The Only Game:
Chapter 6
I would just like to warn you once more time that this chapter is really gory!
"Dean! Dean look! It's Frank Crawford." Sam called as he pointed out the window to the boy who was running up to the car. Sam quickly got out and hurried to the boy.
Dean got out more slowly and went over to where Sam and Frank were now standing. "Didn't I tell you to stay together?" Dean asked.
"I know." Frank said as he panted heavily. "But-but Mike—"
"What happened to Mike?" Sam asked.
"He said he had to piss so we told him to go find a bush, ya know?" Frank asked both Sam and Dean nodded.
"We waited for him on the road, but he was taking a real long time so me, Ryan and Chris thought we oughta go lookin' for him."
"And what?" Dean asked impatiently. "Is he hurt?"
Frank shook his head. "We couldn't find him."
Sam looked up at Dean with big worried eyes. "Go back to town and get help."
"Hell no, we'll all go back to town and get the cops."
"I'm not going! I gonna help them look, just go." Sam ordered.
"Hey Frank, how old are you?" Dean asked.
"Fourteen." Frank replied.
"Does your dad ever let you drive his truck?"
"Dean!" Sam called impatiently. "What does this have to do with anything? I'm going!" Sam started up the hill.
"Just hold on a sec." Dean said turning back to Frank, Sam ignored his brother and continued up the hill leaving his brother and Frank behind. "Does your dad let you drive his truck?" Dean asked again.
Frank shrugged. "Sometimes."
"Are you any good at it?"
"I guess."
"You ever crashed?"
"No..."
"Good, because this is Ross's car and he'll be pissed at both of us if you get so much as a scratch on it. You don't want Ross to kick your ass do you?"
Frank looked very confused. "No."
"Me neither. So when you drive back to town be very careful, wear your seatbelt."
"Wait, what? I can't drive back to town, I—"
"Why not? It's just like driving your dad's truck, you can do it, I know you can, now get going and remember what I said."
Dean handed Frank the keys. He didn't wait for Frank to get in the car before a took off running up the hill after Sam. "Sam wait up."
There where two boys standing on the road Curtis and Alan, the other two freshmen, Sam and Dean hurried over to them.
"Any luck?" Dean asked.
"No, we can't find him anywhere, it's like he just disappeared." Curtis answered.
"Sam you go with Alan that way and Curtis and I will go this way. Just yell if you find anything and we'll do the same."
Sam and Alan navigated their way through the tall trees that covered the hillside. Alan was obviously terrified, he was following close to Sam. He jumped at every little sound he heard and he looked glanced behind himself to make sure nothing was following them.
The sound of a twig snapping echoed through the forest, Alan let out a squeaky scream and hugged Sam's arm.
"What the hell was that?" Alan asked in a hushed voice, as if he thought something might hear him.
Sam shook Alan off his arm and continued walking. "You stepped in a twig Sherlock."
"Oh." Alan said after a sigh of relief.
Sam was looking closely at the ground, hoping to find footprints or any sign that Mike had been there.
Sam finally spotted some footprints. "Hey look at that!"
Alan jumped and grabbed on to Sam's shirt. "Oh crap, what is it?"
"Settle down, Dude, it's just some footprints." Sam replied. He started fallowing them, he only made it a few feet when the ground got rocky and he could no longer make out any prints.
He knelt down on the ground examining it carefully. He could now see a gray rock stained with what looked to be a thick crimson liquid. He reached a shaky hand out to touch the liquid; he prayed that it wasn't what he thought it was.
The liquid was sticky and lukewarm. Sam brought his hand to his face so that he could smell it, he cringed as the metallic odor filled his nose—blood.
With the smell came a strange feeling of déjà vu. Pain shot through Sam's head, he saw white, but only for a second then his vision cleared.
"Sam?" Alan called.
"Huh?" Sam breathed in a distracted tone.
He didn't hear Alan's reply. The pain came back, more intensely this time, everything went white again.
Sam was watching at himself, he was laying in the dirt, shirtless, in some sort of cave, he was covering his eyes and sobs were shaking his body.
There was blood everywhere, all over him and the surrounding rocks. There was something on the ground, not far from where he was laying...
Sam snapped back to reality, the headache lingered.
"What the hell? That was freakin' weird." Sam muttered to himself as a massaged his temple with his hand that didn't have blood on it.
Alan was shaking his shoulder, reminding Sam of his presence.
"Sam, what is it?"
"Go find my brother." Sam said calmly, he didn't want Alan to panic. He wiped the blood off his hand on to his jeans and stood up.
"You want me to go...alone?" Alan gulped.
"Just go right back the way we came, he shouldn't be too far."
"I c-can't."
"Alan, you have to go, I think Mike might be hurt, so run and get Dean." Sam ordered. Alan hesitated, but eventually turned and took off running like a bat out of hell.
Sam continued following the blood. There were only small drops, so Sam had to watch the ground closely so he wouldn't lose the trail. Two large boulders came into view they were leaning together, but there was a space in between the boulders and the blood led to the opening.
He approached cautiously, he couldn't see what was in between the boulders, but he could hear soft growling. He was so focused on trying to stay quiet and unnoticed that he wasn't watching where he was going.
He tripped he scraped his knees and elbow, but was otherwise unharmed. However, when he fell, he had put his hand right in a large puddle of blood. It was still warm, like it had just left someone's body.
When he looked down at his hand gasped, he quickly got to his feet looking for something to wipe the blood off on, but in his haste, he tripped over himself, landing on his hands and knees. He started vomiting.
Sam tried to regain his composure, finding nothing else to clean his hand with, he used his pants. He went back to the puddle of blood, without looking at it he kicked he kicked dirt into it, he throw up again. He didn't want Dean to come upon it.
He hoped that whatever was between the boulders hadn't heard him. He looked around, searching for something he could use as a weapon. He filled his pockets with rocks and grabbed a thick branch that he found laying on the ground.
He inched his way to the boulders, he wasn't sure what to expect yet. He was sure there would be a dead body involved and it would probably be Mike's. He finally got close enough to peer into the opening between the two boulders.
He dropped the branch he had been holding and dropped to his knees to be sick again. There was nothing left in his stomach, so he was reduced to dry heaving.
In between the two boulders, he could see blood splattered everywhere and large puddles of it on the dirt floor. Sam could see something else, it was large, fuzzy and dark brown, by the sounds it was making it was obviously a bear.
At closer inspection, Sam saw two legs sticking out, but the rest of the body was blocked by the bear's bulk. If he had any doubts before, he was now absolutely sure that the blood he had seen belonged to Mike.
He had heard that bears were getting disparate for food this year, someone put poison into the creek where the bears usually got fish—he had even done a paper on it—they'd been going into houses and breaking into refrigerators, but he didn't know they ate people!
Sam pulled himself together and grabbed the rocks out of his pocket. He started to throw them at the bear, grabbing more off the forest floor and chucking those also. The bear looked up from its meal, searching for the intruder, sniffing and growling loudly.
Sam picked up the branch that he had dropped and smacked the bear in nose with it—he heard somewhere that that worked for sharks, so why not a bear?
The bear swatted at Sam with its large paw. Its claws caught Sam's upper arm, but Sam hit it again, harder this time. The bear swatted again in return, this time gazing Sam's check.
Sam was about to hit it again when the bear turned and ran out the opposite opening of the boulders. Sam dropped to the ground beside Mike's mutilated body. Sam was sure he was dead, there was blood everywhere, Sam was now covered in it too, but as Sam stared into Mike's bloody face, he saw the boy's eyes blink opened.
"M-mike?" Sam stammered stunned that the boy was still alive.
"...am..." Mike called softly.
"Shh, Mike, don't talk."
It was a wonder the boy could speak at all, his neck was clawed. Sam slipped out of the light summer jacket he was wearing and pulled his shirt off. He balled the shirt up and pressed it against the worst of the wounds, in Mike's midsection, with one hand and with the other he put his jacket over the boy.
He knew it was a futile effort, Mike would be dead soon, but Sam was going to try anyway. He pulled the boys head onto his lap.
"It'll be over soon." Sam said holding the boy's hand with his free hand, he held his tears in.
It wasn't long before Mike's eyes went back in his head so that only the whites were showing and his head rolled limply to the side. Sam let go of the bloody t-shirt he was holding and slid his hand to Mike's neck, feeling for a pulse.
When he felt none, Sam pushed himself back against the side of the boulder, curled into the fetal position and started to sob uncontrollably.
Hey there,
Thank you so much for reading and you reviewers are awesome!
Sorry this one took me a while, I had to rewrite it, the first version I wrote was way too gory—I'm talking dismemberment! So I had to reign it in a little, this one is still pretty messy. (I really wanted to use the gross one though;)).
Thanks again,
callit