Supernatural: Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting Read Online Free Page A

wanted to do was get Karen back. Because even if she killed me, I woulda spent eternity regretting not helping her. My wife was . . . broken, and I couldn’t fix her.
    I dodged the knife when she threw it, but that was just the beginning. She came at me with an axe, found one of my hunting rifles lying out—she wouldn’t let up. It wouldn’t let up, the thing inside her. No sugarcoating it, it was the worst day of my life, and I’ve seen downright godawful days.
    So . . . I fought back. It took hours to accept it, but there it was. I told myself I had to do it, for her sake. I thought she musta been sick, something not right in her head. If I could just get her down, take her to the hospital, docs would figure out what was wrong. But I had to get her down first, and I knew it wasn’t gonna be easy. I had no idea.
    I’d been hiding out in the junkyard. The evil sonofabitch was inside Karen’s mind, knew things she knew, but even Karen didn’t know the ins and outs of the yard the way I did. When I decided it was time, I came back to the house, had a shotgun with birdshot loaded (pheasant season). I told myself I wouldn’t have to use it, that the crazy would have boiled off by the time I found her. Wrong. When I found her in the living room, she had the butcher knife in her hand, the one with the engraving, and she was screaming like . . . like hell. It musta torn up her vocal chords something good to make that sound, but the bastard didn’t care. I told her to drop the knife or I’d shoot. My hands were shaking so bad, it wouldn’t take a four-year-old to tell you I was bluffing.
    Then she turned the knife on herself. Pressed it against her skin, told me she’d gut herself if I came another step closer. Maybe you got a wife or a husband. Picture them giving you that choice. Tell me it don’t eat you up, make the whole world seem . . . wrong.
    I dropped my shotgun. Same as any man would do. Karen laughed at me. Cackled. The knife in her hand hanging low and deadly, ready to swing. I knew I had to get it from her, that I’d never have the upper hand as long as she had that knife. Shoulda taken a shot when I had the chance. Would have saved me from what happened next.
    At the time, my house was different than it is now. Nowadays, it’s mostly library, with the odd room having a sink or tub or bed mixed in with all the lore books, charts, maps, bibles, and holy books from every different church there ever was. Back then, it was a home. The living room was done up nice, with proper paint on the walls and furniture to match it. All of it Karen’s doing. There was this one chair, called something French that I can’t recall, that was her favorite. It stretched out just long enough for her to curl up and read a book on a lazy summer day. She’d get so caught up in the stories that the ice would melt in her tea before she took a sip. I had to throw that chair away on account of all the blood.
    I moved as quick as I could, but she was faster, impossibly fast. My hands were on her arm, but my grip didn’t hold—the knife swung and tore into my left bicep. I’ve still got the scar where it sliced down. All I felt was a warm rush as blood soaked my whole left side, spurting in time with my heartbeat. Arterial. Deadly.
    While I was distracted, she swung again. A jagged line carved into my chest, not deep enough to do any real damage, but scary enough to knock me on my ass. This woman was supposed to have my . . . this was Karen. And now my blood was on her face, and she was smiling a monster’s smile, red specks on her pearl-white teeth. A shark, circling.
    It took every ounce of strength I had to get back on my feet. And I don’t mean physical strength, I mean I was ready to give up. I’da died, gladly, a hundred times over, to not have to do what I did to Karen.
    She swung again, and I put my hand in front of the blade. My left hand, which was already close to useless ’cause of the blood loss. It