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𝐂 𝐇 𝐀 𝐎 𝐓 𝐈 𝐂 ₊˚.༄𖥸 ──
𝗩𝗢𝗟𝗨𝗠𝗘 𝗜 ── ❪ 𝘖𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘙𝘖𝘈𝘋 𝘈𝘎𝘈𝘐𝘕 ❫
𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗘𝗥𝘕𝘈𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘈𝘓 ────── ❪ 🌿🕊️! ❫
𝖲𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖮𝖭 𝖮𝖭𝖤, 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 𝗧𝗪𝗢
𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗬𝗖𝗟𝗘, 𝗠𝗔𝗡
𝟬𝟰. ╱ ✷ ❝ dude, check out the size of this freaking bear. ❞
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ʙʟᴀᴄᴋᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ ʀɪᴅɢᴇ
ʟᴏꜱᴛ ᴄʀᴇᴇᴋ, ᴄᴏʟᴏʀᴀᴅᴏ
𝗧𝗪𝗢 𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 are set up near a fire ring, crickets chirping as two men are playing head-to-head handheld video games.
"Dude, you're cheating."
"No, you just suck."
Something growls outside. In the other tent, a third man - Tom Collins - records a video message on his cell phone to his sister back home.
"Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge." Tom spoke into the camera.
Something dark flicks behind the tent wall, too fast to be identifiable but the boys phone camera catches it.
"We're fine, keeping safe, don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow." He stops the recording before sending it to his sister.
Brad closes his game system and tosses it to the side. Gary stares at his own system for a moment, then turns to look at Brad who is getting up and unzipping the tent.
"Hey, where ya goin'? My moment of victory."
"Nature calls." Brad tells him before he walks out of the tent, making sure to zip it back behind him.
The fire crackles before a stick snaps and Brad looks towards where the nose came from as he sees the trees rustling. Shaking his head, he returns to looking down before looking up sharply as something growls.
Inside Tom's ten, he's reading a book before hearing Brad scream. Inside the other tent, Gary hears the same scream and rolls over.
"Brad?"
Tom sits up, "Gary, what's goin' on?"
Gary opens the tent that he's in and sticks his head out to look around as he sees nothing. Hearing growling, he looks up just before whatever it was pulls him out of the tent, leaving him screaming.
Tom turns out the lantern he had on as shadows move quickly around the outside of the tent. The brown haired male looks around, his eyes following the shadows as more growing is heard.
An eerie silence falls just before something slashes open Tom's tent and his screams travel around the wooden forest.
────── ❪ 🌿🕊️! ❫
𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗢𝗙 Dean's Impala, Sam jerks away as he rode shot gun net to Dean as Gracelyn laid out across the backseat, eyes closes as she slept.
Dean looks over at him concerned, "You okay?"
Sam glances over at his brother, rubbing his eyes before looking away. "Yeah, I'm fine.
"Another nightmare?" The eldest Winchester asked as Sam cleared his throat, not really wanting to talk about it, "You wanna drive for a while?"
Sam laughs, "Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that. Or Gracie for that matter."
"Just thought you might want to. Never mind."
"Look, man, you're worried about me. I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay."
"Mm-hm."
"Alright, where are we?" Sam grabs a map.
"We are just outside of Grand Junction." Dean tells him, glancing back at his little sister, "She still sleeping?"
"She's always been one to sleep the entire ride."
"I'm not sleeping." Gracelynn suddenly speaks up, opening her eye and sitting up, "I'd just rather not have Dean question me one what I've been up to for the last two years. I know the question was coming up."
"What have--,"
"I'm not telling you." She cuts him off as she crosses her arms over her chest.
Sam folds down the map in his hand, a large red 'X' labeled 35-111 marked on it, "You know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."
"Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing." Dean tells him, "If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica--,"
"We gotta find Dad first." Sam cuts him off as the girl in the back rolls her eyes.
"Dad disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence." Dean tells the two, "Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do."
Gracelyn scoffed, "Yeah, right."
"It's weird, man. These coordinates he left us." Sam shakes his head, looking at the map once more. "This Blackwater Ridge."
"There's nothing there. It's just woods." Sam sits the map back down.
"Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?" Gracelyn asked, moving so that she was in between the seats to look at her brothers.
They drive past the National Forest sign that says, "Welcome to Lost Creek Colorado National Forest".
────── ❪ 🌿🕊️! ❫
"𝗦𝗢, 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 Ridge is pretty remote." Sam looks down at a 3D map of the national forest, paying particular attention to the ridge labeled "Blackwater Ridge", while Dean and Gracelyn look around at the decorations.
"It's cut off by canyons, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned sliver and gold mines all over the place." Gracelyn tells them, having read about it one time.
Dean is looking at a framed photo hanging on the wall, "Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear."
Both of the twins come over to stand next to Dean. The photos being of a man standing behind a much larger bear.
"And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area." Sam says, "It's no nature hike, that's for sure."
"You boys and girl aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?" A new voice startles the three Winchesters and they all turn around to look at the forest Ranger.
"Oh, no, sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper." Sam laughs a little.
Dean grins, raising his fist, "Recycle, man."
"Bull." The ranger says. "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?"
Sam's eyes flicker over to his sister and brothers, both of which don't move.
"Yes. Yes, we are, Ranger--," Dean cuts himself off as he looks at the name tag, "--Wilkinson."
"Well I will tell you exactly what we told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing person now, is it?"
Dean shakes his head.
"You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine."
"We will." Gracelyn sends him an innocent smile.
"Well that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?" Dean asked.
"That's putting it mildly."
"Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit." Dean says, "You know, so she could see her brother's return date."
"What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asked his brother as the three walked out of the Ranger station.
"What do you mean?"
"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for?" Sam asked, "Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?"
"I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?"
"What?" Questioned Sam after a pause between the two brothers.
"Since when are you all shoot first ask questions later, anyway?"
"Since now."
"I just want to go back to my own house. To my own bed." Gracelyn mumbles under her breath as she gets into the car, "Is that too much to ask?"
────── ❪ 🌿🕊️! ❫
"𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗧 be Haley Collins." Dean is the first one to speak as the door to the house they were standing in front of opens, "I'm Dean, this is Sam and Grace, we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted to ask a few questions about your brother Tommy."
Haley hesitates, "Lemme see some ID."
Dean pulls out a fake ID and holds it up against the screen before smiling at the girl.
"Come on it." Haley opens the door.
"Thanks." c
"That yours?" Haley looks back at Dean's car.
"Yeah."
"Nice car."
Gracelyn can't help but to roll her eyes at her older brother as she follows Haley into the kitchen where her other brother, Ben, sat with his laptop on the table.
"So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam questioned the older sister.
The curly haired woman comes back, placing a bowl on the table, "He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos -- we haven't heard anything in over three days now."
"Maybe he can't get cell reception." Gracelyn shrugged her shoulder.
"He's got a satellite phone, too."
"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?" Dean questioned.
"He wouldn't do that." Ben speaks up, Gracelyn sending the boy a soft smile that he returns.
Dean, seeing the smiles, glared at Ben until he looked away.
"Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me." Haley explains, "We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."
"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asked.
"Yeah."
Gracelyn stands behind her twin brother, Dean and Haley also standing behind him as the homeowner clicks on a photo.
"That's Tommy."
Haley clicks twice and another picture comes up, then a video of the boy begins to play.
"Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge." Tommy's voice comes through the speakers, "We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow?"
The Winchester girls eyebrows pinch together as she notices a shadow flicking past.
"Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing." Dean tells her.
"Then maybe I'll see you there." Haley says as she walks by the eldest boy.
Gracelyn leans down so that she's talking low enough that only her twin can hear her, "Did you see the shadow, too?"
"I did."
"Look, I can't sit around here anymore." Haley tells Dean, "So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."
"I think I know how you feel."
"Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?" Sam questioned.
"Sure."
────── ❪ 🌿🕊️! ❫
"𝗦𝗼, 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic." Sam begins as soon as Dean is sitting at the table in the old bar across the table from Gracelyn. "Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found."
"And before that?"
Gracelyn opens her father's journal, pulling out newspaper articles to show Dean, "In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack."
'𝙐𝙋 𝙏𝙊 𝙀𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏 𝙃𝙄𝙆𝙀𝙍𝙎 𝙑𝘼𝙉𝙄𝙎𝙃 𝙄𝙉 𝙇𝙊𝙎𝙏 𝘾𝙍𝙀𝙀𝙆 𝘼𝙍𝙀𝘼. 𝙃𝙄𝙆𝙀𝙍𝙎 𝘿𝙄𝙎𝘼𝙋𝙋𝙀𝘼𝙍𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀 𝘽𝘼𝙁𝙁𝙇𝙀 𝘼𝙐𝙏𝙃𝙊𝙍𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙀𝙎'
"And again in 1959 and again before that in 1936." Sam pulls out his laptop, the screen already having Tommy's video pulled up. "Every twenty-three years, just like clockwork. Okay. Watch this. Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out."
Sam pulls up the video and goes through three frames of it at a time, to show Dean the very shadow that he and Gracelyn had seen back at the house.
"Do it again."
"That's three frames." Sam says after doing it again, "That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move."
Dean hits Sam, "Told you something weird was going on."
"Yeah," Sam closes the laptop, "We got one more thing."
Gracelyn hands her brother another newspaper article, "In '59 one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."
"Is there a name?"
────── ❪ 🌿🕊️! ❫
"𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗞, 𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record." Mr. Shaw leads the three siblings into his home, a cigarette in his mouth, "I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a--,"
"Grizzly?" Sam cuts him off, "That's what attacked them?"
Shaw takes a puff of his cigarette, pulling it from his mouth and nodding.
"The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?" Dean asked, turning to his little sister as her phone began to ring. "What about all those people that went missing this year? Sam thing? We knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."
"I seriously doubt that. Anyways, "I don't see what difference it would make." Shaw sat down, "You wouldn't believe me. Nobody did."
Gracelyn sits across from the older man, sending him a gentle smile, "I'd believe you. I've seen a lot of crazy shit in the world." She paused, "Mr. Shaw, what did you see?"
"Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It hid too well." Mr. Shaw paused, "I heard it, though. A roar. Like...no man or animal I ever heard."
"It came at night?" Sam asked.
Shaw nodded.
"Got inside your tent?" Gracelyn asked.
"It got inside our cabin." Mr. Shaw tells them, "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming."
"It killed them?" Questioned Sam.
"Dragged them off into the night." Shaw shakes his head, "Why it left me alive...been asking myself that ever since."
Mr. Shaw pauses as his hands go to the collar of his shirt.
"Did leave me this, though." He pulls the collar down, revealing three long claw marks, the Winchester siblings looking at them closely, "There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon."