Back to Front
Heavy footfalls thudded on its leafy floor, twigs bent and broke under the pressure; they fractured, cracking sharply, unsettling the age-old living rhythm of its forest with unnatural disturbance. Further on the feet stopped their insurgence and breath, heavy and laboured, wheezed loudly in the ensuing quiet. There came a click, click, the grind of a twist cap, the slosh of liquid, swallowing, gulping and then the feet thudded on as the man continued to trample his way up hill.
Humming he climbed upward over its fallen trees, pushing, snapping through the undergrowth, bending, tearing, crushing life and beauty with unwitting inconsideration; happy in his ignorance, content with his world.
Birds, startled, high-pitched in squawking panic, fluttered and flew in flurries from the cover of the nearby bushes, they sped in all directions, swooping, flapping, gaining height before disappearing into the canopy.
The leaves rustled, shaking, returning to rest, reinstating its claim, expunging the human's unwelcome existence.
"Have you found anything yet?"
Sam ignored the enquiry tapping the keys on his laptop. They were in yet another flea-bitten hole of a motel. The coffee machine was broken; hot water only between some ungodly hour of the night and really early morning and the diner down the road looked like it was botulism on a plate. They had only been there three days and Sam reckoned it was a week too long.
Dean got louder. "Have you found anything yet?" Sam pressed another key. "Have you found anything yet?" Dean got shriller and more insistent. "Have you found anything yet? HAVE YOU FOUND ANYTHING YET?"
"DEAN!"
"Have you found anything yet?"
Okay so Dean was pissed at him, he got that but the all out campaign to 'Bug the Hell out of Sam' was beginning to wear thin, grating on Sam's nerves in exactly the way Dean intended. Pursing his lips into a thin bloodless line Sam shifted his shoulders. He was not going to justify himself, he wasn't, if Dean couldn't accept that Sam had beaten him fair and square on Need for speed, even when he'd given him best out of three, then that was Dean's problem not his.
Normally Sam would have ridden out Dean's petulance with an easy calm born of long forbearance that pissed off Dean even more but today Sam was still angry. Dean had been pushing his buttons for the whole three days they had been on this hunt, goading him then playing the innocent. Then last night when having a well-deserved drink after they'd finished salting and burning the poor unfortunate woman who'd been haunting a local school, Dean had topped everything by saddling Sam with 'the friend'.
She looked all of sixteen, skinny with braces and long brown hair but had proudly produced an ID card which said she was twenty two, it had taken Sam less than three minutes to realise that whoever had made or given her the card hadn't taken into account her mental age. He had been forced, admittedly by his own politeness to sit with her while Dean worked his own particular brand of seduction on her friend which as far as Sam could see consisted of ramming his tongue as far down her throat as he could. Sam had finally bottled it when a small hand had slid up his thigh far too high to be comfortable and squeezed.
He'd gotten out of there; not caring that he spilt his beer and pushed past Dean thumping him hard in the back. He hadn't even waited outside the bar but headed straight back to the motel on foot. He was in bed feigning sleep when Dean arrived back thirty minutes after him, mad as hell because apparently the girls came as a pair. Sam, forgetting he was supposed to be asleep, had retorted back that if Dean wasn't man enough maybe it was time to hang up his, kiss me slow take me hard boxers.
The icy atmosphere between them had stayed through the next day until Dean had suggested that they settle matters by playing Need for Speed. Sam had initially said an emphatic "No!" wanting to pack and leave the sh*t hole motel ASAP. He told himself that there was no way he was going to let Dean drag him into his adolescent praxis and settling the acrimony between them by playing a game. However, Dean had kept on and on and Sam had, against his better judgement and knowing that it probably would lead to even more rancour, allowed Dean to persuade him.
Having taken up the challenge, Sam, with superior glee, had proceeded to trash his brother, gloating and putting Dean in an even worse mood. It should have made Sam feel better but it hadn't, it hadn't lightened his mood or made him want to forgive his sibling for using him as the butt of his irritation and especially not forgive using him as a babe-sitter.
"Have you found anything yet?"
"For Gods sake Dean grow up."
"I might if you grew a d**k."
Dean smugly leant back on the rumpled, slept in bed and the silence that hung between them was louder than any shouting match. Sam knew without looking that his brother was claiming a moral victory having got under Sam's skin enough to make him say something.
"So have you found anything yet?"
The pause before Sam spoke was long suffering and measured as he drew in a breath and calmed himself down enough to give a civil reply. "Yeah I have. No thanks to you…Here at Wallace Falls."
Dean stayed where he was but there was a distinct change in his demeanour. "Wallace Falls?" He turned his head and watched Sam read off the computer screen.
"Wallace Falls State Park, four thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five acres of camping park with shoreline on the Wallace River, Wallace Lake, Jay Lake and the Skykomish River on the west side of the Cascade Mountains."
"Camping Park!"
Ignoring the horrified exclamation Sam continued. "There are reports on five people being lost in the forest at Wallace Falls over the last two months."
Dean made a derisive noise. "Big Deal, people are always getting lost especially in forests its kinda in the small print."
"Yeah but they're usually found eventually dead or alive."
"So?"
"That's the point, they weren't found, no clothes, no bags, no bodies, nadda."
Sitting up Dean focused his attention on the screen in front of Sam showing a map of the area. "Wendigo?"
Sam sucked on his bottom lip the same thought had occurred to him too. "Could be, I've checked back and as far as I can tell disregarding all those hikers they found one way or another, in the last thirty years eighty-three people have gone missing without trace.
Making a face, scrunching his eyebrows Dean moved his lips in silent calculation. "That's…that's about, on average, two a year." He shrugged. "Co-incidence? I mean two a year isn't that much, not in a place like that? "
"It also doesn't fit what we know about Wendigos, there's no bunching until now. There are gaps but none longer than eighteen months."
"Maybe this one doesn't hibernate."
Dean's theory was plausible but Sam leant back his face thoughtful. "Maybe but the last one we came across just disappeared the people, all their stuff was left, remember we found the camp, the tents."
"Anything in the rule book says Wendigos all behave the same?" All the earlier irascibility was gone now that Dean sniffed a hunt, his whole body leaned forward and his eyes narrowed with an intelligent intensity. "And if it is a Wendigo why has it suddenly got a bad attack of the munchies?"
This was how they worked, Dean asked questions, okay sometimes stupid ones but he pushed Sam to think, to theorise and usually together they would come up with some kind of explanation be it right or wrong and eventually, hopefully the answer.
"Anything changed in the last two months?" Dean questioned again.
"No not really…but…it could be that there are more people?" Sam leaned forward pressing keys. "I mean these places have visitors by the truck load." Eyes darting, side to side, Sam read. "Yep…looking at these statistics visitor uptake has gone up by thirty-seven percent in the last six months" Sam raised his head and caught Dean giving a shudder as if the even the thought of visiting a State Park was abhorrent.
"I suppose…" Sam leaning back pushed the chair onto two legs as he worked the problem. The silence in the room was now one of anticipation. "…It could be that the influx has disturbed the habitat, encroached into its territory." He thumped the chair's front legs to the floor staring at the screen once more. "I read something..." He pointed running his finger down the screen following the text. "Usually the Rangers like you to keep to the special trails. They keep a check but it says here…" He changed the page and after a moment tapped the screen in confirmation. "…that they have recently allowed people to go off the beaten track."
"Like that's a good idea." Dean was plainly sceptical of the Park Authorities sanity at letting Joe Public wander at will in its confines.
"You have to lodge a route plan with the State Park Office if you're going off the marked trail and they have to approve it." Sam continued. "They're very careful about conservation."
"What about all those people who don't lodge a goddamned route plan and just take off."
"Then … we have a much bigger problem than it would first seem." Sam was not at all happy as he acknowledged Dean's perceptive remark about hikers, Sam mentally added in any human. They knew from past experience that what people were supposed to do and what they did were poles apart. He sighed still not entirely convinced that the pattern fitted a Wendigo, "We'll have to check all the missing persons reports for the whole area."
Dean smirked, "That's your department Research Boy" and with that he stretched his arms and brought both hands behind his head then he leant back on the pillows and closed his eyes. "I'm going to get my beauty sleep."
Dean woke, starting upward as the car chassis bounced in a pothole. "Hey, hey…bro' easy with my car." He smoothed his hand soothingly over the dashboard. "Never mind baby, I'm here now." He turned to Sam. "Dude, pull over."
"Dean you've barely had two hours sleep."
"I'm good to go and besides I don't want you shaking her to bits any more than necessary." Dean felt the roll of Sam's eyes as he turned the steering wheel but decided not to comment because his brother was actually doing what he'd asked, without complaint, for once.
The car's tires scrunched the gravel, spitting it upwards as Sam left the metalled road and brought the car to a halt on the verge. The doors creaked open and both Winchesters emerged crumpled and stiff. Four days driving and sleeping in the car had taken its toll and no showers or clean clothes hadn't improved matters.
Raising his arms Dean bent his back, arching into the stretch enjoying the burn of his muscles. Man, his body was definitely looking forward to a bed at the end of this run. He took a breath allowing the cool air to fill his lungs. Holding it inside he let its freshness cleanse the tiredness from his body. He glanced over at Sam and saw that his brother had his eyes closed, his face tilted towards the sun and for an instance Dean saw Sam's youthfulness as the soft warm light smoothed out the lines of worry. Sometimes he forgot how young his brother was.
"Sam?"
"Yeah?" Sam's eyes remained closed. Dean wanted to say something, to tell his brother that everything was okay but the words wouldn't come, frustrated he bottled it and rather than let the silence hang, he settled for. "Cool place."
Sam turned suddenly, gazing at him in puzzlement. "Yeah?"
Damn, Dean mentally kicked himself, "Yeah, if you like trees." Sam's answering grunt brought a satisfied smirk to Dean's lips he couldn't have his brother thinking he was appreciating the great outdoors for its aesthetic beauty that would never do and even if he said so himself that was a very good recovery.
He yawned, he really should let Sam continue driving but for some reason he felt restless, not the hyped up feeling of a hunt but a disaffected tension a nagging feeling that wouldn't be identified and wouldn't leave him alone. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, despite its obvious appeal, the stillness of this place made him uneasy and he was itching to be back on the road, to rid himself...
A breeze rushed its way through the treetops lightly disturbing the leaves with a low frish of sound. Dean shuddered as he looked up following the sway of the branches. He rubbed his face, Jeez, what was wrong with him? He risked another squint at Sam and was relieved to find that his brother hadn't noticed. Hadn't noticed what? That Dean was spooked?
Dean walked away from the car hunching his shoulders against the mizzling rain which had settled in, hazing the view before him. He leaned forward, keeping his body weight over his back leg and peered over the edge of the cliff which bounded one side of the unfenced road. The ground fell away running sharply downward into a melee of branches, scrappy bushes and trees which became so dense that they obscured the bedrock. Man that was a drop.
A sudden dizziness washed through him and he swayed alarmingly but the creak and slam of the Impala's door brought him back, literally, from the brink. Dean grasped the annoyance letting his exasperation banish the sudden scare of the vertigo as he focused on Sam's seeming disregard for 'his baby'. "Dude, the car!"
He retraced his steps, shook the mist of drops from his hair and slid into the dry comfortable interior of the Impala. He relished the familiar feel, the way the seat fitted his body, hugged his hips and how his hands slipped into the worn indentations on the steering wheel. This was where he belonged, where he felt at ease, at home.
Sam unfolding a map, loudly flicking it out and smoothing the wrinkled surface disturbed his communion. Dean's pique resurfaced hotly, he had the distinct feeling that his brother was deliberately making as much noise as possible, encroaching on Dean's personal space and spreading himself as far as he could in a deliberate attempt to irritate his older brother.
Dean bit back a jibe; he knew he'd been riding his brother for the last week and for no other reason than he was bored. The hunt had been a simple salt and burn, the motel sh*ty, bars no go zones and with the TV broken it had meant that the nearest form of entertainment had been Sam. He did feel guilty, slightly, because after all it wasn't Sam's fault, well it was for being Sam and doing Sammy things in that Sammy way of his that had wound Dean up since forever and because sometimes he just couldn't help pushing his younger brother's buttons.
"How far out are we?" He asked making sure he kept his tone neutral. "I could do with a shower, a drink and a nice soft bed." There was something in the way that Sam kept his head down and avoided his eyes that stirred suspicion deep within Dean, alerting his big brother radar, but it was fleeting and as Sam answered the feeling dissipated.
"'bout a day." Sam spread the map even further holding it up at the edges. Dean pulled it down so he could see properly almost daring Sam to make a comment but his brother hadn't noticed or had chosen to ignore Dean's peevishness and merely pointed to their position on the map.
"We're here."
Dean bent, eyes taking in the details as his brother slid his finger along the route to their destination. "And that's the entrance to the Park."
"Not much around." The area was almost wholly coloured green with waving brown contour lines narrowly spaced along the ribbon of the river, every now and then the blue line was punctuated with the irregular shape of a lake.
Sam grinned. "This part here is the State Park and this…" He indicated the vast tracts on either side, "…is privately owned land, not much there at all but forest, river and lake."
"No bars?"
"No bars."
The day turned out to be a day and a half which meant another night in the Impala. Dean's mood had not improved and Sam had sat in silence for much of the drive. He didn't mind it was preferable to the sniping and the scenery through the window was impressive.
A large board, with a painting of happy campers, all sweaters, slacks and knitted hats standing outside their neat tents, cooking their evening meal on pristine barbecues, announced the Park entrance to be one mile ahead. Sam felt the car surge forward as Dean pressed the accelerator; he was obviously keen to get to the end of the journey. Sam wished he felt the same. He'd been half dreading, half anticipating this moment since they'd left the last town. He turned towards his brother and opened his mouth then closed it again.
"What?"
"Huh." Sam suddenly realised that Dean was staring at him.
"What were you going to say?"
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were." Dean insisted. "You opened your mouth."
"I can open my mouth without speaking."
"That'd be a first."
"You what?"
"Nothing."
"No come on Dean," Sam challenged. "You got something to say to me, say it."
The Impala's engine purred to the rhythmic rumble of the tyres.
"Bitch!"
"Jerk."
Dean kept his eyes on the road and Sam's face transformed from the stern frown as he was unable to stop the grin, which widened enough to show his dimples. He'd heard what his brother had said and he could wait, bide his time. Dean was in for a little surprise and Sam was so going to enjoy every minute.
The radio gave a burst of white noise, its static hissing through the dashboard speakers. Dean thumped the single arrow button on the tape machine and turned up the volume.
For the last twenty-four hours Dean had insisted on tuning into the only station he could find despite the fact it had been fading in and out. Now it seemed they had lost even that contact and the music, which had been fairly muted before gave way and AC/DC invaded the interior of the car assaulting Sam's eardrums. The young hunter sighed resigned himself to a fate of early deafness.
Cell phones wouldn't work either; Sam had put in a last call into Bobby about forty miles back before they'd entered the more mountainous countryside, reporting in and letting him know they would probably be out of touch for a while. Their father's friend had gruffly told him to take care and not do anything stupid.
"So…" His brother glanced over expectantly.
"So?" Sam played dumb deliberately prolonging the moment.
"So what's the plan? Go in check the place out then back to civilisation. There must be a motel or something around here." Dean sounded hopeful, eager even and Sam almost felt sorry for him but not enough to relent.
"Actually…" Sam paused, "…I've already booked us a place."
Dean's eyebrows raised. "Oh?"
"Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea for us to be on the spot."
There was silence as Sam let the information sink into his brother's brain.
"On the spot!"
"Yeah."
"Sam tell me you didn't."
"Didn't what?" Sam was all innocence.
"I am not sleeping in a f**king tent."
"No, we're not sleeping in a tent."
Sam watched his brother's shoulders relax before he hit him with both barrels."
"I booked us a Yurt."