds.
"None that I know of."
Sam jumps up as Hudak exits the exam room, and she motions him along with her. He sees that she seems agitated, tense, her manner urgent. She strides ahead of him down the gravel path to the patrol car, scraping her hair back into an untidy bun as she walks, stifling a curse as the goose egg on the back of her head makes itself known. Once in the car and moving, she executes a swift u-turn that takes them up the main street.
"What did he say?" Sam demands. "Where are we going? What did he say?"
Her voice betrays no emotion. "We need to find your brother as soon as possible, Sam. And you need to stay calm for this."
"Stay calm for what?" Sam snaps. "What? What did he tell you?"
"The meds were the son's. If he isn't taking them it could get nasty."
And as Sam wonders how the heck the Bender son could be any nastier than he already is, she pulls up onto the driveway of a small clapboard house, pretty, gables, tree in the front yard. "What are we doing here?" he asks.
"We need guns," she says, slamming out of the car. "And supplies."
Swenson watches the patrol car roll away up the street.
He locks the office door, lowers the blind, picks up the plastic tray sitting on the gurney and walks through into the back of the house.
He opens the door into the garage. "What the fuck did you bring him here for?" he hisses.
Lee isn't used to this kind of anger, and he gapes. "Mikey, are you mad at me? You want me to make you feel all happy again?"
Swenson ignores him, walks around to the bed of the truck. The kid is a mess of ripped clothes and shredded flesh, but he's beautiful under the dirt and blood. What a waste, he thinks.
"He's my new brother," Lee says proudly as he hovers at Swenson's shoulder. "Purty, ain't he? Name's Gabe. We're gonna have fun together. Maybe you and him can be buddies too, Mikey?"
His face is open, trusting, and Swenson takes deep breaths and forces it back down, no time for those particular urges, got to get them out of here in case the deputy comes back. He concentrates on the matter at hand, ripping the denim, sloshing peroxide over the bites. They go down to the bone. For all his unholy habits, Swenson appreciates the perfect machine that is the human body, doesn't like to see it ripped asunder in this way. "Christ, you need to control those dogs," he grates out. "This is a mess."
No time for sutures, he patches it all up with butterfly stitches, knowing they'll be only fractionally better than useless. The boy twitches and moans feebly as he works, his undamaged hand raised up in front of him and fluttering back and forth as if he's trying to push something away: a defensive measure against pain that registers even though he's deeply unconscious.
The boy's left forearm is little better: broken bone poking through rended flesh. Swenson sets it, glances at his wristwatch - no time for a cast. He splints it, swiftly bandages it and the leg. As he finishes off, the creepy kid sister appears from nowhere, picks up a faded old pair of army combat pants Swenson keeps in the garage for yardwork.
"I'm taking these for Gabriel," she says, in a monotone. "His got all spoiled."
Swenson glances at her, back down at the boy. "You should leave him here. He's badly injured and the sheriff knows you have him. He'll slow you down." She stares him out through eyes that know too much, and he folds first and breaks her gaze.
"He needs some medicine," she snaps, and for the first time Swenson notices that she's hefting a rifle, part hidden behind her dress.
"He won't last out there in the woods," he says.
"You give us the medicine. Gabe'll be fine. I'll take real good care of him," she says, raises the rifle slightly.
And now Swenson just wants them out of his garage, stat. So he fetches a few blister packs of antibiotics, doesn't protest as the girl starts helping herself to the surplus canned food on the shelves lining the garage walls. Winter is almost over - he can stock up again during the summer.
"I don't need your help, Kathleen," Sam protests weakly, as she loads the duffels into her Jeep. "You could get into trouble-"
"Forget it, Sam. Anyway, I can hunt, track."
He raises an eyebrow.
"Girl scout," she says. "And my dog can sniff out anything."
Sam shivers, glancing over at Hudak's blessedly placid coonhound. "They have a dog. Pitbull. It, um… it attacked my brother."
And it's all coming back to him and he starts to hyperventilate until Hudak slaps him lightly on the cheek. "Snap out of it Sam. We'll shoot the damn thing if it comes anywhere close."
So he isn't alone after all.
They finish loading up, tool down the street, heading back towards the Bender property. And as they pass the doctor's house Sam sees the garage door rise up, a vehicle back out. He squints, cranes his head around to see, and now grabs Hudak's arm, causing the Jeep to zig and zag wildly.
"Fuck! Turn around," he cries. "Turn around! That's them! Pulling away from the doctor's house…"
His heart and his mind race. They were there all the time… he sat in the office and all the time his brother was in the garage, needing help, needing him. He drops his face into his hands and can't even bring himself to see if they're gaining.
He should have known.
He should have sensed it
Next
From his vantage point, Sam sees the man lean down and heft Dean's limp body over one shoulder before he, the kid, and the dog vanish into the trees on the other side of the river.
And he's frozen in that moment of seeing his brother disappear, even though his mind is bellowing at him to move, move, fucking do something, anything, but just move.
But his body won't obey. It's as if he's rooted to the spot and eons of time pass by… he grows old, long gray hair and beard, leathery skin, clawed fingernails, vines growing up his body, birds nesting in his hair, squirrels gamboling at his feet… because he froze for so long he became a part of this place, a monument to his lost brother. And hikers pass by and point at the local landmark: the boy whose grief turned him to stone.
And then it all just bubbles up and Sam is on his knees, much as Dean - Dean! - had been, God, only twenty minutes ago, retching so hard he knows that any moment now he'll be feeling his balls at the back of his throat. Once done, he collapses in the dirt, fisting great handfuls of soil and dead leaves, slamming his hands on the ground, no, no, no, no.
The sun rises.
Water gurgles.
Trees rustle.
Birds sing.
Insects buzz.
All the sounds of the earth are like music…
Sam wants desperately to believe his brother is calling him, somewhere in his head. Help me! God, somebody help me! Sam! Sam!
And so he picks himself up, and dusts himself down, and starts all over again.
Movement.
Rocking.
The world is upside down and his eyes see the earth streaking past at a terrifying speed.
He can smell the coppery scent of his own blood. He hurts: a screaming burn, like bolts of electricity coursing through his body, please no… not that, not again… His head throbs. Fuckin' Scanners head… explode at any minute… aspirin, dude…
There's someone just there, a hazy image at the furthest reaches of his mind and he's squinting to see who it is, but his eyes don't seem to be working and even though the blur's lips move he can't hear what it's saying. He strains to hear but there is something closer, noise looming up in a cacophony, louder and louder. It distracts him from the blur… who are you? He knows the blur matters in some way. But it hurts to think and when he lets the blur slip away it doesn't hurt so much, so he lets it go and it fades into the distance until it's just a speck on the horizon.
Sam needs to get to the other side of the river and there's no way he can swim it, so he sets off at a steady, energy-conserving trot upstream, hoping to find shallows, a bridge, even one of the cops who should be swarming around the Bender place by now. And somehow finding the very shallows he seeks not ten minutes after he starts out makes it so much worse because if they'd only gone in that direction and crossed there, they might have been able to throw the dogs off the scent for long enough to shimmy up a tree.
Sam carefully picks his way across, because slipping and bashing his brains out won't help, and once he's on the right side Dean's side of the river, he forces himself to stop and think, think beyond the ice-cold fear and burning-hot panic, the dizzying need to find his brother now.
He needs something he can use for killing.
For a long moment, Sam looks downstream. Then he heads into the trees, walks purposefully back towards the Bender farm, his mind feverishly racing through all of the possible eventualities should he walk into the FBI and local law enforcement the deputy spoke of. And then he glances to his left and sees salvation in the shape of the patrol car, abandoned just far enough into the woods to conceal it from any road traffic. Gun, he thinks. In the trunk. And wheels. And he feels a surge of hope that now at least he has a chance to catch up.
He jogs up to the empty car, and his knees almost give way in relief when he sees the keys in the ignition. No need to hotwire, thank fuck. He reaches in through the open door, grabs them, trots around to the trunk, unlocks it… and a screeching whirlwind explodes out of it, ramming into him and knocking him flat on his back while fists flail in his face and feet fly everywhere.
And then, almost immediately, "Sam? Sam Winchester?"
Sam risks peeling his hands away from his face and stares straight up at Deputy Kathleen Hudak, straddling his hips, hair and eyes wild. "They took my brother," he tells her.
And saying it makes it real. And Sam brings his hands up to cover his face again and hollers out his anger and loss.
He isn't moving any more.
But he still hurts, shards of agony shooting up his leg and arm, his head throbbing mercilessly.
He hears voices, cutting in and out, like he's twirling the dial on the car radio, snatches of a conversation interrupted by bursts of static and a sparking throb in his head… pretty bad off… wrap his leg… bleedin' like a stuck pig… messin' up his pants…
And then a face looms right up into his, voice deafening him, booming so loudly in his head he sees stars and whimpers from pain that sizzles every nerve ending.
"What's your name then, boy?"
Someone… someone trying to help him?
"Smm…?" he murmurs, long and slow on the sound, on the sheer effort involved in forming it with dust-dry tongue and lips.
"I said, what's your name?"
"Hrts…" he slurs, as red hot needles pierce his brain. "P-pls… hp… hrts…"
And then they touch his leg and he screams and bucks, and his fingers scrabble at… soil? Leaves? And he floats off on a sea of smarting agony, but even though he knows he must surely be dying, it's not as important as the fact that suddenly hits the microscopic part of his brain that's still lucid.
He doesn't know the answer.
He doesn't know his name.
But suddenly a soft voice is crooning low in his ear.
"Gabriel. Your name is Gabriel. And angels are watching over you, my sweet baby boy…"
Angels are watching over you…
And he drifts off to the soft voice, turning his cheek into the soothing hand.
"It's a bad idea."
Hudak stands her ground even as Sam reaches behind her into the trunk of the patrol car, grips hold of the barrel of what feels like a standard police-issue assault rifle, and finds himself brandishing a shovel.
She gestures in the direction of the farm. "Sam, the FBI-"
"Isn't an option for Dean," he cuts in. "I think you know that." His voice stays level, calm, steady. "Gun. I need a gun. Where's your rifle?"
"Sam, this isn't Detroit," Hudak says patiently, like she's talking to a recalcitrant child. "Nothing happens here…" She trails off and shrugs at the irony. "The only reason I even have the shovel is for roadkill. That's as exciting as it gets around here. Usually."
Sam takes deep, grounding breaths, closes his eyes for a second, then starts walking.
"Wait! Wait a minute! Oh…"
Glancing back, Sam sees the woman sitting down very suddenly on the ground, face distinctly greenish.
He knows she needs his help, that he can't just leave her. Knows what not leaving her means for his brother.
He walks back, grips her upper arm and heaves her to her feet, supporting her as they walk. "Get in the car," he says wearily. "You need a doctor. I'll drive you back into town."
And then all of a sudden she stops in her tracks, says, "Doctor."
"They knocked you out, yes?" Sam says. "You need to get that looked at."
"No! No, I mean yes, yes, they knocked me out," she answers, and then words tumble out of her mouth, fast and urgent. "It's just what you said about the doctor. Listen, these folks keep themselves to themselves, I've never even seen them in town. But there was a bag in the house full of pill bottles, prescriptions…"
Sam doesn't follow, and huh? must be written all over his face, because she rolls her eyes and continues.
"Drugs. Prescriptions. The town doctor must know them." She sees he's unimpressed and huffs at him. "Well it's a start."
It's a reach, is what it is.
But reality bites. Sam feels lost without his brother at his back. He doesn't have a plan, it's years since he really did this, and Dean is the tactician. There really is no hope in Hell that he'll be able to catch them up now. So he helps Hudak into the car, starts the wagon up and reverses slowly out of the woods and onto the trail, even as his gut curls up and every instinct screams at him that he's abandoning his brother.
"Follow my light. Yes, I've treated the Bender boy for several years now, Deputy, but I honestly don't think I can help you out here… Any headache? Photosensitivity?"
"Headache, yes. Lights okay. Looked like some pretty heavy-duty meds up at the Bender house, Doc. Tranquilizers. Lithium… isn't that for manic depression?"
Swenson gives Hudak a measured look over the top of his spectacles. "There's a limit to what I can tell you, Deputy. You know that. Patient confidentiality. Ice on the bump and you know the drill: back here if the headache gets worse."
Hudak lays it on the line. "Look, this is going to be on the national news tonight. It's hills-have-eyes stuff. Even if those drugs are legal it's not going to look good if some reporter somewhere gets a sniff of the fact that the town doctor might have known something funny was going on out there."
"That sounds like a threat," the man says, his tone chilly enough to remind Hudak why she drives to Grand Rapids Healthcare any time she needs a medical consult.
"That's because it is a threat," she snaps. "A boy's life is at stake. These monsters have been killing boys up there, including my brother. Do you really want to get sucked into this?"
The man is silent for a minute before exhaling long and slow. "The drugs were for the son. The younger one… Lee, as far as I can remember. He has… psychiatric issues. That's all I can tell you."
Hudak pushes even so. "What could this mean for the boy he took?"
Swenson frowns. "Well, his mood is controlled by the meds. He always seemed docile when I saw him. But he needs to take the meds… the old man was pretty good at making sure that happened."
Joining the line to the next dot, Hudak asks, "And what if he doesn't take the meds?"
"His mood will cycle up and down," Swenson concedes. "He'll be anxious, irritable, potentially aggressive… his sex drive might increase."
"God." Hudak abruptly rises to her feet. "Lee has taken this boy, Doc… you need to level with me on this. Does he have any homosexual tendencies that you know of?"
The doctor stares back at her for a minute, his expression gone thoughtful before he responds.
"None that I know of."
Sam jumps up as Hudak exits the exam room, and she motions him along with her. He sees that she seems agitated, tense, her manner urgent. She strides ahead of him down the gravel path to the patrol car, scraping her hair back into an untidy bun as she walks, stifling a curse as the goose egg on the back of her head makes itself known. Once in the car and moving, she executes a swift u-turn that takes them up the main street.
"What did he say?" Sam demands. "Where are we going? What did he say?"
Her voice betrays no emotion. "We need to find your brother as soon as possible, Sam. And you need to stay calm for this."
"Stay calm for what?" Sam snaps. "What? What did he tell you?"
"The meds were the son's. If he isn't taking them it could get nasty."
And as Sam wonders how the heck the Bender son could be any nastier than he already is, she pulls up onto the driveway of a small clapboard house, pretty, gables, tree in the front yard. "What are we doing here?" he asks.
"We need guns," she says, slamming out of the car. "And supplies."
Swenson watches the patrol car roll away up the street.
He locks the office door, lowers the blind, picks up the plastic tray sitting on the gurney and walks through into the back of the house.
He opens the door into the garage. "What the fuck did you bring him here for?" he hisses.
Lee isn't used to this kind of anger, and he gapes. "Mikey, are you mad at me? You want me to make you feel all happy again?"
Swenson ignores him, walks around to the bed of the truck. The kid is a mess of ripped clothes and shredded flesh, but he's beautiful under the dirt and blood. What a waste, he thinks.
"He's my new brother," Lee says proudly as he hovers at Swenson's shoulder. "Purty, ain't he? Name's Gabe. We're gonna have fun together. Maybe you and him can be buddies too, Mikey?"
His face is open, trusting, and Swenson takes deep breaths and forces it back down, no time for those particular urges, got to get them out of here in case the deputy comes back. He concentrates on the matter at hand, ripping the denim, sloshing peroxide over the bites. They go down to the bone. For all his unholy habits, Swenson appreciates the perfect machine that is the human body, doesn't like to see it ripped asunder in this way. "Christ, you need to control those dogs," he grates out. "This is a mess."
No time for sutures, he patches it all up with butterfly stitches, knowing they'll be only fractionally better than useless. The boy twitches and moans feebly as he works, his undamaged hand raised up in front of him and fluttering back and forth as if he's trying to push something away: a defensive measure against pain that registers even though he's deeply unconscious.
The boy's left forearm is little better: broken bone poking through rended flesh. Swenson sets it, glances at his wristwatch - no time for a cast. He splints it, swiftly bandages it and the leg. As he finishes off, the creepy kid sister appears from nowhere, picks up a faded old pair of army combat pants Swenson keeps in the garage for yardwork.
"I'm taking these for Gabriel," she says, in a monotone. "His got all spoiled."
Swenson glances at her, back down at the boy. "You should leave him here. He's badly injured and the sheriff knows you have him. He'll slow you down." She stares him out through eyes that know too much, and he folds first and breaks her gaze.
"He needs some medicine," she snaps, and for the first time Swenson notices that she's hefting a rifle, part hidden behind her dress.
"He won't last out there in the woods," he says.
"You give us the medicine. Gabe'll be fine. I'll take real good care of him," she says, raises the rifle slightly.
And now Swenson just wants them out of his garage, stat. So he fetches a few blister packs of antibiotics, doesn't protest as the girl starts helping herself to the surplus canned food on the shelves lining the garage walls. Winter is almost over - he can stock up again during the summer.
"I don't need your help, Kathleen," Sam protests weakly, as she loads the duffels into her Jeep. "You could get into trouble-"
"Forget it, Sam. Anyway, I can hunt, track."
He raises an eyebrow.
"Girl scout," she says. "And my dog can sniff out anything."
Sam shivers, glancing over at Hudak's blessedly placid coonhound. "They have a dog. Pitbull. It, um… it attacked my brother."
And it's all coming back to him and he starts to hyperventilate until Hudak slaps him lightly on the cheek. "Snap out of it Sam. We'll shoot the damn thing if it comes anywhere close."
So he isn't alone after all.
They finish loading up, tool down the street, heading back towards the Bender property. And as they pass the doctor's house Sam sees the garage door rise up, a vehicle back out. He squints, cranes his head around to see, and now grabs Hudak's arm, causing the Jeep to zig and zag wildly.
"Fuck! Turn around," he cries. "Turn around! That's them! Pulling away from the doctor's house…"
His heart and his mind race. They were there all the time… he sat in the office and all the time his brother was in the garage, needing help, needing him. He drops his face into his hands and can't even bring himself to see if they're gaining.
He should have known.
He should have sensed it
Next