“I don’t know about this lake monster theory, Dean,” Sam said, looking at his laptop. “Loch Ness and other legends always had sightings, and locals talking about them, but here we’ve got nothing.” He seemed genuinely frustrated with this.

  Is he still sulking?

  Dean wondered as he threw the crumbs on his shirt onto the motel bed.

  He was lying on the bed while eating a burger, his mind drifting to many different places.

  He thought about how cool it would be to kill a lake monster, maybe even more exciting than when he and Dad cleaned that vampire nest last summer.

  Nothing cleared his mind as much as hunting these evil sons of bitches.

  He thought about his father, of if they would find him, of why he hadn’t said anything to him, of what he might be hunting.

  Then Andrea Barr, the hot daughter of the Sheriff, invaded his thoughts.

  A Sheriff’s daughter.

  He liked the way it sounded. Like a big old punch in the face of the establishment. After his “pleasant” conversation with Jake, it would be all the sweeter.

  And it wouldn’t be the first time. There was that girl in Ohio,

  What was her name?

  He couldn’t remember her name, but he sure did remember her face, as well as her breasts, her tights, her ass, and every other curve in her body. She was a wild one, that’s for sure.

  It was one of his first solo cases, a classic haunting.

  She was fresh out of college and moved from her Sheriff’s dad's house into an old, recently renovated house. It didn’t take long for weird shit to start happening, and then he found her.

  After solving the problem, they spent the night together in a cheap motel close to the highway.

  Andrea Barr was different, though; she was the very image of the girl next door, pretty in a concealed, almost shy way, which made her seem approachable and nice.

  She had a kid, which should have been a big turn-off for him, as Sammy had said; he was not a big fan of children. But he was surprised to find that he was not opposed to that; in fact, this made him even more eager to have some fun with her, but after his last attempt, he didn’t know if he would be able to.

  Dean looked at Sam sitting at the desk, reading articles on the internet, ever the serious prick, while the burger he had brought him stayed still wrapped in the McDonald's paper.

  Should I eat it?

  He decided otherwise. As much as it bothered him seeing an Hamburger be left alone, discarded to the side, condemned to turn cold, Sammy was very snappy lately; it could turn into a fight, and he felt too lazy to deal with it at the moment.

  Not to mention that Sammy had gone through some tough stuff recently, so he decided to cut him some slack, even going so far as to pretend he didn’t notice his weird behavior.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Finishing his burger, he got up, burped, and looked at Sammy’s laptop.

  Should I see his browser history later?

  There were many tabs open, too many, in his opinion, it was confusing to look at so much information at the same time, but Sammy seemed fine.

  Is this what they call a college-educated person?

  His mind once again wandered to that Sheriff’s daughter in Ohio, but this time he forced himself to concentrate on the screen, and that was when he found something.

  “Wait, look.” Dean pointed to a name on the screen.

  “Christopher Barr, that name sounds familiar.” The name was on the list of drawings that happened on Lake Manitoc’s this year. There were 6 other cases in the last 35 years, all with missing bodies.

  “Hum, let’s see.” Sam clicked the link, and a new tab opened, showing a picture of Lucas, Andrea’s son, wrapped in towels.

  “Christopher Barr was Andrea’s husband, Lucas’ father. He took Lucas swimming and drowned.”

  Sam continued to read the page, but Dean was no longer paying attention; his eyes were completely taken by the image of Lucas’ face. He could see his fear, and it felt eerily familiar.

  ***

  “Can we join you?” They found Andrea sitting on a bench in a park full of children playing left and right.

  She looked at them and gave a bothered smile that Dean knew was directed at him.

  “I’m here with my son,” she gave them a polite “please don’t bother me” and gazed at her son.

  “Oh, mind if I say hi?” He said and walked towards Lucas.

  Lucas was sitting on the ground, using a bench as a desk for drawing pictures with crayons.

  “How is it going?” He kneeled in front of Lucas, flashing his most harmless smile, but Lucas had no reaction.

  Dean felt uncomfortable in the awkwardness of the situation. The only kid he remembered interacting with in the last 20 or so years was Sammy, and it had been a long time since then.

  He saw the little soldiers sprawled on the bench and took one in his hand.

  “Oh, I used to love these things.” He remembered playing with toy soldiers just like these all the time after coming home from school.

  He had been in first grade then, and the most terrifying thing he could conceive back then was multiplication tables, a foreign and terrifying concept that the neighbor’s kid had shared with him at his birthday party.

  Then came that night, and suddenly, he had way more things to be scared of.

  He moved the little soldier and made gun noises, feeling oddly nostalgic, but even this wasn’t enough; Lucas still didn’t look up.

  Dean looked at Lucas, surprised by his own lack of frustration. Even as Lucas continued to ignore him, he couldn’t help but feel pity for the kid.

  “So you’re an artist, huh? That’s good, chicks dig artists.” Deam grabbed a piece of paper and a crayon.

  “Can I draw with you?” Lucas continued to ignore him, so he started to draw.

  Dean didn’t know how to draw, so he decided to make stick figures of his family. He drew himself, Sammy, Dad, and finally, his mother.

  He had no idea how old Lucas was, but he figured he was about the same age as he was when that night happened.

  “It’s not easy… Witnessing the death of a parent.” The words came out of his mouth by themselves, raw and cold.

  “When I was about your age, I saw something happen to my mother, something bad, something impossible.” His voice trembled with repressed emotion, an old fear he thought dead began to emerge, summoned by his words.

  “It was scary, too scary, and I was ashamed for being scared. That thing took mom from me, and here I was trembling in fear that it might come back and take me too.” He looked at Sam, who was talking with Andrea, and felt glad that his little brother wasn’t looking at him. Lucas still didn’t lift his face, but he had stopped drawing.

  “It was my little brother who saved me from that fear. You see, he was just a baby back then, and father was in no state to take care of us, so it fell on me to take care of him.” This time, there was some pride in his voice.

  “After I started seeing myself as his guardian, things turned for the better. It was not like the fear vanished, no, it was still there, but I found something that helps a lot, and that thing is courage.”

  “Now, you don’t need to say anything, you can draw it if you want, but give me a hint as to what you saw that day, so I can make it so it doesn’t hurt anyone else.” He looked down, and their eyes met for the first time.