Bound: A Supernatural Story ✔️

FOURTEEN

Holly felt deafening silence as soon as she stepped out of her building's front doors.

It buzzed in her ears, and it was wrong, horribly wrong. There were no voices, no bugs, and no birds. Not even the distant hum of cars.

Sam grabbed her arm, and she jumped a little. "Do you feel that?" he whispered.

"You mean nothing?" she looked at him, fidgeting. He gazed down at her.

"It's emptiness," he said.

Dean broke in. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he muttered, holding out the keys to the Impala. "It's eleven in the morning; don't people usually go out for coffee or something?"

Holly broke away from Sam's eyes. "I don't like this," she said. "Something is definitely wrong."

"Stay close." Sam led her to the black car, which was one of the very few in the parking lot. Holly didn't understand. She had neighbors, lots of neighbors —why hadn't she seen them at all in the past few days?

She felt it when she slid into the backseat. The darkness, the emptiness, the hunger; it enveloped her and made her choke. "He's coming," she gasped, gripping the front seats as the brothers got in the car. "I feel it now."

Sam gave her an alarmed look. "Dean, drive."

Dean slammed the car into gear and wrenched the steering wheel to turn out of the parking lot. Holly would have been worried about getting into an accident if the roads weren't dead.

Fear pricked her skin. "He's everywhere," she said, and she sensed him all over her part of town. Holly pressed her palm up against the cold window as Dean sped down the laneway. She swore she saw blood splattered all over the old brick buildings.

"Sam," she breathed, and he turned to look where she was pointing. As they passed by an old church, they saw the windows were smashed, the decorative cross was broken. Blood stained the ground.

"Shit," she whispered. Shadows slithered over the street. Her chest felt like it was being compressed.

Dean ran a red light, and turned a sharp right down an older dirt road. They were out of the main drag now and were heading out farther into more rural territory. "This way." Holly leaned forward, placing her head in between the Hunters bodies. She pointed up. "There's an empty lot up here."

Sam turned around. "Are you sure he's not following us?"

"Shit." Dean hit the wheel with his hand. "He can't have gotten to us already."

Holly turned, staring out the back window. She gazed solemnly at the road behind them. The dark presence still filled her thoughts; but it wasn't alarming her. "He's waiting," she said. "He's not giving chase."

She narrowed her eyes at the storm clouds gathering. She could feel Dean's heart beating as well as her own. It rang in her ears.

Two hearts, beating as one.

"Holly?" Sam's voice drew her out of her thoughts.

"Huh?" she turned to him, breathing fast.

"Do you feel something?" He shifted his gaze from her to Dean and back. They passed through a patch of trees, and it threw shadows over his handsome face.

Holly frowned nervously. "I've lost him, but he's out there." 

There was the squealing of tires and the crunch of gravel as Dean drove into an empty lot. It spanned out for quite a few acres, desolate, full of weeds and scattered trash. Trees surrounded most of it, cutting off the few houses that dotted the road — they were at a very dead end. Across the valley, Holly could see the lights of the city dotting the landscape.