This one's for Tails, who somehow got the ball rolling. Spoilers through "Jus in Bello"; standard disclaimers apply.
This story contains a lot of very bad language and a fair amount of gore. I think it's also pretty dark, and it ends that way.
On a happier note, there's plenty of pain and suffering for both of our handsome Winchester boys, and a thick application of angst, to boot.
Dear Eric Kripke: I don't know what you have planned, but you're really scaring me. A lot. Please don't kill any more Winchesters, ever! Respectfully yours, Lin McCary
DOGGED
When they finally found Calvin Jesperson, it was far too late to save him. Not surprising, really—the man had been missing for over a week, and had apparently been dead for most of it—but Sam felt discouraged, nonetheless. They'd had a run of bad luck, recently—bad besides the usual—and he'd been hoping that they would catch a break. Finding Jesperson alive would have been a good start.
The body lay at the edge of what would pass for meadow in any season other than winter, but now was just an open space of cold-killed weeds and barren bushes amidst the deep woods of southeastern Kentucky. Last night's rain had left shallow puddles dotting the ground, and Jesperson's remains a sodden mess.
Still, it was clear that animals had been at it, doing a fair share of damage. Careful not to leave boot prints in the muddy earth, Dean knelt beside the body, using a stick to pull the torn fabric of Jesperson's jacket away from the torn flesh of his throat.
Sam felt his stomach twist. "God, Dean, do you have to do that?"
"Pansy," Dean returned, corrosively dismissive, pointing the stick at the wounds on the man's neck. "Looks like that's what killed him, right there. Hell of a bite-mark—I'm betting whatever it was pulled him down, then finished the job with him on the ground. Jesus, guy's covered with claw-marks and bites. And look at the mud. Those tracks look like dog or coyote to you? Check the size of those Hush Puppies, wouldja? Freakin' Hound of the Baskervilles. I'm guessing three, maybe four of 'em on the initial attack, to do all this—the others, the little guys, they came later, when old Cal really couldn't care less."
Sam nodded, nose wrinkling in distaste as he pulled the EMF meter from his pocket and waved it vaguely around him. "Not the way I'd want to go, torn apart by—" The words were out before he thought to stop them, and the look Dean shot him was angry and icy. Damn it!
"Dean, I didn't mean—"
"Drop it, Sam."
The open wound of Dean's deal had been festering between them for the past two days, gnawing voraciously, coming around again to the point in the cycle where they both were touchy and snappish and bitter. They'd moved beyond baiting one another, mostly, past the yelling and flailing, now firmly ensconced in the stage where few words were exchanged, and those were cold and tight-lipped. Ruby's latest visit to Sam hadn't helped at all.
When they'd read about Calvin Jesperson's disappearance from Bell Grove, matched it to a series of disappearances in the area over the past hundred years or so, Sam couldn't help but hope that a new hunt might help heal the rift that currently separated the two brothers. But while Jesperson's death by dog-pack couldn't exactly be called natural, neither did it appear to be supernatural, which meant the Winchesters were still out of a job, still out of luck, and still out of sorts.
Sam stashed the silent meter back in his pocket with a sigh. "I'm not picking up anything, man, and if this was a black dog, the EMF would still be high, even after a week. Let's get back to town and call it in. I'm sure this man's family would rather know what happened than worry about him any more."
He reached down, offering Dean a hand, but his brother turned away, tossing the stick out into the bracken and using the impetus to rise unassisted.
"Watch where you step," he said gruffly, then set off for the Impala, leaving Sam alone behind him, more dispirited than ever.
The discovery of Calvin Jesperson's savaged body was the talk of the Bell Grove Inn that night, particularly once both the sheriff and the coroner dropped by the little restaurant to personally report to the chairman of the county board of supervisors. The latter happened to be dining with his wife at the table next to where the Winchesters were sitting, heads down, concentrating extremely hard on their dinners as the sheriff stopped beside them, gaze sweeping them passively.
Around the restaurant, conversation came to a halt, all eyes focused on the little group at the supervisor's table.
"Bill, Mamie," the coroner said quietly by way of greeting. "Hate to disturb your dinner, but I knew you'd want to hear it in person. Haven't completed my examination, of course, but I don't expect the finding'll be any different tomorrow than it is tonight. Poor Cal Jesperson was killed by that same pack of dogs been runnin' stock and deer for the past few months—ripped the throat right out of him, and he bled to death."
The supervisor's wife covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, George, that's just horrible," she said. "How awful for his family!"
"His sisters won't mind," her husband scoffed. "There was never any love lost between Cal and those two."
"Hush, Bill. I know the girls were always jealous of his success, but that doesn't mean they didn't love him."
Dean kept surreptitious watch on the sheriff's holstered gun as the man cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Bill, I want to assure you that my office is making those dogs a priority, now. Pete Riley shot two of them yesterday out by his house, so pack's already down to four. I'm going to personally see to it that they either get picked up or put down by sundown tomorrow."
"Good to hear, Kyle. Doc, you're sure it was dogs? Couldn't have been a bear?"
The coroner shook his head. "Bite patterns are definitely canine, although it looks like they scratched him up a bit more than I'd expect. I'll know for certain tomorrow, but for tonight, I'm willing to bet good money on it."
Sam caught his brother's eye over his burger, gently tapping an index finger twice on the table. Dean shrugged minutely and dragged a fry through the puddle of ketchup on his plate, dipping his head a little lower when the sheriff shifted beside them.
"I'm just glad we've found the body," the lawman said. "No more wasting time on Kelton Road snipe hunts, out to Saymill Pond and such."
"But didn't you find him through a tip?" Mrs. Supervisor asked, and the sheriff nodded.
"Came in through 911, like all the others, but this one sounded legit."
"Good thing you followed up, then," she replied, and the supervisor agreed.
"Board's not surprised it took so long to find him, Kyle," he said soothingly. "We've all hunted enough turkeys out there to know how rough that terrain is, and for all anybody knew, Cal had just taken off. Won that big award last month—maybe he'd moved to Cumberland or someplace bigger, opened a new office, and just didn't bother to tell anyone. You had no clue he was lying out there dead. Once those dogs are taken care of, you've done what you could."
The coroner turned to the sheriff, indicating it was time to go, and the sheriff nodded again, glancing sideways at the Winchesters. Sam took a long sip from his coffee, hand and mug covering much of his face.
"You've got my word that that dog-pack will be taken care of," the sheriff promised the supervisor. "Just thought you'd want to hear from George and me personally."
The two men took their leave, conversation around the room starting up again immediately, filling the air with the whispered hiss of "Jesperson."
Dean pushed the last bite of burger into his mouth. "We're leaving for Indiana first thing in the morning," he announced abruptly, then signaled to the waitress for the check.
Plate still half-full, Sam threw him a pointed look.
"Indiana?"
"I found us a gig."
Apparently, Dean wasn't sharing any details, and there would be no discussion. He snagged one more fry and shoved back from the table, catching Sam's glare.
"Fine," he snapped. "You pay."
He was out the door in seconds.
Sam took a deep breath, praying for patience, pulling out his wallet and emptying it when the waitress came by with their tab. He grabbed a final piece of melon and rose to go, making eye contact with the supervisor's wife as he did so.
She nodded to him cordially, and he returned the greeting.
"Excuse me," he said hesitantly around half-chewed honeydew. "I couldn't help overhearing—someone was killed by dogs?"
It was the supervisor who answered, wiping his mouth on a paper napkin, nodding. "Seems like it, son. Been a pack of 'em running loose in the valley for a while, now. They scared a little boy over by Stanboro a couple of weeks ago, tore up some people's pets and run the deer ragged, but this is the first time they come anywhere near hurtin' somebody."
"Shame, too," his wife chimed in. "Cal was such a nice man—he'd come a long way, just won some big accounting award or something, and now he's dead."
"Pity," Sam said on a swallow. "Seems like a bad way to go. Uh, enjoy your dinner."
Grimacing at the ineptness of his farewell, Sam left the restaurant, not surprised to see that his brother had already crossed the road and was disappearing through the door to their room, closing it firmly, leaving Sam well and truly behind.
In Indiana, the probable salt-and-burn Dean had found turned out to be a definite salt-and-burn. They took care of it their second night in town, no fuss, no muss, no bother, and very little discussion. Which was a good thing, because most of the language they were using with one another wasn't very polite.
At a late breakfast the next morning, they silently fell back on old habit, Sam surfing the 'net for their next job, while Dean trawled through a variety of regional papers.
"No. Oh, nonono!" Dean straightened in his chair suddenly, then leaned over the diner table to peer more closely at the newspaper page, eggs on the fork in his hand tumbling to the floor unnoticed.
"Dean?" Sam looked up from his own breakfast, startled by his brother's outburst.
"Aw, shit, Sam—I think we might have missed something back in Kentucky." He tossed the paper across the table, Sam catching it quickly before it landed in his plate. "Check the item just below the fold."
"'Teen Missing,'" Sam read aloud.
"Yeah, that's it."
"'Gilman County sheriff's officers are searching for Amanda Apley, 13, who disappeared from her Stanboro home late Tuesday. Apley's backpack, containing her wallet, was found along Kelton Road shortly before her mother, Mary Kay Apley, 42, reported the girl missing.'"
"Stanboro's about thirty miles from Bell Grove by road, just on the other side of the valley—probably closer as the crow flies." Dean created a sketchy map on his plate out of hash-browns and sausage. "That guy that died last year was from Grangerford, right? Well, throw Grangerford into the mix, and you've pretty much got a triangle with Bell Valley right in the middle."
Sam wrinkled his forehead skeptically. "Dean, this article says they think Amanda ran away—says she's got a reputation as a wild child and that she's run away before. What makes you think that something's happened to her?"
"Wouldn't a runaway need her backpack, Sam? You left for school, you sure as hell took yours," Dean retorted, scowling, and Sam bristled at the jibe.
"Quit singing that sad old song, Dean, and move on," he said caustically.
Dean felt his temper flare, but he carefully put down his fork before he stabbed it into the table. Or into his brother. When he spoke, his voice was even, his face purposely blank.
"A runaway girl would definitely hang on to her backpack, along with the 34 dollars in her wallet. Come on, Sam. Three tiny little towns, practically within spitting distance of one another, and all of a sudden three people are missing. Not to mention the long history of local disappearances that took us to Kentucky in the first place. I'd say they're all a little too coincidental, wouldn't you?"
"Just because she lost her backpack doesn't mean something supernatural took her. And 'all of a sudden'? Those disappearances happened over the course of a hundred years, Dean. The guy from Grangerford's been missing for, what, ten months? They still aren't even sure he's dead because they haven't found a body." Sam took a bite of toast and chewed a moment before continuing. "I mean, think about it, Dean. Where's the pattern? What do a beekeeper, a CPA and a junior high school student have in common? Nothing."
"You think about it, Sam!" Dean glanced around quickly, aware that the rising anger in his voice had drawn attention from a young family dining two tables away. So much for leashing his temper. He hunched lower over the table, eying his brother intently. "Maybe they don't need to have anything in common. Wrong place, wrong time? And maybe we just haven't done enough homework. C'mon, Sam; we thought Jesperson was worth checking out, and now I think he's worth a second look. This little girl, too. Finish up—we're going back to Bell Valley."
Dean wolfed down another link of sausage, rising and pulling some bills out of his wallet to cover their check. "Let's go!" he insisted, out the door before Sam could even wipe the crumbs from his mouth.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, Sam tossed back the last of his coffee and grabbed the laptop, stowing it in the carry-bag as he walked to the parking lot. The Impala's engine was already rumbling, Dean glaring at him impatiently behind the wheel.
"Hey, Kelton Road," Sam said as he climbed into the passenger seat. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"Dunno. Close the damn door and let's go."
"Jesus, Dean, just give me a second, would you?" Sam angled his long legs into the foot-well, twisting to deposit the laptop in the backseat as Dean maneuvered the car out onto the road and headed back for Kentucky. "Kelton Road. Isn't that where that pond was?"
"What pond?"
"The one they searched for Calvin Jesperson's body. Saymill Pond, right? You remember—the sheriff said they'd had a tip, but he seemed embarrassed that they were following up on it."
There was a pause, and then Dean's forehead creased as he cut his eyes at Sam. "Yeah, and then Jesperson's body was somewhere else altogether. Why was the sheriff embarrassed about following up on a tip?"
"I don't know. The source, maybe?"
"So, who was it?"
Sam pivoted in his seat again, retrieving the laptop and firing it up. Ten silent minutes later, he huffed a disbelieving laugh.
"Sam?"
The young hunter readjusted the computer screen, the better to read the 911 report he had located. "They were following up every lead they had, Dean, but there weren't many. One of the early ones was a call from a woman who was crying, begging them to check out Saymill Pond because they'd find a body there."
"So?"
"So they asked her when she'd seen it, and she told them it wasn't there yet."
Dean's expression as he turned to his brother was a study in confusion.
"Come again?"
"She said there'd be a body at Saymill Pond, but it wasn't there yet. She'd seen it in a dream."
Dean shook his head, returning his focus to the road ahead. "So she was a nut job."
"Really, Dean? 'Cause I'm thinking maybe she was clairvoyant. I don't know exactly where on Kelton Road they found Amanda's backpack, but it connects Stanboro and Bell Grove, and Saymill Pond is just a mile or so off Kelton where it doglegs into the valley, about halfway between the two towns."
"You're telling me that the dream this woman had…maybe it wasn't Jesperson's body she saw, but Amanda Apley's. And that the body wasn't at the pond yet, because Amanda hadn't gone missing yet." Dean's voice was ripe with skepticism.
Sam nodded, mouth pursed tight. "Could be. Jesperson was small, and depending on the condition of the body, it might be hard to tell age or gender, particularly in a dream or a vision. I don't know, Dean—I kind of have a feeling about this."
Dean's head swiveled toward him again, swiftly. "A feeling feeling?"
"No, I don't think so. But maybe we'd better check out that pond."
Dean pressed harder on the accelerator.
They reached Bell Valley in the early morning, sun just rising, mist hanging heavy, trees throwing long shadows as Dean parked the car well off the main road and the brothers moved quickly on foot down the overgrown lane to Saymill Pond.
This time, there was a faint whine of sound from the EMF meter in Sam's hand, but it was the smell that drew them to her, half-hidden on the bank of the fetid pond in a swath of dead and broken cattails. The body was bloated, skin already slipping off musculature and bone, sluggish bottle-flies feeding on eyes, mouth and the myriad slashing wounds that covered what had once been Amanda Apley.
There were paw-prints everywhere.
Sam couldn't help the disgusted groan that escaped him as he whirled away and doubled over, retching violently. By the time he was through, turning back to examine their gruesome discovery, Dean was escaping into that place deep inside where nothing could touch him, his expression growing impassive, eyes steely.
Sam knew what it cost him.
"Dean—" he began, but his brother cut him off instantly.
"We're finding this fucker, Sam. I don't care what it takes."
"You think it is a skriker, after all?"
Dean was shaking his head before Sam even finished the question.
"No. This is no black dog."
The younger man wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, dragging in deep gulps of the cold, early-morning air to help settle his stomach. He quickly scanned the pond, the cattails, his brother—oh, God, anything but the body.
"You know we can't call this one in," he said. "Not yet. There'll be cops everywhere, and we need time to figure out what did this."
Suddenly Dean's face twisted, and for a horrible moment Sam thought he might cry.
"This is on us. It's on our heads," Dean said roughly, his eyes never leaving the ravaged corpse as he stoically appraised the damage, evaluating the injuries.
Sam grabbed at his brother's sleeve, yanking him away from the terrible sight.
"No, Dean!" he said firmly, brooking no disagreement. "Don't do that to yourself. This is not our fault."
"'Not our fault'?" Dean's voice rose with bitterness and incredulity. "How can you say that, Sam? We were here three days ago, when this little girl was still alive, and we knew something had killed Cal Jesperson. We didn't do our jobs, Sam, and a thirteen-year-old kid is dead because of it!"
"Dean, we made a mistake, I agree, and the consequences are awful. But even if we'd been here, Amanda Apley might still have been killed. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so were we."
Sam paused, making sure he had Dean's eye.
"That's just the way it is."
He paused again, growing uneasy about the coldness spreading across his brother's face.
"I'm sorry," he finished quietly.
"Yeah, you sure are." The words were ice as Dean slapped Sam's hand away.
"Excuse me?"
"What is happening to you, Sam?" Dean blurted angrily. "You used to be Mister I-Bleed-for-Humanity's-Pain, and now it's like you don't even care!"
"That's not fair, Dean," Sam grated, his own ire rising in an instant. "I care, but I have to be realistic, too. There's a world of evil out there, and I'm just one man. I can't fight it all, not all by myself, so I'm just going to have to get used to failing. I don't really have any choice, do I? And this was not our fault!"
Out on Kelton Road, someone's truck shifted gears, the noise traveling to them across the mile of mud and bracken, breaking their attention but not the tension between them. For a long moment they glared at one another, each daring the other to be first to blink.
"I don't even know you any more," Dean growled so low that Sam almost did not hear him. "Don't you fucking put your hand on me like that ever again."
Tearing his eyes from Sam's, he took a last look at Amanda Apley's torn remains, turned on his heel, and marched back down the path to where they had left the car.
Sam had no choice but to follow.
They were going to kill each other, no doubt about it, if they didn't get some breathing room.
Dean dropped Sam off at the motel in Grangerford to check them in and start the research, then headed out to Stanboro, ostensibly to interview the dead girl's mother.
Mary Kay Apley stood on the front porch of her home, talking mournfully to a TV news camera-man about her missing daughter, three brooding boys beside her, a girl about 18 with an infant in her arms lurking just behind.
"I only wish Mandy'd come home," Dean heard the mother say brokenly over the Impala's idling engine, and the baby wailed.
He rolled up the window quickly, felt the boys' sullen eyes following him as he drove away.
Christ, how could Hell be any worse than this?
Twenty minutes and a pit-stop at the gas station later, he was on the campus of Bell Valley Junior College, opening the door to the second-floor offices of the History Department.
Even though he only used the 60-watt smile on the coed staffing the reception desk, she still sat up straighter when she saw him, one hand flying to her hair to tuck a loose strand behind an ear.
"Excuse me," Dean said, ever the gentleman. "I'm looking for a little information, and I bet you can help me."
Sam had texted him the motel room number, but the place was empty when Dean got back to Grangerford just before noon. There was a note on top of the television, however.
"Out," it read tersely, Sam's attitude plainly evident in the angry slant of the printed letters.
Annoyed, Dean crumpled the scrap of paper and tossed it into the waste basket. Discarded the idea of calling, too. Instead, he headed back outside to change the spark plugs in the Impala, a job Sam was supposed to have taken care of back in Indiana.
Fucking better take better care of my car when I'm gone, Sammy, Dean thought darkly.
It took him the best part of an hour. Just as he was finishing, Sam showed up out of nowhere, standing well clear of the car so as not to get engine oil on his suit or ugly-ass striped tie. He was carrying a couple of grocery bags with what Dean hoped was lunch inside.
"Where you been?" Dean asked, wiping his hands on a shop rag, giving his little brother the once-over.
"Talking to some people about the missing beekeeper," Sam replied noncommittally. "He sort of had a reputation in the industry—developed a new strain of honeybee, a few years back—but I guess he kind of kept to himself. Nobody around here knew all that much about him, except he raised this new bee and his brother used to work with him, but they had some sort of falling-out. You interview the Apleys?"
Dean scowled, slamming the hood closed and pushing past Sam into their room.
"The mother was talking to the press when I got there, and I just…." He left the sentence unfinished, heading for the bathroom sink to wash his hands.
"Just what, Dean?"
Sam set the grocery bags on the little table by the window, withdrawing the sixer of long-necks first. When his brother came back into the room, dropping to the bed and rubbing his hands distractedly along his thighs, Sam pulled a bottle out of the cardboard carry-pack and passed it to him.
Dean acknowledged the courtesy with a nod, twisting the cap off deftly and taking a long draw. God, there wasn't much that tasted worse than lukewarm beer.
"You talk to her or not?" Sam persisted, opening his own bottle, and Dean flared with sudden animosity.
"I just couldn't, Sam, okay?" he snapped. "I couldn't do it. Ask a bunch of personal questions—was Amanda a good student, did she have any enemies, by any chance did she practice witchcraft during a full moon. Her brothers and sister standing there, mom traumatized, hardly able to put two words together. How could I pretend that an hour earlier I hadn't just stood over her mutilated body?"
Sam's face was dispassionate as he unbagged the rest of the groceries. Bread and cold-cuts, a small jar of sliced pickles, some spicy mustard. Couple of apples and a pack of red licorice-whips, and all they were missing was the dairy.
"Fine," he replied simply, beginning to build their sandwiches. "So, you just worked on the car, then?"
Dean gusted an exasperated sigh. "No. I did not just work on the car. And changing the plugs was your fucking job, by the way. I also went out to the local college and talked to the history department chair. Looking for the usual—battles or burial grounds or curses or whatever."
"Find anything interesting?"
"Maybe. Place has been settled by Indians and whites for a long time. Nothin' too bloody between them, but they weren't always the best neighbors. Indians got moved out about 170 years ago."
"Yeah, Trail of Tears," Sam interjected, and it was obvious from Dean's expression that he was unfamiliar with the term. "The professor didn't mention--? Never mind. What tribe?"
"Around here, mostly Cherokee. Yuchi, Shawnee and some others not too far away."
Sam passed Dean the first sandwich and set to making his own.
"Okay," he prompted, knowing Dean was going to make him work for the information. Friggin' jerk. Sometimes his brother's mean streak was a mile wide. "What else?"
Dean chewed for a moment on the huge bite he had taken, savoring the mix of mustard and pickle. "Valley got its name when Josiah Bell bought most of it in the late 1850s," he said finally, and Sam raised his eyebrows.
"He any relation to Ol' Jack over in Tennessee?"
"Uh, no—I don't know. The history guy didn't say." Dean scratched his chin thoughtfully, frowning. "I don't think so, but wouldn't that be somethin'?"
"Dean, hang on a sec."
Sam abandoned his lunch, grabbing their father's journal from his duffel and leafing quickly through it until he found the page he wanted. "Dad had some notes here on the Bell Wi—oh. Nothing definitive, I guess. Last line just says 'possible hunt.'"
The older Winchester shook his head with a snort, washing down the rest of his sandwich with another swig from the long-neck. "Man was a master of understatement, huh? Anyway, before Bell showed up, this place was called Chischono Valley."
Sam had the sudden feeling that Dean had been building to this point all along, and it made him apprehensive. "What's 'Chischono'?" he asked warily.
The answer began with a casual shrug. "White people bastardizing the Cherokee language. 'Cause before the tribe got relocated, there was a different name for this whole area."
Dean looked up at Sam through long lashes, and Sam felt the hair on his arms rise.
"What was it?" he asked, and his brother's grin was smug.
"They called it The Devil's Place, Sam. 'Chischono' is the Cherokee word for Devil."
Comments welcomed. Please look for Chapter 2 on Saturday.
