Exclusive Excerpt: Bobby Singer's Guide To Hunting

From the book SUPERNATURAL: BOBBY SINGER'S GUIDE TO HUNTING by David Reed TM & © 2011 by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of It Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Here's your chance to read an exclusive excerpt from Bobby Singer's Guide To Hunting, a new Supernatural book by David Reed...

I thought I'd die bloody. Just seemed the likeliest way, given my line of work. I've looked Death in the face (literally...he's actually an alright guy), and, to be totally honest, I thought my ticket was gonna get punched a long time ago. I always figured there'd be some meaning to it...that my mark on this world would be more permanent than my blood stain on the floor. Instead, I'm gonna go out a gibbering turnip, mind so far gone that I won't be able to work a door knob, much less feed myself. Now there's a sobering thought - I'm gonna starve to death with half a cow in the freezer. I should back up. This won't do any good if it doesn't make sense.

Three days ago - hell, maybe more, I can't be sure - I was in a place called Ashland, in northern Wisconsin. So far north, might as well be Canada. Town had a slew of disappearances and no leads. There was plenty of evidence, but the local PD just couldn't put two and two together. Wait. I've gotta back up further.

My name's Bobby Singer. (At least I still remember that.) In all likelihood, you don't know me...because just about all my friends are dead and buried. As I said, it comes with the territory. If you're new to the game, I'll give you the basics: you know all that stuff that you were terrified of as a rug rat? The truly heinous stuff that'd send a chill from your ass to your elbows? Monsters, demons, the boogeyman under your bed - it' all real. I've seen it, I've hunted it, I've killed it. There're more people like me - hunters - but not as many as there used to be. Not near as many as there needs to be. Thanks to recent events, we're a dying species, and I'm the old breed. I've learned everything I can about every damned critter that walks, crawls, or flies, and I'm not gonna let that all be for nothing.

Back to Wisconsin. What seemed like an open-and-shut case...well, it must not have been. Last thing I remember, I had Ashland in my rearview mirror, heading west for Sioux Falls, where I planned on taking a long bath and watching as much trashy television as I could before the next catastrophe found me. Then, I woke up at home. Actually, "woke up" might be too gentle a phrase, as if I opened my eyes to the tweeting of birds as the sun rose - no, I scared myself awake, screaming bloody murder, damn near falling off the couch when I came to. Now, I won't lie to you...alcohol may have been a factor. Wouldn't be the first time that rotgut had done me wrong, but this felt different. The stabbing headache was present and accounted for, but something important was missing: memories. It was random things, at first. Went to the kitchen, itching for a little hair of the dog, and the damnedest thing happened... I couldn't remember which one was the liquor cabinet. Again, you may not know me, but that's a big deal. Didn't take long to find it, but for that minute and a half the world was not right. Taking stock of things, it was hard to ignore the grenade launcher lying on my living room floor. Not where I usually keep it. Must have been some bender.

While trying to remember how it got there, I tidied up, carrying the guns and gear that were strewn all over the house to their proper places. The launcher belonged downstairs, in the basement armory lockup.

As much as I wanted to keep it out as a conversation piece, house guests had a tendency to overreact to it. It's not like I used it for deer hunting. I have a semi-auto crossbow for that. Spinning the tumbleron the armory lock, my mind went blank. I'd opened that locker every day for over a decade, and suddenly couldn't recall the combination. Somebody's birthday, maybe? I tried my own, no dice. Tried a few other things, but let's skip to the punch line - twenty minutes later, I was down there with a blow torch and bolt cutters.

Something was wrong with me. I couldn't remember where I left my car keys; I couldn't even remember where I left my car. The driveway was empty. Whatever happened between Ashland and Sioux Falls had left a hole in my brain, and I was leaking memories. In my old life, when I was just Joe mechanic, the diagnosis woulda been Alzheimer's. But I ain't just Joe mechanic anymore, and everything I'd learned in twenty years on the job told me that this wasn't natural.

Only one thing to do: call the Winchester boys. Those two delinquents have a knack for getting out of messes when they've got no right to; seemed fair that they'd help me out of one for a change. Of course, to help me, they'd have to answer their friggin' phones. Those boys have more numbers than a Chinese phone book, but my calls went straight to voicemail on all of them. It'd be a hell of a lot easier to track them down if I could remember what direction they were heading last time I saw 'em, but life's not that easy. For all I knew they were upstairs, passed out themselves.

After that occurred to me, I had to check every room of the house to make sure it wasn't true - I wasn't about to let those idiots sneak up on me if this was some kind of prank.

Turns out, it wasn't. There was no sign of the boys anywhere, no sign of my car anywhere, no clues as to where I'd been between Ashland and my house. In case you're not catching on to where this is going, I still have no friggin' clue. And it's getting worse. I tried to picture my mom's face this morning...couldn't.

Here's the rub - I don't know what happened to me. I don't know if I can fix it. But what I know for damn sure is that I'm not going down without a fight. I'm not letting everything I've learned disappear.

So that's what you're holding in your hands - everything I know. Anything that'd be useful for the hunters that come after me...and that includes you, Sam and Dean. It's every hope I have of fixing the leak in my grapefruit. It's a guide to hunting.... It's a guide to me. My last will and testament.

To read more, pick up Supernatural: Bobby Singer's Guide To Hunting by David Reed, published by It Books and available now from all good booksellers.

Supernatural Magazine #32 (US numbering) also features an interview with the author of Bobby Singer's Guide To Hunting, David Reed.

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