Supernatural: One Year Gone (2 page)

The woman leans down, eye to eye with the girl.

“Well then, if you cannot do it, I will find someone else.”

She slowly turns her hand. The girl’s eyes dilate to saucers as the vertebra in her neck go POP, POP, POP, snapping like chicken bones.

At that moment, from behind, a dark figure emerges from the tree line. She approaches the girl silently, produces a knife and with one hand grabs the girl’s neck as the blade slices across her throat. Her small body falls limp into the snow, lifeless dark eyes staring out across the white expanse.

The pages of the old tome flap like the wings of a downed bird.

The figure holds the knife downward as blood drips from its blade. She picks up the book and continues the incantation as the blood petals over the white snow; spreading and soaking the purple cloth.

“Deviser of Darkness,
imus adque deportamus...”

As the woman continues the chant, the specter darkens and materializes. With each word the figure becomes more corporeal: Her limbs take shape. The rancid skin on her face smoothes and tightens. Her rotting, torn clothes repair themselves.

The woman stops chanting, and looks at the creature before her.

“Dear mother, I’ve missed you so.”

The old woman nods, and the two walk off across the field together.

Snow wafts over the young girl’s dead body. Gradually, the snow covers the slight figure, blending it into the white landscape.

2010

Dean and Sam swig from a bottle as they barrel-ass down a dark country road. Dean cranks the tunes. Sam smiles and lays back into the Impala’s passenger seat. All is right with the world.

“How long till we get there?” Sam asks.

Dean casts a sidewards glance at Sam. “Dude, you’re my personal Garmin, figure it out.”

Dean smiles, he loves making Sam feel like the little brother. But Sam doesn’t respond.

“You’re my co-pilot. Just without the uniform.”

No answer.

“Sam? You in there? When are we going to get there?” Dean asks, a flicker of concern on his face.

Sam turns toward Dean.

“We’ll never get there, Dean. It’s over. All over. I’m gone.”

* * *

Dean woke with a start. His flailing arm hit the quarter-full glass of Scotch on the bedside table. A brown spot on the cream-colored sisal rug widened to a stain.
Crap.

Hefting himself up off the bed Dean reached for the towel that was draped over the chair by the window. But as his feet hit the ground, the sheets wrapped around his ankles, impeding his progress. Tied and tripped up, he landed on his face.

“Perfect, another kick-ass way to start the day, Dean,” he muttered to himself.

The bedroom door creaked open. Dean studied the pair of feet sporting nicely painted toenails that moved into his eyeline. He looked up. Lisa Braeden stood over him with a pitying smile on her face. Dean had grown quite accustomed to the expression that he induced almost every time they spoke. It was the same face Dean was met with when six weeks ago he showed up on her doorstep, after God knows how many years. They hadn’t been serious, it was just a couple of dates, years ago. But Dean and Sam had come to her rescue when her housing development had been taken over by a serious case of deadly child-nappers.

“Nice to see you made it this far out of bed today. That’s farther than any day this week.”

Bleary-eyed, Dean nodded. This is his life.

“I’ll make you some eggs,” Lisa said as she picked up a pair of jeans from the floor. “We’re going to Morse Reservoir today, if you want to come.”

Dean heaved himself back onto the bed.

“No thanks. I’ll just stay here.”

Lisa’s eyes flicked over Dean’s unshaven face.

“Why don’t you come? It might be fun. Remember fun?”

Dean smiled tightly, the levity of the conversation almost making him nauseous.

“Besides, you haven’t talked to Ben in a week.” Lisa sat on the bed next to Dean, taking his hand in hers. “I don’t mind you staying in our spare room, but it’s like living with a ghost. I told you I wasn’t going to push you—”

“You’re right, you did.” Dean cut in, immediately regretting his tone. “I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

“I know you are. So am I. That’s why I’m asking you if you want to go to the park.”

She brushed the light hairs on the back of Dean’s hand. The pure emotion made his stomach twist.

Dean withdrew his hand from Lisa’s.

“Give me a couple minutes.”

Lisa pursed her lips, as though she wanted to say more. Instead, she kissed Dean on the cheek and stood up. At the door she turned and held up Dean’s discarded jeans.

“Just in case you care to join us, I’m going to throw these in the wash.”

Dean nodded.

Lisa closed the door to Dean’s room, slowly clicking the lock. She stood there for a moment wondering whether she had made a mistake when Dean came to her front door and she let him into her and her son’s life. Ben was twelve, impressionable and sensitive. She knew deep down how kind and generous Dean was, but she also knew that the years of hunting had calloused his ability to commit himself emotionally. She thought that perhaps she could get through to him. Two months on, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Emotionally, Dean was an out-of-control rollercoaster with faulty brakes. It was only a matter of time before he ran off the rails.

Dean sat on the edge of the bed, then lay back and closed his eyes. In his head he played over again the vision of Sam jumping into the pit of Hell: the fiery opening swirling and writhing in the middle of the cemetery. He had been there for his brother, but there hadn’t been anything he could do to stop him. Talk about being impotent. Sam
had
to jump, but an acidy feeling of regret constantly swirled in Dean’s stomach. He should have stopped him. But there wasn’t any other way. Every so often, like every two minutes, Dean’s heart would palpitate and leap into his throat. The reality was constantly there, Dean’s brain wouldn’t let it go: Sam was gone forever.

The smoky Scotch he drank in large gulps helped his cause. But frequently, mid-morning, after Ben had gone to school and Lisa had left to teach an early morning yoga class in Carmel, Dean’s mind would clear enough so that once again he remembered, moment by moment, Sam jumping into the pit.

There had been no other way to save the world. Sam had said “yes,” and Lucifer had taken over Sam’s body. The plan rested on the tenuous idea that Sam could somehow gain enough consciousness that he could hurl himself, with Lucifer within him, into the hole. The brothers had collected all four horsemen’s rings—Death gave Dean his ring outright—and together the rings opened up the portal to Hell.

But it didn’t go down like that. They weren’t able to get Lucifer into the portal. As was their fate, Lucifer and Michael met on the battlefield, ready to duke it out. The collateral damage would only be a few hundred million lives, and no one would need Pay-Per-View for this fight, it was going to be right outside everyone’s front door.

But on that field, in the middle of the fight, somehow Sam had gained enough control of his own body, while possessed by Lucifer, to hurl himself into the cage. And there he would stay for eternity.

With that act, a hole had opened up in Dean’s soul and there was no way to fill it. The Scotch only anesthetized him for a few hours. After that, the thoughts would come flooding back. The panicky guilt would set in and Dean would race down the stairs to the kitchen looking for everything and anything to drink in order to knock himself out again.

Once, Lisa had found him on the kitchen floor in just his boxers: a bottle of cough syrup spilled onto the linoleum beside him, a glass smashed on the floor and several shards embedded in his feet. Lisa had patiently brought him upstairs and put him into the shower then waited until he had sobered up enough to get into bed.

The next morning when Dean woke, Lisa was perched on the side of his bed watching him.

“Not your finest moment yesterday,” she said.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea coming here.”

“Maybe, but I want you to get better, Dean.”

Dean drew his fingers across his brow and pinched them together.

“I don’t think you can get better from something like this. That’s why I should probably leave.” Dean made a move to get out of bed.

“You’re not leaving. You can stay here as long as you want. But you have to make the decision if you want to move past this.”

“You can’t just move on from something like this, Lis. I let him do it.”

“There was no other way. Remember you said that? I can’t forgive you, Dean. You have to do that on your own.” Lisa got up and turned at the door. “You couldn’t have done anything else.”

Dean shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“No one could have.” Lisa’s hand hovered over the doorknob. “I’ll bring you up some coffee.” She shut the door, leaving Dean with his heart beating in his ears.

Day by day, Dean had started to rejoin the ranks of the living: he got up a little earlier rather than sleeping until noon, at night he would join Lisa and Ben while they were watching TV, still with a bottle close to hand, but drinking a little less every day.

Dean’s relationship with Lisa thrived through Dean’s self-imposed confinement.

“I know how to do laundry, Lisa.” Dean leaned against the washing machine as Lisa separated out the whites and coloreds.

“No. You don’t. Everything you wear is that same olive grey because you don’t separate your whites and coloreds.”

Dean looked down at his olive-gray T-shirt. She had a point. “I like this color,” he said. “I look good in it.”

“It’s fatigue green. Let’s go get you something in blue or even red.”

“I’m not wearing red. It’s a shade of pink.”

“It’s not,” Lisa said, smiling as she leaned over to grab the laundry detergent, her face a few inches from Dean’s.

Dean looked into her dark eyes and grabbed her arm. A pull inside of him wanted to do more, to hold her. But he just couldn’t.

“I don’t want to mess up your life,” he said.

“You’re not. And I won’t let you. Now let me go. I have to put in the fabric softener ball.”

“What the hell is that?”

Lisa grabbed the powder-blue ball, snapped off the cover and poured fabric softener into the hole.

“What does that do?” Dean asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Fabric softener, to make your clothes softer.” Lisa smirked.

“I didn’t know that was really a thing. Making clothes softer.”

“Oh young Jedi, I have so much to teach you.” Lisa slammed the washer shut, spun the dial and gave Dean a kiss on the cheek.

It was the first moment of levity that Dean had felt for weeks. But even as Dean’s life normalized, thoughts about Sam haunted him.

“Never thought I would see you reading a self-help book.”

Dean opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. On his chest a copy of
Chicken Soup for the Soul
was flipped open. That night Lisa had said, “Why don’t you read this?” She pulled it from a shelf and handed it to Dean. “It helped me when my grandmother died.” Dean accepted the book reluctantly, but after reading a couple of pages he sort of got into it.

Sam leaned over and pulled the book from Dean’s chest.

“‘101 stories to open the heart and rekindle the spirit’? Really Dean? That’s lame, even for you.”

Dean peered at his brother through sleepy eyes. Sam stood before him in bloody clothes, with his face looking like a wild animal had ravaged it. Sam’s lip had been torn—more like bitten off—his teeth peeked through beneath. His left ear had shriveled and darkened and on his left arm a swath of skin peeled from shoulder to wrist. His body had been scorched from top to bottom, layers of raw skin stuck to his clothes in slick black patches.

On some level, Dean knew he was imagining his brother standing before him. His dreams had been tormenting him like hounds. This evening was no exception.

“Sam.”

“Long time no see, bro. Of course, as you can see, I’m having some trouble. They burned my eyes with pokers. I can only really get a good look at you if I go like this.” Sam turned his head slightly to the side. His eyes were scarred into cataracts. Dean winced. Sam swung around, checking out the room. “Nice place. Comfy. Lot nicer than where I am. ’Course it’s a little different for me down there being pulled apart fiber by fiber by a thousand rabid demons. No worries, though. I’m glad
you’re
comfortable up here.”