The Other Son: Chapter Two
Title: The Other Son
Author: revenant_scribe
Chapter Two: SHTRIGA
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warnings: wincest, semi-spoilers for 1.18 'Something Wicked'.
A/N: AU. This is difficult to summarize fully without also spoiling fully.
Summary: A vision incites Sam to leave his father's side and head to Fitchburg. Without any clear notion as to what he is hunting, and no supernatural signs in the town of any kind as far as he can tell, Sam begins with what little he does know. But it doesn't take long before Sam begins to wonder if there might just be more than one mystery to be uncovered.
chapter two | SHTRIGA
The difficulty with not knowing what he was after or even where to look for information was that Sam had to wing it more so than he usually did. He had a box in his glove compartment filled with fake IDs, fake badges, fake authority, but he was hesitant to use them because it was a small town. If he started flashing a badge and asking questions he might get answers, but what happened if later on down the line when the shit really hit the fan, he required a different badge to get what he needed?
It seemed obvious to Sam, as he sat on the hood of his car licking at the ice cream he had bought as dessert, that the next step was to talk to that bartender. Sam refused to think of him as The Freak. Of course, he hadn’t exactly settled on a plan of approach; he could be casual and make small talk at the bar, but that seemed a little dubious. It was somewhat hard to believe that a man who lived in a small town and had somehow earned such a contemptuous nickname would be very chatty, especially when asked about weird things he may or may not have seen or heard going down in his town. But what excuse could Sam give for asking such vague questions if he flashed a badge? He could go in from the side, flirt with the man (he had been extremely attractive, after all) and then bring up the subject casually, but after what Sam had seen the night before, he didn’t harbor much hope that flirtation would incite a positive response.
Which left that girl. If she were as close to the bartender as it had seemed, then she might know something; at the very least, she was a viable way for Sam to be introduced to the man without raising his hackles.
While he sat eating his ice cream, contemplating the various options, his cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID before flipping it open, mentally and physically bracing himself. “Dad.”
“You didn’t check in.”
“I spoke to you yesterday.”
“You call me every night, is that clear?” John said. “What have you found?”
“I bumped into someone from my vision.” Sam finished his ice cream, crumpling the napkin he’d been given into a ball before tossing it neatly into the trash on the curb. “Haven’t had a chance to speak with him, though.”
“How is he involved?”
It was difficult for Sam to admit how little he actually knew about what was happening in Fitchburg. He knew his dad well enough to understand that the threat of the man driving all the way to the small town, and at top speed, at the slightest sign that Sam was in over his head, was a legitimate, if unspoken, one. Still, there was no avoiding the truth. “I don’t know yet.”
“I don’t like this, Sam. I don’t like you off on your own chasing a vision.” There was a pause because Sam really had nothing he could say to that -- he wasn’t going to turn around, and he didn’t want his father’s help, and John knew all of that.
“Call tonight and tell me what you’ve found.” The dial tone signaled the end of the conversation, and Sam spent a solid ten minutes trying to harness his anger. John had grown far too accustomed to giving orders; it was what inspired Bobby to cock his shotgun at the man in the first place. Sam wished sometimes that he could do just that as well - draw a line in the sand, something solid and unambiguous that would make it clear once and for all that he was his own person, that he could think and make decisions as effectively, and sometimes more effectively, than his own father. That he didn’t have to be led around by the nose anymore: he’d grown up.
There were clouds in the sky, light and fluffy, moving across the blue at a leisurely pace. When he was on his own without the pressure of a case bearing down on him, Sam always wondered what it would have been like if he’d gone ahead with what he’d been secretly planning when he was still a hopeful kid in high school. It hadn’t been easy to concentrate on his schoolwork when he was constantly changing schools and always getting caught up in another hunt, but he’d managed. He’d gone so far as to fill out applications. Letters had arrived in the mail, but by that point Sam had already realized that there was no way he could leave his father. John needed help on hunts, and Sam was all he had left in the world. He hadn’t opened a single letter, but he’d kept them in the bottom of his suitcase, an ever-present reminder of how his life could have been different.
“You look solemn,” a voice rumbled. Sam looked up to find Burt, the deli owner and Sheila’s fiancé, standing in front of him. “Come on, come sit in the shop and relax awhile. I’ll even give you a coffee, on the house.”
“Thanks.” Sam trailed after the man. There were things he should be doing, but the longer Sam was away from John, the less pressure he felt to return quickly. It was more than apparent that Sam’s vision was not happening with any haste.
Burt flipped the ‘Back in 5’ sign over so that it read ‘Open!’ and headed to the counter, where he put a fresh pot of coffee on. “Something you want to talk about?”
“Just my dad,” Sam said. “We butt heads sometimes … a lot, actually.”
“Well, that’s the way of it,” Burt said. “My old man, he used to yell something fierce. Sometimes he’d make good on his threats, too. Most of the time, though, I think he was just scared. I was growin’ up too fast, doin’ things he’d never done before. He was just trying to hold on as long as he could.” Burt set the coffee down on the table Sam had settled at.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Sam had his own theories as to why his father was the way he was, but he thought maybe Burt didn’t need to hear about the complex history of the Winchester family.
Burt picked-up a cloth and began cleaning off the counter space. “How are you settling into town?”
“Pretty good,” Sam said, happy for the topic change. Not one to let an opportunity slide, he continued, “I found my way over to the Wyvern last night.”
“Ah, that’s a good place. Sheila and I go there every Friday night, nice to unwind, y’know?”
“Yeah.” Sam glanced over at Burt. “Pretty quiet,” he said casually.
“Quiet? The Wyvern? Ha!”
“Folks keep to themselves, I mean.”
“Ah.” Burt stopped wiping as he caught Sam’s drift, braced his hands on the counter and leaned forward a little. “You’re talking about the bartender.”
“First time I ever saw people sitting at the bar and not harassing the person behind it.”
“Yeah, well. That’s the way it goes.” Burt fiddled a little with the cloth before dropping it back to the counter with a shrug. “It’s a shame, really. Dean’s a good kid but, well. He’s had some troubles. You have to understand that small-town friendly can also mean small-town superstitious.”
“What’s there to be superstitious about? He looked pretty average to me.” He had, in fact, looked anything but average, but Sam hadn’t seen any reason for an entire town to get the heebie-jeebies just because the man was uncommonly attractive.
“You know that and I know that, but people talk.” Sam thought maybe Burt might have more to say, but the man just shook his head somewhat sadly and went back to tidying things about his counter. The movement was mechanical; something to do so Burt wouldn’t have to stand still. Whatever information it was about the bartender, about ‘Dean’ that Burt was sharing made the man prickly.
“People talk?”
“Dean’s a good boy. I don’t like talking about him like this.”
“Alright,” Sam hastened to say. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Burt nodded, and Sam went back to his coffee, finishing it quickly and trying to figure out what to do with the bit of information he had gleaned. It wasn’t just the teenagers -- the entire town was on edge as far as Dean went. “Look,” Burt said after a moment. “You wanted some supernatural stories for your book, right?” Sam paused; it took a moment before he could recall that this was exactly the excuse he’d given for his strange questions the day before. “I don’t exactly have any. Sheila’s lived here since birth, and between the both of us we haven’t heard a thing. But generally we both keep ourselves to ourselves, you understand?”
“I think so.”
“So you might ask someone who’s more likely to be in the thick of it, if there was something, which there isn’t necessarily, you get me?”
“Sure.” Though Sam wasn’t entirely certain he understood at all.
Burt’s face shifted, displaying crinkles that barely showed when he was relaxed, but his frown was harsh and measuring. “You talk to Sophia, down at the Diner, Rosemary’s is the name of it. You be real sweet and charming, and maybe she might have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” Sam said. He rose and brought the white coffee mug to the counter. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“You take care not to stir up trouble.”
“I’m just trying to write a book,” Sam said, sheepish, innocent smile on his face. It usually smoothed out all kinds of ruffled feathers for him, and Burt relaxed immediately.
……………………………………..
Rosemary’s Diner looked like something a mitten-knitting, cookie-baking, flower-print loving grandmother might consider a kitchen. Mostly there was a lot of pink and wicker. Sam was sort of wishing that Sophia, whoever she was, worked anywhere but a diner because he’d had a big lunch (Sam knew of no other way to eat but in a big way) and he’d followed that lunch with an ice cream, and then Burt had given him the coffee. The last thing Sam wanted to see was more food.
“Can I help you?” He looked-up from the menu he’d been eyeing with trepidation. The woman had graying brown hair pinned back in a loose bun and large spectacles that magnified her eyes so that they filled the entirety of the large frames.
“Uh,” Sam said, momentarily thrown off by the large eyes. “Ice cream,” Sam managed. “Vanilla.”
“Sure thing, sweet cheeks.”
She looked as if she were about to reach forward and actually pinch Sam’s cheek, so he hastened to add, “I’m looking for Sophia. Is she in today?”
The woman smiled a little knowingly and then turned and hollered, “Sophia! Gentleman caller!” It attracted the attention of every other patron in the diner, but it also effectively summoned Sophia to Sam’s table. Sam recognized her immediately as being the young woman who had been at the bar the night before. “You’ve got a break, Honey.”
“Thanks, Rosemary,” the girl said. Up close, Sam was better able to see her. She was very pale, with dark blue eyes and long black hair with the bangs cropped low and in a rigid line across her forehead. “Can I help you?” she asked once Rosemary moved away, assuring Sam she’d bring his ice cream.
“Please.” Sam gestured opposite him, relieved when she slid into the seat, albeit hesitantly. “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but this is where Burt said to find you.”
“Oh, Burt.” Sophia immediately relaxed, folding her hands and propping them up on the table.
“My name’s Sam. I’ve been traveling around collecting any strange stories that towns have to offer, thinking of putting them all together for a book.”
“Sure, like the Brothers Grimm.”
“Except not fairy tales.”
Sophia sat back and took that in. A moment later, Rosemary was back at the table and sliding Sam’s vanilla ice cream towards him. She did actually pinch his cheek, and Sam endured it and the smiling look Sophia gave him before Rosemary finally bustled off again. He picked up the spoon but couldn’t quite make himself dig in to the dessert.
“You don’t seem like vanilla to me,” Sophia said. Her gaze was shrewd, and though he wasn’t sure how, Sam was certain that they were talking about more than ice cream flavors, or even sex. They stared at each other a moment over the heaping ice cream, and then Sophia reached over and plucked the cherry garnish from the top of Sam’s sundae biting it cleanly off the stem. The message was clear: ‘You’re lying. But I’ll bite.’ Once she’d swallowed the cherry, she settled back, her expression inscrutable as she asked, “Strange how?”
“Supernatural, weird. Uncanny.” He paused and spooned up a glob of ice cream before glancing at her. “Freaky.”
The comment didn’t faze her. “Mrs. Falco is an alien.”
“I’ve got that one.”
“Shucks. I just heard about that.”
She tapped her fingers on the table and then looked around. “I’m not an idiot, okay?” she said, finally looking back at Sam directly. “But …” Whatever she was about to say was cut off when the diner chimes sang out, announcing a new customer, one that brought a bit of chatter with them. Sophia turned to look over her shoulder, and then she was sliding out of the booth altogether. “Dean!”
“Soph!” Dean greeted. “Hey, I just…” Sam’s throat constricted a little, and it was suddenly difficult to breathe, difficult to do anything but stare into the warm green eyes that were locked with his. There was nothing else, not even sound, just the eyes, and Sam felt as if he were slowly being pulled deeper and deeper into that gaze. Dean broke eye contact as if he hadn’t felt anything strange at all, and Sam felt both relieved and bereft. “I just need to talk to you for a second.”
“Sure, in the back.” Sophia gestured over her shoulder, and they both disappeared to the back of the restaurant, neither sparing a further thought for Sam.
Sam stabbed his spoon into the ice cream. It was forward and back with this case, like running circles in the dark. Somehow, whatever was happening or was about to happen in Fitchburg involved Dean. Dean, who had wide hazel eyes and freckles across the bridge of his nose; Dean, who had broad hands and the devil in his smile; Dean, who needed only the briefest moment of eye contact to pull you under; Dean, who had just nabbed a cheese Danish from the serving counter on his way out of the diner. Sam didn’t realize he was staring until Sophia’s voice coming from directly beside him almost made him start. Almost -- he was a hunter, after all.
“I have seven minutes.” It didn’t sound exactly like an invitation, but she cocked her head to the side and seemed to be waiting for Sam to get up, so that’s what he did. They were silent as she led the way out onto the street. “He’s my best friend.”
“Who?” The question slipped out before he had even thought about it, and Sam wondered for a moment if he was actually confused or merely that skilled at playing the part that it had become entirely instinctual.
“Dean.” She plucked a hair elastic from around her wrist and paused to tie her hair back in a knot. “So if you’re implying that he’s a freak, you’re fast-tracking for an ass-kicking.”
Sam nodded. “Okay.”
“I get that it’s something the townspeople say, but it’s a bunch of crap.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you, or insult your friend. It’s just what I heard.” Sophia sized him up and then smiled, nodding once before gesturing to something across the street. He looked and then added, “Okay, what am I looking at?” as he stared at the park.
“It’s what you wanted to know,” Sophia said before she elaborated, “School’s out.”
School was out, and yet there was only a single child climbing on the equipment, dangling off the monkey bars. It looked awkward and lonely without the echo of children’s laughter and happy squeals, her movements seemingly aimless without friends to lend direction. “Where are all the kids?”
“Some kind of epidemic that’s moving through all the children.”
“They’re sick?”
Sophia shrugged. “The parents think whatever it is might be contagious. They’re keeping their kids away just to be safe.”
“How many? Do you know?” He was thinking of the rocket ship bedspread, wondering why he hadn’t paid more attention when he’d gone through the schools, but it wasn’t as if a few absences meant anything, necessarily. The principal certainly hadn’t seemed to think there was anything odd about it.
“Five or six.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I baby-sit,” Sophia said. “And it’s a small town. Parents get worked up enough, and they talk. Especially the parents of the kids I baby-sit.” Her whistle implied the extent to which the parents of the town were worked up and simultaneously delivered Sophia’s opinion on their behavior. “These days, I get a whole list of things I can’t let them do, can’t let them touch, just to be safe.”
“Sure, right.” Sam remembered that she only had a short break as she checked her watch. “Look, thanks for your help. I don’t mean to keep you.”
“It’s not a problem,” she said, her demeanor at least appearing warmer than it had started out. “Good luck, Winchester.” Sam thanked her again and was halfway to his car before he realized that she’d called him by a name he had never given her.
……………………………………..
If there were one thing Sam liked about hunting, it was the research. The smell of musty tomes was the smell of his childhood, entertaining himself in Pastor Jim’s study or wandering through the libraries, searching the stacks. Although John could track weather patterns and police records without problem, the nitty-gritty stuff always left him in a bad mood, and he was hard enough for Sam to take as it was. Then there would be the hunts where John already knew what and how to deal with whatever they were after and refused to do more research just so Sam could know ‘why’?
Over the years, various contacts - John sometimes got upset when Sam referred to them as friends, as if he were discounting their job or something - would pass on a tome or a useful book, and Sam added them to his stash in the trunk. Just another kind of weapon.
He made a list of everything that he could think of that singled out kids and would attack in a way that could be interpreted as some kind of sickness. There weren’t as many as Sam had originally thought, but still too many for him to really start focusing.
It was too late to visit the hospital but not late enough that he could justify settling in. He phoned Bobby first, brainstormed and crossed a few of the candidates off his list accounting for seasonal patterns, the lunar cycle, and apparent feeding habits. However much Sam thought he had learned, it was always humbling to realize how much more Bobby knew. “I’ve been huntin’ since you were in diapers, Kid, don’t let it get to you,” Bobby said. “And call your daddy.”
Sam hated to do it: checking in was for teenagers, not for hunters. He was twenty-one and well due a taste of independence. “Hey, Dad,” he said when John’s gruff voice answered.
“Sammy.”
“I’m fine. I’ve focused in a bit. Whatever this thing is, it’s going after kids. It’s not too far along yet; mostly just the parents of small children are worried. They think it’s an epidemic.”
“An epidemic?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to the doctors yet.”
“You do that first thing, and then you call me.”
Sam rolled his eyes because he already intended to go to the hospital in the morning, and of course his dad had already ordered him to check in nightly. “Well. I was just checkin’ in.”
“And Sam,” John said. “Tell ‘em you’re from the Center for Disease Control. They should let you in.” John had hung up long before Sam could snarl that he’d already thought of that, ‘thank-you-very-much,’ and would he kindly stop acting as if Sam were stupid!
Irritated and more than a little frustrated with the slow progress of the case when usually his visions launched him into a whirlwind of activity, Sam grabbed his wallet and headed out.
……………………………………..
At the back of the Wyvern was a pool table that afforded a perfect view of the bar. Sam needed more cash, seeing as he wasn’t sure how long he’d be in town, and it was the ideal set-up; he could hustle pool and keep tabs on Dean, two birds, one stone.
It was even better when he hooked his prey while he was seated at the bar. A hulking kid with black hair who called Sam a ‘tall drink of water,’ and their conversation had deteriorated from there until they had over one hundred dollars down on the game. Dean had let out a surprised laugh as he’d looked up from where he’d been wiping up a spill on the counter, and he’d shaken his head. “Good luck, Andy,” he’d said.
“Piss off,” Andy had retorted. Sam had glanced up to see how Dean would react, but Dean was waiting for the glance and had tossed a wink his way, like they were sharing a private joke. Sam had won cleanly and easily, taking the kid for all he was worth, because honestly, it wasn’t much. When he’d finished the game, he headed back to the bar where Dean was already sliding a shot of whiskey over to him.
“Thanks,” Sam said, reaching to hand over the cash, but he was waved away. “Really, thanks.” Dean nodded absently as he filled up a mug for another customer. “I don’t suppose you play.”
“I might be a little rusty,” Dean said with mischief in his eyes. “Y’know. I don’t play that often.” Sam laughed out loud because he’d been hustling long enough to know when he was getting rooked. Dean grinned back a little before he hurried off to deliver the beer.
When he looked up, Sam realized his laughter had attracted attention, and most people in the establishment were sneaking suspicious glances his way. “Wow, that’s some kind of social stigma,” he muttered before he knocked back the whiskey. He dropped the glass back on the counter and waved to Dean as he was heading out, made a bit of a show of it because of all the attention he was getting from the other customers, and he wanted to say ‘screw you’ to each of them, unimpressed with their bigotry. Dean smirked a little and waved back, and Sam paused - on Dean’s hand, there was a silver ring.
……………………………………..
If there were one thing he’d learned from his father, it was how to distance himself from a case. There would be times (many of them, Sam remembered) when he would be too nervous, too worked up to think about eating, or even be able to keep anything down. The consequences were always severe. Hunting when you were at anything less than one hundred percent was a huge risk, because hunting when you were one hundred percent was a risk already.
Sam managed some sleep, though it wasn’t entirely satisfying. He kept turning over his vision in his head, piecing together the bits of the puzzle he had gleaned. Dean’s face was the one he had seen, blank and unresponsive, and it had been Dean’s hand with the silver ring. Dean, who most everyone in the small town agreed was some kind of freak and who was a close friend of a girl who somehow knew things without ever being told. He broke the vision down into snapshots and wrote out what he knew about each piece, and then he headed out to the coffee shop on the street corner to get a bagel and a coffee before he hit the hospital.
……………………………………..
“Thank God you’ve gotten here,” Dr. Heidekker said, his face pinched but his eyes shining with relief. “I was about to call. How did you know to come?”
“Another GP phoned in,” Sam dismissed easily. “What can you tell me about the cases?”
“Not much.” Heidekker turned and peered through the glass partition where Sam could see a little boy hooked up to equipment, fast asleep. There were dark smudges beneath the boy’s eyes, and his skin had the rubbery pallor of a hard-boiled egg. “It seems like bacterial pneumonia. The kids’ white cell counts are low. They’re all unconscious.”
“All of them?” Sam asked. “Not one has woken up?”
“No,” Dr. Heidekker said. “They’re not responding to medication, either.” He paused when a nurse stopped beside them, handing over a clipboard with a requisition form for his signature. She smiled a little at Sam; the kind of awkward smile of greeting that said that she was pleased to see him because they were at a complete loss.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
Dr. Heidekker shook his head. “It’s the way it spreads,” volunteered the nurse. “I mean, it seems like pneumonia, but it’s working its way through families, only the children, and then it moves on. Pneumonia doesn’t do that.”
Pneumonia might not move through families like that, but a creature or a spirit might. If it’s usual prey was children, it would find a house with kids then keep going back until it had picked them all off before moving on to another home. Sam had his suspects narrowed down to about five possible creatures, which was at least a manageable number.
“Is it possible to speak with the families?”
“Of course,” Dr. Heidekker said with a helpless little shrug. “If you think it will help.”
“Who was your most recent admission?”
……………………………………..
Mr. Shyre had two girls, both of whom had come down with the mystery illness. He seemed content to blame an open window, though the weather had been mild. Sam figured that most people wouldn’t question doctors, were only too happy to believe in simple, rational explanations, especially when they were distraught. He hadn’t spoken to the man’s wife; it didn’t take much time for him to realize that maybe the parents wouldn’t have the kind of information that he needed. What he did learn was the address to the Shyre family home, unoccupied for the time being because the parents were staying with their daughters at the hospital.
The Shyre home was less than six minutes from the hospital by car, and he was just pulling onto the street when he noticed a familiar figure stepping down from the Shyre porch, hands tucked in jean pockets, walking with his head down. It seemed unlikely that Dean was a family friend, but Sam didn’t know much of anything to form a real opinion. Still, he hung back until the man had covered enough distance before he parked the Impala and headed inside, just to be safe.
Sam entered every home with a lingering sense of expectation. He had no memories of having a home himself, but he always believed that at least a small, deeply buried part of him still remembered what it felt like. He would wait every time he entered some place for a tingling or niggling sense that ‘this was it,’ that this was what he was missing, this was what a ‘home’ felt like. The Shyre house was no different than any of the other houses he’d entered before, impersonal and distant. He made his way to the girls’ bedroom, checking it over efficiently because that one moment of ‘maybe’ was all he could spare before he had to return to business.
The bed was unmade. No doubt the little girl’s father had simply pulled his daughter up and bundled her in warm things before heading to the hospital. There were stuffed toys and fond memories in colorful frames and no traces of EMF anywhere. Sam inspected every last thing and still found nothing until, on a whim he crossed to the window. Using the blue-light, he caught sight of a familiar-looking shape, gnarled and long-fingered but very clearly a handprint. It was on the outside of the window as if something had paused a moment on the sill, which would explain how the window had come to be open at all, and whatever had left it behind had rotted the wood of the sill in that perfect shape.
“Shtriga,” Sam muttered. “Son of a bitch.”
……………………………………..
When Sam told John Winchester what he suspected there was a long pause filled with John’s quiet breath. Sam frowned, waiting for his father to contribute some kind of clue as to what he was hunting, because as far as Sam knew there was no weapon devised by god or man that could kill the thing, which didn’t leave a lot of room for improvisation.
“I don’t want you hunting this thing by yourself,” John said, breaking the silence.
“What? Why?”
“It’s bad enough you followed a vision into this mess, Sammy. You’re not hunting it by yourself.”
“Dad, I can’t just -“ But then there was only a dial tone and no chance to argue or question. “What the hell is it about this thing?” Sam wondered, closing his laptop and shoving some of the printouts off his bed. “It goes after kids, not adults,” which made him pause, because his vision had very clearly shown him Dean, lying still with his eyes closed inside a child’s bedroom.
“My visions show me victims,” Sam declared to the empty room. “Not demons, not whatever is behind it.” But it was the simplest explanation. Dean was called a freak by the entire town for some reason, why not this? Why not because he wasn’t human? Just because Sam didn’t want it to be true, didn’t mean that it wasn’t.
<< END CHAPTER >>
[MASTER POST]
DVD Movie Rental
Author: revenant_scribe
Chapter Two: SHTRIGA
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warnings: wincest, semi-spoilers for 1.18 'Something Wicked'.
A/N: AU. This is difficult to summarize fully without also spoiling fully.
Summary: A vision incites Sam to leave his father's side and head to Fitchburg. Without any clear notion as to what he is hunting, and no supernatural signs in the town of any kind as far as he can tell, Sam begins with what little he does know. But it doesn't take long before Sam begins to wonder if there might just be more than one mystery to be uncovered.
chapter two | SHTRIGA
The difficulty with not knowing what he was after or even where to look for information was that Sam had to wing it more so than he usually did. He had a box in his glove compartment filled with fake IDs, fake badges, fake authority, but he was hesitant to use them because it was a small town. If he started flashing a badge and asking questions he might get answers, but what happened if later on down the line when the shit really hit the fan, he required a different badge to get what he needed?
It seemed obvious to Sam, as he sat on the hood of his car licking at the ice cream he had bought as dessert, that the next step was to talk to that bartender. Sam refused to think of him as The Freak. Of course, he hadn’t exactly settled on a plan of approach; he could be casual and make small talk at the bar, but that seemed a little dubious. It was somewhat hard to believe that a man who lived in a small town and had somehow earned such a contemptuous nickname would be very chatty, especially when asked about weird things he may or may not have seen or heard going down in his town. But what excuse could Sam give for asking such vague questions if he flashed a badge? He could go in from the side, flirt with the man (he had been extremely attractive, after all) and then bring up the subject casually, but after what Sam had seen the night before, he didn’t harbor much hope that flirtation would incite a positive response.
Which left that girl. If she were as close to the bartender as it had seemed, then she might know something; at the very least, she was a viable way for Sam to be introduced to the man without raising his hackles.
While he sat eating his ice cream, contemplating the various options, his cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID before flipping it open, mentally and physically bracing himself. “Dad.”
“You didn’t check in.”
“I spoke to you yesterday.”
“You call me every night, is that clear?” John said. “What have you found?”
“I bumped into someone from my vision.” Sam finished his ice cream, crumpling the napkin he’d been given into a ball before tossing it neatly into the trash on the curb. “Haven’t had a chance to speak with him, though.”
“How is he involved?”
It was difficult for Sam to admit how little he actually knew about what was happening in Fitchburg. He knew his dad well enough to understand that the threat of the man driving all the way to the small town, and at top speed, at the slightest sign that Sam was in over his head, was a legitimate, if unspoken, one. Still, there was no avoiding the truth. “I don’t know yet.”
“I don’t like this, Sam. I don’t like you off on your own chasing a vision.” There was a pause because Sam really had nothing he could say to that -- he wasn’t going to turn around, and he didn’t want his father’s help, and John knew all of that.
“Call tonight and tell me what you’ve found.” The dial tone signaled the end of the conversation, and Sam spent a solid ten minutes trying to harness his anger. John had grown far too accustomed to giving orders; it was what inspired Bobby to cock his shotgun at the man in the first place. Sam wished sometimes that he could do just that as well - draw a line in the sand, something solid and unambiguous that would make it clear once and for all that he was his own person, that he could think and make decisions as effectively, and sometimes more effectively, than his own father. That he didn’t have to be led around by the nose anymore: he’d grown up.
There were clouds in the sky, light and fluffy, moving across the blue at a leisurely pace. When he was on his own without the pressure of a case bearing down on him, Sam always wondered what it would have been like if he’d gone ahead with what he’d been secretly planning when he was still a hopeful kid in high school. It hadn’t been easy to concentrate on his schoolwork when he was constantly changing schools and always getting caught up in another hunt, but he’d managed. He’d gone so far as to fill out applications. Letters had arrived in the mail, but by that point Sam had already realized that there was no way he could leave his father. John needed help on hunts, and Sam was all he had left in the world. He hadn’t opened a single letter, but he’d kept them in the bottom of his suitcase, an ever-present reminder of how his life could have been different.
“You look solemn,” a voice rumbled. Sam looked up to find Burt, the deli owner and Sheila’s fiancé, standing in front of him. “Come on, come sit in the shop and relax awhile. I’ll even give you a coffee, on the house.”
“Thanks.” Sam trailed after the man. There were things he should be doing, but the longer Sam was away from John, the less pressure he felt to return quickly. It was more than apparent that Sam’s vision was not happening with any haste.
Burt flipped the ‘Back in 5’ sign over so that it read ‘Open!’ and headed to the counter, where he put a fresh pot of coffee on. “Something you want to talk about?”
“Just my dad,” Sam said. “We butt heads sometimes … a lot, actually.”
“Well, that’s the way of it,” Burt said. “My old man, he used to yell something fierce. Sometimes he’d make good on his threats, too. Most of the time, though, I think he was just scared. I was growin’ up too fast, doin’ things he’d never done before. He was just trying to hold on as long as he could.” Burt set the coffee down on the table Sam had settled at.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Sam had his own theories as to why his father was the way he was, but he thought maybe Burt didn’t need to hear about the complex history of the Winchester family.
Burt picked-up a cloth and began cleaning off the counter space. “How are you settling into town?”
“Pretty good,” Sam said, happy for the topic change. Not one to let an opportunity slide, he continued, “I found my way over to the Wyvern last night.”
“Ah, that’s a good place. Sheila and I go there every Friday night, nice to unwind, y’know?”
“Yeah.” Sam glanced over at Burt. “Pretty quiet,” he said casually.
“Quiet? The Wyvern? Ha!”
“Folks keep to themselves, I mean.”
“Ah.” Burt stopped wiping as he caught Sam’s drift, braced his hands on the counter and leaned forward a little. “You’re talking about the bartender.”
“First time I ever saw people sitting at the bar and not harassing the person behind it.”
“Yeah, well. That’s the way it goes.” Burt fiddled a little with the cloth before dropping it back to the counter with a shrug. “It’s a shame, really. Dean’s a good kid but, well. He’s had some troubles. You have to understand that small-town friendly can also mean small-town superstitious.”
“What’s there to be superstitious about? He looked pretty average to me.” He had, in fact, looked anything but average, but Sam hadn’t seen any reason for an entire town to get the heebie-jeebies just because the man was uncommonly attractive.
“You know that and I know that, but people talk.” Sam thought maybe Burt might have more to say, but the man just shook his head somewhat sadly and went back to tidying things about his counter. The movement was mechanical; something to do so Burt wouldn’t have to stand still. Whatever information it was about the bartender, about ‘Dean’ that Burt was sharing made the man prickly.
“People talk?”
“Dean’s a good boy. I don’t like talking about him like this.”
“Alright,” Sam hastened to say. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Burt nodded, and Sam went back to his coffee, finishing it quickly and trying to figure out what to do with the bit of information he had gleaned. It wasn’t just the teenagers -- the entire town was on edge as far as Dean went. “Look,” Burt said after a moment. “You wanted some supernatural stories for your book, right?” Sam paused; it took a moment before he could recall that this was exactly the excuse he’d given for his strange questions the day before. “I don’t exactly have any. Sheila’s lived here since birth, and between the both of us we haven’t heard a thing. But generally we both keep ourselves to ourselves, you understand?”
“I think so.”
“So you might ask someone who’s more likely to be in the thick of it, if there was something, which there isn’t necessarily, you get me?”
“Sure.” Though Sam wasn’t entirely certain he understood at all.
Burt’s face shifted, displaying crinkles that barely showed when he was relaxed, but his frown was harsh and measuring. “You talk to Sophia, down at the Diner, Rosemary’s is the name of it. You be real sweet and charming, and maybe she might have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” Sam said. He rose and brought the white coffee mug to the counter. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“You take care not to stir up trouble.”
“I’m just trying to write a book,” Sam said, sheepish, innocent smile on his face. It usually smoothed out all kinds of ruffled feathers for him, and Burt relaxed immediately.
……………………………………..
Rosemary’s Diner looked like something a mitten-knitting, cookie-baking, flower-print loving grandmother might consider a kitchen. Mostly there was a lot of pink and wicker. Sam was sort of wishing that Sophia, whoever she was, worked anywhere but a diner because he’d had a big lunch (Sam knew of no other way to eat but in a big way) and he’d followed that lunch with an ice cream, and then Burt had given him the coffee. The last thing Sam wanted to see was more food.
“Can I help you?” He looked-up from the menu he’d been eyeing with trepidation. The woman had graying brown hair pinned back in a loose bun and large spectacles that magnified her eyes so that they filled the entirety of the large frames.
“Uh,” Sam said, momentarily thrown off by the large eyes. “Ice cream,” Sam managed. “Vanilla.”
“Sure thing, sweet cheeks.”
She looked as if she were about to reach forward and actually pinch Sam’s cheek, so he hastened to add, “I’m looking for Sophia. Is she in today?”
The woman smiled a little knowingly and then turned and hollered, “Sophia! Gentleman caller!” It attracted the attention of every other patron in the diner, but it also effectively summoned Sophia to Sam’s table. Sam recognized her immediately as being the young woman who had been at the bar the night before. “You’ve got a break, Honey.”
“Thanks, Rosemary,” the girl said. Up close, Sam was better able to see her. She was very pale, with dark blue eyes and long black hair with the bangs cropped low and in a rigid line across her forehead. “Can I help you?” she asked once Rosemary moved away, assuring Sam she’d bring his ice cream.
“Please.” Sam gestured opposite him, relieved when she slid into the seat, albeit hesitantly. “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but this is where Burt said to find you.”
“Oh, Burt.” Sophia immediately relaxed, folding her hands and propping them up on the table.
“My name’s Sam. I’ve been traveling around collecting any strange stories that towns have to offer, thinking of putting them all together for a book.”
“Sure, like the Brothers Grimm.”
“Except not fairy tales.”
Sophia sat back and took that in. A moment later, Rosemary was back at the table and sliding Sam’s vanilla ice cream towards him. She did actually pinch his cheek, and Sam endured it and the smiling look Sophia gave him before Rosemary finally bustled off again. He picked up the spoon but couldn’t quite make himself dig in to the dessert.
“You don’t seem like vanilla to me,” Sophia said. Her gaze was shrewd, and though he wasn’t sure how, Sam was certain that they were talking about more than ice cream flavors, or even sex. They stared at each other a moment over the heaping ice cream, and then Sophia reached over and plucked the cherry garnish from the top of Sam’s sundae biting it cleanly off the stem. The message was clear: ‘You’re lying. But I’ll bite.’ Once she’d swallowed the cherry, she settled back, her expression inscrutable as she asked, “Strange how?”
“Supernatural, weird. Uncanny.” He paused and spooned up a glob of ice cream before glancing at her. “Freaky.”
The comment didn’t faze her. “Mrs. Falco is an alien.”
“I’ve got that one.”
“Shucks. I just heard about that.”
She tapped her fingers on the table and then looked around. “I’m not an idiot, okay?” she said, finally looking back at Sam directly. “But …” Whatever she was about to say was cut off when the diner chimes sang out, announcing a new customer, one that brought a bit of chatter with them. Sophia turned to look over her shoulder, and then she was sliding out of the booth altogether. “Dean!”
“Soph!” Dean greeted. “Hey, I just…” Sam’s throat constricted a little, and it was suddenly difficult to breathe, difficult to do anything but stare into the warm green eyes that were locked with his. There was nothing else, not even sound, just the eyes, and Sam felt as if he were slowly being pulled deeper and deeper into that gaze. Dean broke eye contact as if he hadn’t felt anything strange at all, and Sam felt both relieved and bereft. “I just need to talk to you for a second.”
“Sure, in the back.” Sophia gestured over her shoulder, and they both disappeared to the back of the restaurant, neither sparing a further thought for Sam.
Sam stabbed his spoon into the ice cream. It was forward and back with this case, like running circles in the dark. Somehow, whatever was happening or was about to happen in Fitchburg involved Dean. Dean, who had wide hazel eyes and freckles across the bridge of his nose; Dean, who had broad hands and the devil in his smile; Dean, who needed only the briefest moment of eye contact to pull you under; Dean, who had just nabbed a cheese Danish from the serving counter on his way out of the diner. Sam didn’t realize he was staring until Sophia’s voice coming from directly beside him almost made him start. Almost -- he was a hunter, after all.
“I have seven minutes.” It didn’t sound exactly like an invitation, but she cocked her head to the side and seemed to be waiting for Sam to get up, so that’s what he did. They were silent as she led the way out onto the street. “He’s my best friend.”
“Who?” The question slipped out before he had even thought about it, and Sam wondered for a moment if he was actually confused or merely that skilled at playing the part that it had become entirely instinctual.
“Dean.” She plucked a hair elastic from around her wrist and paused to tie her hair back in a knot. “So if you’re implying that he’s a freak, you’re fast-tracking for an ass-kicking.”
Sam nodded. “Okay.”
“I get that it’s something the townspeople say, but it’s a bunch of crap.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you, or insult your friend. It’s just what I heard.” Sophia sized him up and then smiled, nodding once before gesturing to something across the street. He looked and then added, “Okay, what am I looking at?” as he stared at the park.
“It’s what you wanted to know,” Sophia said before she elaborated, “School’s out.”
School was out, and yet there was only a single child climbing on the equipment, dangling off the monkey bars. It looked awkward and lonely without the echo of children’s laughter and happy squeals, her movements seemingly aimless without friends to lend direction. “Where are all the kids?”
“Some kind of epidemic that’s moving through all the children.”
“They’re sick?”
Sophia shrugged. “The parents think whatever it is might be contagious. They’re keeping their kids away just to be safe.”
“How many? Do you know?” He was thinking of the rocket ship bedspread, wondering why he hadn’t paid more attention when he’d gone through the schools, but it wasn’t as if a few absences meant anything, necessarily. The principal certainly hadn’t seemed to think there was anything odd about it.
“Five or six.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I baby-sit,” Sophia said. “And it’s a small town. Parents get worked up enough, and they talk. Especially the parents of the kids I baby-sit.” Her whistle implied the extent to which the parents of the town were worked up and simultaneously delivered Sophia’s opinion on their behavior. “These days, I get a whole list of things I can’t let them do, can’t let them touch, just to be safe.”
“Sure, right.” Sam remembered that she only had a short break as she checked her watch. “Look, thanks for your help. I don’t mean to keep you.”
“It’s not a problem,” she said, her demeanor at least appearing warmer than it had started out. “Good luck, Winchester.” Sam thanked her again and was halfway to his car before he realized that she’d called him by a name he had never given her.
……………………………………..
If there were one thing Sam liked about hunting, it was the research. The smell of musty tomes was the smell of his childhood, entertaining himself in Pastor Jim’s study or wandering through the libraries, searching the stacks. Although John could track weather patterns and police records without problem, the nitty-gritty stuff always left him in a bad mood, and he was hard enough for Sam to take as it was. Then there would be the hunts where John already knew what and how to deal with whatever they were after and refused to do more research just so Sam could know ‘why’?
Over the years, various contacts - John sometimes got upset when Sam referred to them as friends, as if he were discounting their job or something - would pass on a tome or a useful book, and Sam added them to his stash in the trunk. Just another kind of weapon.
He made a list of everything that he could think of that singled out kids and would attack in a way that could be interpreted as some kind of sickness. There weren’t as many as Sam had originally thought, but still too many for him to really start focusing.
It was too late to visit the hospital but not late enough that he could justify settling in. He phoned Bobby first, brainstormed and crossed a few of the candidates off his list accounting for seasonal patterns, the lunar cycle, and apparent feeding habits. However much Sam thought he had learned, it was always humbling to realize how much more Bobby knew. “I’ve been huntin’ since you were in diapers, Kid, don’t let it get to you,” Bobby said. “And call your daddy.”
Sam hated to do it: checking in was for teenagers, not for hunters. He was twenty-one and well due a taste of independence. “Hey, Dad,” he said when John’s gruff voice answered.
“Sammy.”
“I’m fine. I’ve focused in a bit. Whatever this thing is, it’s going after kids. It’s not too far along yet; mostly just the parents of small children are worried. They think it’s an epidemic.”
“An epidemic?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to the doctors yet.”
“You do that first thing, and then you call me.”
Sam rolled his eyes because he already intended to go to the hospital in the morning, and of course his dad had already ordered him to check in nightly. “Well. I was just checkin’ in.”
“And Sam,” John said. “Tell ‘em you’re from the Center for Disease Control. They should let you in.” John had hung up long before Sam could snarl that he’d already thought of that, ‘thank-you-very-much,’ and would he kindly stop acting as if Sam were stupid!
Irritated and more than a little frustrated with the slow progress of the case when usually his visions launched him into a whirlwind of activity, Sam grabbed his wallet and headed out.
……………………………………..
At the back of the Wyvern was a pool table that afforded a perfect view of the bar. Sam needed more cash, seeing as he wasn’t sure how long he’d be in town, and it was the ideal set-up; he could hustle pool and keep tabs on Dean, two birds, one stone.
It was even better when he hooked his prey while he was seated at the bar. A hulking kid with black hair who called Sam a ‘tall drink of water,’ and their conversation had deteriorated from there until they had over one hundred dollars down on the game. Dean had let out a surprised laugh as he’d looked up from where he’d been wiping up a spill on the counter, and he’d shaken his head. “Good luck, Andy,” he’d said.
“Piss off,” Andy had retorted. Sam had glanced up to see how Dean would react, but Dean was waiting for the glance and had tossed a wink his way, like they were sharing a private joke. Sam had won cleanly and easily, taking the kid for all he was worth, because honestly, it wasn’t much. When he’d finished the game, he headed back to the bar where Dean was already sliding a shot of whiskey over to him.
“Thanks,” Sam said, reaching to hand over the cash, but he was waved away. “Really, thanks.” Dean nodded absently as he filled up a mug for another customer. “I don’t suppose you play.”
“I might be a little rusty,” Dean said with mischief in his eyes. “Y’know. I don’t play that often.” Sam laughed out loud because he’d been hustling long enough to know when he was getting rooked. Dean grinned back a little before he hurried off to deliver the beer.
When he looked up, Sam realized his laughter had attracted attention, and most people in the establishment were sneaking suspicious glances his way. “Wow, that’s some kind of social stigma,” he muttered before he knocked back the whiskey. He dropped the glass back on the counter and waved to Dean as he was heading out, made a bit of a show of it because of all the attention he was getting from the other customers, and he wanted to say ‘screw you’ to each of them, unimpressed with their bigotry. Dean smirked a little and waved back, and Sam paused - on Dean’s hand, there was a silver ring.
……………………………………..
If there were one thing he’d learned from his father, it was how to distance himself from a case. There would be times (many of them, Sam remembered) when he would be too nervous, too worked up to think about eating, or even be able to keep anything down. The consequences were always severe. Hunting when you were at anything less than one hundred percent was a huge risk, because hunting when you were one hundred percent was a risk already.
Sam managed some sleep, though it wasn’t entirely satisfying. He kept turning over his vision in his head, piecing together the bits of the puzzle he had gleaned. Dean’s face was the one he had seen, blank and unresponsive, and it had been Dean’s hand with the silver ring. Dean, who most everyone in the small town agreed was some kind of freak and who was a close friend of a girl who somehow knew things without ever being told. He broke the vision down into snapshots and wrote out what he knew about each piece, and then he headed out to the coffee shop on the street corner to get a bagel and a coffee before he hit the hospital.
……………………………………..
“Thank God you’ve gotten here,” Dr. Heidekker said, his face pinched but his eyes shining with relief. “I was about to call. How did you know to come?”
“Another GP phoned in,” Sam dismissed easily. “What can you tell me about the cases?”
“Not much.” Heidekker turned and peered through the glass partition where Sam could see a little boy hooked up to equipment, fast asleep. There were dark smudges beneath the boy’s eyes, and his skin had the rubbery pallor of a hard-boiled egg. “It seems like bacterial pneumonia. The kids’ white cell counts are low. They’re all unconscious.”
“All of them?” Sam asked. “Not one has woken up?”
“No,” Dr. Heidekker said. “They’re not responding to medication, either.” He paused when a nurse stopped beside them, handing over a clipboard with a requisition form for his signature. She smiled a little at Sam; the kind of awkward smile of greeting that said that she was pleased to see him because they were at a complete loss.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
Dr. Heidekker shook his head. “It’s the way it spreads,” volunteered the nurse. “I mean, it seems like pneumonia, but it’s working its way through families, only the children, and then it moves on. Pneumonia doesn’t do that.”
Pneumonia might not move through families like that, but a creature or a spirit might. If it’s usual prey was children, it would find a house with kids then keep going back until it had picked them all off before moving on to another home. Sam had his suspects narrowed down to about five possible creatures, which was at least a manageable number.
“Is it possible to speak with the families?”
“Of course,” Dr. Heidekker said with a helpless little shrug. “If you think it will help.”
“Who was your most recent admission?”
……………………………………..
Mr. Shyre had two girls, both of whom had come down with the mystery illness. He seemed content to blame an open window, though the weather had been mild. Sam figured that most people wouldn’t question doctors, were only too happy to believe in simple, rational explanations, especially when they were distraught. He hadn’t spoken to the man’s wife; it didn’t take much time for him to realize that maybe the parents wouldn’t have the kind of information that he needed. What he did learn was the address to the Shyre family home, unoccupied for the time being because the parents were staying with their daughters at the hospital.
The Shyre home was less than six minutes from the hospital by car, and he was just pulling onto the street when he noticed a familiar figure stepping down from the Shyre porch, hands tucked in jean pockets, walking with his head down. It seemed unlikely that Dean was a family friend, but Sam didn’t know much of anything to form a real opinion. Still, he hung back until the man had covered enough distance before he parked the Impala and headed inside, just to be safe.
Sam entered every home with a lingering sense of expectation. He had no memories of having a home himself, but he always believed that at least a small, deeply buried part of him still remembered what it felt like. He would wait every time he entered some place for a tingling or niggling sense that ‘this was it,’ that this was what he was missing, this was what a ‘home’ felt like. The Shyre house was no different than any of the other houses he’d entered before, impersonal and distant. He made his way to the girls’ bedroom, checking it over efficiently because that one moment of ‘maybe’ was all he could spare before he had to return to business.
The bed was unmade. No doubt the little girl’s father had simply pulled his daughter up and bundled her in warm things before heading to the hospital. There were stuffed toys and fond memories in colorful frames and no traces of EMF anywhere. Sam inspected every last thing and still found nothing until, on a whim he crossed to the window. Using the blue-light, he caught sight of a familiar-looking shape, gnarled and long-fingered but very clearly a handprint. It was on the outside of the window as if something had paused a moment on the sill, which would explain how the window had come to be open at all, and whatever had left it behind had rotted the wood of the sill in that perfect shape.
“Shtriga,” Sam muttered. “Son of a bitch.”
……………………………………..
When Sam told John Winchester what he suspected there was a long pause filled with John’s quiet breath. Sam frowned, waiting for his father to contribute some kind of clue as to what he was hunting, because as far as Sam knew there was no weapon devised by god or man that could kill the thing, which didn’t leave a lot of room for improvisation.
“I don’t want you hunting this thing by yourself,” John said, breaking the silence.
“What? Why?”
“It’s bad enough you followed a vision into this mess, Sammy. You’re not hunting it by yourself.”
“Dad, I can’t just -“ But then there was only a dial tone and no chance to argue or question. “What the hell is it about this thing?” Sam wondered, closing his laptop and shoving some of the printouts off his bed. “It goes after kids, not adults,” which made him pause, because his vision had very clearly shown him Dean, lying still with his eyes closed inside a child’s bedroom.
“My visions show me victims,” Sam declared to the empty room. “Not demons, not whatever is behind it.” But it was the simplest explanation. Dean was called a freak by the entire town for some reason, why not this? Why not because he wasn’t human? Just because Sam didn’t want it to be true, didn’t mean that it wasn’t.
<< END CHAPTER >>
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