#jimportant

It [The shape shifter] looked like Ichi, a hunter H took me out with.  We were looking for a heeler, a kind of...something.  Not a man.  It attacks, kills, then springs away before anyone can react.  Springheel Jack, Jack the Ripper, was a heeler, according to H.  But H is the same guy who had be roll Jacob into a quarry, still alive.  He was going to die, I know he was going to die, but he was still alive.But then tonight, Dean walked out of the roadhouse right when I put the final bullet into the shape-shifter's head.  And he said, Why'd you kill him, Dad?How am I supposed to answer that?  Because he wasn't a man, he was a monster who looked like a man?  My boy walked out the door and saw me shoot someone in the head.  Maybe I'm the monster who looks like a man.

The Fore Inn, set on the edge of a town full of dead bodies, hallucinations....we found the inn, and there was the hellhound, the Black Shuck, and it came to H like a spaniel.  He said he didn't kill Mary, but he set the dog on me, and said he knew 'some of the players involved.' But they weren't demons, he said.  I killed the dog, and then H changed his whole tack.  Said that everything he'd done, even siccing the dog on me, was a way to get me to hunt.  He said he wasn't H, he was something else in a hunter's body.  A man's body.  All I could think of was shooting the shape-shifter outside the roadhouse with Dean as a witness.  I killed H, and I burned the hotel.  I'm writing this at a rest stop on I-76 outside Julesburg.  I killed H, and i'll goddamn well hunt, all right.  I'll hunt, and the boys will hunt, and we will find whatever killed Mary and we will send it to Hell.  And on the way, we will kill every monster and ghoul and ghost and demon and anything else.  My boys will not grow up to experience what I have.  They will not lose what I lost.

Bingo. California, New Jersey, Arizona. House fires. In each case, a mother killed and one of the survivors a six-month-old baby. Need to go back and see if there were others on 11/2/83. Either way, this is a hard lead. Looking at locations, survivors, other associated phenomena. Unusual weather, spikes in violence or crime. Any of those things can signify demonic involvement. But the fires are enough. Six of them, within a couple of days, each with a six-month-old involved. You gave yourself away, you bastard.      Almost twenty-two years I've been after you. It's not going to be twenty-three. I'm going to look into your yellow eyes and watch you die.      I want to tell the boys, but won't just yet. Dean might go off half-cocked, and Sammy... I was about to write that he wouldn't care. Maybe that's not true. But he might not care enough, and I don't think I could stand knowing that.

I'm fifty years old, and Mary has been dead for twenty-two of those years. I only knew her for seven. Every year those two numbers get farther apart, because only one of them can change. This year I will find who killed her. This year I will end this and let it all go. Dean turns twenty-six in three weeks.When I was twenty-six, I'd spent two years as a soldier. Dean's been a soldier his whole life. When I was twenty-six, I'd been married for two years and had a toddler. Dean's never been with a woman for more than a couple of weeks at a time. I've prevented him from being a father. By the time Sammy turns twenty-six, I swear this will be over.

Still tracking the Colt. It's out there somewhere. Word is that a hunter has it, but nobody I know will say who. Someone's hiding it. Why? If I had it, all I'd need is one bullet. A gun that can kill anything... one bullet, for the demon that killed Mary. Then I could put down all my guns, and rest.

In Kittanning, Pennsylvania. Poltergeist in a playground built on an old cemetery. Of all the stupid places to put a playground.Sixth or seventh time I've dealt with a poltergeist, enough to know that the psychokinetic theory about girls and puberty is a load of crap. Usually I don't do this, but I've kind of gotten friendly with one of the locals, Jerry Panowski. One of his kids has been targeted a couple of times. For some reason he's easy to talk to. Most of the civilians you meet either don't want to know about the supernatural or blame you for bringing it into their lives once you tell them about it. Jerry's not like that. He understands, I think. Maybe he understands better than I do. Still feel conflicted about Sam. I don't think I did the wrong thing, but I also don't want him out there alone and vulnerable. I've been through Palo Alto half a dozen times in the past year, just to make sure he's okay. I look around, see if there's any sign of anything happening that shouldn't be. He's my son. I can't abandon him. But I also can't go back on what I said. You don't stop loving a kid, but you also can't let love blind you to what's right.

Mary has been dead for nineteen years. I haven't kept the family together, Mary. I'm sorry. Sam's gone because he's headstrong and because I couldn't make him understand how important this is to all of us. Now Dean tells me he's cut off contact with Sam, and it's killing me. I can't stand the idea of the boys separated. It's one thing for me to take a stand. I'm the father, I have to lay down the law for the family. Maybe that's the Marine in me talking, and maybe it's not the right thing to do all the time, but it's gotten us this far. Now I'm questioning myself. Brothers have to stick together.

Sam left. I told him that if he was going, it was permanent. I meant it.