Supernatural Fresh Meat

THIRTY-NINE




Sam looked around at the quiet, snowy forest as they made their way toward the Impala. At least that was the direction he hoped they were heading. If it weren’t for Bobby’s GPS, they would have no idea where they even were. Everything looked so different. He knew he’d walked this very path with Dean not too long ago, but with everything covered in snow and the clouds obscuring anything in the distance, Sam found it difficult to get his bearings.

As they walked, they looked for signs of Dean. The only thing that let Sam know they were actually on a trail was that the trees had been cleared on either side. The path wasn’t very wide, and more than once he and Bobby had to walk single file through trees and around massive boulders.

They weren’t saying much to each other. He knew that both of them worried about Dean, about the storm, and most of all about Dean being out in it with the aswang. He hated that he couldn’t warn Dean about Grace. His only hope was that he wasn’t with her right now. She could be luring him into anything. He hoped his brother’s hunter sense was tingling, but Sam’s and even Bobby’s hadn’t gone off in her presence. She was good.

He watched Bobby’s back as they moved single file again, going up over a little rise. They hiked down it, another featureless area in this whiteout. Sam had no idea how far they were from the Impala.

Bobby stopped, pointing ahead. “I think I see something!”

Sam followed his hand, and thought he did, too—a long, low line of black something in all the white.

“It’s the fence! The one by the parking area!” Bobby called back to him.

They moved forward, renewed vigor to their steps. Sure enough, it was the parking lot. They’d actually found it. Sam felt like a minor miracle had happened.

They snowshoed past the fence and looked at the parking lot. Two huge lumps of snow provided the only relief to the flat expanse of the trailhead lot. The lumps stood exactly where Jason’s truck and the Impala had been parked. To be sure, Sam crossed to the shorter one and lifted some snow off the side. The entire thing was absolutely buried. He dug down to the driver’s side door, his mitten finding glossy black beneath. He cleared off a window and peered in. It was the Impala.

“It hasn’t moved since we left,” Sam noted.

Bobby checked out the hulk of snow that was likely Jason’s truck. He cleared off the driver’s side window. “It’s Jason’s, all right,” he said. “I recognize the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.” He stepped back and took in the sheer amount of snow on top of the vehicle.

Sam frowned. “The fact that Dean hasn’t called could be because his phone is dead or that he lost it.” He glanced toward the trail they’d come from. “Either way, it means he’s out of contact, and if his phone’s dead, then he’s in a place with no electricity.”

“Which could be very cold.”

“We need to find him.”

“We’ll have to track him. Gonna be hard as hell in this storm, but we have to try.”

Bobby headed back to the trailhead a few feet away, and Sam joined him. They stared at the intensely falling snow, which had already partially filled their tracks in just a few minutes.

“This is going to be tough, Bobby.”

Bobby didn’t respond, just stared at the storm with a grey slash of a mouth.