Supernatural: One Year Gone (5 page)

“Dean, that’s great. Ben is going to flip.”

Lisa was happy. Mentioning a vacation was a symbol that Dean was finally moving on from his past; putting away the crazy life that he had led for twenty-five years. Normal people take vacations. A vacation would mean Dean had finally joined the ranks of the normal and he’d retired from hunting monsters and killing things.

Of course, Lisa would never tell Dean how she felt about his old life, in fact she had always told him to do what he wanted. She didn’t want to mold Dean. He was unmoldable. But if Dean made changes himself she was more than happy to accept them.

Dean smiled. A vacation would be nice. But even as he thought about where they should go—Disneyland, Yellowstone, New York—there was something that unnerved him. For the past few months Dean had been in self-imposed exile. Even though he had begun to play suburban Ken—he had begun working, his life with Lisa and Ben was happy and fulfilled, and the memory of Sam had become less like a gnawing and more like an slight stitch that panged his soul—Dean still felt guilty about truly enjoying himself. And the idea that the
Necronomicon
could possibly liberate Sam from Hell was tantalizing.

“Salem?” Lisa peered at Dean over breakfast.

“Sure, I mean, look. They have the beach, restaurants, and old clipper ships. It will be educational. Ben will love it. Really.” Dean pushed the AAA brochure over to Lisa.

She stared at it skeptically.

“It’s not a vacation destination though. Is it?”

“Of course it is, look at all the tourists in this picture!” Dean beamed.

Lisa looked at Dean’s satisfied face. She couldn’t really argue about it, any vacation would be nice.

“Okay. Salem it is.”

“Ten AM. Everyone ready. “ Dean took the last swig of his coffee.

“Really?” Lisa asked. “You want to leave now?”

“Sure, why not? What are we waiting for?” Dean wanted to be heading east as soon as possible. He could have driven the fifteen-hour car ride in one sitting, but he knew that Lisa would balk at that. They would probably stop halfway through New York State. After that it would be an easy five-or six-hour drive.

Thinking about it the night before, Dean had realized that to find a witch he was going to have to go somewhere legendary—Europe was out of the question, but the next best place was Salem. That town had to be teeming with witches. He could have a nice family vacation with Lisa and Ben and also find a witch that could help him raise Sam from the dead.

Lore said that a
Necronomicon
had been burned during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Chances were that someone in that town still had one. Dean reasoned if he could find the book, he’d find the witch. But he would have to be prepared.

“I’m going to go out and pick up a couple of things,” Dean yelled, grabbing the keys to his truck. “I’ll be back in a half-hour. Be ready.”

Dean knew he had to have plenty of protection once he was in Salem; a
Necronomicon
wasn’t something to fool around with, and the person who would be powerful enough to use it wouldn’t be either. He decided to stop off at the local garden store; there was no better place to find mandrake, hemlock or monkshood. Not only were these things essential for making hex bags and protection spells, they all made excellent perennial ground cover.

After shopping, Dean sat in his truck outside the garden store. He snipped off the plants’ tops and threw the pots of soil out his truck window, drawing stares from the store employees. Feeling guilty, he got out of the truck and took the pots back inside to be recycled.
Wow,
he thought,
I
am
a suburban douche-dweller.

Back at home Dean took the cut plants and some of the weapons he kept in the trunk of the Impala, and packed them into his duffle.

Dean didn’t touch the Impala anymore. He had shoved it into the garage and covered it with a tarp. It was best he not be reminded of all the time he and Sam had spent in it.

Instead he climbed into the driver’s seat of Lisa’s CRV. Ben hopped into the back seat. As long as Ben had his videogame player he was happy. Lisa took her seat beside Dean.

“Family vacation, huh?” Lisa said.

“Yeah, I’m so Chevy Chase right now. Holiddaayy Roooaad,” Dean sung at the top of his lungs.

“Okay Sparky, let’s go.”

Dean gunned the engine. Pulling out of the driveway he admired Lisa’s little house; he was hoping that the next time he saw it he would have his brother with him. Maybe they both could stop hunting once and for all, together.

The Indiana clouds hung low like charcoal smudges wiped against a newsprint-colored sky, threatening rain.

Sam looked southward. He was twenty miles away from Dean. It would be a short drive—thirty minutes at the very most. Sam could make an excuse, slip away from Samuel and be there at Dean’s front door. He’d embrace him. Sam would tell him he was back, he didn’t know how it had happened, but he was back.

Sam looked in the direction of Cicero; Dean was there with Lisa. Of course, he knew he should make every effort to see Dean. But strangely he didn’t really want to. Sam wondered what he was feeling: Was it comfort that Dean was safe and finally happy? Was it happiness that he was alive and brought back from the dead? Sam had said “yes” to Lucifer and on that field he fought with every fiber of his being to gain enough control of his own body in order to throw himself into the pit. It seemed that was the last time he felt... anything.

* * *

“You coming, Sam?”

Samuel Campbell leaned out of the door of his truck and stared hard at his grandson. Sam always seemed so far off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Or rather he didn’t want to. He hadn’t ever met the boy before.
Maybe that’s how he always was.
Though Samuel couldn’t quite convince himself of that. It was strange how he had found him in the first place, but despite the strange situation and the strange grandson, Sam was family.

Samuel sighed, the reality of this weird existence hitting him again. Most days he hated waking up. He didn’t think it was a miracle that had brought him back from the dead; there was too paralyzing an ache inside him for this to be a true blessing.

What bothered Samuel was walking the Earth with the knowledge that his daughter, Mary, was dead. The regret and the loss stung him every day. All he wanted was to see his daughter, her radiant face ringed with blonde hair. She always looked like a cherub to him. He didn’t have the chance to see her grow past the age of twenty-one.

It’s said that it’s awful for a child to die before a parent, but Samuel thought it was more terrible to come back to life and be told of your child’s death. And to know that she was killed by the same demon that had killed him was even worse. What he would give to go back to 1974 and murder Yellow Eyes! Samuel knew that he should be overjoyed that he could spend time with his grandson. In any regular person’s life dying ten years before your grandchildren are born ordinarily precludes being able to spend time with them—but not if you’re a Campbell.

“I’m coming!” Sam swung around and got into his grandfather’s truck.

“Why you dilly-dallying?” Samuel cast Sam a sidewards glance, trying once again to see what was behind that blank stare, but as usual it betrayed nothing. He just had to hope he was getting through to the kid. Much depended on Sam being at his side.

“You can’t see him, you know that right? It would be dangerous.”

Sam nodded. “I just wonder how he’s doing.”

“He’s doing
fine
,” Samuel said. They had been over this a half-dozen times since he had met up with his grandson. Dean was happy and the most important thing for Sam to do was to keep hunting. Sam would be putting Dean and his girl’s kid in danger if he contacted them. True or not, that’s what Samuel repeated to him and most of the time it seemed to work.

Samuel shook his head. Talking to his grandson he sometimes felt as though he was trying to get through to a block of wood. Sam was distant. But it was his inability to be
warm
that worried Samuel. He wondered what he had gotten himself into.

At other times, however, Samuel was outright floored by Sam’s facility for hunting. He had never seen anything like it. In the past couple of months hunting with Sam had proved to be a marvel. Killing werewolves, vampires, and wendigos, even ghost hunting was almost easy with Sam. He intuited the prey’s next move and was there in an instant; the capture or the kill was vicious but surgical. It was as if Sam’s deftness at killing was drawn from some lifeblood deep within him. It almost bordered on the uncanny.

It was for this reason that Sam had become a leader of sorts to his cousins: Christian, Mark, and Gwen. They were second and third cousins to Sam and a tough trio, an extension of the more scrappy side of the Campbell family tree, and it was no small feat to impress them. But Sam had earned their respect.

Samuel was impressed with Sam; if pressed he might admit that he was also a little scared of him. But the sheer number of monsters Sam was able to take down required Samuel to look past that. He needed Sam.

Samuel and Sam headed back toward the compound and pulled into the gated driveway just before dusk. The compound was a collection of industrial and agricultural buildings, strongly fortified with cement and rebar. A good place to take a stand against monsters. It served as an unofficial hunting headquarters for the Campbell family. When Samuel came back from the dead, he took up heading the family and had been sleeping there ever since.

It turned out he had to stay close to base because things had changed from the days when he was a hunter. There were more monsters than ever before. The needle had been pinging up in the red zone for months. They were on monster overload. Perhaps it was just lucky happenstance, as this was all good news to him. Samuel wanted to hunt as much as possible; he had made a deal that depended on it.

“Jez, this place is a dump. Though, I
do
know a lovely designer who could do wonders with the sparseness of the space. Maybe an Eames lounger or two?”

Samuel spun around and found himself face to face with Crowley. Crowley was a dandified turd in Samuel’s book, a despicable thing that blighted the earth. Even when Crowley was human, he had to have been an ass.

But Samuel needed him. He had been playing the demon’s games since he got back and his patience was starting to wear as thin as a crick, but he had to keep going. There was a light at the end of this tunnel—a big light. If Samuel helped Crowley amass a fortune of monster souls, Crowley would bring back Mary.

“What the hell do you want?” Samuel sneered.

“I just dropped in for a jelly roll and some of that delicious coffee with powdered milk you have out there.” Crowley motioned to the main space next to Samuel’s office. “No fussing about the nibblets though.” The demon dusted off a chair with his handkerchief. “You and I have some business to attend to.”

“I think you and I have said all we need to say to one another,” Samuel grunted as he eyed a salt-filled shotgun that was within arm’s reach. How he would love to stick it into Crowley’s mouth and pull the trigger.

“Don’t even think of blowing me away old man. Then where would you be?” Crowley cackled. Then, as though with the flick of a switch, he turned serious. “You need to have a talk with Dean. You remember him right? Your
other
grandson? The one with an actual... heartbeat? I know, I know. Dean’s just a regular old human so you might not have any use for him. But I need you to talk to him.”

“You know I can’t do that. There is no way I can do that,” Samuel said firmly.

“How
you do it is not my problem. Just that you
do
it. Dean has a funny little idea in his head and you have to make sure he doesn’t go through with it.” Crowley crossed and uncrossed his legs as he spoke.

“How do you know?” Samuel asked.

“You don’t need to know that. Only that I do. He thinks he’s going to be able to raise Sam from the dead using a pisser of an old text.”