Supernatural: Carouselambra (1/5)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Carouselambra
Chapter One
Johnston, Iowa
April 30, 2006
It wasn't the same room.
There was no need for the adjoining rooms this time, so they hadn't even thought of getting them. They were on the opposite end of the motel. There was a real desk in this room instead of a rickety old table in the corner. The bathroom was on the opposite side of the hallway.
It wasn't the same room, but it was close enough that it gave Sam the creeps.
He closed the door and walked toward the bed furthest from it. Dean had already claimed the other, laid his jacket across it, and was starting to pull things out of his bag. Sam put the bag of Chinese take-out he was carrying on the desk as he walked past it.
"Whose idea was this again?" Sam asked as he threw his duffel bag down on the bright orange bedspread. They'd had blue bedding the last time they were there. And again he told himself that it didn't matter, because it wasn't the same room.
Dean glanced up at him without stopping what he was doing. His shotgun was already laid out on the bed next to his jacket, as was his knife, and the pearl-handled Colt was in his hand.
"The hunt?" Dean said. "We talked about this."
"No, not the hunt," Sam said. He turned around and sat down on the foot of the bed. "The motel."
Dean shrugged and dropped the Colt on the bedspread, next to the shotgun. "We tried the other two. They were both full, remember?"
"Yeah, I know. It's just ..."
"Just what?" Dean's voice was steady, but it sounded tight.
"I've got a bad feeling about this, Dean," Sam admitted. "I mean, this place ..."
Dean sighed and flopped down on his own bed. "Hey, I don't like it either. But what choice do we have?" He ran his fingers through his hair quickly, then dropped his arms, slapping his own legs in the process. "Something's killing kids here, Sam. We gotta stop it."
"But what if it's ...?"
"It can't be," Dean interrupted. "He's dead. Salted and burned and rotting in Hell. Right?"
Sam nodded slowly. He knew that Dean was right. He knew that particular spirit was gone. He'd witnessed the end of that hunt firsthand.
"So." Dean pushed himself back to his feet and walked toward the bathroom. "What'd we get at the library?"
Sam turned around, bringing his knee up onto the bed as he reached into his bag to pull out his notebook. The motel hadn't been their first stop in Johnston this time around; if it had been, maybe they'd have been staying in a different one. But Sam had insisted on starting his research immediately, so they could finish the job and get the hell out of that town as quickly as possible. He flipped the cover of the notebook open and scanned the pages quickly.
"The first victim's name was David Harrison, nineteen years old. He was found in Chapel Hill Cemetery on April 2. They didn't find any signs of foul play, and they told the press they didn't think it was a suspicious death. He had a few bruises on his wrists, neck, and chest that were really faint and could have been traced to older injuries. The coroner ruled it a heart attack. Apparently, his heart just stopped beating."
The water came on in the bathroom sink, and Sam wondered just exactly what Dean had gotten on his hands that was bothering him so much. He'd been washing them every half hour at the library.
Dean's voice floated back at him through the open bathroom door. "Perfectly healthy nineteen year old kid drops dead because his heart stopped beating? Yeah, nothing suspicious about that."
"People's hearts give out all the time, Dean."
"No they don't, Sam."
"He was the one with the weird stuff on the ground around him, right?" Dean reappeared from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel.
"Yeah," Sam said. He concentrated on his brother's voice and shook off the memories that had been plaguing him for the past week. "Yeah, the reporter obviously didn't know what to make of it. Described it as the usual, generic 'Satanic ritual.' Nothing that they listed in the article sounds particularly Satanic ..."
"Is it ever Satanic when the reporters say it is?" Dean tossed the towel in the general direction of the sink and walked to the end of the hallway.
"But it does sound to me like David Harrison was messing with things he shouldn't have been."
"So, what, an altar of some sort? Think he summoned something?" Dean took the notebook from Sam's lap and started flipping through it for himself as he settled into the chair at the desk.
"I guess it's possible," Sam admitted. "That's a pretty peaceful death for a demon, though."
Dean nodded and continued flipping the pages. "The second kid?"
"Jonathan Wodtke, eighteen. His father found him in his own bedroom on April 16. Same cause of death, same pattern of faint bruises, and nothing in his room that didn't belong there."
"So the second kid wasn't doing whatever the first one was?"
"No," Sam answered, shaking his head. "And the third was Matthew Albers. He was nineteen, too. His dad and brother found him in the field next to the football stadium a week later. He died exactly the same way as the other two."
He could see Dean's mind working, processing the information that he'd just been given.
"So who are the other two?"
Sam tilted his head in confusion. "What other two?"
"The one they were supposed to find on the ninth, and the one they should have found today."
Sam knew he was staring at his brother blankly, and he probably looked pretty ridiculous, but he really had no idea what Dean was talking about.
Dean sighed and closed the notebook, slipping his finger between the pages to keep his place as he did. "Look at the pattern, Sam. This thing is killing them on either Saturday night or early Sunday morning, and it's leaving their bodies to be found on Sunday. So, where are the second and fifth victims? The ones that died on the eighth and last night?"
Sam ran his fingers through his hair, both frustrated and embarrassed that he hadn't noticed that there even was a pattern. "I ..." He shook his head and looked toward the wall. "I don't know. I didn't check to see if anyone else had gone missing."
"Gettin' a little absent minded there, professor?" Dean flashed him a quick smile and leaned back in the chair. "So you can look those up later, because no way in hell are we leaving any victims unaccounted for. That never ends well."
Sam couldn't suppress the shiver that ran up his spine. He and Dean both knew all-too-well the things that could happen when victims weren't found for long periods of time. The first time they'd learned their lesson about it had been in that very motel, eight years earlier.
"Any connection?"
Sam blinked again. Dean was right; he was slipping. But it was more than that, and he knew it. He was distracted as hell, and everything about the job was sending his mind wandering off into another set of memories, none of them pleasant. "What?"
Dean smiled indulgently. "Connection? Between the three victims we do know about?"
"Not to each other, no. Not really, anyway," Sam said. "They probably knew each other, or at least knew of each other. Town of less than nine thousand people, the high school probably doesn't have more than eleven or twelve hundred students, but it looks like that was as far as it went. David quit school when he was seventeen, didn't have a job, lived with his dad. Jonathan was a senior, captain of the football team, wrestled and ran track. Matthew was salutatorian of his graduating class, and was a freshman Economics major at Iowa State. He was just home for the weekend, for his brother's birthday."
"Yeah, doesn't sound like they'd be buddies." Dean flipped through the pages one more time and then looked up at Sam. "I thought you had pictures."
"Oh, yeah." Sam reached into his bag again and pulled out the three print-outs he'd made at the library. He handed them to Dean, glancing around the room again as he did. The creepy feeling he'd had ever since they'd walked through the door hadn't gone away, and, if anything, it was getting stronger. He couldn't get the memories of their last stay in that motel out of his head, couldn't stop thinking about what had happened in Nebraska the week before, and couldn't shake the feeling that someone - or something - was staring at them.
Dean didn't seem to notice his brother's distraction, or at least he didn't mention it if he did. He was staring down at the faces on the papers, and his eyes narrowed slightly when he turned from one picture to the other.
"Something wrong?" Sam asked.
"Um ... maybe." Dean scratched his head absently. "Did you notice how much they looked like each other?"
"Not really, no," Sam said slowly. "I don't think I even really looked at them, just printed them out." Sam shifted around on the bed, growing more and more uncomfortable with every second that passed. "I don't know what's going on, man, but ever since we got here, I just can't concentrate on anything." Sam shook his head again. "Why, do they look alike?"
"Oh, yeah," Dean answered. "We might actually have a problem here."
"Why?"
Dean held all three pictures in his hand and fanned them out so Sam could see them all at one time. Sam leaned forward to inspect them more closely, but what he saw had him drawing back almost immediately. His eyes jumped back and forth between the three known victims and his brother.
"Holy shit," he breathed.
"Holy shit is right," Dean muttered.
"Why the hell do they all look like you?"
"Gotta be a coincidence, right?" Dean asked. He turned the photos back around and looked down at them again. "I mean, it can't be ..."
"He's dead," Sam insisted. "Remember?"
"Yeah," Dean said, shaking his head to clear away whatever thoughts he'd been having. "Just a coincidence. Okay." He tucked the pictures into the notebook and handed it back to Sam. "You get your laptop out, start digging. Find us our missing victims."
Dean stood and walked to his bed, digging through his duffel bag quickly as Sam took his place at the desk and plugged his computer in. While it was booting up, Sam opened the bag of rapidly cooling Chinese food, pulled out an eggroll and took a bite. "What are you gonna do?" he asked as he sat down.
"I'm gonna take a shower," Dean answered. He held up the clothes in his hand briefly before disappearing down the hallway. "Holler if ya find something."
"Hey, are you gonna eat?"
Sam jumped when the bathroom door closed. As he started to turn back to the computer, something odd about Dean's bed caught his eye. He pushed himself to his feet slowly and walked over to it, noticing immediately what had changed.
Dean's Colt, with the wrought iron rounds, wasn't there anymore.
Sam sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, turning toward the bathroom when he heard the shower start.
"Just a coincidence."
Yeah, right.
1998
Dean closed the door quietly behind him, hoping against hope that Sam would just stay in their damn room until John and Bobby were gone.
He loved his father and his brother both, and there was no denying that, but sometimes he thought he might be starting to get tired of them. Things had been changing lately, and not for the better. It was really looking like John and Sam couldn't even be in the same room for more than ten minutes without fighting about something. Dean and Bobby had only taken three or four minutes to get the weapons out of Bobby's car, and had returned to find John and Sam on the verge of an all-out fist fight.
Dean walked across the room to where John and Bobby stood at the foot of the bed Bobby was taking for the night, stuffing their pockets with salt and loading their guns with consecrated iron rounds. Dean knew from talking to Bobby outside that they were only planning on doing some basic recon and weren't really intending to confront the spirit they were hunting, but it was always best to go out prepared for anything.
"Thing about spirits, boy, if you go diggin' up the skeletons in their closet? They're like as not to try and turn you into one."
John and Bobby had spent the whole day researching the spirit they were hunting, first digging through old newspapers at the local library, and then digging through an abandoned, falling-down house on the other side of town. They were mostly convinced they had the right person pegged as the spirit, but they wanted to be sure. If everything went as planned, and they got the confirmation they were needing, they'd have a salt and burn the next night. The final proof they needed was the missing body of the spirit's first victim, and they were almost positive that they knew where he was.
"Yes, sir?" Dean said as he stepped to his father's side.
John didn't look up at him and continued loading his shotgun.
"I know I've already told you this, Dean, but you need to stay in the motel. With all of the windows and doors salted. Do you understand me?"
"Of course I do."
Dean didn't think that his tone of voice was wrong, didn't think that it made him sound like he wasn't taking his responsibilities seriously or like he was being disrespectful. He took everything John said and every task John laid out for him seriously. He always had and always would, and he'd never thought he left room for John to doubt him. But apparently his father took exception to the tone he was using, because he looked up from his gun with his eyes narrowed.
Dean took an instinctive step back.
"This is serious, Dean. Very serious. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you keep Sammy in this room. Am I making myself clear? He cannot go outside."
And suddenly, Dean understood. He tilted his head in surprise. "Is this about why we're here?" he asked, keeping his voice low enough that Sam couldn't hear if he were listening against the bedroom door. "What the hell are you hunting, Dad?"
"A nasty piece of work," Bobby answered.
"A nasty piece of work that's a threat to Sam?" Dean's senses snapped to full alert. Taking care of Sam had been his job for as long as he could remember. He had always considered it - and still did, and probably always would - the single most important responsibility he had. "Dad?"
John didn't respond; he turned back to the desk, gathered up all of the papers there, and shoved them into his bag. Bobby did look up at Dean, though, with something approaching hatred in his eyes. He'd known Bobby long enough to know that what was there wasn't aimed at any human walking the Earth. Whatever this thing was, if Bobby hated it that much, then it wasn't getting anywhere near Sam.
"I need to know what I'm dealing with here, Dad. What is it? Is it after Sam?"
John tucked the last of the weapons into one of the two duffel bags that he and Bobby had been packing and zipped it closed. Bobby lifted up the smaller bag that he had loaded and walked out the door. As John picked his duffel up and slung it across his shoulder, he finally made eye contact with his oldest son.
"Keep the doors closed, the salt lines down, and Sam in the room, and you won't have to deal with anything."
"Dad," Dean said again as he followed his father to the door. "What the hell is it?"
John shook his head before slowly turning to face Dean. "You don't wanna know." Dean opened his mouth to protest, but John reached out and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "It'll be all right, Dean. It's not after Sammy, and besides, even if it was, it's not gonna get him, is it?"
"No, sir."
John slapped Dean gently on the shoulder and gave him a small, tired smile. "Sorry about your birthday, dude. I'll make it up to ya, okay?"
Dean nodded without answering, because he didn't trust himself to speak, and John stepped out the door.
He closed and locked the door the second his father cleared the threshold. He'd been right when he told Sam that his birthday didn't matter against what their father was hunting. Particularly if the thing he was after wanted Sam.
He picked the salt up from the bed where John had left it and started laying down lines thick and deep enough to keep Satan himself from coming in.
Chapter Two
2006
Dean knew exactly what was going on with his brother, and he didn't like it, but he wasn't going to call attention to it.
It wasn't at all like Sam to let things get to him the way they were doing on that job. That wasn't to say that Sam wasn't ever affected by the kinds of things they saw on a daily basis, because sometimes he was, but Dean had never known him to let it affect his research before.
Zack Mason, an eighteen year old pep band drummer with green eyes and light brown hair, had been in the high school parking lot after a baseball game on April 8 and hadn't been seen since. His name should have been in the notebook with the other three to begin with, not added an hour later.
The same was true of Brad Thompson, the fifth victim, whose name they had learned from a local radio station. He'd been found somewhere north of town a few hours earlier, but the police weren't releasing any other information, not even his age. It would be days before the autopsy results would be available, but Dean had decided to pay the police a visit in the morning. With the bodies of four dead teenagers showing up in as many weeks, and a fifth still missing, the locals wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of young FBI agents show up.
But having the information finally in their hands didn't make him feel any better about not having had it to start with. Dean wasn't supposed to figure out they had missing victims before Sam did. That just wasn't the way it was supposed to work.
He wasn't going to give Sam too much heat over it, because double-checking everything himself and keeping an extra eye on Sam to make sure that he wasn't going to completely lose it was actually working in Dean's best interest. Helping Sam stay focused in spite of his issues was giving him a good excuse to not even think about his own. Not that he actually had any real issues with being in that town, let alone that motel. Everything he'd come away from Johnston with had been dealt with and packed away years ago.
He glanced back across his shoulder to make sure that Sam was still with him, then looked back at the field they were walking toward.
Their recon trip to the cemetery hadn't revealed much that they hadn't already known, but it did give them confirmation that David Harrison had been attempting to summon something on the night of April 1. They didn't know if he'd succeeded or not because weeks of April weather, wind and rain, had washed away whatever evidence of sulfur might have been left behind, but the shape of the symbol burned into the grass made it clear that he'd at least tried.
They'd considered seeing if they could get in to see Jonathan Wodtke's bedroom, but had agreed that eleven o'clock at night was too late for any sort of legitimate investigators to come calling about a two week old death, especially one that had been ruled natural, so they'd decided to hold that back for morning, too, after they'd seen Brad Thompson's body.
So from the cemetery, they'd gone straight to the high school. The field Matthew Albers had been found in was next to the football stadium, only a few hundred feet from where Zack Mason had disappeared.
The Impala was in the parking lot behind them, tucked up between the building and the physical plant. They'd done a quick inspection of the parking lot and had found no sign of what had happened to Zack, which didn't surprise them since it had been two weeks. So they focused their attention on Matthew, and they were walking across a darkened basketball court, heading for the field just ahead of them.
"How far out was he?" Dean asked.
"Almost directly across from the end zone," Sam answered. Dean could imagine him gesturing ahead of them with his hand. They'd brought their flashlights but decided to leave them off unless they absolutely needed them. The nearest houses to where they were going looked to be about two hundred yards away, and they didn't need to attract any attention to themselves. "About another three hundred feet or so."
They walked in silence again, Dean watching his feet carefully to make sure they didn't trip over anything in the dark. He didn't lift his head until he heard Sam's voice behind him.
"Right here."
Dean looked up and started to turn, but something across the street grabbed his attention and he stopped. There, between two of the small houses, lit by a single yellowish street light - a tree-lined driveway with no house at the end of it. Just an empty lot.
"Dean?"
A feeling of cold, deeper than he'd felt in years, deeper even than the feeling of a reaper stealing his soul, swept across him, and even though he could feel beads of sweat starting to run down his back, he shivered.
"Dean, what's wrong?"
He was frozen to the spot; his muscles wouldn't move and his eyes refused to turn away from that lonely driveway.
"Dean?"
He jumped when he felt the hand on his shoulder, spun around and brought his hands up to defend himself.
"Hey, hey, hey."
Two hands, one on each shoulder, but he couldn't tell if they were holding him still or holding him up. He blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the person in front of him, and he concentrated on breathing, because apparently he'd stopped at some point and he really needed to start again.
"Look at me, Dean."
Sam. He needed to concentrate on Sam. Focus on Sam. He could do that.
"You okay?" he asked, though he had no idea why he'd think that anything was wrong.
"I'm fine," Sam answered gently. "Little worried about you, though. What just happened?"
"No, no, no," Dean said, stepping back and batting Sam's hands away. "Dude, hands off. I'm fine. Just ..." He glanced back over his shoulder and saw it there, the driveway inviting him to walk up to a house that was no longer there, but that for some reason he couldn't get out of his mind.
"Just what?"
"There's something over there," he finally said. "See that driveway? The one with no house?"
"Yeah," Sam answered as he stepped up to stand beside Dean. "What about it?"
"I don't know, I just ..." Dean lowered his head and rubbed his eyebrows with his fingers. "We need to go see what's over there. You picking up any bad mojo or heeby vibes from it or anything?"
Sam shook his head no and for once, he let the psychic thing go unanswered. "Should I be?" he asked hesitantly.
"One way to find out."
He started walking toward it, keeping himself low to the ground to avoid being seen. He didn't need to look back to know that Sam was behind him. Maybe it was irresponsible of them to be running off in the middle of a job, but it was only for a couple of minutes. And besides, what if whatever was across the street turned out to be relevant to the case they were working on? It might be important.
Dean jumped the ditch easily and jogged across the road. He could see now that their worries about being spotted from the houses on that side of the street were groundless. Of the seven houses there, five of them were empty, and from the looks of them, they'd been that way a while.
He stopped at the end of the driveway and stood there, staring down the line of trees while he waited for Sam to catch up. They were more shrubs than trees, he realized, overgrown but still not very tall, and the driveway itself was being reclaimed by the grass that was growing up between the rocks. The whole scene just struck him as wrong. When he closed his eyes, he saw a neatly trimmed hedgerow lining a freshly rocked driveway that led to a modest but cared-for white house with a big front porch on it.
Both versions filled him with a fear that he didn't understand and would never admit to feeling.
"So what are we looking for?" Sam asked.
"I guess we'll know when we find it."
Since he was no longer worried about being seen, Dean pulled out his flashlight and shined it on the ground in front of them. Sam did the same. Dean could hear the wind rustling through the leaves and their own footsteps on the rocks, but those were the only sounds he heard. As they neared where the house had once stood, he could see the shape of the foundation still sticking up slightly from the ground.
"The basement's still here," Sam commented.
Dean tried to swallow the lump that was forming in his throat, but it wouldn't budge. It, and the feeling of dread that had welled up from the pit of his stomach, had been his constant companions since he'd first seen the remains of the house in the distance.
He knew where they were now, knew where he was going, knew every inch of this property. He'd never forget it, could never forget it, no matter how badly he wanted to. Sam followed along behind him silently, shining his flashlight over the surface of the concrete as he walked around to the back of the house and opened the bulkhead he'd known would be there.
"Dean, how do you ...?"
"I've been here before."
He walked down the stairs and turned the knob on the old basement door. He wasn't surprised to find out that it was open.
"When?" He could hear the suspicion in Sam's voice, and he didn't really blame him. They'd only been to Johnston once before; there could have been no other time.
Dean pushed the door open, but couldn't make himself step inside. He'd been ignoring the way his heart pounded in his chest for at least five minutes, but standing in the doorway, listening to his own blood rush through his head, feeling his chest seize up until breathing was almost impossible ... he couldn't pretend anymore.
Sam pushed past him, despite the hand that darted out to stop him. "Sam, get back here!"
"What is this?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's order and turning slowly in the center of the room, shining his light up and down the walls, from ceiling to floor. A door in the far wall piqued his curiosity further, and he stepped forward.
"Please don't."
He wasn't begging, because Dean Winchester didn't beg. But damned if he wasn't ready to plead with Sam on his hands and knees if he'd just get the hell out of there.
Sam turned toward him slowly, suspicion written clearly on his face. "What is this place, Dean? What's behind that door?"
What was behind the door? Dean honestly didn't know. He honestly didn't want to know, either. But just the thought, just the possibility, that Sam would open it and see the same thing he saw every time he'd closed his eyes since they'd gotten to that damned town ...
But Sam wasn't listening to him. Sam was going to open the door. Dean wanted to stop him, wanted to grab his brother and pull him out of there, but he couldn't move. He was frozen in place, standing in the door like a statue, and all he could do was watch Sam reach for the doorknob, turn it and pull it open.
And immediately step away from it with his hand across his face.
"Oh, shit, man." Sam looked across at Dean through the gloom of the basement, the flashlights throwing just enough light to allow them to see each other. "I think we just ... fuck. We just found Zack Mason."
Dean leaned back against the wall, hoping it would be enough to keep him on his feet, and fought to control what was going on in his mind. He dealt with stuff like this every single day. Why was this one case screwing with him so badly? There was nothing left in Johnston that could hurt them; he didn't have anything to be afraid of.
"His house," was all he said out loud, but he knew it was enough. He could feel Sam across the room, heard him slam the door and start walking back toward the entrance.
Ignoring his rapid heartbeat wasn't slowing it down. Pretending he could draw a full breath wasn't helping him get one. Brushing off the throbbing behind his eyes wasn't making it stop or making his thoughts any clearer. Wrapping his arms around himself, rubbing his hands up and down them and trying to get warm wasn't making his blood run any faster. And trying to convince himself that he was anywhere other than where he was wasn't working at all.
"His house," he repeated, and wondered if he'd really said it the first time at all. Everything was starting to feel so surreal, grey clouds and bright lights floating and flashing across his vision, the walls were moving and the ceiling was shrinking, sounds coming muffled to his ears, coldness seeping in to every inch of his body, sapping his strength. "His basement."
And then he was falling into himself, watching his thoughts be pulled and shoved away, and he knew what was happening. He thought he opened his mouth to scream, but whether or not he actually did, he'd never know. He could see the darkness coming for him, and no matter how hard he fought it, it was going to take him.
He could hear Sam calling his name from a distance, fuzzy and garbled and real, but he couldn't get enough breath in his lungs to answer. His vision went completely black, his lungs froze, his heart fluttered, and his knees buckled, and one last thought passed through his mind before he got pulled under.
"Run, Sam!"
1998
"But why can't we go anyway?" Sam asked.
He'd come out of their room as soon as he'd heard the door close, so he'd seen Dean laying the salt lines. He hadn't asked him why he was doing it, which was just fine by Dean. He'd followed him from room to room while he did it, though, and had been talking almost non-stop about sneaking out and going to Des Moines the whole time.
"Bobby's car is still here, and he left the keys on the table. You know we've got time. Twenty minutes there, two hours for the movie, twenty minutes back. And Dad won't be back until morning."
Dean looked up from the television that he was pretending to watch. "You want to steal Bobby's car to go see a movie?"
"Not steal," Sam insisted as he sat down next to Dean on the foot of their father's bed. "Just borrow. He'll never know. Neither one of them will."
"No." He checked the shotgun in his lap once more, making sure that it was loaded and ready to fire if necessary.
"But you wanted to ..."
"I said no, Sam. And I meant it." He'd considered telling Sam what John and Bobby had said about the spirit they were hunting, about it being a nasty piece of work, and about Dean's own conclusion that it was a threat to Sam, but he'd decided against it. For all his big talk, even bigger mouth and freakish growth spurt, Sam was still just a kid, and the longer Dean could keep him in the dark about the more unthinkable parts of their family business, the better.
"Dad said stay here, so we're staying here."
Sam jumped to his feet and started pacing around the room, and he suddenly looked very much like the wild horse that Bobby was always comparing him to. He looked like a mustang in a corral, chomping at the bit and wanting nothing more than to jump the fence.
Sam had always needed the feeling of freedom more than Dean did, had needed to be able to make his own decisions and do things his own way. In a way, Dean envied him that, but in others, he didn't. Dean knew and understood that the rules and restrictions they lived with were necessary, and he accepted them, but Sam's need for independence sometimes overshadowed his common sense. It was a potentially dangerous combination, and it was starting to make it harder for Dean to protect him.
"This is stupid!" Sam declared, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. "It's like we're grounded, but we didn't do anything wrong. And how can he ground you, anyway? You're an adult. I don't see any reason why we can't ..."
"Because Dad said 'no,'" Dean explained as calmly as he could manage. "And so did I." He sighed at Sam's expression, the mixture of anger, disbelief and betrayal that was becoming an uncomfortably common one for him to wear. "Go take a shower, Sam."
"Just listen to me, Dean."
"No. I'm done listening. You've been saying the same things over and over for the past half hour anyway, so, no. Go to our room and take a shower. It'll help clear your head."
"My head doesn't need to clear," Sam said. His tone was biting, and he'd crossed his arms across his chest.
Dean sighed. "All right. But mine does, okay? And if you don't get in that shower and cool the hell down, I'm gonna lose it and probably kick your ass. Got it?"
Sam backed down immediately, lowering his head, shoulders, and arms. "Okay," he answered with a nod. "But I'm only doing it to placate you."
Dean had to smile at that, because he was pretty damn sure that Sam thought he didn't know what 'placate' meant. He'd noticed recently that Sam was starting to use a lot of uncommon or just plain old big words when he talked, and Dean was starting to think that he was doing it just to irritate or confuse the people around him. Dad almost always knew what he was saying, though, and it made things interesting when Dean made it clear that he understood him, too.
"I don't give a damn if you're doing it to placate the gods of personal hygiene, Sam. As long as you do it."
Sam snorted, though Dean couldn't tell if it was from irritation or humor. Probably a bit of both. But he did walk into their room, and a minute later, Dean heard the shower start running. He smiled to himself as he turned back to the television. He frowned at the screen and reached for the remote control. Had he really been watching The Outsiders this whole time? He sure didn't remember anything he'd seen if he had been.
"Stupid kids," he muttered to himself as he watched the main characters climb through the window of a burning church. But even still, except for all that 'stay gold' crap, it was an okay movie. Matt Dillon was cool.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up just as what felt like a cold breeze blew through the room and ruffled his hair. He dropped the remote and jumped to his feet, shotgun at the ready. He searched the room with his eyes, looking into every corner and shadow, but there was nothing there. He drew a breath and let it out slowly, checking to see if his exhale was visible, but it wasn't. His heart was still hammering in his chest, and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him, invisible eyes boring into his back and shoulders like a drill, but he was alone.
Dean took another deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Every single access point to both rooms was salted. He had his shotgun. Nothing had gotten in, and nothing was getting in. He was just a bit on edge, that was all. Just a little jumpy.
But still, better safe than sorry.
He turned off the television and walked into the room he was sharing with Sam, glancing down the small hallway that led to the bathroom as he rounded the end of his bed and sat down. He didn't bother to turn the television on in there, choosing instead to just sit with his shotgun across his lap, keeping watch.
Almost as soon as he'd settled on the bed, he was on his feet again, but it was through no choice of his own. His shotgun flew one way and he flew the other. The gun slid to a stop against the far wall of the room, and Dean slammed into the exterior wall, between the door and the window, with enough force to crack the plaster behind him. After taking a second to recover from having the wind knocked out of him, he lifted his head and looked around the room frantically.
Sam was still in the shower, totally unaware that anything was happening. Dean was weaponless and pinned to the wall directly across from the hallway. A pasty-faced older man with wild hair and even wilder eyes was standing in the middle of the room.
And Dean could see right through him.
2006
"Shit, Dean!"
Dean's silent scream was the only warning Sam got that his brother was going down, and going down hard. He did manage to reach Dean before he hit the floor, but not before he'd smacked his head on the wall behind him.
"Okay, it's okay. Come on, Dean. Wake up." He shifted Dean's limp body around, trying to sit him down on the stairs without dropping him. "Dean!"
He jumped the smoldering pile of rawhead, grabbed the front of Dean's jacket, and pulled him up out of the water. Dean's head flopped around limply, so he put his right hand against his brother's cheek to hold him up. It was too dark to see much, and it didn't look like Dean was breathing. But it was the unnatural stillness that scared him the most.
"Shit, shit, shit." Sam shook his head quickly. He needed to concentrate on now, in this basement, not then in that other one. "Okay, we can do this. You hear me, Dean? We're doing this. You and me."
It wasn't like Sam had never seen Dean have a panic attack, because he'd had them before, after their last stay in Johnston. But it had been almost eight years since he'd really had one, and Sam didn't think he'd ever had one that had made him pass out. But then again, everything about this job was messing with him, so why wouldn't it be messing with Dean, too?
Not for the first time, Sam wished that they had passed this hunt on to someone else, someone who wasn't them. At the very least, they shouldn't have come into it alone. Because it was pretty damn obvious that neither one of them was handling it quite as well as they wanted to think they were.
"We're outta here," Sam said as he put his arms around Dean's waist and hefted him up and over his shoulder. He took a few seconds to get himself settled under the extra weight and started climbing the stairs. As soon as they were outside again, Sam put Dean down on the ground and propped him up against the side of the bulkhead.
"Stay here," he said, though he was fairly sure that Dean wasn't going to be going anywhere of his own volition for quite a while. "I'll be right back."
Sam dashed back into the basement, pulled his coat sleeve down over his hand and wiped the handle of the door he'd opened. He glanced around quickly to make sure that he wasn't forgetting anything in his haste to leave, picked up the flashlight Dean had dropped when he fell, then wiped Dean's fingerprints off of the outside door and pulled it shut behind him. Lastly, he kicked the bulkhead cover closed and wiped its handle too, just to be safe.
He'd worry about the dead body later. It seemed cold and callous to think, but if it was Zack Mason, he wasn't going anywhere. Sam could make an anonymous call to the police any time.
"Let's go, Dean."
Sam tucked both flashlights into the bag he carried, zipped it shut, and moved the strap from his shoulder to across his chest. Then he scooped Dean up onto his shoulder once more.
"Damn, man. You need to cut back on the cheeseburgers."
Sam shifted Dean around into a fireman's carry, wrapped his arms around Dean's right arm and leg, and started walking. For the first time, it occurred to him that the Impala was almost a quarter of a mile away, in the high school parking lot. But it didn't matter. He needed to get Dean back to the motel, make sure he hadn't given himself a concussion when he fell, and get him to wake up. He just needed to keep his thoughts focused on Dean, keep them from taking off on their own again, and keep from thinking about that creepy feeling he had, that someone was watching them everywhere they went.
He shuddered slightly as he crossed the street and stepped into the field again.
Part Two
Chapter One
Johnston, Iowa
April 30, 2006
It wasn't the same room.
There was no need for the adjoining rooms this time, so they hadn't even thought of getting them. They were on the opposite end of the motel. There was a real desk in this room instead of a rickety old table in the corner. The bathroom was on the opposite side of the hallway.
It wasn't the same room, but it was close enough that it gave Sam the creeps.
He closed the door and walked toward the bed furthest from it. Dean had already claimed the other, laid his jacket across it, and was starting to pull things out of his bag. Sam put the bag of Chinese take-out he was carrying on the desk as he walked past it.
"Whose idea was this again?" Sam asked as he threw his duffel bag down on the bright orange bedspread. They'd had blue bedding the last time they were there. And again he told himself that it didn't matter, because it wasn't the same room.
Dean glanced up at him without stopping what he was doing. His shotgun was already laid out on the bed next to his jacket, as was his knife, and the pearl-handled Colt was in his hand.
"The hunt?" Dean said. "We talked about this."
"No, not the hunt," Sam said. He turned around and sat down on the foot of the bed. "The motel."
Dean shrugged and dropped the Colt on the bedspread, next to the shotgun. "We tried the other two. They were both full, remember?"
"Yeah, I know. It's just ..."
"Just what?" Dean's voice was steady, but it sounded tight.
"I've got a bad feeling about this, Dean," Sam admitted. "I mean, this place ..."
Dean sighed and flopped down on his own bed. "Hey, I don't like it either. But what choice do we have?" He ran his fingers through his hair quickly, then dropped his arms, slapping his own legs in the process. "Something's killing kids here, Sam. We gotta stop it."
"But what if it's ...?"
"It can't be," Dean interrupted. "He's dead. Salted and burned and rotting in Hell. Right?"
Sam nodded slowly. He knew that Dean was right. He knew that particular spirit was gone. He'd witnessed the end of that hunt firsthand.
"So." Dean pushed himself back to his feet and walked toward the bathroom. "What'd we get at the library?"
Sam turned around, bringing his knee up onto the bed as he reached into his bag to pull out his notebook. The motel hadn't been their first stop in Johnston this time around; if it had been, maybe they'd have been staying in a different one. But Sam had insisted on starting his research immediately, so they could finish the job and get the hell out of that town as quickly as possible. He flipped the cover of the notebook open and scanned the pages quickly.
"The first victim's name was David Harrison, nineteen years old. He was found in Chapel Hill Cemetery on April 2. They didn't find any signs of foul play, and they told the press they didn't think it was a suspicious death. He had a few bruises on his wrists, neck, and chest that were really faint and could have been traced to older injuries. The coroner ruled it a heart attack. Apparently, his heart just stopped beating."
The water came on in the bathroom sink, and Sam wondered just exactly what Dean had gotten on his hands that was bothering him so much. He'd been washing them every half hour at the library.
Dean's voice floated back at him through the open bathroom door. "Perfectly healthy nineteen year old kid drops dead because his heart stopped beating? Yeah, nothing suspicious about that."
"People's hearts give out all the time, Dean."
"No they don't, Sam."
"He was the one with the weird stuff on the ground around him, right?" Dean reappeared from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel.
"Yeah," Sam said. He concentrated on his brother's voice and shook off the memories that had been plaguing him for the past week. "Yeah, the reporter obviously didn't know what to make of it. Described it as the usual, generic 'Satanic ritual.' Nothing that they listed in the article sounds particularly Satanic ..."
"Is it ever Satanic when the reporters say it is?" Dean tossed the towel in the general direction of the sink and walked to the end of the hallway.
"But it does sound to me like David Harrison was messing with things he shouldn't have been."
"So, what, an altar of some sort? Think he summoned something?" Dean took the notebook from Sam's lap and started flipping through it for himself as he settled into the chair at the desk.
"I guess it's possible," Sam admitted. "That's a pretty peaceful death for a demon, though."
Dean nodded and continued flipping the pages. "The second kid?"
"Jonathan Wodtke, eighteen. His father found him in his own bedroom on April 16. Same cause of death, same pattern of faint bruises, and nothing in his room that didn't belong there."
"So the second kid wasn't doing whatever the first one was?"
"No," Sam answered, shaking his head. "And the third was Matthew Albers. He was nineteen, too. His dad and brother found him in the field next to the football stadium a week later. He died exactly the same way as the other two."
He could see Dean's mind working, processing the information that he'd just been given.
"So who are the other two?"
Sam tilted his head in confusion. "What other two?"
"The one they were supposed to find on the ninth, and the one they should have found today."
Sam knew he was staring at his brother blankly, and he probably looked pretty ridiculous, but he really had no idea what Dean was talking about.
Dean sighed and closed the notebook, slipping his finger between the pages to keep his place as he did. "Look at the pattern, Sam. This thing is killing them on either Saturday night or early Sunday morning, and it's leaving their bodies to be found on Sunday. So, where are the second and fifth victims? The ones that died on the eighth and last night?"
Sam ran his fingers through his hair, both frustrated and embarrassed that he hadn't noticed that there even was a pattern. "I ..." He shook his head and looked toward the wall. "I don't know. I didn't check to see if anyone else had gone missing."
"Gettin' a little absent minded there, professor?" Dean flashed him a quick smile and leaned back in the chair. "So you can look those up later, because no way in hell are we leaving any victims unaccounted for. That never ends well."
Sam couldn't suppress the shiver that ran up his spine. He and Dean both knew all-too-well the things that could happen when victims weren't found for long periods of time. The first time they'd learned their lesson about it had been in that very motel, eight years earlier.
"Any connection?"
Sam blinked again. Dean was right; he was slipping. But it was more than that, and he knew it. He was distracted as hell, and everything about the job was sending his mind wandering off into another set of memories, none of them pleasant. "What?"
Dean smiled indulgently. "Connection? Between the three victims we do know about?"
"Not to each other, no. Not really, anyway," Sam said. "They probably knew each other, or at least knew of each other. Town of less than nine thousand people, the high school probably doesn't have more than eleven or twelve hundred students, but it looks like that was as far as it went. David quit school when he was seventeen, didn't have a job, lived with his dad. Jonathan was a senior, captain of the football team, wrestled and ran track. Matthew was salutatorian of his graduating class, and was a freshman Economics major at Iowa State. He was just home for the weekend, for his brother's birthday."
"Yeah, doesn't sound like they'd be buddies." Dean flipped through the pages one more time and then looked up at Sam. "I thought you had pictures."
"Oh, yeah." Sam reached into his bag again and pulled out the three print-outs he'd made at the library. He handed them to Dean, glancing around the room again as he did. The creepy feeling he'd had ever since they'd walked through the door hadn't gone away, and, if anything, it was getting stronger. He couldn't get the memories of their last stay in that motel out of his head, couldn't stop thinking about what had happened in Nebraska the week before, and couldn't shake the feeling that someone - or something - was staring at them.
Dean didn't seem to notice his brother's distraction, or at least he didn't mention it if he did. He was staring down at the faces on the papers, and his eyes narrowed slightly when he turned from one picture to the other.
"Something wrong?" Sam asked.
"Um ... maybe." Dean scratched his head absently. "Did you notice how much they looked like each other?"
"Not really, no," Sam said slowly. "I don't think I even really looked at them, just printed them out." Sam shifted around on the bed, growing more and more uncomfortable with every second that passed. "I don't know what's going on, man, but ever since we got here, I just can't concentrate on anything." Sam shook his head again. "Why, do they look alike?"
"Oh, yeah," Dean answered. "We might actually have a problem here."
"Why?"
Dean held all three pictures in his hand and fanned them out so Sam could see them all at one time. Sam leaned forward to inspect them more closely, but what he saw had him drawing back almost immediately. His eyes jumped back and forth between the three known victims and his brother.
"Holy shit," he breathed.
"Holy shit is right," Dean muttered.
"Why the hell do they all look like you?"
"Gotta be a coincidence, right?" Dean asked. He turned the photos back around and looked down at them again. "I mean, it can't be ..."
"He's dead," Sam insisted. "Remember?"
"Yeah," Dean said, shaking his head to clear away whatever thoughts he'd been having. "Just a coincidence. Okay." He tucked the pictures into the notebook and handed it back to Sam. "You get your laptop out, start digging. Find us our missing victims."
Dean stood and walked to his bed, digging through his duffel bag quickly as Sam took his place at the desk and plugged his computer in. While it was booting up, Sam opened the bag of rapidly cooling Chinese food, pulled out an eggroll and took a bite. "What are you gonna do?" he asked as he sat down.
"I'm gonna take a shower," Dean answered. He held up the clothes in his hand briefly before disappearing down the hallway. "Holler if ya find something."
"Hey, are you gonna eat?"
Sam jumped when the bathroom door closed. As he started to turn back to the computer, something odd about Dean's bed caught his eye. He pushed himself to his feet slowly and walked over to it, noticing immediately what had changed.
Dean's Colt, with the wrought iron rounds, wasn't there anymore.
Sam sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, turning toward the bathroom when he heard the shower start.
"Just a coincidence."
Yeah, right.
1998
Dean closed the door quietly behind him, hoping against hope that Sam would just stay in their damn room until John and Bobby were gone.
He loved his father and his brother both, and there was no denying that, but sometimes he thought he might be starting to get tired of them. Things had been changing lately, and not for the better. It was really looking like John and Sam couldn't even be in the same room for more than ten minutes without fighting about something. Dean and Bobby had only taken three or four minutes to get the weapons out of Bobby's car, and had returned to find John and Sam on the verge of an all-out fist fight.
Dean walked across the room to where John and Bobby stood at the foot of the bed Bobby was taking for the night, stuffing their pockets with salt and loading their guns with consecrated iron rounds. Dean knew from talking to Bobby outside that they were only planning on doing some basic recon and weren't really intending to confront the spirit they were hunting, but it was always best to go out prepared for anything.
"Thing about spirits, boy, if you go diggin' up the skeletons in their closet? They're like as not to try and turn you into one."
John and Bobby had spent the whole day researching the spirit they were hunting, first digging through old newspapers at the local library, and then digging through an abandoned, falling-down house on the other side of town. They were mostly convinced they had the right person pegged as the spirit, but they wanted to be sure. If everything went as planned, and they got the confirmation they were needing, they'd have a salt and burn the next night. The final proof they needed was the missing body of the spirit's first victim, and they were almost positive that they knew where he was.
"Yes, sir?" Dean said as he stepped to his father's side.
John didn't look up at him and continued loading his shotgun.
"I know I've already told you this, Dean, but you need to stay in the motel. With all of the windows and doors salted. Do you understand me?"
"Of course I do."
Dean didn't think that his tone of voice was wrong, didn't think that it made him sound like he wasn't taking his responsibilities seriously or like he was being disrespectful. He took everything John said and every task John laid out for him seriously. He always had and always would, and he'd never thought he left room for John to doubt him. But apparently his father took exception to the tone he was using, because he looked up from his gun with his eyes narrowed.
Dean took an instinctive step back.
"This is serious, Dean. Very serious. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you keep Sammy in this room. Am I making myself clear? He cannot go outside."
And suddenly, Dean understood. He tilted his head in surprise. "Is this about why we're here?" he asked, keeping his voice low enough that Sam couldn't hear if he were listening against the bedroom door. "What the hell are you hunting, Dad?"
"A nasty piece of work," Bobby answered.
"A nasty piece of work that's a threat to Sam?" Dean's senses snapped to full alert. Taking care of Sam had been his job for as long as he could remember. He had always considered it - and still did, and probably always would - the single most important responsibility he had. "Dad?"
John didn't respond; he turned back to the desk, gathered up all of the papers there, and shoved them into his bag. Bobby did look up at Dean, though, with something approaching hatred in his eyes. He'd known Bobby long enough to know that what was there wasn't aimed at any human walking the Earth. Whatever this thing was, if Bobby hated it that much, then it wasn't getting anywhere near Sam.
"I need to know what I'm dealing with here, Dad. What is it? Is it after Sam?"
John tucked the last of the weapons into one of the two duffel bags that he and Bobby had been packing and zipped it closed. Bobby lifted up the smaller bag that he had loaded and walked out the door. As John picked his duffel up and slung it across his shoulder, he finally made eye contact with his oldest son.
"Keep the doors closed, the salt lines down, and Sam in the room, and you won't have to deal with anything."
"Dad," Dean said again as he followed his father to the door. "What the hell is it?"
John shook his head before slowly turning to face Dean. "You don't wanna know." Dean opened his mouth to protest, but John reached out and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "It'll be all right, Dean. It's not after Sammy, and besides, even if it was, it's not gonna get him, is it?"
"No, sir."
John slapped Dean gently on the shoulder and gave him a small, tired smile. "Sorry about your birthday, dude. I'll make it up to ya, okay?"
Dean nodded without answering, because he didn't trust himself to speak, and John stepped out the door.
He closed and locked the door the second his father cleared the threshold. He'd been right when he told Sam that his birthday didn't matter against what their father was hunting. Particularly if the thing he was after wanted Sam.
He picked the salt up from the bed where John had left it and started laying down lines thick and deep enough to keep Satan himself from coming in.
Chapter Two
2006
Dean knew exactly what was going on with his brother, and he didn't like it, but he wasn't going to call attention to it.
It wasn't at all like Sam to let things get to him the way they were doing on that job. That wasn't to say that Sam wasn't ever affected by the kinds of things they saw on a daily basis, because sometimes he was, but Dean had never known him to let it affect his research before.
Zack Mason, an eighteen year old pep band drummer with green eyes and light brown hair, had been in the high school parking lot after a baseball game on April 8 and hadn't been seen since. His name should have been in the notebook with the other three to begin with, not added an hour later.
The same was true of Brad Thompson, the fifth victim, whose name they had learned from a local radio station. He'd been found somewhere north of town a few hours earlier, but the police weren't releasing any other information, not even his age. It would be days before the autopsy results would be available, but Dean had decided to pay the police a visit in the morning. With the bodies of four dead teenagers showing up in as many weeks, and a fifth still missing, the locals wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of young FBI agents show up.
But having the information finally in their hands didn't make him feel any better about not having had it to start with. Dean wasn't supposed to figure out they had missing victims before Sam did. That just wasn't the way it was supposed to work.
He wasn't going to give Sam too much heat over it, because double-checking everything himself and keeping an extra eye on Sam to make sure that he wasn't going to completely lose it was actually working in Dean's best interest. Helping Sam stay focused in spite of his issues was giving him a good excuse to not even think about his own. Not that he actually had any real issues with being in that town, let alone that motel. Everything he'd come away from Johnston with had been dealt with and packed away years ago.
He glanced back across his shoulder to make sure that Sam was still with him, then looked back at the field they were walking toward.
Their recon trip to the cemetery hadn't revealed much that they hadn't already known, but it did give them confirmation that David Harrison had been attempting to summon something on the night of April 1. They didn't know if he'd succeeded or not because weeks of April weather, wind and rain, had washed away whatever evidence of sulfur might have been left behind, but the shape of the symbol burned into the grass made it clear that he'd at least tried.
They'd considered seeing if they could get in to see Jonathan Wodtke's bedroom, but had agreed that eleven o'clock at night was too late for any sort of legitimate investigators to come calling about a two week old death, especially one that had been ruled natural, so they'd decided to hold that back for morning, too, after they'd seen Brad Thompson's body.
So from the cemetery, they'd gone straight to the high school. The field Matthew Albers had been found in was next to the football stadium, only a few hundred feet from where Zack Mason had disappeared.
The Impala was in the parking lot behind them, tucked up between the building and the physical plant. They'd done a quick inspection of the parking lot and had found no sign of what had happened to Zack, which didn't surprise them since it had been two weeks. So they focused their attention on Matthew, and they were walking across a darkened basketball court, heading for the field just ahead of them.
"How far out was he?" Dean asked.
"Almost directly across from the end zone," Sam answered. Dean could imagine him gesturing ahead of them with his hand. They'd brought their flashlights but decided to leave them off unless they absolutely needed them. The nearest houses to where they were going looked to be about two hundred yards away, and they didn't need to attract any attention to themselves. "About another three hundred feet or so."
They walked in silence again, Dean watching his feet carefully to make sure they didn't trip over anything in the dark. He didn't lift his head until he heard Sam's voice behind him.
"Right here."
Dean looked up and started to turn, but something across the street grabbed his attention and he stopped. There, between two of the small houses, lit by a single yellowish street light - a tree-lined driveway with no house at the end of it. Just an empty lot.
"Dean?"
A feeling of cold, deeper than he'd felt in years, deeper even than the feeling of a reaper stealing his soul, swept across him, and even though he could feel beads of sweat starting to run down his back, he shivered.
"Dean, what's wrong?"
He was frozen to the spot; his muscles wouldn't move and his eyes refused to turn away from that lonely driveway.
"Dean?"
He jumped when he felt the hand on his shoulder, spun around and brought his hands up to defend himself.
"Hey, hey, hey."
Two hands, one on each shoulder, but he couldn't tell if they were holding him still or holding him up. He blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the person in front of him, and he concentrated on breathing, because apparently he'd stopped at some point and he really needed to start again.
"Look at me, Dean."
Sam. He needed to concentrate on Sam. Focus on Sam. He could do that.
"You okay?" he asked, though he had no idea why he'd think that anything was wrong.
"I'm fine," Sam answered gently. "Little worried about you, though. What just happened?"
"No, no, no," Dean said, stepping back and batting Sam's hands away. "Dude, hands off. I'm fine. Just ..." He glanced back over his shoulder and saw it there, the driveway inviting him to walk up to a house that was no longer there, but that for some reason he couldn't get out of his mind.
"Just what?"
"There's something over there," he finally said. "See that driveway? The one with no house?"
"Yeah," Sam answered as he stepped up to stand beside Dean. "What about it?"
"I don't know, I just ..." Dean lowered his head and rubbed his eyebrows with his fingers. "We need to go see what's over there. You picking up any bad mojo or heeby vibes from it or anything?"
Sam shook his head no and for once, he let the psychic thing go unanswered. "Should I be?" he asked hesitantly.
"One way to find out."
He started walking toward it, keeping himself low to the ground to avoid being seen. He didn't need to look back to know that Sam was behind him. Maybe it was irresponsible of them to be running off in the middle of a job, but it was only for a couple of minutes. And besides, what if whatever was across the street turned out to be relevant to the case they were working on? It might be important.
Dean jumped the ditch easily and jogged across the road. He could see now that their worries about being spotted from the houses on that side of the street were groundless. Of the seven houses there, five of them were empty, and from the looks of them, they'd been that way a while.
He stopped at the end of the driveway and stood there, staring down the line of trees while he waited for Sam to catch up. They were more shrubs than trees, he realized, overgrown but still not very tall, and the driveway itself was being reclaimed by the grass that was growing up between the rocks. The whole scene just struck him as wrong. When he closed his eyes, he saw a neatly trimmed hedgerow lining a freshly rocked driveway that led to a modest but cared-for white house with a big front porch on it.
Both versions filled him with a fear that he didn't understand and would never admit to feeling.
"So what are we looking for?" Sam asked.
"I guess we'll know when we find it."
Since he was no longer worried about being seen, Dean pulled out his flashlight and shined it on the ground in front of them. Sam did the same. Dean could hear the wind rustling through the leaves and their own footsteps on the rocks, but those were the only sounds he heard. As they neared where the house had once stood, he could see the shape of the foundation still sticking up slightly from the ground.
"The basement's still here," Sam commented.
Dean tried to swallow the lump that was forming in his throat, but it wouldn't budge. It, and the feeling of dread that had welled up from the pit of his stomach, had been his constant companions since he'd first seen the remains of the house in the distance.
He knew where they were now, knew where he was going, knew every inch of this property. He'd never forget it, could never forget it, no matter how badly he wanted to. Sam followed along behind him silently, shining his flashlight over the surface of the concrete as he walked around to the back of the house and opened the bulkhead he'd known would be there.
"Dean, how do you ...?"
"I've been here before."
He walked down the stairs and turned the knob on the old basement door. He wasn't surprised to find out that it was open.
"When?" He could hear the suspicion in Sam's voice, and he didn't really blame him. They'd only been to Johnston once before; there could have been no other time.
Dean pushed the door open, but couldn't make himself step inside. He'd been ignoring the way his heart pounded in his chest for at least five minutes, but standing in the doorway, listening to his own blood rush through his head, feeling his chest seize up until breathing was almost impossible ... he couldn't pretend anymore.
Sam pushed past him, despite the hand that darted out to stop him. "Sam, get back here!"
"What is this?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's order and turning slowly in the center of the room, shining his light up and down the walls, from ceiling to floor. A door in the far wall piqued his curiosity further, and he stepped forward.
"Please don't."
He wasn't begging, because Dean Winchester didn't beg. But damned if he wasn't ready to plead with Sam on his hands and knees if he'd just get the hell out of there.
Sam turned toward him slowly, suspicion written clearly on his face. "What is this place, Dean? What's behind that door?"
What was behind the door? Dean honestly didn't know. He honestly didn't want to know, either. But just the thought, just the possibility, that Sam would open it and see the same thing he saw every time he'd closed his eyes since they'd gotten to that damned town ...
But Sam wasn't listening to him. Sam was going to open the door. Dean wanted to stop him, wanted to grab his brother and pull him out of there, but he couldn't move. He was frozen in place, standing in the door like a statue, and all he could do was watch Sam reach for the doorknob, turn it and pull it open.
And immediately step away from it with his hand across his face.
"Oh, shit, man." Sam looked across at Dean through the gloom of the basement, the flashlights throwing just enough light to allow them to see each other. "I think we just ... fuck. We just found Zack Mason."
Dean leaned back against the wall, hoping it would be enough to keep him on his feet, and fought to control what was going on in his mind. He dealt with stuff like this every single day. Why was this one case screwing with him so badly? There was nothing left in Johnston that could hurt them; he didn't have anything to be afraid of.
"His house," was all he said out loud, but he knew it was enough. He could feel Sam across the room, heard him slam the door and start walking back toward the entrance.
Ignoring his rapid heartbeat wasn't slowing it down. Pretending he could draw a full breath wasn't helping him get one. Brushing off the throbbing behind his eyes wasn't making it stop or making his thoughts any clearer. Wrapping his arms around himself, rubbing his hands up and down them and trying to get warm wasn't making his blood run any faster. And trying to convince himself that he was anywhere other than where he was wasn't working at all.
"His house," he repeated, and wondered if he'd really said it the first time at all. Everything was starting to feel so surreal, grey clouds and bright lights floating and flashing across his vision, the walls were moving and the ceiling was shrinking, sounds coming muffled to his ears, coldness seeping in to every inch of his body, sapping his strength. "His basement."
And then he was falling into himself, watching his thoughts be pulled and shoved away, and he knew what was happening. He thought he opened his mouth to scream, but whether or not he actually did, he'd never know. He could see the darkness coming for him, and no matter how hard he fought it, it was going to take him.
He could hear Sam calling his name from a distance, fuzzy and garbled and real, but he couldn't get enough breath in his lungs to answer. His vision went completely black, his lungs froze, his heart fluttered, and his knees buckled, and one last thought passed through his mind before he got pulled under.
"Run, Sam!"
1998
"But why can't we go anyway?" Sam asked.
He'd come out of their room as soon as he'd heard the door close, so he'd seen Dean laying the salt lines. He hadn't asked him why he was doing it, which was just fine by Dean. He'd followed him from room to room while he did it, though, and had been talking almost non-stop about sneaking out and going to Des Moines the whole time.
"Bobby's car is still here, and he left the keys on the table. You know we've got time. Twenty minutes there, two hours for the movie, twenty minutes back. And Dad won't be back until morning."
Dean looked up from the television that he was pretending to watch. "You want to steal Bobby's car to go see a movie?"
"Not steal," Sam insisted as he sat down next to Dean on the foot of their father's bed. "Just borrow. He'll never know. Neither one of them will."
"No." He checked the shotgun in his lap once more, making sure that it was loaded and ready to fire if necessary.
"But you wanted to ..."
"I said no, Sam. And I meant it." He'd considered telling Sam what John and Bobby had said about the spirit they were hunting, about it being a nasty piece of work, and about Dean's own conclusion that it was a threat to Sam, but he'd decided against it. For all his big talk, even bigger mouth and freakish growth spurt, Sam was still just a kid, and the longer Dean could keep him in the dark about the more unthinkable parts of their family business, the better.
"Dad said stay here, so we're staying here."
Sam jumped to his feet and started pacing around the room, and he suddenly looked very much like the wild horse that Bobby was always comparing him to. He looked like a mustang in a corral, chomping at the bit and wanting nothing more than to jump the fence.
Sam had always needed the feeling of freedom more than Dean did, had needed to be able to make his own decisions and do things his own way. In a way, Dean envied him that, but in others, he didn't. Dean knew and understood that the rules and restrictions they lived with were necessary, and he accepted them, but Sam's need for independence sometimes overshadowed his common sense. It was a potentially dangerous combination, and it was starting to make it harder for Dean to protect him.
"This is stupid!" Sam declared, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. "It's like we're grounded, but we didn't do anything wrong. And how can he ground you, anyway? You're an adult. I don't see any reason why we can't ..."
"Because Dad said 'no,'" Dean explained as calmly as he could manage. "And so did I." He sighed at Sam's expression, the mixture of anger, disbelief and betrayal that was becoming an uncomfortably common one for him to wear. "Go take a shower, Sam."
"Just listen to me, Dean."
"No. I'm done listening. You've been saying the same things over and over for the past half hour anyway, so, no. Go to our room and take a shower. It'll help clear your head."
"My head doesn't need to clear," Sam said. His tone was biting, and he'd crossed his arms across his chest.
Dean sighed. "All right. But mine does, okay? And if you don't get in that shower and cool the hell down, I'm gonna lose it and probably kick your ass. Got it?"
Sam backed down immediately, lowering his head, shoulders, and arms. "Okay," he answered with a nod. "But I'm only doing it to placate you."
Dean had to smile at that, because he was pretty damn sure that Sam thought he didn't know what 'placate' meant. He'd noticed recently that Sam was starting to use a lot of uncommon or just plain old big words when he talked, and Dean was starting to think that he was doing it just to irritate or confuse the people around him. Dad almost always knew what he was saying, though, and it made things interesting when Dean made it clear that he understood him, too.
"I don't give a damn if you're doing it to placate the gods of personal hygiene, Sam. As long as you do it."
Sam snorted, though Dean couldn't tell if it was from irritation or humor. Probably a bit of both. But he did walk into their room, and a minute later, Dean heard the shower start running. He smiled to himself as he turned back to the television. He frowned at the screen and reached for the remote control. Had he really been watching The Outsiders this whole time? He sure didn't remember anything he'd seen if he had been.
"Stupid kids," he muttered to himself as he watched the main characters climb through the window of a burning church. But even still, except for all that 'stay gold' crap, it was an okay movie. Matt Dillon was cool.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up just as what felt like a cold breeze blew through the room and ruffled his hair. He dropped the remote and jumped to his feet, shotgun at the ready. He searched the room with his eyes, looking into every corner and shadow, but there was nothing there. He drew a breath and let it out slowly, checking to see if his exhale was visible, but it wasn't. His heart was still hammering in his chest, and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him, invisible eyes boring into his back and shoulders like a drill, but he was alone.
Dean took another deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Every single access point to both rooms was salted. He had his shotgun. Nothing had gotten in, and nothing was getting in. He was just a bit on edge, that was all. Just a little jumpy.
But still, better safe than sorry.
He turned off the television and walked into the room he was sharing with Sam, glancing down the small hallway that led to the bathroom as he rounded the end of his bed and sat down. He didn't bother to turn the television on in there, choosing instead to just sit with his shotgun across his lap, keeping watch.
Almost as soon as he'd settled on the bed, he was on his feet again, but it was through no choice of his own. His shotgun flew one way and he flew the other. The gun slid to a stop against the far wall of the room, and Dean slammed into the exterior wall, between the door and the window, with enough force to crack the plaster behind him. After taking a second to recover from having the wind knocked out of him, he lifted his head and looked around the room frantically.
Sam was still in the shower, totally unaware that anything was happening. Dean was weaponless and pinned to the wall directly across from the hallway. A pasty-faced older man with wild hair and even wilder eyes was standing in the middle of the room.
And Dean could see right through him.
2006
"Shit, Dean!"
Dean's silent scream was the only warning Sam got that his brother was going down, and going down hard. He did manage to reach Dean before he hit the floor, but not before he'd smacked his head on the wall behind him.
"Okay, it's okay. Come on, Dean. Wake up." He shifted Dean's limp body around, trying to sit him down on the stairs without dropping him. "Dean!"
He jumped the smoldering pile of rawhead, grabbed the front of Dean's jacket, and pulled him up out of the water. Dean's head flopped around limply, so he put his right hand against his brother's cheek to hold him up. It was too dark to see much, and it didn't look like Dean was breathing. But it was the unnatural stillness that scared him the most.
"Shit, shit, shit." Sam shook his head quickly. He needed to concentrate on now, in this basement, not then in that other one. "Okay, we can do this. You hear me, Dean? We're doing this. You and me."
It wasn't like Sam had never seen Dean have a panic attack, because he'd had them before, after their last stay in Johnston. But it had been almost eight years since he'd really had one, and Sam didn't think he'd ever had one that had made him pass out. But then again, everything about this job was messing with him, so why wouldn't it be messing with Dean, too?
Not for the first time, Sam wished that they had passed this hunt on to someone else, someone who wasn't them. At the very least, they shouldn't have come into it alone. Because it was pretty damn obvious that neither one of them was handling it quite as well as they wanted to think they were.
"We're outta here," Sam said as he put his arms around Dean's waist and hefted him up and over his shoulder. He took a few seconds to get himself settled under the extra weight and started climbing the stairs. As soon as they were outside again, Sam put Dean down on the ground and propped him up against the side of the bulkhead.
"Stay here," he said, though he was fairly sure that Dean wasn't going to be going anywhere of his own volition for quite a while. "I'll be right back."
Sam dashed back into the basement, pulled his coat sleeve down over his hand and wiped the handle of the door he'd opened. He glanced around quickly to make sure that he wasn't forgetting anything in his haste to leave, picked up the flashlight Dean had dropped when he fell, then wiped Dean's fingerprints off of the outside door and pulled it shut behind him. Lastly, he kicked the bulkhead cover closed and wiped its handle too, just to be safe.
He'd worry about the dead body later. It seemed cold and callous to think, but if it was Zack Mason, he wasn't going anywhere. Sam could make an anonymous call to the police any time.
"Let's go, Dean."
Sam tucked both flashlights into the bag he carried, zipped it shut, and moved the strap from his shoulder to across his chest. Then he scooped Dean up onto his shoulder once more.
"Damn, man. You need to cut back on the cheeseburgers."
Sam shifted Dean around into a fireman's carry, wrapped his arms around Dean's right arm and leg, and started walking. For the first time, it occurred to him that the Impala was almost a quarter of a mile away, in the high school parking lot. But it didn't matter. He needed to get Dean back to the motel, make sure he hadn't given himself a concussion when he fell, and get him to wake up. He just needed to keep his thoughts focused on Dean, keep them from taking off on their own again, and keep from thinking about that creepy feeling he had, that someone was watching them everywhere they went.
He shuddered slightly as he crossed the street and stepped into the field again.
Part Two