Free Supernatural Fresh Meat by Alice Henderson Page A

silence.
    “This way!” Dean shouted, taking off through the trees. Sam and Bobby followed. A strangled cry sounded from somewhere in front of them. They bounded around boulders and manzanita bushes, tearing through the trees toward the sound.
    Bobby felt a wild rush, not sure if they were running toward a living victim or straight into another wendigo’s trap.
    They heard a thump and branches breaking, and at the next set of boulders, Bobby saw blood spatter on the grey of granite. “Here!”
    They stopped. The directionality of the spray pattern showed that whatever had the man was traveling fast to the south. Bobby scanned the horizon in that direction, seeing a blur of movement in the trees some two hundred feet in the distance. “This way!”
    He ran, Sam and Dean just behind him, and another pitiful cry reached them through the trees. Sam brought out his flamethrower, and Dean pulled his .45.
    Bobby followed the blood spray, thick drops of it coating the brush and soil. A syrupy drool of it dribbled down the trunk of a ponderosa in front of them. Bobby scanned the branches above, but didn’t see any movement. They spread out a little, not going too far from each other, but enough that they could scan different parts of the forest.
    “Anything?” Sam called to Bobby.
    “Nothing.”
    “Me, either,” Dean called.
    They met back together and stood for a long time, straining to hear anything in the distance. Somewhere a woodpecker thrummed against a tree trunk. A raven flew by, its wing noise making Bobby start. It landed near the blood, gurgling in the weird way ravens do.
    Bobby moved outward in concentric circles, hoping to pick up the blood trail again, but it seemed to stop suddenly. If the thing had been leaping from tree to tree, the blood would have been visible. It was as if the victim had simply vanished.
    “Maybe I missed something,” he said. “Let’s go back to where the blood trail started.”
    They started back.
    A sudden rustling in the brush made them all pull out their guns and point them toward the sound.
    Ranger Grace Cumberlin appeared, the same gigantic pack on her back. Instantly they lowered their guns. She stopped. “You boys make more of a ruckus than an explosion in a fireworks factory. I could hear you a quarter mile away.” She glanced around, studying the forest. “What are you doing out here?”
    “We told you,” Sam said. “Hunting deer.”
    She eyed Dean’s gleaming, stainless handgun. “You’re hunting deer with a .45?”
    He gave her his best nonchalant smile and put the gun away.
    She glanced nervously at each of them, her hand on the butt of her service pistol. “Something about you boys isn’t right.” She spotted the flamethrowers strapped on Sam and Dean’s backs. “I think it’s time you leveled with me. You’re not deer hunters. You’re no more deer hunters than my aunt Lulu who collects Bambi figurines.”
    Bobby stepped forward. Grace clutched the butt of her revolver, and he held his hands up to indicate he meant no harm. “I’m going to reach into my jacket to get my I.D.”
    “Do it slow.”
    Carefully he fished out his F.B.I. credentials and held them out for her. “I’m Special Agent Cash, and these are Agents Plant and Young.” He nodded his head toward Dean and Sam respectively. “We’re out here investigating the recent rash of deaths. We don’t think it’s a rogue bear.”
    She studied his I.D. and then took her hand away from her gun. “Oh, you don’t, do you?”
    “No ma’am,” Dean said. “What can you tell us about these disappearances?”
    “First tell me why you need a flamethrower to take down this guy.”
    “It’s for intimidation,” Dean said awkwardly. “And back to my question? What can you tell us?”
    She shrugged. “Not much. I don’t really follow the case.”
    “How can that be? You patrol these woods.”
    “Lots of people go missing every year, Agent Plant, and it’s not due to bears or serial