Sam stared at the prompt.
Essay Assignment: Write 3 pages on your most memorable family experience and how this experience affected you, good or bad. I'm looking for the brutal, funny, maybe even mean and painful truth.
He had been staring at this paper for the better part of an hour. How was he supposed to write about his most memorable family experience when most of the things he did with his family were supposed to be a secret? The few stories he could tell about their family weren't particularly memorable, save for the fact that they were the few moments when he could pretend his family was normal. His dad helping him with a math problem in the third grade, his brother tickling him to make him feel better when his pet fish died in the first grade, waking up to see that his father had fallen asleep in a chair next to his and Dean's bed and listening to his father and brother breath in the same, even manner—there were memories that Sam cherished, but they were not his most memorable experiences.
Sam wished those things were more memorable to him. Even at this young age, it was difficult to remember those events. He wondered if he would remember them at all when he got older. No, the memorable events were not the ones he wished he had more of. The memorable events were the ones that he could do without.
He remembered watching Dean stitch up his Dad after particularly bad hunts. He remembered melting silver for bullets. He remembered his dad handing him his first gun at age nine. He remembered lining the windows and doors with salt and wondering if his dad was going to make it back from a hunt. He remembered the bone chilling fear of having a weapon knocked out of his hand in the middle of a hunt. He remembered sitting in the Impala and waiting for his dad and brother to return from burning whatever hell spawn that hunt had been about. When he thought about his family, he didn't remember happy, hallmark moments. He remembered hunting.
Of course, there was no way he could write about hunting. There was an unspoken rule in the Winchester family: We do what we do and we shut up about it. They didn't even talk about it in the family all that much. Dad never had to explain what they did for a living. Sam figured it out himself, and when Dad found out that Sam knew, he simply handed him a gun and brought him into the family business.
Sam pushed these thoughts from his memory. Dean would be home soon, and then he wouldn't be able to get any work done. Dean never did homework. He didn't care about grades, only about passing his classes. Dean's highest aspirations were to get his GED and then follow in his dad's footsteps. Sam was different. He didn't know why he cared about grades. His future was set and getting good grades wasn't going to change any of that.
Sam turned his head at the sounds of the door unlocking. He quickly shoved his papers back into his bag.
"Hey Sammy," Dean said, tossing his key onto the table next to the door. "Grab your shoes and we'll go get some dinner."
Sam sighed. It looked like his essay would have to wait until tomorrow.
Skft thump. Skft thump. Skft thump. Sam concentrated on the sound of his shoe scraping across the floor and bumping the desk. It was late, and he still hadn't started on his essay. Dean was out with Amanda tonight, so Sam had brought out his homework to see what he get done tonight. He sped through his math homework and history was a piece of cake. Now all that was left was English.
Skft thump. Skift thump.
"Ahhh!" Sam screamed in frustration, pushing his chair away from his desk. He spent his whole life lying to people about what his family did and what his life was like. Then why couldn't he think of one good lie to embellish for this paper? Maybe it wasn't that Sam couldn't lie. Maybe it was that he didn't want to lie. Everything was so messed up in his life, and he was sick of it. He didn't want to be a hunter. He didn't want to switch schools every month. He didn't want to be the new kid, and he didn't want to be the freak.
But what choice did he have? He would grow up and he would be a hunter, and worrying about it wasn't going to change anything.
'Fine,' he thought. 'If I'm going to grow up to be a freak no matter what, mine as well start now.'
Sam flopped back into his chair and dragged some paper and a pen.
The Hunt
Last summer, my family and I killed a werewolf. I remember the day of the hunt. Dad finally figured out who the werewolf was, and where he would be. Dad is always quiet before a hunt, and this day was no different. He was sitting at the table, the pieces of a gun laid neatly before him. He slowly and methodically cleaned each piece before putting it back together and starting on the next gun.
Dean and I had been tasked with making more bullets. We had set ourselves up across the room, knowing how tense Dad got before hunts. Any joking around him at this point would be met with a harsh order to get back to work. So we worked as quietly as we could, melting the silver and pouring it into the molds. I continued to watch my dad out of the corner of my eye, expertly assembling the second pistol. Then, my heart sank as I saw him reach for a third gun. It was my gun. That meant I would be going with them.
Up to this point, Dad hadn't said whether or not I was coming. I'd been on several hunts with my family before, but sometimes Dad left me behind if he thought it would be too dangerous. I turned my attention back to the bullets. I think Dean sensed my reluctance to go on the hunt, because he nudged me and made a funny face. I tried to keep quiet, but a small snicker snuck out of my lips.
"If you boys are done with that, go make sure the car is packed," Dad ordered. Dad tended to make everything sound like an order. Dean and I carefully stowed our tools, grabbed a duffel, and headed out to the car. The car was an old '67 Chevy Impala. Having spent my entire life moving from one place to another, this car was more of a home to me than any place I remembered. But as much as I liked the Impala, Dean absolutely loved it. Sometimes I wondered whether, if given the choice between the car, my dad, and me, Dean would choose the car.
I popped the trunk and lifted the false bottom to reveal a stash of weapons, each with a specific place it belonged. I never understood how Dad could be so messy with everything from his housekeeping to his writing, and yet so anal about the trunk. I think he sees that weapons case as an extension of his work: clean, and simple. I don't think there has ever been a doubt in my dad's mind as to what his purpose is in life. At least, not since I've known him. Find the evil things in this world and destroy them. That's Dad's mission. That's the job Dad has given up everything in his life and our family's to accomplish.
After packing the trunk, Dean and I returned to the hotel to get some sleep before nightfall. It seemed like I had just laid my head down when I felt my father's calloused hand gently shake me awake. "Time to go, Sammy." The gruff voice woke me up as well as any caffeinated beverage could. Or perhaps it was the dark anticipation for the hunt ahead. Over the past few years, I had come to pair the two together so completely that I no longer knew which stimulus it was that triggered that first adrenaline rush. I looked over to Dean's bed to see that he was already awake and lacing up his boots. He looked over at me and grinned.
"You feeling ok Sammy? You look rough enough to be a werewolf yourself." He ruffled my already tussled hair and bounded off to help out my Dad. Dean was always excited for a hunt. No matter what time it was, no matter what state he had been in only hours before, Dean was always ready for a hunt. This one had him especially excited. When Dad announced that we were hunting a werewolf, Dean had looked like a little kid seeing Disneyland for the first time. This was a creature we had never faced before, but one that Dean was intimately familiar with through his obsessions with horror movies. There was something about hunting evil killing machines that made Dean ecstatic.
I reached for my boots, wanting to take my time and put off the hunt as long as possible, but I knew that would never fly with Dean and Dad. I also knew, deep down, that this had to be done. This monster was killing people and it was up to us to stop it. Quickening my pace, I finished tying my shoes, grabbed my coat, and followed my family out the door.
The drive was short, and soon we were waiting in the car along side a pier, the werewolf's hunting ground. We had only been waiting an hour or so when I heard a soft scrape. To most people, the sound would have been unimportant, if they even heard it at all. But to the Winchesters, this was the signal. This was the switched that poured adrenaline into our veins and slowed our breathing in anticipation. With a pointed look at Dean and I, Dad slowly opened his door and stepped onto the road. Moving as quietly as ghosts, Dean and I followed. Dad motioned for Dean and I to go to the right and he moved to the right. We had been wandering the area for several minutes when we came upon the remains of . . . someone. A raw strip of flesh lay on the ground, a few bloody smears indicating that the rest of the body had been dragged somewhere else.
Looking down at the bloody mess, Dean smirked. "Dude, I dare you to touch it." I just shook my head and kept moving. Leave it to Dean to make jokes in serious situations like this. We continued to circle the pier quietly.
Suddenly, the silence was interrupted by two loud shots and a guttural snarling. Before we had even processed what those shots meant, Dean and I were running. Not running away, but running towards the sound of gunshots like idiots or, as Dean would argue, like heroes. We reached Dad just in time to hear a sound that was unfortunately becoming more and more familiar to me: the tear of flesh. It's a soft sound, but rough; a dull echo of the louder, sharper sound of tearing cloth.
The werewolf was positioned over my dad, raking at him with claws as sharp as knives. Dad was trying to hold the monster at bay with one hand, and reaching for his gun with the other. He must have dropped it after firing those first two bullets.
Dean shouted something, catching the creature's attention, and fired his gun. The first shot missed. The second hit the werewolf's arm, and he howled in pain and rage. He slammed my dad's head back into the pavement and leapt towards Dean, slamming into him with full force. There was a sharp crack and Dean's screams of torture joined those of the werewolf.
Dad was down, still dazed from the blow to the head. Dean was out of the fight, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side, and the werewolf, who had rolled past Dean from the momentum of his crash, was headed towards us again.
I didn't think. There was no time to think. I just raised my gun and fired, emptying an entire clip of silver bullets into the chest of the werewolf. Everything was quiet… for about three seconds.
"Way to go Sammy!" Dean yelled, pushing himself to his feet. He was laughing now, as if this had all been one big game, instead of a terrifying fight for our very lives. But the strange thing was that I was laughing too. Maybe it's some survival mechanism, some built in response to help us cope. When life gets so bad that you can't even wrap your mind around it, maybe you just have to laugh.
Dean and I ran to Dad's side to see if he was alright. He pushed off our offers of help, so we figured that was a good sign. He managed to climb to his feet and then he looked down and smiled at me. This was the smile that I always hoped for when I brought home straight A report cards and tests. This was the look I hoped for when my soccer team made it to the state championship. Why was it that Dad could never be proud of me for anything but the one thing I hated to do? He placed a hand on the back of my head, pulling me into a short hug.
"Alright boys, let's get back to the motel, get cleaned up, and catch some sleep. We'll leave first thing in the morning." And with that, the fatherly moment was gone. Dad was back to being our CO.
Dean and I fell into step behind him as he headed for the car, his faithful little soldiers. Dean smirked at me and threw his good arm over my shoulder.
"So, you're first kill. Looks like you're growing up. Tell you what. When we get back, I'll teach you how to pop a dislocated shoulder back into place." He said this with a grin, but I knew he was still in pain. This was not the first dislocated shoulder either one of us had had. Having an expert pop it back in was painful enough. The fact that Dean was offering to let me do it spoke both to his constant role of teacher in my life and to how crazy he was. I just shook my head and pushed his arm off my shoulder.
"You're the only one that thinks of learning to fix a dislocated shoulder as a reward." Dean grinned.
"You've got to appreciate the finer things in life, Sammy." With that, we got in the car and left this hunt behind. Soon, we'd have another hunt, some new hell spawn to take care of, some new town to call home for the weeks or months it took to destroy it. I thought, after this, I'd finally feel differently about hunting. I thought, if I was the one to take down the bad guy, I might be able to find some joy in this life, but I still hate it. I hate moving from town to town every few weeks. I hate not having a real home. I hate the terror of a hunt. The only thing that makes this life bearable is my family. They're the weirdest people I know, but they're family, and I guess that counts for something.
Sam stared at the finished essay. It had been surprisingly easy to write. Of course, there was no way he could really turn it in. His hand was poised over the paper, moments away from crumpling it into a little ball to join the rest of his failed attempts in the trash. Instead, he picked up the paper and placed it carefully in a folder and into his bag. He was sick of always lying to people. For once, he just wanted to tell the truth. And besides, they would be gone in a week or two anyway.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed that.
Reviews are love. ^.^