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wwwafflewrites · 4 years

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Never Fear (The Winchesters Are Here)

Follow Your Heart

You tried following your heart, once, as a senior in college with straight A’s, a bright future, a career so close you could almost touch it. You were so close to satisfaction. So close to that diploma.

And all at once, that dream ceased to be. And all you could think was my heart must be very very lost.

It all began on a cloudy Friday evening, you were just about to end your shift with the dogs. It was a tangled mess of leashes when you made it back to the animal shelter. Sweat and dog hair covered you, and after a good shower of puppy kisses, you finally untangled yourself from the mass of dogs and return them to their rightful cages.

You refused to meet their sad eyes. You made that mistake, once, and had spent half an hour reassuring each heartbroken dog that they were, indeed, a good boy.

"I’ll see you guys in the morning!" you promised with a wave and a jangle of your dog whistle, and after a reply of barks, you left the building at dusk.

The road was silent, the street lamps weren’t on yet, and the clouds had become heavier in the sky. You had read in the forecast it was going to rain, but hadn't expected this.

The tightness in your chest only continued to build as you made it to the campus. The sun was just barely visible behind the storm clouds that had rolled in. The wind had become cool, and the wind had picked up, sending chills up and down your spine.

Perhaps it was just a combination of paranoia and reasonable worry for a woman walking alone at night to her college dorm, except your blood chilled the moment you unlocked your room and entered.

The hair on your arms and the back of your neck were on end. Your eyes adjusted to the dim light, and you realized that the window was open, and the harsh breeze was whipping past you.

You laughed it off, feeling silly. Though that night you slept with your cover tight against your chest, back against the wall, and your little silver paring knife under your pillow.

The next day, you experienced the same fear. Except, this time, it was sunny out.

What was triggering these feelings of dread? It was like you couldn’t focus anymore. Everything just felt... itchy. That was the only way you could describe it.

With each day that passed, the source of your terror was slowly revealing itself. Little, weird things that wouldn't be so noticeable to an outsider, but as someone who valued cleanliness and order, it might as well have been an elephant in the room.

Things were never as you left them. On Sunday morning you couldn’t find your hairbrush. Monday evening, your bed was mysteriously unkempt, even though you’d recalled making it that morning. Tuesday, the caps of your perfume bottles were all off and littered on the floor of your bathroom. Someone had been in your dorm.

You didn't have a roommate.

You called the police at midnight on Wednesday, and they showed up to your dorm to find you locked in the bathroom. They chalked it up to a wild imagination. You were three floors up, after all. Nobody was breaking in. You were just a stupid, homesick college student.

Right?

Pah, it wasn’t like you were a senior, or anything. Or that you’d ever even cried wolf in the last three years of living alone. But yeah, sure, call it paranoia.

Three weeks later, there was a knock on your front door.

It startled you enough to send you on your ass. You stared at the door from the floor, and it loomed over you like a bad dream.

Your stalker had been your shadow for almost a month at that point. A gaze that burned into the back of your skull, even when there was no one around. You wanted them to keep their distance.

You stood like a whisper, careful not to make any noise as you tiptoed to the peephole of your door. This was it. There would finally be a face to your terror. Someone you could blame.

A weird combination of disappointment and relief washed over you when you saw two FBI agents instead. Your fear of it being your stalker morphed into a fear of the justice system. Had they come to laugh at you just as the police had?

When they knocked a second time, you opened the door.

They showed you their badges and introduced themselves. "Mind if we come in?" Agent Young asked. He had longer, brown hair and kind eyes. You couldn't hold a gaze with him worth your life.

Strangers in your home, even authorities, made your hackles raise. What the helllllll was all you could think as you welcomed them into your tiny dorm as your legs shook.

A million questions raced around your head at once.

"Could we ask you about the death of your professor? Mr.Cleveland?"

Your heart plummeted and all hope died within you. Oh. This was about that whole freak-show. "What about it?" you said. Your feet shifted.

"Well, it’s said that you were there at the time of his death. Is that true?" Agent Scott asked. He was more intimidating—more rough around the edges—but you supposed he was just professional.

"Um. Uh, yeah. It…" the agents were watching you with intrigue, and you looked to the carpet. "It was horrible." And it was. It was bloody and scary, and all your fault because you had just stood there—watched as the professor died right in front of you.

Upon seeing your haunted look, Agent Scott spoke a little gentler. "Did you see what happened?"

"I—yeah… I saw it all. He—he had been helping me with something. An essay. I was flunking and he suggested a one on one." That had only been a week ago. Your grades had suffered as you juggled your classes. When Mr.Cleveland died... you abandoned college altogether and let the dog whistle collect dust.

"I don’t know… he just…" started dying at your feet. You hadn’t even tried to pick up a phone. You just stood there, and you watched. Your breath picked up. "...he just—"

Agent Young's voice was sympathetic. "He started coughing up blood?"

"Yeah. I didn’t—I didn’t know what to do. I kept thinking about..." the stalker, you thought. I couldn’t stop thinking about the stalker. "I froze and, a-and I just watched—"

"Easy, easy. It’s okay. We just need to know the details," Agent Scott said.

You paused, then. Something didn’t add up. "Wait... why is the FBI interested in a guy that died of a lung disease?" When the agents exchanged glances, you squinted at them, your anxiety briefly replaced with confusion.

"We don't think it was, erm, lung disease," Agent Scott said. "We think he might have been…" He searched for the word a little too long for your liking. "...uh, poisoned."

"Poisoned?" you yelped. "Who could have… oh god, that makes me a suspect, doesn't it?"

"Unfortunately."

Your stomach sank, and that anxiety returned. "You guys have to know I wouldn't—I would never—"

"If we thought it was you, you would be in custody," Agent Scott informed you curtly.

Agent Young frowned at his partner as if to say not helping and then turned back to you. "We just want to know what you saw that day. Anything weird? Strange noises? Smells?" He narrowed his eyes. "Is there anyone you know who would want to kill Mr.Cleveland?"

This was your chance to tell them about your stalker. If there was anyone who could help you, it was the FBI.

Yet you clammed up. "No, not really," you blurted. "Nobody I can think of, honest. Not to be rude, but I have finals tomorrow. Could you… leave?"

Who were you kidding, your grades had dropped so low lately that even finals wouldn't save you. But they didn't know that.

...probably.

They offered you a trained smile that didn’t reach the eyes. "Of course. We'll get out of your hair. If you think of anything else, here's our card." And with that they left the room.

The tightness in your chest did not ease.

///

That night, you had dreams of monsters and of evil people that could poison someone and smile. You dreamed of your stalker, and them laughing as you choked on your own blood.

You woke up in a cold sweat, eyes snapping open to the glow of an agape window. It was shut when you fell asleep, but it was open now, blowing in a breeze that chilled your blood.

Your dog whistle was gone.

It was a fear like no other. Your gut was screaming at you to launch for the phone. You did, automatically dialling the number on the business card that laid discarded on the other end of the room. You had memorized it after hours of staring at the numbers, debating whether or not to call them, then ultimately deciding not to with anxiety gnawing away at you.

They answered it on the second ring.

"Hello?" said a gruff voice. Agent Scott.

"I remembered something," you blurted. "You-you said to call… if I thought of something..." You trailed off when you saw the clock. "Oh god, it's three in the morning. Maybe this can… this can… this can wait…" It couldn't wait.

"No, wait. What is it? Might be important if it's got you up at three in the morning. Unless it's just finals?"

You shook your head and then realized he couldn't hear that. "Not finals. Someone's been stalking me for the past week. I thought… maybe, I was paranoid. I was... constantly told that I was paranoid. But someone was in here while I was asleep. And might… might still be close."

"Okay, you got a knife?"

"A knife?" You squeaked.

"Yeah. A knife. To defend yourself."

"Oh. Right. Right, okay. Uh. Well, uh, I have a paring knife?"

"You have... a paring knife," he repeated.

"Um, yeah? Is that okay? The dorms have rules against big knives. For safety reasons. It's a silver p—"

"Silver? Okay, you know what? That's fine. That's good. Use that. Is it sharp?"

"Sharp enough, I hope." You ran over to your cabinet, pulling out the knife and holding it to your chest. Your ragged breaths were loud in your ears. "Now what?"

"Well," he said, and you could hear an engine starting in the background. "We should be there in a few minutes. Stay on the phone, you hear me?"

"I—should I have called 911? This has never happened to me—"

"You're doing fine. Now, what made you so sure that someone had been in your room?"

"Well, the open window. I live up a few floors. There is no way they could have opened it unless—"

"Unless someone had been in your room. Alright. Just sit tight, okay? Don't hang up."

"O-okay." The agents will be here soon. They will help me. You had the knife and phone held so close to your chest and tight in your fist that your knuckles were white.

I will not die.

Without warning, you choked. It was wet, coppery, and lukewarm on your tongue. You clawed at your neck for air. You fell to your knees. The phone clattered on the wooden floor'; it buzzed with muffled shouting, but you couldn't pick it up, nor could you answer.

Just then, a massive shadow crawled in from your window, and it grunted like an animal. You barely had enough strength to look at him as trails of red spit hung from your face.

The man had claws. The man had claws. The man—the thing, had—for the love of God, inch long claws.

Down the hallway, there was a muffling of running feet. They would be too late. You realized then: you were probably going to die. You were no fair match.

You could feel the monster’s breath on your neck when the beast abruptly fell down like a sack of potatoes, howling and twisting.

Blindly, you stabbed it in the chest with all your strength, twisting the blade and then collapsing once again into a fit of retching.

The agents burst into the room.

But instead of moving to help you, they tore the room apart in search of something. You couldn’t help but sob in despair. Why weren't they helping you?

But when Agent Scott whipped out a little bag from your drawer and lit it on fire, the choking miraculously ceased.

You melted into the floor to catch your breath again. For a minute everyone just breathed. You really appreciated the minor break.

Agent Young helped you up, closely inspecting your heavy, slightly bloody, zoned-out face, and decided you were okay.

You licked your lips, still not processing any part of the last hour. "What," you said, "just happened."

The agents exchanged looks.

You looked at them. Really looked at them. "You're not FBI, are you?"

Agent Scott shrugged at his partner. "You gonna give her the talk, Sammy, or should I?"

///

"Were-witches," you deadpanned. Monsters, hunters, hex bags, and were-witches.

"Yep," Agent Scott—or Dean Winchester, you were now learning—said. "He probably got a whiff of you covered in dog hair or something. You're lucky we got here in time. The pervert was, I kid you not, jellifying human hearts with dark magic. Like, alive. And then he’d make you regurgitate—" He caught the hard look from Agent Young—Sam—and shut up. "But, yeah. Were-witches."

You frowned. "I can accept witches and werewolves, but… were-witches? For real?"

"Trust me, we didn't know they existed either," Sam informed you.

Dean laughed to himself. "Hey Sammy, should we call him a son of a witch or a son of a bi—" His smile faltered with both Sam and your glaring. "Get it? Witch jokes? Dog jokes? Sheesh, okay, you guys are seriously no fun."

Sam sighed. "We should probably take the, um, dead werewitch, out of here."

You followed his eyes to the heap of fur on your floor. Seeing your stalker dead was a major weight off your shoulders. It was such a relief that you felt high.

Sam was still talking. "—and you have finals?"

You sobered. "Right. Those." Like you would do anything except bomb them.

Sam must have known the look. "You haven't studied, have you? At all."

Shaking your head, you slumped into the mattress. "Nope. This stalker thing screwed me up big time. There's just no way." You sighed. Sam's dark look made you squint at him. "What?"

"I just, uh, know the feeling," Sam said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "I got a free ride to law school before the hunting life took me away. I was already a hunter, I didn't have a choice. But you still do. You can still have that life you want." He tapped the card, still on the desk from his last visit. "Stay out of trouble and call us whenever. Especially if it's three in the morning."

Right then, you noticed the dog whistle was back, as if it had never left. Realization hit you like a brick to the head. "You did that! You blew the whistle."

"Yeah, well, I knew it was a werewolf. So I took a gamble and… borrowed it. Guess I didn't think you'd miss it—it was pretty dusty."

"You stole my whistle!"

"Hey, no, I borrowed it—"

"You gave me a heart attack! I thought the werewitch had stolen it! That's what set me off and made me call you—not the window!"

Dean cracked a smile. "Hey, it saved you, though, yeah? If I hadn't taken it, who's to say I could have saved your damsel ass?"

"Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean said automatically.

You blinked in surprise at the speed of his reply.

His eyes widened. "Sorry. That's… uh, Sam usually says that and I respond with…"

You laughed. Really laughed. You doubled over, struggling to breathe for the second time today, but this time it was welcome. The Winchesters inevitably joined in as you howled. You wiped away your tears of laughter, occasionally breaking into a smaller fit.

"You good?" Dean asked, grinning,

You sighed, the hysteria wearing off. "God, it wasn't even that funny! You just caught me by surprise. Thanks, though. For saving me, and all."

Dean smiled, patting you on the back. "No problem, kid."

You settled into a comfortable silence. You were still trying to calm down as they watched you with looks of fondness.

"Are you going to be able to sleep?" Sam asked.

You knew what he meant: were you going to be able to sleep alone? And honestly, you had a feeling you would sleep like a baby tonight. However, you had no purpose staying here anymore. "Would I be stepping too far if I asked to come with you? Just for the night."

"Of course."

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lindoig8 · 3 years

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Mainly Borroloola – 23-26 June

Wednesday, 23 June - heading south

I am sure the days are getting longer now we are past the Winter Solstice, but I don’t think we have started waking any earlier so far – maybe tomorrow.

We packed up and headed south, stopping only to top up with fuel as we left the caravan park. We were heading for the Little Roper Stock Camp, one of our favourite rustic camps just out of Mataranka. We ate our lunch in Mataranka before heading the few kilometres to Little Roper, but alas, the Camp was already full. They don’t take bookings and we arrived too late. Turns out that 9am would still have been too late. I was talking to a bloke later in the day and he said he arrived at 9am and it was full at that stage – very popular for such a basic camp – Des is a great owner, but only has less than great facilities.

We drove on to the Hi-Way Roadhouse at the intersection of the Carpentaria Highway – our next bit of road. The Roadhouse was already filling fast and it overflowed by late afternoon too. The Daly Waters Caravan Park is only 20-odd clicks away and that was also overflowing before 9am as we knew it would be so we never even went in there. From experience, it is quite quaint, but it attracts a rougher crowd and I am not sure it is the sort of place we sophisticats would choose to stay – we certainly didn’t choose it the last few times we were in the area.

I walked around the camp area at the Roadhouse and identified 22 species of birds, including numerous White-gaped Honeyeaters (with photos to prove it) although they are not really supposed to be in the area according to any of our bird guides.

The facilities here were a bit basic so we decided to have a shower in our own little bathroom. We haven’t showered in it for at least 4 years, choosing to forgo the pleasure of cleanliness or just use the facilities provided. It usually has too many bits and pieces stored in there and we had previously used it mainly when we have access to ‘town water’ rather than depleting our own supply. But I have to say it was a wonderful luxury – and we doubled up with another shower in our own little cubby next night too.

We ate dinner in the Roadhouse and the meals were huge. I had the rissoles – 3 rissoles almost the size of tennis balls, with mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli, peas and carrots – the excess almost overflowed the doggybox they gave us.

Thursday, 24 June - heading east

We were almost the last ones to leave the Roadhouse next day. People seem to rush off (as early as 6am, occasionally earlier), so they can be the first to arrive at their next stop and secure the shadiest tree to sit and read all day – or chat with their neighbours – same old subjects, often with the same people – boooring, boooring, boooring!!!

I had another wander around looking for more birds, but saw nothing I hadn’t seen the previous evening.

We drove on to Cape Crawford where we had a toasted sandwich for lunch – it seemed a very long time since we had bought lunch. A highlight of the drive was seeing shiny black snake slithering across the road in front of us. Hopefully, it went between our wheels and I didn't run over it.

The road was all sealed, but most of it was very narrow and vehicles approaching us seemed hell-bent on reckless speeds so we often had to pull right off the road and stop to avoid the wall of stones flung up by their wheels. The surface was also a bit rough in places and the van swayed somewhat scarily behind us without our sway-bars attached. At one point, I had to get off the road to avoid an oncoming B-triple just where the road narrowed and I almost lost it completely. The wind from the trucks is horrendous and for a few seconds, I thought the van was going to roll. I never want to experience that 5 seconds again.

After a slow lunch, we drove on to Borroloola and were lucky to get what I think was their second-last powered site – basically parked in a roadway next to the camp kitchen, but with power and a shared tap with our neighbours on the other side. Things are tight up here with every available site being occupied every night. I wonder where the overflow goes – we may need to find out!

I wandered around and added a couple more birds to our trip list (I saw a few kangaroos over the fence in my ramblings too) and then we just sat outside the van and enjoyed our Happy Hour and a delicious dinner.

Friday, 25 June

Surprisingly, it rained overnight. We have had about ten or twelve spots of rain on the windscreen but no other rain at all since we left home. We certainly didn’t get a lot, but I heard a gentle pitter-pat on the roof during the night and the road was wet outside the van when we got up this morning.

We have decided to stay here a couple more days and then spend two days getting to Burketown. The only caravan park en route is at Hells Gate (I really liked the park there last time) but it would be a long day’s drive so we may do another bush camp instead. And the road is quite treacherous.

We went out to the supermarket and to refresh our memory of the town soon after lunch then drove down to the MacArthur River where I spent time looking for birds – but saw nothing new. Fortunately, I never saw any of those big bities out there either.

While we were out, we saw a sign with a weight restriction of 4.5 tonnes on the road we intended taking – and our rig is way over that – at least 6 tonnes. It is about 1100 kilometres on bitumen to circumvent that road, but there has been rain on the Barkley Highway too (with possible closures) so we are now in somewhat of a quandary.

We did some more research on Saturday morning and I spoke with the Police at both Borroloola and Burketown. Burketown said the Queensland side is pretty good at present and we know that the Northern Territory side of the Wollogorang Road was graded recently and is in its best condition for ages – but there is still the 4.5 tonne restriction to worry about. The Borroloola Police said the road is pretty good except for the 20 kilometres closest to the Queensland border – but there are two deep, slowly-flowing water crossings before that. ‘Deep’ means about wheel deep so that is no real impediment as long as we are careful – and we subsequently checked out the official Northern Territory Government Road Report that says there is an 8-tonne, rather than the posted 4.5 tonne, limit so we are thinking we might go that route anyway – and probably wait at the river crossings until there are other vehicles to help us cross in the event of it looking too scary.

Apart from that, it has been a pretty relaxed day with a bit of writing and discussing of options for the next several weeks. With all the latest and potential Covid restrictions, we are pretty nervous about going into the more populous coastal areas of Queensland and New South Wales where we intended catching up with about 10 groups of family and friends so our current thoughts are to get to Burketown then have our A/C and tow-bar issues resolved in Mt Isa and perhaps hole up in or around Winton for a while. We have a couple of other places we want to visit en route, but we will probably work roughly to that plan for the next 2-3 weeks anyway.

And for dinner, we ate crocodile. When we were in Alice Springs, we found this wonderful butcher that sold game and we bought a few cuts of camel (I have already reported how much we enjoyed that, especially the sausages) as well as one pack of crocodile. I ate curried croc at a pub in Melbourne about 30+ years ago, but we just pan-fried it and ate it with coconut rice and beetroot. It was a bit on the tough side, but not too bad and very tasty. It had a slight taste of pork, but was really nice and we would very happily eat more of it – better than it eating us!

We are still at Borroloola, but there is a little saga with our car that is still unresolved so I will leave that for another post, hopefully in the next day or two.

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