Conversations With The Dead - Chapter 4
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Bobby Singer - 20th August 1996. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Bobby Singer wasn't the sort to have visitors, save for some folk coming by for scrap or hunters coming by for information. Honestly, he didn't want any. The comfort of his books, his liquor, and his dogs was good enough.
Rumsfeld was only a pup, dumb and energetic, too busy chewing up Bobby's furniture to listen to anything he said. And Marg was an old girl, she was getting on in her life. She moved slowly through the house, rickety old hips weighing her down. Still, she always mustered enough energy to scold Rumsfeld. At least that stupid puppy listened to someone.
The dogs noticed the sound of an engine before Bobby did, and the two of them started barking. Rumsfeld was whipping about madly, scratching at the door, whining to be let out. Bobby sighed and opened the door.
He only knew one car with an engine that sounded like that, and the owner of that car never called before turning up. John Winchester was a stubborn bastard. He and Bobby had had more than their fair share of fights. Did Bobby like John at all? He would if the man would switch his default setting from bad-tempered to reasonable.
Bobby cared. That was the important thing. He constantly worried about John being dumb enough to get himself shredded by something nasty out in the woods and leave his kids all alone. He was even more worried about him putting his kids on the front line, the youngest of the two being only thirteen years old.
A thirteen-year-old boy who'd been missing for two months, snatched out of bed in the middle of the night by God-knows-what.
If John Winchester was showing up at the Salvage yard, it meant one of two things. A) he wanted something, which was never a good thing, and B) he needed something, which was always a terrible thing. When Bobby saw Dean's pale, drawn face through the dashboard window, he began to understand that it must have been B).
The Winchesters had been in and out of Bobby's house for years, right up until Bobby chased John off his property with a shotgun to his back. Still, in the years that he and John were civil, his couch had been bled on by each Winchester. The worst time he remembered was when Sam got his chest slashed by a Black Dog when he was eleven years old. The whole time they stitched the boy up, John and Dean had been blank-faced as if they were playing poker. They were definitely terrified out of their minds, but they never showed it. They just kept quiet.
They looked horrified now and Bobby knew before he even saw that they'd found Sam. The look on Dean's face made Bobby wonder if they had found Sam in one piece.
He waited on the porch and watched John get out of the car and linger by its side, looking for once in his life like he didn't know what to do with himself. Dean was already out and ducking into the backseat. Bobby watched as Sam Winchester was pulled from where he'd been lying in the back of the car.
Dean held him upright and guided him towards the house. It wasn't until they got to the bottom of the porch steps that Bobby noticed the glazed look in Sam's eye.
"Let's get him onto the couch," was all Bobby said, although there was a lot more he'd have liked to say. He allowed Dean past, knowing it was best not to offer a hand. John followed in behind them, looking more tired than a corpse.
Bobby fetched blankets because poor Sam was shivering, even under the oversized sweater he was wearing. Dean helped the kid lie down on the couch and covered him in one of the quilts Bobby's Karen had made a lifetime ago.
He left the kids to it and gestured for John to follow him into the kitchen. He shut the door behind them.
"How'd you find him?" Bobby asked, since John wasn't making any move to explain things.
"He was just there," John said, voice gravelly like he'd smoked twenty cigarettes before he'd gotten to the salvage yard. Maybe he had. "The information you gave us was right. Sam was still at the house. He just came out the front door. I don't know what happened."
"Well, thank God he's alright," Bobby said. He didn't believe in God, and he certainly didn't believe that Sam was alright.
"He hasn't said a damn word, Bobby," John said. And, Jesus, he sounded so helpless. "It's been five days and he hasn't said a thing. He just sits there like he doesn't know where he is, or he fights us like he thinks we're hurting him. I don't even know if he knows we're here."
"The kid's had worse than a shock," Bobby pointed out. "None of us have any clue what happened. I know plenty hunters who crack on the job. Either something gets them or they can't take it anymore. And those are seasoned hunters, John. Sam's just a kid."
John glared at him. "Don't you start with that," he growled. "I don't need this crap from you, not right now."
Bobby thought, if not now, when?
He didn't say it. Instead, he said, "What do you need?"
"Somewhere to stay for a while. Sam needs somewhere to recover. He wasn't managing so well on the road so I thought…"
"A place he already knows might do him good," Bobby finished for him. He turned around and switched on the gas hob, placing a pot over the flame. "I'll fix up some supper. The kid looks like he could use some meat on him."
John grunted and Bobby thought maybe it was his way of saying thank you. When he turned back around, John was gone and the back door was swinging. He watched John disappear into the graveyard of junkers out back, shoulders drawn up tight as he marched, not looking back.
Bobby sighed and went about heating up soup. Back in the study, he found Sam and Dean in the same place he left them. Sam was lying under the quilt, vacant eyes open, staring at a point on the carpet and seeing nothing. Dean sat in a chair beside him, cracking his knuckles distractedly, worrying at his bottom lip, looking at nothing but his brother.
Dean looked up once Bobby was a few steps away and nodded to him, eyes catching sight of the bowl. Quickly, his attention was back to Sam.
"Hey, little brother," he said softly. "Bobby's got something to eat. Let's get you up, huh?"
He gently pulled Sam so that he was sitting upright. Sam folded into whatever position Dean put him in, malleable as putty. Then, Bobby managed to get a better look into Sam's eyes and the emptiness of them. There was no denying that the lights were on but nobody was home.
He let Dean take the bowl of soup from his hands, and swept his gaze over the rest of Sam. There was bruising on his wrists which stood out like smudges of coal against his paper-white skin. The boy was skinny, too. Too skinny to be healthy, that much was clear from the hollow cheeks and stick-thin arms. And the boy's hair, chunks were missing at the front, the scalp looked pink and sore like each strand had been forced out one-by-one.
"Open up, Sammy," Dean said softly, raising a spoonful of tomato soup and blowing gently on it. He eased it against Sam's lips until he opened up. Only half the spoonful made it into Sam's mouth, the rest of it dribbled down his chin.
Bobby watched Dean empty half the bowl until Sam's mouth refused to open anymore, then he watched Dean wipe the dribble from his little brother's chin, looking like he'd done it before a thousand times. And, Bobby thought, he probably had.
Bobby had been a hunter longer than most, and he'd certainly seen more than most, too. He'd seen hunters lose it. He'd seen experienced hunters who'd been slicing off heads for more than a decade take on that one particular hunt and come back from it with most of their screws loose. He'd seen hunters with eyes like Sam's, men who couldn't cope anymore and decided to just… leave.
He'd never seen one of those men come back, either.
That night, he mostly kept to the side-lines, keeping to himself and carrying on like he would. He was an observant man, and he knew when a person needed space. The Winchesters needed space.
Still, Bobby had plenty of things he'd like to have said to John Winchester, but he knew that none of his words would have made Sam any better, so Bobby kept his mouth shut. For now, at least.
No thirteen-year-old boy should have been using weapons or running into burning buildings or seeing the sort of things the Winchester boys saw. And Bobby always kept an eye on his surroundings, he watched people's faces. The last time he'd seen Sam was about a couple of years ago, and even then, Bobby could see how much the boy had hated the life they lived.
It was a damn shame he couldn't escape it.
"Bobby?" he was brought back into the room by Dean's hesitant voice. If that kid was anything, it wasn't hesitant. Dean looked almost as pale as his brother did, tired and worn down enough that it seemed to weigh on his back. He didn't look like that strapping, confident, cunning kid Bobby knew. He looked up at Bobby with an expression that reminded him just how young Dean was. Bobby nodded to show he was listening.
"Sammy's getting tired," Dean said. He had one hand on Sam's shoulder, the younger boy was swaying slighting underneath his grip, eyes drooping.
"We can put him upstairs," Bobby said. He moved forward to help pick Sam up but Dean was already hauling him up into his arms. Bobby didn't say a word, just headed upstairs first to change the dusty sheets on the spare bed. And he waited in the hall while Dean changed Sam into sleep clothes, just because he had to make sure those boys had someone.
He left them up there. Sam's eyes were closed by the time Dean had laid him down, and even though Dean looked dead on his feet Bobby was sure he wasn't going to sleep any time soon. When he got back downstairs, John had made a reappearance, sitting at the desk and drinking some of Bobby's best whiskey.
"I fucked up," was all he said. Bobby couldn't disagree with that so he didn't say anything. John sighed and went on, "I've destroyed him. I ruined my son."
Bobby had to speak up then. "Sam's still alive. He might have left the building but that don't mean he isn't coming back."
"How do you know?" John asked hopelessly.
"Because I know Sam," Bobby said. "And he's a strong kid. Stronger and smarter than any brat I've ever met. Both of your boys are."
"I need help," John admitted, and it was clear it took a lot for him to say those words.
"Here's what you're gonna do," Bobby said. "You're going to sober up, then you're going to go look after those boys of yours."
"I don't know what to do," John sighed heavily.
"That's a first," Bobby remarked. His face softened and he sat down. "This has happened. There's no changing what's been done. What you can do now is look after those boys. Don't think about revenger or hunting. You need to think about Sam."
John nodded, eyes down.
"You can stay as long as you like," Bobby offered. "Anything you need, just ask."
"Thanks, Bobby," John muttered. There was a small stretch of silence, Bobby was still a little surprised by what he was hearing. He'd never heard words like that from John Winchester.
He cleared his throat. "Don't mention it."
Within a week, John packed up his car and took the boys away. Bobby wouldn't see them for another four years.
Dean - 20th June 2000, The Ridge, Ridgeville, Georgia.
He slows the Impala down on the way up the driveway. Sam hunches in on himself as if he can squash all six foot two of himself under his seat. He notices that Sam's hands are clasped in front of him and it takes a moment for Dean to realise that Sam is praying.
Dean worries at his bottom lip, thinking back, and yep, he's pretty sure that his brother wasn't a goddamn Christian before he lived with Pastor Jim. Already, Dean is thinking of places he can shove the guy's religious indoctrination.
However, Sam is doing a hell of a lot better than expected, given that he's now only a few feet from the place that broke him, and maybe prayer has something to do with it. Maybe there's a little power in faith. Or maybe it's all crap and it's a good thing Sam believes in it.
He's too busy keeping an eye on his brother that he doesn't notice Bobby Singer's truck until he's parked right next to it. Behind it, John's truck sits abandoned and covered in a layer of road dust.
"I'll be damned," Dean mutters, and Sam finally raises his head for the first time in five miles.
Bobby hops out of his truck and waits by the porch steps. Dean meets him there, not too surprised that Sam chooses to remain where he is.
"Jim called and told me what you idjits were up to," Bobby explains. "Thought the two of you could use an extra pair of hands."
Dean grins. "It's real good to see you, Bobby," he says. "I mean it. It's been way too long."
Bobby raises his eyebrow. "And you couldn't pick up the phone and call these past four years?"
"Uh, sorry. I've been busy," Dean says lamely, scratching at the back of his neck. He turns and looks up to the old house, right up to the round window in the attic. He remembers going up there to pack Sam's things before they left. Before they left Sam alone in the house. Before they left Sam.
It's as hot as that summer was four years ago, and Dean shrugs off his leather jacket just as Bobby adjusts the cap on his head, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. Sam only seems to huddle further down in his seat, further down into his sweater and jacket. His shoulders are more tense than usual and Dean thinks stupidly for a second that Sam's just uncomfortable in the heat, until he realises that's not the case and Sam's actually turning a little green, eye's wide and panicking.
"Shit," Dean curses and hurries over to the passenger side. He hears the gravel crunch under Bobby's boots behind him. Dean yanks the car door open and crouches by Sam's side. Sam isn't looking at Dean or Bobby, he's looking up at the house with a look on his face like he thinks it's going to suddenly grow a mouth and swallow him up.
"What's wrong?" Bobby asks.
"It's okay. He's just a little… overwhelmed," Dean says. He grabs Sam's attention by gripping his shoulders as gently as he can. Sam tears his eyes away from the house and looks at Dean.
"I'm not letting anything happen to you, okay?" Dean says clearly. "You hearing me? I've got you. I'm gonna keep you safe, so will Bobby."
For a second, Sam doesn't say anything. His whole body lurches a little and Dean just about manages to jump back and avoid having puke down his front. Sam chokes and gags, vomiting onto the dusty driveway, just about managing to miss Dean's shoes.
After a few minutes, Sam glances up and stares at Bobby like he's only just noticed he's there. He nods a little and leans forward so the tip of his nose is almost touching his thighs, still trying to get his breathing steady. Dean leans over and rubs Sam's back.
Bobby has been quiet through the whole thing and Dean can feel his eyes on the both of them, especially on Sam. Last time Bobby saw Sam the kid was a catatonic thirteen-year-old. Now, Sam is taller than Dean and he's skinny as a rake and he never utters a word. Either way, he's nothing like the Sam Bobby ever knew; that chatty, annoying-as-hell, genius kid that Dean misses like crazy.
"It's good to see you, Sam," Bobby says once the kid's vertical again. Sam smiles up at him, a little forced and shaky, and he uses Dean's shoulder to pull himself to his feet. Dean watches in amusement as Bobby's gaze follows Sam up and up. "You got tall, kid," he says, and Sam ducks his head shyly so he's on level with everyone else.
"Since we're all caught up," Dean says, "we should get to work. If you're good to go, Sammy."
He says that last part like a question. Sam nods, looking as uncertain as a person possibly can, brow creased worryingly. Dean takes a hold of Sam's shoulder. He knows that Sam doesn't usually like too much physical contact, but right now it seems to be keeping him steady. He finds himself slipping easily into that big brother role when he actually spends a decent amount of time with Sam, and after fifteen hours on the road together, things are starting to feel like they used to.
It makes it easy to forget that Sam doesn't speak.
"Sam," Dean says softly. Sam turns to look at him, a lock of white hair tipping forward over his eyes. "Sam, where should we start?"
Dean has no clue what the thing in the house is. He has no idea what took Sam four years ago. He doesn't know what it looks like, what its strengths are, what its weaknesses are, what it feeds on (although he has a good guess). He doesn't know a goddamn thing about this monster except that Sam refers to it as she.
Dean's expecting to ask a lot of questions, he's expecting Sam to be as vague as he was when they talked about it in Blue Earth, but Sam just raises his arm and points into the distance. Dean and Bobby turn to see a little white cottage on the other side of the field.
Dean looks back to Sam, confused. "We have to go there?"
Sam nods once. Dean doesn't need to be told twice. Sam could have told him that the answers were down a sewer and he would have gone trudging through slime and filth to get them. The three of them trek across the field. Dean keeps his hand on Sam's back the whole way there, partly because he doesn't want Sam to be afraid, partly because Dean's terrified that Sam will vanish into thin air like he did four years ago.
Halfway there, Dean spots a big pond with a tire swing hanging over the waters. He points it out and smiles.
"Look, Sam! Remember that summer in Texas? The werewolf hunt in San Antonio? We were there for two whole months and we used to go down to that lake and I built a swing out of an old tire and some rope. Man, that was pretty awesome."
Sam smiles a little, but the silence that follows makes Dean's face fall. He wonders if Sam wishes he could speak right now. He wonders if Sam will ever speak again.
Bobby watches the two of them out of the corner of his eye, face drawn. They walk the rest of the way without another word.
There's an old woman in the front garden when they make it up to the house. She's watering her plants and looks up at them curiously.
"Can I help you fellas?" she asks, setting her watering can on a bench nearby.
Dean steps up to the gate. "We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about - "
He stops talking once he realises the woman isn't looking at him anymore, her eyes are trained over his shoulder. She's staring at Sam like she's staring at a ghost.
"My God," she whispers. She clears her throat gestures them to come into the garden. Sam moves more awkwardly than usual, head ducked. The old woman steps forward and reaches out a dark-skinned hand. Sam jolts and her hand draws back to her side. "How is it possible? I thought for sure the thing got you, you poor boy."
"Wait," Dean cuts in. "The thing? Do you know what it is?"
She turns back to Dean and grimaces. "It's a demon is what it is," she says. "I ain't never seen it proper but I know it's there. That thing took my sister about seventy years ago."
"Demon?" Dean repeats, glancing over to Bobby. "Did you see any black eyes? Ever smell something like sulphur?"
The woman looks at him like he's crazy. "What are you talking about? I saw no black eyes. I didn't see much more than its shape in the shadows. And sulphur? No. I didn't smell anything like that." She turns back to Sam. "How on God's good earth did you get away? No child has ever come back."
Sam doesn't answer her, of course, and she frowns and turns to Dean and Bobby.
"Sam doesn't speak. He hasn't ever since… you know," Dean explains.
She looks at Sam sadly. "Be thankful that's the only thing you lost."
"Miss…" Dean begins.
"Annette," she supplies.
"Miss Annette," Dean says, "Please can you tell us everything you know about whatever's in that house."
She glances down the hill to the house in question and her jaw tightens. She nods stiffly and turns towards her front door, gesturing for them to follow.
She guides them to a sitting room and the four of them squeeze onto her dainty sofa and armchairs. She disappears for a moment and returns with a photo album which she places on the coffee table. She opens it to show a black and white picture of two little girls, beaming at the camera. They're standing on a porch and holding hands, one is smaller than the other but they have matching dresses and cornrowed braids.
Annette points to the smaller girl. "That there is Anita, my little sister. We used to live in that house down the hill. She went missing not long after we moved in. She was seven years old. One night she just vanished. And that was it, we never saw her again."
She sighs, fingers lingering on the photo. "We moved out a couple or so months after. The police closed the case. I think they'd 'a still been looking if she'd been a white girl, but they gave up pretty quick. My mama didn't want to be anywhere near that house so we moved out of the countryside and into the next town."
Dean watches her turn the page of the album to reveal numerous newspaper clippings.
"As I got older I started to get more curious about what happened," Annette went on. "When I was eighteen I started investigating the house. I only found a couple of disappearances and one death since the house was built."
She pointed to three separate articles. One title stands out to Dean. Young girl perishes in tragic fall. Dean picks it up and shows it to Sam.
"This is the ghost girl that attacked you, right?" he asks.
Sam shakes his head.
"It's not her?" Dean says, surprised. "So Dad just burned some random girl's bones for no reason?"
Sam shrugs one shoulder. Dean puts the clipping back and looks at the other two. Both are pretty much the same as one another; children vanished in the middle of the night in that house. The kids aren't related and the incidents happened decades apart.
"This thing has been there as long as a century," Bobby points out, "but it only ever took four children; the two in these articles, your sister, and Sam?"
Sam shakes his head frantically and holds up all of his fingers for a moment, then he tucks three away. His hands tremble and his eyes are narrowed, focused, like he's trying hard to keep them steady.
"Seventeen?" Dean clarifies. Sam nods. Dean blows out a breath. "It's taken seventeen kids? How do you know?"
Sam points to his eyes.
"You saw them?" Bobby asks. Sam nods.
"They're still alive?" Annette questions hopefully. Sam's eyes droop sadly as he shakes his head. Annette nods solemnly as if she'd never had her hopes up to begin with.
Dean pauses, frowns. "This is the hunt," he realises. Everyone looks up. "The hunt we came for in '96. Kids had been going missing all around the area but we never figured the house was involved."
"That house was worth a good bit," Annette says. "They used to keep the disappearances buried deep, hoping someone would buy the house. But no one wanted it." She grins devilishly. "I may have had a hand in chasin' away buyers."
Sam smiles, staring down at his lap.
Annette sighs. "I had no idea you were movin' in until I saw your car parked out there one mornin'. Then I met Sam here and I… I tried my best to warn him but I think I only managed to chase him away, right back to that house."
Bobby clears his throat. "If this thing only takes children, then how can we be sure it has your daddy?"
"It wants Sam back," Dean says. Sam's head is ducked far enough that his face is completely obscured by his hair. "Sam told me this thing doesn't like losing. And Sam's seventeen, he's technically still a child, right?"
"It must be smart," Bobby hazards. "If it knows to take John to get to Sam."
"You said hunt, earlier," Annette cuts in. "I'm guessin' you don't mean deer and turkey."
"Only things that go bump in the night," Dean says. "It's the family business. Ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, whatever you can think of, my family hunts it. We were here on a case in '96. Children had been going missing in town over the past century, and maybe we would have found the link to the house if we'd finished the case."
"I'm no professional monster hunter," Annette says, "But I've been collecting this information for decades and this is all I've come up with."
"But my dad, he can figure anything out," Dean protests. "How did he miss all of this?"
"I think he finally figured it out after all this time, that's why he went back to the house," Bobby says. He pauses, then asks, "How many kids had gone missing in your case?"
"Fourteen, as far as we found. We weren't on the case long."
"And the three from Annette's research adds up to the seventeen Sam says he saw," Bobby points out.
"It's leaving the house?" Dean wonders. "How can seventeen kids disappear in the same town and no one finds it odd?"
Annette shrugs. "It's a small town," she says. "Small towns don't get much attention in the media, and media wasn't like it is today. These disappearances happened over more than a century," she flips the album to the next page where there are older clippings, "I tracked them down to almost a hundred and seventy years ago. This means kids go vanishin' every ten years. There'd be different police investigatin' each one. Why would these police think the missin' children are connected when they happen a decade apart in different parts of town?"
Dean pulls a pad and a pen from inside his jacket and scribbles some notes.
'She'
Only takes kids
Every ten years
Kids missing all over town
As old as 170
He pauses before adding something else. Where does it take the kids and how does it get around town unseen?
He looks up to Sam, tears off the page he wrote on, and hands the paper and pen over. "Sammy, tell us whatever you can."
Sam takes it, hands shaking, and he settles the pad on his lap. It takes a moment for him to position the pen in his hand and when he places the nib to the paper it shakes and scrawls ink. He bites his lip and focuses, dragging the pen across, pressing hard. It takes a while but when he's done he hands it back to Dean, looking paler than he did a moment ago. Dean looks down to the paper.
She lives in the Dark. She likes to play games. She keeps trophies. She hates the light. She has no eyes. She can sniff you out from a mile away. She's tall. She's hungry but she eats slow.
Under Dean's question, Sam has scribbled an answer.
Shadows.
Sam - Unknown, In the Dark
She'd always win games. It was Her domain.
You hide, I seek, She said. Sam felt Her long fingers in his hair, then pluck pluck pluck as She pulled three strands. He could barely see Her, but in the glow of the ghost light he saw Her sprinkle the hair over Her gaping wide mouth and swallow.
Sweet and salty boy, you hide and I'll seek you, She said. Sam crawled away into the never-ending dark.
The ground was wet beneath his hands and knees, cold and tacky, and for once he was glad he couldn't see. A soft light glowed beside him and he turned to see the ghost girl.
She'll sniff you out, she said. She always wins Her games. You'll never get far. Even now that I'm gone, I can only reach the house, no further. I always come back to the Dark no matter how hard I try to leave.
Sam wished he could say something but his voice was gone. Whatever She was, She took his vocal chords, severed them from his body and ate them right in front of him. He brought a hand up to his throat and felt the smooth skin there. No gash, no blood. She didn't like mess.
He crawled faster, a part of him deep down chose to believe that if he crawled far enough he might see a point of light that would lead home. To Dad. To Dean. Something caught under him and Sam stumbled. The ground was lumpy, sharp in some places, soft in others.
The ghost brought her light closer and illuminated the ground.
Shoes. More than a dozen pairs of shoes piled neatly. Smaller shoes, bigger shoes. Children's slippers.
She doesn't like to waste a thing, the ghost girl whispered sadly. She keeps all that's left of us so we can never leave.
In the soft glow of her light, he could see more. Nightdresses and sleep shirts left in a heap. At the top of the mound was a set of striped pyjamas, small enough that only a five-year-old might fit them.
Sam might have screamed if he'd still had a voice. He scrambled away from it all and hurried away into another part of the Dark.
It was so cold. He was so cold. So hungry. So tired.
He stopped when he heard the sharp huff of Her sniffing the air. Clever boy, ready or not, She called into the Dark.
Hurry, boy! Ghost girl hissed.
Sam crawled faster, knees and palms banging against the floor, aching. He couldn't see a thing, couldn't hear a thing, and for all he knew he was going in circles. He turned and ghost girl was gone, he could see the flicker of the others like a pinprick in the distance.
Something shuffled nearby and Sam stopped, holding his breath. Sniff sniff sniff. Getting closer. Sam couldn't move, his arms shook under his weight and he carefully pressed himself down flat, hands going over his head, waiting for the inevitable.
He felt Her before he heard Her. The black, heavy weight of her crawling above in the dark, sniffing the air. Then he felt the thick warmth of Her saliva drip and tickle his neck.
She stroked a long, pointed finger along his spine and tutted.
Not a good hider, She said disapprovingly. You need to get better if the game's to be fun. What do you say, boy?
Yes, Ma'am. Sam jolted at the sound of his own voice. He hadn't so much as breathed, he couldn't speak. His voice came from above, it came from Her mouthing mouth. She had his voice.
Come on, boy, She said, using her high-low voice again. You must eat if you're to be strong enough to play.
Something thick and wet hit the ground beside him, squelching on impact. She pressed it close to his face and he almost gagged at the stench of raw meat.
Eat! She yelled in his ear.
She gripped his hair tight and tilted his head up, piercing her nails into the back of his neck until he closed his fingers around the warm flesh.
He brought it to his mouth and forced himself to tear a chunk away. It was tough and he gnawed at it until there was a bite-sized piece on his tongue. He chewed, eyes squeezed tight, holding his breath, trying not to gag as he swallowed.
Next
Bobby Singer - 20th August 1996. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Bobby Singer wasn't the sort to have visitors, save for some folk coming by for scrap or hunters coming by for information. Honestly, he didn't want any. The comfort of his books, his liquor, and his dogs was good enough.
Rumsfeld was only a pup, dumb and energetic, too busy chewing up Bobby's furniture to listen to anything he said. And Marg was an old girl, she was getting on in her life. She moved slowly through the house, rickety old hips weighing her down. Still, she always mustered enough energy to scold Rumsfeld. At least that stupid puppy listened to someone.
The dogs noticed the sound of an engine before Bobby did, and the two of them started barking. Rumsfeld was whipping about madly, scratching at the door, whining to be let out. Bobby sighed and opened the door.
He only knew one car with an engine that sounded like that, and the owner of that car never called before turning up. John Winchester was a stubborn bastard. He and Bobby had had more than their fair share of fights. Did Bobby like John at all? He would if the man would switch his default setting from bad-tempered to reasonable.
Bobby cared. That was the important thing. He constantly worried about John being dumb enough to get himself shredded by something nasty out in the woods and leave his kids all alone. He was even more worried about him putting his kids on the front line, the youngest of the two being only thirteen years old.
A thirteen-year-old boy who'd been missing for two months, snatched out of bed in the middle of the night by God-knows-what.
If John Winchester was showing up at the Salvage yard, it meant one of two things. A) he wanted something, which was never a good thing, and B) he needed something, which was always a terrible thing. When Bobby saw Dean's pale, drawn face through the dashboard window, he began to understand that it must have been B).
The Winchesters had been in and out of Bobby's house for years, right up until Bobby chased John off his property with a shotgun to his back. Still, in the years that he and John were civil, his couch had been bled on by each Winchester. The worst time he remembered was when Sam got his chest slashed by a Black Dog when he was eleven years old. The whole time they stitched the boy up, John and Dean had been blank-faced as if they were playing poker. They were definitely terrified out of their minds, but they never showed it. They just kept quiet.
They looked horrified now and Bobby knew before he even saw that they'd found Sam. The look on Dean's face made Bobby wonder if they had found Sam in one piece.
He waited on the porch and watched John get out of the car and linger by its side, looking for once in his life like he didn't know what to do with himself. Dean was already out and ducking into the backseat. Bobby watched as Sam Winchester was pulled from where he'd been lying in the back of the car.
Dean held him upright and guided him towards the house. It wasn't until they got to the bottom of the porch steps that Bobby noticed the glazed look in Sam's eye.
"Let's get him onto the couch," was all Bobby said, although there was a lot more he'd have liked to say. He allowed Dean past, knowing it was best not to offer a hand. John followed in behind them, looking more tired than a corpse.
Bobby fetched blankets because poor Sam was shivering, even under the oversized sweater he was wearing. Dean helped the kid lie down on the couch and covered him in one of the quilts Bobby's Karen had made a lifetime ago.
He left the kids to it and gestured for John to follow him into the kitchen. He shut the door behind them.
"How'd you find him?" Bobby asked, since John wasn't making any move to explain things.
"He was just there," John said, voice gravelly like he'd smoked twenty cigarettes before he'd gotten to the salvage yard. Maybe he had. "The information you gave us was right. Sam was still at the house. He just came out the front door. I don't know what happened."
"Well, thank God he's alright," Bobby said. He didn't believe in God, and he certainly didn't believe that Sam was alright.
"He hasn't said a damn word, Bobby," John said. And, Jesus, he sounded so helpless. "It's been five days and he hasn't said a thing. He just sits there like he doesn't know where he is, or he fights us like he thinks we're hurting him. I don't even know if he knows we're here."
"The kid's had worse than a shock," Bobby pointed out. "None of us have any clue what happened. I know plenty hunters who crack on the job. Either something gets them or they can't take it anymore. And those are seasoned hunters, John. Sam's just a kid."
John glared at him. "Don't you start with that," he growled. "I don't need this crap from you, not right now."
Bobby thought, if not now, when?
He didn't say it. Instead, he said, "What do you need?"
"Somewhere to stay for a while. Sam needs somewhere to recover. He wasn't managing so well on the road so I thought…"
"A place he already knows might do him good," Bobby finished for him. He turned around and switched on the gas hob, placing a pot over the flame. "I'll fix up some supper. The kid looks like he could use some meat on him."
John grunted and Bobby thought maybe it was his way of saying thank you. When he turned back around, John was gone and the back door was swinging. He watched John disappear into the graveyard of junkers out back, shoulders drawn up tight as he marched, not looking back.
Bobby sighed and went about heating up soup. Back in the study, he found Sam and Dean in the same place he left them. Sam was lying under the quilt, vacant eyes open, staring at a point on the carpet and seeing nothing. Dean sat in a chair beside him, cracking his knuckles distractedly, worrying at his bottom lip, looking at nothing but his brother.
Dean looked up once Bobby was a few steps away and nodded to him, eyes catching sight of the bowl. Quickly, his attention was back to Sam.
"Hey, little brother," he said softly. "Bobby's got something to eat. Let's get you up, huh?"
He gently pulled Sam so that he was sitting upright. Sam folded into whatever position Dean put him in, malleable as putty. Then, Bobby managed to get a better look into Sam's eyes and the emptiness of them. There was no denying that the lights were on but nobody was home.
He let Dean take the bowl of soup from his hands, and swept his gaze over the rest of Sam. There was bruising on his wrists which stood out like smudges of coal against his paper-white skin. The boy was skinny, too. Too skinny to be healthy, that much was clear from the hollow cheeks and stick-thin arms. And the boy's hair, chunks were missing at the front, the scalp looked pink and sore like each strand had been forced out one-by-one.
"Open up, Sammy," Dean said softly, raising a spoonful of tomato soup and blowing gently on it. He eased it against Sam's lips until he opened up. Only half the spoonful made it into Sam's mouth, the rest of it dribbled down his chin.
Bobby watched Dean empty half the bowl until Sam's mouth refused to open anymore, then he watched Dean wipe the dribble from his little brother's chin, looking like he'd done it before a thousand times. And, Bobby thought, he probably had.
Bobby had been a hunter longer than most, and he'd certainly seen more than most, too. He'd seen hunters lose it. He'd seen experienced hunters who'd been slicing off heads for more than a decade take on that one particular hunt and come back from it with most of their screws loose. He'd seen hunters with eyes like Sam's, men who couldn't cope anymore and decided to just… leave.
He'd never seen one of those men come back, either.
That night, he mostly kept to the side-lines, keeping to himself and carrying on like he would. He was an observant man, and he knew when a person needed space. The Winchesters needed space.
Still, Bobby had plenty of things he'd like to have said to John Winchester, but he knew that none of his words would have made Sam any better, so Bobby kept his mouth shut. For now, at least.
No thirteen-year-old boy should have been using weapons or running into burning buildings or seeing the sort of things the Winchester boys saw. And Bobby always kept an eye on his surroundings, he watched people's faces. The last time he'd seen Sam was about a couple of years ago, and even then, Bobby could see how much the boy had hated the life they lived.
It was a damn shame he couldn't escape it.
"Bobby?" he was brought back into the room by Dean's hesitant voice. If that kid was anything, it wasn't hesitant. Dean looked almost as pale as his brother did, tired and worn down enough that it seemed to weigh on his back. He didn't look like that strapping, confident, cunning kid Bobby knew. He looked up at Bobby with an expression that reminded him just how young Dean was. Bobby nodded to show he was listening.
"Sammy's getting tired," Dean said. He had one hand on Sam's shoulder, the younger boy was swaying slighting underneath his grip, eyes drooping.
"We can put him upstairs," Bobby said. He moved forward to help pick Sam up but Dean was already hauling him up into his arms. Bobby didn't say a word, just headed upstairs first to change the dusty sheets on the spare bed. And he waited in the hall while Dean changed Sam into sleep clothes, just because he had to make sure those boys had someone.
He left them up there. Sam's eyes were closed by the time Dean had laid him down, and even though Dean looked dead on his feet Bobby was sure he wasn't going to sleep any time soon. When he got back downstairs, John had made a reappearance, sitting at the desk and drinking some of Bobby's best whiskey.
"I fucked up," was all he said. Bobby couldn't disagree with that so he didn't say anything. John sighed and went on, "I've destroyed him. I ruined my son."
Bobby had to speak up then. "Sam's still alive. He might have left the building but that don't mean he isn't coming back."
"How do you know?" John asked hopelessly.
"Because I know Sam," Bobby said. "And he's a strong kid. Stronger and smarter than any brat I've ever met. Both of your boys are."
"I need help," John admitted, and it was clear it took a lot for him to say those words.
"Here's what you're gonna do," Bobby said. "You're going to sober up, then you're going to go look after those boys of yours."
"I don't know what to do," John sighed heavily.
"That's a first," Bobby remarked. His face softened and he sat down. "This has happened. There's no changing what's been done. What you can do now is look after those boys. Don't think about revenger or hunting. You need to think about Sam."
John nodded, eyes down.
"You can stay as long as you like," Bobby offered. "Anything you need, just ask."
"Thanks, Bobby," John muttered. There was a small stretch of silence, Bobby was still a little surprised by what he was hearing. He'd never heard words like that from John Winchester.
He cleared his throat. "Don't mention it."
Within a week, John packed up his car and took the boys away. Bobby wouldn't see them for another four years.
Dean - 20th June 2000, The Ridge, Ridgeville, Georgia.
He slows the Impala down on the way up the driveway. Sam hunches in on himself as if he can squash all six foot two of himself under his seat. He notices that Sam's hands are clasped in front of him and it takes a moment for Dean to realise that Sam is praying.
Dean worries at his bottom lip, thinking back, and yep, he's pretty sure that his brother wasn't a goddamn Christian before he lived with Pastor Jim. Already, Dean is thinking of places he can shove the guy's religious indoctrination.
However, Sam is doing a hell of a lot better than expected, given that he's now only a few feet from the place that broke him, and maybe prayer has something to do with it. Maybe there's a little power in faith. Or maybe it's all crap and it's a good thing Sam believes in it.
He's too busy keeping an eye on his brother that he doesn't notice Bobby Singer's truck until he's parked right next to it. Behind it, John's truck sits abandoned and covered in a layer of road dust.
"I'll be damned," Dean mutters, and Sam finally raises his head for the first time in five miles.
Bobby hops out of his truck and waits by the porch steps. Dean meets him there, not too surprised that Sam chooses to remain where he is.
"Jim called and told me what you idjits were up to," Bobby explains. "Thought the two of you could use an extra pair of hands."
Dean grins. "It's real good to see you, Bobby," he says. "I mean it. It's been way too long."
Bobby raises his eyebrow. "And you couldn't pick up the phone and call these past four years?"
"Uh, sorry. I've been busy," Dean says lamely, scratching at the back of his neck. He turns and looks up to the old house, right up to the round window in the attic. He remembers going up there to pack Sam's things before they left. Before they left Sam alone in the house. Before they left Sam.
It's as hot as that summer was four years ago, and Dean shrugs off his leather jacket just as Bobby adjusts the cap on his head, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. Sam only seems to huddle further down in his seat, further down into his sweater and jacket. His shoulders are more tense than usual and Dean thinks stupidly for a second that Sam's just uncomfortable in the heat, until he realises that's not the case and Sam's actually turning a little green, eye's wide and panicking.
"Shit," Dean curses and hurries over to the passenger side. He hears the gravel crunch under Bobby's boots behind him. Dean yanks the car door open and crouches by Sam's side. Sam isn't looking at Dean or Bobby, he's looking up at the house with a look on his face like he thinks it's going to suddenly grow a mouth and swallow him up.
"What's wrong?" Bobby asks.
"It's okay. He's just a little… overwhelmed," Dean says. He grabs Sam's attention by gripping his shoulders as gently as he can. Sam tears his eyes away from the house and looks at Dean.
"I'm not letting anything happen to you, okay?" Dean says clearly. "You hearing me? I've got you. I'm gonna keep you safe, so will Bobby."
For a second, Sam doesn't say anything. His whole body lurches a little and Dean just about manages to jump back and avoid having puke down his front. Sam chokes and gags, vomiting onto the dusty driveway, just about managing to miss Dean's shoes.
After a few minutes, Sam glances up and stares at Bobby like he's only just noticed he's there. He nods a little and leans forward so the tip of his nose is almost touching his thighs, still trying to get his breathing steady. Dean leans over and rubs Sam's back.
Bobby has been quiet through the whole thing and Dean can feel his eyes on the both of them, especially on Sam. Last time Bobby saw Sam the kid was a catatonic thirteen-year-old. Now, Sam is taller than Dean and he's skinny as a rake and he never utters a word. Either way, he's nothing like the Sam Bobby ever knew; that chatty, annoying-as-hell, genius kid that Dean misses like crazy.
"It's good to see you, Sam," Bobby says once the kid's vertical again. Sam smiles up at him, a little forced and shaky, and he uses Dean's shoulder to pull himself to his feet. Dean watches in amusement as Bobby's gaze follows Sam up and up. "You got tall, kid," he says, and Sam ducks his head shyly so he's on level with everyone else.
"Since we're all caught up," Dean says, "we should get to work. If you're good to go, Sammy."
He says that last part like a question. Sam nods, looking as uncertain as a person possibly can, brow creased worryingly. Dean takes a hold of Sam's shoulder. He knows that Sam doesn't usually like too much physical contact, but right now it seems to be keeping him steady. He finds himself slipping easily into that big brother role when he actually spends a decent amount of time with Sam, and after fifteen hours on the road together, things are starting to feel like they used to.
It makes it easy to forget that Sam doesn't speak.
"Sam," Dean says softly. Sam turns to look at him, a lock of white hair tipping forward over his eyes. "Sam, where should we start?"
Dean has no clue what the thing in the house is. He has no idea what took Sam four years ago. He doesn't know what it looks like, what its strengths are, what its weaknesses are, what it feeds on (although he has a good guess). He doesn't know a goddamn thing about this monster except that Sam refers to it as she.
Dean's expecting to ask a lot of questions, he's expecting Sam to be as vague as he was when they talked about it in Blue Earth, but Sam just raises his arm and points into the distance. Dean and Bobby turn to see a little white cottage on the other side of the field.
Dean looks back to Sam, confused. "We have to go there?"
Sam nods once. Dean doesn't need to be told twice. Sam could have told him that the answers were down a sewer and he would have gone trudging through slime and filth to get them. The three of them trek across the field. Dean keeps his hand on Sam's back the whole way there, partly because he doesn't want Sam to be afraid, partly because Dean's terrified that Sam will vanish into thin air like he did four years ago.
Halfway there, Dean spots a big pond with a tire swing hanging over the waters. He points it out and smiles.
"Look, Sam! Remember that summer in Texas? The werewolf hunt in San Antonio? We were there for two whole months and we used to go down to that lake and I built a swing out of an old tire and some rope. Man, that was pretty awesome."
Sam smiles a little, but the silence that follows makes Dean's face fall. He wonders if Sam wishes he could speak right now. He wonders if Sam will ever speak again.
Bobby watches the two of them out of the corner of his eye, face drawn. They walk the rest of the way without another word.
There's an old woman in the front garden when they make it up to the house. She's watering her plants and looks up at them curiously.
"Can I help you fellas?" she asks, setting her watering can on a bench nearby.
Dean steps up to the gate. "We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about - "
He stops talking once he realises the woman isn't looking at him anymore, her eyes are trained over his shoulder. She's staring at Sam like she's staring at a ghost.
"My God," she whispers. She clears her throat gestures them to come into the garden. Sam moves more awkwardly than usual, head ducked. The old woman steps forward and reaches out a dark-skinned hand. Sam jolts and her hand draws back to her side. "How is it possible? I thought for sure the thing got you, you poor boy."
"Wait," Dean cuts in. "The thing? Do you know what it is?"
She turns back to Dean and grimaces. "It's a demon is what it is," she says. "I ain't never seen it proper but I know it's there. That thing took my sister about seventy years ago."
"Demon?" Dean repeats, glancing over to Bobby. "Did you see any black eyes? Ever smell something like sulphur?"
The woman looks at him like he's crazy. "What are you talking about? I saw no black eyes. I didn't see much more than its shape in the shadows. And sulphur? No. I didn't smell anything like that." She turns back to Sam. "How on God's good earth did you get away? No child has ever come back."
Sam doesn't answer her, of course, and she frowns and turns to Dean and Bobby.
"Sam doesn't speak. He hasn't ever since… you know," Dean explains.
She looks at Sam sadly. "Be thankful that's the only thing you lost."
"Miss…" Dean begins.
"Annette," she supplies.
"Miss Annette," Dean says, "Please can you tell us everything you know about whatever's in that house."
She glances down the hill to the house in question and her jaw tightens. She nods stiffly and turns towards her front door, gesturing for them to follow.
She guides them to a sitting room and the four of them squeeze onto her dainty sofa and armchairs. She disappears for a moment and returns with a photo album which she places on the coffee table. She opens it to show a black and white picture of two little girls, beaming at the camera. They're standing on a porch and holding hands, one is smaller than the other but they have matching dresses and cornrowed braids.
Annette points to the smaller girl. "That there is Anita, my little sister. We used to live in that house down the hill. She went missing not long after we moved in. She was seven years old. One night she just vanished. And that was it, we never saw her again."
She sighs, fingers lingering on the photo. "We moved out a couple or so months after. The police closed the case. I think they'd 'a still been looking if she'd been a white girl, but they gave up pretty quick. My mama didn't want to be anywhere near that house so we moved out of the countryside and into the next town."
Dean watches her turn the page of the album to reveal numerous newspaper clippings.
"As I got older I started to get more curious about what happened," Annette went on. "When I was eighteen I started investigating the house. I only found a couple of disappearances and one death since the house was built."
She pointed to three separate articles. One title stands out to Dean. Young girl perishes in tragic fall. Dean picks it up and shows it to Sam.
"This is the ghost girl that attacked you, right?" he asks.
Sam shakes his head.
"It's not her?" Dean says, surprised. "So Dad just burned some random girl's bones for no reason?"
Sam shrugs one shoulder. Dean puts the clipping back and looks at the other two. Both are pretty much the same as one another; children vanished in the middle of the night in that house. The kids aren't related and the incidents happened decades apart.
"This thing has been there as long as a century," Bobby points out, "but it only ever took four children; the two in these articles, your sister, and Sam?"
Sam shakes his head frantically and holds up all of his fingers for a moment, then he tucks three away. His hands tremble and his eyes are narrowed, focused, like he's trying hard to keep them steady.
"Seventeen?" Dean clarifies. Sam nods. Dean blows out a breath. "It's taken seventeen kids? How do you know?"
Sam points to his eyes.
"You saw them?" Bobby asks. Sam nods.
"They're still alive?" Annette questions hopefully. Sam's eyes droop sadly as he shakes his head. Annette nods solemnly as if she'd never had her hopes up to begin with.
Dean pauses, frowns. "This is the hunt," he realises. Everyone looks up. "The hunt we came for in '96. Kids had been going missing all around the area but we never figured the house was involved."
"That house was worth a good bit," Annette says. "They used to keep the disappearances buried deep, hoping someone would buy the house. But no one wanted it." She grins devilishly. "I may have had a hand in chasin' away buyers."
Sam smiles, staring down at his lap.
Annette sighs. "I had no idea you were movin' in until I saw your car parked out there one mornin'. Then I met Sam here and I… I tried my best to warn him but I think I only managed to chase him away, right back to that house."
Bobby clears his throat. "If this thing only takes children, then how can we be sure it has your daddy?"
"It wants Sam back," Dean says. Sam's head is ducked far enough that his face is completely obscured by his hair. "Sam told me this thing doesn't like losing. And Sam's seventeen, he's technically still a child, right?"
"It must be smart," Bobby hazards. "If it knows to take John to get to Sam."
"You said hunt, earlier," Annette cuts in. "I'm guessin' you don't mean deer and turkey."
"Only things that go bump in the night," Dean says. "It's the family business. Ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, whatever you can think of, my family hunts it. We were here on a case in '96. Children had been going missing in town over the past century, and maybe we would have found the link to the house if we'd finished the case."
"I'm no professional monster hunter," Annette says, "But I've been collecting this information for decades and this is all I've come up with."
"But my dad, he can figure anything out," Dean protests. "How did he miss all of this?"
"I think he finally figured it out after all this time, that's why he went back to the house," Bobby says. He pauses, then asks, "How many kids had gone missing in your case?"
"Fourteen, as far as we found. We weren't on the case long."
"And the three from Annette's research adds up to the seventeen Sam says he saw," Bobby points out.
"It's leaving the house?" Dean wonders. "How can seventeen kids disappear in the same town and no one finds it odd?"
Annette shrugs. "It's a small town," she says. "Small towns don't get much attention in the media, and media wasn't like it is today. These disappearances happened over more than a century," she flips the album to the next page where there are older clippings, "I tracked them down to almost a hundred and seventy years ago. This means kids go vanishin' every ten years. There'd be different police investigatin' each one. Why would these police think the missin' children are connected when they happen a decade apart in different parts of town?"
Dean pulls a pad and a pen from inside his jacket and scribbles some notes.
'She'
Only takes kids
Every ten years
Kids missing all over town
As old as 170
He pauses before adding something else. Where does it take the kids and how does it get around town unseen?
He looks up to Sam, tears off the page he wrote on, and hands the paper and pen over. "Sammy, tell us whatever you can."
Sam takes it, hands shaking, and he settles the pad on his lap. It takes a moment for him to position the pen in his hand and when he places the nib to the paper it shakes and scrawls ink. He bites his lip and focuses, dragging the pen across, pressing hard. It takes a while but when he's done he hands it back to Dean, looking paler than he did a moment ago. Dean looks down to the paper.
She lives in the Dark. She likes to play games. She keeps trophies. She hates the light. She has no eyes. She can sniff you out from a mile away. She's tall. She's hungry but she eats slow.
Under Dean's question, Sam has scribbled an answer.
Shadows.
Sam - Unknown, In the Dark
She'd always win games. It was Her domain.
You hide, I seek, She said. Sam felt Her long fingers in his hair, then pluck pluck pluck as She pulled three strands. He could barely see Her, but in the glow of the ghost light he saw Her sprinkle the hair over Her gaping wide mouth and swallow.
Sweet and salty boy, you hide and I'll seek you, She said. Sam crawled away into the never-ending dark.
The ground was wet beneath his hands and knees, cold and tacky, and for once he was glad he couldn't see. A soft light glowed beside him and he turned to see the ghost girl.
She'll sniff you out, she said. She always wins Her games. You'll never get far. Even now that I'm gone, I can only reach the house, no further. I always come back to the Dark no matter how hard I try to leave.
Sam wished he could say something but his voice was gone. Whatever She was, She took his vocal chords, severed them from his body and ate them right in front of him. He brought a hand up to his throat and felt the smooth skin there. No gash, no blood. She didn't like mess.
He crawled faster, a part of him deep down chose to believe that if he crawled far enough he might see a point of light that would lead home. To Dad. To Dean. Something caught under him and Sam stumbled. The ground was lumpy, sharp in some places, soft in others.
The ghost brought her light closer and illuminated the ground.
Shoes. More than a dozen pairs of shoes piled neatly. Smaller shoes, bigger shoes. Children's slippers.
She doesn't like to waste a thing, the ghost girl whispered sadly. She keeps all that's left of us so we can never leave.
In the soft glow of her light, he could see more. Nightdresses and sleep shirts left in a heap. At the top of the mound was a set of striped pyjamas, small enough that only a five-year-old might fit them.
Sam might have screamed if he'd still had a voice. He scrambled away from it all and hurried away into another part of the Dark.
It was so cold. He was so cold. So hungry. So tired.
He stopped when he heard the sharp huff of Her sniffing the air. Clever boy, ready or not, She called into the Dark.
Hurry, boy! Ghost girl hissed.
Sam crawled faster, knees and palms banging against the floor, aching. He couldn't see a thing, couldn't hear a thing, and for all he knew he was going in circles. He turned and ghost girl was gone, he could see the flicker of the others like a pinprick in the distance.
Something shuffled nearby and Sam stopped, holding his breath. Sniff sniff sniff. Getting closer. Sam couldn't move, his arms shook under his weight and he carefully pressed himself down flat, hands going over his head, waiting for the inevitable.
He felt Her before he heard Her. The black, heavy weight of her crawling above in the dark, sniffing the air. Then he felt the thick warmth of Her saliva drip and tickle his neck.
She stroked a long, pointed finger along his spine and tutted.
Not a good hider, She said disapprovingly. You need to get better if the game's to be fun. What do you say, boy?
Yes, Ma'am. Sam jolted at the sound of his own voice. He hadn't so much as breathed, he couldn't speak. His voice came from above, it came from Her mouthing mouth. She had his voice.
Come on, boy, She said, using her high-low voice again. You must eat if you're to be strong enough to play.
Something thick and wet hit the ground beside him, squelching on impact. She pressed it close to his face and he almost gagged at the stench of raw meat.
Eat! She yelled in his ear.
She gripped his hair tight and tilted his head up, piercing her nails into the back of his neck until he closed his fingers around the warm flesh.
He brought it to his mouth and forced himself to tear a chunk away. It was tough and he gnawed at it until there was a bite-sized piece on his tongue. He chewed, eyes squeezed tight, holding his breath, trying not to gag as he swallowed.
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