AND FEBRUARY WAS SO LONG
Chapter Nine
"And February was so long that it lasted into March."
-Dar Williams, "February"
Dean dreams of being almost rescued. Over and over. Him and Sam. But not from the darkness. From werewolves. From poltergeists. From the violent types who stay at cheap motels.
Sometimes Dad comes. Sometimes it's Bobby or Pastor Jim or another hunter. Once it's even the police.
Doesn't matter who comes, or what they're trying to save the boys from. They never quite make it in time.
The dreams are brief - only long enough for Dean to realize the danger he and Sam are in, to see a possible way out, and then to have his hopes dashed as something terrible happens – but they are vivid, more so than real life in a number of disturbing ways. In one dream, he watches his father running toward him through a haunted old mansion, only to see the man disappear through a weak spot in the floor. The shriek of splintering wood ends abruptly in a solid thump that makes Dean's stomach flip-flop. It's early morning and the sun shining through the windows is butter-yellow and petal-soft. Silver dust motes, stirred up by his father's demise, dance in the shafts of sunlight, are set swirling again by his brother's unruly hair as Sam runs toward the gaping hole where John last stood.
Dean can't run. Can't move. Can't make a sound as Sam, too, disappears, and the sun sinks past the windows too fast to be natural and the mansion goes dark.
Flash!
Dean jolts out of the first dream as if waking. Instead he finds himself in another. He and Sam are in the woods, trapped by some unknown threat that's closing in. Dean can hear water on rocks, can smell crushed yarrow and fresh mayapple. Wherever the monster travels, the trees around it die, their branches curling into themselves like dead grapevine. As Dean watches, Bobby Singer appears, gun in hand, relief on his face at having found the boys. At a distance of thirty feet, Dean can make out every square in Bobby's worn flannel jacket. He can hear Bobby's soft curse as the trees around him wither, winding their vines around him to draw him into the dead part of the forest, boots scraping dry leaves into powder. Dean knows Sam is next. Hears his brother cry out.
Flash.
A third dream. Pastor Jim is praying, an unending litany off to Dean's right. His voice is too thin, wavers slightly on the vowels. From the left, something is coming. Dean knows what it is. Who it is. Eyes not exactly yellow, but that's the closest word he knows. A slow smile on twisted lips, hands clasped in a way that would be gentlemanly, if not for the one doing the clasping. Dean stands, squares his shoulders to face it. Curling bare toes into warm, wet grass. Hands closed around the taped-up handle of a baseball bat. Sparing a glance to the right, to Pastor Jim, where he prays over a silent and motionless Sam. Dean raises the bat, gulps, takes aim.
Flash.
A fourth dream. Werewolves. A fifth. A wendigo. Sixth, a human, breaking into the motel room. Each dream drawn in vivid color - terror, followed by stark relief, only to have the rug pulled out from under him again.
In every dream, Sam dies.
Flash!
Dean opens his eyes and finds he cannot see. It's dark. He doesn't know if he's asleep or awake. He and Sam are crouched, hiding behind a lawnmower that smells faintly of fuel and grass clippings. There are swirling, rainbow-colored lights in front of him, in the distance, dancing in the fog. He doesn't know what monster he might be fighting this time, but he knows it isn't good.
A door creaks open, and into his line of sight step two silhouettes. Is that Dad? And Bobby? Relief pummels Dean, followed closely by suspicion. This is where everything falls apart. This is where his rescuers end up meeting their makers instead of rescuing. This is where Sam – where Sam –
Sam wrests from his grip, his breath too quick and snagging with fear. He runs past the lawnmower, banging his elbow on it, the noise strangely muffled. He ducks the reaching hands of the familiar figures at the door, disappears into the swirling light of a solid fog.
Dean tries to reach for Sam, tries to scream for him, but he cannot wake up. He looks to the figures at the door for help, but they only smile, too dark and too wide, before they swirl away into the colorful mist, figments of a dream from which he cannot wake …
John sags onto the sofa, clutching his dying flashlight, head in his hands. He will allow himself a moment, just this one, to feel it all: the concussion. The frustration. The bitter disappointment and fear of finding the trailer empty of everything but a heavy fog and a phone off the hook. The boys aren't here and John feels their absence like a rock in his stomach. Too late. Oh, God. He's gotten here too late.
"John."
He is slow to respond, but forces his eyes up to meet Bobby's. The older man is standing nearby, holding the melted remains of a candle. "Looks like they stayed here a while, dealt with the dark," Bobby says.
"Before it ..." John begins. Then straightens abruptly, making the dark room around him spin. "No. Enough of this. Let's get back out there."
Bobby clears his throat but doesn't respond. He's got his hat crushed in his hand again, balled up like a tissue. He follows John down the front steps.
It is difficult to search with only one flashlight between them, especially when the light they do have isn't faring well. It keeps flickering off and back on, and every time it comes back on, the beam is weaker. It barely makes a dent in the fog.
The whole town feels muffled, too. There are no sounds, but even if there were, John isn't sure how well they could be heard. Even he and Bobby can barely hear each other when they speak. John can feel the fog on his skin as if it actually has weight, has substance. As if it is an actual thing.
It has hands, this fog. Has fingers that can grip, teeth that can bite. It is alive, this fog. The thought sends John walking fast enough to slip on wet grass, to stumble. He swears softly and steadies himself. He cannot afford – his boys cannot afford – this sentimentality, making him clumsy, muddying up the efficiency of his search. He must not be a worried father looking for his children. He must not look.
He's got to hunt.
John forces himself to be methodical, to cover ground in slow circles spiraling out from the trailer. It is painstaking, slow work. If this were another hunt and he had his eldest son with him, Dean would swear under his breath at the monotony. One step in front another. Eyes on the grass, looking for tracks, but all his senses trained on the darkness around him. He can hear the fog, brushing against itself, whispering like dead leaves in winter. He can hear each of Bobby's footsteps, sinking into wet grass. He can hear a train every once in a while, though the whistle never seems to get any closer.
He has come three circuits out from the trailer, widening the distance with each loop, when, from somewhere off to his right, he hears the muffled bang of a door, and running feet.
"John," Bobby says.
"I hear it," John answers, and that is all he has time to say before his youngest child runs full-speed out of the darkness, wild eyes fixed on something past him, and crashes into him headlong, taking them both to the ground in a tangle of elbows.
Sam is up before John can react, but Bobby is there to steady him, gripping the boy by the shoulders. "Whoa, there, Sam! Where's the fire?" Which is a terrible thing to ask a Winchester, but Bobby doesn't mean anything by it.
Sam doesn't answer and John regains his footing, steps in front of the boy. "Sam."
His son fights him, eyes oddly unfocused. The boy is like cooked spaghetti, limbs spilling out of John's grip. He continues to recapture parts of his son – a wrist, an elbow, a shoulder – before regrouping. He has to snap his son out of this. Hands on Sam's shoulders, John bellows, "Sam, front and center!"
Sam, apparently working on sheer muscle memory, snaps to attention. Gaze follows more slowly, wanders through fog to land on John's face.
John sees the moment his son registers his presence, but the emotion that follows isn't quite what he expected.
"But you're not -" he says, and looks over his shoulder. His voice sounds wrong – too high, and too rough. His fear is as palpable as the fog.
"Sam?" John prompts.
"Then who's with Dean?" Sam asks.
To be continued ...