Chapter 10: Being Alone

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I had carefully prepared for being outside before I had gone. I had numbered my priorities carefully. Although from my observation of my dad, which it was my instinct to follow as exactly as possible, I had spent the majority of my youth being informed in solitude from the records and books of the Men of Letters. Their predisposition for organization had imprinted on me.

My priorities, in descending order of importance were: 1. Avoid the Hellions 2. Clean water 3. Sustaining food 4. Discover how to kill the Hellions.

The first priority was the most difficult and had taken some guess work. I knew that they were an angel demon bastard monster. So I had thought that guarding myself against both angels and demons would protect me from them. I hadn't been able to make the hex bags that I needed, my father had used up our stores of magical ingredients before his death. So I had settled for sigils. Ideally I would have tattooed them on myself, but I didn't have the equipment. Or any idea how to make tattoos. I painted them on my skin with permanent dye. I must have looked like a madwoman. Madgirl? I wasn't sure where I fell anymore in the spectrum of woman or girl. The last time I had talked to someone I had been a girl. But I was seventeen and on a mission to save the world I didn't know if that made me an adult.

Regardless, I looked like a madperson. My clothes had originally been three times too big for me, and cut for a man. I had managed to make them not get in my way, but I wasn't a seamstress. The pants I had ripped off at the right length and belted tightly at my waist. The knees had been really flappy and I had no idea how to fix that, so I just ripped up some other fabric and tied the flaps down. I had a few layers of shirts on, I thought the nights might get cold, even if it was summer. All the arms were too long so I tore those off at the wrist too. I had tried rolling them up but I didn't want them to unroll and get in the way. The ones that fit my arms right didn't button up over my chest. Which had been another problem. The Men of Letters had been...men... and didn't have lady's undergarments I could pilfer. And the last time I had been shopping I had been seven. Right now my chest was wrapped in bands of torn up sheet. They made it more comfortable to run around but were irritating to put on. All these I had worn for a long time, but was just now becoming self conscious about.

The real issue was my shoes. In the bunker I just hadn't worn any, but the real world was quite a bit sharper. I had made something that worked. A band of thick leather on the bottom tied around my feet, big socks making it at least sort of comfortable.

So that is how I emerged into the world. Hair roughly shorn off, clothes a gangling ripped mess, leather tied around my feet and blue sigils painted on nearly every inch of flesh.

I really thought I had planned for everything. I had weapons for every conceivable outcome, maps of every place I could think of having to go. But I hadn't considered one basic issue.

The sun was really bright.

I had always thought of the sun as something that was just there, but then, I had spent nearly all my life underground. I burnt immediately which was painful. But that was the most excitement I had. I followed the highway. I had really wanted to take Dad's car, but it was noisy and I wasn't sure I'd be able to find gas. I didn't have it in me to abandon her on the highway if I ran out of fuel. So I was walking along the highway, talking to my ghosts. In whispers mostly, I didn't want to draw any attention to myself. The loneliness was more oppressive here. In my bunker I had known my aloneness was absolute. I knew there would be no visitors, no surprises. Out here, I expected other people at every second and was, at every second, disappointed. My old desire for a puppy had returned. It would have been nice to have something else alive next to me. It was so quiet. Silent. I could hear the wind, but I knew there were supposed to be birds and animals. But there weren't.

I had decided to head south, the northern winter sounded too deadly for my liking. The journey was, slow. I only traveled at night, I didn't know if that was actually helpful, but it was easier to remain unseen, at least to other humans who might be a threat. I didn't know how well the Hellions could see at night. I followed the road but I didn't walk on it, there wasn't enough cover. The Hellions could fly, I knew that, so I went through the ditches or beyond the treeline if there was one. I spent the days tucked into the nearest culverts or rigged into trees.

Food wasn't the problem I thought it would be, I went through a town every few days, all of them abandoned and silent. But filled with non perishable food. That was lucky, since there was nothing for me to hunt like I had thought there would be. I didn't stay in the towns. I couldn't. I couldn't stomach it. The country between the towns was empty. The towns were just lifeless. There were plenty of people there. People torn up, their chests ripped open like Dad's had been. I went into houses and the walls were painted with old blood. Whole families pulled to bits. I thought that I knew what to expect. I thought that I would find people scared and lost and I could help them because I had read so much about what I thought was happening. But there was no one to help, just me, suffocating in loneliness and desperately afraid.

My first city was sort of a treat. There too, the bodies were terrible. But by the time I got there I was almost deadened to it. I had seen so much. It was ridiculous, but I found a mall, I thought it was the mall I had gone to with my father as a child. There was no reason for me to think this, except that it was nice to think. I had a growing fear that I would be found by someone and dismissed as crazy or dangerous because of the way I looked. I rationalized, saying I would be more effective with proper clothing. But I also wanted to look the way people looked.

The mall was mostly deserted. Which was a welcome reprieve. I stripped myself out of my by now very dirty and torn men's clothing and found things that really fit me. And, best of all, I found underwear. The change in comfort was incredible. And really the most helpful, I found tough leather boots that actually fit my feet. I fixed my hair in a mirror, using a scissors and cutting it evenly. I inspected myself in the mirror. I liked the way I looked, which was a heady feeling. I couldn't remember liking the way I had looked since I had admired myself in my unicorn pajamas.

I was standing in a mall salon, looking at my reflection in the mirror. Tight fitting dark pants in a thick material, a thin and mobile shirt and a heavy leather jacket with pockets. Hair short and clean. And, my favorite find, a new backpack, less tattered than the one I had been using. It was made of leather, durable, lots of little pockets. I had cut up one of the cheaper plastic bags and wrapped my bookcuttings in it, as well as the journal. Then packed them all carefully in the backpack. I thought I cut quite a figure. I wasn't paying any attention to the world around me. I had sheered my hair very short, no use having a handle attached to my head.

I heard clicking coming up the hallway. I froze. I hadn't heard a noise not made by me in years. It was approaching. I seized a hand mirror and dropped to the floor. I crawled on my belly to the door, hidden behind the wall next to the door. I held up the mirror in front of my face and with extreme care not to reflect light, I looked at what was coming. The clicking was coming from claws, attached to the feet of a tall pale Hellion. My heart seized up. My body cramped. I couldn't move, I could barely breath. I had thought I was prepared for this. Thought even that this was what I wanted. But I didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to attack it. Or how to avoid it.

I looked again. It didn't really look like Cas had looked. Its hands didn't look like hands anymore, they were long and bony, the claws six inches long at least. Knees sharply bent and ending in long clawed feet. The wings were bigger too. Its mouth was different from Cas. Not big teeth forced into a human mouth, its mouth stretched long across its face, and the slender sharp teeth fit more nicely. The wings were the same. Mottled fleshy wings sparsely feathered. I shook where I lay.

It opened its mouth and called in a harsh and scratching voice. It made no words. It sniffed the air and wriggled. He turned toward me and began to stalk toward my hiding spot. I slowly moved my hand down my leg and pulled my knife from my boot. But I had seen what a knife did to a Hellion. I had also seen a lot of what a Hellion did to a person. I watched the Hellion approach, it was heading straight toward me. It was obvious that it had seen me or smelled me. I looked around the salon. There was no way out through the back, if it got to the doorway I was going to be stuck. It was time to be brave. Gently, I pulled my backpack on and tightened the straps. I thought of my father. I was brave. I was a hunter. I was a Winchester.

I curled my feet beneath me and waited. I watched the Hellion approach. I stopped breathing. I waited until it was a few feet away and rushed passed, making a turn close to it. Then I was running, flat away from it. He snarled, released a high ragged shriek. I needed to find a small area, where it couldn't use its wings. Where the two feet it had on me and much longer reach wouldn't be so much of a factor. Or just get away. That was preferable.

It was slow. Slower than I ever would have expected. I had run not long when the clicking was very far behind me. I turned. Looking straight on toward the Hellion, dragging itself toward me, had ribs jutting out of it. It was so bony. It moved sluggishly. Was it...starving? Unwilling to stay and find out I fled, running from the starving creature.

I got out of the city as fast as I could. Avoiding main roads and staying under cover. The encounter had frightened me in more than one way. I was shaken that I had really seen a Hellion. But I was maybe more frightened that it was starving. It ate souls. If it were starving that meant that there weren't souls for it to eat. Was I the last one left? Was I truly alone. The world in that moment spread out around me, stretched away from me in every direction and pushed me down into the dust. It was hard to breath.

Would I be alone forever?

That was not the only Hellion I saw. In the end I saw many. Like the first mostly. Then I began to find their corpses. Starved and dead. I logged them all in the journal, if you're really interested in the details, they're inserted in Dad's section, behind the Hellion entry.

I got braver. It had been a year, I was eighteen. I had a minor celebration on my birthday. I was an eighteen year old, a real, fully fledged adult. I found a convenience store and took cigarettes and a covered magazine. I wasn't interested in them so much as I knew that it was a culturally important thing to do. I thought my ghosts would get easier to conjure up but it was getting harder. Being alone was getting deep into my bones. I smoked one of the cigarettes. It made me cough and I threw the rest of the pack away. The magazine just made me sad. The women were all dead. I wondered if buying that sort of thing was just a thing boy's were supposed to do. I wondered if they made them for girls, but it wasn't exactly a priority.

That convenience store did, however, have a gift for me. The back room was unlocked and inside was a very dusty gasoline hand pump. I felt a thrill of excitement. I was no longer afraid of the Hellions. I hadn't found any that weren't starving, I was sure that a little noise wouldn't harm anyone. And I wanted to learn how to drive.

I stole, I say stole, but is it stealing if you take it from a dead man? I wanted to go home and get the Impala but there was too much debris on the roads for that to be worthwhile. I needed something small and maneuverable. It took me three days of careful searching for me to find what I wanted. A small, low, black motorcycle. It took me even longer to figure out how to fix it. Sitting for however many years, five? had done a number on it. But I did, those nights with the Impala finally contributing. And parts stolen from auto shops.

I stayed in town another month learning how to properly drive it. Gas was easy to come by now and the world was at my finger tips. Well, the continental North America was at my fingertips. I felt aimless. The Hellions were killing themselves, there was nothing for me to do. Just survive. Alone and lost. So I would see everything I could see. The ocean first. Then the other ocean.

So I did. I had nothing holding me back. My fears were growing stale and losing their bite. I was just lonely and bored. So I rode. I stole a little machine that plugged into my cigarette lighter and played music. Partly I was no longer afraid there were any Hellions. Partly I wanted them to find me. Wanted to feel a thrill, or see some creature. Even a Hellion was beginning to feel like real company. I wrote my name in the journal and looked at it every night. I didn't want to forget. I had read that that could happen.

XXXXX

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I was twenty four before my life made any sort of change. I tried very hard to record every day and determine the months and days and years, but I was sure that I had lost some, or added them, or gotten confused. What was the rhyme to remember which months had thirty days and which had thirty one? But it had been a long time. Endless time. I could no longer remember the point. In the morning it was hard to convince myself to stand up, put on my pants. Do something. Hard to bring myself to eat. I did things out of a method and routine. I went through fluxes of different obsessions. There was no reason to look put together. But there was no reason not to either. For weeks I would steal incredible clothing from high end stores, fix my hair and paint my nails. Then for weeks after that I would wear the same unwashed clothing taken from gas stations. It didn't matter. For a few months I had taken diamonds whenever I found them. I filled a backpack with them, filled it. Not with jewelery, just diamonds. A big backpack crammed full, bursting with diamonds. Then I dumped them out and took Hostess cakes instead.

I'll skip ahead, New York City was the next place with any sort of story. A break in my tedium. I had gone because I wanted to see it, I no longer flinched at the death in cities and I was interested in the mythical giant metropolis I had never seen. I roared in, I had upgraded my motorcycle to something bigger and louder. I liked the noise. I had bonded with this one. I thought of my father and carved 'Baby' in the side.

I roared through the streets of the city looking up at the high buildings. They were starting to collapse. Windows falling out, bricks smashing to the ground. It was all very dangerous. The roads were eroding and it was getting harder and harder to get around on my bike.

I wanted first to look like a New Yorker. I thought that meant chic and black. I picked up a map first then made my way to the most expensive stores. I found tall black boots and form fitting black pants. I was, for the first time in months, having fun. I draped myself in a flowing black shirt made of silk and belted at the waist. I went shopping for jewelery and glittered myself with gold. I thought I looked quite elegant. I even found a make up store and made myself look what I thought was femme fatale, not that I was entirely sure what that was supposed to look like. I looked like the posters anyway.

Then I got back on my bike and roared on out. I was on my way to the Statue of Liberty when I came to a stop. In front of me were Hellions. Three of them. I hadn't seen so many in years. I shut off my bike and dismounted. Slipping behind a corner. They weren't paying me any attention. They were bickering. I hadn't known they bickered. I watched as one of them lifted his claws and struck out at another. The third joined in and they made swift work of the other. They bled black smoke that glittered blue. My heart was racing and I smiled. The two others turned and started stalking toward a building. As soon as its back was turned the Hellion in the back snarled and attacked the back of its companion, tearing the wing and taking him down. Leaving only the one.

The remaining Hellion was stalking away from me and I thought of something. The only reason for such a sudden betrayal was food. These starving Hellions must have found something to eat. That meant a person. A person that needed saving. And I had just seen something that hurt them. I slipped out toward it. I wasn't even afraid. The worst it would do was eat my soul. That was no longer so scary.

I stopped before I reached it, it was prying a door off a building. I crouched by one of the bodies, drawing my biggest knife. This was the first time I had been this close to one. It smelled like sulfur and frankincense. I didn't hesitate, I had a person to save. I lifted the hand of the Hellion and sliced off a long claw. I had a little time. The Hellion seemed to be having trouble getting through the door. The claw has sharp barbs all the way down, I pulled some fabric off of the body of the Hellion and wrapped myself a handle.

I smiled, giddy, and stalked toward the Hellion. As I approached it finally pried the door from its frame. It charged in with a gleeful snarl. I raced after it. I wasn't going to greet my first other human by letting it die. A gravely masculine shout echoed from the dark building. I let out a giggling shout and charged into the building. It was not as dark as I had presumed. Light was coming through the door frame, the Hellion was stalking toward a man who was sneering at it from the corner.

The Hellion was so focused on him it didn't even look at me. I leapt at it, feeling happiness I had never felt. I had a person. I was saving people. I was hunting things. I was a Winchester again. I landed on the back of the Hellion, ripping at its wings. I was laughing. The Hellion reached back at me and I stabbed at it with the claw. Blood poured out of it and it screamed. Laughter shrieked out of my mouth. I grabbed at the Hellion's hair and yanked its head back, opening its throat with the claw. It hadn't had much strength to fight back, as underfed as it was. But I had killed one. I had done what my father could not. I had saved a life. There was person standing right before me. A person. A real person.

I got up from the Hellion corpse. Sliding the claw knife into my bag. I grinned at the person. I needed to be friendly.

He, it was a he, was gaping at me, he had a confused, off put grimace on his face. He looked me up and down. He was a smallish man, short dark hair, gruff dark beard. He was well dressed and suddenly I was happy I had lifted my new clothes. His eyes were wild. Haunted. He looked like he could not believe I was standing in front of him.

I was filled with a buzzing energy, I was shaking. For the first time in years I was nervous and excited. I didn't know what to say. I had never met a new person. I just stood there, manic grin on my face. It began to falter.

He started, "You...you can kill them."

"Hellions."

"What?"

"Hellions, they're called Hellions."

He narrowed his eyes at me. There was something about him, about the way he spoke that was setting of alarm bells in my brain, but I couldn't quite place it.

"What do you mean they're called Hellions? Who calls them Hellions?"

"The angels."

I was having a hard time with this conversation. I had practiced conversations but that was with my ghosts, whose dialogue I added. It was taking me a while longer than I thought was alright to come up with things to say. How far away was I supposed to stand, I thought I was too far away. I stepped closer. He looked uncomfortable. I took a step back. Then another. Then I was sure I was too far and stepped forward again.

He looked very uncomfortable now. "Stop. Stop moving. What are you doing."

"Oh. I wasn't- I. uh. The angels. They call them Hellions."

"You know about the angels? What do the angels have to do with them?"

I had forgotten that other people didn't know all of the things I did. "Well...they made them. They made them to clean out hell."

His face curled into a snarl of unbelievable rage. "They. Made. Them? TO CLEAN OUT HELL?" His voice was a horrific rage.

I stepped back and drew a knife. I wasn't sure when people attacked out of anger. But I wasn't taking chances.

He seemed to realize his error. He stopped shouting and lifted his hands. "So you know all about these things." he said in a soft, soothing tone, "You can kill them. Are you a hunter?"

I nodded, pleased, "Yes. Yes, I'm a hunter. That's why I saved you. Because I'm a hunter. Hunters save people." I was getting flustered. I was breathing very hard. I stopped talking. I was making him uncomfortable. I remembered I was supposed to introduce myself. I put out my hand.

"I'm Bobby. Bobby Winchester."

He stared at my hand and then, and I knew he was supposed to shake it, he laughed. "Bobby Winchester? Winchester? You're the Squirrel's Kitten?"

Then I knew. I knew where I had heard the voice and that funny way of talking. I had been a child, laying in an air duct eavesdropping. I put my knife back up. This wasn't fair. I saved him. I couldn't let him go. I couldn't be alone again. But I had been warned. Warned about him specifically. My father had hated him.

He disregarded the knife and took my hand regardless. "Crowley." he said soothingly. He didn't shake my hand however, he bent and kissed my fingers. Warmth spread like a fire up my hand. It was tingling. I hadn't been touched in over a decade.

I was standing very still, unsure about how to proceed. Then I sheathed my dagger. Company, by now, was far more important that anything else. And, the odds were, he thought the same.

He gave me a charming smile, "Pleasure to finally meet you, Bobby Winchester. Its been awhile since I've had any company. Tell me, is your father with you?"

I shook my head, "He's dead. He's been dead for years."

He looked at me oddly, like he wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. I thought he would be glad, if he disliked my dad as much as Dad had disliked him. But he didn't.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

I nodded.

He raised an eyebrow and wiggled it, "Companions for the road?"

"You're the King of Hell."

He laughed a dark and broken laugh, "Darling, there's no Hell to be King of. I'm the last." He sounded sad, defeated.

"If it makes you feel better, I think I'm the last human."

"It doesn't."

I grinned at him, "Companions for the road."

AN: I hope you all enjoyed this latest installment! This was a bit less exciting than some of the other chapters, but I hope it gave you some good groundwork!

Thank you to my lovely and faithful reviewers who make writing this story so much damn fun.