[2] Hell and Back | d. winchester

2

The Chevy Impala growled as it rumbled down the path somewhere along the outskirts of Sioux Falls, less than a couple of miles from the city of Harrisburg. Dean drove in silence, gripping his steering wheel with a greatly agitated force; his fingers had started to become white as his hand readjusted itself now and then, repeatedly wrapping tighter around the wheel each time he let go.

The other Hunter sat shotgun, resting his head on his right hand, watching their surroundings blur as they drove. After their continuous shared silence, Dean cursed and braked without warning, sending both himself and Sammy forward in their seats. Sam was torn out of his daydream and nearly smacked his head on the dash, both his hands out in front of him and his palms spread against the surface with a panicked gasp.

Sam cast his brother a glare with frustrated eyes, only to see Dean's fixed on something up ahead; clouded with an expression he couldn't read and watery at the edges.

"Get out the car." He growled. Oblivious, Sam felt a pocket of worry blossom in his chest as he let his eyes follow his brother's gaze, but he saw nothing. Dean repeated himself. "Get out the car." Before the words were completely free from his lips, Dean was out of the Chevrolet. The door closing with a strong thud that rattled the vehicle and his eyes never so much as flickering from whatever had caught his attention.

Soon followed by Sam, Dean ventured forward in long, intimidating strides and a low rasp that hummed out of his throat in unfiltered anger. His feet took him forward mindlessly, his body tingling with a fury he couldn't keep beneath his skin and soon his body burnt from the sensation. He found himself stood at an emergency telephone, dangling from the phone box in the road's layby. This was where the call had been from. The cord swayed in the light breeze around them, catching at the rotting leaves of the Bush overgrown beside it one in a while. The payphone rocked in the air, taunting him with each sway in his direction.

Dean's fingers firmly wrapped around the yellow plastic, he noticed the bloodied prints discolouring it and a hiss left the small spaces between his clenched teeth. Sam wavered in his place, he wasn't even sure why they were here in the first place, he'd been too pleased to get his brother out of the house somewhere other than a dingy bar or diner. He remained silent beside his brother until Dean straightened and turned, heading abruptly back to the Impala. Sam ignored his calls of 'get back in the car'.

After a moments hesitation and picking up the payphone from the space below him, rolling it in his hand, the younger Winchester took a hesitant step forward. He stepped off the concrete and onto the dying shrubbery, following an assortment of broken branches and damaged plants away from the main road and a parked Chevrolet Impala. Hunting relentlessly for many years in his young life, Sam Winchester had come to know the difference between a naturally snapped plant and a plant broken in a body-falling-or-being-dragged- through-them kind of way. Even if it was obsolete to the public. "Sammy!" Dean's voice roared out towards him, a curse soon following and the loud thump of the Impala's door slamming close behind him. The Hunter made no sound to respond to his brother as he creeped forward through the bushes and trees. He could feel something, something that wasn't right. "Sam, come on." He didn't make any effort to turn back, "Sam. We're leaving." Sam didn't listen. He continued through the growing woodland as the pathway from the highway sloped downhill and the trees became taller than he thought they'd be; the sight of the road now disappearing completely.

Minutes passed with Dean standing at the edge of the road, his foot tapping impatiently against the concrete, arms tightly drawn across his chest. Sam wondered around the woodland below, no longer visible to his brother but he couldn't have been too far from him. The woodland was like marshland, the floor predictively flat, but every step sent his foot a considerable distance into the soil. It was astounding how much of an area couldn't be seen from the main road. It was a deserted world of its own. It seemed awfully convenient to be so invisible to the regular eye and as the trees thickened and his footsteps were no longer heard by his brother, Sam couldn't help but feel uncomfortable from it's hidden status.

Just as he decided to retreat and started to turn away, Sam's attention was drawn at the sound of several snapping branches not far away from him. He heard shuffling; panting. The Winchester dismissed the thought of it being animal and followed his instincts, unsure what to expect; especially after all that blood he'd seen decorating the telephone.

"Hello?" Sam cringed at himself, what was this? A 90's horror movie? I don't think so.
His feet crunched against the broken branches and dead leaves beneath him, continuing towards the sound. He stopped when he caught sight of something he hadn't anticipated. His heavy gaze was taken at the sight of a pair of dirty black sneakers, muddy and ruffled and poking out at the base of a tree ahead of him. When he took one more step closer, Sam saw the denim of a jean leg, bloody and torn. He scampered forward, his heart facing; he saw a body, a human body, slumped against the oak. Bloody prints sliced the wood behind the head, torn flesh poked out between the cuts in the clothing sticking against the torso. A body that was still bleeding, still breathing. He trailed the figure from head to toe, unable to gather his thought in his brain or words in his throat, all of them dragging each other back down with rocks tied to their feet, the only one he could settle for seemed most appropriate. "Dean!"

The urgency in his brother's tone caused all the irritation to leave Dean Winchester. He felt his legs bend with a sprint propelling them, he was by Sam's side in an instant. His knees slapped against the ground, sinking into the mud and leaves beneath him. With one hand keeping him balanced and burying into the marshland, Dean stared at the body in front of them. He saw her head resting against the wood, her figure limp and broken. His stomach tightened, tearing at the sight of her; a lump the size of his heart forcing its way up in his throat. "Dean-" Dean shushed his brother automatically, his body jolting with the sound that came from his own lips. He leaned forward, pushing himself to move by his heels. He squinted at the brunette and the dark blood spilling from her. He raised his hand to brush the bloodied strands from her face, now clumped together and dyed crimson. Unsurprisingly, her clothes were torn, obviously from whatever she had been fighting. In a consistent flow the blood trickled down her chest and down from the wounds beneath the dark material of her top, beneath the jeans that now looked black instead of blue. Dean hoped some of this was from whatever had fought her, not her own insides.

Both Winchesters fliched when a long, throaty gasp distortedly came from her closed throat, so much so that if they had time to think about it, they would've been glad no one else was around to see them both jolt so vividly. "We need to get her to hospital."

It was Sam who spoke for them both, taking control of the situation as a numbness coated the muscles and control in the older Hunter's body. Dean remained mute, unaware to what his brother was saying to him. All he could see was her body and he rocked on his heels and let his finger graze over the bruised skin stretched over her face. It should've been cold, six-feet-under the soil he was too used to walking on, soil far aware from here. "Dean."

Green eyes flickered to the tallest of the two Hunters and he straightened himself up. His body stood robotically, unable to pull his dazed eyes from the bloodied Hunter once they flickered back from his brother's face, "Dean."  Sam leant towards his brother when he flinched at his voice but still made no effort to scoop up the injured girl below. Sam took a step forward. He bent down, slipping his arms beneath the crook of her knees and let her legs fall over his the bend of his forearms. He lifted her up bridal-style and held her against his chest; she barely responded, Sam wasn't even sure if she had at all, it may have been his own grunt as her weight fell against him.

Sam left Dean to stare at the place the figure had been laying, his eyes trailing the bloody silhouette left behind. His eyes would only follow the trails of her blood painted up the tree trunk, his body still in a state of overwhelming paralysis.

That's when it hit him. His eyes fell to the crushed leaves left behind from her body; it washed over him like a wave and a knife stabbing and twisting at his gut. It set his insides aflame and made the back of his throat dry and tight: she was back. Stephanie Cale wasn't dead.