The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep
9. A Glimpse Beyond This Illusion
Within two hours of Hudak's call, the woods are swarming with local deputies, and a couple of FBI suits from the field office in Duluth have penciled her in for a debrief back in Hibbing when they hit town. She needs a shower, a drink and some sort of memory-zapping laser beam to the brain, stat, to put all of this behind her, because for as long as she lives she never wants to revisit this day.
She lost sight of Sam in the melee: has no idea where he is. She feels responsible for him, wants to be there for him. But doesn't want to be.
In fact, she never wants to see him again, never wants to have to mouth the usual platitudes. Never wants to have to look into his eyes and see that expression of all hope finally lost, of Sam Winchester finally lost. Wants to just close this out now and move on to the new place. Because it's a clusterfuck, is what it is. For the official record, Dean Winchester was deceased before he even arrived in Hibbing. For the official record, it can't be his leg forensics are drooling over, it's a generic leg, an orphan leg.
For the official record, Dean and Sam Winchester were never here.
So when Matty Paulson tells Hudak he saw her cousin catch a ride back into Hibbing with Clay Nordstrom, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders. Time to regroup before picking up the pieces. And when she finally catches her own ride back just ahead of dawn, and finds Sam, his gear, and his car gone, she doesn't know whether she feels regret or relief.
Two days later Hudak gets away from it all, takes some personal time she's owed because she damn well deserves it. She flies down to the Florida Keys for ten days, marvels at the sun and the heat, ponders the wisdom of freezing her ass off above the Mason Dixon line when she could be broiling away her days at the beach.
They move on every day, further and further into the woods.
Gabe finds that he's able to shuffle around their campsites now, albeit painfully, once Lee helps him down from the back of the cart. But the leg has an irritating habit of abruptly giving way under him every so often, and when that happens he lies where he falls, panting away the pain for a half-hour at a time, while Missy steps over him. He has trained himself to twist in mid-air when it happens, so his back bears the brunt of it as he falls to earth, the one time he crashed onto his splinted wrist being one time too many and sending him back to his blanket where he shivered in agony all night.
And standing on his hindlegs is what he's doing right now, rubbing his thigh as the damaged skin and muscle scream their protest, tears welling up from the blistering pain, cussing under his breath despite the black looks Missy is throwing his way.
"We don't cuss," she warns. "We's Godfearing folk, Gabe, and if Pa heard you cussin' like that, he'd have your hide."
"Yeah, well fuck Dad and the horse he rode in on," Gabe says dryly, not really caring that he's speaking ill of the dead because he just can't think of his dad in those terms. And also not really caring that Missy is likely to kick his bad leg out from under him, or worse, whack it with a stick, and have him begging for mercy at any minute. "Anyway, Dad cussed all the time. I learned cussin' from Dad. He was the past fuckin' master of cussin', he wrote the fuckin' book on it."
Gabe slashes at thin air with his good hand to ram home his point, eases himself to the ground, lathers up his rapidly diminishing bar of soap in the bowl of hot water Missy has set down for him and shaves as accurately as he can with a Bowie and no mirror. Missy isn't best pleased with him, he can tell, even though he's been taking his medicine every morning and not complaining about it even once. She keeps on at him to eat more, near bites his head off, in fact, with every half-full can of food he gives to the dog to finish. But he has no appetite, truth to tell, and even the few mouthfuls he eats have to be forced down.
Missy is unsettling him to be honest, one minute treating him as if he just stepped off a cloud complete with harp and halo, the next as if he's lower down the chain of command than the dog. Her spite takes his breath away and yet there are times when she sits so closely, stares so intensely, caresses so meaningfully, that it has him floundering for the right thing to say, to do, to think.
He can damn well do without her sheer malevolence, but when she swings the other way there's something disturbing underlying her zeal, something just… wrong. He can't figure what it is about her, about him - she sure isn't like that with Lee - wonders if she has always been like this, can't really remember; finds his head is so befogged all the time that when he tries to really analyze why her behavior bewilders him he ends up mystified, stupefied and sometimes mortified when he thinks too hard on why she sometimes seems to devour him with her eyes, wraps herself around him so possessively in sleep. His inner voice is no help, seems to constantly mouth a stream of expletives in regard to Missy's fervor, to the extent that even Gabe is appalled at InnerGabe's foul tongue. He tries to sit closer to Lee, turns towards his brother in sleep, feeling somehow more easy with him, more relaxed, more natural. When he asks Lee about her, Lee just chuckles and says Missy sure does love her brothers.
And Gabe feels useless. He knows he should be out hunting with his brother. Lee has disappeared the last three afternoons and not been back until Gabe woke the next morning. His absence makes for little respite from Missy's diligent attention, although this morning when he woke even Missy was gone, leaving Sam to watch him. The sun was pretty high when they turned up, and Lee was jumpy, mean. He's been that way a couple of days now, tense, easily startled, snapping at Gabe and Missy for no reason. One time he even cuffed Missy straight down on to her ass. Gabe thinks it might be the first time he's ever seen her at a total loss.
Lee's staring into his coffee now, deep in thought and ignoring the bickering as Gabe carefully lowers himself down to sit opposite, kneading his torn-up leg hard with his right hand. He's feeling less cranky now, the familiar mild lethargy creeping up as the meds take hold, hospital-grade, dude!, InnerGabe keeps crowing. Sweet!
"Tell me about the hunt, Lee?" Gabe says cautiously, not really knowing whether he'll get an easy grin or a scowl in return, more and more expecting the kind of slap around the head that knocked Missy flat. But Lee's in a good mood, eager to boast about his latest exploits in the field.
"Boy you shoulda been there, Gabe," he says, nodding his head with the gravity of it all. "That pig was just goin' about his business, he didn't have a clue. And I watched him real close, and I shadowed him and when he was least expectin' it there I was, had my gun aimed right between his eyes…"
Gabe shivers with delicious anticipation.
"And that pig, he stared right at me, Gabe. And I could tell he was jus' beggin' me, let me go, mister! I been good! I ain't done nothin'!" Lee stops, his eyes alight, and he licks his lips, his tongue reptilian. "And there ain't nothin' like it, that feelin' of knowin' you hold the power over life and death. And I took that pig down right there where he stood. And I felt powerful alive. Powerful alive."
Gabe's hands, fisted with tension, slowly relax, and he breathes out. He knows that feeling. "I miss the hunt, Lee," he murmurs. "I should be out there hunting down those sonsofbitches, running them into the ground, putting them down. I miss it."
Lee nods, sympathetic. "Leg's gettin' better all the time, Gabe. Soon be takin' you out with me, boy. You'll get to hunt them pigs real soon now."
Gabe's mind races through all the hunts he's been on with his brother, a confusing jumble of images and emotions, seizes on one. "Like Blackwater Ridge," he recalls wistfully. "That time Dad sent us after that wendigo up there… jeez, that was some ride, and those woods… fuck. Woods like the fuckin' X-Files, like these woods. And man, that thing, it was huge, and when it grabbed me and that Haley chick, I thought I was totally fuc-"
He flies backwards, the world spinning madly for a few seconds before he's hauled up by the scruff and his brother's massive fist clubs him to semi-consciousness with just one blow. Lee is screaming right into his face, shaking him until his teeth rattle.
"What the fuck you talkin' about, boy? What the fuck you talkin' about? You and me never been on any hunt like that! You messin' with me? Messin' with my head?"
Gabe can see the blur of Missy racing up behind Lee, tugging hard at his jacket, screaming at him to leave Gabe be, you're hurtin' him, and he's vaguely aware of the dog darting back and forth behind them, tail between its legs as it howls in misery. Lee takes Missy by the arm, swings her away and sends her flying to the ground, closes his other hand around Gabe's throat, so it's hard to breathe. Gabe starts to see stars, and Lee sinks his fist into his gut and gives him a kick in the groin for good measure once he crumples, before he stalks back to where his coffee waits.
"Mess with my head… That's whatcha get."
It's not so much the fire in Gabe's gut that keeps him down there with his face in the dirt as much as it is the sheer disbelief, the dumbfounded shock and total lack of comprehension as to why his brother should turn on him like that. Over and above the pain all he can think is why? Why would you do that? You're my brother… why would you do that? I thought I mattered… Missy crabs over and tries to sit him up, rains kisses on his head and chants, don't cry Gabe, don't cry. And it's true: he is crying, and he scrubs angrily at his eyes.
The dog crawls up next to him and Gabe find himself grabbing hold of it for dear life, muttering its name like a mantra, Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam.
Lee drinks his coffee.
Hudak gets back to find the Bender manhunt is still on its backfoot. In fact, the Bender manhunt is slumped on the couch with its feet on the coffee table, nursing a beer and flipping idly through Sports Illustrated while it keeps one eye on the game.
Both Missy and Lee seemingly have vanished without trace and there's no record of old man Bender having owned any cabin up near the lakes. Swenson, not surprisingly, has gotten the hell out of Dodge, so no leads there either - and, natch, another mess for her because if Swenson's involvement ever does come under the microscope so will the little visit Sam Winchester, who was never there in the first place, paid the good doctor to ask about his brother. Who was dead at the time.
Four hikers have been reported missing while she was away.
And another FBI file is waiting on her desk.
No rest for the wicked, she thinks, and she pours herself a cup of coffee so strong she won't sleep for a week and starts reading. About the second set of remains found the day after she headed south, not too far from the generic orphan leg. Female, with belongings and identification close by. Kendall Lang, late of Minneapolis, twenty-eight, married, initial set of remains now believed to be Carson Lang, also of Minneapolis, thirty-one…
Jesus.
Hudak's hands are shaking as she dials the number and races out a torrent of words to the tinny voice on the other end of the call. "Yes, I hope you can… I'm trying to contact a student of yours, a Sam Winchester? Well is it possible for you to leave a message asking him to call me… Deputy Kathleen Hudak, out of Hibbing, Minnesota… my badge number is - oh. He hasn't? Well, is he still registered? Then can you connect me to the Dean, please, it's a police matter…"
She rubs her forehead in despair. "Sam, Sam. Where the hell did you go?"
This pig is real good, Lee thinks again, as he circles up behind it all stealthy like, and finds yet again that the pig ain't where it's supposed to be.
This pig is different. He wonders if the pig knows it's being hunted, if maybe it's even trying to turn the tables on him and hunt him down. "Just try me, fuckin' pig," he breathes. "Try messin' with my head."
And so it's a fruitless hunt that leaves him unsated, jittery. He can't sit still once he gets back to camp but he tries to keep as quiet as he can, tries to avoid waking Missy and Gabe, who sleeps curled up in a ball, hand clutching his belly. In the firelight, Lee can see the side of Gabe's face sports a new blue-black bruise that extends up around his eye socket.
Lee sits, taps his feet, drums his fingers on his knees, endless motion he can't seem to control. He feels like his skin is crawling alive with energy, feels like he needs to howl at the moon. He decides he needs to rest instead, looks over at his brother, Missy up next to him in her usual spot. He stands up, picks his sleeping bag and blanket up off the ground, places them down next to his brother's, lies there next to him, staring at Gabe.
So purty.
Lee is still at last, but only for a few minutes, because he starts to tremble and finds he's wringing his hands. "Gabe," he mutters softly. "I'm sorry, Gabe. I'm sorry."
No reply. His brother's breathing is the deep, leisurely breathing of the drugged.
Red pill breathing.
Lee rolls over, curls himself around Gabe's smaller frame.
Engulfs him.
Missy inches her hands up from under her blankets, presses them tight over her ears. Blocks it out.
…There's a hand clamped over Gabe's mouth and nose and it muffles his frantic, trapped sounds.
He struggles but his limbs are like lead and he's swamped.
And he does the only thing he can: spirits himself away to another time and place, where he and his brother play tag, racing between decades-old wrecked cars stacked three and four high, wild laughter filling his ears…
You're real quiet, Gabe," Lee says. "You sleepin' right, boy?"
Missy looks up, real sharp, alert. Gabe ain't himself this morning. He moves slower, more stiffly, and his hands are still shaking even though his red pill should have calmed him down by now. His eyes, never as bright as when she first saw them, are even duller than they usually are once he starts to relax after his medicine. He doesn't rub his leg and bellyache like he always does once he's on the move; instead he rubs his hand along his brow, over and over, stares down at his boots, his expression vacant.
Lee leans over and pokes him. "Say, Gabe! Whatcha sittin' there all quiet for?"
Gabe looks up real slow, frowns like he's trying to think of something, bites his lip.
"Dunno…" he says slowly, wearily. "Feel tired… hurts… back hurts, inside. Don't think I slept too good…"
"Bad dreams, Gabe," Lee says, staring hard at him. "You was havin' a real doozy when I got in last night. Maybe you need to be takin' another one of them red pills 'fore you bed down at night. Might help you sleep better. Ain't that right Missy?"
Gabe doesn't respond, doesn't even seem to have heard Lee's suggestion.
"I say, ain't that right, Missy!" Lee snaps.
She meets his glare. "Lee, I been thinkin' maybe you need to start takin' them red pills again," she says.
She wins the staring match. Lee looks back to Gabe, discomfited, attempts to hide it by leaning over and tugging at Gabe's sleeve. "Hey Gabe, bet I know what'll cheer you up. How's about you come with me tonight and help me get that pig?"
Missy interjects, witheringly, "Jus' how you gonna manage that, Lee? He can barely walk."
"He can ride one of the mules," Lee says, dismissively. "I know this pig's territory. Gabe can get far enough there on the mule, and I can piggyback you the rest of the way, boy! Then set you down all safe and sound while I show that pig how the Benders does things. How 'bout that!"
Missy has already lost the battle. Gabe's face is brightening up, his eyes coming alive and eager. And Lee likes knowing that he's the reason for that smile.
Lee's as good as his word, solicitous as he loads Gabe up on the mule, makes sure he's sittin' tight up there, boy, marches along at the mule's head as Gabe half-dozes the whole way. He rouses with a jerk as Lee reaches up and supports his slide down off the mule, his heart hammering unaccountably fast in his chest as he comes flush up against his brother during the clumsy descent. Lee doesn't comment, just smiles, drapes Gabe's arm over his shoulder and supports him as they walk further into the trees, then sets him down against a tree.
"You rest easy there, Gabe," Lee says. "That pig's gonna be here snuffling around real soon, and we's gonna take him out the game so fast he won't know what hit him."
"'Kay… good," says Gabe, feeling tired but thinking that he should have a gun, something he can use for killing, thinking he doesn't feel right without his Colt tucked in the back of his jeans.
Lee kneels in front of him and again Gabe gets a strange sense of unease from having him crowding so close.
"Gabe… that hunt you was talkin' about. You wanna tell me about it again now, boy?" Lee asks. His voice is kind, his usual voice, he seems interested now, not mad. But when Gabe opens his mouth to tell him what he remembers of the hunt, that isn't what comes out.
"Lee… I think I must've dreamed that hunt," he says softly. "Things are all mixed up in my head, it isn't right up there. It aches and I think I'm seeing things that aren't there and thinking things that never happened. I don't think I'm right in the head yet."
Lee sucks on a tooth for a minute or two. "Well, I seen that happen before, Gabe," he replies thoughtfully. "Get a tap on the head like you did and you's liable to magic up all sorts o' pictures in there." And he reaches out with a balled fist, bops Gabe gently on the shoulder. "You sit, boy. Relax. Let old Lee git her done."
Lee heads off into the trees and Gabe sits and passes the time imagining his dream car and ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his mind that's telling him he's staked out.
That he's the bait in this hunt.
He may have been born at night but it wasn't last night.
This thing is smarter than most examples of its kind he's encountered over the years, but it isn't as smart as he is. He knows damn well it has circled around behind him but it doesn't have the gray matter to know that he's out-thought it, doubled back around himself and can even now see its shadow, a blacker mass in the darkness, as it squats against the tree, lying in wait.
Why it doesn't react to his presence as he slowly edges towards it is beyond him, but he sure as heck isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wonders if it's sleeping, didn't think they slept unless they were hibernating, but no matter, because it's about to take the nap of all time as he raises up the flare gun and takes aim.
The moon peeps out from behind a cloud. It's not a full moon, but the light it casts is bright enough to throw the shadows off the thing's face.
He stops, looks. He blinks, scrunches his eyes together tight for a second or two. Opens them, takes a step forward, roots out his flashlight and takes a deep breath as he flicks it on and shines it right at the shape.
It jolts awake, cries out in shock and anguish, stares wildly, familiar catlike eyes - one of them puffy and bruised black - huge in a too-sharp face, patchy stubble darkening its jaw, hair in frenzied spikes.
The hunter gapes. "Dean? Dean?"
The boy plainly doesn't know him, there's no recognition in his eyes, only sheer, unadulterated fright, as he presses himself back into the tree.
He crouches, reaches out a placating hand. "Dean, it's me, you know me… take it easy, I'm not gonna hurt you, boy…"
And abruptly the kid's whole manner changes, it's like something clicks in his brain. He still doesn't know him - that much is obvious - but the fear seems to transform into agitation and his eyes look beyond him, into the darkness, before he starts to mutter something over and over, words stumbling over each other so fast the hunter has to strain to hear them.
"Run-run-run-run-run-run-run-"
It's the one word the old man always has obeyed without question.
He wheels, ducks, zig-zags back in the direction he came, hearing crashing noises, the blat of gunfire, something whistling way too close in the dark. He runs and he doesn't stop running until he reaches the trail end where he parked his truck.
And once he's back in his motel room and has downed two fingers of Jack, Bobby Singer calls John Winchester's cellphone.
Next
Within two hours of Hudak's call, the woods are swarming with local deputies, and a couple of FBI suits from the field office in Duluth have penciled her in for a debrief back in Hibbing when they hit town. She needs a shower, a drink and some sort of memory-zapping laser beam to the brain, stat, to put all of this behind her, because for as long as she lives she never wants to revisit this day.
She lost sight of Sam in the melee: has no idea where he is. She feels responsible for him, wants to be there for him. But doesn't want to be.
In fact, she never wants to see him again, never wants to have to mouth the usual platitudes. Never wants to have to look into his eyes and see that expression of all hope finally lost, of Sam Winchester finally lost. Wants to just close this out now and move on to the new place. Because it's a clusterfuck, is what it is. For the official record, Dean Winchester was deceased before he even arrived in Hibbing. For the official record, it can't be his leg forensics are drooling over, it's a generic leg, an orphan leg.
For the official record, Dean and Sam Winchester were never here.
So when Matty Paulson tells Hudak he saw her cousin catch a ride back into Hibbing with Clay Nordstrom, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders. Time to regroup before picking up the pieces. And when she finally catches her own ride back just ahead of dawn, and finds Sam, his gear, and his car gone, she doesn't know whether she feels regret or relief.
Two days later Hudak gets away from it all, takes some personal time she's owed because she damn well deserves it. She flies down to the Florida Keys for ten days, marvels at the sun and the heat, ponders the wisdom of freezing her ass off above the Mason Dixon line when she could be broiling away her days at the beach.
They move on every day, further and further into the woods.
Gabe finds that he's able to shuffle around their campsites now, albeit painfully, once Lee helps him down from the back of the cart. But the leg has an irritating habit of abruptly giving way under him every so often, and when that happens he lies where he falls, panting away the pain for a half-hour at a time, while Missy steps over him. He has trained himself to twist in mid-air when it happens, so his back bears the brunt of it as he falls to earth, the one time he crashed onto his splinted wrist being one time too many and sending him back to his blanket where he shivered in agony all night.
And standing on his hindlegs is what he's doing right now, rubbing his thigh as the damaged skin and muscle scream their protest, tears welling up from the blistering pain, cussing under his breath despite the black looks Missy is throwing his way.
"We don't cuss," she warns. "We's Godfearing folk, Gabe, and if Pa heard you cussin' like that, he'd have your hide."
"Yeah, well fuck Dad and the horse he rode in on," Gabe says dryly, not really caring that he's speaking ill of the dead because he just can't think of his dad in those terms. And also not really caring that Missy is likely to kick his bad leg out from under him, or worse, whack it with a stick, and have him begging for mercy at any minute. "Anyway, Dad cussed all the time. I learned cussin' from Dad. He was the past fuckin' master of cussin', he wrote the fuckin' book on it."
Gabe slashes at thin air with his good hand to ram home his point, eases himself to the ground, lathers up his rapidly diminishing bar of soap in the bowl of hot water Missy has set down for him and shaves as accurately as he can with a Bowie and no mirror. Missy isn't best pleased with him, he can tell, even though he's been taking his medicine every morning and not complaining about it even once. She keeps on at him to eat more, near bites his head off, in fact, with every half-full can of food he gives to the dog to finish. But he has no appetite, truth to tell, and even the few mouthfuls he eats have to be forced down.
Missy is unsettling him to be honest, one minute treating him as if he just stepped off a cloud complete with harp and halo, the next as if he's lower down the chain of command than the dog. Her spite takes his breath away and yet there are times when she sits so closely, stares so intensely, caresses so meaningfully, that it has him floundering for the right thing to say, to do, to think.
He can damn well do without her sheer malevolence, but when she swings the other way there's something disturbing underlying her zeal, something just… wrong. He can't figure what it is about her, about him - she sure isn't like that with Lee - wonders if she has always been like this, can't really remember; finds his head is so befogged all the time that when he tries to really analyze why her behavior bewilders him he ends up mystified, stupefied and sometimes mortified when he thinks too hard on why she sometimes seems to devour him with her eyes, wraps herself around him so possessively in sleep. His inner voice is no help, seems to constantly mouth a stream of expletives in regard to Missy's fervor, to the extent that even Gabe is appalled at InnerGabe's foul tongue. He tries to sit closer to Lee, turns towards his brother in sleep, feeling somehow more easy with him, more relaxed, more natural. When he asks Lee about her, Lee just chuckles and says Missy sure does love her brothers.
And Gabe feels useless. He knows he should be out hunting with his brother. Lee has disappeared the last three afternoons and not been back until Gabe woke the next morning. His absence makes for little respite from Missy's diligent attention, although this morning when he woke even Missy was gone, leaving Sam to watch him. The sun was pretty high when they turned up, and Lee was jumpy, mean. He's been that way a couple of days now, tense, easily startled, snapping at Gabe and Missy for no reason. One time he even cuffed Missy straight down on to her ass. Gabe thinks it might be the first time he's ever seen her at a total loss.
Lee's staring into his coffee now, deep in thought and ignoring the bickering as Gabe carefully lowers himself down to sit opposite, kneading his torn-up leg hard with his right hand. He's feeling less cranky now, the familiar mild lethargy creeping up as the meds take hold, hospital-grade, dude!, InnerGabe keeps crowing. Sweet!
"Tell me about the hunt, Lee?" Gabe says cautiously, not really knowing whether he'll get an easy grin or a scowl in return, more and more expecting the kind of slap around the head that knocked Missy flat. But Lee's in a good mood, eager to boast about his latest exploits in the field.
"Boy you shoulda been there, Gabe," he says, nodding his head with the gravity of it all. "That pig was just goin' about his business, he didn't have a clue. And I watched him real close, and I shadowed him and when he was least expectin' it there I was, had my gun aimed right between his eyes…"
Gabe shivers with delicious anticipation.
"And that pig, he stared right at me, Gabe. And I could tell he was jus' beggin' me, let me go, mister! I been good! I ain't done nothin'!" Lee stops, his eyes alight, and he licks his lips, his tongue reptilian. "And there ain't nothin' like it, that feelin' of knowin' you hold the power over life and death. And I took that pig down right there where he stood. And I felt powerful alive. Powerful alive."
Gabe's hands, fisted with tension, slowly relax, and he breathes out. He knows that feeling. "I miss the hunt, Lee," he murmurs. "I should be out there hunting down those sonsofbitches, running them into the ground, putting them down. I miss it."
Lee nods, sympathetic. "Leg's gettin' better all the time, Gabe. Soon be takin' you out with me, boy. You'll get to hunt them pigs real soon now."
Gabe's mind races through all the hunts he's been on with his brother, a confusing jumble of images and emotions, seizes on one. "Like Blackwater Ridge," he recalls wistfully. "That time Dad sent us after that wendigo up there… jeez, that was some ride, and those woods… fuck. Woods like the fuckin' X-Files, like these woods. And man, that thing, it was huge, and when it grabbed me and that Haley chick, I thought I was totally fuc-"
He flies backwards, the world spinning madly for a few seconds before he's hauled up by the scruff and his brother's massive fist clubs him to semi-consciousness with just one blow. Lee is screaming right into his face, shaking him until his teeth rattle.
"What the fuck you talkin' about, boy? What the fuck you talkin' about? You and me never been on any hunt like that! You messin' with me? Messin' with my head?"
Gabe can see the blur of Missy racing up behind Lee, tugging hard at his jacket, screaming at him to leave Gabe be, you're hurtin' him, and he's vaguely aware of the dog darting back and forth behind them, tail between its legs as it howls in misery. Lee takes Missy by the arm, swings her away and sends her flying to the ground, closes his other hand around Gabe's throat, so it's hard to breathe. Gabe starts to see stars, and Lee sinks his fist into his gut and gives him a kick in the groin for good measure once he crumples, before he stalks back to where his coffee waits.
"Mess with my head… That's whatcha get."
It's not so much the fire in Gabe's gut that keeps him down there with his face in the dirt as much as it is the sheer disbelief, the dumbfounded shock and total lack of comprehension as to why his brother should turn on him like that. Over and above the pain all he can think is why? Why would you do that? You're my brother… why would you do that? I thought I mattered… Missy crabs over and tries to sit him up, rains kisses on his head and chants, don't cry Gabe, don't cry. And it's true: he is crying, and he scrubs angrily at his eyes.
The dog crawls up next to him and Gabe find himself grabbing hold of it for dear life, muttering its name like a mantra, Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam.
Lee drinks his coffee.
Hudak gets back to find the Bender manhunt is still on its backfoot. In fact, the Bender manhunt is slumped on the couch with its feet on the coffee table, nursing a beer and flipping idly through Sports Illustrated while it keeps one eye on the game.
Both Missy and Lee seemingly have vanished without trace and there's no record of old man Bender having owned any cabin up near the lakes. Swenson, not surprisingly, has gotten the hell out of Dodge, so no leads there either - and, natch, another mess for her because if Swenson's involvement ever does come under the microscope so will the little visit Sam Winchester, who was never there in the first place, paid the good doctor to ask about his brother. Who was dead at the time.
Four hikers have been reported missing while she was away.
And another FBI file is waiting on her desk.
No rest for the wicked, she thinks, and she pours herself a cup of coffee so strong she won't sleep for a week and starts reading. About the second set of remains found the day after she headed south, not too far from the generic orphan leg. Female, with belongings and identification close by. Kendall Lang, late of Minneapolis, twenty-eight, married, initial set of remains now believed to be Carson Lang, also of Minneapolis, thirty-one…
Jesus.
Hudak's hands are shaking as she dials the number and races out a torrent of words to the tinny voice on the other end of the call. "Yes, I hope you can… I'm trying to contact a student of yours, a Sam Winchester? Well is it possible for you to leave a message asking him to call me… Deputy Kathleen Hudak, out of Hibbing, Minnesota… my badge number is - oh. He hasn't? Well, is he still registered? Then can you connect me to the Dean, please, it's a police matter…"
She rubs her forehead in despair. "Sam, Sam. Where the hell did you go?"
This pig is real good, Lee thinks again, as he circles up behind it all stealthy like, and finds yet again that the pig ain't where it's supposed to be.
This pig is different. He wonders if the pig knows it's being hunted, if maybe it's even trying to turn the tables on him and hunt him down. "Just try me, fuckin' pig," he breathes. "Try messin' with my head."
And so it's a fruitless hunt that leaves him unsated, jittery. He can't sit still once he gets back to camp but he tries to keep as quiet as he can, tries to avoid waking Missy and Gabe, who sleeps curled up in a ball, hand clutching his belly. In the firelight, Lee can see the side of Gabe's face sports a new blue-black bruise that extends up around his eye socket.
Lee sits, taps his feet, drums his fingers on his knees, endless motion he can't seem to control. He feels like his skin is crawling alive with energy, feels like he needs to howl at the moon. He decides he needs to rest instead, looks over at his brother, Missy up next to him in her usual spot. He stands up, picks his sleeping bag and blanket up off the ground, places them down next to his brother's, lies there next to him, staring at Gabe.
So purty.
Lee is still at last, but only for a few minutes, because he starts to tremble and finds he's wringing his hands. "Gabe," he mutters softly. "I'm sorry, Gabe. I'm sorry."
No reply. His brother's breathing is the deep, leisurely breathing of the drugged.
Red pill breathing.
Lee rolls over, curls himself around Gabe's smaller frame.
Engulfs him.
Missy inches her hands up from under her blankets, presses them tight over her ears. Blocks it out.
…There's a hand clamped over Gabe's mouth and nose and it muffles his frantic, trapped sounds.
He struggles but his limbs are like lead and he's swamped.
And he does the only thing he can: spirits himself away to another time and place, where he and his brother play tag, racing between decades-old wrecked cars stacked three and four high, wild laughter filling his ears…
You're real quiet, Gabe," Lee says. "You sleepin' right, boy?"
Missy looks up, real sharp, alert. Gabe ain't himself this morning. He moves slower, more stiffly, and his hands are still shaking even though his red pill should have calmed him down by now. His eyes, never as bright as when she first saw them, are even duller than they usually are once he starts to relax after his medicine. He doesn't rub his leg and bellyache like he always does once he's on the move; instead he rubs his hand along his brow, over and over, stares down at his boots, his expression vacant.
Lee leans over and pokes him. "Say, Gabe! Whatcha sittin' there all quiet for?"
Gabe looks up real slow, frowns like he's trying to think of something, bites his lip.
"Dunno…" he says slowly, wearily. "Feel tired… hurts… back hurts, inside. Don't think I slept too good…"
"Bad dreams, Gabe," Lee says, staring hard at him. "You was havin' a real doozy when I got in last night. Maybe you need to be takin' another one of them red pills 'fore you bed down at night. Might help you sleep better. Ain't that right Missy?"
Gabe doesn't respond, doesn't even seem to have heard Lee's suggestion.
"I say, ain't that right, Missy!" Lee snaps.
She meets his glare. "Lee, I been thinkin' maybe you need to start takin' them red pills again," she says.
She wins the staring match. Lee looks back to Gabe, discomfited, attempts to hide it by leaning over and tugging at Gabe's sleeve. "Hey Gabe, bet I know what'll cheer you up. How's about you come with me tonight and help me get that pig?"
Missy interjects, witheringly, "Jus' how you gonna manage that, Lee? He can barely walk."
"He can ride one of the mules," Lee says, dismissively. "I know this pig's territory. Gabe can get far enough there on the mule, and I can piggyback you the rest of the way, boy! Then set you down all safe and sound while I show that pig how the Benders does things. How 'bout that!"
Missy has already lost the battle. Gabe's face is brightening up, his eyes coming alive and eager. And Lee likes knowing that he's the reason for that smile.
Lee's as good as his word, solicitous as he loads Gabe up on the mule, makes sure he's sittin' tight up there, boy, marches along at the mule's head as Gabe half-dozes the whole way. He rouses with a jerk as Lee reaches up and supports his slide down off the mule, his heart hammering unaccountably fast in his chest as he comes flush up against his brother during the clumsy descent. Lee doesn't comment, just smiles, drapes Gabe's arm over his shoulder and supports him as they walk further into the trees, then sets him down against a tree.
"You rest easy there, Gabe," Lee says. "That pig's gonna be here snuffling around real soon, and we's gonna take him out the game so fast he won't know what hit him."
"'Kay… good," says Gabe, feeling tired but thinking that he should have a gun, something he can use for killing, thinking he doesn't feel right without his Colt tucked in the back of his jeans.
Lee kneels in front of him and again Gabe gets a strange sense of unease from having him crowding so close.
"Gabe… that hunt you was talkin' about. You wanna tell me about it again now, boy?" Lee asks. His voice is kind, his usual voice, he seems interested now, not mad. But when Gabe opens his mouth to tell him what he remembers of the hunt, that isn't what comes out.
"Lee… I think I must've dreamed that hunt," he says softly. "Things are all mixed up in my head, it isn't right up there. It aches and I think I'm seeing things that aren't there and thinking things that never happened. I don't think I'm right in the head yet."
Lee sucks on a tooth for a minute or two. "Well, I seen that happen before, Gabe," he replies thoughtfully. "Get a tap on the head like you did and you's liable to magic up all sorts o' pictures in there." And he reaches out with a balled fist, bops Gabe gently on the shoulder. "You sit, boy. Relax. Let old Lee git her done."
Lee heads off into the trees and Gabe sits and passes the time imagining his dream car and ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his mind that's telling him he's staked out.
That he's the bait in this hunt.
He may have been born at night but it wasn't last night.
This thing is smarter than most examples of its kind he's encountered over the years, but it isn't as smart as he is. He knows damn well it has circled around behind him but it doesn't have the gray matter to know that he's out-thought it, doubled back around himself and can even now see its shadow, a blacker mass in the darkness, as it squats against the tree, lying in wait.
Why it doesn't react to his presence as he slowly edges towards it is beyond him, but he sure as heck isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wonders if it's sleeping, didn't think they slept unless they were hibernating, but no matter, because it's about to take the nap of all time as he raises up the flare gun and takes aim.
The moon peeps out from behind a cloud. It's not a full moon, but the light it casts is bright enough to throw the shadows off the thing's face.
He stops, looks. He blinks, scrunches his eyes together tight for a second or two. Opens them, takes a step forward, roots out his flashlight and takes a deep breath as he flicks it on and shines it right at the shape.
It jolts awake, cries out in shock and anguish, stares wildly, familiar catlike eyes - one of them puffy and bruised black - huge in a too-sharp face, patchy stubble darkening its jaw, hair in frenzied spikes.
The hunter gapes. "Dean? Dean?"
The boy plainly doesn't know him, there's no recognition in his eyes, only sheer, unadulterated fright, as he presses himself back into the tree.
He crouches, reaches out a placating hand. "Dean, it's me, you know me… take it easy, I'm not gonna hurt you, boy…"
And abruptly the kid's whole manner changes, it's like something clicks in his brain. He still doesn't know him - that much is obvious - but the fear seems to transform into agitation and his eyes look beyond him, into the darkness, before he starts to mutter something over and over, words stumbling over each other so fast the hunter has to strain to hear them.
"Run-run-run-run-run-run-run-"
It's the one word the old man always has obeyed without question.
He wheels, ducks, zig-zags back in the direction he came, hearing crashing noises, the blat of gunfire, something whistling way too close in the dark. He runs and he doesn't stop running until he reaches the trail end where he parked his truck.
And once he's back in his motel room and has downed two fingers of Jack, Bobby Singer calls John Winchester's cellphone.
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