HDA - Living in Darkness Trilogy - Pt 2 - The Search

For one long moment the twenty-year-old young man just stared at Frank like he was speaking gibberish, and then Dean spun around so quickly, he almost lost his balance, and he blinked hard to keep the world in focus.

Forcing himself to his feet, and glaring off Joe’s steadying hand, Dean cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed, “Sam? Sammy?” His voice, deepened by worry, echoed around them, but there was no answering cry. “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath and then turned sharply to the two young men watching him. “Are you sure you didn’t see him? He was right in front of me—” he glanced around again, “He has to be here. SAM!”

Frank swallowed hard at the tincture of panic he recognized in Dean’s voice. It was one that had held his company only a couple of nights ago when Joe had vanished during a warehouse stakeout. Mimicking the older man, Frank added his own voice, “Sam? It’s Frank. Frank Hardy!” Joe raised an eyebrow and his brother shrugged, “it can’t hurt.”

Dean made a move to go back into the darkened trees; Frank blocked him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dean growled, trying to step past the other boy but getting blocked again.

“You can’t go running off half cocked—” Frank tried to explain quickly, as he remembered that Dean usually came armed. He and Joe had first run into the young man and his younger brother two nights ago, after the Winchesters had found an abducted Joe in an old house they were ‘hunting’ in.

“Why not?” Dean demanded, “it’s worked so well for me in the past.”

“Do you even have a flashlight?” the other boy challenged.

Dean looked at him like he was nuts and then shone his light directly in Frank’s face. Frank raised his arm to protect his eyes as the older man snorted indignantly. “Do I look like some friggin’ amateur or something? Of course I have a flashlight!”

“Yeah, well, light or no light, you’re not going to do your brother any good if you suddenly topple over,” the dark-haired sleuth shot back, his exasperation getting the better of him. This was like dealing with Joe…only darker.

The demon hunter stared blankly at him and Frank waved a hand towards the other man’s head. “Your head….Bleeding.”

Frowning, Dean reached up to touch the gash on his forehead, only now realizing he was bleeding. Dismissively he wiped the blood off on his pants. “It’s a flesh wound. Now move or be moved.” He made a motion towards Frank to make his point. “Look. Sam is my kid brother. He’s my responsibility – I’ve got to find him!”

“I understand,” Frank empathized, still not moving. At 6’1, he stood almost an inch taller than Dean. The hunter was close enough that the younger sleuth could smell garlic and stale onions on his breath. Pizza he guessed, feeling somewhat vindicated when he saw Dean wrinkle up his own nose and take an inadvertent step back, “trust me, I do but—”

The older boy cut him off coldly. “No, Frank. You don’t.” For one brief moment an intense emotion flittered across his face and then it was gone. “Move.”

“Joe,” Frank turned to his brother for help. He was counting on the younger boy to back him up on this. Dean was injured, and without a plan he could very well spend all night walking in circles, and if Sam was injured....No, they needed to convince Dean to wait at the van while they looked. He and Joe had plenty of experience in searches and would work more quickly and efficiently if they didn’t have to worry about Dean.

Frank felt a creeping chill shiver fingers down his spine when he didn’t see his tow-headed sibling right away. He hurried to the van. Maybe Joe had gone back inside…

But he wasn’t there either.

Frank turned to Dean, hoping the hunter had an answer, but the other man just shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea where Joe was either. He had just been standing there….Biting back his unease, the older Hardy tried calling out once again, “Hey, Joe? Where are you?”

Joe never answered. He was just gone.

Dean cocked an eyebrow. “Now can we run off half cocked?”

The eighteen-year-old swallowed hard, the darkness surrounding them almost suffocating. It was as if the night had just suddenly consumed his brother, and he felt sick.

Slowly Frank nodded; it looked like they had their plan.

Above them a dark cloud bank moved in ominously and the young sleuth scowled. Great. Just what they needed. A storm. This just kept getting better.

Following Dean in through the trees, Frank stiffened when the twenty-year-old added. “And try to stay down wind from me, huh? ‘Cause Frankie boy, you just plain stink!”

Frank glowered. “The name is Frank. Frankie is a chubby twelve year old.”

…

Ahead of him, Dean’s step faltered but he said nothing.

ooooooOOOOOOoooooo

Sixteen-year-old Sam Winchester was tired. The muscles in his legs burned, his lungs demanded oxygen, and tree branches slapped and cut at his face as he barreled through the dark forest intent on keeping up with his older brother.

Damn Dean and his longer legs!

And how exactly did Dean get ahead of him anyway? He was supposed to be behind Sam…

The Winchester brothers were still in Bayport. They had gone back to the old house to make sure the pesky poltergeist their father had sent them to take care of while he worked a more dangerous gig upstate, was gone. Only to find out that while it was gone, there was something a hell of a lot more nasty there now.

His older brother had quickly come to the conclusion that they were out of their league on this one and told Sam to run, practically shoving the younger boy out of the house, down the rickety old steps and towards the forest.

Their 1967, jet black Chevy Impala was parked on the road on the other side of the trees and Dean told him to not look back and hightail his skinny little-brother ass for the car. So Sam had done just that, with Dean crashing and cursing through the brush a few seconds behind him.

And that is when it happened: Dean had gone from being behind him to being in front of him, and called after Sam to follow, veering sharply to the right as he led him away from the house and the enraged wraith that had moved in.

Sam had started to protest, pretty sure that the car was in the other direction, when he’d tripped over a root sticking out of the ground and gone sprawling ungracefully head over heels, landing with a painful thump that briefly knocked the wind out of him as he lay on his back and looked up.

He might have considered the sky above a pretty sight if he wasn’t supposed to be running for his life right then.

Swallowing hard, Sam winced as he pulled himself to his feet; Dean’s voice was still urging him to hurry up and ‘come this way’.

Limping slightly as he moved, the young hunter called out to his brother to wait; his plea broke off in a surprised yelp when the world just suddenly dropped out from beneath him as the trees and brush ended on the top of a rocky precipice, about fifteen feet from the bottom of a gully.

His arms pin wheeled frantically, grasping for leverage as Sam tried to keep from falling. His flailing hands brushed a slender limb of an overhanging tree and he tightened his grip, gasping in relief as it stopped his forward momentum.

“Shit,” he whispered, afraid to move for a moment, and then before he could move back from the edge, a hard shove in the back sent him falling forward and he tumbled over the edge and down the rocky slope.

Halfway down, he mercifully lost consciousness….

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.