Excerpts from John Winchester's Journal: Part 2
Part 1: 1983 - 1994
1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005
1995
Jan. 24
Dean turns sixteen today. We're in Montana, and I think we're on the trail of a werewolf. That bow-hunting practice is going to come in handy. Sometimes you can't use a gun, and this is one of them. Tomorrow we're going out on a hunt, and I'm going to let him take the lead.
Jan. 25
Bull's-eye. Dean is a helluva shot with anything. He's coming into his own as a hunter.
May 2
Sammy is twelve years old today. He's a handful. Spends all of his time on the computer, unless he's arguing with me. I can't understand him, and he doesn't try to understand me. Typical father-son trouble, but it feels worse because neither one of us can talk about what happened to his mother. He wants to be in one place, live a normal life. The older he gets, the more he wants it. But the older he gets, the more I'm going to need him to help on the hunt. He's got to understand that. We will finishthis quest, and he's going to be a part of it.
May 17
This would have been our seventeenth anniversary. If we'd been British, turquoise. But Americans don't believe in seventeenth anniversaries, I guess. And I never got to have one.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for twelve years.
Nov. 13
Sammy's soccer team won a division championship. On to the state playoffs. I'm proud as hell of him, and I'm sad too. He's battling to keep himself together the only way he knows how-by rebelling. Only because he's Sammy, he rebels toward being normal. I get it, even if I can't let it keep happening. We owe Mary too much to give up now. But I'm going to keep this trophy.
1996
Jan. 24
Dean turns seventeen today. We went shooting. Then I sent him out on his first hunt. I've let him take the lead before, but I've always been there to back him up. This time he's on his own. Partly it's a test, and partly I wanted some time with Sammy. Should be no problem for Dean. Ghosts of two nuns haunting St. Stephen's Indian Mission in Riverton, Wyoming. Simple salt-and-burn mission. Nuns in love with each other,then discovered. Killed themselves. We scoped the situation out,figured that something must be left behind that's now a focus for the haunting. Bible, rosary beads, some small article that's hidden somewhere in their room. I figured Dean would take care of it no problem, but I still stayed close by with Sammy.
The boys are old enough now that we can start spending a little more time in one place. Thinking California, maybe. When I need to fly solo, they're big enough to stay home by themselves for a while without me worrying. When we go on a hunt together, they can bring their homework. That's what I wanted to talk to Sammy about. It's going to be hard enough getting his bullheaded self through adolescence without also having to fight every other day about how he wants to be Jimmy Normal. We can make this work if we do it together-but he's going to have to know that everyone pulls their weight. Mary comes first.
Dean took care of the nuns just like I thought he would, but I don't think I'm going to be sending him on any more solos soon. That one was a little tense.
May 2
Sammy is thirteen today. He's finishing sixth grade, a year late and with all the grudges to show for it. When Dean hit this age,I started to worry about girls, booze, drugs... all the regular stuff. With Sammy, I don't worry about that. What worries me is that he's got so much bottled up inside him that when it comes out, he won't be able to control it. I think that's part of why he has the dreams. He's different, my Sammy. I think he's a little haunted by being in the room with Mary when she was killed. He feels like he should remember something, or be able to offer a clue. God, it must be terrible to know you witnessed something but that you'll never be able to remember it or tell anyone about it. I think he also wonders about Ms. Lyle. Dean and I never told him the whole story.
May 17
This would have been our eighteenth anniversary. Bismuth. A brittle metal, silvery white with tinges of pink and other colors.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for thirteen years. Longer than I knew her. What does it say about me that I've devoted more of my life to her death than I ever did to her life?
1997
Jan. 24
I gave Dean the Impala today for his eighteenth birthday. The car is 30 years old now, amazing it runs as well as it does. I've taught Dean a lot of what I know about working on cars, which was everything until 1983. Haven't kept up since then, all the computers and emissions spaghetti drives me nuts. Give me a fat 327, no electronics, just pistons, crankshaft, and a gas pedal. That's a car. And now it's my son's. He knows I'll still be driving it, but he's a man now, and since he's already made his share of kills, this was the only rite of passage I could think of. He goddamn well better take care of it.
May 2
Sammy is fourteen years old today. He's been having strange dreams again. I've tried to keep an eye out for any signs that he's more than a regular kid, but I don't see them. He's sensitive, has a lot of imagination, but that's about it. Plus now that he's hitting adolescence, he's a giant pain in the ass. Dean just chased girls and snuck around with beers in his coat pockets. That was teenage trouble I could understand. But Sammy just shuts down sometimes. Won't talk to anyone, and when he does, it's only because he wants to argue about something. He's got all the willpower us Winchesters are known for, but in him it sits quietly. You don't notice it's there until he decides he feels strongly enough about something that he won't compromise. Then you might as well wrestle angels.
May 17
This would have been our nineteenth anniversary. Nobody thinks nineteen is worth a traditional gift.
June 16
Got one of my boys through school. Dean is graduated. Seems like a miracle, after I don't know how many schools, but it happened. He's got his diploma.
Looks like Sammy's going to take an extra year. He's just going to be starting ninth grade next fall, because we were moving so much when he was in second, third, fourth grades that we lost a year and I don't think we'll be able to get it back.I haven't talked to him about it, but he must know it's going to happen. Couple of times I've tried to talk to school administrators about double-promoting him, but then they want to see test scores, gifted enrollments, that kind of thing. I don't have any of that. What I do have is a borderline-genius kid who's going to be nineteen when he graduates high school.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for fourteen years.
1998
Jan. 24
Dean's nineteenth. I was coming home from Vietnam right after my nineteenth. Dean's war isn't going to end like that.Had a dream last night that I found Mary's murderer, and knew that I would have to die to take him out. That's all right if it protects the boys.
May 2
Sammy is fifteen today. He'll start high school this fall. Next spring he'll have a driver's license. Can't wait to have the boys fighting over the Impala. It's a little easier with Sammy lately.He seems more committed. Maybe that's because he's able to have more control over being in school, having a friend here and there. I try not to tell him what I really think, which is that he's shirking sometimes. Winchesters don't quit. I don't think he's quitting, but he gets stubborn, and then he won't listen to anything I say. He and Dean don't get along as well as they used to. Could be Sammy's getting tired of being the little brother, and always having Dean take the lead.
Could be it's time for Sammy to go out on his first solo. I should look around for something simple, like I did for Dean.Don't know why I'm so worried, really. Sammy's never hesitated when push came to shove.
May 17
This would have been our twentieth anniversary. China. Maryand I never had china. We barely had Corningware. Twenty:four fives. Number of digits on the human body.
Aug. 4
Back from Orlando with Sammy. Dean gave me some shuck and jive about how he blazed through five states while we were gone, but the Impala's odometer has barely budged. I'm guessing a girl is involved.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for fifteen years. I feel like I'm getting closer. Every year I learn a little more. Every supernatural being I put away teaches me something. Every hunter I talk tofills in another gap.
1999
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty today. He's in Ohio somewhere, hasn't called in a couple of days. Tracking a possible poltergeist. He's supposed to call in every night. Mission discipline is critical.
May 2
Sammy is sixteen years old today. God knows he's got plenty of torments. Now he's got a driver's license, too. Doesn't make much difference. He's known how to drive since he was nine.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-first anniversary. Mary, I've been doing this for almost sixteen years, and sometimes I feel like I'm not any closer to an answer than I was when I watched the house burn in 1983. What am I doing? I've thrown every-thing away for this, too in an underground tribe of hunters and spend my nights watching exorcisms and killing spirits... and what have I done to the boys? They don't have friends,not the way I did. I lived in the same town the whole time I was growing up. Now they're almost grown, and they've seen every back road and abandoned farmhouse in the country, but they don't have roots. We've never been back to Lawrence.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for sixteen years. The century's ending, by popular reckoning. Wonder what's waiting on the other side.
2000
Jan. 1
Y2K didn't end the world. New Year's Eve almost did Dean in, though. He's upstairs, immobile. I don't feel good myself.
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-one today. I'd buy him a beer if I thought it would be something new. He's also old enough to buy his own guns now. I tried to raise him right, and looks like I did.He's a scam artist, a ladies' man, and an absolutely loyal son.He knows what's right and doesn't hesitate to do it. I'm proud of him. Now that he's hunting on his own I don't see as much of him, but I know he's out there. When I call him in on a job,he's right there every time. I've spent the last sixteen years afraid that I was going to screw him up somehow. Maybe now I can forget about that.
May 2
Sammy is seventeen years old today. I'm going to guess that he's the only sophomore in the United States who has read the Clavicula Solomonis and made parts of it work. Bought him a new computer. He's a zealot about having a Macintosh. Also he's a walking dictionary of the occult and esoteric. There's a lot of his mother in Sammy. God, I wish he had some way to know that other than me telling him.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-second anniversary. Every year, the more I learn about communicating with the dead,the harder it gets not to talk to you, Mary.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for seventeen years. She's watching. Time doesn't pass in heaven.
Or in Hell?
2001
Jan. 24
Happy 22, Dean. Hope you're enjoying Arkansas.
May 2
Sammy is eighteen years old today. Surprised he didn't take off. We're not getting along too well. He hunts when we need him to, but he's never committed himself the way Dean did.Dean's never known any other way to live, or if he has, he doesn't act like it. He's playing the role he was born to play.Sammy's the younger brother. He doesn't know what his role is, even though I can tell him until I'm blue in the face and we're both ready to kill each other. He's got one more year of school and then I'm drafting him full-time into the family business. I've given him more slack than I ever gave Dean,more than I would have ever gotten from my dad. He needed it. Now he's a grown man, or almost. Time for him to step into what's expected of him. Dean never even thought about college. We used to joke about it once in a while. But Sammy still believes he can have a normal life, but they're both more useful to the world as hunters than... what, lawyers? Dentists? Sammy's convinced himself that smart kids have to go to college. Part of my job is to convince him that college would be a waste of his smarts. And I gotta hand it to him on the brains front: there's nothing he can't find on the computer. I still dig around in actual books, libraries, newspapers. It's all keystrokes and search words for Sammy. He's done a good job hiding our trail on all the credit cards.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-third anniversary. Now the new century is really here, and I'm still on the hunt. Getting closer?
Sept. 11
Shaken. 11 is the number of sin, between the perfection of 10-digits on the fingers-and the holiness of 12-Zodiac signs, apostles, hours of day and night... I can't believe that a handful of religious nuts with boxcutters could do something like this. There must be more to it. Have been on the phone with every hunter I know today, and it's unanimous. Everyone's talking demons, nobody has any details but nobody thinks that what's on the surface is all there is. I'm going to New York to look around. Meeting a couple of other guys there.
Nov. 2
Eighteen years.
2002
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-three today. It's a good age, twenty-three.You're starting not to be a kid anymore, and you're still young enough that you feel invincible physically. Forty-eight doesn't feel like that at all.
March 8
Sam told me and Dean today that he is going to Stanford. I told him that if he goes, he better stay gone. I think Dean would have taken a swing at him if I hadn't kept my cool. Barely.Trying to work out what to do about this. We can't tolerate any of us quitting. We're better as a team. I've protected Sammy his whole life, and so has Dean. Could be I've gone too easy on him. Dean always responded to discipline because he believed in the mission. I thought that by giving Sammy more room,I'd let him find his own way to dedication like Dean's. Doesn't look like that worked out. Now he's a straight-A student, computer whiz... I think he's gone a little soft. How many tight spots have we been in since he was a baby? And now he's going to college? He can go to hell, is where he can go.
March 29
Got a call from Missouri. Stull Church was torn down last night by persons unknown. The building was rickety as hell, but still I can't help wonder if it's related somehow... but if it is, why now? There's nothing about the date, nothing else going on in the area that I've heard about.
May 2
Sammy is nineteen today. He's got some decisions to make.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-fourth anniversary. Funny how after twenty years, there's a five- or ten-year gap between special gift years. What would I have given you, Mary? A clock, for 24hours in the day? A Tanakh, which has 24 books? A piece of 24-karat pure gold jewelry? Gold doesn't come until 50 years,though. Getting a little too drunk to keep coming up with ideas.
June 13
Sam graduated. He didn't go to the ceremony. I think he's still carrying a grudge that it took him an extra year. What do you want me to do, Sammy? Should we have stayed in Lawrence while whatever killed your mother came back for you? Should we have sat around fat, dumb, and happy even though war had been declared? How long would we have lasted that way?
Aug. 31
Sam left. I told him that if he was going, it was permanent. I meant it.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for nineteen years. I haven't kept the family together, Mary. I'm sorry. Sam's gone because he's headstrong and because I couldn't make him understand how important this is to all of us. Now Dean tells me he's cut off contact with Sam, and it's killing me. I can't stand the idea of the boys separated. It's one thing for me to take a stand. I'm the father, I have to lay down the law for the family. Maybe that's the Marine in me talking, and maybe it's not the right thing to do all the time, but it's gotten us this far. Now I'm questioning myself. Brothers have to stick together.
2003
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-four today. I was twenty-four when I married his mother. Sorry, kid. Every boy has to cut the apron strings sometime, and for you it's not going to be until we kill off a supernatural entity that seriously needs killing. Then we'll all be free of your mother's ghost. We'll be able to live normal lives. But maybe not. Maybe we've all been hunters too long now.
May 2
Sam's twentieth birthday. He's in California. Dean and I are packing up to get the hell out of Athens, Ohio, which as of this morning is free and clear of haunted sorority houses. I heard Dean talking about Sam on the phone earlier, but he didn't say anything about the conversation to me. I can't bring it up to Dean, either, especially not the mood he's been in. Usually after a hunt he's on fire, like the killing is a buzz. Today you can't talk to him. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was be-cause of a girl, but we've only been here a couple of weeks. It's not like Dean to fall hard for a girl that fast. He was spending a lot of time with a reporter-think she was a reporter. A looker.Could be anything, though. Hard to tell how he's reacting to Sam going AWOL. Dean's like me. He doesn't talk. He acts. We act.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-fifth anniversary. That's silver.
June 13
Dean heard about a succubus in Brooklyn from Richie. He lit out after it like he bore it a personal grudge. I'm getting more and more sure that he had some kind of girl trouble in Ohio,and every female spirit and demon in North America's going to suffer for it. Just hope he keeps his head.
Oct. 9
In Kittanning, Pennsylvania. Poltergeist in a playground built on an old cemetery. Of all the stupid places to put a playground.Sixth or seventh time I've dealt with a poltergeist, enough to know that the psychokinetic theory about girls and puberty is a load of crap. Usually I don't do this, but I've kind of gotten friendly with one of the locals, Jerry Panowski. One of his kids has been targeted a couple of times. For some reason he's easy to talk to. Most of the civilians you meet either don't want to know about the supernatural or blame you for bringing it into their lives once you tell them about it. Jerry's not like that. He understands, I think. Maybe he understands better than I do. Still feel conflicted about Sam. I don't think I did the wrong thing, but I also don't want him out there alone and vulnerable. I've been through Palo Alto half a dozen times in the past year, just to make sure he's okay. I look around, see if there's any sign of anything happening that shouldn't be. He's my son. I can't abandon him. But I also can't go back on what I said. You don't stop loving a kid, but you also can't let love blind you to what's right.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for twenty years. Spent the anniversary at the Winchester Mystery House. After some looking around, I found a distant family connection. Some great-great-uncle, parallel descent. Genealogy isn't my strong suit.
2004
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-five today. There was a report on CNN this morning, of a vampire, strigoi, dug up and its heart burned, in Romania less than a month ago.
May 2
Sammy is twenty-one years old today. May he go and get hammered like the college student he is. Was there again last week to keep an eye on him, and he's got a new girlfriend.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-sixth anniversary. Two days ago, like some awful kind of early present, I got a call from Bobby. It was a long conversation, and by the end of it, I was a confirmed believer in demons, because after twenty-one years,we might just have a real lead on what happened to Mary. All the things I've seen, and I wrote them off to other kinds of phenomena... Goddamnit. I should have been listening all this time. How much closer would I be? Years of lost time to make up for. For a while I thought it might have been Lilith, but now I know better.
I haven't told Dean yet. Can't take the chance that he'd try something he's not ready to do. I've already lost Mary, and Sam. I can't lose Dean too.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for twenty-one years. At last I'm getting closer. If it was a demon that killed her, and I think it was, I'm going to nail down which one. Then I'm going to make it suffer.
Nov. 23
Still tracking the Colt. It's out there somewhere. Word is that a hunter has it, but nobody I know will say who. Someone's hiding it. Why? If I had it, all I'd need is one bullet. A gun that can kill anything... one bullet, for the demon that killed Mary. Then I could put down all my guns, and rest.
2005
Jan. 1
I'm fifty years old, and Mary has been dead for twenty-two of those years. I only knew her for seven. Every year those two numbers get farther apart, because only one of them can change. This year I will find who killed her. This year I will end this and let it all go. Dean turns twenty-six in three weeks.When I was twenty-six, I'd spent two years as a soldier. Dean's been a soldier his whole life. When I was twenty-six, I'd been married for two years and had a toddler. Dean's never been with a woman for more than a couple of weeks at a time. I've prevented him from being a father.
By the time Sammy turns twenty-six, I swear this will be over.
Jan. 24
Dean turns 26 today. When I was 26, he was a baby. Generations pass. Not handing off the family business to him anytime soon, though. He's got his piece of it, and we're both pulling toward the big goal. I'm starting to tell him more about the demon problem. He doesn't have the head for esoterica that Sam does, but what Dean wants to learn, he learns.
May 2
Sammy is twenty-two today. Saw in a Colorado paper that a couple of hikers have gone missing at a place called Blackwater Ridge. Twenty years ago, maybe, eight people were killed up there. Cops called it grizzly attacks.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-seventh anniversary.
July 20
Bingo. California, New Jersey, Arizona. House fires. In each case, a mother killed and one of the survivors a six-month-old baby. Need to go back and see if there were others on 11/2/83. Either way, this is a hard lead. Looking at locations, survivors, other associated phenomena. Unusual weather, spikes in violence or crime. Any of those things can signify demonic involvement. But the fires are enough. Six of them, within a couple of days, each with a six-month-old involved. You gave yourself away, you bastard.
Almost twenty-two years I've been after you. It's not going to be twenty-three. I'm going to look into your yellow eyes and watch you die.
I want to tell the boys, but won't just yet. Dean might go off half-cocked, and Sammy... I was about to write that he wouldn't care. Maybe that's not true. But he might not care enough, and I don't think I could stand knowing that.
Sept. 19
Autumnal equinox might be the next big breakthrough. Will know in 48 hours. Haven't slept in more than 24 already. Re-member old battlefield advice. Eat when you can, sleep when you can, because you never know when the next time will come. Should sleep. Not hungry.
Oct. 6
Too much news about exorcists, exorcism lately. It must mean something. Something's on the move, something big.
Oct. 28
Got a phone call from the roadhouse, and the last piece fell into place. I'm on the trail. Twenty-two years, and I've finally found the son of a bitch. Now I'm going to take him down.
1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005
1995
Jan. 24
Dean turns sixteen today. We're in Montana, and I think we're on the trail of a werewolf. That bow-hunting practice is going to come in handy. Sometimes you can't use a gun, and this is one of them. Tomorrow we're going out on a hunt, and I'm going to let him take the lead.
Jan. 25
Bull's-eye. Dean is a helluva shot with anything. He's coming into his own as a hunter.
May 2
Sammy is twelve years old today. He's a handful. Spends all of his time on the computer, unless he's arguing with me. I can't understand him, and he doesn't try to understand me. Typical father-son trouble, but it feels worse because neither one of us can talk about what happened to his mother. He wants to be in one place, live a normal life. The older he gets, the more he wants it. But the older he gets, the more I'm going to need him to help on the hunt. He's got to understand that. We will finishthis quest, and he's going to be a part of it.
May 17
This would have been our seventeenth anniversary. If we'd been British, turquoise. But Americans don't believe in seventeenth anniversaries, I guess. And I never got to have one.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for twelve years.
Nov. 13
Sammy's soccer team won a division championship. On to the state playoffs. I'm proud as hell of him, and I'm sad too. He's battling to keep himself together the only way he knows how-by rebelling. Only because he's Sammy, he rebels toward being normal. I get it, even if I can't let it keep happening. We owe Mary too much to give up now. But I'm going to keep this trophy.
1996
Jan. 24
Dean turns seventeen today. We went shooting. Then I sent him out on his first hunt. I've let him take the lead before, but I've always been there to back him up. This time he's on his own. Partly it's a test, and partly I wanted some time with Sammy. Should be no problem for Dean. Ghosts of two nuns haunting St. Stephen's Indian Mission in Riverton, Wyoming. Simple salt-and-burn mission. Nuns in love with each other,then discovered. Killed themselves. We scoped the situation out,figured that something must be left behind that's now a focus for the haunting. Bible, rosary beads, some small article that's hidden somewhere in their room. I figured Dean would take care of it no problem, but I still stayed close by with Sammy.
The boys are old enough now that we can start spending a little more time in one place. Thinking California, maybe. When I need to fly solo, they're big enough to stay home by themselves for a while without me worrying. When we go on a hunt together, they can bring their homework. That's what I wanted to talk to Sammy about. It's going to be hard enough getting his bullheaded self through adolescence without also having to fight every other day about how he wants to be Jimmy Normal. We can make this work if we do it together-but he's going to have to know that everyone pulls their weight. Mary comes first.
Dean took care of the nuns just like I thought he would, but I don't think I'm going to be sending him on any more solos soon. That one was a little tense.
May 2
Sammy is thirteen today. He's finishing sixth grade, a year late and with all the grudges to show for it. When Dean hit this age,I started to worry about girls, booze, drugs... all the regular stuff. With Sammy, I don't worry about that. What worries me is that he's got so much bottled up inside him that when it comes out, he won't be able to control it. I think that's part of why he has the dreams. He's different, my Sammy. I think he's a little haunted by being in the room with Mary when she was killed. He feels like he should remember something, or be able to offer a clue. God, it must be terrible to know you witnessed something but that you'll never be able to remember it or tell anyone about it. I think he also wonders about Ms. Lyle. Dean and I never told him the whole story.
May 17
This would have been our eighteenth anniversary. Bismuth. A brittle metal, silvery white with tinges of pink and other colors.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for thirteen years. Longer than I knew her. What does it say about me that I've devoted more of my life to her death than I ever did to her life?
1997
Jan. 24
I gave Dean the Impala today for his eighteenth birthday. The car is 30 years old now, amazing it runs as well as it does. I've taught Dean a lot of what I know about working on cars, which was everything until 1983. Haven't kept up since then, all the computers and emissions spaghetti drives me nuts. Give me a fat 327, no electronics, just pistons, crankshaft, and a gas pedal. That's a car. And now it's my son's. He knows I'll still be driving it, but he's a man now, and since he's already made his share of kills, this was the only rite of passage I could think of. He goddamn well better take care of it.
May 2
Sammy is fourteen years old today. He's been having strange dreams again. I've tried to keep an eye out for any signs that he's more than a regular kid, but I don't see them. He's sensitive, has a lot of imagination, but that's about it. Plus now that he's hitting adolescence, he's a giant pain in the ass. Dean just chased girls and snuck around with beers in his coat pockets. That was teenage trouble I could understand. But Sammy just shuts down sometimes. Won't talk to anyone, and when he does, it's only because he wants to argue about something. He's got all the willpower us Winchesters are known for, but in him it sits quietly. You don't notice it's there until he decides he feels strongly enough about something that he won't compromise. Then you might as well wrestle angels.
May 17
This would have been our nineteenth anniversary. Nobody thinks nineteen is worth a traditional gift.
June 16
Got one of my boys through school. Dean is graduated. Seems like a miracle, after I don't know how many schools, but it happened. He's got his diploma.
Looks like Sammy's going to take an extra year. He's just going to be starting ninth grade next fall, because we were moving so much when he was in second, third, fourth grades that we lost a year and I don't think we'll be able to get it back.I haven't talked to him about it, but he must know it's going to happen. Couple of times I've tried to talk to school administrators about double-promoting him, but then they want to see test scores, gifted enrollments, that kind of thing. I don't have any of that. What I do have is a borderline-genius kid who's going to be nineteen when he graduates high school.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for fourteen years.
1998
Jan. 24
Dean's nineteenth. I was coming home from Vietnam right after my nineteenth. Dean's war isn't going to end like that.Had a dream last night that I found Mary's murderer, and knew that I would have to die to take him out. That's all right if it protects the boys.
May 2
Sammy is fifteen today. He'll start high school this fall. Next spring he'll have a driver's license. Can't wait to have the boys fighting over the Impala. It's a little easier with Sammy lately.He seems more committed. Maybe that's because he's able to have more control over being in school, having a friend here and there. I try not to tell him what I really think, which is that he's shirking sometimes. Winchesters don't quit. I don't think he's quitting, but he gets stubborn, and then he won't listen to anything I say. He and Dean don't get along as well as they used to. Could be Sammy's getting tired of being the little brother, and always having Dean take the lead.
Could be it's time for Sammy to go out on his first solo. I should look around for something simple, like I did for Dean.Don't know why I'm so worried, really. Sammy's never hesitated when push came to shove.
May 17
This would have been our twentieth anniversary. China. Maryand I never had china. We barely had Corningware. Twenty:four fives. Number of digits on the human body.
Aug. 4
Back from Orlando with Sammy. Dean gave me some shuck and jive about how he blazed through five states while we were gone, but the Impala's odometer has barely budged. I'm guessing a girl is involved.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for fifteen years. I feel like I'm getting closer. Every year I learn a little more. Every supernatural being I put away teaches me something. Every hunter I talk tofills in another gap.
1999
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty today. He's in Ohio somewhere, hasn't called in a couple of days. Tracking a possible poltergeist. He's supposed to call in every night. Mission discipline is critical.
May 2
Sammy is sixteen years old today. God knows he's got plenty of torments. Now he's got a driver's license, too. Doesn't make much difference. He's known how to drive since he was nine.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-first anniversary. Mary, I've been doing this for almost sixteen years, and sometimes I feel like I'm not any closer to an answer than I was when I watched the house burn in 1983. What am I doing? I've thrown every-thing away for this, too in an underground tribe of hunters and spend my nights watching exorcisms and killing spirits... and what have I done to the boys? They don't have friends,not the way I did. I lived in the same town the whole time I was growing up. Now they're almost grown, and they've seen every back road and abandoned farmhouse in the country, but they don't have roots. We've never been back to Lawrence.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for sixteen years. The century's ending, by popular reckoning. Wonder what's waiting on the other side.
2000
Jan. 1
Y2K didn't end the world. New Year's Eve almost did Dean in, though. He's upstairs, immobile. I don't feel good myself.
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-one today. I'd buy him a beer if I thought it would be something new. He's also old enough to buy his own guns now. I tried to raise him right, and looks like I did.He's a scam artist, a ladies' man, and an absolutely loyal son.He knows what's right and doesn't hesitate to do it. I'm proud of him. Now that he's hunting on his own I don't see as much of him, but I know he's out there. When I call him in on a job,he's right there every time. I've spent the last sixteen years afraid that I was going to screw him up somehow. Maybe now I can forget about that.
May 2
Sammy is seventeen years old today. I'm going to guess that he's the only sophomore in the United States who has read the Clavicula Solomonis and made parts of it work. Bought him a new computer. He's a zealot about having a Macintosh. Also he's a walking dictionary of the occult and esoteric. There's a lot of his mother in Sammy. God, I wish he had some way to know that other than me telling him.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-second anniversary. Every year, the more I learn about communicating with the dead,the harder it gets not to talk to you, Mary.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for seventeen years. She's watching. Time doesn't pass in heaven.
Or in Hell?
2001
Jan. 24
Happy 22, Dean. Hope you're enjoying Arkansas.
May 2
Sammy is eighteen years old today. Surprised he didn't take off. We're not getting along too well. He hunts when we need him to, but he's never committed himself the way Dean did.Dean's never known any other way to live, or if he has, he doesn't act like it. He's playing the role he was born to play.Sammy's the younger brother. He doesn't know what his role is, even though I can tell him until I'm blue in the face and we're both ready to kill each other. He's got one more year of school and then I'm drafting him full-time into the family business. I've given him more slack than I ever gave Dean,more than I would have ever gotten from my dad. He needed it. Now he's a grown man, or almost. Time for him to step into what's expected of him. Dean never even thought about college. We used to joke about it once in a while. But Sammy still believes he can have a normal life, but they're both more useful to the world as hunters than... what, lawyers? Dentists? Sammy's convinced himself that smart kids have to go to college. Part of my job is to convince him that college would be a waste of his smarts. And I gotta hand it to him on the brains front: there's nothing he can't find on the computer. I still dig around in actual books, libraries, newspapers. It's all keystrokes and search words for Sammy. He's done a good job hiding our trail on all the credit cards.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-third anniversary. Now the new century is really here, and I'm still on the hunt. Getting closer?
Sept. 11
Shaken. 11 is the number of sin, between the perfection of 10-digits on the fingers-and the holiness of 12-Zodiac signs, apostles, hours of day and night... I can't believe that a handful of religious nuts with boxcutters could do something like this. There must be more to it. Have been on the phone with every hunter I know today, and it's unanimous. Everyone's talking demons, nobody has any details but nobody thinks that what's on the surface is all there is. I'm going to New York to look around. Meeting a couple of other guys there.
Nov. 2
Eighteen years.
2002
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-three today. It's a good age, twenty-three.You're starting not to be a kid anymore, and you're still young enough that you feel invincible physically. Forty-eight doesn't feel like that at all.
March 8
Sam told me and Dean today that he is going to Stanford. I told him that if he goes, he better stay gone. I think Dean would have taken a swing at him if I hadn't kept my cool. Barely.Trying to work out what to do about this. We can't tolerate any of us quitting. We're better as a team. I've protected Sammy his whole life, and so has Dean. Could be I've gone too easy on him. Dean always responded to discipline because he believed in the mission. I thought that by giving Sammy more room,I'd let him find his own way to dedication like Dean's. Doesn't look like that worked out. Now he's a straight-A student, computer whiz... I think he's gone a little soft. How many tight spots have we been in since he was a baby? And now he's going to college? He can go to hell, is where he can go.
March 29
Got a call from Missouri. Stull Church was torn down last night by persons unknown. The building was rickety as hell, but still I can't help wonder if it's related somehow... but if it is, why now? There's nothing about the date, nothing else going on in the area that I've heard about.
May 2
Sammy is nineteen today. He's got some decisions to make.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-fourth anniversary. Funny how after twenty years, there's a five- or ten-year gap between special gift years. What would I have given you, Mary? A clock, for 24hours in the day? A Tanakh, which has 24 books? A piece of 24-karat pure gold jewelry? Gold doesn't come until 50 years,though. Getting a little too drunk to keep coming up with ideas.
June 13
Sam graduated. He didn't go to the ceremony. I think he's still carrying a grudge that it took him an extra year. What do you want me to do, Sammy? Should we have stayed in Lawrence while whatever killed your mother came back for you? Should we have sat around fat, dumb, and happy even though war had been declared? How long would we have lasted that way?
Aug. 31
Sam left. I told him that if he was going, it was permanent. I meant it.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for nineteen years. I haven't kept the family together, Mary. I'm sorry. Sam's gone because he's headstrong and because I couldn't make him understand how important this is to all of us. Now Dean tells me he's cut off contact with Sam, and it's killing me. I can't stand the idea of the boys separated. It's one thing for me to take a stand. I'm the father, I have to lay down the law for the family. Maybe that's the Marine in me talking, and maybe it's not the right thing to do all the time, but it's gotten us this far. Now I'm questioning myself. Brothers have to stick together.
2003
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-four today. I was twenty-four when I married his mother. Sorry, kid. Every boy has to cut the apron strings sometime, and for you it's not going to be until we kill off a supernatural entity that seriously needs killing. Then we'll all be free of your mother's ghost. We'll be able to live normal lives. But maybe not. Maybe we've all been hunters too long now.
May 2
Sam's twentieth birthday. He's in California. Dean and I are packing up to get the hell out of Athens, Ohio, which as of this morning is free and clear of haunted sorority houses. I heard Dean talking about Sam on the phone earlier, but he didn't say anything about the conversation to me. I can't bring it up to Dean, either, especially not the mood he's been in. Usually after a hunt he's on fire, like the killing is a buzz. Today you can't talk to him. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was be-cause of a girl, but we've only been here a couple of weeks. It's not like Dean to fall hard for a girl that fast. He was spending a lot of time with a reporter-think she was a reporter. A looker.Could be anything, though. Hard to tell how he's reacting to Sam going AWOL. Dean's like me. He doesn't talk. He acts. We act.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-fifth anniversary. That's silver.
June 13
Dean heard about a succubus in Brooklyn from Richie. He lit out after it like he bore it a personal grudge. I'm getting more and more sure that he had some kind of girl trouble in Ohio,and every female spirit and demon in North America's going to suffer for it. Just hope he keeps his head.
Oct. 9
In Kittanning, Pennsylvania. Poltergeist in a playground built on an old cemetery. Of all the stupid places to put a playground.Sixth or seventh time I've dealt with a poltergeist, enough to know that the psychokinetic theory about girls and puberty is a load of crap. Usually I don't do this, but I've kind of gotten friendly with one of the locals, Jerry Panowski. One of his kids has been targeted a couple of times. For some reason he's easy to talk to. Most of the civilians you meet either don't want to know about the supernatural or blame you for bringing it into their lives once you tell them about it. Jerry's not like that. He understands, I think. Maybe he understands better than I do. Still feel conflicted about Sam. I don't think I did the wrong thing, but I also don't want him out there alone and vulnerable. I've been through Palo Alto half a dozen times in the past year, just to make sure he's okay. I look around, see if there's any sign of anything happening that shouldn't be. He's my son. I can't abandon him. But I also can't go back on what I said. You don't stop loving a kid, but you also can't let love blind you to what's right.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for twenty years. Spent the anniversary at the Winchester Mystery House. After some looking around, I found a distant family connection. Some great-great-uncle, parallel descent. Genealogy isn't my strong suit.
2004
Jan. 24
Dean turns twenty-five today. There was a report on CNN this morning, of a vampire, strigoi, dug up and its heart burned, in Romania less than a month ago.
May 2
Sammy is twenty-one years old today. May he go and get hammered like the college student he is. Was there again last week to keep an eye on him, and he's got a new girlfriend.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-sixth anniversary. Two days ago, like some awful kind of early present, I got a call from Bobby. It was a long conversation, and by the end of it, I was a confirmed believer in demons, because after twenty-one years,we might just have a real lead on what happened to Mary. All the things I've seen, and I wrote them off to other kinds of phenomena... Goddamnit. I should have been listening all this time. How much closer would I be? Years of lost time to make up for. For a while I thought it might have been Lilith, but now I know better.
I haven't told Dean yet. Can't take the chance that he'd try something he's not ready to do. I've already lost Mary, and Sam. I can't lose Dean too.
Nov. 2
Mary has been dead for twenty-one years. At last I'm getting closer. If it was a demon that killed her, and I think it was, I'm going to nail down which one. Then I'm going to make it suffer.
Nov. 23
Still tracking the Colt. It's out there somewhere. Word is that a hunter has it, but nobody I know will say who. Someone's hiding it. Why? If I had it, all I'd need is one bullet. A gun that can kill anything... one bullet, for the demon that killed Mary. Then I could put down all my guns, and rest.
2005
Jan. 1
I'm fifty years old, and Mary has been dead for twenty-two of those years. I only knew her for seven. Every year those two numbers get farther apart, because only one of them can change. This year I will find who killed her. This year I will end this and let it all go. Dean turns twenty-six in three weeks.When I was twenty-six, I'd spent two years as a soldier. Dean's been a soldier his whole life. When I was twenty-six, I'd been married for two years and had a toddler. Dean's never been with a woman for more than a couple of weeks at a time. I've prevented him from being a father.
By the time Sammy turns twenty-six, I swear this will be over.
Jan. 24
Dean turns 26 today. When I was 26, he was a baby. Generations pass. Not handing off the family business to him anytime soon, though. He's got his piece of it, and we're both pulling toward the big goal. I'm starting to tell him more about the demon problem. He doesn't have the head for esoterica that Sam does, but what Dean wants to learn, he learns.
May 2
Sammy is twenty-two today. Saw in a Colorado paper that a couple of hikers have gone missing at a place called Blackwater Ridge. Twenty years ago, maybe, eight people were killed up there. Cops called it grizzly attacks.
May 17
This would have been our twenty-seventh anniversary.
July 20
Bingo. California, New Jersey, Arizona. House fires. In each case, a mother killed and one of the survivors a six-month-old baby. Need to go back and see if there were others on 11/2/83. Either way, this is a hard lead. Looking at locations, survivors, other associated phenomena. Unusual weather, spikes in violence or crime. Any of those things can signify demonic involvement. But the fires are enough. Six of them, within a couple of days, each with a six-month-old involved. You gave yourself away, you bastard.
Almost twenty-two years I've been after you. It's not going to be twenty-three. I'm going to look into your yellow eyes and watch you die.
I want to tell the boys, but won't just yet. Dean might go off half-cocked, and Sammy... I was about to write that he wouldn't care. Maybe that's not true. But he might not care enough, and I don't think I could stand knowing that.
Sept. 19
Autumnal equinox might be the next big breakthrough. Will know in 48 hours. Haven't slept in more than 24 already. Re-member old battlefield advice. Eat when you can, sleep when you can, because you never know when the next time will come. Should sleep. Not hungry.
Oct. 6
Too much news about exorcists, exorcism lately. It must mean something. Something's on the move, something big.
Oct. 28
Got a phone call from the roadhouse, and the last piece fell into place. I'm on the trail. Twenty-two years, and I've finally found the son of a bitch. Now I'm going to take him down.