Chapter 382: Disappearance
After receiving Officer Hobbes' call, Frank immediately boarded a flight and rushed over. By sheer coincidence, Dean had arrived at nearly the exact same time.
"My dad called you!?" Dean asked Hobbes the moment he heard that.
"Did he say anything else?" Sam quickly followed up.
"Not much," Hobbes replied. "He just gave me Mr. Frank's phone number."
"What happened to John?" Frank asked, noticing the brothers' reactions.
"He's missing," Dean said grimly.
From the Winchester brothers, Frank finally learned what had happened.
John Winchester had disappeared too.
In the past, John and Dean usually hunted together. John rarely let Dean work alone because he felt Dean still lacked experience.
But after the shapeshifter incident, Dean had grown enough to handle cases independently.
From then on, father and son often split up to investigate separate supernatural cases. It was more efficient that way—they could save more people and cover more ground.
But during one particular hunt, after Dean finished handling his own case, he suddenly realized he couldn't contact John anymore.
John had vanished without warning.
No calls.
No messages.
No trace.
This wasn't entirely unprecedented. There had been times before when John disappeared during especially dangerous hunts.
But in the past, he would always reappear a few days later at most—usually bruised, exhausted, but alive and intact.
But this time was different.
John had been missing for nearly a month.
No contact.
No clues.
Nothing.
The silence had gone on far too long, and Dean was starting to lose his composure.
He was terrified something had happened to his father.
So Dean began searching for him everywhere.
But he found absolutely nothing.
In the end, he went to Sam's university and dragged his younger brother into the search.
Following the trail John had left behind, the brothers eventually uncovered the case John had been investigating before his disappearance.
And what they found immediately raised alarm bells.
The case had only been solved halfway.
Then John vanished.
That alone was completely abnormal.
John Winchester was the type of man who always finished what he started. He would never abandon a hunt halfway through unless something had gone seriously wrong.
After the brothers cleaned up the unfinished case John had left behind, they continued searching for him nonstop.
So when they heard from Officer Hobbes that John had actually called him, how could they not get excited?
If John had made a phone call, then that meant one thing:
At the very least, he was still alive.
But if he was alive… then why hadn't he contacted Dean?
Dean and Sam had called John countless times.
"Before he disappeared, Dad sent me this voicemail…" Dean said as he pulled out his phone and played the recording.
"Dean… I think something's happening. Something serious. I'm going to find out what it is… Dean, we're all in danger. Be careful."
"After that, we never heard from him again," Dean said quietly.
"We kept calling him," Sam added. "Every time, it just said he was out of service."
Frank already knew John had gone missing.
After signing the contract with the demon Crowley, Frank had also tried contacting John, hoping to ask a professional for advice about the supernatural mess he'd gotten involved in.
But he hadn't been able to reach him either.
Thinking of that, Frank took out his phone and dialed John's number.
The call immediately went to voicemail.
"Hi, this is John Winchester. I can't come to the phone right now… If it's urgent, contact my son Dean at 866-907-3235. He'll be able to help you."
The familiar recorded message echoed through the room.
"John will be fine," Frank said, trying to calm the increasingly restless Winchester brothers. "He's probably dealing with something dangerous. That's likely why he went alone and didn't want you involved."
Then Frank shifted his gaze toward the wall covered in evidence and notes left behind by Eddie.
"John's situation can wait. Right now, we deal with this case first."
After all, Eddie had disappeared while investigating it.
That made this the immediate priority.
Dean and Sam quickly steadied themselves and refocused on the case at hand.
"A chain-copycat murder case…" Dean muttered. "Everything started with that executed serial killer. We need more information on him."
Dean had grown up hunting monsters alongside John. Now that he was capable of handling hunts on his own, despite being only in his twenties, he already had extensive experience.
He knew exactly where to start.
"This is Reese's file," Officer Hobbes said, handing over a case folder. Reese was the executed serial killer's name.
Eddie had already investigated much of the case before disappearing, so most of the clues and documents had already been gathered in the motel room.
Dean and Sam carefully read through the file.
"There's also a video," Hobbes said. "It recorded Reese's execution from start to finish. A civil rights organization funded it—they originally wanted to turn it into a documentary."
He turned on the television and began playing the footage.
In the recording, Reese sat inside a holding cage while Hobbes questioned him.
Even through the screen, everyone could hear the killer's arrogance.
He seemed completely unconcerned about his upcoming execution.
The footage documented the entire process—from Reese leaving prison to being escorted into the execution chamber.
Even when the execution began, Reese showed no fear.
No regret.
No panic.
Only smug provocation and mockery.
Frank and the others watched the recording silently and carefully.
Hobbes, meanwhile, had already seen it countless times. Sitting off to the side, he lit a cigarette.
After the video ended, Dean replayed it from the beginning.
"Wait," Sam suddenly said. "Rewind that part."
On-screen, Hobbes sat across from Reese during the interview.
Then Reese suddenly reached out and shook Hobbes' hand.
And during the handshake, Reese muttered several strange phrases.
It definitely wasn't English.
"What language is that?" Dean asked. "What's he saying?"
"No idea," Hobbes replied, shaking his head. "He claimed it was Dutch."
As the footage continued, Reese spoke that strange language several more times. Under Hobbes' sarcastic questioning, Reese eventually admitted he was supposedly speaking Dutch.
"But Dutch doesn't sound like that," Sam frowned.
"This could be some kind of ancient incantation," Sam speculated. "Maybe he put a curse on Officer Hobbes."
"So he was a witch?" Dean frowned. "Doesn't look like it. If he really was a witch, there were countless ways he could've escaped prison."
"And the body was real," Dean added while reading the autopsy report. "It wasn't a fake death either."