Okay, this story takes place in season two, not long after Dean's fixed the Impala and things are getting somewhat back to normal again. Or at least what the Winchester would call normal.
I own nothing but Laura, some plot ideas, and maybe the town. I don't think the town Woodley is real, so any coincidence is accidental. As far as I know, I made it up.
It is dark. Pitch-black. The sort of darkness only found in solitary, untouched land. But these woods are far too close to home, and the blackness isn't slowing the creature down any. It is tearing through the dense woods, the only sounds feral breathing and the snap of twigs beneath its paws. The sound of the man, the farmer scrambling in terror through the woods has faded almost to nothing. He is far enough away to think he is safe, to think he has escaped. But she knows by now that this is just a part of the hunt, the game. Just a tactic to disarm its prey. Because over the musky scent of wet soil and layers of leaves, there is the overriding, rusty tang of blood. Suddenly, it's movements become faster, jolting. It's getting close. She can hear the man's erratic breathing, the thrash of his careless footfalls. And then it's lunging. She feels the soft skin tearing, the slight resistance as the cords of muscle are sliced, and then the sickening snap of bone. And there is blood. Blood everywhere. It soaks the soil and pours from the man's body, trickling from his lips and the jaws of the animal. It is all she can smell. And he is screaming in terror and agony, screaming until he is soundless and a blood stained claw rakes across his face. For a moment it is quiet, just the creature's harsh panting and the gurgle of the man trying to breathe through the blood in his lungs. Then it lunges and she feels its teeth sink easily, so easily into his throat.
Ten miles away, a girl jolts awake gasping, sweaty, and wide-eyed with fear.
"It's here."
Laura is walking down Woodley's Main Street trying to look okay and sane, happy even. But that is just too much of a stretch; she can't even muster up a grin. It has been a four days since her last dream and she is trying to convince herself that it, whatever it was, is over. That she is not insane, or psychic, or some kind of crazy sociopath. She really doesn't want to be a sociopath. She is Laura Harkness. She is perfectly normal and perfectly happy. She is fine. But Laura can't forget how real this dream felt, how close. Before she would just get flashes, feel the cold or damp, see glimpses of torn flesh, blood, and blue jeans. Not this time. She can still smell his blood, his fear. And that terrifies her. But what's worse, she can't shake the feeling that she knew those woods, that she knew that man. She even thinks he had a farm on the outside of town, but she hopes to God she's wrong. Because if this is real, if this isn't just the product of memories, warped imagination, and too much Discovery Channel, then this monster is close. It's a killer and it's too damn close. And if first reactions are the truest, most unguarded, then Laura knows what she really believes. No matter how insane it may seem. All she could think, all she could say after that last dream was "It's here." She sat there rigid in her bed, curled into herself and clutching the covers, and she whispered the arrival of a monster. She just wishes there was someone to hear her warning.
But that's insane. Laura is almost 95 percent sure she's going insane, because prophesying the arrival of some killer beast she's seen in her dreams is just crazy. There's no giant animal running around ripping people apart. They almost never have bear here, and Laura doubts that anything else could do what she's seen. She's not even sure a bear could. And if there's that niggling feeling in the back of her mind that she's seen this before, Laura ignores it. She's just morbidly delusional. A schizophrenic maybe. If this had just been creepy dreams and nothing more, maybe she could have just chalked it up to an over active and disgusting imagination.
Blood, so much blood.
But Laura's about ready to go running into the woods looking for this thing, or to make posters and put out an APB. Because of some dreams. That's how she knows she's probably crazy. Having weird dreams is one thing, but frantically believing in them is another. Laura's pretty sure she could get into the funny farm on the ripping and tearing of flesh thing alone, so she really has to put this behind her.
In the mid-morning light, she seems swallowed by her fraying sweatshirt. Her shoulders are slightly hunched, her long brown hair unruly, and her expression is stuck somewhere between dismay, queasiness, and contrived calm. Laura's still walking along, not even really sure of how far she's gone when she sees the newspaper box. The look of queasiness finally asserts its dominance. She looks as if her most important need right now is a bucket and some mouthwash. No one would mistake her for calm, for fine, but she could at least pass this off as food poisoning or something. A face full of psychological terror is a bit harder to explain. For the last three days she has fearfully checked the paper and found nothing about a missing man or animal attack, but she has a bad feeling about it today. She just wants to focus on normal things like her thesis and sketching or her job or even her new-found insanity, but some part of her feels compelled to check. She has to know if her dream really happened, if there's a mauled famer from her hometown. God, she's afraid to look this time. She doesn't want to be crazy, but she'd rather be crazy than be right about this. Either way, it's more than she can handle now. With an extra inch of slump to her shoulders, Laura bypasses the box.
"This is the truth," she says, a desperate edge to her voice. "My delusions aren't real. There is no giant killer animal. I am merely going insane. I am insane, and this is just my own gory mental game of Life." She groans. "Oh, God, and I'm a coward."
Laura has herself fully convinced she's lost her marbles by the time she's walking up her driveway two hours later. Besides the dreams and other obvious indicators, while taking her troubled morning stroll, she had been ridiculously jumpy and more than a little paranoid about the killer beast. Anytime Laura saw a dog bigger than a Chihuahua she'd been tempted to take it out back and pull an Old Yeller. That is so far from acceptable, sane behavior. She loves dogs and has never once had the desire to shoot anything living- especially not a neighborhood pet, so this is just not normal.
At one point she even thought she saw forrest in the place of the hair salon and the coffee shop. "So great. Crazy dreams, paranoia, and halucinations," she mutters. "I'd better start looking for a nice loony bin. Somewhere warm. With a pool."
But roiling rebelliously in the back of her mind is the thought that the dreams seemed too real, too frightening, and too familiar. And that somewhere in her collection of unmentionable memories, the truth is hiding. But she is not about to open that cage and let those particular monsters out.
Right as she crosses the threshold she sees the paper there waiting for her on her Welcome mat. This is inevitable. This is fate. She can't ignore the signs; she should have never avoided it in the first place. Whether she's insane or having gruesome prophetic dreams, the outcome is dangerous. She can't hide from it. That was weak, and Harkness' are not weak- no matter their level of sanity. Laura pulls the paper out of its deceptively sunny wrapper, quickly unrolling the colorless pages. And there it is, on the front page. Ted Willamet, 51, found dead in woods. Victim of vicious bear attack.
Laura leans back against the wall, just trying not to faint or throw up or cry hysterically, or do some hideous combination of the three. If she had suspected it before, she was sure now. She knew that face, and the last time she had seen it the wide mouth was frozen in a terrified "O" as blood trickled from its corners. The picture in the paper shows a big blonde man with weathered skin and an easygoing smile. And despite all the times she tried to lock up any memories involving "it", she still remembers him.
He had been a giant to a six year old Laura, and at first she had been afraid of him. He was a giant and her dad had left her all alone without Jack or a beanstalk to save her. But then he told her knock-knock jokes and let her feed his baby goats until her dad came back from the pasture, mouth set in a grim smile. Her dad, Jeffery Harkness, was the town veterinarian. Whenever an animal was sick or hurt, he was the one to call. But this visit, he was at the Willamet farm because of the dead horses. They were pretty much eviscerated by a wild animal, maybe a bear or a wild cat. Her dad had been sort of investigating the situation for two weeks, sometimes taking her with him. There had been reports of dead cattle and horses all around the outskirts of town, but nobody had caught sight of the animal that was responsible. And just that morning her dad had taken her out to the woods by their house and told her to listen. It was too quiet, he had said. And when the woods were quiet, something was wrong. But nobody had been too worried about it yet, just went out and reinforced their fences. Chalked it up to a rabid animal and the random phenomena of nature. A week later the first two bodies were found.
Then it started going after the kids.
She is slumped against the wall, her breathing coming faster and faster. The smiling face of Ted Willamet, has opened the door and now all the suppressed memories are trying to slip through. Her mental monsters are escaping their cage. Dark flashes of woods, the faces of missing playmates, her father's frantic, echoing voice, her own screams. As the burst of memories abates, her hand strays unconsciously to her right shoulder, and she clutches it almost protectively as she tries to calm her breathing and her mind. There is a reason she tried so hard to forget it all. But as much as she hates thinking about anything remotely connected to what happened eighteen years ago, she's going to have to. According to her dreams three men had already been killed, and the article in the paper had mentioned that there had been cattle deaths on Ted's farm. That it's possible the same thing that got his cows got him, too. If this was all true, if her dreams were real and the signs were that same as 18 years ago, then she was going to have to remember everything she could. Every little detail would count if this was happening again. It would only be a matter of time before kids started disappearing again, and she would do whatever she could to keep that particular bit of history from repeating itself.
Her mind is a mess of worry, despair, and haunting images. God, she wishes her father were here. Her knees finally give out, and Laura slides down to the floor, head in her hands.
"God help us all... It's here," she whispers, echoing her words from four days ago with grim surety in the place of her previous terror. And just like that night, she wishes that someone was there to hear her warning.
400 miles away in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, two brothers are eating a greasy lunch and looking for warnings of their own. Dean Winechester is sitting in the diner booth shoving down a burger with so much bacon piled on it's practically a pork sandwich. Across the table his brother, Sam, is scanning the newspaper over his empty plate, hunting for their next job. They had put down the rather vicious poltergeist of a dead miner over a week ago, and even Sam was getting bored. This lull between jobs was longer than usual. They needed to get out of this town, find some more evil to kill. Maybe that would take their minds off their Dad's death; sometimes the slow periods just left them too much time to think about it. Things were better. Dean was talking about him again. He was less angry, less of a loose cannon. But Sam knows how guilty he still feels. So maybe they were getting better, moving on, but every job took the edge off a little more. It's what their Dad would have wanted.
"Alright, Sammy, what do we got?"
There wasn't much, but he was pretty sure they'd both take almost anything by now. Dean hated this town, said there were too many Wal-Mart's and not enough decent pie. "Well, this might be something. There's been this string of deaths in Maryland, and it seems like they're all related to this one car. Like new brakes are failing and a mechanic died—
With a disgusted look on his face, Dean cuts in, "Oh no. No. We are not gonna go out there and do some kind of warped reenactment of Christine. I'm not gonna expose my Baby to that kind of behavior. I barely got her purring again; I'm not bringing her around something like that."
"Oookay. Whatever man, but you're relationship with that car's starting to get a little too obsessive." Ignoring the lovely hand gesture Dean flashed him, Sam found the other possible he'd marked. "Uh, there's been all these deaths from bear attacks in this town in Illinois. Like four guys and some farm animals."
"Smokey the Bear's pissed off, so what?"
"So, the tracks are huge, and nobody's reported seeing a bear in months—I mean they haven't even caught sight of the thing yet."
"C'mon man, I really don't know if this is our kind of thing. Call the game police if you're such a concerned citizen."
Why was he making this difficult? Sam sighed. "Dean, bears don't just randomly attack people. This last guy, he was a farmer. Not a hunter, not even a camper. And they say he was really torn up, totally slashed from shoulder to calf. Broken bones, everything. I think we should check it out."
Dean grumbled a little before shooting him a glare. "Alright fine. I guess anything's better than taking down a demented Herbie. Sounds like we're going to Woodley, Illinois."
Alright. That's the first chapter. Are ya hooked? Hopefully it wasn't too bad. I've never actually done anything more than a one shot, so trying the whole multiple installments type thing should be interesting. I have the story pretty much laid out, so lets just hope I can actually write it. Please let me know what you think, and tell me if there are any errors.
Review!
