Supernatural 1. Prologue

"Milo, what are we even doing here?"

"I told you Jordan, this is our last chance to get our senior prank in before the school shuts down. Day after tomorrow, no one's going to be here but renovators." Milo said, but Jordan still didn't seem convinced. Milo rolled his eyes and trudged on, smirking when he heard Jordan hurry to catch up.

"What I don't get is why we have to do it in the dead of night." Jordan muttered, "Do you hear something?"

"Calm down Jordan, I'm sure it's just a raccoon or something." Milo said. He'd never admit it, but he was starting to feel uneasy, as if something were following them. But that was ridiculous; the woods around Milo's tiny town were combed religiously by hunters to keep it free of dangerous animals.

Milo pushed a branch aside and looked at Bishop High School, soon to be Bishop University. Milo and Jordan were in its final graduating class, and tomorrow would be the last day anyone but renovators would be there. Technically they had two days, but the latter was graduation, and Milo didn't want to mess anything up and delay it.

A growl from behind them made Milo turn around, but he didn't see anything. Maybe they should hurry up and leave. He was about to ask Jordan for the school keys, when he heard Jordan scream and a searing pain erupted in his leg. Milo fell to the ground and scrambled for the lighter he'd swiped from his brother.

He tried and tried to light it, almost screaming in frustration as he listened to something tear into Jordan and at the white-hot pain in his leg. He could have cried with relief as a flame sprung to life if it hadn't been for the fifteen foot tall _thing _bent over Jordan's bloody body. Milo could just barely make out Jordan, gut ripped open.

The thing snapped around, causing Milo to drop the lighter. The tinder-dry brush burst into flames, causing the thing to flee at inhuman speed.

Everything after that was a blur. Milo was vaguely aware of flashing lights and strong hands that pulled him out of the inferno he'd created. Just before he passed out from the pain, Milo saw the silhouette of the thing against the white walls of the school. Almost as if it were saying 'Just you wait.'


	2. Hoping for Help

**In answer to Kythira's review- I totally made the town up. Though if you squint, it might be the town where my grandparents live, just on the opposite side of the country and further in the mountains. Plus more supernatural creatures and minus several furniture outlets.**

* * *

Dean's phone rang, yanking him out of an amazing dream that was mostly pie. It beeped to say he'd missed a call, then again a minute later to say he had a voicemail.

"What the hell Dean? Why didn't you answer that?" Sam asked sleepily. Dean rolled over and mumbled incoherently.

"What if it had been important?" Sam asked as he put in the PIN-7437-which spelled out PIES. "I mean, how many people have this number?"

"Apparently that kid." Dean said as the voicemail played. Instead of Bobby or Jo like Sam was expecting or John like Dean was hoping, it was some kid they didn't know.

"Sam, Dean, hi. Look, you don't know me, but I need help, from one hunter to another. I'm out in Ember Isle, Washington, near the border. When and if you get here, find the pie shop and tell Clara you're there to see Milo. She'll give you room keys to the bed and breakfast. You can stay for as long as you want, just until I can get a break from classes." There was a crash and snarling in the background. "Oh hell, thought I killed that."

"How did he get that number?" Dean asked, "And where are you going?"

"Uh, Ember Isle, Washington. Dean, he's a hunter and he asked for our help, we can't just say no." Sam said.

"The hell we can't." Dean said, looking up to see Sam had brought out the puppy eyes. "Okay, fine, but why can't we wait until morning?"

"Dean-" Sam started.

"Fine! But you're driving."

* * *

"So what do we know about Ember Isle?" Sam asked.

"Well for one thing it's not actually an isle." Dean said, "But past that there's nothing on it. Ash can't find anything weird about the place, or any recent demonic activity in the area, and Dad hasn't said anything about it in here. Why would he ask for help if he lives in a relatively normal, un-supernatural town?"

"He might be the only hunter there, and didn't feel like talking about the problem around other people. Probably didn't feel like getting committed. It's not fun. We should know."

"Next exit." Dean said, simultaneously consulting their map and the journal. He flipped to the page with the wendigo drawing on it. Those were good days; not the getting kidnapped by the wendigo part, but still some good days.

An old newspaper clipping about a string of disappearances and the finding of horribly mutilated corpses around Bear Creek.

"Why would dad keep this?" Dean asked, more to himself than Sam. The clipping had to be 50 years old; surely by now Bear Creek's problem had been solved. But there was a note paperclipped to the page in John's handwriting reminding himself to check the place out as soon as possible.

"I don't know. He probably had a good reason, so put it back."

"You think Clara in the pie shop would let me have a pie or two?" Sam rolled his eyes.

* * *

"Milo, what's up with you? You act like you've seen a ghost." Noah said. Milo snorted.

_If only he knew,_ he thought. Milo had been investigating the rumors of ghosts in the school basement and found they were spot-on. It had taken him forever to find their anchors, and in the end he'd only gotten two of them. That still left four to deal with.

Milo could tell Noah was purposefully walking slow so he wouldn't get left behind. That night had left Milo with more than just badass scars on the back of his leg; it had left him with a pronounced limp. On the one hand, it'd gotten him out of the required gym class for freshmen. On the flip side of that coin, the physical therapy had put him out of commission for a year, making him have to start college a year late.

"Nah, I just saw two freshmen girls about to claw each other's eyes out. Those chicks are vicious." Milo said.

"I bet you saw Miranda Tate hanging around the Science Wing again." Noah teased.

"God, I still can't believe she screwed up my project that badly. Thought I'd never fix it." Milo jumped at the opportunity to divert the conversation; he really did not need Noah to find out about his other life.

"You still coming to Professor Reyes lecture?" Noah asked.

"Maybe; I don't know. Are you?" Noah knew that Milo's 'maybes' were usually always 'nos' in disguise, and not for the first time, he wondered what it was he did by himself.

"I guess, I need the extra credit. I'll be seeing you, Milo."

Milo hated how his hunting career always got in the way of his normal life, and he really hated how he knew it would one day take over like a virus and kill his career as an archaeologist, if he even got that far.

Milo headed across campus to the dorms, hoping Sam and Dean had come. He stepped over his salt line inside the door and picked up his phone from the foot of his bed. There was a new text from Zane: 'Rm 109. You owe me pie.'

He'd sent it over an hour ago. Milo grabbed his bag and headed back out the door, praying to anonymous higher powers they would know what to do.


	3. Introductions

**A/N: Damn, I was gone a long time. Sorry 'bout that. Well, I finally came back with the next chapter in tow. I've got another in the offings, so hopefully it won't take as long to upload. **

**Also I feel I should warn you all, the characters from my novel learned a few new words and took it upon themselves to teach my other characters. So, erm, language. Not a lot, but it'll probably get worse.**

* * *

"If this kid turns out to be a psycho ax-murderer or something, I have permission to kill him and hold it over you forever, right?" Dean asked, "I mean, it was you who made us come here." A knock at the door interrupted Sam's answer. Both of them were up in an instant, weapons at the ready.

Sam looked through the peephole and saw a kid with a mop of curly black hair. He fidgeted where he stood, looking nervous and unsure of himself.

_Damn, he's young to be a hunter,_ Sam thought, _But then again so were we._

"Sam? Dean? It's Milo." he said. Sam let him in and saw that he was able to cross over the salt line and the Devil's Trap rug.

"Alright kid, you go us out here, what's the problem?" Dean asked, standing up. Milo white-knuckled the strap of his mail bag and twisted it as he looked Dean up and down. He had a good three or four inches and ten years over Milo, not to mention the fact he could probably snap his neck in an instant if he had to. Even a backwoods hunter like Milo had heard of the Winchesters (Milo moonlighted as a HAM radio operator, and he tended to hear things) and he knew these two were not to be screwed with.

"Pfft, which one?" Milo snorted, "We've got ghosts in the college basement and I'm pretty sure that old man McGuffin twelve miles into the forest is actually a shifter, but I can handle that. I called you out here for what's in the forest."

"What's out in the forest?" Sam asked. Already his mind was going, taking the clues presented and trying to put them together into an answer. They were pretty close to the US-Canada border, way back in the mountains and surrounded by forest, so it could be werewolves. He made a mental note to ask Milo about the lunar phase at the times of the attacks.

"Besides McGuffin-the-possible-shifter." Dean put in.

"That's just it; I don't know." Milo said, digging out his journal and flipping to a page with photos clipped to it. At first glance, they seemed like normal photos of the forest and a site where Milo had found some pottery and jewelry, but the longer Sam looked at them, the more something odd stood out.

One look at Dean and Sam knew that he'd seen the tall, blurry figure in the backgrounds, too.

" Took these about ten miles into the forest north of here. I didn't see anything, if that's what you want to know. Didn't hear anything either. I'm totally at a loss at this point, and if you've got suggestions I'd love to hear them."

"Well, could you be a little more specific as to what your problem is?" Sam asked. Milo craned his head back to look at Sam and heard a few of his vertebrae crack. He pulled a manila folder out of his journal and opened it up. H laid out his information in chronological order and slipped into presentation mode

"Over the past few weeks, a total of twenty-two hikers have gone missing in the woods just North of here. Why they haven't kept people out is beyond me, but it is what it is. Nine days ago, Michael Greene went into the forest on a solo hike and five days ago failed to check in with his sister, which is who reported him missing. So far no bodies have been found. What has been found is wrecked campsites and way too much blood to _not_ be considered anything other than fatal, but no bodies."

"And no one's thought that this is even the littlest bit strange?" Dean asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Apparently not, since three people left yesterday for the overlook. They've all been classified as bear attacks. Which is bullshit."

"And why's that?"

"Twenty three bear attacks in six weeks? I don't think so. I'd believe three, maybe four, in a nine or ten month span, but what they're proposing is crazy and I refuse to believe it. There aren't any other hunters around here, so I'm the only one who can do anything. Not the best man for the job, but there's no one else."

"Have there been any similar attacks in the past? This sort of thing usually doesn't just start out of the blue." Sam said, taking the desk chair. Milo shook his head and sighed.

"Yeah, this sort of thing has happened before. Few years back, I'm pretty sure the bastard killed my friend Jordan. Gutted him right in front of me and royally screwed up my leg. Probably would have killed me next if I hadn't accidentally started a brush fire." Milo limped over to where Sam sat and Dean saw that Milo's self-deprecation had been right: he really wasn't the best man for the job. He hadn't noticed it before because he'd been too busy looking for indications he'd been lying. How the kid hadn't gotten killed in his line of work was beyond him.

If he was being totally honest, Dean didn't think the kid had ever actually killed anything at all. He just knew enough about it to know it when he saw it, and since he couldn't do anything about it he'd called in someone who could. Now that Milo had brought the case to his and Sam's attention, he wasn't really needed anymore. Sam would be on research and it probably wouldn't take too long to find the SOB and gank it

Milo sensed almost the exact instant he lost his purpose and use in the situation when Dean thanked him for bringing the case to their attention and turned his attention to his bag. He knew when he wasn't wanted anymore and shut everything back in the journal. He bade the two hunters goodbye and only got a response from Sam.

Milo sagged against the wall outside their door, contemplating the feeling of being used and thrown out. It was incredibly similar to being dumped. There was the feeling of abandonment, and also the wondering if he could have done something different to change the outcome. Although Milo had to admit if he were the Winchesters, he probably wouldn't want to work with a crippled novice hunter, either.

* * *

**So, what'd you think? Good? Bad? Should I never write again?**


End file.

Supernatural, Hurt-Comfort, Supernatural