Sick Days - Chapter 4
Title: Sick Days
Summary: Dean's obsession with apparently random medical deaths mirrored from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Word Count: 3,012 for this part
Author's Note: Takes place in 2007 post 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987. Many thanks to Amberdreams for the wonderful editing assistance. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 3
Dean had lied. Or at the very least gotten his facts seriously mixed up. Sam had scoured every online record he could find and there was nothing that suggested the old Krobath sanitarium was scheduled to be demolished. The building had been condemned in the mid eighties, but the land was outside the city limits and apparently not worth the cost of developing.
As far as anything that would have triggered angry spirits around the place, it was possible something had happened, but there wasn’t any information online about the patients that had been housed there. The place had been shut down long before the concept of online records had ever been cooked up. The county should have the hardcopies, but there was no way Dean could have got the information by randomly searching the internet. Especially since he sucked at it.
Sam realized that at some point between cursing Dean for being an idiot liar and worrying himself sick about what his brother was really up to, the sun had breached the horizon. His tired eyes glanced down to the clock at the corner of his computer screen. Seven in the morning and Dean hadn’t so much as bothered to call to let him know that he was okay.
Enough was enough. He was done listening to Dean’s cell phone message system over and over. It was time to start scouring the town for his brother. For some strange reason Dean had left the car with him so it wasn’t like his brother could have gotten that far.
He was shutting down the laptop when he heard a key turn in the room’s lock. Standing, he crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for the door to open. As it did Dean slipped through like he thought he could sneak in without Sam noticing.
His brother almost had the door shut before he realized he was being watched. If Dean was that far off his game he obviously hadn’t been off sleeping somewhere. When Dean looked up at him Sam saw that his brother looked as beat as he had assumed. He also looked guilty as hell.
“Up already?” Dean asked nonchalantly.
“Where have you been?” Sam asked with obvious irritation that Dean chose to ignore.
“Out.” When Sam looked unsatisfied with the lack of a real answer Dean switched from evasive to his other favorite defense mechanism. “Look, I know it’s past my curfew, but she was really hot...and a gymnast. Promise it won’t happen again.”
Dean tried to walk past him, but Sam grabbed his jacket to stop him. He tried to get Dean to look at him but his brother wouldn’t meet his eyes. Sam hadn’t been imagining it last night. Dean just flat out looked terrible. He was ever bit as pale as Sam had thought and now there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.
“I’ve been up all night,” Sam told him as he tried to keep his voice steady.
Dean was in full avoidance mode and right now obviously didn’t have any problem with taking off without a word. The last thing he wanted was for Dean to bolt again.
Finally Dean shot him a perplexed look. “How’s that my fault?”
“I was waiting up for you.”
Dean chuckled at first but then his face fell as he realized Sam was serious. “Since when?” Dean slapped Sam’s hand off of him. “Dude, I’m twenty-eight. Dad didn’t wait up for me when I was eight.”
“He sure as hell should have.” As soon as the words left his mouth he knew that the bitter tone he’d said them with would set Dean off. “Dean...”
Sam didn’t really think there was any need to apologize. He just knew that Dean would want him to. Even if what he had said was true. Dad shouldn’t have just dumped them wherever was convenient and moved them when it suited him.
He got what Dad had been trying to do, he really did, but if Dad hadn’t wanted them he should have just left them where they could have been kids and not burdens that were just too young to fight yet. He should have left them with someone that wouldn’t have just pawned their youngest off on their eldest and who would have actually taken care of them. Both of them. Someone that wouldn’t have taken advantage of their sons and so purposefully screwed up Dean’s head.
Before he could formulate his token attempt at an apology Dean had him backed into the wall. “Say another word about Dad and I seriously will kick your ass.”
By the look in Dean’s eyes Sam didn’t doubt it. It wasn’t that he cared about Dean laying into him. Right now he was sure he could take him anyway. He was just worried about his brother who looked about as good as his hitched breaths sounded.
“Now stop worrying,” Dean said as he backed away from Sam. “It’s my job.”
Dean moved past him, slipped off his jacket and tossed it onto the bed. Sam was left by himself as Dean disappeared into the bathroom. His brother wasn’t going to get him off his back that easily. Especially since he could hear Dean coughing in there over the sound of the faucet running on full.
“Don’t give me that crap, Dean,” Sam called to him. “Like you have some kind of patent on worrying.”
There was a long silence before Dean called back hoarsely over the running water. “Some kind of what?”
“Never mind. Why wouldn’t you answer your phone?”
His brother looked genuinely baffled when he stepped from the bathroom and looked at Sam. “Did you call?” he asked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
He looked at it for a moment before shrugging. “Huh,” Dean remarked with a furrowed brow. “I just charged this piece of crap yesterday. Last time you pick out the phones. Battery’s dead.” He tossed the phone to Sam as proof. “Seriously. Why aren’t you asleep?”
“Seriously, I’ve been too busy wondering if you got yourself killed doing something stupid.”
“Geez, Sam. You’re going to give yourself a stroke. Relax already. I just met a girl. Really.”
It was a lie and a bad one. If Dean had really hooked up with someone for the night, it wouldn’t be unusual but he would have been either gloating or complaining and he sure wouldn’t be looking guilty about it. His brother wasn’t one to keep his mouth shut and he wasn’t one to not tell Sam where he was when they were on a case.
"Where?”
Dean’s eyes searched the room and he scratched his head before answering. “At the bar.”
“What bar?”
“The bar. Who cares? It’s not like she had a sister.”
“Have you said one honest word since we left Illinois?” The total exasperation in Sam’s tone stopped Dean’s pacing in its tracks, but only for a moment.
“I’m tired. Get off my back.”
“Not until you tell me what’s really going on.”
“Fine! I talked to some people then I went back to the hospital. Is that all right with you?” He walked away again before plopping down on the edge of the bed facing away from Sam.
There were a lot of things that Sam had half expected to come out of Dean’s mouth, but that sure wasn’t one of them. He watched Dean’s shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths as his brother stared at the wall. Dean going back to the hospital made about the least sense of anything he could think of. The only thing that made less sense was why Dean wouldn’t want him to know about it.
“Why would you go back to the hospital?”
“Jimmy died.”
The words came out abruptly and from Dean’s tone it didn’t sound so much like an answer to the question as it did a confession. Obviously if Dean’s phone wasn’t working Dean hadn’t gone to the hospital because he’d gotten a call about it. His brother would have had to already been there when it happened.
“The father?”
“Both of them. Jimmy junior and senior. Colleen...uh, Mrs...Ms. Simmons...one night and her family is just gone. She has her two little girls and now their dad is dead...and their brother. Colleen just wasn’t up to dealing with it. Shouldn’t have to. This whole thing is just a steaming pile of crap.”
Sam let out a heavy breath as he walked over to sit down on the bed next to Dean. This wasn’t like him. Sometimes when kids were involved his brother got strange about things for some reason Sam didn’t get. Sure it was hard - they were just kids and deserved to live their lives, but it was different for Dean somehow. He doubted the father component was helping anything, but there had to be something more to this. Right now Dean looked seriously rough.
“It was good of you to stay with her.”
“Whole hell of a lot of good it did. I came here to save her family, not to help with the god damn funeral arrangements,” Dean huffed as he pushed himself off the bed and started pacing the room again. Sam stood up too, but kept his distance.
“I’m sorry, Dean. There’s some things even we can’t stop.”
Abruptly his brother turned to look at him. “Well, we’re stopping this. We’re hitting the sanitarium tonight. We have to talk to the families and I’ve got some other leads we need to follow up on now.”
“Now?” There was a lot Sam felt like he should say, but he knew he had to be delicate about this or his brother would just go shooting off without him again.
“Nah, we don’t have to go now. We can wait until some other poor kid dies first.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. I just think you need to get some rest before tonight.” He looked Dean over again before finally asking, “Are you sick?”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you? You could play Nurse Ratchet. You’d be perfect for the part.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Not sick in the head. I already know that. I mean how do you feel?”
“How do I feel?” Dean gave him a look like he’d asked him what color of women underwear he was wearing. “You mean...no. No, I’m not sick, Sam. I’m just tired.” He ran his hand over his face. “Damn tired.”
“How about you let me take care of the leads?”
Dean was obviously at least as worn out as he looked, probably more so, because he seemed to be reluctantly considering Sam’s suggestion. Still he shook his head. “No. I should do this.”
“Why, Dean? Why do you have to do everything on this case?” When Dean didn’t reply, he couldn’t stop himself from prying further. “I know they’re not demolishing the sanitarium.” The expression on Dean’s face didn’t change. “But you knew that. Didn’t you?”
“Yeah...I kinda made that part up.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of what Dean was telling him. “I trusted you on this. Why would you lie to me about a stupid building demolition?”
“Oh come on, Sam. It wasn’t like that.” He made a face that suggested he was having as much trouble justifying this to himself as he was to Sam. “Lie it’s...such a harsh word. I just...I didn’t know how else to get you out here and it’s not like I could just leave you in Pennsylvania with those freaky ass airplanes.”
Sam raised his brows. Dean still wasn’t making any sense, but it didn’t really matter at this point. He wanted to tell Dean that if he’d wanted him out here the truth would have been a good start, but he kept his mouth shut about it for now.
“Okay. So we’re here now. Just tell me what’s really going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.” Sam threw him a skeptical look. “What? I don’t! Don’t you think I would’ve just stopped it if I did?”
“Well, yeah, but you drug me out here and you knew these deaths were related. Obviously you know something.”
“I know people are dying. I know something’s killing them and that it’s tied into that sanitarium. I just don’t know what it is. It was just something I read in Dad’s journal. This has happened before. Just like it is now. Eight people are dead and four more are going to die. But that’s all I got.”
He was pretty much a hundred percent sure that Dean was still holding back. If that was all there was there was no reason Dean wouldn’t have just told him that to begin with. Or maybe there was. If Dean had told him this in Illinois he would have just told Dean to stop scouring Dad’s journals for any reason to get away from Pennsylvania. That they could deal with this case after the planes.
Maybe that was it, maybe there was something else but pushing Dean further away wasn’t going to get him to open up about whatever else he might be hiding. He seriously wasn’t letting Dean come with him though. His brother looked like he was ready to drop as it was.
“If you don’t know then I can look into it as well as you can.”
There was a long hesitation but Dean finally nodded. “Okay. Fine. We need to find out what the kids saw and we need records. Lots of them. I think this thing goes back a good long time.”
“You think we’ll find a pattern.”
“Yeah, I do...I think that’s why Dad was here. I also think there’s a mark on those bodies. I saw one on Jimmy.”
“What kind of mark?”
“I don’t know. It was some kind of symbol maybe? I just got a flash of it when they were moving the body. I couldn’t make it out, but it sure as hell wasn’t natural.”
“Alright. I’ll visit the families, check the county death records and swing by the morgue. While you sleep,” he told Dean with a poignant look.
He slipped on his jacket, but stopped before heading out the door and turned back to his brother. Dean was staring off at something and Sam was suddenly reluctant to leave him alone.
“Dean.”
His brother refocused on the room and looked towards him. “Yeah, Sammy?”
“If something was wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
“Of course I would. You’re my little brother.”
~~~
The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay, Oregon - 1987
“What doing?” Sammy asked again.
It had to be the twentieth time he’d asked. Dean’s little brother, who hadn’t gone back to sleep like he’d hoped, was laying on his stomach perched on the edge of the bed looking down at him. His little head tilted as he studied Dean in complete captivation.
“Trying to get this open,” Dean told his brother as he tugged at the lid to the container he’d found in Dad’s bag.
“What in it?”
Dean looked at the container again. It said S-A-L-T and it looked like the stuff he put on french fries, but this stuff was magical. He didn’t really know what it was - he just knew what it did so he shrugged to his brother.
“White stuff.”
“Like snow?”
“Kinda, but you can’t touch it okay?”
“Hot?”
"Yeah, it’s hot, Sammy,” Dean agreed.
He was thankful that Sammy had supplied him with a reason that made sense to a three and a half year old. Since Sammy was just a kid it was kind of hard to know what he should say to him. He knew he shouldn’t tell him about the monsters, but most other things in their life didn’t make much sense without knowing about the scary stuff.
With one last tug, the container popped open making a messy dusting all over the center of the motel room floor.
“Damn it,” Dean cursed under his breath as brushed the salt off of him.
“Careful, Dean, it hot,” Sammy warned anxiously. He scrambled to a seated position but remained on the bed that Dean had told him to stay in.
“Yeah, I got it,” he replied as he stood up and ground the crystals into the carpet with his shoe.
He knew the stuff wouldn’t hurt him. It was just bad things that it burned. If it was really hot, he wouldn’t touch it. He knew what hot things did.
Taking the container of salt, Dean dragged the chair over to the window so he could reach the windowsill. Carefully he poured the salt onto the ledge and then in a ring in front of the door that left enough room so that he could still open the door enough to get out.
“You can’t open the door for anyone, Sammy.”
“What ‘bout you and Daddy?”
“Not even us. We got keys so we don’t need to knock. Okay? This is really important.”
“Okay. Can I get off bed?”
“No.”
“What if I have to go potty?” Sammy asked with a pout.
Dean mentally kicked himself. Sammy did really good listening to him and he would have felt really bad if he’d stayed on the bed when he had to go to the bathroom. Sammy wasn’t so good at making it to the bathroom as it was. He’d had to clean up after his little brother plenty of times before so he should have thought of that after giving him so much milk to drink.
“Sure. That’s okay. But then you get right back into bed. Got it?”
“Got it,” Sammy replied in a mimicked version of Dean’s tone.
“Awesome. And you remember how I showed you to use the phone?” Sammy nodded. “And you got those special numbers?”
Sammy pointed to the piece of paper on the bed stand next to the phone. “Jimmy numbers.”
“That’s right. I’m going to try to be back really soon, but if I’m not...you call Pastor Jim.”
Continue to Chapter 5
Summary: Dean's obsession with apparently random medical deaths mirrored from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Word Count: 3,012 for this part
Author's Note: Takes place in 2007 post 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987. Many thanks to Amberdreams for the wonderful editing assistance. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 3
Dean had lied. Or at the very least gotten his facts seriously mixed up. Sam had scoured every online record he could find and there was nothing that suggested the old Krobath sanitarium was scheduled to be demolished. The building had been condemned in the mid eighties, but the land was outside the city limits and apparently not worth the cost of developing.
As far as anything that would have triggered angry spirits around the place, it was possible something had happened, but there wasn’t any information online about the patients that had been housed there. The place had been shut down long before the concept of online records had ever been cooked up. The county should have the hardcopies, but there was no way Dean could have got the information by randomly searching the internet. Especially since he sucked at it.
Sam realized that at some point between cursing Dean for being an idiot liar and worrying himself sick about what his brother was really up to, the sun had breached the horizon. His tired eyes glanced down to the clock at the corner of his computer screen. Seven in the morning and Dean hadn’t so much as bothered to call to let him know that he was okay.
Enough was enough. He was done listening to Dean’s cell phone message system over and over. It was time to start scouring the town for his brother. For some strange reason Dean had left the car with him so it wasn’t like his brother could have gotten that far.
He was shutting down the laptop when he heard a key turn in the room’s lock. Standing, he crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for the door to open. As it did Dean slipped through like he thought he could sneak in without Sam noticing.
His brother almost had the door shut before he realized he was being watched. If Dean was that far off his game he obviously hadn’t been off sleeping somewhere. When Dean looked up at him Sam saw that his brother looked as beat as he had assumed. He also looked guilty as hell.
“Up already?” Dean asked nonchalantly.
“Where have you been?” Sam asked with obvious irritation that Dean chose to ignore.
“Out.” When Sam looked unsatisfied with the lack of a real answer Dean switched from evasive to his other favorite defense mechanism. “Look, I know it’s past my curfew, but she was really hot...and a gymnast. Promise it won’t happen again.”
Dean tried to walk past him, but Sam grabbed his jacket to stop him. He tried to get Dean to look at him but his brother wouldn’t meet his eyes. Sam hadn’t been imagining it last night. Dean just flat out looked terrible. He was ever bit as pale as Sam had thought and now there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.
“I’ve been up all night,” Sam told him as he tried to keep his voice steady.
Dean was in full avoidance mode and right now obviously didn’t have any problem with taking off without a word. The last thing he wanted was for Dean to bolt again.
Finally Dean shot him a perplexed look. “How’s that my fault?”
“I was waiting up for you.”
Dean chuckled at first but then his face fell as he realized Sam was serious. “Since when?” Dean slapped Sam’s hand off of him. “Dude, I’m twenty-eight. Dad didn’t wait up for me when I was eight.”
“He sure as hell should have.” As soon as the words left his mouth he knew that the bitter tone he’d said them with would set Dean off. “Dean...”
Sam didn’t really think there was any need to apologize. He just knew that Dean would want him to. Even if what he had said was true. Dad shouldn’t have just dumped them wherever was convenient and moved them when it suited him.
He got what Dad had been trying to do, he really did, but if Dad hadn’t wanted them he should have just left them where they could have been kids and not burdens that were just too young to fight yet. He should have left them with someone that wouldn’t have just pawned their youngest off on their eldest and who would have actually taken care of them. Both of them. Someone that wouldn’t have taken advantage of their sons and so purposefully screwed up Dean’s head.
Before he could formulate his token attempt at an apology Dean had him backed into the wall. “Say another word about Dad and I seriously will kick your ass.”
By the look in Dean’s eyes Sam didn’t doubt it. It wasn’t that he cared about Dean laying into him. Right now he was sure he could take him anyway. He was just worried about his brother who looked about as good as his hitched breaths sounded.
“Now stop worrying,” Dean said as he backed away from Sam. “It’s my job.”
Dean moved past him, slipped off his jacket and tossed it onto the bed. Sam was left by himself as Dean disappeared into the bathroom. His brother wasn’t going to get him off his back that easily. Especially since he could hear Dean coughing in there over the sound of the faucet running on full.
“Don’t give me that crap, Dean,” Sam called to him. “Like you have some kind of patent on worrying.”
There was a long silence before Dean called back hoarsely over the running water. “Some kind of what?”
“Never mind. Why wouldn’t you answer your phone?”
His brother looked genuinely baffled when he stepped from the bathroom and looked at Sam. “Did you call?” he asked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
He looked at it for a moment before shrugging. “Huh,” Dean remarked with a furrowed brow. “I just charged this piece of crap yesterday. Last time you pick out the phones. Battery’s dead.” He tossed the phone to Sam as proof. “Seriously. Why aren’t you asleep?”
“Seriously, I’ve been too busy wondering if you got yourself killed doing something stupid.”
“Geez, Sam. You’re going to give yourself a stroke. Relax already. I just met a girl. Really.”
It was a lie and a bad one. If Dean had really hooked up with someone for the night, it wouldn’t be unusual but he would have been either gloating or complaining and he sure wouldn’t be looking guilty about it. His brother wasn’t one to keep his mouth shut and he wasn’t one to not tell Sam where he was when they were on a case.
"Where?”
Dean’s eyes searched the room and he scratched his head before answering. “At the bar.”
“What bar?”
“The bar. Who cares? It’s not like she had a sister.”
“Have you said one honest word since we left Illinois?” The total exasperation in Sam’s tone stopped Dean’s pacing in its tracks, but only for a moment.
“I’m tired. Get off my back.”
“Not until you tell me what’s really going on.”
“Fine! I talked to some people then I went back to the hospital. Is that all right with you?” He walked away again before plopping down on the edge of the bed facing away from Sam.
There were a lot of things that Sam had half expected to come out of Dean’s mouth, but that sure wasn’t one of them. He watched Dean’s shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths as his brother stared at the wall. Dean going back to the hospital made about the least sense of anything he could think of. The only thing that made less sense was why Dean wouldn’t want him to know about it.
“Why would you go back to the hospital?”
“Jimmy died.”
The words came out abruptly and from Dean’s tone it didn’t sound so much like an answer to the question as it did a confession. Obviously if Dean’s phone wasn’t working Dean hadn’t gone to the hospital because he’d gotten a call about it. His brother would have had to already been there when it happened.
“The father?”
“Both of them. Jimmy junior and senior. Colleen...uh, Mrs...Ms. Simmons...one night and her family is just gone. She has her two little girls and now their dad is dead...and their brother. Colleen just wasn’t up to dealing with it. Shouldn’t have to. This whole thing is just a steaming pile of crap.”
Sam let out a heavy breath as he walked over to sit down on the bed next to Dean. This wasn’t like him. Sometimes when kids were involved his brother got strange about things for some reason Sam didn’t get. Sure it was hard - they were just kids and deserved to live their lives, but it was different for Dean somehow. He doubted the father component was helping anything, but there had to be something more to this. Right now Dean looked seriously rough.
“It was good of you to stay with her.”
“Whole hell of a lot of good it did. I came here to save her family, not to help with the god damn funeral arrangements,” Dean huffed as he pushed himself off the bed and started pacing the room again. Sam stood up too, but kept his distance.
“I’m sorry, Dean. There’s some things even we can’t stop.”
Abruptly his brother turned to look at him. “Well, we’re stopping this. We’re hitting the sanitarium tonight. We have to talk to the families and I’ve got some other leads we need to follow up on now.”
“Now?” There was a lot Sam felt like he should say, but he knew he had to be delicate about this or his brother would just go shooting off without him again.
“Nah, we don’t have to go now. We can wait until some other poor kid dies first.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. I just think you need to get some rest before tonight.” He looked Dean over again before finally asking, “Are you sick?”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you? You could play Nurse Ratchet. You’d be perfect for the part.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Not sick in the head. I already know that. I mean how do you feel?”
“How do I feel?” Dean gave him a look like he’d asked him what color of women underwear he was wearing. “You mean...no. No, I’m not sick, Sam. I’m just tired.” He ran his hand over his face. “Damn tired.”
“How about you let me take care of the leads?”
Dean was obviously at least as worn out as he looked, probably more so, because he seemed to be reluctantly considering Sam’s suggestion. Still he shook his head. “No. I should do this.”
“Why, Dean? Why do you have to do everything on this case?” When Dean didn’t reply, he couldn’t stop himself from prying further. “I know they’re not demolishing the sanitarium.” The expression on Dean’s face didn’t change. “But you knew that. Didn’t you?”
“Yeah...I kinda made that part up.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of what Dean was telling him. “I trusted you on this. Why would you lie to me about a stupid building demolition?”
“Oh come on, Sam. It wasn’t like that.” He made a face that suggested he was having as much trouble justifying this to himself as he was to Sam. “Lie it’s...such a harsh word. I just...I didn’t know how else to get you out here and it’s not like I could just leave you in Pennsylvania with those freaky ass airplanes.”
Sam raised his brows. Dean still wasn’t making any sense, but it didn’t really matter at this point. He wanted to tell Dean that if he’d wanted him out here the truth would have been a good start, but he kept his mouth shut about it for now.
“Okay. So we’re here now. Just tell me what’s really going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.” Sam threw him a skeptical look. “What? I don’t! Don’t you think I would’ve just stopped it if I did?”
“Well, yeah, but you drug me out here and you knew these deaths were related. Obviously you know something.”
“I know people are dying. I know something’s killing them and that it’s tied into that sanitarium. I just don’t know what it is. It was just something I read in Dad’s journal. This has happened before. Just like it is now. Eight people are dead and four more are going to die. But that’s all I got.”
He was pretty much a hundred percent sure that Dean was still holding back. If that was all there was there was no reason Dean wouldn’t have just told him that to begin with. Or maybe there was. If Dean had told him this in Illinois he would have just told Dean to stop scouring Dad’s journals for any reason to get away from Pennsylvania. That they could deal with this case after the planes.
Maybe that was it, maybe there was something else but pushing Dean further away wasn’t going to get him to open up about whatever else he might be hiding. He seriously wasn’t letting Dean come with him though. His brother looked like he was ready to drop as it was.
“If you don’t know then I can look into it as well as you can.”
There was a long hesitation but Dean finally nodded. “Okay. Fine. We need to find out what the kids saw and we need records. Lots of them. I think this thing goes back a good long time.”
“You think we’ll find a pattern.”
“Yeah, I do...I think that’s why Dad was here. I also think there’s a mark on those bodies. I saw one on Jimmy.”
“What kind of mark?”
“I don’t know. It was some kind of symbol maybe? I just got a flash of it when they were moving the body. I couldn’t make it out, but it sure as hell wasn’t natural.”
“Alright. I’ll visit the families, check the county death records and swing by the morgue. While you sleep,” he told Dean with a poignant look.
He slipped on his jacket, but stopped before heading out the door and turned back to his brother. Dean was staring off at something and Sam was suddenly reluctant to leave him alone.
“Dean.”
His brother refocused on the room and looked towards him. “Yeah, Sammy?”
“If something was wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
“Of course I would. You’re my little brother.”
~~~
The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay, Oregon - 1987
“What doing?” Sammy asked again.
It had to be the twentieth time he’d asked. Dean’s little brother, who hadn’t gone back to sleep like he’d hoped, was laying on his stomach perched on the edge of the bed looking down at him. His little head tilted as he studied Dean in complete captivation.
“Trying to get this open,” Dean told his brother as he tugged at the lid to the container he’d found in Dad’s bag.
“What in it?”
Dean looked at the container again. It said S-A-L-T and it looked like the stuff he put on french fries, but this stuff was magical. He didn’t really know what it was - he just knew what it did so he shrugged to his brother.
“White stuff.”
“Like snow?”
“Kinda, but you can’t touch it okay?”
“Hot?”
"Yeah, it’s hot, Sammy,” Dean agreed.
He was thankful that Sammy had supplied him with a reason that made sense to a three and a half year old. Since Sammy was just a kid it was kind of hard to know what he should say to him. He knew he shouldn’t tell him about the monsters, but most other things in their life didn’t make much sense without knowing about the scary stuff.
With one last tug, the container popped open making a messy dusting all over the center of the motel room floor.
“Damn it,” Dean cursed under his breath as brushed the salt off of him.
“Careful, Dean, it hot,” Sammy warned anxiously. He scrambled to a seated position but remained on the bed that Dean had told him to stay in.
“Yeah, I got it,” he replied as he stood up and ground the crystals into the carpet with his shoe.
He knew the stuff wouldn’t hurt him. It was just bad things that it burned. If it was really hot, he wouldn’t touch it. He knew what hot things did.
Taking the container of salt, Dean dragged the chair over to the window so he could reach the windowsill. Carefully he poured the salt onto the ledge and then in a ring in front of the door that left enough room so that he could still open the door enough to get out.
“You can’t open the door for anyone, Sammy.”
“What ‘bout you and Daddy?”
“Not even us. We got keys so we don’t need to knock. Okay? This is really important.”
“Okay. Can I get off bed?”
“No.”
“What if I have to go potty?” Sammy asked with a pout.
Dean mentally kicked himself. Sammy did really good listening to him and he would have felt really bad if he’d stayed on the bed when he had to go to the bathroom. Sammy wasn’t so good at making it to the bathroom as it was. He’d had to clean up after his little brother plenty of times before so he should have thought of that after giving him so much milk to drink.
“Sure. That’s okay. But then you get right back into bed. Got it?”
“Got it,” Sammy replied in a mimicked version of Dean’s tone.
“Awesome. And you remember how I showed you to use the phone?” Sammy nodded. “And you got those special numbers?”
Sammy pointed to the piece of paper on the bed stand next to the phone. “Jimmy numbers.”
“That’s right. I’m going to try to be back really soon, but if I’m not...you call Pastor Jim.”
Continue to Chapter 5