bells pond | the beginning; part one.
bells pond.
the beginning; part one.
You are never going to forgive me.
There's only room for one thought in Dean's mind. Sam. The rest of his consciousness is impatiently shoved aside by a pure, blinding force. Michael is hardly gentle; he doesn't need to be. No brush of wings, no soothing pressure. Permission is barely given before the archangel drives himself into Dean's being for the first time.
On March 28th, 2010, Dean Winchester says yes.
They didn't invent the concept of destiny. Why humans shake their fists at the sky and curse fate, he isn't sure. It's such a human idea. Reassuring, Michael imagines, to think one's not in control. It must make the tragedies easier to bear if the blame can be laid at someone else's feet.
He believes that there are problems and there are solutions. Every so often, circumstances converge to make it so that certain people are capable of bringing about those solutions. That's not destiny; it's logic. If a man can, he should. Regrettably, logic and humanity have rarely gone hand in hand throughout the ages and, if Michael should ever happen to forget that, he needs only consult Dean Winchester.
Save for one, Michael's brothers and sisters will never understand Dean and so their methods are heavy-handed and antiquated. Completely wrong for a man like Dean. But Michael has been tied to Dean since the man was born, and nothing escapes him. That's why he knew exactly what to say to turn Dean in the right direction.
Free will means many things. Before he returned to Michael and said yes, Dean believed he could save the world by refusing to do what was asked of him-choosing free will. For Michael, free will meant that Dean needed to find his own way to the truth.
The truth being that there is only one way out of this mess. It really is a mess. The alignment of so many events, muddled with motives both righteous and sinister, to form one large...disaster. One fight, with one solution that was written into Dean's blood long before he was conceived. Dean is beginning to see that, but there's no reassurance Michael can give him that the years ahead will be easy.
As much as the opposite is true, Michael is at Dean's mercy. And if he does not keep his bargain with Dean, this disaster will consume the world.
There's a place on the edge of consciousness, full of possibility. A time when dreams slip away to be forgotten in the dark recesses of the mind, and sensation returns to the body. Sam struggles through his sleep-fog and bleariness, no idea what he's going to see when he opens his eyes. Instinctively, he feels something has changed.
What he sees isn't what he expects and he's fully awake in an instant. He's definitely not his motel room, though physically, Sam feels exactly the same as when he fell asleep. His t-shirt smells like the rubbing alcohol he used last night to treat the cuts on his upper arm, his boxers are the same tattered gray ones he crawled into bed wearing. But the walls are white, satin finished, instead of the color of rotting olives like the motel room he'd seen before closing his eyes. There are no curtains on the windows unlike the thick, stained drapes that blocked out the buzzing halogen streetlights by the motel's curb.
Sam looks around. Dean is missing from this strange picture; his absence leaves a roaring black hole at Sam's side. Suddenly, Sam can't breathe.
Two weeks have passed since Sam's second blood-detox in Bobby's panic room. The hallucinations should be long gone but Sam's senses tell him that this is no trick of the mind.
Behind a wall, Sam hears a heating unit kick on and he throws the covers off. He's silent as he climbs out of the bed and creeps barefooted to the bedroom door. He picks up nothing but the sound of the heater as warm air blows across his ankles from the vent. No movement or sounds to suggest there's anyone else in the-well, Sam guesses it's a house-but he's careful nonetheless, trampling the urge to yell for Dean.
There's a window less than a yard to Sam's left; nothing telling outside to reveal where he is. Yellowed grass, the shade of a harsh winter, under a gray sky; bare trees waiting for the warmth to sprout new leaves. Sam could be anywhere.
This isn't some strange dream; Sam senses the remnants of power like fingerprints on his skin. Something put him here, severed from Dean. The list of supernatural beings capable of transporting Sam is a short one and none of the names on it make him feel any better. A scan of the bedroom yields no weapons. The only usable thing is a lamp next to the bed. He quickly unplugs it and removes the shade. It's cumbersome, a clunky metal base with sharp edges.
The door squeaks and swings away when Sam pushes. No pictures on the walls, no carpet under his feet. Only scratched hardwood pointing Sam away from the bedroom, muted light filling the hallway from both ends.
Sam clears the house in five minutes. The bedroom he woke up in, a miscellaneous room filled with tattered boxes off the hallway, one bathroom, and a kitchen with a table that only has three chairs. An empty basement that smells like cold, wet stone, clogging his sinuses. He's completely alone, not even a whisper or a shiver of another presence.
He ends up in the living room where mismatched furniture is pushed up against the walls under the dusty windows. Three bags have been set conspicuously on the couch, two over-stuffed duffels and a messenger bag. Sam only needs a second to recognize that they're his.
"Dean!"
His yell rattles through the house and echoes back. After that it's unnaturally quiet. There's no trace of Dean's bags anywhere in the room. Setting the lamp down, Sam checks through everything for his cell phone, but comes up empty-handed. Fear gnaws through the pit of Sam's stomach when he sees that everything he owns is packed in the duffel bags: his clothes, weapons that hadn't been stashed in the Impala's trunk, his computer and books.
A cold drafts slides under the front door, slithers up Sam's bare calf. If he has to confront something, he's not going to do it in his boxers. Hastily slipping into jeans, shoes, and another shirt, Sam rechecks the house, taking deep breaths every other step to keep the hysteria at bay. He finds no phone and no television. Nothing to give him a clue of where he is or what he's doing there.
The backdoor off the kitchen isn't locked; it clatters against the door frame when Sam steps into the early morning. The noise sends half a dozen small, brown birds scattering up into the sky from a leafless shrub. Sam's quick scan around the single-story house gives him nothing out of the ordinary. The only other structure is a makeshift garage, four steel rods and a low metallic roof, covering a dent-riddled and dusty Ford pickup. Brick red with Nebraska plates. EYN 866.
"Nebraska?" Considering he clearly remembers passing out last night in a motel room in Tennessee while trying to block the sounds of Dean cleaning up-bloody paper towels and empty beer bottles filling the motel's little plastic trash can-Nebraska is a big surprise.
The truck is unlocked, but Sam's luck stops there. No registration papers in the glove compartment, and no keys. Alarm bells go off in every part of Sam's head, buzzing between his ears when he walks back into the house.
"Dean!" He yells again, deeper and more strained. In the quiet that follows, Sam hears his heart beating, blood pulsing from his ears to his stomach.
He stalks through the house, no longer bothering to be stealthy. Sam rips open drawers and closets, pushes furniture around to see if there are clues scratched into the wood floors. The light switches work, so at least there's electricity. He checks the attic and finds nothing, even less in the basement. Back in the kitchen, he calls for Dean a third time and when that doesn't get him anywhere, he switches tactics.
"Castiel!" Hoping against hope he'll hear wings, feel the air shift before Castiel's suddenly behind him.
There's not so much as a sigh or flutter, just the eerie quiet that's dogged his footsteps all morning. Sam Winchester is utterly alone.
The black-on-white numbers on the stove flip past one o'clock when Sam's finished turning the house inside out and uncovering a few surprises. In the kitchen, the whitewashed pantry is filled with food and supplies-everything basic and generic-and the fridge was stocked as if someone made a run to the grocery store. Pots and pans stacked in the cupboards, ugly dishes and mismatched glasses. Considering it doesn't look like anyone's lived in the house for a decade, Sam's confused by the small signs of life.
He moves sluggishly, fighting the effects of his earlier adrenaline high. It had spiked with every step into this bizarre place, now leaking out of his body to leave a staggering void behind his temples. Stumbling towards the couch, he pushes his bags onto the floor and sits. The cushions dip and sag under his weight, old dust flung into the dull sunlight.
Sam thinks about Dean. He's swamped by possibilities: Dean has no idea where Sam is, waking up in an empty motel room without him; he's wandering around in some other backwater thousands of miles away, as much a victim as Sam is; Dean is dead.
The last possibility doesn't scare him as much as it should. With the way Sam and Dean are fought over like scraps of meat, no one's going to let a Winchester stay dead for long. They're useless unless they're alive for everyone and their demonic second-cousins to torment.
Only one risk really guts him. That Dean might think Sam got fed up and left, sick of the apocalypse and the arguments of free will versus fate. If Sam's stuff is here, there's no way anything's left for Dean to find in the motel room. Whatever did this to him may have made it look like Sam got up in the middle of the night, arranging false evidence to drive Dean further into Michael's grasp. If Dean were to think Sam abandoned him, there's no telling what he'd do. No telling what Sam would do in the same situation.
Sam and Dean's weaknesses are well known from the Heavenly heights to the caverns of Hell. Take one brother out of the equation and it's a whole new game. It may not be about manipulating Dean, but getting Sam away from his brother in order to-in order to what?
Not knowing where he is, what put him here, leaves Sam in the dark. No motives, nothing to bargain with. Think. Sam has to think.
If something put you here, there's a way to get out.
It sounds like Dean's voice, steady and leading. There's no getting to the why until Sam figures out the what. Hours pass, Sam getting up and pacing in the confines of the living room when he can't sit anymore. His stomach starts growling mid-afternoon, and Sam digs through one of his duffel bags until he finds a couple granola bars he'd stashed weeks ago when he and Dean needed to clear out of a town. No way he trusts the food in the kitchen, innocuous labels hiding some kind of poison or drug, but he takes a chance on water from the faucet, cupping his hands and letting the cold flow over them. He looks, sniffs, and finally tastes, drinking deep when he can't find anything wrong.
Quickly now, the sun's being pulled down to meet the horizon, and Sam's weary. Tired of his mind spinning in a thousand different directions, over every interaction and conversation he and Dean have had with angels and demons alike since Lilith's blood and Sam's powers set Lucifer free.
When Sam starts to drift off, Dean's voice pipes up again in his head.
Protect yourself. You never know what's out there.
He scoffs, no one to hear him argue. Christ, Dean. I'm not stupid.
Less than a day without Dean and he's hearing orders and reminders in his head. But the voice is right; Sam's a sitting duck even if he doesn't know what he needs protecting from. He takes stock of what he has. He may not have salt, but he has a gun and a single box of ammo, plus his Bowie knife and his journal.
He'll have to rely on locks, sigils, and drawings. Sam uses the knife to etch a Devil's Trap into the floor at the front door, the design carved in his memory. Sweating, Sam ends up with a trap that spans from the door jamb to the coat closet. With the knife cleaned of splinters, Sam cuts shallowly into his forearm, squeezing out enough blood to throw up a few angelic sigils. It'll have to be enough.
Sam hasn't heard a single noise from outside all day, no cars on the dirt road that runs to the horizon in either direction. In the near-dark, Sam stands on his doorstep looking for any signs of civilization. Two black power lines stretch from one corner of the house to a tall pole along the road then disappear into the dark. The sky turns inky black while he stands, perfect for picking out stars and constellations, but those are the only lights Sam sees. To the East and West, there's nothing. Loneliness, what ought to be the least of Sam's problems, creeps back up from the road no one drives on, into the house nobody lives in.
Sam slams the door on his way back inside.
He doesn't dream, but when Sam wakes up he wastes a moment imagining that he's in Tennessee. He'll open his eyes, stretch and turn over to see Dean asleep in the second bed with the sheets bunched up beneath his armpits. Sam gives stretching a shot but his limbs are kinked and sore from falling asleep on the old couch. So much for the fantasy. His watch says it's 8:21 in the morning, but Sam doubts that whatever dumped him here-if here really is Nebraska-bothered to change the time from Eastern to Central.
The last granola bar appeases his rumbling stomach. The only plan Sam has is getting out of the house, picking a direction and seeing where the dirt road leads. Redressed and sparing a few minutes to clean himself up, Sam packs his smallest bag. Gun, knife, and his journal. Water poured into an old plastic thermos he rinsed out. No food, though the milk in the fridge and the bread in the cupboard are tempting.
There aren't as many clouds today, air crisper without such a heavy barrier between the earth and sky. Beyond the weathered fence that circles the yard, the view is the same in every direction. Brown fields bordered by small groups of trees. The only noticeable feature is a water tower to the southwest. Standing above the treeline, the tower appears to be old, metal rusted dark where the paint's been worn away. There is something painted on the side-words, possibly a name-but it's hard to make out. For no real reason, Sam heads in that direction.
He's bound to find something-or someone-even if it's the thing that stashed him here. Sam's shadow gets shorter, the sun rising behind him, and the tower grows larger until Sam can read the letters.
BELLS POND
He has no memory of such a place; no subconscious significance.
The electrical lines Sam's been following from the house lead him further towards the tower and, about two miles from where he started, Sam comes upon another house. Two stories of dark, weathered siding and dirty white trim. Another deserted house without a soul, just like Sam's. Power lines run to the house from spindly pine poles and all Sam thinks about is finding a phone. The ground floor windows are covered with curtains, none of the panes broken. With the sun where it is, Sam can't see inside. He circles the house, tramples the long grass overtaking the yard. Sam takes two quick steps up onto the porch, warped boards groaning under his feet. He's just bending to peer through the cloudy, stained glass panel in the front door when he hears the ratchet and click of a lock being turned.
Too shocked to react at first, he freezes. Limbs stuck in cement, lungs reluctant to take a breath. Sam's hand hovers over the doorknob as it starts to turn, and he jumps back so quickly he stumbles, hitting his back on the porch rail.
"Oh-oh sorry! Are you okay?"
The voice is soft, sweet, and disturbingly out of place. The front door is ajar, an indistinct face peeking out.
"I didn't mean to startle you, sorry." The apology is timid. Dark eyes watch Sam carefully, never moving beyond the relative safety of the doorframe. He sees nothing beyond, only shadow, and his hand settles over the gun tucked in the back of his jeans.
"I-" Sam stumbles through the unexpected excuse. "I didn't know anyone was in there," he says. He's alert for anything more out of the ordinary than suddenly making house calls to strangers in what he thought was a forsaken stretch of Nebraska prairie.
"I don't recognize you." The door creaks wider. The voice gains strength and Sam sees it's a young woman, her blunt fingernails digging into the heavy oak door. "Are you new?"
"New to what?"
"You're really new if you're asking me that." She takes a step away from the protection of her foyer, revealing faded jeans and bare feet. "Sorry, I've just never met someone first, you know?"
Sam senses her nervousness, but the only surprise is from his end of the conversation. "I'm not sure what you're talking about, I thought I was alone here."
"I thought so too, at first." The woman smiles, full cheeks and laugh lines, unmindful of the manner in which Sam is crowded against the railing in a defensive stance. "If you just got here..." There's a catch in her voice. "Sorry, I don't know what to ask first, this is so weird."
This woman's definition of weird clearly clashes with Sam's. He's come up with dozens of new questions in the last few minutes but he holds them back. She's small and non-threatening, even her voice doesn't get a reaction from Sam's gut. Sam is no stranger to wolves wearing sheepskin and a smile, and hers is a perfect disguise. She could easily be a part of what brought him here, but he craves information like a starving man does dinner.
"Things weren't exactly great when I left-well, when I was taken, I suppose." She's rambling over Sam's thoughts. "I guess things haven't gotten better if you're here."
"Where's here?" Sam interrupts, stepping forward.
"The middle of nowhere." She nods out towards the road, the long stretch of nothing Sam came from. "Actually, I'm pretty sure it's Nebraska."
"How do you know?"
"I found a state map in the desk. You know, an old one from, like, the seventies? I'd seen the name painted on that water tower-you've seen that right, if you walked here?" She doesn't pause for Sam's nod. "There was a dot labeled Bells Pond on the map, and it was circled so that sort of made sense."
She notices how little sense it seems to make to Sam, looking him over from head to toe. "Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should come in and sit down."
Bad idea, Sammy. I know she's cute, but that doesn't mean you can trust her, believe me.
Sam tells his Dean-voice to stow it, then follows her through the front door. He catches the scene of freshly baked bread, warm and inviting, and despite all the curtains he'd glimpsed, the rooms are bright thanks to a bizarre mix of lamps.
"Oh," she adds. "My name's Riley, by the way."
"Sam." It's odd to shake her hand, but Sam does it anyway. Riley has the kind of face Sam would immediately forget if it weren't the only one he's seen in days. Brown eyes, dark hair with a few highlights for the sun to catch. She's tall, nearly coming up to Sam's chin, with square shoulders and long legs. When the door closes behind them, Sam feels as if he's in a different world. There's nothing remarkable about the house other than the aromas making Sam's mouth water. Second-hand furniture, nothing in the way of personal photographs or knick knacks. It feels false and unnatural, lacking any sort of personal attention. An anonymity Sam's used to, as if the house belongs to no one.
Riley leads him to a sparsely furnished living room and sits on a black, curved-back chair, long scrapes on the floor under its legs. Sam eyes the mauve couch across from her, sitting when she stares expectantly.
"So?" He stares right back and she sighs, winding her fingers through dark curls like an eager student. "What was it like before you got here? I mean, out there, is the world any different?"
Sam jumps out of the horror movie and into a science-fiction brain buster. Neither are genres he enjoys. "I'm not sure what you're asking-"
"Unless I'm crazy, I've been here for over a year." The way she says it has Sam mentally dropping the 'unless.' "And I got the feeling that something bad was going to happen, but no one here knows anything."
Something bad did happen, Sam silently acknowledges. By his own hand, the world was turned upside down, and if Riley's just a regular person trapped in the same web as Sam, she doesn't need to know. "Look, I'm sorry but I don't know anything. I had a bad feeling, too." Not quite a lie, Sam knows well and good what sort of horrors were being inflicted on the world. "But I guess I don't remember. Maybe something happened to me."
Riley latches onto that. "Right, I know something happened to all of us, that's why we're here."
"What happened to you?" Sam rushes to ask and keep the questions away from himself; he's too practiced at playing the sympathetic listener. "How did you get here?"
Riley shrugs. "I don't know. I just, sort of, woke up." That's eerily familiar. Riley's voice dips back into timidity as she fidgets absentmindedly. "Everything before that is a little blurry, but I know I was scared of something, I remember that much. When I opened my eyes and saw this house, I thought I was dead. Pretty messed up if this is heaven, huh?"
Sam reins in his sympathy; Riley remains too much of an unknown. "I wouldn't know." She shrugs as if his response doesn't matter. "You must have tried to get out of here, right? If you've been here for so long, didn't you want to leave?"
"Oh." Riley looks away. "I walked a lot, but there's not much around. I was too scared to go too far in case this house wasn't here when I got back. But it's weird, now that you mention it. When I walked, I'd always come to a place where I just couldn't keep going."
"And you mentioned others," Sam continues to press. "Have any of them managed to leave, or told you what you're doing here? Are they stuck, too?"
"I guess so, Gus has never mentioned anyone leaving."
Sam's eyes snap up. "Who's Gus?"
"I don't know for sure, but I think he's been here longer than anyone else. That's the gist I got," she says. "I don't know if he knows what's going on, but he doesn't say much. I mean, he talks, but it's always super casual. He mostly comes around from time to time, and he told me that I could survive here, so I was grateful-"
"What do you mean, survive?"
"Like, food and stuff. I noticed there was food in the house, but I didn't eat it until Gus told me I could." She scratches at the worn denim covering her knees. "It's not like Persephone eating a pomegranate seed, Sam. And I never seem to run out of food..." Riley's voice drops off, the idea clearly not sitting comfortably with her. "I stopped trying to leave when I started waking up less scared every day. I figured, with what little I remember, I'm better off here than I was out there."
Sam sees how obvious it is. Riley's house may lack personal touches, but it's lived in. The smells, the arrangement of the furniture, and the careful resignation in her voice. It terrifies Sam. Suddenly wary, he stands up and feels the weight of the Smith & Wesson along his spine.
"Where can I find Gus?"
"I don't know where he lives." Riley doesn't move, looking up and up at Sam. "He could be anywhere, but he shows up every once in a while. He's a good guy."
"I bet he is." A mysterious man coming and going as he pleases? That has Sam's attention. "Listen, thanks for talking to me. I have some things I need to check out."
"Oh, okay." Her smile collapses. "Are you sure? I could make us something to eat."
"No-no thanks," Sam says, though his stomach urges him to stay for a sandwich or, hell, anything at this point. "I really need to get moving."
She trails Sam to the front door. "Come back anytime, Sam." Her voice is quieter, as if anything louder will make Sam disappear. "There's not-well, it gets lonely."
"I'll try," he answers. It's the only offer he can make. "I guess it was nice to meet you."
The distraction of her eyes stays with him as he steps off the porch and back onto the road. Sam can't look back. If he does, the house and Riley may be gone, conjured by his imagination so he'd have someone to talk to. Or, the thing keeping him here will swallow the house back up as if it were never there.
He retraces his steps along the gravel road, kicking up dust with the toes of his shoes and lingering at the turn-offs guarded by rickety gates. Sam lays it all in his memory, creating a map in his head in case this is an illusion. If he goes out tomorrow and finds a different labyrinth of dirt paths cut into the grass, it'll be one more clue.
Hours later, Sam looks up from the road at 'his' house, the type he's seen a hundred times over the years. Unobtrusive and banal, its mundane features blend in to the point where they disappear.
At least it's still there, Sammy.
As much as Dean would balk at the notion of a home base, Sam supposes his brother wouldn't be adverse to shelter if he were here. It could be worse, and Sam breathes a little easier when he's back inside, surrounded by the drab and dreariness that's starting to become familiar.
Besides his journal and weapons, one tool Sam hasn't lost is his mind. Swiping the layer of dust off the kitchen table, he pulls the journal from his bag and flips to the first blank page. On it goes everything he's learned or guessed, which admittedly isn't much, but research is Sam's gig.
BELLS POND?
Most likely Nebraska. Empty. Residents gone. Dead? No graves/bodies on road. Town cleared by supernatural event?
Sam will never forget Cold Oak. The shock of waking up in such a haunted place, eeriness sinking beneath his skin, stayed with him. Bells Pond is intrinsically different; Sam can't avoid the fact that something had to have driven people from their homes, but all day, Bells Pond felt dead-not even spirits lingered amongst the remains.
Demons? - Horsemen? - Would have to be powerful enough.
Angels? - Zachariah - out of the way to get to Dean?
WHAT'S THE MOTIVE?
Hundreds of creatures would line up to get their grubby paws on the Winchesters, angels and demons having the most obvious hard-ons for them. Sam pictures all of them lined up like an amusement park queue, twisting and turning as far as the eye can see.
Another name pops into the mix. Gabriel, that son of a bitch. A trick like this is right up that angelic bastard's alley: tossing Sam somewhere and watching him spin his wheels. Gabriel's got nothing if not an agenda, and if the idea is to get Dean on his own for some extra-strength coercion, well, then Sam's fucked. He adds Gabriel's name in a messy scrawl underneath MOTIVE, and revisits his time with Riley.
"Gus" - Could be anyone - Appears/disappears - Confirmed food was OK, some sort of control?
"Riley" - Appeared one year ago, unable to leave. How is she getting supplies? Where did she come from?
Others? How many?
What he has amounts to drops of rain in a desert-not nearly enough to satisfy. He needs Dean as a second set of eyes to point out things he's missed. History had proven that they were better hunters together than they were apart.
We made a pretty good team.
Sam sketches a quick map on the next page, penciling in the roads leading from here to Riley's house as well as the off-shoots in between. Traces them with his pointer finger to make sure he's recopied them exactly the way his feet walked them.
Sam's not gifted with any sudden epiphanies once everything's down on paper. Worse, his stomach start to protest the lack of nutrition, his belly tightening and groaning. A full fridge and cupboards make the hunger harder to bear; his gut doesn't care where the food comes from, just that it's there. Riley could have lied hoping Sam would take the bait and eat, but the time's come when Sam doesn't have a choice. He's not going to last much longer. The least he can do is take an inventory.
That turns out to be a horrible plan. The sight of a dozen white eggs lined up in the fridge starts his stomach rumbling all over again. Below is a bottle of orange juice-pulpy, the way Sam likes it. It's torture. Potatoes and onions are stuffed in crates under the sink. A loaf of whole-grain bread with a perfectly wrapped twist-tie sitting next to jars of chunky peanut butter and strawberry jelly. The package of cookies in the cupboard finally breaks Sam-chocolate chip and pecan in plastic wrapping. His hands reach out involuntarily.
Not a good idea, Sammy.
Craving takes the wheel and Sam can't help himself. The first cookie crumbles in his mouth, inhaled and swallowed in less than a breath. The second and third disappear just as quickly. After he's eaten half the package, mortification kicks in. He stops but nothing feels off, and Sam's belly is sending the impulse for more, more, more! Too hungry to stop, he finishes off the package, falling into a food daze and praying nothing's been tampered with.
"Totally worth it," Sam mumbles to the empty package. The voice in his head is silent, appeased by the calories.
As the day winds to dusk, the house turns cold. Making sure his protections and precautions remain in place, Sam grabs a blanket from the bedroom and settles on the couch with his journal in hand. That's where he falls asleep, cruel dreams waiting in his subconscious to taunt him with everything he's unable to get back to.
"Dammit."
The Ford's engine is mocking Sam. Fans, belts, and blades all jumbled together in a frustrating, greasy puzzle. Doesn't look like anyone's been under the hood in years. At least he didn't have to try hotwiring the truck; the keys were hiding in one of the kitchen drawers with other random pieces of junk. But keys don't do Sam any good when the engine's totally shot. Probably out of gas, too.
Sam leans forward on his elbows, body soaking up the feel of the cool metal. He tries to recall all those car lessons Dean taught him-some vivid, others obscured by old grief and apprehension-back when Dean thought he was going to die...
He shakes off the thought. Dean's not here and Sam needs to fix this engine or he'll be stuck walking.
"A tip on where to start would be nice," Sam grumbles, but the Dean-in-his-head either can't hear or is too busy laughing.
He gives up when his knuckles and wrists are sore, watch reading a quarter past two. The metal storage locker under the garage's canopy contains little: a few bottles of motor oil with half the labels peeling off; miscellaneous tools Sam can't identify; old wires and a spare car battery. That, at least, may come in handy.
No use wasting a clear afternoon. It would have been nice to have the truck running, but Sam packs his bag anyway, grabs crackers from the pantry-they don't look lethal-and sets off on the road away from the water tower. There's even less in this direction than there was on the way to Riley's house. The power lines he's been following come to an abrupt halt almost half a mile from Sam's place. The wires run to one last pole and then there's nothing.
Sam keeps walking.
A few miles on, he can't go any further.
It's not that he's tired; he could walk all day and night if he needed to. No, he literally can't go any further. As if his shoes are stuck in quick-drying cement, Sam's unable to move. His brain sends the message but his legs are completely disconnected. Dropping his bag on the dirt and rolling his shoulders, Sam looks from side to side. This stretch of road is no different from the miles before. No buildings tucked up into the horizon, there's just the same expanse of dead winter grass and low, leafless trees. Nothing to explain Sam's will draining away.
The longer he stands, the stranger he feels. There's nothing past this invisible barrier. Whatever's preventing Sam from going forward feels, well, it's not physical. He takes a step backwards. Then one to the left. One to the right. Sam even backs up and comes at the barrier running. Five steps away, a switch flips in his mind and he nearly stumbles in an effort to stop. He looks up at the clouds crowding towards the sun, nerves going taut up and down his spine. Someone-something-is watching.
"What the hell are you?" Sam's shout is hoarse and it doesn't echo back, nothing for the sound to reverberate off of. "Come on!"
The breeze dies down, clouds drifting with momentum to obscure the sun.
"What do you want?"
Like an ice cube sliding down Sam's spine, the unnatural quiet endures and stretches beyond what he can see. Sam pictures a snowglobe, the kind Dean used to steal from five-and-dimes when they were kids. A world encased in glass, Sam imagines himself standing at the edge, pounding against the transparent walls. An idyllic little world, empty but for a few souls trapped under the glass.
No, Sam. If there's a way in, there's a way out, remember?
He bets Dean would laugh his ass of at the idea of being imprisoned in a giant snowglobe. Sam turns off to the right and tramples a path through the grass until the road's a few hundred feet behind him. Even there he perceives the block, a foreign whisper in his mind that tells him not to step any further. Riley's confusing statements are beginning to make sense.
Back on the road, Sam starts yelling.
"Hey! You want me here? Fine!" He aims his shouts at the thickening sheet of stratus clouds. "But come out and show yourself!"
The gray skies overheard swirl and darken, mocking Sam. Telling him there's something big at work and he's no closer to getting out than he was when he first woke up.
Then, adding insult, it starts to rain.
"Dean. Get the door, man."
Sam mumbles and burrows further under the blankets. The pounding bled into his dreams, pushing him back to consciousness. Dean's got to be awake already-why the fuck hasn't he answered the door?
"Dude, seriously-" And he stops. Eyes open, Sam sighs.
Dean isn't here and Sam is sore, sinuses stuffed up from his walk back yesterday in the cold rain which had eased to a drizzle only when Sam had reached his front steps. The chilly water had seeped under his jacket, trickled along his skin until every inch of Sam's body erupted in shivers.
Someone's still knocking.
Sam flips off his blankets and crouches low, shuffling across the living room into the front hallway. The repetitive noise, more like pounding than knocking, stops for a few seconds. Definitely coming from outside, lower than the front door, as if someone is-
He raises up and peeks through the smudged pane of glass. Like everything else in this town, what Sam sees isn't what he expects.
The man kneeling at the bottom of his porch steps wears a faded flannel shirt under a denim jacket, dust and dirt clinging to his elbows and knees. His dark skin is weathered under his cap, he blends into Bells Pond like the rest of the seasoned structures, and his hands are rough as tree bark. The strangest thing of all is that he's definitely not knocking.
Sam leans further up. On the ground there's a rusted box of tools, metal ends sticking out haphazardly. The man is holding a hammer, gripped tight, swinging it down to meet evenly spaced nails along a fresh piece of timber. That bottom step has sagged and tripped Sam up every time he's walked in and out of the house, not yet conditioned to avoid it altogether. Now, the step is straight and even, no longer a rotting piece of wood.
He spies until the stranger kneels up straight, slipping his cap off and wiping sweat from his forehead. Then, the man looks straight at Sam's front door.
"Come on out, boy." His voice sounds worn-down with sand paper. "I ain't nobody to worry about."
Trusting anyone is absurd, but Sam stands and opens his door, moving no further than the threshold. The situation is a bizarre reversal of his meeting with Riley, but his gun and knife are out of reach on the table beside the couch.
The stranger grins, teeth bright against his dark lips. "You must be Sam. Riley told me we got another one."
"Another one?" Sam questions.
"Ain't too many people showing up here. Word spreads pretty fast when someone does. You done shocked Riley when you found her first, I guess I just moved too slow."
Gossip. Sam's in the middle of nowhere and there's still gossip. He wants to laugh but keeps a wary stance with one hand on the doorknob.
"How'd you know I was in this house?"
"Not many places 'round here are fit for someone to live in, and Riley figured you'd walked pretty far to her place." The stranger finally stands, a lean frame honed by years of hard labor. A dirty canvas toolbelt is latched around his waist, more tools shoved through frayed loops. "The name's Gus. Gus Peterson, 'case you were wondering." Sam stays where he is on the porch. Gus doesn't move, either. "I know it probably ain't easy for you to be here, Sam. I can tell you that the first few months? They're gonna be the hardest."
"Months?" Sam stammers. He'd balked when Riley said she'd been here a year, but she didn't know the things Sam did. Gus sounds dead certain, and Sam's eyes narrow. "What are you talking about?"
Gus shakes his head, indulgent grin as if Sam's a five-year old asking too many questions. "Come on down here, test this step for me." He ignores Sam's question completely and steps away. "These houses 'been left alone too long. Yours doesn't look too bad."
"So, what? It's your job to fix them?" Sam puts his weight on the step. It creaks but holds, and Gus nods.
"Wouldn't say it's a job, but I like keeping busy. Gotta give my hands something to do, keep 'em from growing old on me."
"Have you always been here?" Sam asks, backtracking up a few steps when Gus bends down to check his work. "When I talked to Riley, she mentioned that you just show up, and I started to wonder-"
"No-no, I guess I woke up here. Must of been about two years back, or so." He stares down at the step, hands fiddling with his pockets. "I come around every now n'then, check up on Riley. There are a few others, don't know if you've met 'em yet."
"Just Riley," Sam says. "How many others are there?" He asks because he hadn't been with Riley long enough for her to elaborate.
"You sure got a lot of questions, Sam," Gus responds with amusement. "At most, I figure there's seven of us, and that's including you. And because I know you're gonna ask, I'm pretty sure I was the first one."
"Haven't you tried to leave?"
"Ain't much reason to." Gus's voice lacks bitterness, acceptance softening the edges. "I got a decent place here and I'm all settled in. Didn't see much point in puttin' up a fuss."
Sam leans his weight on the porch rail, doesn't miss Gus scanning the wood posts for cracks. "Aren't you upset? I mean, when I talked to Riley, she told me she was scared when she got here. What about you? What happened before you came here?"
"That doesn't matter," Gus says.
"Yeah, but-"
"Maybe this place is better than the one I left." Gus waves off further questions when Sam opens his mouth. "Now, how about you let me take a look around-just outside if you want. I can see if there's anything big needs fixin'."
Gus picks up his toolbox, gnarled hands surprisingly dexterous and capable, and leaves Sam on the porch before he can say anything else. If he were thinking normally, he'd know he'd just been blown off.
Sam ducks inside when Gus disappears around the corner of the house. From there he watches with a hawk's eye, walking from window to window to follow Gus's progress. His curiosity is far from satisfied. Gus should be able to tell Sam much more than his notes and theories have amounted to, but the man never looks up as he lays his palms to Sam's house, bending low to study the foundation and utility pipes.
Lunch ends up being cereal and milk-well sniffed before pouring-so Sam can focus on his newest puzzle. Gus strikes Sam as content, brushing aside Sam's inquisition and lacking the fear and confusion he could sense at the heart of Riley's explanations. As if he saw nothing strange about a town whose inhabitants didn't move in-they appeared.
Later in the afternoon, after Sam's argued with Dean in his head-So, you're just gonna piss off or ignore anyone who might be helpful?-he pulls on his jacket and walks outside, trails after Gus as he points out necessary little fixes, the result of time and neglect. Gus offers to fix every single thing.
"I'm not sayin' it's gonna get done right away, mind you," Gus clarifies. "Got other things I need to be doing 'round by the others. Weather's getting milder, thank the Lord, and you won't have to worry about your heat once this weather warms up. Spring's not too bad around-"
"You think I'm gonna be here that long?" Sam scoffs.
"Maybe, maybe not." It's clear in his tone what Gus thinks. "No harm being prepared for it, anyway." He tilts his head towards the low sun, grey light shining beneath his cap and Sam sees the matching sets of fine wrinkles around his eyes. "I think I'd best be off for the day, but it was good to meet you, Sam."
Sam shifts to block his path. "You're leaving?"
"Gonna have plenty of time for talking." Gus says it with a smile but Sam still scowls. "And I got a long walk back to the other side of Main Street."
Sam catches on those last words. "Main Street? You mean there's an actual town?" He remembers the crossroads during his wandering, his mind hadn't been ready to accept that Bells Pond was more than a long stretch of nothing. "The only house I saw was Riley's, besides the water tower."
"Yeah, it's 'bout half a mile to the south of the tower. Ain't much to see, of course. There's no one there, but we all pass through from time to time-something different to look at, I suppose." He sees Sam's mind working. "Bit too late to walk there and back tonight though, Sam."
The old man's right. He's not ready to chance being away from the house once the sun goes down. Gus leaves without ceremony, waving as he sets off down the road with his cap pulled low, tool box in hand.
Sam stands at the front door until Gus fades into the horizon. The resulting quiet is oppressive; Sam shakes it off and shuts the door.
Day Five-they've become capitalized in Sam's mind-is warmer, Spring wandering back to Nebraska after a long hiatus. Jacket and bag slung over his shoulder, Sam walks to the crossroads, an involuntarily shiver running down his spine. Nothing about the intersection is ominous; it's just the meeting of two dirt roads coming from nowhere and heading off the same way.
Riley's house is straight ahead. Sam's tempted to go that way but the water tower looms to the south and he forces his feet to make the turn.
Gus was right. There isn't much to Bells Pond.
The first thing Sam comes to is a diner. It looks like a dozen different joints he's eaten at, only this one's clearly been deserted for some time. Just like everything else, it's in disrepair. The sign propped above the narrow building on weathered stilts used to be fire engine red. Now faded to a dusty clay color, the white letters of BELLS POND DINER are caked with blown up dirt. The metal and glass front door is lying on the ground, grass growing through the handle, and raggedy juniper bushes have shot up towards the windows, scraggly branches mounting a slow assault on the beaten building.
A gas station stands sentinel at the next intersection where another dry cross-road spokes into nothing. With two broken pumps and a squat office without a single window intact, the ruined station stands guard before what Sam guesses used to be the main part of town. He expected something out of a horror movie but, at face value, Bells Pond looks like any other half-forgotten Midwest town with small aspirations and an even smaller population. The kind of place that's got what you need and not an ounce more, springing up at a central point between major farms. All that's missing are the people milling along Main Street, meeting other residents for a few minutes before going back to the isolation of their farmland homesteads.
A few buildings loom over the dusty street waiting in dilapidation for their occupants to return. The pavement is cracked under Sam's feet, weeds pushing through forcing the asphalt plates to break and shift. Dried leaves, no more than delicate, veined skeletons, have been blown against dirty curbs. Streetlights bend like mourners lined up on the sidewalk, black paint chipping off the metal to lie in flakes on the concrete.
Sam ends up in an unnamed hardware store with half-empty shelves and an old-fashioned cash register. Rusty tools litter the floor as if the entire display was hastily dropped, long handles stretching out to trip him. A wire rack is upended on the counter, spilling newspapers on the untended surface. The thin, yellowed pages are curling at the corners, papers brittle in Sam's hands. But the ink has withstood the rigors of climate and time, boldly proclaiming: MYSTERIOUS PLAGUE TAKES McNOLTE FARM.
And the date, 28 August 1988.
Sam's brain stutters, full-stop for a moment while his nerves process the shock. Confirming his suspicions, life in Bells Pond had obviously stopped a long time ago and left nothing but hollowed-out shells. The plague warned of in the headline could indicate so many things; Sam's mind is already thumbing through a mental Rolodex of supernatural creatures. His presence here, along with Riley and Gus, is the clue that tells Sam he's in the middle of something he's never experienced before. However, whatever wreaked havoc in 1988 might be swinging back now for another round, with Sam and the others dropped in for the show. Or worse, dropped in as bait.
He stuffs the newspaper in his bag and leaves after double checking the shelves and grabbing anything useful: matches in case the gift of electricity is suddenly rescinded, a hammer intended as more of a weapon, and the only container of rock salt in the store. Back on the sidewalk, he scans the street and wonders which of the abandoned buildings might have held the town offices-
-a prickle along Sam's skin; a faint buzz in his ears. Sam knows beyond a doubt that he's not alone. The street is deceptively silent, as eerie as if Sam's going to see tumbleweeds rolling by at any moment.
A shadow appears at the end of the block, long in the fading sunlight. It stretches out on the broken pavement and reaches the feet of a figure standing in the distance. With the sun behind the figure, Sam can't make out any features and his eyes are starting to sting. Sam backs up against the wall of the hardware store, sweatshirt scratching and catching on the rough brick, eyes peeled for sudden movement. The figure remains still as a statue. Wary, Sam draws his gun and checks his periphery but sees nothing.
I've got your back.
When they've adjusted to the light, Sam's eyes discern the vague shape of a man with a coat hanging off of his slim build. It's clear Sam has a few inches on whoever this is but he makes no move to approach the man. He'd stumbled on Riley, been sought out by Gus, but he remains caught in a bizarre standoff with this new stranger.
The breeze picks up. A clatter behind Sam has him spinning around only to see a shutter slam shut in the wind. When he looks back a second later, the figure is gone.
the beginning, part two
master post