Emma Viola made her way to the boys' room the next Saturday in the warm mid-spring air. April was Emma's favourite time of the year with the blooming flowers and the escape from the merciless, cold winter air. She found them both packing their bags, a usual sign that there was a new job they would have to go off and complete. The only thing that popped into her mind was what and where.
"Hey," she said as she walked through the door.
"Morning," Sam replied as he folded a plaid shirt and placed it gently into his bag.
"New job?"
"Yep," Dean answered as he shoved a black shirt into his luggage bag. "Vampires."
"V-Vampires…as in the whole fangs, bats, coffins kind of thing?" Emma asked nervously, even though she had faced ghosts and even goddesses before, vampires really did give her the shivers. Her brother once told her a story when she was five about the blood-sucking monsters, and it gave her nightmares for a whole month. It had taken Georgie's weeks of reassuring to comfort the belief of vampires being out there in the world out of her mind.
"Yeah," Sam answered like he was responding to a normal question.
"Except from what we've learned they don't turn into bats, that's all make believe bullshit." The older hunter informed the redhead.
"So… they're real?"
"Yep," Dean repeated.
"Great." she sighed sarcastically, feeling like her frightened five-year-old self again.
"If you want you can miss out on this job, vampires are kinda dangerous." Sam suggested.
"Yeah maybe we can rent a few Disney movies and just let us do the hard work." Dean cooed patronisingly.
"No, I'll come." She said to the joker in an irritated tone.
"Great." Dean said clapping his hands together.
"So, what's the case?"
"Well there have been a few bodies found in a forest in Idaho, they think it's a bear attacking these people but a good old hunter friend of ours, Everett, said that there were bites in their necks and wrists."
"Sounds like something a vampire would do." Emma gathered, self-consciously putting the tips of her index and middle finger on the right side of her neck.
"Yeah, they're pretty known for it… I think your blood is pretty safe for the moment." He said, pointing to the girl with her right hand on her neck. After realising what she was doing, she quickly removed it before a blush of embarrassment came to her cheeks.
"Are you sure you want to come on this case?" Sam asked again in worry.
"Y-Yeah I'll be fine I mean you just need garlic and a cross right?"
"Those don't work actually." Sam slowly replied.
"Yeah that's just Hollywood crap." Dean stated shoving another shirt into his bag. "They can go out in sunlight, it just burns, they can't turn into bats, they won't be killed by wooden stakes-"
"They don't have fangs?" Emma asked hopefully.
"No, that part's true."
"Great." She whispered fearfully, feeling weary of her neck again as she felt her blood freeze in her veins. Her nerves made crinkles appear by the sides of Dean's eyes as he found humour in her worries, forcing her to swallow her doubt and reply "well… I suppose it can't be that hard, after Surozahl nothing can be that scary."
"Thatta girl." Dean grinned.
"I'm going to go pack." She announced before leaving the room.
Once she got back to her room, she collapsed on the bed. Vampires. Never in her life did she ever picture herself seeing a vampire let alone facing one. If Georgie could see her now, she would either be laughing at the idea of her little sister going to hunt the scary monsters they saw in horror movies or worried for her going to face her worst nightmares. But it was a job and she had been the one who decided to stay with the Winchesters so she supposed she would have to pay the price of that.
X
The three hunters made their way to meet Everett in Idaho the next morning, after a day's worth of travelling and a short night's rest in the motel room. They travelled to the outskirts of a forest, known as Yellowstone National Park, where there was a series of wooden cabins lined around the entrance of the trees. Everett looked around Bobby's age, maybe even older, and was dressed in a park ranger's uniform, which seemed to suggest that he had retired from the supernatural routine and settled down to live a normal life.
"Sam, Dean!" he greeted happily, walking up to the two men when he saw them approach in their FBI suits.
"Hey Everett," the older hunter grinned.
"Well I haven't seen you since you were wearing braces and too young drive! Dean, I'd recognize that goofy face from anywhere and Sam you must have grown a metre since I last saw you."
"Yeah, a lot's changed." The younger brother laughed.
"I'm sorry to hear your plans of going to university didn't go to plan."
"It's fine, I guess hunting is what I'm best at anyway." Sam said with a smile yet there was a hint of grimness in his voice.
"Ah well-well who's this?" he said pointing to Emma. "A girlfriend?"
"No," Sam laughed. "This is Emma Viola, she's hunting with us for a while."
"Well tell me dear, what caused you to come to this dark and twisted career path?"
"A demon," Emma explained.
"You were saying about these vampire attacks?" Dean asked.
Everett looked around at his surroundings before saying "come into my office," and they made their way to one of the wooden cabins which was the largest out of the other five neighbouring it.
The inside of the cabin was rather warm with dark brown coloured furniture and walls; it was rather empty except for a desk with a computer resting on top of it and about ten filing cabinets. There were several riffles hanging on the walls and a large stuffed bear standing with its mouth open in the corner.
"We have accounts on all incidents that happen in this park in these filing cabinets." He explained as he walked over to his desk and sat down; the three other hunters went and stood around him. "These are things such as missing persons reports or animal attacks or fires, you get the drift." He went to get a file on the opposite side of his desk and opened it to show pictures of many different bodies, Emma couldn't see a connection with any of them, they were all different genders, ages, weights. No pattern could be detected so far except for two deep holes in the neck and wrists.
"There have been five attacks in three weeks, the cops have said that it is a grizzly but on average there is about one bear attack per season and most of them are never deaths. The rest of the rangers say it's because the public are becoming careless in exploring these woods. They see dumb videos of bears dancing and think that they're just softies but what kind of a bear just bites a person and drains their blood?"
"I'd say it's definitely a vampire." Sam nodded.
"I'm guessing these bastards living in the woods?" Dean questioned.
"I've thought about that, there's an abandoned hut about fifteen miles west, it would be the easiest and closest place the vampires would be able to stay away from the sun."
"Vampires?" Emma asked nervously.
"They like to travel in groups, makes it easier to hunt." Sam explained.
"Oh well that makes this job even more fun." She sighed.
"She's got good spirit, I like it." Everett chuckled.
"So, we'll just go on a fifteen-mile hike and kill these suckers?" Dean asked.
"You'll need a ranger, I would go but my old age has made me be a desk man more than an explorer."
"We'll be fine, we've been in worse situations; it will be like a walk in the park." The older brother stated confidently.
"Well okay if you really want, I'll give you some essential items to help you so at least this old man can help you a little bit."
"Thanks Everett," Sam smiled kindly.
X
"You really could have warned me about hiking before you took me out shopping all that time ago," Emma said lightly to the two boys after changing her clothes in her motel room, finding the most suitable outfit for going into the woods to be a pair of shorts and a dark purple hoodie. The only thing she was worried about were the shoes, which was a pair of white plimsolls, they certainly weren't suitable for hiking.
"It's a fifteen mile walk it's not like we're going to spend the next year living there, besides how is that fricking thing going to help you anyway?" Dean replied, pointing to the dark blue hairband she was wearing on her head.
"It's an accessory," she shrugged. "I wear it just like you wear that necklace."
"Hey," the brother defended, grabbing the chain Sam had given him a long time ago. "This isn't a necklace, it's an amulet, okay? Besides this is different, this has meaning."
"Whatever," she laughed.
"That's better." Dean finished, who had changed into his usual outfit of baggy jeans and many layers of plaid and leather. Sam had also made a minimal effort of changing into clothes suitable for hiking and she supposed they had done these enough times to know what was alright to wear. Or that they were too 'tough' to care about appropriate attire.
"So, how are we going to kill these vampires?" she asked curiously. "You said wooden stakes didn't work?"
"Wonder why I went to a morgue after dropping you two off?"
"No but I really don't want to." Emma admitted.
"Dead man's blood," Dean answered, ignoring her request to not be told.
"Knew I wouldn't like an answer. So…vampires drink blood and so 'dead man's' blood is like gone off milk?"
"Precisely." Sam nodded. "Can't kill them but it'll slow them down."
"So…how do you kill a vampire."
"Behead the bastards." Dean simply replied.
"You can't be serious…right?" Emma nervously.
"Ain't the craziest killing method."
"Since when did you become Henry the Eighth?"
"The hell is he?"
"Look, I know it doesn't sound humane," Sam took over, "But it's the only way that we know of and it's quick and neat if you do it properly with a sharp blade."
"A manchette." Dean corrected.
"And then there's a thing we need to do later to cover our scent." Sam added.
"Well I think we should make our merry way to the woods, the sooner we leave, the sooner I can slice the head off one of these monsters." Dean announced before the three left for Yellowstone National Park for the second time of the day.
X
"So, what have you got here for me boss?" Dean asked the old man, who was over twice his age. There was a large duffel bag behind the retired hunter.
"First of all, three riffles." He said passing them all a narrow, long gun each. "These three beauties have saved many lives over the years and I trust them in your hands."
Sam leant down to the duffel bag and picked it up before hosting it on to his back.
"In there you'll find stuff like a map of the forest and a GPS coordinate finder, there's also things like matches, food, water in there, and I've got you the ingredients to cover your scent from the vampires, all the hiker needs." He advertised.
"Thanks Everett."
"Make sure you three come out alive." He marked wisely before saying goodbye and making his way back into his cabin.
"Well let's get movin'." Dean said smoothly before the three of them entered the dark cage made of trees.
Emma looked at the trees nervously, not knowing what would happen inside but becoming terrified at the knowledge of what lay within. Forests never really provoked fear, if anything they fascinated her. The remote areas rarely touched by civilisation, a true reflection of human absence. But now abnormal things turned out to be hiding within so perhaps the lack of humanity made it strangely even more corrupted.
"You okay?" Sam questioned as he saw her standing still.
"Yeah," she laughed sheepishly, shaking her head and following him into the forest, "Just got a bit distracted with my thoughts."
X
They travelled until the sun dropped behind the wide canvas painted blue, pink and orange. It had been a long and tiring day of walking, with turns of carrying the bag, which felt like it had an elephant sleeping in it, and them only taking short breaks every hour. Luckily, Sam with chivalrous and offered to carry the bag on Emma's shifts when she was too weighed down but unfortunately, Dean wasn't and mocked her when she complained about it being half his weight.
The trees seemed to gather closer together as they got deeper into the woodland, trunks getting thicker, as if they were ganging up on the three hunters. Emma couldn't imagine how there could be a forest that ran for this long or how people could be worried about all the trees being cut down when they had passed a billion trees at least this day alone. She could understand now how people disappeared in this prison and managed to find their way back again, seeing as if they didn't have resources to help them out, they could easily have gotten lost forever in these woods. Whenever she saw a bird flying in a patch of sky, where there was a small gap between the green leaves, she felt slightly jealous of them being able to look down on the trees instead of up at them.
After travelling for almost five hours, they decided to stop for the day as travelling through the dark would be harder and according to Dean it was when the 'vampires come out to play'. They stopped where there was a gathering of logs in a dense, treeless patch of woodland that seemed like the most suitable place to stop for the night.
"Hey look, Everett even gave us toothbrushes and toothpaste." Dean grinned as he searched through the bag with his torch. Seems like we're gonna have to eat beans tonight, he gave us a little saucepan, plates and everything." He said happily. "The son of a bitch didn't put porn in here." He said in disappointment.
"That's all you care about?" Emma disappointedly replied.
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Well I think this should be enough for a while." Sam said carrying a big pile of dead wood in his hands before chucking it on the floor by Emma before they all began to contribute to making a pile.
"Jesus, Em, do you have to be such a perfectionist?!" Dean irritably said as he watched the girl arranging the sticks slowly one by one onto the pile.
"Detail is everything!" She defended.
"We're gonna be setting it on fire!"
"It's fine, Dean, we have time." Sam rolled his eyes.
"Okay…done." Emma proudly placed the final stick on the pile before looking at Sam attempting to set a bunch of dry leaves on fire next to it with a piece of flint and steel.
"Why ain't you using your lighter, dumbass?" Dean shook his head.
"Everett left it in the bag…would be kinda rude not to use what he gave us."
"Okay, well, at least let posh girl here start it."
"Me?" Emma frowned. "Why me?"
"Cos you need to learn this shit. What if you get lost and you're on your own?"
"What?" she panicked. "That- that's not going to happen, right?"
"No, of course not." Sam reassured her before offering her the flint and steel. "But it can't hurt trying."
"I gotta pee." Dean stated before walking away into the darkness.
"Okay, so how do you do this?" Emma asked as she knelt down next to Sam.
"Just act like you're lighting a match." He stated before giving her a demonstration. She took them from him slowly before going to copy the movement, hoping to set the leaves aflame but all that occurred was a couple of sparks.
"Why is this so difficult?" she replied in frustration a minute later. "Okay- okay- I give up."
"Not used to being bad at something?" Sam chuckled before taking it off of her. After a few strokes, the leaves were on fire and thirty-seconds later, the whole pile of sticks were in flames.
"I feel like I just got a D in a test."
"I guess that fancy school of yours is more practical than academic."
"Practical things consisted of how give the perfect handshake or how to socialise with anyone and everyone…in my social class. No Finchwood student ever had the intention of camping."
"Guess you're the first then." Sam stated, making her smile and nod.
"I suppose I'm also the first to hunt a vampire or any monster, in fact."
"Yeah, maybe."
Two hours later they had finished their dinner, brushed their teeth and were now relaxing by the fire, flames burning bright and passionately. Emma and Dean sitting on one log and Sam sat on another at a ninety-degree angle from another. Their chat had turned less 'survival' and more comedic, with Emma and Sam still finding laughter from Dean's eagerness to eat his dinner from earlier on ending up in him choking or them sharing the corniest jokes they knew, Dean in the lead, despite him finding half of them hilarious.
"This fire's making me crave smores." Dean admitted sadly as he prodded the fire with a long marshmallowless stick.
"How many miles till the cabin?" Emma curiously questioned.
"About two." Sam answered.
"And there are vampires in the forest…right now?"
"Yeah but it'll be fine." Sam said before going into the bag and grabbing out a plastic container from within it.
"It looks like a mixture of herbs." Emma analysed as she saw the box which had dry, green, crushed plants inside of it.
"It is. It will cover our scent from the vampires." He said before going to throw it on the fire, it angered the flame, making it go blue and wild, the smoke it created causing Emma to choke and suffocate as the herbs gave off a strong scent.
"So, are we safe now?" she asked hopefully after her throat had cleared, with the help of Sam quickly handing her some water.
"From vampires, yes."
"Oh, so when she chokes, you help but when poor ol' Dean chokes it's a game of who can make the most jokes about it."
"You knew those beans would be hot, it's your own fault for shoving them in your mouth all at once." Emma reminded, making Sam chuckle.
"Oh, I see, gang up on the old man." Dean grumbled. "I'm bored guys."
"Tell a story." Emma suggested she said before going to lean on the older hunter's shoulder.
"Story telling's for wimps."
"Do you want to be bored?"
"No," he groaned. "Okay, okay…let's see…hm. Ah, I remember once when about twenty-four, dad made me go into forest with only a knife and a bottle of water, I had to survive for two whole days in that wood, this was when Sam was living his fancy, easy life in Stanford by the way."
"It wasn't easy, you try getting into a university with no grades or money-" the younger brother started.
"Yeah whatever, anyway my dad thought this would toughen me up for when I was ready to go hunting on my own."
"That's horrible." Emma said quietly. "Why didn't you just pretend you went to the forest and just not?"
"He was my pops and I wasn't going to disappoint him like Sam. After the first night of hunting and surviving by myself it was pretty easy, I even ran into a couple camping out and let's just say that the guy's gal wasn't so loyal to him after that night." He chuckled. "Dad was even pleased with me at the end of it all."
"Was your dad always this atrocious?"
"Yes." Both of the brothers said in unison.
"Once when I was about seven," Sam continued, "a kid in my class at the time gave me a Superman action figure, I didn't even know who 'Superman' was back then but it was the first real gift I'd ever gotten."
"I remember that," Dean laughed. "I think I was jealous of you because of that goddamn doll."
"Remember when dad came home? He got mad and set it on fire he said there was no room for childish things."
"I suppose he was right-"
"I was seven, Dean."
"I suppose he was a lil tough on us." Dean chuckled. "God, do you remember what that thing smelt like when it was burning? We probably inhaled some toxic chemicals."
"S'pose it's better than a burning body." Sam defended.
"I remember when dad made me dig up my first grave. I was barely seventeen. She was some old lady who died fifty years back. Swear to god, I'm gonna be cremated."
"Yeah, you as a ghost would be a nightmare."
"Thanks dude, I appreciate that fact that you'll miss me when I'm gone." He sarcastically answered. "Although, being a ghost would be the frigging worst. No pie. Hell- no food at all! And how would I drive Baby?"
"No sex." Sam stated.
"Nah, I've seen Ghost."
"They did not have sex in Ghost." Sam shook his head.
"You really expect me to believe that that chick was making a pot? Nah, Swayze's the man- dead or alive."
"If anything, I'd think you have a crush on him."
"Shut up." Dean irritably replied before changing the subject swiftly. "So, what's your story Em." He asked, looking over to his shoulder to see the girl unconscious but breathing softly into his arm. He slowly went to retrieve his leather jacket and putting it round the young girl's shoulders before putting his arm around her waist and pulling her closer. "If I ever have kids, I'm gonna let them have as many goddamn superman dolls as they want. I'm not going to raise them like dad raised us, no way in hell!"
"I think you'd be a good father Dean." Sam smiled softly.
"Ha, good one."
"I'm being serious, the way you looked after me, the way you're looking after Emma, you're better at looking after people then you know."
"Thanks Sammy." Dean said gently.
A couple moments of silence ran by before Sam said "get some shuteye, I'll take first watch."
Dean grinned before going to kiss Emma's forehead and stroking her hair softly before closing his eyes, awaiting sleep to take control over him. Away from a world of vampires and within a world of superheroes and ghosts.