Hunter and Gunsmith

No Such Thing As ‘Rest In Peace’

Heaven was supposed to be this great paradise where you went to eternal rest. So many people believe that you get to see your loved ones when you go there. In the past 150 years that Samuel Colt has been dead, he has not seen anyone he knows. Except for in memories that comprise his Heaven. Over and over and over and over again, all stale, all predictable, and the pleasure of the memories is gone. The sentimentality loses value. And instead of a joy to relive his best memories, it’s a nightmare, haunting and teasing him about the things that mean the most to him that he cannot have and cannot genuinely see.

He screams at the memory of his wife Elizabeth for the 17 millionth time, watching as she answers him with that warm smile the way she had when he asked her a different question when they were alive. He drops down onto his knees before “her” and begs, pleads, for God to show him some kind of mercy. To do something about this, make it stop, make it real anything… when he feels a strange tug along his spine and shoulders. He hisses softly, a strange melody dragging through his ears that something tells him shouldn’t be there.

“What th’hell?”

The pull intensifies, almost painful in its strength before the singing gets louder, the light seeps into his vision and he feels like he’s falling, falling… He cries out grabbing for Elizabeth, anything he can get his hands on, but then it’s all slipping away from him and the falling sensation intensifies…

He wakes with a jolt, feeling like he just fell out of bed, and looks around to find… he can’t see. He feels over himself, panicking. He’s got a musty old suit on. He coughs, having a hard time breathing, but he can hear rumbling. He curses, feeling around and gasps softly when he realizes where he is. He’s in a coffin. He’s in his coffin.

He wills himself to not panic over this revelation— that’ll make the air go quicker and then he’ll be dead all over again— and he presses against the roof of the coffin. It’s padded with old silk but the wood underneath is worn, old… holey. He brings his hand back and balls it into a fist, hitting has hard as he can in the small fist. Thankfully, because of the coffin’s age, it breaks easily and he starts digging. The dirt’s damp and heavy, but easily molded out of his way rather than crumbling on top of him. He takes one last deep breath and holds it, starting to claw his way up out of the dirt and mud.

It isn’t until he feels water on his face that he takes a deep, gasping breath. He finishes crawling out of the grave, now muddy and soaked, and drops down onto the grass, breathing deep gulps of wet cemetery air. He blinks at the rain before rolling over onto his stomach, looking around. He looks to his own headstone and sighs softly, seeing he was buried with his wife. Sorrow overcomes him and he drops his head against the grass for a moment, shoulders shaking.

He sobers up quickly, though, looking around. If he’s back from the dead, it ain’t cause anyone missed him. Something bad is happening, and knowing his history, there’d be something demonic hot on his tail for it. He gets to his feet and wipes at the mud on him uselessly. He looks around, spotting the gates to the cemetery. Confused, he makes his way to them and looks at the sign. Cedar Hill Cemetery… so he got buried in his hometown, where he’d died.

He thought putting those miles between him and Wyoming would’ve kept him safe, but… it hadn’t. He frowns at the road, weirded out by how it’s not cobblestone… it’s clearly a road, though. It’s strange to him, though he thinks it may be the asphalt mixture that was being perfected along the east coast for road use… clearly in whatever time he’s now in, they’ve perfected it.

The first thing that comes to mind is Sam Winchester and his thingmajig, and Colt wonders to himself if he’s in that time. He looks down at his hands, puzzled. They aren’t old and worn as they had been when he’d met Sam Winchester, and yet he recalls the encounter. Stranger and stranger. He’ll get answers once he gets further into town. He frowns at his worn out boots, but turns down the road and starts walking anyway.