AND FEBRUARY WAS SO LONG
Chapter Three
"And then the snow, and then the snow came,
we were always out shoveling
and we drop to sleep exhausted
and we wake up and it's snowing ..."
-Dar Williams, "February"
Around him, he hears the sounds of preparation.
Except it isn't preparation. Not really. It's just a lot of well-meaning, gung-ho rescuers with no idea what they're preparing for. People are mounting up a search party, looking for missing townsfolk whose body parts John has already seen splattered all over the forest.
But he can't tell these people that. Already they suspect him.
Instead he tries to reason with them: "It's a blizzard out there." And, "We don't know what we're dealing with." And, "For God's sake, men, at least carry a weapon that shoots something other than buckshot!"
All that earns him is a slap to the back of the head from the town sheriff, who happens to be a woman and doesn't take kindly to all this "men" crap.
When talking doesn't work, John tries to deter them through other means. Chains missing from tires. Spark plugs missing from engines.
He will give the people of Sun Station this, though, with their snowshoes and their cross-country skis: they are determined.
Now, minutes from the first wave of rescuers traipsing out into the blizzard, completely unprepared for what they might find – John doesn't know what it is, not yet, but he knows they're not prepared for it, knows he's not prepared for it – he spares a minute to dial his sons.
He isn't sure why. Just talked to them yesterday and Dean's nearly grown. He can handle himself, can handle Sam.
He just needs to hear their voices. As long a the sun's been up, it's been all he can think of.
John dials the number of the cheap line he'd had connected at the crappy trailer before heading out of town. Hangs up after one ring, waits a ten-count, then dials again. He imagines Sam racing Dean to try to be the first to pick up the phone, and a smile tugs at his lips. Three rings in, his heartbeat quickens and the smile disappears. No one has answered yet. Ringing means the line's not disconnected, but no one has answered. That isn't right. Radio says schools in the entire listening area are shut down today, due to the snow.
The snow. The smile returns. Sam is still such a little kid when it comes to the snow. He pictures his eldest being dragged reluctantly out "to play" by his youngest. Pictures snow ball fights and snow forts and, if Dean has anything to say about it, shockingly anatomically correct "snow-chicks." This is not their first winter, and he knows how these things go.
He is just about to hang up and leave the boys to their fun when the line goes … gray.
It's the only way he can think to describe it. Nobody answers. Nobody picks up, or at least, nobody says hello. Against the background noise of the rescue party on his end, John presses a hand over his free ear, leans into the receiver as if this will increase his hearing. "Hello? Dean?"
There is nothing, and yet …
He feels the connection through the line. Feels certain that one of his boys is on the other end. It isn't that he can't hear anything through the line, or that the line is dead. No. Goosebumps grip his neck.
"Shit," he whispers.
Because he has the distinct impression he is hearing through the line, and what he's hearing on the other end is heavy, oppressive silence. A solid sort of silence, immovable. Unnatural.
Supernatural.
"Dean? Sammy?"
No one answers. But the line does not go dead.
"Listen, boys, if you're there, I'm just calling to – hello? Boys!" Because he swears for a minute he heard something. Just a flicker. Like a candle burning low. He shakes off the creepy images, forces himself to chalk this bad connection up to the weather, which is not an unreasonable assumption. "Boys, if you can hear me, check the salt, keep the door locked. I know you want to play outside in the snow, Sammy, but I'd feel better if you'd stay inside for now. I can't hear you if you're talking to me. I can't hear you. I just – boys, Dean, be aware. Just stay aware."
He waits. Listens to the gray quiet. But the search party is out the door and gone. They will be gone in a rather more permanent manner if he doesn't get the lead out and follow them.
"Be safe, boys," he says, and ends the call.
He's halfway out the door when he swivels, spins back to the phone and dials Jim Murphy. Asks the pastor to keep trying his sons' number. He reassures his friend that he has no real cause for concern. That he only has a feeling … a feeling and an unanswered phone call, and he'd just feel better if he knew someone were in contact with Dean and Sam. Jim assures him that he'll continue calling while John's in the forest.
"Stay safe, John," Jim says. But John barely hears him. He grabs his gear and follows the clueless townsfolk out into the forest, vowing to finish this as quickly as he can. He has a feeling he needs to get back as soon as possible to the little town of Dusk Valley, which, only a week ago, seemed like such a safe place to leave his boys.
The phone's ring makes them both jump a mile, and Sam makes a noise that, on any other day, Dean wouldn't hesitate to point out was a full-blown scream.
In retrospect, maybe ghost stories weren't the best idea to pass the time.
Still. Who better to tell ghost stories than the Winchesters? After all, their stories are the creepiest and have the benefit of being more or less true (with some embellishments, of course). And sitting in the dark, blinking at each other through wavering candlelight, trying not to freakin' freeze to death on this gorgeous February morning, well – it's just a whole lot less terrifying when stupid campfire traditions are brought into the mix.
Besides. Dean's still Dean. He's not going to pass up this perfectly awesome chance to one-up his little brother in the ghost story department.
Problem is, Sammy reads everything that will sit still long enough, so while Dean can tell him again about the angry spirit in North Carolina – "I know, Dean, you already told me this one" – or the poltergeist in Texas – "I've heard this story like a thousand times" – or even the really freakin' scary haunted children's home in Connecticut – "I was there, Dean!" "Oh, yeah." – he's pretty much out of new material. Sammy, on the other hand, is nothing but new material, having read every creepy book Bobby Singer owns and then some.
The result is that Sam is maybe – maybe – not the only one who screams like a girl when the phone rings.
Eyes meeting in a silent pact to never, ever admit what just happened, the boys scramble for the phone in the same breath. But the candle, burned low, barely more than a nub of wax at this point, chooses that moment to snuff out – holy crap! – and the brothers are plunged into total darkness.
"Dean!" Sam says. His voice has gone several shades higher than is normal.
Dean reaches out into the darkness and finds his brother's hand, which, as usual, is damp and cold. Together they feel their way in the direction of the phone. Although it only rang once, Dean knows it will ring again in a moment, and he's so relieved. Earlier, when he tried dialing out to Pastor Jim and Bobby, he only got static. He talked to his dad only yesterday; he wasn't counting on an incoming call. Just as he thinks this, the phone starts ringing again. Relief makes his movements clumsy. Clumsier still because of the darkness.
The problem with moving around the country so much is that Dean doesn't know exactly where the phone is in this latest of their dwellings. Of course he knows the general area of the room it's in, and that it's sitting on a small table between the unused sofa and the front door. But he doesn't know the steps required to reach it, the feel of the space he needs to cover.
In the dark beside him, he hears the scratch of the lighter over and over again. But no flame appears.
"I think it got wet," Sam says softly, and then there is a soft thump, and a squeak, and Sam's hand is wrested from his.
"Sam!" Dean demands, disoriented in the darkness with no brother to anchor to. "Sammy, dammit -"
"Here … I'm here. I just tripped over the … oh … phone." The ringing stops. "Hello?" Dean hears his little brother answer. A pause, then, "Hello? Dad? Are you there?"
"Sam, where are you? Let me talk to him."
"Dad? Can you hear me?"
"Sam!"
"Dean, I can't hear him." Sam's voice sounds devastated, positively crushed. "Dean, I think, I think he's on the line, but I can't hear him!"
"Don't hang up." Dean is feeling his way toward the sound of his brother's voice. He kicks the corner of the couch, curses. Finally manages to gather a handful of brother – sweatshirt, he thinks? – and, with the other hand, takes the phone. "Dad!"
But Sam's right. There's nothing but silence and some weird sort of rustling on the line, like a mouse is crawling around in there. Just before he's about to punch the wall in frustration, Dean hears something else:
"...ammy?"
"Dad!"
"That was Dad!" Sam adds unnecessarily, from where he's got his ear smashed against Dean's so he can also listen to the near-useless phone.
"Dad, the whole town's gone dark. I don't know what the hell's going on, but I got the doors and windows salted. Dad, when are you coming back?"
"Daddy!" Dean is vaguely unsettled, both by the intensity in Sam's voice and the fact that, in his fear, he has called his father a name he hasn't used since he was five or six.
The voice comes through the line: "... door locked … stay inside ..." and a moment later, "... can't hear you ..."
We know, Dean thinks, panic rising, but he doesn't say it, because he can't afford to interrupt what little he can hear from his father.
All he hears now is quiet – heavy, oppressive, gray silence on the line.
Then John's voice distant, like it's EVP instead of a real phone call from his real father – "... safe ..."
Then the line goes dead for real. Leaving nothing, not even a dial tone, to connect them with anything outside the dark.
To be continued ...