Supernatural: Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting (19 page)

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Authors: David Reed

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Oblivion flinched, pulled away from Bobby. Confused.

A scalpel, zippering open the flesh on my chest. A nail, being driven through my hands. A needle, digging into my eye. It was hell, literally. I was reliving my time in hell.

Oblivion snarled, wracked with pain.

“Sam, use hell,” I said. “Think about hell.” He only remembered a few seconds of his time in the Pit, but it was with Lucifer himself—a few seconds was more than enough.

Sam nodded, concentrated—I was worried he’d have a seizure, like he did the last time he remembered his time in hell, but that’d be better than us all getting our brains sucked out.

Oblivion reached her hand out at me, but I just kept thinking about hell. Picturing years worth of torture, at the hands of a demon who knew what he was doing.

Then, my mother. Mary Winchester, smiling at me. Oblivion was putting the image in my head, and I had to fight it. I had to replace it with something terrible.

Bobby stood, one of Oblivion’s hands still on his face. Grabbed her hand.

I thought about losing my dad. Getting torn up by the hellhounds. Watching Sam die by Jake’s hand.

A knife. Bobby had a knife in his hand. Oblivion screamed.

I watched the fire burning down our house in Lawrence. Burning up my mom’s body. I watched Sam fall into hell.

A flash of silver. Bobby stabbed the knife into Oblivion’s chest. She fell back, a burst of white light flying out of her mouth. Into me, into Sam, into Bobby, and a thousand more directions. Our memories, put back right where she took them from.

We were all quiet for a second. Not sure if that’d really just happened. Then Bobby went to our duffel bag, pulled out a machete. Started hacking into Oblivion’s body.

I asked him what he was doing.

He smiled at me, like he was remembering something hilarious. He said, “It ain’t dead till it’s in five pieces.”

The Hidden Memory

HEY. DEAN AGAIN.
I owe you some more explanations.

We’re all back in Sioux Falls, now, looking for our next case. I found this stack of papers in the trash, read through them. Had no idea Bobby’d been through so much, or how close we all came to losing on this one.

Bobby didn’t want to finish this book. Said he didn’t have anything else to add. I told him that it was too important to throw away. Some day, we’ll all get put in the ground, and somebody is gonna need to pick things up where we left off. That he owed it to himself to put an ending on this story, to leave something behind. He told me to do it myself, so here we are.

I told you what happened with Oblivion. But there’s a missing piece. After we bailed on the Starry Night Inn, I asked Bobby about the memory. What it was that Oblivion wanted so bad. He just harumphed and got in his van, drove off.

There are clues, though. You read what he wrote, right? The man is a curmudgeon on the outside, but downright obsessed with family. That’s why he was always tough on my old man, because my dad had what Bobby wanted—kids.

Then there’s the list of names, couple chapters back. Made me think—what if those were the names he was gonna use for his kids, if he ever had them?

I think Bobby’s been holding on to a memory for years, one that tears him up inside, but is too important to let go of. Hear me out on this—I
think that Bobby was going to be a father
. That Karen was pregnant when she died, and the memory he’s been carting around, it’s of her telling him. I have no way to prove it, but there it is. She told Bobby he was going to be a dad, and a few weeks later he had to kill her. A perfect memory, surrounded by misery, grief, and regret. Maybe his
last
good memory of Karen, the one love of his life.

But, end of the day, it’s Bobby’s memory. The good thing about memories is that they’re private. Can’t be taken or traded or stolen (most of the time). So I’m done asking about it. If he ever wants to share, he knows my number.

Me and Bobby, we’ve spent the last few days rebuilding his Chevelle. He did the same for me when the Impala was busted up, I figured I owed him one. It’s . . . it kind of reminds me of working with my dad. If Bobby
did
lose a kid, and I lost a father, well . . . then maybe what we’ve got ain’t a bad substitute. Bobby’s right. Family isn’t just blood.

Acknowledgments

I
’d like to thank Eric Kripke, of course, for creating
Supernatural
and hiring me to work on it, way back in season four, and Sera Gamble for not firing me when she took over the joint. I’d also like to thank Christopher Cerasi and Rebecca Dessertine—without them, I’d be publishing this on Internet message boards right next to pictures of Jared and Jensen with their shirts off. Maybe some of you would have preferred that. Lastly, I’d like to thank my wife, Mairin, and the rest of my family for putting up with me writing when I’m supposed to be watching the baby, cooking, cleaning, exercising, sleeping, and enjoying life.

HarperCollins would also like to thank Ant Diecidue and Mary-Ann Liu for the interior illustrations.

About the Author

DAVID REED
works as the script coordinator on
Supernatural
and wrote the stories for the episodes “Hammer of the Gods” and “You Can’t Handle the Truth,” along with several TV movies and comic books. In his spare time (ha!) he likes to hang out with his wife and son, who are pretty great. He can often be found in front of the television with a death grip on an Xbox 360 controller, or at the L.A. zoo, making animal sounds with (and at) his toddler.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Also by David Reed

Fiction

SUPERNATURAL: War of the Sons

SUPERNATURAL
™
BOBBY SINGER’S GUIDE TO HUNTING.
Copyright © and ™ 2011 by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Cover image courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-210337-6 (pbk.)

EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 9780062103383

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About the Publisher

Australia

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