We Drank a Thousand Times - Chapter 2
May, 2000
Truth is, Jay's getting damn sick of hearing hymns sung in Eddie VanKampp's name. He was a bastard when he was breathing, and Jay don't see how he's any less of a bastard now that he's six feet under. Nobody outside his drinking buddies much liked him anyway, and it's Mae who's rotting in a jail cell like some kind of goddamn animal. After what he did to her little girl, the town ought to be having a bar-b-que to celebrate him getting his brains blown out. Hell, Jay'd be happy to bring the beer.
"You should have told me," he tells Mae when he goes to visit her. "I would have handled it."
Her hair's flat and faded, skinned back in a ponytail instead of all primped up like he's used to, and she looks younger than usual without her makeup, but her smile is as serene as a marble saint's. "Wasn't your place, Jay; she's my baby. I'll fry for shooting him if I have to. Don't got no regrets."
"Still," he says. "You should have let me handle it. I wouldn't have got caught."
Her smile's more like herself this time. "I do love you, sweetheart."
He slides his fingers through the chicken-wire to grip her hand as best he can. "Mae, you're a damn fool."
She knows him well enough to hear what he's trying to say.
***
Mae's husband is a mousy little man named Jake who ain't held down a full-time job since he started drinking back in '87. Mostly, Jay don't have much use for the guy, but he heads over to see how he's doing anyhow.
Jake's already three sheets to the wind when Jay gets there, red-eyed and weepy, and it turns out to be Nellie who sits down with him at the picnic table out in front of the double-wide and talks it out. Her fingers are splinted and there's still bruises on her neck from where Big Eddie grabbed her out behind Rocky's last week. Five days since she come home from the hospital, four days since Mae walked into the backroom of the Quick-Fill where Eddie was stocking beer and put a .12 gauge slug in his face, and here she is, shucking corn efficiently and talking about how they're gonna get money together for a lawyer.
"You know I'll help out as much as I can," Jay says.
"Mama said you'd say that," she says. Her voice is all raspy. "Said you got a heart too big for your chest."
"Your mama's a fine woman," Jay says back.
"Yeah." She laughs, mirthlessly. "I'm trying to be sorry she's in jail, but I'm too damn glad that son of a bitch is dead."
Back when he first came home, after the Corps, after Keith, he used to come by here to sit at this picnic table with Mae. She didn't try to make him talk, didn't ask nothing of him, just let him sit. It was Nellie who'd come out and chatter at him in those days, nine years old and bold as brass. Always came out to show him her dollies or her math homework or the picture she was working on that day. There was a hole in his heart then that wouldn't never heal--still hasn't--but that little girl took just a little bit of the ache away.
And now she's sitting there with bruises on her neck and empty eyes, and there's a part of Jay that wants to dig Eddie up and pump a few more rounds into his carcass. "Yeah, honey," he says. "Me too."
***
Jay don't take the newspaper, usually, which is why he don't find out until late the next night that both the crime-scene cleaup guys at the Quick-Fill dropped dead of heart attacks at the same time. Marty hands the paper over the bar, taps on the headline with one gnarled finger like Jay might miss it otherwise. "Ain't that something?"
"It's something, alright."
"Both their hearts just stopped," Marty says, nodding sagely. "Not a mark on them. Damn strange, if you ask me."
"Wasn't asking," Jay says sourly. If he had a lick of sense, he'd just head home now. Temper he's in, all it'll take is just one push to set him off.
"You gotta admit, it ain't normal."
"Sure."
"Maybe it was some kind of gas leak or poison or something. You were in the service, Jay, you ever hear of anything that could do that?"
Jay shakes his head and digs in the pocket of his flannel button-down for his smokes, and that's when Earl drops onto the seat next to him. There's a sheen of sweat on his forehead in spite of the chill outside, and from the smell of him it's been a few days since he's bathed.
"Sure," he says slurrily. "He was in the service. Until they kicked him out for bein' a cocksucker faggot, ain't that right?"
Jay takes out a cigarette and lights it, sucks down a mouthful of bitter smoke and blows it back out again without looking at him.
Earl bangs a fist on the bar and points at Marty, bleary-eyed. "Boy, you gonna get me another beer?"
"I don't think so," Marty says mildly without looking up from the glass he's wiping. Man's as easy-going as they come; he's been running this place since Jay was fifteen and Jay's never once seen him lose his temper. "Y'all feel free to come on back when you can walk a straight line. I'm cutting you off."
"The fuck is this shit," Earl mutters. "Some fuckin' country we live in, huh? Man can't even get a beer to drink to his buddy what some bitch went and shot. Shot right in the goddamn face, and why? Huh?" He grabs Jay's wrist. "Why d'you think, queerboy?"
"I think you better get your hand off me," Jay tells him.
"Or what?" He leans in closer, boozy breath in Jay's face. "What the fuck are you gonna do about it? You gonna shoot me like that bitch shot Eddie, huh?"
With his free hand, Jay takes the cigarette out of his mouth and drives the lit end into the web of skin between Earl's thumb and forefinger. For a second, Earl just gapes at him, and then he yelps and tries to snatch his hand back. Quick as a snake, Jay grabs his wrist, crushes the cigarette into his skin until it goes out. He can smell burning flesh by the time he lets go.
"Next time I tell you to keep your hands off me, you keep your fucking hands off me," he says, sliding off his barstool. Earl clutches his hand and makes a small angry, frightened noise that Jay likes more than he wants to. Behind the bar, Marty is studiously ignoring them both. "I'll see you around, Marty."
***
He drinks himself to sleep that night, and when he finally does drop off he hears the echo of gunfire rattling in his ears all night long.
The next morning, Andy Wilson slips off a ladder at the Quick-Fill and breaks his neck.
***
Sam has perfected the art of the awkward silence, Dean thinks, watching the tires of Dad's truck kick up dust on the highway in front of them. He gave up on conversation and cranked up the music about two hundred miles back, and he can still hear Sam's stubborn silence filling up the spaces between Lars Ulrich banging his way through Enter Sandman. Should have just let Sammy ride with Dad. Maybe then the pair of them could just duke it out and get it over with.
Yeah, and maybe that'd be a good way for him to wind up cleaning blood off the dash of the truck. When they're like this, it's like having a couple of pissed off bulls butting heads all over the place. Freaking exhausting.
Oh, hell with it. He reaches out and turns down the music. "Look, Sammy, I know you were really stoked about that debate team thing--"
"It's Sam, not Sammy," his brother snaps without looking away from the window. There's a book open on his lap, but he hasn't been reading it. "And yeah, I was really stoked. Some of us actually care about our futures."
Okay, so maybe it isn't sharing and caring time just yet.
"Whatever, dude," Dean says, and turns the music back up. Sam slaps his book closed and turns it down again.
"You know, this isn't fair," he says. "This is not freaking fair. I had two weeks left of my junior year. Two weeks."
"Oh, come on. Don't start this now."
"I just want to have a life, Dean! I had friends. I had a spot on the debate team. We were gonna go to States, and now they're screwed. Because of me."
"Not to mention that sweet little redhead you were all over," Dean says, trying to interject a note of humor into the proceedings.
Of course, it's Sam, so he fails miserably. Christ. Dean's met priests who are more fun. "Her name is Cynthia, and she had a boyfriend. And that's not the point."
"Oh, no? What is the point, then?"
"The point is that just once I want to be able to join a team without worrying about whether or not I'm going to leave them in the lurch. Just once, I'd like to be able to finish up a year at one school and not have to take summer classes so I don't get held back. Do you have any idea how hard it's going to be for me to get into a decent college as it is?"
College. That's a word Sam's been tossing around a lot lately, and it always makes Dean's gut twist with a cold fear that he doesn't want to put a name to. "Dude, I know you're upset and everything, but this is a little more important than debate tournaments, you know? People are dying, here."
"People are always dying," Sam mutters. "I just don't see why we're the ones who always have to drop everything and fix it."
And yeah, that's pretty much vintage Sam, right there. "I do not want to have this conversation with you again, okay?"
"Fine." Sam flips his book back open and glares at the page. "Take Dad's side. Just like always."
I'm not taking sides, you self-centered little prick, Dean thinks, but it's not entirely true so he doesn't say it out loud.
He lets the silence stretch out for five miles before he turns the music up again.
***
The sun's reached and passed the crown of the sky by the time they follow Dad off the exit for Canfield. It takes ten miles of winding backroad to get into town, and when they're finally driving down Main Street, Dean has to chuckle a little. It's been almost two years, and it doesn't look like a single thing has changed. There was a rainstorm a little earlier, and the pavement is still damp, the tin roofs still shiny with water. He rolls down the window, breathes deep the smell of clean, wet air and woodsmoke.
"Hey, Sammy, there's Lawler's," he says, as they drive past. Same faded neon sign, same newspaper clippings plastered in the fly-spotted windows. "Remember Mae?"
Sam shuts his book again and glances up, blinking and irritable. "I remember how you used to scam her into giving us extra junk food."
"Hey, that was for your benefit. You were a growing boy." Dean grins a little, offers a truce. "Course, if I knew you were going to turn into the Jolly Green Giant, I might have just let you starve."
Sam rolls his eyes and mumbles something that sounds vaguely like profanity, but he's smiling reluctantly. Dean's counting this as a win.
"You think Jay's still around?" Sam asks as they turn the corner onto Whitehorn Road.
Dean shrugs like it doesn't matter to him one way or another. Sam's pretty much always been able to see through him, but it's all about keeping up appearances. "Guess we'll see."
The garage is halfway up the road, where the plowed fields circling the town begin to give way to half-green trees. There's a new sign out front and it looks like the cruddy siding has been replaced, but other than that the place doesn't look much different. More importantly, there's Jay's beat-up red pickup parked around the side.
"He's still here," Dean says with some satisfaction, and taps the horn to get Dad's attention.
***
"Think it's cursed," Mike says from the garage door. Jay's on his back under a VW Bug that's older than he is, up to his elbows in its metal guts. "On account of Eddie, you know?"
"I am absolutely sure that you can find something to do besides standing there flapping your jaw," Jay calls.
"Come on, boss--"
"If you're that bored, I got a stack of paperwork in the office that needs doing."
"Okay," Mike says. "I'm going, I'm going."
He sounds sulky, but he's moving away in the direction of the back lot. Probably gonna go sneak a smoke with George and bitch about the boss, but as long as he's doing it out of earshot Jay honestly can't bring himself to give a damn.
He has about five minutes of merciful silence before he hears two sets of footsteps crossing the shop floor. Heading straight for him by the sound of it; probably customers who ain't supposed to be back here. If George don't pull his head out of his ass sometimes soon and start minding the desk, he's gonna get himself fired.
The steps stop by the driver's side, and when Jay rolls his head over to look he sees two sets of battered work boots and frayed denim hems. "Just hang on a minute, let me get this clamped," he says. "Be right with you."
"Take your time," says one of the men. "Not in any big hurry."
"Good," Jay grunts, tightening the hose clamp.
"That's Jay under there, isn't it?" asks the other man, and Jay's hand stills. He knows that voice from somewhere.
"Yeah." He gives the clamp another crank and shimmies out from under the chassis, braces himself against the Bug's gleaming chrome fender as he stands. "Do I--"
That's when he catches sight of them, and he shuts up. He don't know the older of the two, a big, dark man with heavy brows and haunted eyes and a set to his shoulders that says career military. The younger one, though--well, damn. It's Dean.
He looks good. Got a couple more inches of height on him, some muscle, filling out the promise of strength in those broad shoulders. He's grown into his face too, ain't so pretty now it makes a man feel indecent just to look at him, but those eyes, wide and green and full of wicked humor, are just the same. So's the voice. "Jay, man. Good to see you."
"No kidding," Jay says, and he knows he sounds kind of stunned but he can't quite help it. "Kid, I was starting to think I'd seen the last of you."
"Yeah, well, I'm like a bad penny." He gestures to the man standing next to him, watching Jay with an unreadable expression. "This is my dad. John Winchester."
"Pleasure to meet you," says Jay, and sticks his hand out. For a minute, he's not sure Winchester's gonna shake it, but then he does, broad palm dry and calloused.
"Likewise." His voice has some gravel in it, the older, tireder echo of Dean's. "Heard you gave my boys a hand a few years back."
"Was going through a rough spot with the shop," says Jay easily. "They picked up some of the slack for a few weeks. Did me a favor." It's pure bullshit and he's pretty sure both Dean and his daddy know it, but until he comes up with a better story he's sticking to it. "So, what brings you through town?"
They glance at each other. It's the kind of look that's full of conversation outsiders can't read, and when Dean looks back at him his disarming smile is just as full of shit as Jay's was a second ago. "Just passing through, figured my car's overdue for an oil change," he says. "Wouldn't trust it to another soul."
"Right kind of you," Jay says, like he don't remember the way Dean used to badmouth the customers who couldn't even change their own damn oil.
Dean and his daddy glance at each other again, and then Winchester Senior nods abruptly. "I'll bring the car around front. Maybe we can go grab a beer after you finish. Give you two a chance to catch up."
"Sounds fine," Jay says warily, wiping his hands on the rag he keeps in his back pocket. Definitely something going on there. Ain't his business any which way, but he can't help wondering while he follows the pair of them out the door.
It's sunny outside, a clean, crisp kind of sunny that makes the strip of damp road and the new leaves on the trees outside look like something out of a movie. The air's still wet from the rain that passed over earlier, and Jay closes his eyes, breathes deep. He's been tasting the memory of gun-smoke and dust all day, leftovers from his nightmares.
"So," Dean says, and he opens his eyes. John's crossing the lot toward a gleaming black Impala, but Dean's still standing there, squinting a little in the light. He looks thoughtful.
"So," Jay says back.
"You didn't need the help back then."
"Nope. You don't need me to change your oil for you."
Dean's smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. "Fair enough."
"Beautiful car." He nods at the Impala rumbling slowly across the gravel lot. She puts all the other pieces of junk around here to shame even if she is about as old as Jay. Car like that takes some love to keep looking so fine.
"Yeah, she's a family heirloom."
John parks the car around front, cuts the engine. The shotgun side door swings open, and a lanky form unfolds itself from the seat. It's Sam, of course. Kid's even taller than Jay remembers, hair flopping in his eyes, hardcover book clutched defensively to his chest. John snaps something at him and he replies in a sullen monotone, hauls a giant duffel bag out and slings it over his shoulder.
Dean aims an apologetic smile in Jay's direction. "I better go run interference."
Jay shrugs, watches him go slide between his father and brother with the same easy grin he used at the pool tables when they first met. He gets Sam moving in the direction of a big black truck that's parked at the edge of the lot, puts his head in close to say something in his daddy's ear, then steps back. Jay decides that's about the right time for him to go hunt down an oil filter and see if George fell in the creek out back and drowned.
When he gets under the Impala, it's just like he expected. She's about a thousand miles shy of needing an oil change, but he does it anyway, waves off the twenty Dean tries to pay him with. Looks like he has a more solid source of income than he did the last time Jay knew him, but he can't quite shake off the memory of that scrawny kid with old clothes and hungry eyes.
"You can buy me a beer," he says, locking up the front door. Mike's already heading out, but George is still hanging sullenly around the front stoop, waiting for his ride. Don't seem to recognize Dean, or if he does, he don't say anything.
"Okay," Dean says, and damn if that smile isn't even more of a killer now than it was two years ago. Jay catches John watching him, something a lot like suspicion in his dark eyes, and he looks away, focuses on digging his truck keys out of his pocket.
***
Rocky's is dim and smoky, country music twanging away on the jukebox, neon signs flickering in the blacked-out windows, that damn moose-head still hanging over the bar. Dean vaguely recognizes the little balding black guy with a face like a walnut who's wiping down the grimy countertop with an equally grimy rag. Marty.
"Man," he says, letting the door swing shut behind him. "This place is just as classy as I remember."
Dad cuts him a look under his brows. "What were you boys doing hanging around a bar while I was gone?"
Dean winces, opens his mouth to start explaining, and Sam cuts him off. "He was earning our rent money, Dad."
"Boy, don't test me--"
"I'm going to go finish my book, if you don't mind. Sir." Only Sam could make that come out like an insult. Dad's brows draw down, but before he can answer, Sam's turning on his heel and stalking across the bar on those long stork-legs. He settles himself in a corner booth, back pointedly turned.
Dean sighs. "I'll talk to him."
"Tell him he's doing extra laps for his attitude, while you're at it," Dad says irritably as they approach the bar.
"Yessir."
Jay's already sitting, talking to Marty and politely ignoring their little family drama. Dean tunes in to the conversation in time to hear Marty say, "...gonna rough up any of my customers tonight?"
"Hadn't planned on it," Jay says, but he's looking over at a couple of guys clustered over at the other end of the bar, and there's something ugly in his voice.
Marty sighs. "You never do. Just do me a favor and watch yourself, would you? Mae's a friend of mine too, but if you start another ruckus, I will toss you out on your ass."
"I got it," Jay says. "You done?"
"Yeah, I'm done." Marty's eyes flicker over Dean without recognition, rest briefly on Dad. Assessing the potential threat; Dean's seen plenty of bartenders look at Dad that way. Lately, he's been getting those kind of looks himself, which he finds more flattering than he probably should. Better than the alternative, anyway. "What can I get y'all?"
"Three Coors," Dean says, pulling out his wallet. "And a root beer for Princess over there."
He leaves Dad with Jay to bring the soda over to Sam. Dad gives him a look for that. They're here on a job, after all, and Dean's the one who knows Jay, has a better chance of getting him to talk if he's seen anything weird. Dean knows that. He does.
But Jay was good to him back in the day, and it feels vaguely unethical to sweet-talk him into spilling his guts. And anyway, if he doesn't jolly Sam out of his snit, it's going to be freaking unbearable at the motel tonight.
"Got you a soda, bitch," he says, sliding into the booth across from Sam.
Sam looks up, shakes his bangs out of his eyes. He needs a haircut. Dean's pretty sure redheaded-Cynthia-with-a-boyfriend told him she liked it long, which is why he hasn't cut it in four months. "Thanks."
"Yeah, don't mention it." Dean glances over at the bar. Dad and Jay are talking, and it even looks relatively civil. "You're doing extra laps tonight, by the way."
"Freaking boot-camp," Sam mutters. "You know, some people play baseball on Friday nights. Go out to a movie. Hang out at the county fair."
"You watch too much daytime TV." Sam ignores him in favor of a sullen slurp of soda, and he sighs. "Fine, I'll do the extra laps with you. That make you happy?"
"No." Sam gives him half of a smile, an instant of sweet little Sammy breaking through the shell of sulky rebellion. "But thanks."
"Yeah, no problem." He slides out of the booth, ruffles Sam's hair and dodges the halfhearted swat Sam aims at him as he crosses back over.
"...true enough," Dad is saying. He cocks an eyebrow at Dean, and Dean shakes his head minutely before sliding into the seat next to Jay.
"You're talking about me," he says, picking up the unclaimed beer from the bar. "I can tell. It's because I'm so handsome, isn't it?"
"Don't be an asshole," Dad growls. Dean grins at Jay, and maybe he's leaning in a little closer than he needs to, but Jay doesn't seem to mind and if Dad notices, he keeps it to himself.
"I get my good looks from my old man."
"You're gonna get a beat-down from your old man if you're not careful."
"My winning personality, too." He lifts his beer to his mouth, nonchalant. "So. Jay. How's life?"
"Same old," Jay says blandly. "Small town. Not much changes."
"Heard a guy got himself blown away last week."
"Yup."
"You know him?"
"Wish I didn't." Jay pulls out a pack of smokes, lights one up, glances at Dean. "Big Eddie. Y'all broke a pool cue on his face last time you were in town."
Oh, yeah. Him. Edward VanKampp was Big Eddie, the dirtbag. Dean grimaces. "I remember."
"He was a sorry sonovabitch, if you want the truth. Not many decent folks gonna be sad he's dead."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised." He watches Jay blows out another mouthful of smoke. The smell of it is making him crave a cigarette like he hasn't in years. "What happened?"
Jay's pale eyes are quietly appraising in the dim light. "You remember Mae Warner." It's not a question.
Sweet Mae, with the fluffy blonde hair and the long red fingernails, the drunk husband and the smile that must have made her look like Marilyn Monroe when she was fifteen years younger. "Yeah."
"'Bout two weeks ago her little girl was in here. Little Nellie." His lip curls. "Eddie caught her out in the parking lot. She wouldn't say what he done, but it ain't hard to guess. Mae shot him. She's at the county lockup now."
"Shit," Dean murmurs. He met Nellie once, maybe--there's a vague impression of flyaway hair and coltish legs and dimples. She'd be about Sam's age now. And he wishes he could say he's surprised, but, well. He remembers Big Eddie. No kid should have to go through that.
Jay nods once, abruptly. "Can't say I'm sorry for the bastard."
"Yeah, me neither." On Jay's other side, Dad's staring off into space, apparently lost in the dulcet tones of Lynyrd Skynyrd, but Dean can read the crease between his brows, the impatient way he's tapping his fingers against his knee. Time to stop fucking around and get down to business. He can worry about Mae and her daughter after they gank whatever's doing this. "That, uh, happened at the gas station, didn't it?"
"Yup."
"Last Saturday?"
"That's right."
"A couple other people died there since then, too, I heard."
"Been a few strange accidents, yeah."
"So, you been by there lately?"
"The gas station?"
"Yeah."
"Reckon I stopped by there a time or two. It's closed for now. Folks think it's haunted, or something." Jay's voice is so dry that if Dean didn't know better he'd swear the guy knows what was going on. Or knows that something is going on, anyway, which isn't actually impossible. Jay's a sharp bastard, in his quiet way.
"Haunted, huh?" He tries out a smile. It feels a little wooden on his face. Normally, this is the point where he starts getting funny looks from a mark, and, normally, that isn't something that bothers him too much. "So, you notice anything weird when you were there?"
"Like what?"
Dean opens his mouth, and Dad cuts in, smooth as if they rehearsed. "Cold spots, shorts in the wiring, that kind of thing. Anything unusual."
Jay takes another thoughtful drag on his cigarette, runs a hand through hair that's even shaggier than it was the last time Dean saw him. There's a tension in him that isn't familiar, but Dean's trying not to read too much into that. It's not like they knew each other all that long, after all, and it was years ago. "Can't say as I have." For an instant, his pale gaze is on Dean, strangely intense, and then it slides past as a few sets of heavy footsteps approach the bar behind him. "And I'd best be going now. Thanks for the beer."
"Don't mention it," Dean murmurs as Jay sets down his half-full bottle and gets to his feet. That gets him a brief, sharp smile, and then Jay stubs out his cigarette and heads for the door.
The two guys who just came up behind Dean are vaguely, unpleasantly familiar. The fatter, balder one has a bandage wrapped around his right hand, and he's glaring at Jay's retreating back. When his hostile gaze shifts to Dean, Dean gives him the widest and most insincere smile in his repertoire and returns his attention to his beer while Dad strikes up a conversation with Marty.
***
It turns out that Marty has a hell of a lot more to say about the deaths at the gas station than Jay did. Dean knows he should be focused, getting involved in the conversation, but his attention keeps wandering, and after the third time Dad has to jog his knee to get his attention, he sets down his beer, aims an apologetic smile at Marty and a shrug at Dad. "Kinda tired. I'm gonna head back to the motel and take a nap."
"You do that," Dad says. There's a warning in his voice, too--pull your head outta your ass before we go on the hunt, and Dean nods acknowledgment, heads over to the back to collect Sam.
***
There's only one motel in Canfield, a long, low white-washed brick building with spools of old flypaper dangling over the lobby entrance. It's off the highway, tucked in deep between two tree-studded hills with a long, winding road spooling out beyond it. Perfect for a jog, and even Sam lays off the bitching after a couple of miles, matches the rhythm of his longer legs to Dean's as they loop around to start heading back. The sun's sinking low in the sky by the time they throw themselves down on the soggy strip of grass outside their room. Dad's back; through the window Dean can see him hunched over one of Bobby's books, and he leans back on his elbows, stares up at the shreds of orange and pink striping the blue sky, breathes deep the taste of darkening air, for an instant completely content.
"So, Jay," Sam says, ruining the moment. Dean glances over at him. He's looking up at the sky, too, but he hasn't quite mastered the poker face and there's clearly something significant going on behind those raised brows.
"Yeah," Dean says cautiously.
"Did he know anything?"
"Nah." He already mentioned Mae and her little girl in the car, which got a good twenty minutes of outraged ranting from Sam. "Nothing about any evil ghosts, anyway."
"Hm."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Dean stares at him a little more, but he's affecting the innocent look that works like a charm on teachers and social workers and not at all on Dean. Whatever. If he doesn't want to pursue this particular line of questioning any further, Dean is not going to push him.
The door creaks open, then shut, and then Dad's standing over them. "You boys get geared up," he says, tucking his sawed-off into its holster. "Gas station's closed down, so I want to get over there by nightfall. See if we can't figure out what's going down there before anybody else gets hurt."
"Yessir." Dean scrambles to his feet, reaches down to give Sam a hand up. "But it's probably just a ghost, right? I mean, with the guy getting shot right there--"
"Most likely," Dad says. "But don't go getting overconfident. It's a good way to get yourself killed."
Dean grins. "Yessir."
***
Jay wakes out of a deep sleep, chilled for no reason he can put a name to. He rolls, reaching for the bedside lamp, and between one breath and the next danger hits him, ringing through the air like a silent gong. It's been years, but the reflexes are still there and he rolls off the bed, hits the floor hard on one hip and elbow and reaches for the .12 gauge he keeps in a soft case there. It's loaded. His hands pump and thumb the safety without him even thinking about it, and then he's sitting on the floor in his boxers, wildly swinging a gun at an empty room.
Except that it ain't empty. There's a flicker, a flash of movement by the window. A thing coming into being, impossibly, out of thin air. Jay fires before he gets a good look at whatever the hell it is, but it blows apart like a wisp of fog, leaving him sitting there, breathing in gunsmoke and staring at the broken window.
Well, hell. Good thing it ain't too cold out.
He blinks hard, gets slowly to his feet, bad knee popping. Keeps the gun up while he scans the dark room, but he's pretty sure there ain't really anything there. It's not the first time he's shot up his room half-asleep. Sometimes nightmares don't know when to stay in his head.
The room's empty, bare walls sketched with the shadows of the trees outside, broken glass glittering in the moonlight. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, and Jay swears, sets the gun down, and goes looking for a broom.
He gets most of the glass cleaned up, duct-tapes a slab of cardboard over the broken window until he can head down to the hardware store tomorrow, then sits down on the bed and runs a hand over his face. Should just put the gun someplace else, especially with him so on edge lately, but it's been years since he could sleep without having some kind of weapon in arm's reach.
The sudden shrill sound that splits the air makes his hands twitch involuntarily, but it's just his phone. He closes his eyes and picks up, feeling suddenly ancient. "Yeah?"
"Jay? Jay, is that you? Jay, oh my God, please, something's happening, you gotta get over here--"
It's Nellie, and she sounds scared out of her goddamn mind.
"Nellie. Honey, what happened?"
She lets out a long sob. "I think I'm goin' crazy, Jay. I think I'm going honest-to-God crazy. There's somebody out there and I called the police but they said ain't no one there and Missy won't stop crying and Daddy's drunk and I just--I didn't know who else to call, I'm sorry--"
Christ, this is just what he needs.
"It's okay," Jay tells her, soothing as he can. He locates the jeans he wore yesterday, crumpled in a heap on the floor, and pulls them on one-handed. "It's okay, sweetheart. "You just sit tight, all right? I'll be right over there."
***
The gas station is a complete fucking dud. Figures. If Dean didn't know better, he'd swear the EMF meter was busted; there's not a twitch, nothing, not even when they scan the backroom where it happened. Room's still got crime scene tape draped all over the place, shattered beer bottles and a spray of dried blood and brain matter fanning the concrete wall. Sam grimaces queasily, and Dad scans the room, professional and indifferent to the gore.
Dean has to force down a sudden surge of fierce pride. They get rid of this spook, he's gonna head over to county lockup and bust Mae out or something. Hard to believe she had it in her.
"Focus," Dad rumbles, low and admonishing, and Dean looks back down at the EMF meter.
"Nothing in here. Not a twitch."
"You sure it's working?"
"Yeah," Dean says, offended. "I'm sure. Maybe it's just not here."
Dad jerks his chin at the front room, where moonlight spills across the linoleum floor and reflects on the glass cases. "Check again."
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean can see Sam pulling the bitchface, but at least he has the sense to keep his mouth shut. He can be an ornery little brat, that's for damn sure, but no matter what else you can say about him, he gets his head out of his ass and pulls his weight when there's a hunt on, no exceptions.
The neon signs are all off; the only light in the front room is from the blinking smoke detector, the exit sign over the doors, the moon outside. There's not a blip of EMF. No ozone in the air, nothing.
Dean's starting to get a bad feeling about this.
"It's clean," he tells Dad when they meet by the back door.
Sam's doing a sweep of the parking lot, gangly shadow spilling across the pavement and looking caught between absurd and dangerous with his .45 held low and tight in one hand. He's gonna be one scary dude when he grows into his height, Dean thinks, but right now he just looks like an overgrown stork. He checks around the back door, then jogs across the parking lot to them, gigantic sneakers slapping on the pavement. "Nothing."
"It's been, what, a week?" Dean says when Dad makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat. "Three people are already dead. Maybe when they closed up shop, he decided to take his business elsewhere. You think Mae?"
Dad runs a hand through his hair, glances around the empty lot, nods. "She's in the county jail. We can't get in there on such short notice." He closes his eyes, considering, and Dean bites back a protest. Dad's right. Maybe with a couple of days to establish a cover story, but not like this. "Okay," Dad says abruptly. "Nothing we can do about your friend, but he still might go after the daughter. You head over there, hold him off if he shows up. I'll take Sam, head over to the funeral home and take care of the body."
Sam's head lifts, and Dean can see the arguments already forming in his mouth. He gives Dad a quick nod before Sam can let any of them out. "Yessir."
"And Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Be careful."
Dean grins, pockets the EMF meter. "Always am."
As he starts across lot to where the Impala is discreetly parked behind a clump of bushes, he can almost hear Dad rolling his eyes.
***
The drive over to Mae's place ain't long enough to get him too wound up, but Jay's still tense and fidgety by the time he pulls his truck in next to the old rustbucket Nellie drives to school. The lights are on in the kitchen and nothing seems off, but Nellie sounded downright terrified on the phone, and she's a kid who don't spook easy. Even after everything.
He pulls his shotgun off the gun rack, loads it by feel, kicks the truck door shut behind him, eyes peeled and ears pricked as he crosses the wet yard. There's nothing moving, just the wind in the trees and the sound of an owl hooting someplace in the woods.
A dark shape darts between two trees, and his gun comes up, slippery in his fingers.
All his instincts warn him to shoot now, shoot now before he knows you're here, but he forces them down. He caught the guy before he could get to the trailer, and that's the important part. This ain't Kuwait. Let the police handle it.
'Course, if he can make it a little easier on them, he ain't averse to that. The guy must have heard his truck coming up the drive, but he don't seem to realize he's been made. Jay can see the dark shape of him against an old oak, profile outlined in moonlight. He's looking the other way.
He can be quiet when he has to, and the soft grass muffles sound well enough that the guy doesn't hear him coming until it's almost too late. He's got good reflexes, Jay'll give him that much. His arm comes up as he turns, blocks the butt of the gun coming down on his head, fingers gripping to twist it out of Jay's hands. He tosses it aside, blocks Jay's uppercut with one solid forearm. The next blow lands, though, and the guy lets out a grunt as Jay shoves him against the tree, forearm to his throat. "Woah. Shit. Okay, stop."
The shock of his voice is enough to get Jay to back off, blinking. The guy shakes his head, takes one careful step forward out of the shadow, hands up. It's Dean.
Jay shakes his head like he's clearing water out of his ears. "What the hell are you doing?"
"This is totally not what it looks like," Dean says earnestly, hands still raised. There's a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. Jay must've split his lip with that last punch.
"Yeah? 'Cause it looks like you're trespassing on my good friend's property and scaring the hell out of her family."
Dean winces, gives Jay a hopeful little smile that he ignores as hard as he can. "Okay, that part is what it looks like. I swear, I'm not gonna hurt anybody. The opposite, in fact."
Jay folds his arms. "Start talking."
"Okay, so this is gonna sound completely crazy," Dean says, lifting one hand to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. For a second, he looks just like the kid Jay's never known him to be, more awkward than dangerous. "Look. Um. We think--I think--there's something weird going on around here, and I just wanted to check it out, okay?"
He tacks another hopeful smile on the end, like that's gonna make up for him lurking around Mae's front yard in the middle of the night and making no goddamn sense whatsoever.
"Right," Jay says dryly.
"It's Big Eddie. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time he went after her, right?"
"Eddie's dead, I promise you that. Ain't going after anybody nowadays."
Dean don't even wince. "Yeah, I saw the gas station. Blood and brains all over the walls, I know. It's his ghost that's been killing people. You gotta admit there's something weird about it--" Jay opens his mouth, but that just makes Dean talk faster "--three people dying of unrelated causes in a week? In one place? But then they closed it down and he wasn't there, so we thought maybe--maybe he was gonna come after Nellie again."
"You scared the hell out of her," Jay says, 'cause that's easier to deal with than the fact that the kid's apparently lost his mind. "Lurking out here. She called me 'cause she was scared, and believe me, that child's been through enough already."
That gets Dean's attention in a way none of his other protests have. "Wait, what?"
"You heard me."
"No, I mean--shit." Dean runs a hand over his face. "Jay, I swear to God, I got here five minutes before you did. I haven't been doing anything but watching. If she heard somebody out here, it wasn't me."
***
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Author's Notes & Acknowledgments
Truth is, Jay's getting damn sick of hearing hymns sung in Eddie VanKampp's name. He was a bastard when he was breathing, and Jay don't see how he's any less of a bastard now that he's six feet under. Nobody outside his drinking buddies much liked him anyway, and it's Mae who's rotting in a jail cell like some kind of goddamn animal. After what he did to her little girl, the town ought to be having a bar-b-que to celebrate him getting his brains blown out. Hell, Jay'd be happy to bring the beer.
"You should have told me," he tells Mae when he goes to visit her. "I would have handled it."
Her hair's flat and faded, skinned back in a ponytail instead of all primped up like he's used to, and she looks younger than usual without her makeup, but her smile is as serene as a marble saint's. "Wasn't your place, Jay; she's my baby. I'll fry for shooting him if I have to. Don't got no regrets."
"Still," he says. "You should have let me handle it. I wouldn't have got caught."
Her smile's more like herself this time. "I do love you, sweetheart."
He slides his fingers through the chicken-wire to grip her hand as best he can. "Mae, you're a damn fool."
She knows him well enough to hear what he's trying to say.
***
Mae's husband is a mousy little man named Jake who ain't held down a full-time job since he started drinking back in '87. Mostly, Jay don't have much use for the guy, but he heads over to see how he's doing anyhow.
Jake's already three sheets to the wind when Jay gets there, red-eyed and weepy, and it turns out to be Nellie who sits down with him at the picnic table out in front of the double-wide and talks it out. Her fingers are splinted and there's still bruises on her neck from where Big Eddie grabbed her out behind Rocky's last week. Five days since she come home from the hospital, four days since Mae walked into the backroom of the Quick-Fill where Eddie was stocking beer and put a .12 gauge slug in his face, and here she is, shucking corn efficiently and talking about how they're gonna get money together for a lawyer.
"You know I'll help out as much as I can," Jay says.
"Mama said you'd say that," she says. Her voice is all raspy. "Said you got a heart too big for your chest."
"Your mama's a fine woman," Jay says back.
"Yeah." She laughs, mirthlessly. "I'm trying to be sorry she's in jail, but I'm too damn glad that son of a bitch is dead."
Back when he first came home, after the Corps, after Keith, he used to come by here to sit at this picnic table with Mae. She didn't try to make him talk, didn't ask nothing of him, just let him sit. It was Nellie who'd come out and chatter at him in those days, nine years old and bold as brass. Always came out to show him her dollies or her math homework or the picture she was working on that day. There was a hole in his heart then that wouldn't never heal--still hasn't--but that little girl took just a little bit of the ache away.
And now she's sitting there with bruises on her neck and empty eyes, and there's a part of Jay that wants to dig Eddie up and pump a few more rounds into his carcass. "Yeah, honey," he says. "Me too."
***
Jay don't take the newspaper, usually, which is why he don't find out until late the next night that both the crime-scene cleaup guys at the Quick-Fill dropped dead of heart attacks at the same time. Marty hands the paper over the bar, taps on the headline with one gnarled finger like Jay might miss it otherwise. "Ain't that something?"
"It's something, alright."
"Both their hearts just stopped," Marty says, nodding sagely. "Not a mark on them. Damn strange, if you ask me."
"Wasn't asking," Jay says sourly. If he had a lick of sense, he'd just head home now. Temper he's in, all it'll take is just one push to set him off.
"You gotta admit, it ain't normal."
"Sure."
"Maybe it was some kind of gas leak or poison or something. You were in the service, Jay, you ever hear of anything that could do that?"
Jay shakes his head and digs in the pocket of his flannel button-down for his smokes, and that's when Earl drops onto the seat next to him. There's a sheen of sweat on his forehead in spite of the chill outside, and from the smell of him it's been a few days since he's bathed.
"Sure," he says slurrily. "He was in the service. Until they kicked him out for bein' a cocksucker faggot, ain't that right?"
Jay takes out a cigarette and lights it, sucks down a mouthful of bitter smoke and blows it back out again without looking at him.
Earl bangs a fist on the bar and points at Marty, bleary-eyed. "Boy, you gonna get me another beer?"
"I don't think so," Marty says mildly without looking up from the glass he's wiping. Man's as easy-going as they come; he's been running this place since Jay was fifteen and Jay's never once seen him lose his temper. "Y'all feel free to come on back when you can walk a straight line. I'm cutting you off."
"The fuck is this shit," Earl mutters. "Some fuckin' country we live in, huh? Man can't even get a beer to drink to his buddy what some bitch went and shot. Shot right in the goddamn face, and why? Huh?" He grabs Jay's wrist. "Why d'you think, queerboy?"
"I think you better get your hand off me," Jay tells him.
"Or what?" He leans in closer, boozy breath in Jay's face. "What the fuck are you gonna do about it? You gonna shoot me like that bitch shot Eddie, huh?"
With his free hand, Jay takes the cigarette out of his mouth and drives the lit end into the web of skin between Earl's thumb and forefinger. For a second, Earl just gapes at him, and then he yelps and tries to snatch his hand back. Quick as a snake, Jay grabs his wrist, crushes the cigarette into his skin until it goes out. He can smell burning flesh by the time he lets go.
"Next time I tell you to keep your hands off me, you keep your fucking hands off me," he says, sliding off his barstool. Earl clutches his hand and makes a small angry, frightened noise that Jay likes more than he wants to. Behind the bar, Marty is studiously ignoring them both. "I'll see you around, Marty."
***
He drinks himself to sleep that night, and when he finally does drop off he hears the echo of gunfire rattling in his ears all night long.
The next morning, Andy Wilson slips off a ladder at the Quick-Fill and breaks his neck.
***
Sam has perfected the art of the awkward silence, Dean thinks, watching the tires of Dad's truck kick up dust on the highway in front of them. He gave up on conversation and cranked up the music about two hundred miles back, and he can still hear Sam's stubborn silence filling up the spaces between Lars Ulrich banging his way through Enter Sandman. Should have just let Sammy ride with Dad. Maybe then the pair of them could just duke it out and get it over with.
Yeah, and maybe that'd be a good way for him to wind up cleaning blood off the dash of the truck. When they're like this, it's like having a couple of pissed off bulls butting heads all over the place. Freaking exhausting.
Oh, hell with it. He reaches out and turns down the music. "Look, Sammy, I know you were really stoked about that debate team thing--"
"It's Sam, not Sammy," his brother snaps without looking away from the window. There's a book open on his lap, but he hasn't been reading it. "And yeah, I was really stoked. Some of us actually care about our futures."
Okay, so maybe it isn't sharing and caring time just yet.
"Whatever, dude," Dean says, and turns the music back up. Sam slaps his book closed and turns it down again.
"You know, this isn't fair," he says. "This is not freaking fair. I had two weeks left of my junior year. Two weeks."
"Oh, come on. Don't start this now."
"I just want to have a life, Dean! I had friends. I had a spot on the debate team. We were gonna go to States, and now they're screwed. Because of me."
"Not to mention that sweet little redhead you were all over," Dean says, trying to interject a note of humor into the proceedings.
Of course, it's Sam, so he fails miserably. Christ. Dean's met priests who are more fun. "Her name is Cynthia, and she had a boyfriend. And that's not the point."
"Oh, no? What is the point, then?"
"The point is that just once I want to be able to join a team without worrying about whether or not I'm going to leave them in the lurch. Just once, I'd like to be able to finish up a year at one school and not have to take summer classes so I don't get held back. Do you have any idea how hard it's going to be for me to get into a decent college as it is?"
College. That's a word Sam's been tossing around a lot lately, and it always makes Dean's gut twist with a cold fear that he doesn't want to put a name to. "Dude, I know you're upset and everything, but this is a little more important than debate tournaments, you know? People are dying, here."
"People are always dying," Sam mutters. "I just don't see why we're the ones who always have to drop everything and fix it."
And yeah, that's pretty much vintage Sam, right there. "I do not want to have this conversation with you again, okay?"
"Fine." Sam flips his book back open and glares at the page. "Take Dad's side. Just like always."
I'm not taking sides, you self-centered little prick, Dean thinks, but it's not entirely true so he doesn't say it out loud.
He lets the silence stretch out for five miles before he turns the music up again.
***
The sun's reached and passed the crown of the sky by the time they follow Dad off the exit for Canfield. It takes ten miles of winding backroad to get into town, and when they're finally driving down Main Street, Dean has to chuckle a little. It's been almost two years, and it doesn't look like a single thing has changed. There was a rainstorm a little earlier, and the pavement is still damp, the tin roofs still shiny with water. He rolls down the window, breathes deep the smell of clean, wet air and woodsmoke.
"Hey, Sammy, there's Lawler's," he says, as they drive past. Same faded neon sign, same newspaper clippings plastered in the fly-spotted windows. "Remember Mae?"
Sam shuts his book again and glances up, blinking and irritable. "I remember how you used to scam her into giving us extra junk food."
"Hey, that was for your benefit. You were a growing boy." Dean grins a little, offers a truce. "Course, if I knew you were going to turn into the Jolly Green Giant, I might have just let you starve."
Sam rolls his eyes and mumbles something that sounds vaguely like profanity, but he's smiling reluctantly. Dean's counting this as a win.
"You think Jay's still around?" Sam asks as they turn the corner onto Whitehorn Road.
Dean shrugs like it doesn't matter to him one way or another. Sam's pretty much always been able to see through him, but it's all about keeping up appearances. "Guess we'll see."
The garage is halfway up the road, where the plowed fields circling the town begin to give way to half-green trees. There's a new sign out front and it looks like the cruddy siding has been replaced, but other than that the place doesn't look much different. More importantly, there's Jay's beat-up red pickup parked around the side.
"He's still here," Dean says with some satisfaction, and taps the horn to get Dad's attention.
***
"Think it's cursed," Mike says from the garage door. Jay's on his back under a VW Bug that's older than he is, up to his elbows in its metal guts. "On account of Eddie, you know?"
"I am absolutely sure that you can find something to do besides standing there flapping your jaw," Jay calls.
"Come on, boss--"
"If you're that bored, I got a stack of paperwork in the office that needs doing."
"Okay," Mike says. "I'm going, I'm going."
He sounds sulky, but he's moving away in the direction of the back lot. Probably gonna go sneak a smoke with George and bitch about the boss, but as long as he's doing it out of earshot Jay honestly can't bring himself to give a damn.
He has about five minutes of merciful silence before he hears two sets of footsteps crossing the shop floor. Heading straight for him by the sound of it; probably customers who ain't supposed to be back here. If George don't pull his head out of his ass sometimes soon and start minding the desk, he's gonna get himself fired.
The steps stop by the driver's side, and when Jay rolls his head over to look he sees two sets of battered work boots and frayed denim hems. "Just hang on a minute, let me get this clamped," he says. "Be right with you."
"Take your time," says one of the men. "Not in any big hurry."
"Good," Jay grunts, tightening the hose clamp.
"That's Jay under there, isn't it?" asks the other man, and Jay's hand stills. He knows that voice from somewhere.
"Yeah." He gives the clamp another crank and shimmies out from under the chassis, braces himself against the Bug's gleaming chrome fender as he stands. "Do I--"
That's when he catches sight of them, and he shuts up. He don't know the older of the two, a big, dark man with heavy brows and haunted eyes and a set to his shoulders that says career military. The younger one, though--well, damn. It's Dean.
He looks good. Got a couple more inches of height on him, some muscle, filling out the promise of strength in those broad shoulders. He's grown into his face too, ain't so pretty now it makes a man feel indecent just to look at him, but those eyes, wide and green and full of wicked humor, are just the same. So's the voice. "Jay, man. Good to see you."
"No kidding," Jay says, and he knows he sounds kind of stunned but he can't quite help it. "Kid, I was starting to think I'd seen the last of you."
"Yeah, well, I'm like a bad penny." He gestures to the man standing next to him, watching Jay with an unreadable expression. "This is my dad. John Winchester."
"Pleasure to meet you," says Jay, and sticks his hand out. For a minute, he's not sure Winchester's gonna shake it, but then he does, broad palm dry and calloused.
"Likewise." His voice has some gravel in it, the older, tireder echo of Dean's. "Heard you gave my boys a hand a few years back."
"Was going through a rough spot with the shop," says Jay easily. "They picked up some of the slack for a few weeks. Did me a favor." It's pure bullshit and he's pretty sure both Dean and his daddy know it, but until he comes up with a better story he's sticking to it. "So, what brings you through town?"
They glance at each other. It's the kind of look that's full of conversation outsiders can't read, and when Dean looks back at him his disarming smile is just as full of shit as Jay's was a second ago. "Just passing through, figured my car's overdue for an oil change," he says. "Wouldn't trust it to another soul."
"Right kind of you," Jay says, like he don't remember the way Dean used to badmouth the customers who couldn't even change their own damn oil.
Dean and his daddy glance at each other again, and then Winchester Senior nods abruptly. "I'll bring the car around front. Maybe we can go grab a beer after you finish. Give you two a chance to catch up."
"Sounds fine," Jay says warily, wiping his hands on the rag he keeps in his back pocket. Definitely something going on there. Ain't his business any which way, but he can't help wondering while he follows the pair of them out the door.
It's sunny outside, a clean, crisp kind of sunny that makes the strip of damp road and the new leaves on the trees outside look like something out of a movie. The air's still wet from the rain that passed over earlier, and Jay closes his eyes, breathes deep. He's been tasting the memory of gun-smoke and dust all day, leftovers from his nightmares.
"So," Dean says, and he opens his eyes. John's crossing the lot toward a gleaming black Impala, but Dean's still standing there, squinting a little in the light. He looks thoughtful.
"So," Jay says back.
"You didn't need the help back then."
"Nope. You don't need me to change your oil for you."
Dean's smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. "Fair enough."
"Beautiful car." He nods at the Impala rumbling slowly across the gravel lot. She puts all the other pieces of junk around here to shame even if she is about as old as Jay. Car like that takes some love to keep looking so fine.
"Yeah, she's a family heirloom."
John parks the car around front, cuts the engine. The shotgun side door swings open, and a lanky form unfolds itself from the seat. It's Sam, of course. Kid's even taller than Jay remembers, hair flopping in his eyes, hardcover book clutched defensively to his chest. John snaps something at him and he replies in a sullen monotone, hauls a giant duffel bag out and slings it over his shoulder.
Dean aims an apologetic smile in Jay's direction. "I better go run interference."
Jay shrugs, watches him go slide between his father and brother with the same easy grin he used at the pool tables when they first met. He gets Sam moving in the direction of a big black truck that's parked at the edge of the lot, puts his head in close to say something in his daddy's ear, then steps back. Jay decides that's about the right time for him to go hunt down an oil filter and see if George fell in the creek out back and drowned.
When he gets under the Impala, it's just like he expected. She's about a thousand miles shy of needing an oil change, but he does it anyway, waves off the twenty Dean tries to pay him with. Looks like he has a more solid source of income than he did the last time Jay knew him, but he can't quite shake off the memory of that scrawny kid with old clothes and hungry eyes.
"You can buy me a beer," he says, locking up the front door. Mike's already heading out, but George is still hanging sullenly around the front stoop, waiting for his ride. Don't seem to recognize Dean, or if he does, he don't say anything.
"Okay," Dean says, and damn if that smile isn't even more of a killer now than it was two years ago. Jay catches John watching him, something a lot like suspicion in his dark eyes, and he looks away, focuses on digging his truck keys out of his pocket.
***
Rocky's is dim and smoky, country music twanging away on the jukebox, neon signs flickering in the blacked-out windows, that damn moose-head still hanging over the bar. Dean vaguely recognizes the little balding black guy with a face like a walnut who's wiping down the grimy countertop with an equally grimy rag. Marty.
"Man," he says, letting the door swing shut behind him. "This place is just as classy as I remember."
Dad cuts him a look under his brows. "What were you boys doing hanging around a bar while I was gone?"
Dean winces, opens his mouth to start explaining, and Sam cuts him off. "He was earning our rent money, Dad."
"Boy, don't test me--"
"I'm going to go finish my book, if you don't mind. Sir." Only Sam could make that come out like an insult. Dad's brows draw down, but before he can answer, Sam's turning on his heel and stalking across the bar on those long stork-legs. He settles himself in a corner booth, back pointedly turned.
Dean sighs. "I'll talk to him."
"Tell him he's doing extra laps for his attitude, while you're at it," Dad says irritably as they approach the bar.
"Yessir."
Jay's already sitting, talking to Marty and politely ignoring their little family drama. Dean tunes in to the conversation in time to hear Marty say, "...gonna rough up any of my customers tonight?"
"Hadn't planned on it," Jay says, but he's looking over at a couple of guys clustered over at the other end of the bar, and there's something ugly in his voice.
Marty sighs. "You never do. Just do me a favor and watch yourself, would you? Mae's a friend of mine too, but if you start another ruckus, I will toss you out on your ass."
"I got it," Jay says. "You done?"
"Yeah, I'm done." Marty's eyes flicker over Dean without recognition, rest briefly on Dad. Assessing the potential threat; Dean's seen plenty of bartenders look at Dad that way. Lately, he's been getting those kind of looks himself, which he finds more flattering than he probably should. Better than the alternative, anyway. "What can I get y'all?"
"Three Coors," Dean says, pulling out his wallet. "And a root beer for Princess over there."
He leaves Dad with Jay to bring the soda over to Sam. Dad gives him a look for that. They're here on a job, after all, and Dean's the one who knows Jay, has a better chance of getting him to talk if he's seen anything weird. Dean knows that. He does.
But Jay was good to him back in the day, and it feels vaguely unethical to sweet-talk him into spilling his guts. And anyway, if he doesn't jolly Sam out of his snit, it's going to be freaking unbearable at the motel tonight.
"Got you a soda, bitch," he says, sliding into the booth across from Sam.
Sam looks up, shakes his bangs out of his eyes. He needs a haircut. Dean's pretty sure redheaded-Cynthia-with-a-boyfriend told him she liked it long, which is why he hasn't cut it in four months. "Thanks."
"Yeah, don't mention it." Dean glances over at the bar. Dad and Jay are talking, and it even looks relatively civil. "You're doing extra laps tonight, by the way."
"Freaking boot-camp," Sam mutters. "You know, some people play baseball on Friday nights. Go out to a movie. Hang out at the county fair."
"You watch too much daytime TV." Sam ignores him in favor of a sullen slurp of soda, and he sighs. "Fine, I'll do the extra laps with you. That make you happy?"
"No." Sam gives him half of a smile, an instant of sweet little Sammy breaking through the shell of sulky rebellion. "But thanks."
"Yeah, no problem." He slides out of the booth, ruffles Sam's hair and dodges the halfhearted swat Sam aims at him as he crosses back over.
"...true enough," Dad is saying. He cocks an eyebrow at Dean, and Dean shakes his head minutely before sliding into the seat next to Jay.
"You're talking about me," he says, picking up the unclaimed beer from the bar. "I can tell. It's because I'm so handsome, isn't it?"
"Don't be an asshole," Dad growls. Dean grins at Jay, and maybe he's leaning in a little closer than he needs to, but Jay doesn't seem to mind and if Dad notices, he keeps it to himself.
"I get my good looks from my old man."
"You're gonna get a beat-down from your old man if you're not careful."
"My winning personality, too." He lifts his beer to his mouth, nonchalant. "So. Jay. How's life?"
"Same old," Jay says blandly. "Small town. Not much changes."
"Heard a guy got himself blown away last week."
"Yup."
"You know him?"
"Wish I didn't." Jay pulls out a pack of smokes, lights one up, glances at Dean. "Big Eddie. Y'all broke a pool cue on his face last time you were in town."
Oh, yeah. Him. Edward VanKampp was Big Eddie, the dirtbag. Dean grimaces. "I remember."
"He was a sorry sonovabitch, if you want the truth. Not many decent folks gonna be sad he's dead."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised." He watches Jay blows out another mouthful of smoke. The smell of it is making him crave a cigarette like he hasn't in years. "What happened?"
Jay's pale eyes are quietly appraising in the dim light. "You remember Mae Warner." It's not a question.
Sweet Mae, with the fluffy blonde hair and the long red fingernails, the drunk husband and the smile that must have made her look like Marilyn Monroe when she was fifteen years younger. "Yeah."
"'Bout two weeks ago her little girl was in here. Little Nellie." His lip curls. "Eddie caught her out in the parking lot. She wouldn't say what he done, but it ain't hard to guess. Mae shot him. She's at the county lockup now."
"Shit," Dean murmurs. He met Nellie once, maybe--there's a vague impression of flyaway hair and coltish legs and dimples. She'd be about Sam's age now. And he wishes he could say he's surprised, but, well. He remembers Big Eddie. No kid should have to go through that.
Jay nods once, abruptly. "Can't say I'm sorry for the bastard."
"Yeah, me neither." On Jay's other side, Dad's staring off into space, apparently lost in the dulcet tones of Lynyrd Skynyrd, but Dean can read the crease between his brows, the impatient way he's tapping his fingers against his knee. Time to stop fucking around and get down to business. He can worry about Mae and her daughter after they gank whatever's doing this. "That, uh, happened at the gas station, didn't it?"
"Yup."
"Last Saturday?"
"That's right."
"A couple other people died there since then, too, I heard."
"Been a few strange accidents, yeah."
"So, you been by there lately?"
"The gas station?"
"Yeah."
"Reckon I stopped by there a time or two. It's closed for now. Folks think it's haunted, or something." Jay's voice is so dry that if Dean didn't know better he'd swear the guy knows what was going on. Or knows that something is going on, anyway, which isn't actually impossible. Jay's a sharp bastard, in his quiet way.
"Haunted, huh?" He tries out a smile. It feels a little wooden on his face. Normally, this is the point where he starts getting funny looks from a mark, and, normally, that isn't something that bothers him too much. "So, you notice anything weird when you were there?"
"Like what?"
Dean opens his mouth, and Dad cuts in, smooth as if they rehearsed. "Cold spots, shorts in the wiring, that kind of thing. Anything unusual."
Jay takes another thoughtful drag on his cigarette, runs a hand through hair that's even shaggier than it was the last time Dean saw him. There's a tension in him that isn't familiar, but Dean's trying not to read too much into that. It's not like they knew each other all that long, after all, and it was years ago. "Can't say as I have." For an instant, his pale gaze is on Dean, strangely intense, and then it slides past as a few sets of heavy footsteps approach the bar behind him. "And I'd best be going now. Thanks for the beer."
"Don't mention it," Dean murmurs as Jay sets down his half-full bottle and gets to his feet. That gets him a brief, sharp smile, and then Jay stubs out his cigarette and heads for the door.
The two guys who just came up behind Dean are vaguely, unpleasantly familiar. The fatter, balder one has a bandage wrapped around his right hand, and he's glaring at Jay's retreating back. When his hostile gaze shifts to Dean, Dean gives him the widest and most insincere smile in his repertoire and returns his attention to his beer while Dad strikes up a conversation with Marty.
***
It turns out that Marty has a hell of a lot more to say about the deaths at the gas station than Jay did. Dean knows he should be focused, getting involved in the conversation, but his attention keeps wandering, and after the third time Dad has to jog his knee to get his attention, he sets down his beer, aims an apologetic smile at Marty and a shrug at Dad. "Kinda tired. I'm gonna head back to the motel and take a nap."
"You do that," Dad says. There's a warning in his voice, too--pull your head outta your ass before we go on the hunt, and Dean nods acknowledgment, heads over to the back to collect Sam.
***
There's only one motel in Canfield, a long, low white-washed brick building with spools of old flypaper dangling over the lobby entrance. It's off the highway, tucked in deep between two tree-studded hills with a long, winding road spooling out beyond it. Perfect for a jog, and even Sam lays off the bitching after a couple of miles, matches the rhythm of his longer legs to Dean's as they loop around to start heading back. The sun's sinking low in the sky by the time they throw themselves down on the soggy strip of grass outside their room. Dad's back; through the window Dean can see him hunched over one of Bobby's books, and he leans back on his elbows, stares up at the shreds of orange and pink striping the blue sky, breathes deep the taste of darkening air, for an instant completely content.
"So, Jay," Sam says, ruining the moment. Dean glances over at him. He's looking up at the sky, too, but he hasn't quite mastered the poker face and there's clearly something significant going on behind those raised brows.
"Yeah," Dean says cautiously.
"Did he know anything?"
"Nah." He already mentioned Mae and her little girl in the car, which got a good twenty minutes of outraged ranting from Sam. "Nothing about any evil ghosts, anyway."
"Hm."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Dean stares at him a little more, but he's affecting the innocent look that works like a charm on teachers and social workers and not at all on Dean. Whatever. If he doesn't want to pursue this particular line of questioning any further, Dean is not going to push him.
The door creaks open, then shut, and then Dad's standing over them. "You boys get geared up," he says, tucking his sawed-off into its holster. "Gas station's closed down, so I want to get over there by nightfall. See if we can't figure out what's going down there before anybody else gets hurt."
"Yessir." Dean scrambles to his feet, reaches down to give Sam a hand up. "But it's probably just a ghost, right? I mean, with the guy getting shot right there--"
"Most likely," Dad says. "But don't go getting overconfident. It's a good way to get yourself killed."
Dean grins. "Yessir."
***
Jay wakes out of a deep sleep, chilled for no reason he can put a name to. He rolls, reaching for the bedside lamp, and between one breath and the next danger hits him, ringing through the air like a silent gong. It's been years, but the reflexes are still there and he rolls off the bed, hits the floor hard on one hip and elbow and reaches for the .12 gauge he keeps in a soft case there. It's loaded. His hands pump and thumb the safety without him even thinking about it, and then he's sitting on the floor in his boxers, wildly swinging a gun at an empty room.
Except that it ain't empty. There's a flicker, a flash of movement by the window. A thing coming into being, impossibly, out of thin air. Jay fires before he gets a good look at whatever the hell it is, but it blows apart like a wisp of fog, leaving him sitting there, breathing in gunsmoke and staring at the broken window.
Well, hell. Good thing it ain't too cold out.
He blinks hard, gets slowly to his feet, bad knee popping. Keeps the gun up while he scans the dark room, but he's pretty sure there ain't really anything there. It's not the first time he's shot up his room half-asleep. Sometimes nightmares don't know when to stay in his head.
The room's empty, bare walls sketched with the shadows of the trees outside, broken glass glittering in the moonlight. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, and Jay swears, sets the gun down, and goes looking for a broom.
He gets most of the glass cleaned up, duct-tapes a slab of cardboard over the broken window until he can head down to the hardware store tomorrow, then sits down on the bed and runs a hand over his face. Should just put the gun someplace else, especially with him so on edge lately, but it's been years since he could sleep without having some kind of weapon in arm's reach.
The sudden shrill sound that splits the air makes his hands twitch involuntarily, but it's just his phone. He closes his eyes and picks up, feeling suddenly ancient. "Yeah?"
"Jay? Jay, is that you? Jay, oh my God, please, something's happening, you gotta get over here--"
It's Nellie, and she sounds scared out of her goddamn mind.
"Nellie. Honey, what happened?"
She lets out a long sob. "I think I'm goin' crazy, Jay. I think I'm going honest-to-God crazy. There's somebody out there and I called the police but they said ain't no one there and Missy won't stop crying and Daddy's drunk and I just--I didn't know who else to call, I'm sorry--"
Christ, this is just what he needs.
"It's okay," Jay tells her, soothing as he can. He locates the jeans he wore yesterday, crumpled in a heap on the floor, and pulls them on one-handed. "It's okay, sweetheart. "You just sit tight, all right? I'll be right over there."
***
The gas station is a complete fucking dud. Figures. If Dean didn't know better, he'd swear the EMF meter was busted; there's not a twitch, nothing, not even when they scan the backroom where it happened. Room's still got crime scene tape draped all over the place, shattered beer bottles and a spray of dried blood and brain matter fanning the concrete wall. Sam grimaces queasily, and Dad scans the room, professional and indifferent to the gore.
Dean has to force down a sudden surge of fierce pride. They get rid of this spook, he's gonna head over to county lockup and bust Mae out or something. Hard to believe she had it in her.
"Focus," Dad rumbles, low and admonishing, and Dean looks back down at the EMF meter.
"Nothing in here. Not a twitch."
"You sure it's working?"
"Yeah," Dean says, offended. "I'm sure. Maybe it's just not here."
Dad jerks his chin at the front room, where moonlight spills across the linoleum floor and reflects on the glass cases. "Check again."
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean can see Sam pulling the bitchface, but at least he has the sense to keep his mouth shut. He can be an ornery little brat, that's for damn sure, but no matter what else you can say about him, he gets his head out of his ass and pulls his weight when there's a hunt on, no exceptions.
The neon signs are all off; the only light in the front room is from the blinking smoke detector, the exit sign over the doors, the moon outside. There's not a blip of EMF. No ozone in the air, nothing.
Dean's starting to get a bad feeling about this.
"It's clean," he tells Dad when they meet by the back door.
Sam's doing a sweep of the parking lot, gangly shadow spilling across the pavement and looking caught between absurd and dangerous with his .45 held low and tight in one hand. He's gonna be one scary dude when he grows into his height, Dean thinks, but right now he just looks like an overgrown stork. He checks around the back door, then jogs across the parking lot to them, gigantic sneakers slapping on the pavement. "Nothing."
"It's been, what, a week?" Dean says when Dad makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat. "Three people are already dead. Maybe when they closed up shop, he decided to take his business elsewhere. You think Mae?"
Dad runs a hand through his hair, glances around the empty lot, nods. "She's in the county jail. We can't get in there on such short notice." He closes his eyes, considering, and Dean bites back a protest. Dad's right. Maybe with a couple of days to establish a cover story, but not like this. "Okay," Dad says abruptly. "Nothing we can do about your friend, but he still might go after the daughter. You head over there, hold him off if he shows up. I'll take Sam, head over to the funeral home and take care of the body."
Sam's head lifts, and Dean can see the arguments already forming in his mouth. He gives Dad a quick nod before Sam can let any of them out. "Yessir."
"And Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Be careful."
Dean grins, pockets the EMF meter. "Always am."
As he starts across lot to where the Impala is discreetly parked behind a clump of bushes, he can almost hear Dad rolling his eyes.
***
The drive over to Mae's place ain't long enough to get him too wound up, but Jay's still tense and fidgety by the time he pulls his truck in next to the old rustbucket Nellie drives to school. The lights are on in the kitchen and nothing seems off, but Nellie sounded downright terrified on the phone, and she's a kid who don't spook easy. Even after everything.
He pulls his shotgun off the gun rack, loads it by feel, kicks the truck door shut behind him, eyes peeled and ears pricked as he crosses the wet yard. There's nothing moving, just the wind in the trees and the sound of an owl hooting someplace in the woods.
A dark shape darts between two trees, and his gun comes up, slippery in his fingers.
All his instincts warn him to shoot now, shoot now before he knows you're here, but he forces them down. He caught the guy before he could get to the trailer, and that's the important part. This ain't Kuwait. Let the police handle it.
'Course, if he can make it a little easier on them, he ain't averse to that. The guy must have heard his truck coming up the drive, but he don't seem to realize he's been made. Jay can see the dark shape of him against an old oak, profile outlined in moonlight. He's looking the other way.
He can be quiet when he has to, and the soft grass muffles sound well enough that the guy doesn't hear him coming until it's almost too late. He's got good reflexes, Jay'll give him that much. His arm comes up as he turns, blocks the butt of the gun coming down on his head, fingers gripping to twist it out of Jay's hands. He tosses it aside, blocks Jay's uppercut with one solid forearm. The next blow lands, though, and the guy lets out a grunt as Jay shoves him against the tree, forearm to his throat. "Woah. Shit. Okay, stop."
The shock of his voice is enough to get Jay to back off, blinking. The guy shakes his head, takes one careful step forward out of the shadow, hands up. It's Dean.
Jay shakes his head like he's clearing water out of his ears. "What the hell are you doing?"
"This is totally not what it looks like," Dean says earnestly, hands still raised. There's a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. Jay must've split his lip with that last punch.
"Yeah? 'Cause it looks like you're trespassing on my good friend's property and scaring the hell out of her family."
Dean winces, gives Jay a hopeful little smile that he ignores as hard as he can. "Okay, that part is what it looks like. I swear, I'm not gonna hurt anybody. The opposite, in fact."
Jay folds his arms. "Start talking."
"Okay, so this is gonna sound completely crazy," Dean says, lifting one hand to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. For a second, he looks just like the kid Jay's never known him to be, more awkward than dangerous. "Look. Um. We think--I think--there's something weird going on around here, and I just wanted to check it out, okay?"
He tacks another hopeful smile on the end, like that's gonna make up for him lurking around Mae's front yard in the middle of the night and making no goddamn sense whatsoever.
"Right," Jay says dryly.
"It's Big Eddie. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time he went after her, right?"
"Eddie's dead, I promise you that. Ain't going after anybody nowadays."
Dean don't even wince. "Yeah, I saw the gas station. Blood and brains all over the walls, I know. It's his ghost that's been killing people. You gotta admit there's something weird about it--" Jay opens his mouth, but that just makes Dean talk faster "--three people dying of unrelated causes in a week? In one place? But then they closed it down and he wasn't there, so we thought maybe--maybe he was gonna come after Nellie again."
"You scared the hell out of her," Jay says, 'cause that's easier to deal with than the fact that the kid's apparently lost his mind. "Lurking out here. She called me 'cause she was scared, and believe me, that child's been through enough already."
That gets Dean's attention in a way none of his other protests have. "Wait, what?"
"You heard me."
"No, I mean--shit." Dean runs a hand over his face. "Jay, I swear to God, I got here five minutes before you did. I haven't been doing anything but watching. If she heard somebody out here, it wasn't me."
***
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Author's Notes & Acknowledgments