Ah so, this is the so called "prequel" I mentioned in my last post. Still focused on Gwen in this as the main character, but I wanted to show a bit more about Lewis through her perspective. Lewis was her hunting partner for a number of years before his death after a particularly rough hunt that may or may not be partially Gwen's fault (this still being the Supernatural-verse). I'll leave you all to wonder about that for now. ;) I'm really starting to get attached to them actually. Expect to see more of these two in the future.
Gwen had packed everything accordingly. Her tattered, weather-beaten hiking pack was pilled with provisions; things she would need if she was going to hitchhike her way East on her own. As young and overtly inexperienced as she was, the girl had the guts and confidence to do it.
She had everything she needed, except an umbrella. Gwen had been on the road for five days, and so far, the closest it had come to raining was a few droplets here and there while she took refuge sitting cozily in a diner her first night alone, until now. Being caught in a torrential downpour in the middle of an empty Colorado country road wasn’t something she had come prepared for, unfortunately.
Her ankle-high combat boots sloshed through the brown puddles of mud and water that dotted the dirt road as she shielded her eyes from the wind and bullet-like force of the storm. It was no use trying to stay dry now. Despite the low-visibility, Gwen’s eyes still strained against the gray horizon in search of a merciful truck driver or local townsperson. The likelihood of either of those things appearing was slim, considering she was not walking anywhere near a major road and the closest inhabited town was ten miles away back in the direction she had come from. The last half-hour was miserable; cold, wet, and she was hungry. The last meal she had eaten was probably the mouthful of pancakes she had at a road-side diner yesterday morning. They hadn’t even been good pancakes.
Alright, she had to admit now more than anything that running away wasn’t as glamorous as it had sounded to her a few months ago. It was tiring and lonely, but then again, it was still better than home.
Her matted black hair fell across her freckled face pitifully, and her expression remained doleful even when the faint silhouette of a car appeared far out in the distance ahead of her. Gwen didn’t even see it until she lifted her head to check her progress along the path, which wasn’t very impressive. It seemed to stop amid the fog near a telephone pole. Why there was a telephone pole in the middle of nowhere, Gwen could not fathom. She didn’t realize anyone even got any service around here. Regardless, this was her chance to play the pity card and try her luck. Extra points if this one would get her all the way to Kansas.
In spite of the waterlogged clothes on her back and mud-filled shoes, she began to run forward. The vehicle appeared to be a pickup truck the closer she got to it, and she pursued its foggy silhouette with avid determination. She could make out the details vaguely now; the mud splashed all across the side as if the driver preferred speeding over following local traffic laws, the beaten tires from miles of travel, the hazy mirrors protruding from the sides. It barely looked functional. Her shoes made heavy clunking noises as she approached the passenger side window, chilled pale hands grasping the strap of her soggy bag firmly. She tapped a slender finger lightly against the glass of the window in an attempt to get the driver’s attention.
Behind the wheel sat a young man, older than her but still young enough to be in college at least, leaning back against a leather seat. He was speaking in an urgent voice on a cell phone. The sounds inside were muffled by the metallic pounding of rain on top of the car and by what sounded like music, but the teenage girl could still make out a word here and there. The figure jumped in his seat at her sudden approach, clearly startled by her seemingly random appearance in the middle of nowhere next to his truck. The window rolled down slowly, the heat from inside reminding Gwen of how cold she actually was standing in the rain and how much she missed sleeping in a real bed.
“Yeah, mhm. Right. Norman listen, I have to go. There’s a kid-“
He spoke in fragments to “Norman”, glancing at the girl waiting beside his truck. “Sure. No problem.” He hung up, snapping the phone shut and throwing it casually into a glove compartment.
“Jeez kid, do you always sneak up on people like that? Lord almighty…“ His voice changed from the calm tone he had been speaking with over the phone to almost scolding as he turned to Gwen, although there wasn’t anything threatening about the way he said it. The pair said nothing to each other for a moment before the man oriented himself that she was soaked to the bone. “Get in, get in, you’re getting drenched,” he said, motioning frantically with his hands. Cautiously at first, she surveyed what she could see of the interior of the vehicle before deciding it didn’t seem that shady and scrambled inside, eager to escape the weather. Music replaced the thundering sounds of the storm as Gwen shut the door with a muting thud. “Free Bird” escaped the radio faintly, installing a sense of comfort in the shivering girl. This car felt more homely than her own house, despite her original first impression.
“You looking for a ride?” His voice brought her back to the present, and she blinked in surprise at his quick offer.
“How did you know I was going to-“
The man chuckled warmly, starting up the car’s engine to a low rumble with a turn of his keys. “Kid like you wandering around in a storm like this? In a corn field, no less. I figured as much.” Gwen had never been fond of strangers, exactly, but something in his smile warmed her in spite of her dripping, appearance. She didn’t feel threatened by him at all. She felt her face flush in slight embarrassment. Was it that easy to tell?
“Where you off to? I can take you as far as Haswell.” The purring hum of the pickup awaited her answer eagerly. Gwen’s lips twitched into a sort of half-smile.
“I’ll go as far as you’ll take me.”
He ran a hand through his tussled hair and grinned. “Well then, it’s going to be a long drive. Just don’t drip water all over my leather, you hear?”
Gwen bit her lip and looked around for a towel, lifting her feet and twisting in the puddle in her seat in vain before the man reached a toned arm back and threw a dusty towel at her. “Don’t worry about it,” he said reassuringly. Gwen dried her face and then ruffled her hair, not worried about her appearance in the slightest before muttering something through the soft fabric, her voice incoherent.
“Can’t hear you through the mouthful of towel.”
“My name is Gwen,” she proclaimed in a slightly louder volume, uncovering her face and staring blankly at him.
“I’m Lewis. Nice to meet you Gwen.” The expression of secret amusement never left the features of his face, Gwen noticed. “You know, I think we’re going to like each other,” he predicted casually, his eyes focusing solely on her as if he found her genuinely interesting. To him, she was a switch in his routine, a fresh face, a change of scenery. He wanted to hear new stories and fix different problems, to hear a soothing voice instead of the rusty drone of the truck he drove all day and almost every night. He wanted companionship. Gwen, though younger and seemingly very different from this man, couldn’t help but want the same thing.
She saw emptiness everywhere. When she drove her rusted pickup down the freeway, she felt his absence next to her where he left the passenger seat vacant. In the mornings after a hunt, he would be missing from his bed. Even the air felt dull and listless without the scent of his clothes that smelled faintly of whiskey and cinnamon no matter how many times he washed them.
The stone in front of her nearly faded into the backdrop, gray like the sky and field she had been standing in for hours. She had painstakingly spent the early hours of the morning carving his name and two dates shakily into it because she couldn’t find it in herself to sleep. The crumbling numbers stared at her.
It didn’t seem right to just bury him in the middle of some back country field, but then again, he probably would have preferred this to the alternative of a cemetery plot. Lewis never really liked the idea of people placing flowers over him or anything like that, so Gwen thought she would do him the courtesy of honoring the request.
“Not that anyone would leave any out for me anyway,” he would joke, “Assuming I’d have a body left to bury.”
Their lives for the past four years had not been easy in the slightest. Sure, not having a “real” job and traveling the country non-stop the whole time must sound like a blast to most average people, as it had sounded to Gwen when she first found out about Lewis’s lifestyle. And when she discovered what he really did when she wasn’t paying attention, where he went at night or the prolonged length of his day trips, she still didn’t care. This life was what freedom tasted like.
The world had always seemed so much smaller when it was just the two of them driving from town to town in their old beaten up car, sometimes enduring sleepless nights and collecting battle scars from days of working a job. The smell of weather-worn leather and gasoline became the norm, and by the time they had reached their final months together, they had seen every state at least once, excluding Hawaii and Alaska, although Lewis had claimed he’d already seen them (he never would tell Gwen about Hawaii though, prompting debates to this claim). And if their companionship grew stale and they began to tire of each other, the scars they shared reminded the pair to stay together and watch each other’s backs when times grew hard, even through all their difficult disagreements. Especially through those.
Black, ominous clouds formed like bruises on the pale expanse of sky in the distance, and it was clearly going to rain in the very near future. Gwen had finished her last goodbyes, and it was about time she parted ways with the empty field and the grayness of everything. It was about time she left Lewis to rest. Reluctantly, she grazed her fingers delicately against the top of the gravestone, as if comforting herself before taking a step back. Dry grass crunched beneath her as she moved, thirsty for the oncoming rain and the corn stalks the bordered the road behind her seemed to warn her of the approaching storm. Just as she finally turned back toward the truck with the shovel she had used to dig the grave propped against her sagging shoulder, a rumble of thunder penetrated the crisp atmosphere, ringing like a final warning in her ears. Go, it seemed to say. Go, but do not forget.
She would have to get used to the emptiness, she thought as she slammed the door of the car behind her and started the engine. The radio buzzed on to the classic rock station, but was silenced seconds later by a firm tap from Gwen’s palm. The heating took a while to start working its way through the car, and she shuddered beneath the fabric of her jacket as she waited. When the heat refused to fill the car fast enough, she changed her mind and readied herself to drive regardless of how cold she was. Her foot lingered gingerly over the accelerator as she faced out into the field one last time, her eyes searching for the small stone that marked Lewis’s grave farther out in the distance. From here, it was only a speck on the horizon. Drops of rain shot at her windshield, dropping slowly at first and then accumulating. The drops became rivulets as they slid across the chilled glass and waited for her to drive on. And so she did.
The air mixed with dew and dust behind the faded red car as it slowly rolled back onto the deserted country road, leaving the grass and the rain and the grave to dissolve in the passing storm. The girl and the sleeping man had parted, and were now left to follow their own separate ways.
