SPN fic - Stars Like Spilled Salt - 1/1
Title: Stars Like Spilled Salt
Characters/Pairing: Sam and Dean, gen
Rating: R for language
Word Count: ~9680
Disclaimer: All the witty disclaimers are already taken. Sam and Dean, alas, do not belong to me.
Summary: Barely healed from their encounter with Meg's daevas, Sam and Dean take the case of a phantom funeral in southwestern Illinois. Set between "Shadow" and "Hell House."
A/N: Written for the spn_nostalgia ficathon. The prompt was for "Shadow" - "Post-ep: The aftermath of the conversation where Sam says he's going to leave again." I interpreted "post-ep" at its loosest and wrote a whole casefic that takes place after the episode.
The legend of the phantom funeral does exist, as do the books mentioned in the boys' research, however, I've made a few changes to the tale to suit this story's needs.
I've never been to Prairie du Rocher. Descriptions of the town and environs are based on internet research, including travel and tourism websites, first-hand accounts, and Flickr photos. I also relied heavily on the book History as They Lived It: A Social History of Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois, by Margaret Kimball Brown (2005, Patrice Press). Though based on real places, these locations have been quite fictionalized. Any factual errors are all my own.
Title from a line in Joseph Hansen's novel Fadeout.
As always, thanks to my beta/partner-in-crime/enabler, laurie_bug.
--
July 4, 2006
Fireworks cracked overhead, echoed off the limestone bluffs: incandescent blooms, brief flares of ruby and emerald, corkscrews of light, against a dark sky shimmering with stars.
Flat on his back in the Illinois dirt, Dean watched the glittering sparks rain down. Each new shell made him flinch. He dragged in deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Tried not to move. Tried to press harder on his belly, though he suspected it wasn't doing much good: hot blood still seeped sticky through his fingers.
His eyes slipped shut, the world reduced to heat and noise. The muggy night pressed down on his skin. Each breath filled his nose with burnt powder and sweat and dust, the coppery tang of blood.
Somewhere to the south, to his right, he thought he heard someone shout his name. He opened his eyes. The sky blurred, a smear of colors, then sharpened into dark and sparks and stars.
--
July 1, 2006
Every time Dean did the laundry, he could pretty much count on wanting to throttle his brother.
Behind him, clothes tumbled in hypnotic circles of dark and white, radiating heat and the powdery scent of fabric softener. An orange tabby-striped cat perched atop a washer watched with cool disdain as Dean pawed through the pockets of Sam's jackets and shirts and jeans. Each yielded some forgotten artifact: USB modems and flash drives, protective charms, polished gemstones. Spare change, newspaper clippings, pencil stubs. Scraps of paper bearing cryptic notes, phrases in Latin, characters in Greek, bits of prayers and incantations, arcane symbols scratched in graphite.
Sam always swore he knew exactly where everything was, and it may have been true. Like the obscure connections he made while researching, maybe there were perfectly logical reasons that certain notes went into certain pockets. Maybe a ritual and the gemstone it required went together, a certain obituary clipping with the information on the creature that had caused the death. All Dean knew was that the one time he'd accidentally washed some mysterious yellow pages from a legal pad, Sam hadn't spoken to him for almost a week.
Dean gathered today's haul into a pile, liberating the quarters, and started feeding the machines. Dark T-shirts, jeans, underwear. He shook out Sam's balled-up tube socks with growing irritation. Would it kill the kid to unroll the damn things? For all his OCD neatness, he was more than willing to "forget" certain tasks. How had Jessica ever put up with this shit?
And didn't that say something about Dean's position in this family. Do the laundry, scrounge something for dinner, take care of your brother. Dean Winchester, domestic bitch.
He slammed the washer lid, earning a disapproving blink from the cat.
He was working his way through a couple of local newspapers, the washers entering their final spin, when the door sounded a buzzy electronic bell and Sam came in, bearing laptop bag and two coffees. "How's it coming?" Sam asked.
"Well, now that I got the skid marks out of your skivvies, we're moving right along."
Sam just rolled his eyes, set about arranging coffee and laptop, booting up, only stopping to examine the small pile of found objects. He held up a flash drive, frowning at it. He pocketed it, nodded toward the newspapers. "Find anything?"
Dean shrugged, pried the lid off his coffee and took a long whiff of the rich brew. "Some small animals disappearing near Indianapolis. Probably just a coyote. Aside from that, zilch."
"Think I got something here." Sam clicked a few times, turned the laptop so Dean could see the screen. "Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. On July Fourth, as the legend goes, a phantom funeral can be seen making its way from a nearby fort to the old cemetery in town. According to locals, it's some kind of death omen. Anyone who sees it will die, or someone in their family will die, within a week."
Dean sipped at his coffee, raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a classic old wives' tale."
"You don't know how right you are. The first reported sighting of the funeral was in 1889, by two women who happened to be sitting out on the porch late at night. One woman's father was awakened by the family dog barking. Looked out the window, saw the procession. Three days later he was killed by a runaway wagon."
"Ouch."
"Yeah. Things stayed pretty quiet for a few years. Then there were deaths in 1893, ninety-seven, oh-eight…seventeen total over a hundred and fifteen years."
Dean scrolled down the web page, skimming secondhand accounts of secondhand accounts. There was very little real information. One version of the story said that the funeral procession only appeared when the Fourth of July fell on a Friday; another specified Fridays with a full moon. Neither coincided with the Fourth this year. He looked up at Sam. "So why isn't this thing seen every year?
"Dunno." Sam shrugged. "It's not the full moon or the Friday thing. A couple of the deaths fit the pattern, but most don't. The funeral's become something of a tourist attraction over the years - you know, amateur ghost hunters tailgaiting or whatever it is they do. Most of them never see it. I figure there's gotta be something in the history of the place that explains it."
The wash cycle was winding down, the cat fastidiously cleaning paws and face. Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair. This wasn't much to go on - could be nothing more than coincidence and local legend. Then again, anything would be better than another day of sitting around, laying low. Since getting their asses handed to them by Meg's daevas, they'd only taken a couple of dink-and-dunk hunts, simple salt-and-burns, trying to heal and regroup. Trying not to think how hard it had sucked to let Dad go. The most excitement they'd had was when Dean ate two pints of farm-stand blackberries at one sitting and ended up in the bathroom for most of the next day. Maybe it was time to get moving again, even if it did turn out to be a wild goose chase.
"All right," he said. "Let's get your delicates on low heat. We'll hit the road in the morning."
--
"Afternoon, officer." Dean flashed his sunniest smile.
Sam did his best to plaster on a harmless expression, utterly certain that in some grand dictionary, his brother's likeness appeared next to the definition of "chutzpah."
See also: "dumbass."
The small-town cop - Chief Mercier, Sam read the nametag with a growing sense of icewater down his spine - tucked his thumbs into his gunbelt, returned the smile. "Howdy, boys, what can I do for you?"
Noontime sun beat down on the small town's main street. Dean squinted into it, grinning. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam. We were just wondering if you could point us in the direction of the old St. Joseph's cemetery."
One bushy gray eyebrow rose above the rim of the Chief's aviator sunglasses. "I suppose you're wanting to see that phantom funeral."
Dean rocked back on his heels. His smile wavered but stayed in place. "How'd you guess?"
"Son, you may not have noticed, but we're a little bit off the beaten path. Only a couple of times a year we get any tourists - in June, when they have the annual Rendezvous up at the fort, and every Fourth of July."
Sam's curiosity won out over his paranoia. "You know the story, then."
Mirrored shades turned Sam's way, showing him his own reflection. "Everybody 'round here knows that story. Like any other local legend - your crybaby bridge or ghostly hitchhiker - folks hear it from their friends or older brothers, like to drink a few cold ones and scare themselves silly. Every town's got one. Suppose we're no different."
"You don't mind people coming to look, then?"
"Long as it keeps gullible people - no offense, boys - buyin' from our stores and eatin' in our restaurants, I don't mind at all." Mercier grinned, baring a mouthful of coffee-stained teeth, proceeded to direct them to the old cemetery, as well as the town's main diner (Marie's Bar and Grill, owned by the mayor's daughter), and the nearest motel (in the town of Red Bud, about twelve miles away). "Long as you're respectful" - he fixed each Winchester with his mirrored gaze - "we'll get along just fine."
Dean nodded. "Yes, sir." Sam was a little surprised he didn't salute.
They walked down Market Street to the diner, the opposite direction from the Chief. Sam ducked his head, hissed at Dean. "Dude. What the fuck? We're forty miles from St. Louis and you go chatting up the local police chief?"
"What, you'd rather I act all shifty and suspicious?" Dean cut his eyes toward Sam. "Come on, man, this is a town of six hundred people. We're gonna get noticed one way or another."
He was right - Prairie du Rocher wasn't much to look at. One main street, a few cross streets. A couple of restaurants, one corner market. The only place to buy gas was the local Farm Service. They came to Marie's, an old red brick building with weathered blue awnings and a hand-painted, slightly uneven Budweiser sign on one side.
"Besides," Dean said, reaching for the restaurant's front door, "this one was your idea."
The riot of smells wafting from Marie's kitchen derailed Sam's anger, reminded him how hungry he was. He breathed deeply of oniony air, mellowed by the scents of fresh bread and baking pie crust. Meat sizzled on an unseen grill.
The place was a classic lunch counter, booths and tables and one long formica bar, everything trimmed in pitted chrome. Hank Williams played scratchy over the sound system, "I Don't Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)." The lunchtime rush was just thinning out. Dean grabbed a booth near the back, sat facing the door. Didn't look up from his menu when Sam sat across from him.
Things had been like this for a while now, off and on since Chicago: stilted and awkward, when they weren't actively sniping at teach other. The necessary seclusion hadn't helped, either. There really was no good explanation for claw marks across one's face. Animal training gone awry? Assailant with a Freddy Kruger fetish? They'd spent three weeks hiding out in low-rent motel rooms, only going out after dark or with the lame disguise of sunglasses and baseball caps.
The scars showed plainer on Dean's face, Dean's skin paler, more likely to freckle and burn than tan. The afternoon sun caught the lines just right, shiny and pink and slightly raised. They'd fade soon enough, assuming Dean lived that long. The way things had been going lately, nothing was guaranteed.
Sam fumbled for a menu, fixed his eyes on the text.
They tabled talk of business till after they'd ordered and Dean had sucked down half his Coke. "So what did you find?" He balled up his straw wrapper, flicked it at Sam.
"Prairie du Rocher." Sam batted the wrapper back. "Means 'Prairie of the Rock,' named for the limestone bluffs nearby. Founded in 1722 by French colonists."
"Anything funky in the history?"
Sam gave a short laugh. "Yeah, actually - a ridiculous amount of both history and lore. We've got skirmishes with local tribes, massacres, a couple of duels and murders. There are a lot of caves in the bluffs, used by the Modocs as shelter and defensive positions. There's even a classic 'Indian curse' in Kaskaskia, a few miles south of here. As the legend goes, a young brave fell in love with the daughter of a prominent colonist. Daddy dearest had the guy killed, but before he died, he placed a curse on the town. A flood in 1881 changed the course of the Mississippi, destroying part of Kaskaskia and leaving the rest of the town an island."
"Damn. Busy place."
"And that was just what I could dig up online last night."
They clammed up when the waitress came back bearing Sam's tuna salad on rye and Dean's turkey club - trust Dean to work in some bacon even when he didn't order the angioplasty special.
After a few bites, Sam continued. "As for the phantom funeral itself, I haven't found much. Seems the story was included in some Haunted Heartland book in the '80s, and that version of the story has spread all over the internet. I'm gonna try to track down that book's sources, see if we can find the origins."
Dean nodded. "We might have just as much luck talking to the locals," he said, still chewing. "Town this size, somebody's gotta know something, even if it's just, 'Go talk to Joe Bob's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."
They passed the rest of lunch in silence, people-watching. Sam hoped these friendly locals didn't pay close attention to big city news, or at least still believed no killer as dangerous as Dean Winchester would ever bother with their little town.
--
Dean could feel the sunburn starting already: forehead, nose and cheeks, the back of his neck.
The sun beat down hot and brutal, baking the grounds of Fort de Chartres. Dean saw a few families, young kids chasing each other around. A few old-guy military buffs. The place wasn't exactly hopping.
He let Sam lead the way to the fort proper: stone walls with bastions at the corners, a large gate in the center. This structure wasn't the original - the first fort built on the site had been destroyed by floods, rebuilt several times, and had finally fallen into disrepair. By the time the state decided to preserve the location, only the original powder magazine remained. The current fort had been reconstructed by the WPA, with a few other buildings added in later projects.
Sam, goddamn him, actually wanted to read each interpretive sign, study each bullet-point. Made decent cover for Dean, who followed with his Walkman-cum-EMF meter, earbuds firmly in place. Just humoring his geek brother - though he supposed most people would assume geek boyfriend - trying to keep up with the game.
What game? Who the fuck knew - or cared? Surely some baseball team was playing somewhere. He just hoped no one asked him for a score.
They prowled the grounds, examining rebuilt barracks and bastions, a chapel, a garden shed. The restored powder magazine was filled with racks of barrels, each stamped with a fleur-de-lis. The stone building was stifling, claustrophobic: a tight, dark oven. Too damn hot for this. Sweat beaded on Dean's forehead, trickled slick down his neck.
Sam ran his hand over the casks, peering into the shadows behind. "They think this is the oldest building in Illinois," he said. "Getting anything?"
"Nope." Dean poked the meter into darkened corners. "Wait a minute." The row of lights flicked to life. He ripped the earbuds out before the squeal could ramp up. The heat wicked away from the air, quickly replaced by a chill. Dean turned to Sam, watched their breath cloud. His skin broke out in goosebumps.
A white mist coalesced in the gloom. Dean backed up a step toward Sam. The spirit was weak, amorphous. It followed, slowly advanced, then rushed. It hit Dean with a shock of cold, ice in his veins, an anxious twist in his gut. Just as quickly, it was gone.
"Fuck," Dean said. Shivered, gasped. No matter how often it happened, he'd never get used to that feeling of wrongness, invasion.
"You all right?" Sam asked.
"Yeah." Dean shuddered, tried to shake it off. Rubbed his arms as the heat rushed back in. "I fuckin' hate when they do that."
--
Their room at the Red Bud Country Inn held all the comforts of home: colorful patchwork quilts, sturdy oak furniture. Microwave, mini-fridge, coffeemaker. Clean towels, fresh toiletries. And centered on the dresser, a handsome, dark wood cross.
Not so unusual in and of itself, in small-town America. What puzzled Sam was that he'd met the owners when checking in - the unfailingly polite Patel family, late of India.
Maybe they were just shrewd business owners - knew their clientele.
Sam kicked his shoes off, turned the A/C on high. Stretched out on his bed. His eyes ached; his skin felt gritty, sticky. That afternoon's close encounter with the mysterious mist hadn't exactly given up any enticing clues, other than suggesting the spirit was indeed connected with the fort. Sam had loaded up on materials from the small gift shop, then had Dean drop him at the nearest library. He hadn't gained much besides a daunting stack of texts and biting headache.
Dean had hit the county records, researching the phantom funeral's previous victims. His last call to Sam's cell had promised a slew of death certificates and takeout that was advertised as the county's best BBQ.
It was the kind of conversation Sam hated - light, superficial. Glossy. He could never quite tell if Dean's obnoxious enthusiasm was sincere or just one big cover-up. Worse, while he'd once been certain that Dean was simply dismissive of his opinions, he was starting to think it was Dean's own insecurity talking. He didn't want to hear anything that would upset the fragile mirage: saving people, hunting things. The family business.
Sam was mad as hell, just thinking about it - the delusion that the Winchester men hunting together was some kind of ideal world. Didn't Dean remember what it had really been like - constant fear and worry, waiting for Dad to come home bloodied or beaten, if at all? Being uprooted as soon as a town became comfortable? And then, when they were old enough to join in the hunt, bleeding in each other's arms, stitching each other up. Stalking hospital halls, keeping bedside vigils.
Sam understood now, it was his fight, too. Something had marked their family - marked him - and wouldn't stop hounding them, even if they tried to leave the game. But once the demon was defeated - why would any sane man choose to live this life?
A low rumble alerted him to the Impala's approach. He cleared his stack of books from the table just in time for Dean to blunder in balancing a stack of papers and styrofoam boxes, a two-liter bottle of Coke tucked under one arm. The room key was clenched in his teeth. "Dunno who pulled the pork," he gritted, then spat the key onto the table, "but it damn sure smells good."
Sam had to admit, the pulled pork sandwiches were borderline orgasmic, though he really didn't need Dean's accompanying moans. While Dean was busy slurping down Cajun-seasoned curly fries, Sam ran down the day's findings. "Didn't have a whole lot of luck verifying any of the original story. The legend names a Mrs. Chris as one of the two women who saw the procession. Apparently, she and a neighbor were keeping vigil over her dead baby. I checked the 1880 census and did find a Chrissie family in the area, so at least that didn't disprove the story."
"Woulda been nice to have the 1890 census," Dean said around a mouthful of fries. "What is it with public records and fires, anyway?"
Sam was thrown for a second, surprised that Dean knew or remembered the 1890 federal census had been destroyed by fire. "Yeah, that is a bitch," he finally agreed. "We could probably search for the baby's death record here in town, but I don't think it'd be worth the trouble, since Mrs. Chris doesn't seem to have any real connection to the funeral, besides being a witness.
"I did find the first published account of the legend." Sam shuffled through the pile of books at his feet till he came up with Legends and Lore of Southern Illinois. "This book was compiled by an anthropologist, published in 1963. Mrs. Chris' friend, the other woman who was on the porch with her that night, gave the story as part of an oral history project. Unfortunately, she was only identified as 'a very old lady.'
"The woman said she counted forty wagons and thirteen pairs of horsemen. None of them made a sound."
Dean cocked an eyebrow, drained the last of his Coke. Waited for Sam to go on.
"A few weeks after they saw the funeral, the woman said she heard a story from a friend that might explain the event. Supposedly, an 'important man' at Fort de Chartres was killed in an ambush. The government in Kaskaskia said" - Sam flipped a few pages - " 'he must be buried at midnight in an obscure cemetery and without any lights.' That must be where the full moon part of the legend comes in - the woman said there was a bright moon the night they saw the procession. She goes on to say that it can only be seen on a Friday night with a bright moon, between eleven and midnight, and only three people can see it."
This time, both Dean's eyebrows shot up. "But we know better, since most of the deaths don't fit that pattern."
"Right. What'd you get?"
Dean wiped his hands on his jeans, found the sheaf of papers he'd had balanced atop the takeout. "Seventeen death certificates. If anyone asks, I told the clerk we were working on our family history." A flash of wolfish grin. "Finding a pattern is gonna be a bitch. Everybody in Prairie du Rocher is related in some way, and the population is ninety-nine percent white. We've even got different causes of death." He leafed through the pages. "There's our runaway wagon, a few heart attacks and strokes, one bludgeoning, and several rather bloody knife attacks."
Sam made a little surprised sound.
"Of course, the death certificates don't go into much detail, but the clerk was happy to share a bit of gossip."
Sam snorted. "I bet she was."
"Her name was Edith, Sam," Dean said, rolling his eyes, "and while I enjoy the company of a seasoned woman, she was old enough to be Methuselah's grandmother. Anyway, after I complimented her on her wonderful zucchini bread recipe - "
"Dude, you got zucchini bread, and all I got was a headache?"
" - Edith told me all about those knife attacks. Seems in each of the cases, no assailant was ever caught, and no weapons were ever found."
"Whoa." Sam leaned his chair back on two legs. "That's more than just a death omen."
"Definitely sounds more like vengeful spirit territory." Dean kicked back to mirror Sam's pose. "But that's not all I found."
Dean smiled so wide, Sam couldn't help but grin back. "What?"
"We've got a surviving witness."
--
The only sounds in the little shotgun house were the creak of the old rocking chair and the ticking of the grandfather clock. The scents of cinnamon and nutmeg, baking bread, came from the kitchen.
Rose Barbeau was an old woman now, but from the framed photos on the mantel, she'd been a beauty once, a smiling, fair-haired bride who'd grown into a happy mother and finally, a dignified widow.
She'd been a fresh-faced and flirty sixteen-year-old in 1936, when she and several friends from school spent a Fourth of July drinking purloined schnapps and waiting to see the phantom funeral.
"My girlfriend Cora heard the story from her brother," she said, faded blue eyes shining with the memory. "She was the one who dared us to go, and of course, the boys couldn't let us think they were chicken."
Dean shifted on the uncomfortably hard floral-print sofa. This was the part of the job he hated, prying into someone's painful memories. He and Sam were anthropology students today, collecting tales for a thesis on local folklore. Mrs. Barbeau didn't seem to mind the suggestion her story was "lore" - she was just happy to have visitors.
"We'd been joyriding out along Route 155. Cora said that was the way the funeral had come, back when it was first seen, coming along from the fort and on into town. It was getting near midnight, and we still hadn't seen anything. So we ended up in a field out near the Bluff Road, drinking and talking and" - the smile took a few years off her wizened face - "doing the things teenagers do."
Dean had to grin at that; old lady was a real pistol once.
"It was Donald who spotted it first, off in the distance. They were all white and gauzy. Like seeing through smoke. A long line of wagons, and horsemen following after, just like the old story had said.
"We all just stood in awe, couldn't believe our eyes. That line of ghosts kept marching on towards the town. And then we saw a misty figure forming right in front of us. Shaped like a man, but indistinct at first. Donald was standing a little bit apart from us. This thing - this ghost - winked out. Reappeared right in front of him. I'll never forget his scream."
Mrs. Barbeau shuddered, closed her eyes for a moment. Then she glanced from Sam to Dean, gauging their interest or maybe belief. "At first I thought it was fear," she went on. "Something we could tease Donald about later. Then I saw the blood. Spurting from his neck, his belly. I don't even recall seeing the spirit move. It was like watching a movie with a missing frame.
"Donald hit the ground, and the rest of us ran like hell. Of course, when we told folks what we'd seen, they thought we were crazy. Cora was never quite the same after that. She was in and out of institutions for a while. Ended up killing herself in the spring of '42. Ronnie died on D-Day. Utah Beach. And Alan and I married in '38. We were together till he died three years ago. I'm the only one left now who saw what happened that night."
Sam leaned forward, doing the sensitive puppy-dog thing. "This spirit you saw - can you tell us anything more about it? Was it wearing a particular style of clothing, carrying a certain weapon?"
Mrs. Barbeau closed her eyes, wrinkles deepened in a frown. "It looked like a young man, early twenties, maybe? He was wearing a military uniform, old-fashioned, French, I suppose - like the reenactors would wear out at the fort. And he had an axe. Not the big kind for chopping wood, a small thing like you'd use for cutting through brush. Or for fighting. More like a tomahawk, almost."
"Wow," Sam said. "That's a lot of detail."
Her eyes opened. She fixed Sam with a hard look. "You think I could ever forget something like that?"
They ended up leaving with a foil-wrapped loaf of zucchini bread. Mrs. Barbeau caught Dean's hand as he followed Sam out to the porch. He stopped. Sensed Sam waiting behind him. Mrs. Barbeau put on that stern look again. "You put some aloe on that burn, hear?"
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
She squeezed his hand, smiled. Damn good thing he couldn't turn any redder.
Back in the Impala, the a/c chugged against the heat. Dean shot a glance over at Sam before pulling away from the curb. "Got some good leads," he said.
"Yeah, at least we can narrow down the era a bit, maybe thirty to forty years instead of two-hundred-seventy-five."
"Christ," Dean muttered. "We better narrow it down. We've only got a day and a half."
Sam gave a little grunt of assent, turned his attention out the window with a frown of concentration. It was a look Dean knew well - once Sam sank his teeth into a problem, he didn't let go. The dogged determination was both an asset and a liability. He could lose himself all too easily: in a case. In revenge.
Dean snapped on the radio, flipped around the dial till he found some Thin Lizzy, "Jailbreak." Good summertime music. He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, hard plastic finally cooling to the touch, the knobby grips familiar and smooth.
He let the Impala's low rumble seep into his bones, soothe him, though he couldn't quite name what had him anxious to begin with. He wished he could blame it on Chicago: finding Dad and letting him go, facing the prospect of finding the demon. Being totally straight with Sam, which pretty much felt like having his guts ripped out and handed back to him.
And no, that wasn't the reason for his uneasy feeling; he was not such a giant pussy that he was afraid his little brother would leave him alone.
Again.
Pathetic. Dean glanced in the rearview, saw a stranger's face reflected there, unfamiliar angles, foreign eyes.
--
Skynyrd on the jukebox, clack and clatter from the pool tables: the soundtrack to Sam's life. On the stained and scarred table before him, books, pages of notes, a box of freshly sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga pencils. On Dean's side, empty beer bottles, crumpled napkins, the stripped bones of buffalo wings, atomic variety.
At the back of the bar, Dean was half drunk, working a hustle. Sam supposed he couldn't be too irritated. It wasn't like Dean had ditched him, leaving him to do all the work. After one too many annoying cracks - mostly randomly disparaging the French, whose colonial-era uniforms really weren't any more absurd than any others of the time - Sam had snapped. "Dude. If you're not gonna get any work done, just - just go."
Maybe not the smartest move, considering the way Dean's face closed off, not to mention the fact that this research was way too much for one person.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling the burn of small print and cigarette smoke. He'd gotten hung up on the stupid uniforms, researching the reenactors Mrs. Barbeau had mentioned, then trying to narrow down the time-frame. But there were too many possible matches. French marines, French army. Stupid leggings and vests and tri-cornered hats. The outfits didn't change enough, and the vague description they had didn't give enough detail.
He flagged down the waitress for a beer, started packing things up. Only thing to do when you hit that wall is take a break. He took his beer and his bag to a stool near the back to watch Dean mop the table with some dumb local kid.
Dean's hustle was a thing of beauty; he moved with a fluid grace that his marks never noticed till it was too late. As Sam watched, he tipped his head back to finish another beer, a slight flush to his skin that might have been more than just sunburn. He seemed just drunk enough to reel in his townie mark. He hefted his cue, circled the table, gauging his shots. Bummed cigarette dangling from his lips, he rolled his shoulders, sank a shot. Then another. Ran the table, a mystical game reduced to geometry, confidence, and power.
Looked like he'd won a couple hundred, easy, pocketing his winnings with a lazy grin. Sam drained his own beer, ready to grab Dean and get the hell out. The locals were glowering; seemed the natives weren't too friendly. Dean shouldered past a couple of spectators to get to Sam. "Got our room covered for a few more nights," he said, a little too loud, a little too close to Sam's ear. Sam caught a whiff of beery breath.
"Good job, man." Sam got a hand on Dean's shoulder, started steering him toward the door.
But it was already too late. Sam felt a sudden shift in the air, a prickling at the back of his neck. He and Dean turned as one.
And maybe Dean wasn't quite as drunk as he'd played. He caught the pool cue swinging at his head, used it to pull the guy in, then yanked it away, shoved the fat end hard into the guy's soft gut. The townie let out an oof, doubled over.
"We done here?" Dean stood poised to fight, all traces of drunkenness gone, pool cue loose in his grip, ready to wield like a staff. Backed by neon, jaw clenched tight, he waited.
No one moved. "Good." He dropped the cue on a table with a clatter, turned to Sam.
That was when the townie lunged, glint of knife in his hand. "Dean," Sam warned, moved in.
Dean was already on it. He spun, dodging wild swings.
A couple of the guy's friends advanced. Sam slung his bag to the floor, moved in to intercept. The townies were sloppy, drunk. A few well-placed punches, an elbow to one guy's face, and they were down. He turned back to Dean, just in time to see the townie slash at Dean's gut.
Dean juked out of the way, snaked in to grab the guy's wrist. He yanked the dude off balance. Swift strike to the elbow. The townie howled, finding out firsthand the elbow doesn't bend that way.
Dean backed up, grabbed the hem of Sam's shirt. Once Sam had his bag in hand, they were gone. Dean wasted no time in peeling out of the lot.
Maybe a ten-minute drive back to the motel. Sam didn't say a word until the door shut behind him. "Stupid," he muttered.
Dean sat on the edge of his bed, examining scraped and reddened knuckles. "You got something to say, Sam?"
"Yeah, I got something to say." He drew up to his full height, used it for full looming effect. "That was fucking stupid, Dean. These towns are too small to go starting bar fights, not to mention the fact that we're so close to St. Louis. The last thing we need is the cops on our ass."
Dean stood, bellied right up to Sam. "Yeah? The way I remember it, I didn't start shit. That guy tried to jump me from behind."
"Come on, man, like you didn't provoke him somehow. Hell, you provoke people by breathing."
"Christ, Sam, you don't like the way I research. You don't like the way I make money. You don't want me saying the wrong thing or doing something to embarrass you. What do you want from me? Shut the hell up and do your laundry?"
"I dunno, you already do a good job of that with Dad."
The last thing Sam expected was the flash of hurt in Dean's eyes. A muscle jumped in Dean's jaw. Without another word, he turned to leave. Didn't even slam the door behind him.
Well. That didn't go exactly as planned.
A hollow silence filled the empty room.
--
Dean didn't go far. He never did.
Not like there were many places to go. Apparently, Red Bud, Illinois did not boast the most thrilling night life. Just past one in the morning, only the occasional car passed. Dean walked along the side of the road, covered in a sticky film of sweat, listening to the low cicada hum. He was just buzzed enough to feel desperate and maudlin, worthless and alone.
He wished now he'd gotten into a real fight, not just some one-sided exercise in self-defense. He wanted bruises and aches, something more than busted knuckles, something he'd really feel in the morning.
He walked about a mile, then back again, hands shoved deep in his pockets, scuffing his boots through broken glass and roadside trash, crumpled wrappers and crushed wax cups, the unspooled innards of broken tapes.
When he got back to the room, the lights were still on, Sam's insomnia at work again. Dean squatted, leaning against the wall to consider his options. Nice enough night, if a little bit muggy. If nothing else, he could wait until Sam was pretending to sleep.
--
The morning of the Fourth dawned humid and hazy, blue-gray horizon of trees limned by a peach-colored sunrise. Sam found Dean fast asleep in the Impala's backseat, curled into a contortionist's act. He'd probably be bitching about a sore neck all day.
There was a Stop-N-Rob just down the street. Sam walked down, grabbed two coffees and a couple of cinnamon rolls. Back at the car, he knocked on the windowsill, was rewarded by a ridiculous thrashing of limbs. Dean half-sat, peered blearily up at him.
"Dude." Sam handed Dean his coffee. "I know you love this car, but this is borderline unhealthy." It was the only kind of apology their family knew, a peace offering without words.
Dean drained half the coffee in a few long swallows, got out to lean against the car. He squinted at the orange rind of the sun. "What time is it?"
"Seven-thirty. Only got a day left. Figured we should get an early start."
Dean studied him for a long moment, searching for any trace of condescension. The imprint of the Impala's upholstery creased his cheek; his sunburn was starting to peel. Finally he nodded, took another sip of coffee. "Lemme grab a shower, we'll get started."
With the aid of the motel coffeemaker, the rest of the day passed in a flurry of paper: photocopies and legal pads, a stack of books on the town and the fort. From Quebec to New Orleans: The Story of the French in America. Weird Illinois. French Colonial Archaeology. History as They Lived It: A Social History of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. Sam spread out at the table with the laptop and his precisely arranged row of pencils. Dean sprawled on his unmade bed, flexing his bare toes, chewing on the end of a pen.
A couple hours in, Dean sat up. "Think I got something here. 1723. The storehouse clerk at the fort, Perillau, was arrested for killing the company's drummer. Ran him through with his sword for speaking to him 'impertinently.' Perillau was supposed to be hanged, but chiefs of local tribes intervened. In order to keep the peace with the natives, Perillau was freed."
For the first time, Sam felt a spark of interest. He took the book from Dean. "Did it say anything about the guy's funeral? Where he's buried?"
"Nope. There's about four pages recounting the chiefs' speeches, but nothing we really need."
"Shit." Sam skimmed the passages, running a finger down the page. "Well, we might actually have some luck with legal databases. Says this was the first trial in Illinois history."
It wasn't great, but it was a lead. Within minutes, Sam was following the thread. No one book or database had the whole story, but he and Dean managed to piece it together.
Some sources called it a duel, others called it murder. Perillau had been friendly with the local tribes, and keeping them happy was far more important than the life of one rank-and-file French marine, known to history only as Morin. The government did its best to cover up the situation, ordering a discreet nighttime burial. Local colonists in Prairie du Rocher, among whom Morin had friends and family, weren't as pleased with the decision.
On the night of the burial, villagers had intercepted the small military funeral procession and essentially hijacked the body. The long line of wagons and horsemen were more for the locals than for the dead man; resentful of the cover-up, it was their only means of protest. Morin had been buried on the land of a prominent citizen, a place of honor away from the fort's burial grounds.
"Think we got our guy," Dean said, looking up from the latest pages Sam had handed him. "But there's still one thing I don't get."
"One thing?" Sam leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head.
"We're missing the pattern. Why is this dude going after some people and not others? We haven't found any real connections, any skeletons in the victims' closets."
Sam nodded agreement. "And why isn't the procession seen every year?"
Dean dug around through the papers on his bed, found the map of the area they'd been using - printed from Google, since none of their atlases gave enough detail of the small town. He went back to the description of the gravesite, found the area on the map. It was near the Bluff Road Mrs. Barbeau mentioned. Maybe there was something to the location.
He found his pile of death certificates, each Xerox annotated with whatever details they'd been able to find. Often, the county had only listed the hospital as the place of death, so they'd turned to newspaper reports and Edith's gossip to fill in the blanks. He plotted each location on the map and soon enough saw a pattern: all of the deaths occurred on the bluffs side of town. The closer to the bluffs, the more violent the death. He moved over to the table, showed the map to Sam.
He knew the exact moment something clicked in Sam's big, freaky brain. Maybe it was a clichéd light in the eyes, a straightening of the posture like a dog on point - maybe it was just a sense that came with knowing Sam, reading his moods over a lifetime. Whatever the case, Dean found himself leaning forward, watching Sam's fingers fly over the laptop keys, clicking faster than he could keep up.
After a moment: "Ley lines." Sam leaned back from the computer, laughed. "Can't believe it's that fucking simple. Right along the bluffs. This guy gets buried nearby, is already a malevolent spirit. The ley lines must have magnified his power, made him stronger. That's why some of these amateur ghost hunters never see anything. They're probably closer to the fort, on the wrong side of town. That's why the ghost rushed you at the fort, but didn't have the strength to do any real damage."
"I'll be damned. Not bad, Sammy."
Sam gave up a little flash of a grin. "Seriously, though. Combine ley lines with the anniversary of the murder - that's some bad mojo. This thing is gonna be strong and pissed off. We gotta be careful going into this one."
--
The yahoos were out tonight. Carloads of teenagers driving way too fast, people making last-minute party buys. As soon as dusk fell, the backyard fireworks displays began, just rinky-dink bottle rockets to start, later giving way to bigger mortars, more complex sequences. Dean admired it with a grin he couldn't quite help; you had to enjoy a holiday where celebrating equaled blowing shit up.
There were a few ghost hunters, too. Dean had seen some at Marie's, huddled around a table talking about EMF and cold spots and residual hauntings. So far it seemed they were keeping to the safer side of town, concentrating their "investigation" on the area near the fort.
On the bluffs side of town, Dean had parked the Impala behind an abandoned gas station. It was a short hike to Morin's gravesite, just under a mile. They found it easily enough, despite the lack of tombstone: a rectangular depression of earth beneath a weeping willow.
Nearing midnight, the temperature was still over ninety degrees. Sweat had soaked through Dean's T-shirt, the waist of his jeans. He hefted another shovel-load of dirt. "I could really do without the swamp-ass."
Sam paused his shoveling, looked up. Sweaty hair clung to his forehead; a streak of dirt marked one cheek. "Swamp-ass?" he asked, a smile tugging at his lips. "Is that the official terminology?"
"Universal, Sam. Everybody who's ever had it knows exactly what swamp-ass is." He thrust the shovel down again. "When we're done here, I'm taking the longest shower ever."
"Not if I get to it first."
They were nearing coffin depth at the first sign of trouble. Sam's shovel stilled. He stared out over Dean's shoulder. "Dean."
Dean turned, peered above the lip of the grave. Off in the distance, ghostly figures moved, a filmy bluish-white. It was just as the stories had described, just as Mrs. Barbeau had seen. A line of wagons, followed by men on horseback. The wheels and hooves kicked up ghostly dust but made no sound. Even the cicadas had gone silent in the trees above.
"Son of a bitch." Dean turned in a circle, searching for any other apparitions. Other than the beam of their flashlight, there was nothing but dark. "Come on, we gotta finish this."
They dug faster, still facing each other, the best way to spot any danger. Finally, Sam's shovel struck wood, or at least something other than dirt - after so many years in the ground, the coffin had disintegrated to pulp. They scraped away earth and bits of wood to reveal yellowed bones, a few scraps of cloth and bits of metal.
When the misty shape formed behind Sam, it was already discernable as a man. "Duck!" Dean shouted, and Sam did, narrowly avoiding a scalping by a translucent axe.
Dean groped topside for his shotgun, blasted the spirit. It vanished in a spray of salt. He vaulted up out of the grave, rooted through the supplies. Pitched the salt down to Sam. "Hurry it up." A second later, he heard the salt shaking out.
Sam tossed his shovel out, scrambled up after it. He doused the grave in lighter fluid while Dean scanned the night. He breathed deep, nostrils flaring: smelled rot and wet earth, sweat, the dizzying fumes of accelerant. Overhead, the sky cracked and flared, trailing colors Dean noted from the corners of his eyes. Good camouflage for the shotgun blast, but otherwise, the extra noise and movement wasn't making things any easier.
A box of kitchen matches rattled in Sam's hand. Dean turned in a circle, searching. Nothing. Before Sam could strike a match, the spirit reformed, a flash of light, a rush of cold air. It threw Sam a good ten feet, slamming him against the trunk of the willow tree.
Sam's grunt sent a spike of fear through Dean's gut. He fired again; the spirit winked out. "Sam!" he called.
"I'm okay," came the answer.
White mist to Dean's right. Shit, this thing was fast. He saw Sam getting slowly to his feet, knew he had to distract the ghost long enough for Sam to light the match.
"Hey, Frenchie!" he yelled. The spirit stopped, turned, that creepy stop-action movement peculiar to ghosts. "Yeah, I'm talkin' to you. You dirty frog, with your pansy-sounding language, and your poodles, and your goddamn giant phallic bread…"
Dean wasn't sure the ghost could even understand English, let alone this nonsense, but the insulting tone seemed to work; the thing moved closer in a flash, obviously ready to throw down. Dean paused long enough to make sure Sam was on his feet, then took off running.
He stumbled a couple of times over uneven ground, lost the shotgun the second time with a sickening clatter, but managed to right himself, keeping a course parallel to the bluffs. Twice the spirit winked to life in his path; twice, he managed to dodge the small, slashing axe.
Third time's a charm.
A flash right in front of him, a wall of cold air. Dean skidded to a stop, pivoted on one foot.
Zigged when he should have zagged.
There was no pain at first, only a sick shock of cold as the ghost's axe slashed at his belly. He had time to register a pair of dead eyes, a haggard, scruffy face, before the thing came at him again, aiming an overhand blow to his neck.
He got his left arm up to block, and shit, now there was pain, a flare of agony as the axe cut through flesh, connected with bone. He stumbled back, suddenly lightheaded, fell on his ass as the ghost reared back to strike.
Then, a flash of orange, a swirl of fiery light: the spirit wore a mask of shock as the fire back at the grave consumed its bones, released its soul.
Dean held the throb of his left arm close to his chest, tried to get to his feet. Ended up on his ass again. Pain jarred through him in a dizzy rush. His vision grayed out; when he came to, he was flat on his back in the Illinois dirt. He felt a spreading wetness at his belly, just above the beltline. Not sweat. He reached down, felt the tear in his shirt. Fuck. That ghost must have got him good. He pressed down on the wound with a grunt, arm trembling with the effort.
Fireworks cracked overhead, echoed off the limestone bluffs: incandescent blooms, brief flares of ruby and emerald, corkscrews of light, against a dark sky shimmering with stars.
Each new shell made him flinch. He dragged in deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Tried not to move. Tried to press harder on his belly, though he suspected it wasn't doing much good: hot blood still seeped sticky through his fingers.
His eyes slipped shut, the world reduced to heat and noise. The muggy night pressed down on his skin. Each breath filled his nose with burnt powder and sweat and dust, the coppery tang of blood.
Somewhere to the south, to his right, he thought he heard someone shout his name. He opened his eyes. The sky blurred, a smear of colors, then sharpened into dark and sparks and stars.
--
Sam knew something was wrong, a sick feeling buried deep in his gut. He turned away from the guttering fire, searching the night for any sight of his brother. "Dean!" he yelled. No answer. He set off in the direction Dean had run.
Tripping over the shotgun confirmed his suspicion. He grabbed it and moved on, listening for any sounds beyond night insects and the constant crack and boom of fireworks.
He might have missed Dean if it weren't for an electric blue shell exploding overhead, bathing the night in an unearthly shade. Dean lay on his back, staring up at the sky, dragging in hitching breaths.
Jesus. "Dean!" Sam sprinted the last few yards, skidded to his knees.
Dean's eyes were slow to track him. "Hey, Sammy," he slurred. "You okay?"
"Yeah, dude, I'm fine." Sam ran his hands down Dean's chest till he came to the sticky blood, Dean's hand pressed weakly to the wound. "Christ. Got you with the axe, huh."
Dean grunted an answer. Licked his lips, let his eyes fall shut.
Shit, shit, shit. Too dark to really assess the damage. Sam found Dean's pocket knife (much more wicked than that innocuous name made it sound) and sliced off Dean's shirt, folding part to use as a pressure bandage. He moved Dean's hand out of the way. Pressed down.
Sam winced at the sound Dean made: small and pained, almost a whimper. "Hey, Dean." He waited till Dean's opened his eyes, blinked up at the sky. "Did I hear you taunt a ghost by ridiculing French bread?"
Dean let out a chuckle, grimaced. His head rolled to the side, his eyes fixed on Sam's face. "Not exactly my best work," he grinned. "Got nothing against their toast, though."
Sam laughed, feeling sweat or maybe tears roll down his face. The heat wrapped around him, colors sparking and blooming overhead, as he tried to keep the pressure steady, as his brother's blood seeped hot and wet under his hands.
--
Surrounded by varying shades of beige, Sam leaned forward in a hard plastic chair, elbows on his knees, and stared down at his hands. Stared down at the blood flaking under his fingernails. The sharp scent of harsh antiseptic soap would stay with him, cling to his skin and clothes, until he could get out of this place and wash it all away.
He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
He'd had enough of Dean lying pale in hospital beds, surrounded by wires, but here they were again. He couldn't forget the fear in Dean's eyes, the bruising grip Dean had kept on his hand.
The wound wasn't that bad, though Dean had lost a lot of blood. Twenty-four stitches for the slash across his stomach. Sheer luck that the ghostly axe hadn't hit any organs. The gash to his left arm was deeper, all the way to the bone. X-rays showed a hairline fracture of the ulna.
Christ, what a mess. Sam watched Dean's face, too pale even with the leftover sunburn, the lines of pain and worry smoothed away by drugs and sleep.
It was close to dawn when Dean's stirring woke Sam from a light sleep. "Hey," he said softly, waiting for Dean's confusion to fade, for his drugged brain to catch up.
Dean turned toward Sam's voice, head lolling heavily, the bowed head of a sunflower. It took a moment for his eyes to focus. "Sammy? Wha's goin' on?" He licked his lips, made a face.
Sam found the cup of ice chips a nurse had left, scooped a spoonful into Dean's mouth. He hated that he knew the drill. "Ghost with an axe, remember?"
"Oh. Yeah." Dean's face scrunched up in concentration; it was utterly childlike and almost more than Sam could take. "We get it?"
"We got it."
"Good." Dean drifted for a moment, eyes slipping shut. He jerked awake again, looked around the room. "What's our story?"
Sam half-smiled, half-winced. "I used the Rollins ID and insurance." It was one of their iron-clads, rock-solid documentation. Used their real first names so they wouldn't fuck up in some moment of morphine haze. "And, um, it was your psycho ex-boyfriend who attacked you."
Dean's eyes had been drooping again; now they snapped open. "What, now?" Like he'd just heard wrong.
Sam scratched at the back of his head. "Well, at first they thought I was your abusive boyfriend." Something about the way he'd refused to leave Dean's side, and the way he'd maybe gotten a little angry. Belligerent was the word he recalled. "Anyway, I was able to convince them we're just brothers and I don't beat you up, but I figured they were giving me a pretty good scenario. So, um, you were dating this really possessive guy, and I was finally able to convince you he's bad news, and he didn't take the breakup very well. And you probably won't press charges or even mention his name, because you still care about him."
"Dude. You've been watching way too much daytime TV."
Sam tried to smile, but it felt wrong on his face. Dean was too drugged to notice. In another few minutes, he was asleep again, and Sam had time to remember the doctor's other damning evidence: all the old scars, X-rays full of badly healed breaks. Some Sam knew about, others he didn't, and maybe it was his shock as much as anything that convinced the doctor he wasn't to blame. Bones that had been set by an amateur or never set at all. Scars from knives (claws?). Burns (more than just the Benders' hot poker). Does that hip give him any trouble? Any problems with that shoulder?
Some of the injuries must have happened while Sam was at school, and he had to wonder what he'd been doing while Dean had been suffering - working at the library? Studying for an exam? Being normal?
Some of the injuries dated back a decade or more.
And what had Sam been doing then - bitching because Dad wouldn't let him play soccer or finish out a semester in one place? Waiting for Dean to do his laundry or make their dinner?
He felt sick just thinking of it - how much had his brother sacrificed without him ever knowing - without ever asking for anything more than a family?
And didn't Sam feel like a shit now, for the way he'd shot Dean down in that motel room in Chicago. What was it he'd said he'd do? Go back to school. Be a person again.
Christ. And he thought Dean had a big mouth.
Sam watched his brother sleep as the sun came up and crept across the room.
--
The first thing Dean did when he got sprung from the hospital was demand French toast.
It was only partly to be annoying, only partly to draw Sam out of his latest brooding funk. Mostly, it just sounded good. Smothered in fresh berries and whipped cream. He badgered and harangued until Sam caved, bringing back styrofoam containers. It was every bit as good as he'd hoped, and he experienced a half-hour of bliss: cherries, sourdough, and some WWII on the History Channel.
Perfect. Of course, that could have been the drugs talking.
He spent the rest of the day propped up in bed, a pillow on his belly, his fucked-up left arm on the pillow. Sam futzed around on the computer with a constipated frown, but Dean was too tired to even make any cracks about his porn-surfing habits.
The spell of the lazy afternoon was broken by a knock at the door. Sam's frown deepened. He got up, peered out from a corner of the curtain. Glanced back at Dean with a shrug, then opened the door.
It was the owner's wife, delivering a foil-wrapped package, a note scotch-taped to the top. When she left, Sam lifted a corner of the foil, took a suspicious sniff. Dean could smell the cinnamon and nutmeg from his bed, didn't need Sam's explanation: "Zucchini bread." Sam unfolded and read the note, then handed it to Dean.
A single page of flowery stationery, written in a spidery hand. It was signed Mrs. Alan Barbeau. The note read simply, Thank you.
Sam sat at the table again, eyeing the loaf of bread. "Guess news travels fast around here."
"Guess so." Dean cleared his throat, set the note aside, feeling a sudden rush of affection for old ladies and small towns, this lousy job and his annoying little brother, the good people they met from time to time. It wasn't exactly the perfect life, and things could always go south any minute.
But sometimes, he thought, it was pretty okay.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A/N #2: The story of Perillau and Morin is partly true, up until the point at which it intersects with the phantom funeral legend. After that? Completely bastardized.
Characters/Pairing: Sam and Dean, gen
Rating: R for language
Word Count: ~9680
Disclaimer: All the witty disclaimers are already taken. Sam and Dean, alas, do not belong to me.
Summary: Barely healed from their encounter with Meg's daevas, Sam and Dean take the case of a phantom funeral in southwestern Illinois. Set between "Shadow" and "Hell House."
A/N: Written for the spn_nostalgia ficathon. The prompt was for "Shadow" - "Post-ep: The aftermath of the conversation where Sam says he's going to leave again." I interpreted "post-ep" at its loosest and wrote a whole casefic that takes place after the episode.
The legend of the phantom funeral does exist, as do the books mentioned in the boys' research, however, I've made a few changes to the tale to suit this story's needs.
I've never been to Prairie du Rocher. Descriptions of the town and environs are based on internet research, including travel and tourism websites, first-hand accounts, and Flickr photos. I also relied heavily on the book History as They Lived It: A Social History of Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois, by Margaret Kimball Brown (2005, Patrice Press). Though based on real places, these locations have been quite fictionalized. Any factual errors are all my own.
Title from a line in Joseph Hansen's novel Fadeout.
As always, thanks to my beta/partner-in-crime/enabler, laurie_bug.
--
July 4, 2006
Fireworks cracked overhead, echoed off the limestone bluffs: incandescent blooms, brief flares of ruby and emerald, corkscrews of light, against a dark sky shimmering with stars.
Flat on his back in the Illinois dirt, Dean watched the glittering sparks rain down. Each new shell made him flinch. He dragged in deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Tried not to move. Tried to press harder on his belly, though he suspected it wasn't doing much good: hot blood still seeped sticky through his fingers.
His eyes slipped shut, the world reduced to heat and noise. The muggy night pressed down on his skin. Each breath filled his nose with burnt powder and sweat and dust, the coppery tang of blood.
Somewhere to the south, to his right, he thought he heard someone shout his name. He opened his eyes. The sky blurred, a smear of colors, then sharpened into dark and sparks and stars.
--
July 1, 2006
Every time Dean did the laundry, he could pretty much count on wanting to throttle his brother.
Behind him, clothes tumbled in hypnotic circles of dark and white, radiating heat and the powdery scent of fabric softener. An orange tabby-striped cat perched atop a washer watched with cool disdain as Dean pawed through the pockets of Sam's jackets and shirts and jeans. Each yielded some forgotten artifact: USB modems and flash drives, protective charms, polished gemstones. Spare change, newspaper clippings, pencil stubs. Scraps of paper bearing cryptic notes, phrases in Latin, characters in Greek, bits of prayers and incantations, arcane symbols scratched in graphite.
Sam always swore he knew exactly where everything was, and it may have been true. Like the obscure connections he made while researching, maybe there were perfectly logical reasons that certain notes went into certain pockets. Maybe a ritual and the gemstone it required went together, a certain obituary clipping with the information on the creature that had caused the death. All Dean knew was that the one time he'd accidentally washed some mysterious yellow pages from a legal pad, Sam hadn't spoken to him for almost a week.
Dean gathered today's haul into a pile, liberating the quarters, and started feeding the machines. Dark T-shirts, jeans, underwear. He shook out Sam's balled-up tube socks with growing irritation. Would it kill the kid to unroll the damn things? For all his OCD neatness, he was more than willing to "forget" certain tasks. How had Jessica ever put up with this shit?
And didn't that say something about Dean's position in this family. Do the laundry, scrounge something for dinner, take care of your brother. Dean Winchester, domestic bitch.
He slammed the washer lid, earning a disapproving blink from the cat.
He was working his way through a couple of local newspapers, the washers entering their final spin, when the door sounded a buzzy electronic bell and Sam came in, bearing laptop bag and two coffees. "How's it coming?" Sam asked.
"Well, now that I got the skid marks out of your skivvies, we're moving right along."
Sam just rolled his eyes, set about arranging coffee and laptop, booting up, only stopping to examine the small pile of found objects. He held up a flash drive, frowning at it. He pocketed it, nodded toward the newspapers. "Find anything?"
Dean shrugged, pried the lid off his coffee and took a long whiff of the rich brew. "Some small animals disappearing near Indianapolis. Probably just a coyote. Aside from that, zilch."
"Think I got something here." Sam clicked a few times, turned the laptop so Dean could see the screen. "Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. On July Fourth, as the legend goes, a phantom funeral can be seen making its way from a nearby fort to the old cemetery in town. According to locals, it's some kind of death omen. Anyone who sees it will die, or someone in their family will die, within a week."
Dean sipped at his coffee, raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a classic old wives' tale."
"You don't know how right you are. The first reported sighting of the funeral was in 1889, by two women who happened to be sitting out on the porch late at night. One woman's father was awakened by the family dog barking. Looked out the window, saw the procession. Three days later he was killed by a runaway wagon."
"Ouch."
"Yeah. Things stayed pretty quiet for a few years. Then there were deaths in 1893, ninety-seven, oh-eight…seventeen total over a hundred and fifteen years."
Dean scrolled down the web page, skimming secondhand accounts of secondhand accounts. There was very little real information. One version of the story said that the funeral procession only appeared when the Fourth of July fell on a Friday; another specified Fridays with a full moon. Neither coincided with the Fourth this year. He looked up at Sam. "So why isn't this thing seen every year?
"Dunno." Sam shrugged. "It's not the full moon or the Friday thing. A couple of the deaths fit the pattern, but most don't. The funeral's become something of a tourist attraction over the years - you know, amateur ghost hunters tailgaiting or whatever it is they do. Most of them never see it. I figure there's gotta be something in the history of the place that explains it."
The wash cycle was winding down, the cat fastidiously cleaning paws and face. Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair. This wasn't much to go on - could be nothing more than coincidence and local legend. Then again, anything would be better than another day of sitting around, laying low. Since getting their asses handed to them by Meg's daevas, they'd only taken a couple of dink-and-dunk hunts, simple salt-and-burns, trying to heal and regroup. Trying not to think how hard it had sucked to let Dad go. The most excitement they'd had was when Dean ate two pints of farm-stand blackberries at one sitting and ended up in the bathroom for most of the next day. Maybe it was time to get moving again, even if it did turn out to be a wild goose chase.
"All right," he said. "Let's get your delicates on low heat. We'll hit the road in the morning."
--
"Afternoon, officer." Dean flashed his sunniest smile.
Sam did his best to plaster on a harmless expression, utterly certain that in some grand dictionary, his brother's likeness appeared next to the definition of "chutzpah."
See also: "dumbass."
The small-town cop - Chief Mercier, Sam read the nametag with a growing sense of icewater down his spine - tucked his thumbs into his gunbelt, returned the smile. "Howdy, boys, what can I do for you?"
Noontime sun beat down on the small town's main street. Dean squinted into it, grinning. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam. We were just wondering if you could point us in the direction of the old St. Joseph's cemetery."
One bushy gray eyebrow rose above the rim of the Chief's aviator sunglasses. "I suppose you're wanting to see that phantom funeral."
Dean rocked back on his heels. His smile wavered but stayed in place. "How'd you guess?"
"Son, you may not have noticed, but we're a little bit off the beaten path. Only a couple of times a year we get any tourists - in June, when they have the annual Rendezvous up at the fort, and every Fourth of July."
Sam's curiosity won out over his paranoia. "You know the story, then."
Mirrored shades turned Sam's way, showing him his own reflection. "Everybody 'round here knows that story. Like any other local legend - your crybaby bridge or ghostly hitchhiker - folks hear it from their friends or older brothers, like to drink a few cold ones and scare themselves silly. Every town's got one. Suppose we're no different."
"You don't mind people coming to look, then?"
"Long as it keeps gullible people - no offense, boys - buyin' from our stores and eatin' in our restaurants, I don't mind at all." Mercier grinned, baring a mouthful of coffee-stained teeth, proceeded to direct them to the old cemetery, as well as the town's main diner (Marie's Bar and Grill, owned by the mayor's daughter), and the nearest motel (in the town of Red Bud, about twelve miles away). "Long as you're respectful" - he fixed each Winchester with his mirrored gaze - "we'll get along just fine."
Dean nodded. "Yes, sir." Sam was a little surprised he didn't salute.
They walked down Market Street to the diner, the opposite direction from the Chief. Sam ducked his head, hissed at Dean. "Dude. What the fuck? We're forty miles from St. Louis and you go chatting up the local police chief?"
"What, you'd rather I act all shifty and suspicious?" Dean cut his eyes toward Sam. "Come on, man, this is a town of six hundred people. We're gonna get noticed one way or another."
He was right - Prairie du Rocher wasn't much to look at. One main street, a few cross streets. A couple of restaurants, one corner market. The only place to buy gas was the local Farm Service. They came to Marie's, an old red brick building with weathered blue awnings and a hand-painted, slightly uneven Budweiser sign on one side.
"Besides," Dean said, reaching for the restaurant's front door, "this one was your idea."
The riot of smells wafting from Marie's kitchen derailed Sam's anger, reminded him how hungry he was. He breathed deeply of oniony air, mellowed by the scents of fresh bread and baking pie crust. Meat sizzled on an unseen grill.
The place was a classic lunch counter, booths and tables and one long formica bar, everything trimmed in pitted chrome. Hank Williams played scratchy over the sound system, "I Don't Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)." The lunchtime rush was just thinning out. Dean grabbed a booth near the back, sat facing the door. Didn't look up from his menu when Sam sat across from him.
Things had been like this for a while now, off and on since Chicago: stilted and awkward, when they weren't actively sniping at teach other. The necessary seclusion hadn't helped, either. There really was no good explanation for claw marks across one's face. Animal training gone awry? Assailant with a Freddy Kruger fetish? They'd spent three weeks hiding out in low-rent motel rooms, only going out after dark or with the lame disguise of sunglasses and baseball caps.
The scars showed plainer on Dean's face, Dean's skin paler, more likely to freckle and burn than tan. The afternoon sun caught the lines just right, shiny and pink and slightly raised. They'd fade soon enough, assuming Dean lived that long. The way things had been going lately, nothing was guaranteed.
Sam fumbled for a menu, fixed his eyes on the text.
They tabled talk of business till after they'd ordered and Dean had sucked down half his Coke. "So what did you find?" He balled up his straw wrapper, flicked it at Sam.
"Prairie du Rocher." Sam batted the wrapper back. "Means 'Prairie of the Rock,' named for the limestone bluffs nearby. Founded in 1722 by French colonists."
"Anything funky in the history?"
Sam gave a short laugh. "Yeah, actually - a ridiculous amount of both history and lore. We've got skirmishes with local tribes, massacres, a couple of duels and murders. There are a lot of caves in the bluffs, used by the Modocs as shelter and defensive positions. There's even a classic 'Indian curse' in Kaskaskia, a few miles south of here. As the legend goes, a young brave fell in love with the daughter of a prominent colonist. Daddy dearest had the guy killed, but before he died, he placed a curse on the town. A flood in 1881 changed the course of the Mississippi, destroying part of Kaskaskia and leaving the rest of the town an island."
"Damn. Busy place."
"And that was just what I could dig up online last night."
They clammed up when the waitress came back bearing Sam's tuna salad on rye and Dean's turkey club - trust Dean to work in some bacon even when he didn't order the angioplasty special.
After a few bites, Sam continued. "As for the phantom funeral itself, I haven't found much. Seems the story was included in some Haunted Heartland book in the '80s, and that version of the story has spread all over the internet. I'm gonna try to track down that book's sources, see if we can find the origins."
Dean nodded. "We might have just as much luck talking to the locals," he said, still chewing. "Town this size, somebody's gotta know something, even if it's just, 'Go talk to Joe Bob's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."
They passed the rest of lunch in silence, people-watching. Sam hoped these friendly locals didn't pay close attention to big city news, or at least still believed no killer as dangerous as Dean Winchester would ever bother with their little town.
--
Dean could feel the sunburn starting already: forehead, nose and cheeks, the back of his neck.
The sun beat down hot and brutal, baking the grounds of Fort de Chartres. Dean saw a few families, young kids chasing each other around. A few old-guy military buffs. The place wasn't exactly hopping.
He let Sam lead the way to the fort proper: stone walls with bastions at the corners, a large gate in the center. This structure wasn't the original - the first fort built on the site had been destroyed by floods, rebuilt several times, and had finally fallen into disrepair. By the time the state decided to preserve the location, only the original powder magazine remained. The current fort had been reconstructed by the WPA, with a few other buildings added in later projects.
Sam, goddamn him, actually wanted to read each interpretive sign, study each bullet-point. Made decent cover for Dean, who followed with his Walkman-cum-EMF meter, earbuds firmly in place. Just humoring his geek brother - though he supposed most people would assume geek boyfriend - trying to keep up with the game.
What game? Who the fuck knew - or cared? Surely some baseball team was playing somewhere. He just hoped no one asked him for a score.
They prowled the grounds, examining rebuilt barracks and bastions, a chapel, a garden shed. The restored powder magazine was filled with racks of barrels, each stamped with a fleur-de-lis. The stone building was stifling, claustrophobic: a tight, dark oven. Too damn hot for this. Sweat beaded on Dean's forehead, trickled slick down his neck.
Sam ran his hand over the casks, peering into the shadows behind. "They think this is the oldest building in Illinois," he said. "Getting anything?"
"Nope." Dean poked the meter into darkened corners. "Wait a minute." The row of lights flicked to life. He ripped the earbuds out before the squeal could ramp up. The heat wicked away from the air, quickly replaced by a chill. Dean turned to Sam, watched their breath cloud. His skin broke out in goosebumps.
A white mist coalesced in the gloom. Dean backed up a step toward Sam. The spirit was weak, amorphous. It followed, slowly advanced, then rushed. It hit Dean with a shock of cold, ice in his veins, an anxious twist in his gut. Just as quickly, it was gone.
"Fuck," Dean said. Shivered, gasped. No matter how often it happened, he'd never get used to that feeling of wrongness, invasion.
"You all right?" Sam asked.
"Yeah." Dean shuddered, tried to shake it off. Rubbed his arms as the heat rushed back in. "I fuckin' hate when they do that."
--
Their room at the Red Bud Country Inn held all the comforts of home: colorful patchwork quilts, sturdy oak furniture. Microwave, mini-fridge, coffeemaker. Clean towels, fresh toiletries. And centered on the dresser, a handsome, dark wood cross.
Not so unusual in and of itself, in small-town America. What puzzled Sam was that he'd met the owners when checking in - the unfailingly polite Patel family, late of India.
Maybe they were just shrewd business owners - knew their clientele.
Sam kicked his shoes off, turned the A/C on high. Stretched out on his bed. His eyes ached; his skin felt gritty, sticky. That afternoon's close encounter with the mysterious mist hadn't exactly given up any enticing clues, other than suggesting the spirit was indeed connected with the fort. Sam had loaded up on materials from the small gift shop, then had Dean drop him at the nearest library. He hadn't gained much besides a daunting stack of texts and biting headache.
Dean had hit the county records, researching the phantom funeral's previous victims. His last call to Sam's cell had promised a slew of death certificates and takeout that was advertised as the county's best BBQ.
It was the kind of conversation Sam hated - light, superficial. Glossy. He could never quite tell if Dean's obnoxious enthusiasm was sincere or just one big cover-up. Worse, while he'd once been certain that Dean was simply dismissive of his opinions, he was starting to think it was Dean's own insecurity talking. He didn't want to hear anything that would upset the fragile mirage: saving people, hunting things. The family business.
Sam was mad as hell, just thinking about it - the delusion that the Winchester men hunting together was some kind of ideal world. Didn't Dean remember what it had really been like - constant fear and worry, waiting for Dad to come home bloodied or beaten, if at all? Being uprooted as soon as a town became comfortable? And then, when they were old enough to join in the hunt, bleeding in each other's arms, stitching each other up. Stalking hospital halls, keeping bedside vigils.
Sam understood now, it was his fight, too. Something had marked their family - marked him - and wouldn't stop hounding them, even if they tried to leave the game. But once the demon was defeated - why would any sane man choose to live this life?
A low rumble alerted him to the Impala's approach. He cleared his stack of books from the table just in time for Dean to blunder in balancing a stack of papers and styrofoam boxes, a two-liter bottle of Coke tucked under one arm. The room key was clenched in his teeth. "Dunno who pulled the pork," he gritted, then spat the key onto the table, "but it damn sure smells good."
Sam had to admit, the pulled pork sandwiches were borderline orgasmic, though he really didn't need Dean's accompanying moans. While Dean was busy slurping down Cajun-seasoned curly fries, Sam ran down the day's findings. "Didn't have a whole lot of luck verifying any of the original story. The legend names a Mrs. Chris as one of the two women who saw the procession. Apparently, she and a neighbor were keeping vigil over her dead baby. I checked the 1880 census and did find a Chrissie family in the area, so at least that didn't disprove the story."
"Woulda been nice to have the 1890 census," Dean said around a mouthful of fries. "What is it with public records and fires, anyway?"
Sam was thrown for a second, surprised that Dean knew or remembered the 1890 federal census had been destroyed by fire. "Yeah, that is a bitch," he finally agreed. "We could probably search for the baby's death record here in town, but I don't think it'd be worth the trouble, since Mrs. Chris doesn't seem to have any real connection to the funeral, besides being a witness.
"I did find the first published account of the legend." Sam shuffled through the pile of books at his feet till he came up with Legends and Lore of Southern Illinois. "This book was compiled by an anthropologist, published in 1963. Mrs. Chris' friend, the other woman who was on the porch with her that night, gave the story as part of an oral history project. Unfortunately, she was only identified as 'a very old lady.'
"The woman said she counted forty wagons and thirteen pairs of horsemen. None of them made a sound."
Dean cocked an eyebrow, drained the last of his Coke. Waited for Sam to go on.
"A few weeks after they saw the funeral, the woman said she heard a story from a friend that might explain the event. Supposedly, an 'important man' at Fort de Chartres was killed in an ambush. The government in Kaskaskia said" - Sam flipped a few pages - " 'he must be buried at midnight in an obscure cemetery and without any lights.' That must be where the full moon part of the legend comes in - the woman said there was a bright moon the night they saw the procession. She goes on to say that it can only be seen on a Friday night with a bright moon, between eleven and midnight, and only three people can see it."
This time, both Dean's eyebrows shot up. "But we know better, since most of the deaths don't fit that pattern."
"Right. What'd you get?"
Dean wiped his hands on his jeans, found the sheaf of papers he'd had balanced atop the takeout. "Seventeen death certificates. If anyone asks, I told the clerk we were working on our family history." A flash of wolfish grin. "Finding a pattern is gonna be a bitch. Everybody in Prairie du Rocher is related in some way, and the population is ninety-nine percent white. We've even got different causes of death." He leafed through the pages. "There's our runaway wagon, a few heart attacks and strokes, one bludgeoning, and several rather bloody knife attacks."
Sam made a little surprised sound.
"Of course, the death certificates don't go into much detail, but the clerk was happy to share a bit of gossip."
Sam snorted. "I bet she was."
"Her name was Edith, Sam," Dean said, rolling his eyes, "and while I enjoy the company of a seasoned woman, she was old enough to be Methuselah's grandmother. Anyway, after I complimented her on her wonderful zucchini bread recipe - "
"Dude, you got zucchini bread, and all I got was a headache?"
" - Edith told me all about those knife attacks. Seems in each of the cases, no assailant was ever caught, and no weapons were ever found."
"Whoa." Sam leaned his chair back on two legs. "That's more than just a death omen."
"Definitely sounds more like vengeful spirit territory." Dean kicked back to mirror Sam's pose. "But that's not all I found."
Dean smiled so wide, Sam couldn't help but grin back. "What?"
"We've got a surviving witness."
--
The only sounds in the little shotgun house were the creak of the old rocking chair and the ticking of the grandfather clock. The scents of cinnamon and nutmeg, baking bread, came from the kitchen.
Rose Barbeau was an old woman now, but from the framed photos on the mantel, she'd been a beauty once, a smiling, fair-haired bride who'd grown into a happy mother and finally, a dignified widow.
She'd been a fresh-faced and flirty sixteen-year-old in 1936, when she and several friends from school spent a Fourth of July drinking purloined schnapps and waiting to see the phantom funeral.
"My girlfriend Cora heard the story from her brother," she said, faded blue eyes shining with the memory. "She was the one who dared us to go, and of course, the boys couldn't let us think they were chicken."
Dean shifted on the uncomfortably hard floral-print sofa. This was the part of the job he hated, prying into someone's painful memories. He and Sam were anthropology students today, collecting tales for a thesis on local folklore. Mrs. Barbeau didn't seem to mind the suggestion her story was "lore" - she was just happy to have visitors.
"We'd been joyriding out along Route 155. Cora said that was the way the funeral had come, back when it was first seen, coming along from the fort and on into town. It was getting near midnight, and we still hadn't seen anything. So we ended up in a field out near the Bluff Road, drinking and talking and" - the smile took a few years off her wizened face - "doing the things teenagers do."
Dean had to grin at that; old lady was a real pistol once.
"It was Donald who spotted it first, off in the distance. They were all white and gauzy. Like seeing through smoke. A long line of wagons, and horsemen following after, just like the old story had said.
"We all just stood in awe, couldn't believe our eyes. That line of ghosts kept marching on towards the town. And then we saw a misty figure forming right in front of us. Shaped like a man, but indistinct at first. Donald was standing a little bit apart from us. This thing - this ghost - winked out. Reappeared right in front of him. I'll never forget his scream."
Mrs. Barbeau shuddered, closed her eyes for a moment. Then she glanced from Sam to Dean, gauging their interest or maybe belief. "At first I thought it was fear," she went on. "Something we could tease Donald about later. Then I saw the blood. Spurting from his neck, his belly. I don't even recall seeing the spirit move. It was like watching a movie with a missing frame.
"Donald hit the ground, and the rest of us ran like hell. Of course, when we told folks what we'd seen, they thought we were crazy. Cora was never quite the same after that. She was in and out of institutions for a while. Ended up killing herself in the spring of '42. Ronnie died on D-Day. Utah Beach. And Alan and I married in '38. We were together till he died three years ago. I'm the only one left now who saw what happened that night."
Sam leaned forward, doing the sensitive puppy-dog thing. "This spirit you saw - can you tell us anything more about it? Was it wearing a particular style of clothing, carrying a certain weapon?"
Mrs. Barbeau closed her eyes, wrinkles deepened in a frown. "It looked like a young man, early twenties, maybe? He was wearing a military uniform, old-fashioned, French, I suppose - like the reenactors would wear out at the fort. And he had an axe. Not the big kind for chopping wood, a small thing like you'd use for cutting through brush. Or for fighting. More like a tomahawk, almost."
"Wow," Sam said. "That's a lot of detail."
Her eyes opened. She fixed Sam with a hard look. "You think I could ever forget something like that?"
They ended up leaving with a foil-wrapped loaf of zucchini bread. Mrs. Barbeau caught Dean's hand as he followed Sam out to the porch. He stopped. Sensed Sam waiting behind him. Mrs. Barbeau put on that stern look again. "You put some aloe on that burn, hear?"
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
She squeezed his hand, smiled. Damn good thing he couldn't turn any redder.
Back in the Impala, the a/c chugged against the heat. Dean shot a glance over at Sam before pulling away from the curb. "Got some good leads," he said.
"Yeah, at least we can narrow down the era a bit, maybe thirty to forty years instead of two-hundred-seventy-five."
"Christ," Dean muttered. "We better narrow it down. We've only got a day and a half."
Sam gave a little grunt of assent, turned his attention out the window with a frown of concentration. It was a look Dean knew well - once Sam sank his teeth into a problem, he didn't let go. The dogged determination was both an asset and a liability. He could lose himself all too easily: in a case. In revenge.
Dean snapped on the radio, flipped around the dial till he found some Thin Lizzy, "Jailbreak." Good summertime music. He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, hard plastic finally cooling to the touch, the knobby grips familiar and smooth.
He let the Impala's low rumble seep into his bones, soothe him, though he couldn't quite name what had him anxious to begin with. He wished he could blame it on Chicago: finding Dad and letting him go, facing the prospect of finding the demon. Being totally straight with Sam, which pretty much felt like having his guts ripped out and handed back to him.
And no, that wasn't the reason for his uneasy feeling; he was not such a giant pussy that he was afraid his little brother would leave him alone.
Again.
Pathetic. Dean glanced in the rearview, saw a stranger's face reflected there, unfamiliar angles, foreign eyes.
--
Skynyrd on the jukebox, clack and clatter from the pool tables: the soundtrack to Sam's life. On the stained and scarred table before him, books, pages of notes, a box of freshly sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga pencils. On Dean's side, empty beer bottles, crumpled napkins, the stripped bones of buffalo wings, atomic variety.
At the back of the bar, Dean was half drunk, working a hustle. Sam supposed he couldn't be too irritated. It wasn't like Dean had ditched him, leaving him to do all the work. After one too many annoying cracks - mostly randomly disparaging the French, whose colonial-era uniforms really weren't any more absurd than any others of the time - Sam had snapped. "Dude. If you're not gonna get any work done, just - just go."
Maybe not the smartest move, considering the way Dean's face closed off, not to mention the fact that this research was way too much for one person.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling the burn of small print and cigarette smoke. He'd gotten hung up on the stupid uniforms, researching the reenactors Mrs. Barbeau had mentioned, then trying to narrow down the time-frame. But there were too many possible matches. French marines, French army. Stupid leggings and vests and tri-cornered hats. The outfits didn't change enough, and the vague description they had didn't give enough detail.
He flagged down the waitress for a beer, started packing things up. Only thing to do when you hit that wall is take a break. He took his beer and his bag to a stool near the back to watch Dean mop the table with some dumb local kid.
Dean's hustle was a thing of beauty; he moved with a fluid grace that his marks never noticed till it was too late. As Sam watched, he tipped his head back to finish another beer, a slight flush to his skin that might have been more than just sunburn. He seemed just drunk enough to reel in his townie mark. He hefted his cue, circled the table, gauging his shots. Bummed cigarette dangling from his lips, he rolled his shoulders, sank a shot. Then another. Ran the table, a mystical game reduced to geometry, confidence, and power.
Looked like he'd won a couple hundred, easy, pocketing his winnings with a lazy grin. Sam drained his own beer, ready to grab Dean and get the hell out. The locals were glowering; seemed the natives weren't too friendly. Dean shouldered past a couple of spectators to get to Sam. "Got our room covered for a few more nights," he said, a little too loud, a little too close to Sam's ear. Sam caught a whiff of beery breath.
"Good job, man." Sam got a hand on Dean's shoulder, started steering him toward the door.
But it was already too late. Sam felt a sudden shift in the air, a prickling at the back of his neck. He and Dean turned as one.
And maybe Dean wasn't quite as drunk as he'd played. He caught the pool cue swinging at his head, used it to pull the guy in, then yanked it away, shoved the fat end hard into the guy's soft gut. The townie let out an oof, doubled over.
"We done here?" Dean stood poised to fight, all traces of drunkenness gone, pool cue loose in his grip, ready to wield like a staff. Backed by neon, jaw clenched tight, he waited.
No one moved. "Good." He dropped the cue on a table with a clatter, turned to Sam.
That was when the townie lunged, glint of knife in his hand. "Dean," Sam warned, moved in.
Dean was already on it. He spun, dodging wild swings.
A couple of the guy's friends advanced. Sam slung his bag to the floor, moved in to intercept. The townies were sloppy, drunk. A few well-placed punches, an elbow to one guy's face, and they were down. He turned back to Dean, just in time to see the townie slash at Dean's gut.
Dean juked out of the way, snaked in to grab the guy's wrist. He yanked the dude off balance. Swift strike to the elbow. The townie howled, finding out firsthand the elbow doesn't bend that way.
Dean backed up, grabbed the hem of Sam's shirt. Once Sam had his bag in hand, they were gone. Dean wasted no time in peeling out of the lot.
Maybe a ten-minute drive back to the motel. Sam didn't say a word until the door shut behind him. "Stupid," he muttered.
Dean sat on the edge of his bed, examining scraped and reddened knuckles. "You got something to say, Sam?"
"Yeah, I got something to say." He drew up to his full height, used it for full looming effect. "That was fucking stupid, Dean. These towns are too small to go starting bar fights, not to mention the fact that we're so close to St. Louis. The last thing we need is the cops on our ass."
Dean stood, bellied right up to Sam. "Yeah? The way I remember it, I didn't start shit. That guy tried to jump me from behind."
"Come on, man, like you didn't provoke him somehow. Hell, you provoke people by breathing."
"Christ, Sam, you don't like the way I research. You don't like the way I make money. You don't want me saying the wrong thing or doing something to embarrass you. What do you want from me? Shut the hell up and do your laundry?"
"I dunno, you already do a good job of that with Dad."
The last thing Sam expected was the flash of hurt in Dean's eyes. A muscle jumped in Dean's jaw. Without another word, he turned to leave. Didn't even slam the door behind him.
Well. That didn't go exactly as planned.
A hollow silence filled the empty room.
--
Dean didn't go far. He never did.
Not like there were many places to go. Apparently, Red Bud, Illinois did not boast the most thrilling night life. Just past one in the morning, only the occasional car passed. Dean walked along the side of the road, covered in a sticky film of sweat, listening to the low cicada hum. He was just buzzed enough to feel desperate and maudlin, worthless and alone.
He wished now he'd gotten into a real fight, not just some one-sided exercise in self-defense. He wanted bruises and aches, something more than busted knuckles, something he'd really feel in the morning.
He walked about a mile, then back again, hands shoved deep in his pockets, scuffing his boots through broken glass and roadside trash, crumpled wrappers and crushed wax cups, the unspooled innards of broken tapes.
When he got back to the room, the lights were still on, Sam's insomnia at work again. Dean squatted, leaning against the wall to consider his options. Nice enough night, if a little bit muggy. If nothing else, he could wait until Sam was pretending to sleep.
--
The morning of the Fourth dawned humid and hazy, blue-gray horizon of trees limned by a peach-colored sunrise. Sam found Dean fast asleep in the Impala's backseat, curled into a contortionist's act. He'd probably be bitching about a sore neck all day.
There was a Stop-N-Rob just down the street. Sam walked down, grabbed two coffees and a couple of cinnamon rolls. Back at the car, he knocked on the windowsill, was rewarded by a ridiculous thrashing of limbs. Dean half-sat, peered blearily up at him.
"Dude." Sam handed Dean his coffee. "I know you love this car, but this is borderline unhealthy." It was the only kind of apology their family knew, a peace offering without words.
Dean drained half the coffee in a few long swallows, got out to lean against the car. He squinted at the orange rind of the sun. "What time is it?"
"Seven-thirty. Only got a day left. Figured we should get an early start."
Dean studied him for a long moment, searching for any trace of condescension. The imprint of the Impala's upholstery creased his cheek; his sunburn was starting to peel. Finally he nodded, took another sip of coffee. "Lemme grab a shower, we'll get started."
With the aid of the motel coffeemaker, the rest of the day passed in a flurry of paper: photocopies and legal pads, a stack of books on the town and the fort. From Quebec to New Orleans: The Story of the French in America. Weird Illinois. French Colonial Archaeology. History as They Lived It: A Social History of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. Sam spread out at the table with the laptop and his precisely arranged row of pencils. Dean sprawled on his unmade bed, flexing his bare toes, chewing on the end of a pen.
A couple hours in, Dean sat up. "Think I got something here. 1723. The storehouse clerk at the fort, Perillau, was arrested for killing the company's drummer. Ran him through with his sword for speaking to him 'impertinently.' Perillau was supposed to be hanged, but chiefs of local tribes intervened. In order to keep the peace with the natives, Perillau was freed."
For the first time, Sam felt a spark of interest. He took the book from Dean. "Did it say anything about the guy's funeral? Where he's buried?"
"Nope. There's about four pages recounting the chiefs' speeches, but nothing we really need."
"Shit." Sam skimmed the passages, running a finger down the page. "Well, we might actually have some luck with legal databases. Says this was the first trial in Illinois history."
It wasn't great, but it was a lead. Within minutes, Sam was following the thread. No one book or database had the whole story, but he and Dean managed to piece it together.
Some sources called it a duel, others called it murder. Perillau had been friendly with the local tribes, and keeping them happy was far more important than the life of one rank-and-file French marine, known to history only as Morin. The government did its best to cover up the situation, ordering a discreet nighttime burial. Local colonists in Prairie du Rocher, among whom Morin had friends and family, weren't as pleased with the decision.
On the night of the burial, villagers had intercepted the small military funeral procession and essentially hijacked the body. The long line of wagons and horsemen were more for the locals than for the dead man; resentful of the cover-up, it was their only means of protest. Morin had been buried on the land of a prominent citizen, a place of honor away from the fort's burial grounds.
"Think we got our guy," Dean said, looking up from the latest pages Sam had handed him. "But there's still one thing I don't get."
"One thing?" Sam leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head.
"We're missing the pattern. Why is this dude going after some people and not others? We haven't found any real connections, any skeletons in the victims' closets."
Sam nodded agreement. "And why isn't the procession seen every year?"
Dean dug around through the papers on his bed, found the map of the area they'd been using - printed from Google, since none of their atlases gave enough detail of the small town. He went back to the description of the gravesite, found the area on the map. It was near the Bluff Road Mrs. Barbeau mentioned. Maybe there was something to the location.
He found his pile of death certificates, each Xerox annotated with whatever details they'd been able to find. Often, the county had only listed the hospital as the place of death, so they'd turned to newspaper reports and Edith's gossip to fill in the blanks. He plotted each location on the map and soon enough saw a pattern: all of the deaths occurred on the bluffs side of town. The closer to the bluffs, the more violent the death. He moved over to the table, showed the map to Sam.
He knew the exact moment something clicked in Sam's big, freaky brain. Maybe it was a clichéd light in the eyes, a straightening of the posture like a dog on point - maybe it was just a sense that came with knowing Sam, reading his moods over a lifetime. Whatever the case, Dean found himself leaning forward, watching Sam's fingers fly over the laptop keys, clicking faster than he could keep up.
After a moment: "Ley lines." Sam leaned back from the computer, laughed. "Can't believe it's that fucking simple. Right along the bluffs. This guy gets buried nearby, is already a malevolent spirit. The ley lines must have magnified his power, made him stronger. That's why some of these amateur ghost hunters never see anything. They're probably closer to the fort, on the wrong side of town. That's why the ghost rushed you at the fort, but didn't have the strength to do any real damage."
"I'll be damned. Not bad, Sammy."
Sam gave up a little flash of a grin. "Seriously, though. Combine ley lines with the anniversary of the murder - that's some bad mojo. This thing is gonna be strong and pissed off. We gotta be careful going into this one."
--
The yahoos were out tonight. Carloads of teenagers driving way too fast, people making last-minute party buys. As soon as dusk fell, the backyard fireworks displays began, just rinky-dink bottle rockets to start, later giving way to bigger mortars, more complex sequences. Dean admired it with a grin he couldn't quite help; you had to enjoy a holiday where celebrating equaled blowing shit up.
There were a few ghost hunters, too. Dean had seen some at Marie's, huddled around a table talking about EMF and cold spots and residual hauntings. So far it seemed they were keeping to the safer side of town, concentrating their "investigation" on the area near the fort.
On the bluffs side of town, Dean had parked the Impala behind an abandoned gas station. It was a short hike to Morin's gravesite, just under a mile. They found it easily enough, despite the lack of tombstone: a rectangular depression of earth beneath a weeping willow.
Nearing midnight, the temperature was still over ninety degrees. Sweat had soaked through Dean's T-shirt, the waist of his jeans. He hefted another shovel-load of dirt. "I could really do without the swamp-ass."
Sam paused his shoveling, looked up. Sweaty hair clung to his forehead; a streak of dirt marked one cheek. "Swamp-ass?" he asked, a smile tugging at his lips. "Is that the official terminology?"
"Universal, Sam. Everybody who's ever had it knows exactly what swamp-ass is." He thrust the shovel down again. "When we're done here, I'm taking the longest shower ever."
"Not if I get to it first."
They were nearing coffin depth at the first sign of trouble. Sam's shovel stilled. He stared out over Dean's shoulder. "Dean."
Dean turned, peered above the lip of the grave. Off in the distance, ghostly figures moved, a filmy bluish-white. It was just as the stories had described, just as Mrs. Barbeau had seen. A line of wagons, followed by men on horseback. The wheels and hooves kicked up ghostly dust but made no sound. Even the cicadas had gone silent in the trees above.
"Son of a bitch." Dean turned in a circle, searching for any other apparitions. Other than the beam of their flashlight, there was nothing but dark. "Come on, we gotta finish this."
They dug faster, still facing each other, the best way to spot any danger. Finally, Sam's shovel struck wood, or at least something other than dirt - after so many years in the ground, the coffin had disintegrated to pulp. They scraped away earth and bits of wood to reveal yellowed bones, a few scraps of cloth and bits of metal.
When the misty shape formed behind Sam, it was already discernable as a man. "Duck!" Dean shouted, and Sam did, narrowly avoiding a scalping by a translucent axe.
Dean groped topside for his shotgun, blasted the spirit. It vanished in a spray of salt. He vaulted up out of the grave, rooted through the supplies. Pitched the salt down to Sam. "Hurry it up." A second later, he heard the salt shaking out.
Sam tossed his shovel out, scrambled up after it. He doused the grave in lighter fluid while Dean scanned the night. He breathed deep, nostrils flaring: smelled rot and wet earth, sweat, the dizzying fumes of accelerant. Overhead, the sky cracked and flared, trailing colors Dean noted from the corners of his eyes. Good camouflage for the shotgun blast, but otherwise, the extra noise and movement wasn't making things any easier.
A box of kitchen matches rattled in Sam's hand. Dean turned in a circle, searching. Nothing. Before Sam could strike a match, the spirit reformed, a flash of light, a rush of cold air. It threw Sam a good ten feet, slamming him against the trunk of the willow tree.
Sam's grunt sent a spike of fear through Dean's gut. He fired again; the spirit winked out. "Sam!" he called.
"I'm okay," came the answer.
White mist to Dean's right. Shit, this thing was fast. He saw Sam getting slowly to his feet, knew he had to distract the ghost long enough for Sam to light the match.
"Hey, Frenchie!" he yelled. The spirit stopped, turned, that creepy stop-action movement peculiar to ghosts. "Yeah, I'm talkin' to you. You dirty frog, with your pansy-sounding language, and your poodles, and your goddamn giant phallic bread…"
Dean wasn't sure the ghost could even understand English, let alone this nonsense, but the insulting tone seemed to work; the thing moved closer in a flash, obviously ready to throw down. Dean paused long enough to make sure Sam was on his feet, then took off running.
He stumbled a couple of times over uneven ground, lost the shotgun the second time with a sickening clatter, but managed to right himself, keeping a course parallel to the bluffs. Twice the spirit winked to life in his path; twice, he managed to dodge the small, slashing axe.
Third time's a charm.
A flash right in front of him, a wall of cold air. Dean skidded to a stop, pivoted on one foot.
Zigged when he should have zagged.
There was no pain at first, only a sick shock of cold as the ghost's axe slashed at his belly. He had time to register a pair of dead eyes, a haggard, scruffy face, before the thing came at him again, aiming an overhand blow to his neck.
He got his left arm up to block, and shit, now there was pain, a flare of agony as the axe cut through flesh, connected with bone. He stumbled back, suddenly lightheaded, fell on his ass as the ghost reared back to strike.
Then, a flash of orange, a swirl of fiery light: the spirit wore a mask of shock as the fire back at the grave consumed its bones, released its soul.
Dean held the throb of his left arm close to his chest, tried to get to his feet. Ended up on his ass again. Pain jarred through him in a dizzy rush. His vision grayed out; when he came to, he was flat on his back in the Illinois dirt. He felt a spreading wetness at his belly, just above the beltline. Not sweat. He reached down, felt the tear in his shirt. Fuck. That ghost must have got him good. He pressed down on the wound with a grunt, arm trembling with the effort.
Fireworks cracked overhead, echoed off the limestone bluffs: incandescent blooms, brief flares of ruby and emerald, corkscrews of light, against a dark sky shimmering with stars.
Each new shell made him flinch. He dragged in deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Tried not to move. Tried to press harder on his belly, though he suspected it wasn't doing much good: hot blood still seeped sticky through his fingers.
His eyes slipped shut, the world reduced to heat and noise. The muggy night pressed down on his skin. Each breath filled his nose with burnt powder and sweat and dust, the coppery tang of blood.
Somewhere to the south, to his right, he thought he heard someone shout his name. He opened his eyes. The sky blurred, a smear of colors, then sharpened into dark and sparks and stars.
--
Sam knew something was wrong, a sick feeling buried deep in his gut. He turned away from the guttering fire, searching the night for any sight of his brother. "Dean!" he yelled. No answer. He set off in the direction Dean had run.
Tripping over the shotgun confirmed his suspicion. He grabbed it and moved on, listening for any sounds beyond night insects and the constant crack and boom of fireworks.
He might have missed Dean if it weren't for an electric blue shell exploding overhead, bathing the night in an unearthly shade. Dean lay on his back, staring up at the sky, dragging in hitching breaths.
Jesus. "Dean!" Sam sprinted the last few yards, skidded to his knees.
Dean's eyes were slow to track him. "Hey, Sammy," he slurred. "You okay?"
"Yeah, dude, I'm fine." Sam ran his hands down Dean's chest till he came to the sticky blood, Dean's hand pressed weakly to the wound. "Christ. Got you with the axe, huh."
Dean grunted an answer. Licked his lips, let his eyes fall shut.
Shit, shit, shit. Too dark to really assess the damage. Sam found Dean's pocket knife (much more wicked than that innocuous name made it sound) and sliced off Dean's shirt, folding part to use as a pressure bandage. He moved Dean's hand out of the way. Pressed down.
Sam winced at the sound Dean made: small and pained, almost a whimper. "Hey, Dean." He waited till Dean's opened his eyes, blinked up at the sky. "Did I hear you taunt a ghost by ridiculing French bread?"
Dean let out a chuckle, grimaced. His head rolled to the side, his eyes fixed on Sam's face. "Not exactly my best work," he grinned. "Got nothing against their toast, though."
Sam laughed, feeling sweat or maybe tears roll down his face. The heat wrapped around him, colors sparking and blooming overhead, as he tried to keep the pressure steady, as his brother's blood seeped hot and wet under his hands.
--
Surrounded by varying shades of beige, Sam leaned forward in a hard plastic chair, elbows on his knees, and stared down at his hands. Stared down at the blood flaking under his fingernails. The sharp scent of harsh antiseptic soap would stay with him, cling to his skin and clothes, until he could get out of this place and wash it all away.
He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
He'd had enough of Dean lying pale in hospital beds, surrounded by wires, but here they were again. He couldn't forget the fear in Dean's eyes, the bruising grip Dean had kept on his hand.
The wound wasn't that bad, though Dean had lost a lot of blood. Twenty-four stitches for the slash across his stomach. Sheer luck that the ghostly axe hadn't hit any organs. The gash to his left arm was deeper, all the way to the bone. X-rays showed a hairline fracture of the ulna.
Christ, what a mess. Sam watched Dean's face, too pale even with the leftover sunburn, the lines of pain and worry smoothed away by drugs and sleep.
It was close to dawn when Dean's stirring woke Sam from a light sleep. "Hey," he said softly, waiting for Dean's confusion to fade, for his drugged brain to catch up.
Dean turned toward Sam's voice, head lolling heavily, the bowed head of a sunflower. It took a moment for his eyes to focus. "Sammy? Wha's goin' on?" He licked his lips, made a face.
Sam found the cup of ice chips a nurse had left, scooped a spoonful into Dean's mouth. He hated that he knew the drill. "Ghost with an axe, remember?"
"Oh. Yeah." Dean's face scrunched up in concentration; it was utterly childlike and almost more than Sam could take. "We get it?"
"We got it."
"Good." Dean drifted for a moment, eyes slipping shut. He jerked awake again, looked around the room. "What's our story?"
Sam half-smiled, half-winced. "I used the Rollins ID and insurance." It was one of their iron-clads, rock-solid documentation. Used their real first names so they wouldn't fuck up in some moment of morphine haze. "And, um, it was your psycho ex-boyfriend who attacked you."
Dean's eyes had been drooping again; now they snapped open. "What, now?" Like he'd just heard wrong.
Sam scratched at the back of his head. "Well, at first they thought I was your abusive boyfriend." Something about the way he'd refused to leave Dean's side, and the way he'd maybe gotten a little angry. Belligerent was the word he recalled. "Anyway, I was able to convince them we're just brothers and I don't beat you up, but I figured they were giving me a pretty good scenario. So, um, you were dating this really possessive guy, and I was finally able to convince you he's bad news, and he didn't take the breakup very well. And you probably won't press charges or even mention his name, because you still care about him."
"Dude. You've been watching way too much daytime TV."
Sam tried to smile, but it felt wrong on his face. Dean was too drugged to notice. In another few minutes, he was asleep again, and Sam had time to remember the doctor's other damning evidence: all the old scars, X-rays full of badly healed breaks. Some Sam knew about, others he didn't, and maybe it was his shock as much as anything that convinced the doctor he wasn't to blame. Bones that had been set by an amateur or never set at all. Scars from knives (claws?). Burns (more than just the Benders' hot poker). Does that hip give him any trouble? Any problems with that shoulder?
Some of the injuries must have happened while Sam was at school, and he had to wonder what he'd been doing while Dean had been suffering - working at the library? Studying for an exam? Being normal?
Some of the injuries dated back a decade or more.
And what had Sam been doing then - bitching because Dad wouldn't let him play soccer or finish out a semester in one place? Waiting for Dean to do his laundry or make their dinner?
He felt sick just thinking of it - how much had his brother sacrificed without him ever knowing - without ever asking for anything more than a family?
And didn't Sam feel like a shit now, for the way he'd shot Dean down in that motel room in Chicago. What was it he'd said he'd do? Go back to school. Be a person again.
Christ. And he thought Dean had a big mouth.
Sam watched his brother sleep as the sun came up and crept across the room.
--
The first thing Dean did when he got sprung from the hospital was demand French toast.
It was only partly to be annoying, only partly to draw Sam out of his latest brooding funk. Mostly, it just sounded good. Smothered in fresh berries and whipped cream. He badgered and harangued until Sam caved, bringing back styrofoam containers. It was every bit as good as he'd hoped, and he experienced a half-hour of bliss: cherries, sourdough, and some WWII on the History Channel.
Perfect. Of course, that could have been the drugs talking.
He spent the rest of the day propped up in bed, a pillow on his belly, his fucked-up left arm on the pillow. Sam futzed around on the computer with a constipated frown, but Dean was too tired to even make any cracks about his porn-surfing habits.
The spell of the lazy afternoon was broken by a knock at the door. Sam's frown deepened. He got up, peered out from a corner of the curtain. Glanced back at Dean with a shrug, then opened the door.
It was the owner's wife, delivering a foil-wrapped package, a note scotch-taped to the top. When she left, Sam lifted a corner of the foil, took a suspicious sniff. Dean could smell the cinnamon and nutmeg from his bed, didn't need Sam's explanation: "Zucchini bread." Sam unfolded and read the note, then handed it to Dean.
A single page of flowery stationery, written in a spidery hand. It was signed Mrs. Alan Barbeau. The note read simply, Thank you.
Sam sat at the table again, eyeing the loaf of bread. "Guess news travels fast around here."
"Guess so." Dean cleared his throat, set the note aside, feeling a sudden rush of affection for old ladies and small towns, this lousy job and his annoying little brother, the good people they met from time to time. It wasn't exactly the perfect life, and things could always go south any minute.
But sometimes, he thought, it was pretty okay.
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A/N #2: The story of Perillau and Morin is partly true, up until the point at which it intersects with the phantom funeral legend. After that? Completely bastardized.