EPILOGUE

Author's note: Most of my stories don't go the supernatural or creepy route (at least in this fandom, anyway), but as I said at the start, this was written for a Halloween contest. I have a few other holiday HB stories, including Halloween ones, but other than this little epilogue, this tale is at its end. Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear from you. Thanks also to Evergreen Dreamweaver, Barb, ErinJordan, and angelicalkiss for the kind reviews on what may be the weirdest chapter I've ever written.

Since this is such a short little thing, I'm going to post the first chapter in the next story of this series in the next hour or so also. We'll still be on the wrong holiday, but hey, why not?

#####

#####

Epilogue

Joe leaned his crutches against the bathroom sink, eager to get home. Three days in the hospital for what his doctor insisted on calling hypothermia and what Joe preferred to label the medical offspring college fund. Seriously, how hard could it be to get warm at home with his mother hovering with blankets and Aunt Gertrude plying him with beef stew?

Frank had reminded him that stew wasn't going to give him antibiotics for the forty stitches he had scattered over a half dozen sites or cover the three units of blood he'd received. Besides, neither of them had a car now and he would have been stuck in the house anyway. The van's engine had somehow managed to get filled with water. Creek water.

Shaking his head, Joe shrugged off the remnants of last night's nightmare and checked his watch. He still had fifteen minutes before his parents could sign him out. He had thought Frank would be here with his clothes, though.

Probably couldn't find any neon orange jailbird sweatpants. Wish I had a picture of that. Callie would love it.

He finished brushing his teeth, scooping everything out of the hospital medicine cabinet and into his bag. A trickle of icy water slithered between his shoulder blades. Huh... thought I had my hair dry...

Joe grabbed his comb and swiped the fog off the mirrored cabinet door to check. Everything clattered to the tile as his gaze met his reflection, pale blue lips fading into grey mottled skin that framed sightless, sunken eyes. His knees buckled and he crashed to the floor among the strewn junk, panting. Not real. Not.

Frank found him twenty minutes later, sitting in the bathroom floor, knees pulled against his chest with both arms wrapped tightly around.

"Joe? You ok?"

"Ah, maybe? Do I... uh... look... um... ok?"

Frank knelt, realizing while that combination of words was almost always sarcastic, it wasn't this time. Nor was it vain. "You look pretty much like last night, Joe. A little battered and bruised, Velcro splint on your wrist, nothing a week or two won't fix."

"Good. That's good." Joe raised his head, extending his right hand. "Help me up?"

"Of course." Frank hoisted his sibling to his feet, trying not to jostle him in the small confines of the bathroom any more than he had to.

"Thanks. Let's go home."

Joe pulled on his clothes while Frank rapidly repacked his bag, both of them eager to leave the hospital behind. Preferably to never again speak of a frozen creek, child wraiths, and the bridge that wasn't there. Joe flipped the light switch off and stepped into the hall, the skittering feeling down his spine urging a hurried escape. It wasn't, unfortunately, fast enough to miss nearly inaudible whispers.

"Joeeeeeeeeeey...

Ashes, ashes

Yesterday upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn't there

"Jooeeeeeeey..."

He wasn't there again today, I wish I wish he'd go away...

Ashes, ashes

"Joeeeyyyyy..."

Ashes, ashes

We All Fall DOWN!"

#####

#####

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

‑Robert Frost

#####

#####

Finis