Chapter 1

Sam was hardly able to keep his extremely tired eyes open as he pushed the key home into the lock of the motel room door. After several efforts, he succeeded and pushed the door open and staggered through.

Without looking backwards, he headed for the nearest bed and fell onto it – expecting Dean to be right behind him. But before he could wonder what was keeping his brother, Sam drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Sam woke some hours later, his teeth were chattering uncontrollably. He slowly opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the semi-darkness of the room. He slowly sat up; looking around the room and noticing the front door to the motel room was still wide open and where was his brother? "Dean?" He whispered, slowly getting off the bed.

Sam headed carefully towards the door – every muscle tensing up as he peered through the open door. He could just make out a vague dark shape sitting behind the steering wheel of the Impala.

Without another thought, he rushed towards the door of the classic car and yanked it open. "Dean!" he yelled, grabbing hold of his brother's shoulder.

Dean's eyes flew open as he instinctively put a clenched fist into Sam's midsection.

Sam doubled over and took a few staggering steps backward, ending up falling back on his butt and trying to regain his breath.

Dean climbed out of the car and stood before Sam, blinking his eyes rapidly. "Christ Sam! What the hell were you thinking?"

Sam took a few quick breaths before answering. "You…weren't in the…room. Thought you were…hurt or something."

Dean rubbed his tired eyes. "Jesus Sammy!" Sam struggled to his feet and staggered the few feet towards the motel room with Dean behind him.

Sam sat down on the bed. "Hell Dean! That really hurt!"

"Of course it did. You should know better than to wake me when I'm sleeping – especially when I'm having a dream like the one I was having." Dean smiled to himself. "Man! Lapdancing's way too cool!"

Despite the dull ache in his midsection, Sam also smiled. "Do you ever think with your upstairs brain?"

Dean shrugged. "Only when I have to." Dean stifled a yawn. "What time is it anyway?"

Sam glanced at his watch. "Just after 5."

"Well in that case," Dean walked to the other bed and sat down, kicking off his boots. I need more sleep and hopefully, get back to that dream." With that, Dean lay on the bed and closed his eyes and was soon back asleep.

Unable to go back to sleep himself, Sam decided to do some research to see if there was anything worth investigating although Dean had declared earlier that they were officially going to have a short break from hunting and kick back for a while.

Sam spent the next few hours scanning the web for anything that would be worth looking into and came across an article in a small Montana town newspaper with the headline reading:

WHERE DID SHE GO?

Karla Hartford was hired to be a caretaker of the renowned landmark of the Conrad Mansion. Ms Hartford had been on the job for only a matter of four weeks and then last Saturday night whilst doing her rounds, she vanished without a trace. Police have no clues as to whereabouts of Ms Hartford.

Her close friend, Felicity Morgan, reported Ms Hartford missing when she failed to return home from her graveyard shift at the Mansion. Police Chief Roger Hillier released a statement confirming that they had begun an intensive search of the grounds and surrounding area of the Conrad Mansion but no trace was found except for one of Ms Hartford's shoes.

Ms Hartford is the last in a line of several disappearances that have occurred at Conrad Mansion over the past 20 years……

The article went on to describe how each person that had disappeared was never heard from again and the cases had been closed. Sam could not believe that none of this had ever been investigated further before now. He read the rest of the article and then turned to look at his brother still asleep on the bed. "Dean!" He yelled.

Dean grunted and rolled over on the bed, facing away from Sam. "Lemme sleep." Came back as his muffled response.

"C'mon Dean, wake up! I think I may have something you need to see."

Dean turned his head to look at his brother, "Unless it's a huge plate of food or a hot chick, forget it Sammy."

"Seriously Dean, this could be worth looking into."

Dean sighed deeply and opened his eyes. "Am I going just a little nuts here or didn't I say last night that we needed a damn break?"

"Yeah, I know you did but this really needs to be checked out Dean." Sam continued. "There's this place in Montana……" Sam gave Dean the low-down. "So, what do you think?"

"And all that's left is one of her shoes? Well now, perhaps you just wanna play the Prince Charming type and find the foot that fits into the shoe! Better still, you probably wanna see if you can fit that shoe on your sasquatch foot, dearest Samantha!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." Sam mumbled with a deep sigh.

Dean rolled his eyes and stood up from the bed, stretching. "So Sammy, you really think this is worth looking into huh?"

"Yeah Dean, I do. This Conrad Mansion used to have some slave quarters and there's even been reports of shimmering images being seen walking the grounds at night. What if this Karla Hartford is still alive? And what if we don't go and investigate and she dies because of it? Dean, we gotta go and check this out."

Dean threw up his arms in resignation. "Okay, you win, Sammy. Montana here we come."

Thanks so much for reading - I would really appeaciate hearing your thoughts!