A/N: Written for the spnthurnights Fic Exchange on LJ.
I've never been to South Dakota. While the towns mentioned are real, the details are filled in from my imagination, and I've fudged a bit on county lines. I apologize for any inadvertent travesties. If anyone happens to notice errors – typos or factual – please let me know!
Title taken from a line in the final poem of Ted Kooser's The Blizzard Voices.
Flat cornfields, big sky. The 1967 Impala crossed into South Dakota on a gray January day, sleek black dulled by salt and dust, the only car in sight on the two lane blacktop.
Dean Winchester jerked awake in the passenger seat. His head thunked against the window. He sat up, swiped the sleeve of his jacket across his mouth. NPR played low on the radio. "Huh," Dean said. "Didn't know there were liberals in South Dakota."
Sam Winchester shot his brother a glance. "I'm pretty sure there are at least four."
Dean rubbed at the crick in his neck. "How far?"
" 'Bout an hour to Freeman, then maybe forty minutes to Yankton. We can find a room, grab some dinner. Get started in the morning."
Dean grunted agreement. "Sounds good." He shifted, searching for a comfortable position. Every joint in his body ached, and the throb had started back up in his shoulder. If it got much worse, he'd have to hit the good drugs again. Just as well they'd be stopping soon – that stuff knocked his ass out every time.
Sam turned the radio down another notch, leaving the droning commentary barely audible. "What else did Bobby say about these deaths?"
"Not much. Winters get so rough around here, hypothermia deaths wouldn't be that unusual. Guess it was the last one that tipped him off."
"Right," Sam said. "That would be the extremely localized blizzard – "
" – On a seventy-degree day. Exactly."
"He have any idea what we might be dealing with?"
"Didn't say." Dean shifted again, ignored the spike of pain in his shoulder. "Freak storms, though – could be demonic."
"Hope not." Sam's tone was too even, his eyes fixed to the road. Probably meant Dean hadn't done a very good job keeping the wince out of his voice.
A few quiet miles passed, the radio's murmur backed by the tires' hum, the Impala's throaty roar. Sam's eyes flicked back toward Dean. "Why don't you get some more sleep," he said. "I'll wake you when we get there."
Dean nodded. Leaned against the door once more, the window glass cool against his forehead. Outside, light snow fell on the stubbled fields. The miles blurred past. His eyes slipped shut.
Snow eddied in white swirls along the streets of Freeman. Sam and Dean hit downtown just after morning rush hour, or what passed for rush hour in a town so small.
The anchor of Main Street was a little corner diner. Old-fashioned drop-shadow lettering on the plate-glass window identified it as Freeman Homestyle Restaurant. Seemed as good a place as any to start.
Dean circled the block, burbling exhaust bouncing back off walls of plowed snow that lined the curbs. He found a spot off the street in a small paved lot behind a barbershop. The Impala's heater didn't do much besides blow around lukewarm air, but the cold wind that blasted him when he opened the door made him want to crawl back inside. He huddled down into his jacket, cursed the ache that settled in his bones.
There was no way to work this place without drawing attention. With a population of just over thirteen hundred and a downtown that covered maybe three blocks, strangers were bound to be noticed.
No suits this time. Today the Winchesters were playing climatologists, dressed neat but casual, the practical wear of academics in the field. The role of eccentric storm chasers would help explain bizarre questions as well as the bruises still fading to green on Dean's face.
Sam fell into step beside him as they navigated the icy sidewalks toward the diner. "Bobby e-mailed me some files last night."
And how embarrassing was that – Sam had to fill him in because he'd been out cold by nine o'clock. Fell asleep watching Modern Marvels, the history of dirt or some shit.
Sam went on, "Looks like there've been at least fourteen of these micro-blizzards in the area. The earliest he found was 1904. Small-town papers didn't always spell everything out, since most of their readers would have already known what happened, so there's a lot of reading between the lines, and there may be even more incidents buried in the accounts."
"Or never even reported."
"Right." Sam paused to blow hot breath into his cupped hands. "Sometimes there were fatalities, sometimes not. A few of the reports mentioned livestock deaths – one storm froze over two dozen cows."
"So we're dealing with the ghost of Bessie. Great." Dean shot Sam a grin and reached for the diner's door.
Jangling sleigh bells announced their presence. Every head in the joint swiveled or raised, frank gazes appraising the newcomers.
You had to love small towns.
A few old-timers sat in booths or at the counter, newspapers folded precisely according to lifelong habits, steaming cups of coffee close at hand. One waitress cleared a booth in the back; another wiped the counter with a rag.
Sam and Dean took seats at the end of the counter, Dean with his back to the wall. Sam watched his brother slide onto the stool with a slight hitch in his hip, his left arm held close to his body.
The woman behind the counter headed their way, pencil tucked behind her ear. "Help you boys?" Smoke-roughened voice, wry half-smile.
Sam put on his best shy grin, the bashful farmboy special that went just right with his plaid flannel shirt and Carhartt jacket. "Coffee to start, please," he said.
She set two heavy white mugs in front of them, filled each with an expert hand. "Passing through?" she asked.
"Actually, we're here doing some research." Sam busied his hands with two sugar packets, tearing both open at once. Dean's coffee was already half gone, pure black. "I'm Sam, this is Dean," he went on. "We're climatologists with Ohio State University. We heard about these freak blizzards you've been having, wanted to see if we could figure out what conditions are causing them."
The waitress – Pamela, according to her nametag – folded her arms across her chest but kept the little smile. "I don't know what more you can find out. Weather can be pretty extreme out here. Always has been, always will be."
"We're looking for personal accounts to go with our collected data. Instruments don't always tell the whole story."
"Well, if it's stories you want, you should talk to Russ."
One of the old men perked up, wizened face under a black Chessie cap, yellow lettering and cat silhouette. Nicotine-stained fingers wrapped around a steaming mug. A barked laugh shook his jowls. "You boys come to the right place, it's weather you're looking for." Voice deep, thick with catarrh. "I'm eighty-six years old, lived here all my life. Seen blizzards, floods, tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, you name it. Now what is it you want to know?"
Old-timers were Dean's department. He finished his coffee in one slug and leaned forward. "Hell, Russ," he said. "We grew up in Kansas, we know as well as the next guy how quick things can change out here. But you all seem to be getting more than your fair share of these weird blizzards. We're thinking there may be some sort of microclimate affecting things – physical features that can cause a storm to stay in one place, or to suddenly dissipate once it leaves the area."
Sam wasn't sure if Dean knew what he was talking about or had just watched too much Weather Channel. Either way, it sounded impressive.
"Could well be." Russ shrugged, slurped from his mug. "Storms do seem to form east of town, when you'd expect 'em to come from the west."
"What's out that way? Any big hills? Lakes or rivers? Large buildings or manmade structures?"
"Not much. Some small farms. Couple'a cricks, but mostly fields. Used to be homesteads, but most of that land, I don't believe anyone's worked in years."
Sam unfolded a map of the area he'd printed from Google; the town was so small, it was the best view they could find. "Would you mind showing us where some of these storms have taken place?"
Russ produced a pair of glasses from a shirt pocket, perched them on the end of his nose. "Well, this is where the Heitzman girl died last week." He pointed a thick finger at a spot on the map. "Year ago, Marty Torbor got stuck on the road right here." Another point. "They had to dig his car out 'fore they could open the doors, but the rest of town only got a few inches."
Soon, Pamela delivered heaping plates, and Sam did his best to jot some notes while wolfing down his utterly unhealthy but absolutely delicious breakfast special: a massive omelet, hashbrowns, and bacon. He noted with relief Dean cleared most of his plate – between that and the coffee, he was starting to look a little more alert, losing that Vicodin haze.
The other old men had drifted closer and now jumped into the conversation. Soon, they had marked at least a dozen spots on the map, some from recent events, easily verifiable, some from stories passed down through the years. All, however, were concentrated within a ten- to fifteen-mile radius.
Not a bad starting point. And with the small-town grapevine in full effect, maybe some of the locals would be more inclined to open up to the big-time university storm chasers.
Hell, Sam thought, if nothing else, at least Pamela knew how to keep a coffee cup bottomless on a cold winter's day.
The woman sitting across the table looked more fierce than recently bereaved: blond hair pulled back in a tight braid, mouth set in a hard line. "We know the way weather can change around here," Karen Heitzman told the Winchesters. "We're not city slickers. Our family has been here since this was Dakota Territory."
Karen and Joseph Heitzman owned a five-acre farm a few miles out of town, a family operation that grew organic vegetables and raised alpacas, chickens, and a few goats. Their youngest daughter, Jordan, would have turned twelve in another month. She'd died less than a mile from home, on her family's own land, frozen as though she'd spent the night outside when she'd only been alone for half an hour.
Mrs. Heitzman had welcomed the already famous climatologists, plying them with fresh-baked pumpkin bread and blueberry muffins. They sat at the big butcher-block table in the kitchen, sipping rich coffee that made Dean's eyelids flutter in pleasure. Outside, snow fell in leisurely flakes, piled at the corners of the windows.
"Jordan knew what to do – keep an eye on the sky, find shelter if she could, and stay there. If she couldn't, she knew to stay close to the ground, where the visibility is better."
Sam did his sympathetic frown. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Heitzman. I can't imagine what you must be going through."
She picked at a fingernail, scraping away chipped pink polish. "You just never expect to bury one of your children."
"You said your other daughter was with Jordan just before the storm?"
"Yes, Brenna. It was her turn to round up the animals before dinner, so she came in a bit early."
"Do you think we could talk to her?" Sam asked. "Just a few questions?"
Brenna turned out to be a gangly thirteen-year-old with pale blond hair and nails bitten down to the quick. She sat at the table next to her mother, wrapping the headphone cord around her iPod, watching Sam and Dean with too-big gray eyes.
"Your mom said you were with Jordan just a few minutes before the storm," Dean said. "Can you tell us about that afternoon?"
Brenna gave a little shrug, stared down at her hands. "It was a nice day, you know? First warm day in weeks. So we were playing out at the haunted house."
Sam and Dean traded a look. Karen Heitzman picked up on it. "It's a run-down old farmhouse at the edge of our property," she explained. "Used to be part of the Bittner homestead, before they cut it up into smaller lots. Kind of spooky, so the girls called it haunted."
"Jordan liked to make up these stories about her Barbies," Brenna said. "Not like, play house with Ken stories. Like, Tomb Raider adventure stories, you know? Anyway, I came in to take care of the animals. I was in the barn checking on the new cria. The wind started howling, real loud, and when I looked out, there was so much snow I couldn't see a thing. I stayed inside like we're supposed to. I figured Jordan would stay in the house. It was all over in less than half an hour. The wind stopped. The sun came out again. And I found Jordan in the field."
Sam hesitated before he asked. "Could you show us where it happened?"
The brothers waited while Brenna pulled on fur-topped boots and a puffy white coat with fur lining the hood – a teenager's concern with fashion mixed with farmgirl practicality. Cold wind slammed them as soon as they stepped outside. Sam pulled up his hood, stuffed his hands in his pockets. Dean dug out his gloves and a black watch cap. Fashion statements be damned – if someone had handed him one of those Elmer Fudd caps with the fuzzy ear flaps, he'd have donned it in a heartbeat.
They trudged through the field behind the Heitzmans' house, giant moon-steps through the foot-deep snow. A few alpacas peeked out from the door of the barn; two of them trotted over to the fence. Funny lookin' things – puffs of wool topped by warm eyes and smirking mouths. The animals watched with apparent amusement as the trio passed them by.
The old house wasn't far, maybe half a mile or less, hidden from the current farm by a copse of trees. It was a suitably spooky place for a couple of tomboys to play: a ranch-style house with sagging walls and a buckled porch. Dead brown vines wound their way along the walls, through broken windows. A sapling grew up through a hole in the roof.
Brenna stopped, folded her arms across her chest. Nodded toward a tree at the edge of the clearing. "I found her right over there."
Dean ducked inside the house. Sunlight streamed through the holes in the roof, catching motes of dust, silver strands of cobweb. Snow drifts piled beneath broken windows. Dean glanced back, made sure Sam still had Brenna occupied, fished his EMF reader out of his pocket.
Warped floorboards creaked underfoot as he swept the main room and moved down the short hall. He found shards of broken dishes, tattered curtains, abandoned chairs with their cane seats eaten away. The meter stayed silent.
After the gloom of the house, the sun on the snow was blinding. Dean rejoined Sam and Brenna near a boarded-up well, in what must have been the homestead's front yard. Sam looked a question. Dean shook his head.
Brenna crossed her arms, shifted from one foot to the other, snow crunching beneath her boots. She turned her face away, toward the spot where her sister had died. "If she'd just stayed inside," she said, "she probably would've been okay."
Dean squinted up at the sky. Fat, lazy flakes drifted down through pale winter sun.
One nice thing about a small town: people were easy to find. Martin Torbor was listed in Freeman's thin phone book. A call to his home got hold of his wife, who told Sam that Marty was working at his hardware store on Main Street.
Freeman Hardware smelled of licorice and sawdust. Glass jars filled with old-time penny candy filled the shelves before the front counter. On the shelves behind it, a dozen or more handcrafted wood clocks tracked the time. Morning sun slanted through the front window, cast shadows of letters on the scuffed hardwood floor. A man emerged from the aisles at the sound of the schoolmarm's bell fixed to the door. "Mornin'," he said. "Help you with something?"
Martin Torbor wore a dark green apron over khakis and a long-sleeved blue polo shirt. His hair had receded to a gray fringe; his watery blue eyes swam too huge behind wire-rimmed bifocals. Just a middle-aged guy with a middle-aged paunch, trying to get by.
Sam stepped forward while Dean shut the door and knocked some snow off his boots. "I'm Sam, this is Dean," he began.
"Oh, the storm chasers." Torbor smiled, stuck his price gun in an apron pocket, held out his hand. They shook. Torbor leaned against the front counter. "Suppose you're here to ask about my blizzard."
"Yessir," Dean said. "How'd you guess?"
"Small town. News travels fast. What would you like to know?"
Dean slouched against the wall, right next to a genuine cigar-store Indian. He glanced from the statue to Sam, raised an eyebrow. Sam returned a twitch of a grin, but couldn't help but notice the way Dean leaned to keep his weight off his wrenched knee, the way his left hand stayed in his coat pocket, a makeshift sling.
No one else would have noticed. By the time Dean spoke, he had that empty camouflage smile plastered on his face. "We'd like to hear everything about that storm," he said. "Whatever you saw that day, in your own words."
Torbor scratched at his fringe of hair. "Well, I don't know how useful it will be. I was driving out on Oak Tree Road, heading home from my brother's place. It'd been snowing off and on all day, nothing too bad, just enough to leave a dusting. Then the snow started getting thicker, almost instantly went from flurries to blizzard. I couldn't see a thing. So I pulled off on the shoulder to wait it out. It was a complete whiteout for maybe twenty minutes, half an hour. And then it cleared up just as suddenly. The snow was so deep I couldn't even open the doors – of a Ford Explorer, mind you, not some tiny little Japanese thing."
Dean quirked an eyebrow. "Damn. That's a lotta snow."
"You better believe it." Torbor chuckled.
Sam tried out his best thoughtful frown, what he considered a scholarly look, though Dean usually referred to it as the constipated look. "Did you notice anything unusual before the storm?" he asked. "An odd look to the sky, or strange sounds?"
"Maybe electrical interference?" Dean added. "Like the radio turning to static, or a sudden loss of cell phone reception?"
Torbor grinned. "Son, around here, it'd be more unusual to actually get reception."
But that wasn't a real answer, and Torbor's face tightened. Sam caught a look from Dean that said they were on the same page: Marty Torbor was leaving something out.
"Mr. Torbor," Dean started.
"Please, call me Marty."
Dean nodded. "Marty. It's okay if you saw something bizarre, something that sounds a little crazy. You'd be surprised how many people tell us they've seen UFOs in a weird cloud formation, or a ghost in the woods that turns out to be ball lightning or swamp gas."
Torbor bowed his head, apparently studying a knot in the hardwood floor. Sam tried to arrange his face into a sensitive frown, a look that said, I'm here to listen. Dean rolled his eyes, shot Sam a glare that said, Dude.
A slow moment passed, marked by the ticking of a dozen clocks, the shadows of passers-by crawling across the floor. Then Torbor looked up, rubbed a hand across his chin. "Well, this will probably out-crazy your swamp gas," he said. "But at the height of the storm, when I couldn't see a foot in front of the bumper, I could have sworn I saw a figure out there in the snow, a person walking toward me, completely covered in white. Like it was made of snow." He laughed, shook his head. "Not like an abominable snowman, or anything, just a regular, average-sized human being, only I couldn't make out any features. Lord, I knew this would sound strange."
"No, not at all," Sam said. "It's actually quite common for people to see things like that in blizzards." Jesus, he was really pulling this out of his ass. "It's a visual effect similar to what causes a mirage."
Torbor pulled off his glasses, passed a hand over his eyes. "Thank god! I really thought I was out of my mind for a while there – didn't even tell my wife."
He beamed at the brothers, shook hands in a hearty two-handed grip, gave them each a rectangular carpenter's pencil printed with the name and number of the store.
As they walked back to the car, icy wind prying in at cuffs and collars, Sam shook his head at his pencil, tucked it away in a pocket. Dean slid him a sideways glance, wry smile tugging at his lips. "Mirage," he laughed. "Good one, Sammy."
Deep, slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Sprawled on the hard motel bed, Dean ran through the relaxation techniques he'd picked up over the years, from his dad during post-hunt patch-up sessions, from an old hippie friend who'd talked him through a bad reaction to some strong weed, from a hot therapist he'd picked up at some hotel bar outside Portland a few years back. He closed his eyes and let the day's tension drain out of him, one muscle at a time, working up from his toes.
Each pain he encountered, he pushed away in his mind, walling it off until the Vicodin kicked in. His right knee, which had never been the same since that poltergeist in Kansas City, now throbbing from some wrong step barely remembered. Lower back. Ribs, still sore from his last unfortunate meeting with a tombstone. Both hands, broken too many times in too many fights. Left shoulder, where he really, really had to stop getting shot.
He'd made it through the day on nothing stronger than Advil, but by mid-afternoon, he'd been grinding his teeth, wanting nothing more than a couple painkillers and about fourteen hours of sleep. He and Sam had split up after lunch, Sam hitting the library to sift through old newspapers and local folklore, Dean taking the county clerk's office to search the records for more mysterious hypothermia deaths. He'd spent three hours poring over dusty ledgers bound in crumbling leather, squinting at faded, spidery longhand. Now he had a wicked headache to add to everything else.
He opened his eyes, stared up at the water-stained ceiling, the pain starting to fade at the edges. The room was disappointingly themeless, save for the hideous floral patterns that graced the curtains and bedspread. Everything was done up in shades of mauve and beige that were uncomfortably reminiscent of a hospital waiting room, but at least it was clean.
A key slotted into the room's lock. Sam elbowed his way inside, followed by a blast of cold air, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, newspaper tucked under his arm, two cups of coffee balanced one atop the other in one big hand. "Hey." He kicked the door shut behind him.
Dean grunted. Didn't move.
Sam settled his stuff on the room's wobbly round table, handed a coffee to Dean. "Figured we could both use some caffeine." He pried the plastic lid off his own cup. "Find anything?"
Dean held onto the coffee, savoring the warmth, and nodded toward the sheaf of photocopies he'd dropped on the dresser. Didn't bother to sit up. "Few more deaths. Nothing definite, but worth checking out. You?"
"Plenty." Sam dug into his bag, pulled out his own stack of copies. "Found some more newspaper accounts, some of them pretty obscure. I was also able to find a couple more references in letters and diaries in the local history room. The earliest mystery blizzard I could find was 1893, but there wasn't much settlement in the area until the 1870s, so any earlier incidents would probably be oral history at best. And there's no discernable pattern, chronological or otherwise. The victims have all been different ages, races, occupations."
Dean nodded. His own work had yielded similar results.
"And as far as I can tell, we're not dealing with unholy ground," Sam continued. "No massacres or battles, at least not in recorded history. I only had time for a quick scan of local folklore, but nothing major stood out."
"Hmm." Dean hoped that could be mistaken for deep thought.
Outside the room, tires crunched over the new snow. Sam sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair, studying Dean. "You're high as a kite," he said.
Dean half-shrugged. "Gettin' there." And yeah, there it was, that uncoiling of tension in his gut that he'd been waiting for, that pushed the rest of his pain away and left his limbs feeling liquid and loose. He felt a lazy smile slide across his lips.
Sam shook his head, grinned, but there was a little tightness of worry around his eyes. "Seriously," he said. "You hurting bad?"
" 'Bout a four." Which on a normal person's scale would be more like a seven. "But I'm feelin' pretty good right now."
Sam seemed to accept the answer, or at least didn't call him on it, which was just as good. Dean set his coffee on the nightstand, pushed himself up to sit against the headboard – a much easier task than it would have been half an hour ago. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Tried to focus. "Got any theories?"
Sam shrugged. "I dunno, man, there's not too much in the way of snow-lore. There's yeti, there's a Japanese snow demon called yuki-onna – I think they based a Pokemon character on it. There are some Scandinavian legends that say trolls can cause blizzards."
Dean nodded. "Ninth circle of hell is ice."
Sam did a full-face frown. "Did you just make an Inferno reference?"
"Hey, I read sometimes." Dean didn't mention he'd read The Inferno as kind of a tour guide – might be a good idea to do some reconnaissance before he went on his permanent vacation.
"Okay," Sam said. "I think my mind is officially blown."
Dean tilted his head to one side. Felt like his brain was sloshing around. "That makes two of us." Maybe he should have stuck to just one pill.
Sam sighed, shook his head. "So I guess tomorrow we should dig into the lore. See if we can figure out what could control the weather and freeze a person in half an hour."
"Yeah." Dean took a sip of his coffee. "Should probably check the land deeds, tax records. There were no battles or massacres, but there could be something smaller-scale. Or maybe something attached to a family."
Sam took out the laptop, booted it up. "If nothing else, that might give us a place to start. Maybe the ethnic background of the settlers can get us on the right track. Maybe it's another imported god."
"Hope not. After that damn vanir I couldn't even look at an apple pie for months."
They passed the rest of the night with pizza, beer, and cellular modem, the room's heat cranked high to keep the chill at bay. Sam thought twice before handing Dean a bottle, but in the end doubted his brother had the energy to overdrink. Dean lay propped on his bed watching the History Channel, a pleasure he was much more likely to admit while under the influence. While Sam was busy researching, he offered grunts and comments, sometimes snide and occasionally helpful.
It was during a show on the history of zeppelins that Dean's eyelids started to droop. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught Dean's head jerk, once, twice, as he tried to stay awake. Onscreen, footage of the Hindenburg crash looped. Dean gave a soft laugh. "This would be way cooler with 'Whole Lotta Love' in the background."
Sam snorted, went back to clicking through a library database. A few minutes later, Dean's breathing evened out, whistling softly through his nose.
Finally. Sam closed out the current window, clicked open the other files Bobby had sent him, the ones that didn't have anything to do with their case, the newly completed translation of an ancient Coptic text on demonology. He glanced back at Dean, who'd fallen asleep at a typically awkward angle, mouth hanging open, one hand wrapped loosely around the remote control. He finished off his beer in one long swallow. Leaned back in his chair and settled in to read.
The noontime sun was bright enough to resurrect Dean's headache, but did nothing to warm the day. The flashing sign outside the downtown bank read four degrees.
He stepped out from the warmth and dust of the county clerk's office still zipping his jacket, shuddered at the blast of wind. The library was only a couple blocks away, but he drove it; the Impala's engine barely had time to warm up.
He found Sam in a quiet corner of the library near the periodicals, the lone occupant of a long, scarred walnut table, surrounded by a spread of books and papers with the laptop and a legal pad front and center. Sam looked up as Dean pulled out a chair. "Done already?"
"Already?" Dean made a face. "I've been scrolling through microfilm for four hours. Feels like my eyes are gonna bleed."
Sam leaned back, looked at his watch. "Huh. Guess I lost track of time. What'd you find?"
"Traced the land back to the 1870s. Most of the area we're looking at was part of a 160-acre homestead claimed by the Bittner family. Over the years it got split up into smaller parcels, most recently the five-acre lots that make up the Heitzmans' subdivision."
"You said most of the area. What about the rest?"
"Parts belonged to adjoining homesteads. One section belonged to the local Mennonite church. Another was the location of the old one-room schoolhouse."
Sam rolled his pencil between his fingers. "Did the church also have a cemetery?"
"It did, but before you ask, it's never been disturbed. In fact, it's been restored, fenced off, and protected as a historic site." Dean rubbed his eyes. "You get anything?"
"I dunno, maybe. I worked with the troll idea for a while, since a lot of the settlers around here were Scandinavian, but there's just no evidence to support that theory. I think our best bet is the yuki-onna."
"The friggin' Pokemon demon?"
Sam grinned. "The very same. Listen to this." He pulled up a window on the laptop, read aloud from the web page. " 'Her skin is inhumanly pale or even transparent, causing her to blend into the snowy landscape…' She 'reveals herself to travelers who find themselves trapped in snowstorms and uses her icy breath to leave them as frost-coated corpses. Other legends say that she leads them astray so they simply die of exposure.' "
"I dunno, Sam. A Japanese demon in South Dakota?"
"Anything's possible." Sam shrugged. "Maybe it hitched a ride, like those freaky rain-forest spiders hiding in a bunch of bananas."
"Find anything that says how to kill it?"
Sam shook his head. "Not yet. In fact, the only reference I've found to killing it is one that says it can't be killed."
"Anything can be killed if you try hard enough." Dean stood up.
"Where're you going?"
"Figured I'd drive around to some of the blizzard sites, take a look around."
Sam frowned. "At least stay in the damn car, would you? This thing seems to like its victims alone and out in the open."
"You got it, Sammy. Too damn cold for hiking, anyway."
Dean hadn't lied, exactly. He'd really meant to stay in the car where it was warm and nothing wanted to kill him. But idling along a country road, his annotated map spread across the steering wheel, he started to notice a pattern. On paper, the freaky blizzards were scattered all over the map. Now that he'd seen a few of the locations, he realized some of them followed a route – not one marked by Rand McNally, but rutted old dirt roads between farms and fields that must have once been used by horses and wagons, and now looked to be traveled mainly by tractors and ATVs.
He grabbed a pencil from the glove box and sketched in a rough approximation of the paths he'd seen. Looked like the route would have begun in what passed for a town more than a century ago, near the old church and schoolhouse. From there it traversed several of the original adjoining homesteads.
As gung-ho as Sam was about his Pokemon demon, Dean found himself still skeptical. For some reason, this case didn't have an exotic feel to it – felt more like a vengeful spirit, albeit an extremely pissed off one. Either way, there had to be some reason why these incidents were concentrated in one area, and these old roads were the closest thing he had to a real lead.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, mentally weighing actual risk versus pissed-off brother versus solving the case. He squinted up at the sky. Flurries drifted down, but nothing about the clouds looked threatening.
He dropped the Impala in gear. He'd check out the school first.
The ruins of the one-room schoolhouse sat a football field's length away from the road, sagging sadly in the center of a snow-covered clearing. Maybe another quarter-mile distant was the old Mennonite church: white clapboard, squat and plain, no spires or crosses. The wrought iron fence, stark black against the snow, and a few half-buried humps and crosses of tombstones were all that was visible of the church graveyard.
Dean parked the Impala in a cleared turnaround just off the road. Armored in hat and gloves, his jacket zipped up to his chin, he grabbed his EMF meter and salt-loaded shotgun. He wasn't expecting trouble, but like the Boy Scouts, he liked to be prepared.
He hiked out into the field, his boots sinking a couple of inches into what must have been at least a foot of snow. There was nothing to see for miles, just flat land, trees, the broken buildings. High in the western sky, a hawk slowly circled.
The schoolhouse was still filled with the detritus of its last students: warped wooden desks, cracked blackboard, the black barrel of a potbelly stove. The floor was littered with books, bloated and moldy. A tattered and water-stained world map fluttered along one wall.
Dean made a quick sweep for EMF, kicking rotting books out of the way to reach each corner. Nothing. He paused in the doorway, eyeing the church where it sat across the field. Wasn't too far, really. He could make it there and back in no time. With one last look at the sky, he started out into the wide sea of white.
He was halfway across when the EMF meter squealed. Shit. The flurries picked up; a shadow blotted the sun. With a glance behind him, Dean realized the Impala and the two buildings were equidistant. He broke for the car.
The sky darkened and snow swirled thick around him. He hauled ass, fast as he could with his bum knee, ignoring the burn in his chest as he sucked in cold air against bruised ribs.
The Impala's black lines were barely visible when he skidded around the bumper and wrenched open the door. He threw himself inside, slammed the door behind him. Outside, wind whipped the snow, rocked the car on its wheels.
Okay, so that didn't go exactly as planned. Dean clutched the shotgun, tried to catch his breath. Looked like he wasn't going anywhere for a while. He couldn't see a thing beyond the wall of white. Couldn't shoot since he didn't know where to aim. He wrestled his cell phone out of his pocket. No signal.
The wind howled, battered the car, but he wasn't freezing. Yet. If the accounts they'd heard were right, he'd be fine if he just stayed put for the next half hour.
He was never gonna hear the end of this from Sam.
By the time Dean's key turned in the lock, Sam had been pacing the room in alternating worry and rage for over two hours. At least Dean had the good sense to look chagrined, eyebrows pulled together in apology, offering a sheepish grin.
Sam knew he looked like some ridiculous-ass schoolmarm, but couldn't help it: he crossed his arms, pursed his lips. "You didn't stay in the car, did you?"
Dean sat on the edge of his bed, peeled off his hat and gloves, leaving his hair in an impressive state of disarray. "Nope. I saw it, Sam, and whatever it was, it was pretty pissed off."
He blew into his cupped hands, then tucked them into his armpits, his jacket still zipped. For the first time, Sam noticed how red his face was, how he tried to control a shiver but failed. "Jesus, Dean." Sam grabbed the bedspread from his own bed, wrapped it around Dean's shoulders. "Did you get caught outside in that shit?"
"Hauled ass back to the car when I realized what was happening. The floor show lasted about twenty minutes. I waited a bit to see if it would come back, but it must have shot its wad." Dean grinned, shrugged. "Y'know, so to speak."
Dean relayed the rest of his story while Sam got the complimentary coffeemaker going. The account was nearly identical to Torbor's version of events. "Two feet of snow?" Sam said. "How the hell did you get out?"
"Pulled the ol' Bo Duke, climbed out the window. Got the shovel out of the trunk and started digging."
"I'm sure that was good for your shoulder." Sam found the amber bottle of Vicodin amidst the clutter on the table, tossed it to Dean.
"Yeah, I'll probably be feeling it once I thaw out." He swallowed two pills, shucked his clothes for a hot shower. By the time he was done, redressed in layers of thermal, denim, and flannel, the coffee was done. He downed one cup fast. Sam poured him another.
"So, I called Bobby to see if he knew anything about the yuki-onna," Sam said. "He just laughed, told me I needed to start with the most obvious answer instead of the least."
"Yeah? You tell him your spider theory?"
"I might have mentioned it. I think his exact words were, 'ooh, I hate those little bastards.' "
"So no Pokemon demon. I'm kind of disappointed. We thinking vengeful spirit now?"
Sam sighed. "If it's a spirit, it's gonna be a bitch to find. It's not confined to a single location. There were no infamous murders or massacres or battles. And this is hard country, man – a lot of people have died in tragic ways. How're we gonna narrow it down?"
Dean had stopped drinking his coffee and now seemed to be simply enjoying the warmth, both hands wrapped around the mug, eyelids half-mast in a way that told Sam the drugs were kicking in. "I dunno, man," he said, lazy drawl lengthening with fatigue and narcotics. "Guess we gotta hit the books."
Sam picked up buffalo wings for dinner – the atomic variety for Dean, the smell of which cleared Sam's sinuses from across the room – and they did their best to avoid smearing sauce all over their research. They split the day's library haul down the middle, two big stacks of papers and books, and got to work.
When Sam researched, the world narrowed down to the materials in front of him, everything arranged in an order only he understood, from file folders to newspaper clippings to his supply of meticulously sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 pencils. Certain words leapt up from each page. Some asked to be written down. Some he slid into mental files. Others overlapped with snatches of memory. None this evening, however, were what he needed.
Pencil clenched between his teeth, he leaned back, raked his hands through his hair. Nothing in the research so far stood out. He had the distinct feeling of getting nowhere fast.
He glanced over at Dean, who sat on his bed frowning down at a book. Come to think of it, Sam thought Dean had been staring at that same book for a while now. Sam found a crumpled yellow page of discarded notes, lobbed it overhand at Dean's head.
Dean looked up. "What?"
"You've been stuck on the same book for a long time. Just wanted to make sure you're awake."
"Got caught up." Dean looked back down at the page. "Sam, I think we got something here. Remember the name on that homestead, the one the Heitzmans' place was a part of?"
Sam shuffled through his notes. "Uh…Bittner?"
"Bittner," Dean confirmed. He handed Sam the book, held open to one page with a finger.
Sam glanced at the cover: The Children's Blizzard. It was one of the titles he'd picked up in desperation, checking out any books that had anything to do with snow and local history. He turned back to the marked page, scanned for the name, started to read.
The book related the story of the blizzard of January 12, 1888, when the temperature dropped eighteen degrees in three minutes and the windchills reached forty below that night. The storm had surprised prairie residents on what had been the first mild day in weeks, catching farmers doing chores and errands that had been put off because of weather, catching children as they were dismissed from school. People had died yards from safety, unable to see through the blinding snow or to rouse themselves after a final collapse. Some bodies weren't recovered until the spring thaw.
Right away, Sam knew why Dean had gotten involved in the book. One story told of a teenage boy who had died with his arms wrapped around his little brother. Their bodies were frozen together, had to thaw for days before their family could fit them in coffins.
Two sisters, ages eight and thirteen, froze together facedown. When their bodies were found four days later, searchers saw that the older girl had wrapped her own shawl around her sister.
And the Bittner brothers, Jacob and Johann, spent the night huddled together in a hollowed-out snowbank. Johann, six years old, died in the night. Jacob, ten, lived till morning, but died of ventricular fibrillation – rewarming shock – after staggering only a few steps toward home.
"Damn." Sam set the book down. "You think it's one of the Bittner kids."
"Yes I do." Dean clicked through TV channels restlessly, didn't look at Sam.
"Lemme guess. You think it's the older one, pissed off 'cause he couldn't save his little brother."
"Yes I do." CNN. SportsCenter. Home shopping. CSI.
"No transference there," Sam muttered.
The TV clicked off. "Sam." It was a serious tone that Sam rarely heard. It made him listen up. Made him meet Dean's eyes. "Those brothers," Dean said, "went to that school. That church. And they died between there and that old house on the Heitzmans' land. Most of the blizzards were on their family's homestead. The others were on their neighbors' land. Their cousins' land. Their grandparents' land. What more do you need?"
Sam rolled his pencil between his fingertips. "Pretty pissed-off spirit for a ten-year-old kid."
"You know as well as I do, Sam – sometimes the kids are the worst."
"Yeah, you're probably right." Sam sighed. "Guess I was just hoping for the Pokemon demon."
Dean snorted, grinned. Apology accepted. He clicked the TV back on. Settled on an X-Filesrerun. "Guess we can torch 'em both just to be safe."
"If we can find 'em. They may have been buried in the church cemetery, but a lot of burials at the time would have been at home."
Dean just shook his head, eyes hooded, a smug curl to his lips. "We'll find 'em."
"I know you're good at finding graves." Scary good, really, Sam thought. "But under a foot of snow?"
"Hey, you got your shining, I got mine."
Sam made a face.
"Well," Dean admitted with a laugh, "there may have been a newspaper account that gave a general location of the graves."
Sam fired another ball of paper Dean's way.
Dean was surprised the wooden marker had held up this long: weathered gray, the etched letters now worn away. Jacob and Johann Bittner had been buried in a single grave on their family's land, a few hundred feet away from the old house. The site was surrounded by overgrown apple trees, the gnarled remains of the family's orchard. Dean had spotted the marker first, its rounded top peeking out from the blanket of snow.
Lucky thing they'd decided to risk a daytime exhumation – the temperature was expected to drop below zero that night, and they would never have found the grave in the dark. They'd parked the Impala on one of those old wagon paths and hiked in the rest of the way, a little less than a mile. With the stand of trees separating the old farm from the Heitzmans', they hoped their suspicious activity would go unnoticed.
Dean tried to help with the digging but had to sit most of it out; the frozen ground proved too much for his shoulder and aching ribs. He stood guard with the shotgun, pacing around the grave as Sam deepened the hole. Their breath steamed out in white plumes. Thick, wet flakes drifted down from the sky.
He heard footsteps on the snow before the figure emerged from the trees. He tensed, shotgun ready, before he recognized Karen Heitzman, bundled in a bright red parka.
Shit.
Dean eased the shotgun down to the ground, hoping it might go unnoticed. He hissed at Sam, "Dude. Heitzman. We been made."
Sam paused with a shovelful of dirt, face frozen in surprise.
Dean pasted a smile on his face, tried to look as nonthreatening as possible, which was pretty damn difficult in this situation.
Karen Heitzman stalked toward them, arms folded across her chest. She looked more angry than scared. "What the hell is going on here?" Voice hard, no room for b.s.
Dean held out both hands: just chill, not psycho-killers. He licked his lips. Thought fast. "This is gonna sound pretty crazy to you," he started. "We're not really climatologists."
"No shit."
Dean heard a choked laugh from Sam. Almost laughed himself. "Me and my brother, we hunt supernatural things. Ghosts, demons, weird creatures. We came here 'cause we think these freak blizzards are being caused by a vengeful spirit."
Karen's frown formed a deep line between her eyes. "That does sound pretty crazy. But it still doesn't explain why you're wielding a .12 gauge and apparently digging a grave on my property."
"You said your farm was part of the old Bittner homestead. We think the spirit is Jacob Bittner. He and his brother died in the blizzard of 1888." Karen nodded a bit, whether to say she'd heard of the storm or that the idea made sense, Dean couldn't be sure. He pressed on. "The standard way to get rid of a ghost is to burn the bones – it severs the tie between the spirit and its remains, allows it to move on."
A long silence stretched out, the wind whistling through the trees. Karen Heitzman looked thoughtful but not freaked out.
"If you don't mind me saying so," Dean said, "You seem pretty okay with this."
Karen shrugged. "My great-grandmother brought a lot of superstitions from the old country. After she died, I'd see her sometimes, in her old sewing room. But what's with the shotgun?"
"Rock salt shells," Dean told her. "Salt repels spirits."
"I'll be damned." Karen nodded in a way that made Dean wonder if she'd heard that one before. "Maybe I'm crazy too," she said, "but by all means, continue. If this can get rid of whatever killed my daughter, you have my blessing."
Dean let out a breath, picked up the shotgun. He glanced back at Sam, who shrugged and resumed digging. Awkward. Dean reached for small talk. "So, uh, what are you doing out here, anyway?"
Karen smiled sadly. "You two wouldn't happen to have seen Brenna, would you?"
The wind caught at Dean's cuffs, sent a shiver down his spine. "No. Is she out here alone?"
"I think she was coming out to the old house." Karen gestured over her shoulder. "She wanted to leave one of Jordan's Barbies. Kind of a remembrance, you know?"
Shit. "Sam? Take care of those bones. I'll find Brenna." Dean took off toward the house at a run. Behind him, the wind carried snatches of Karen's words: What's wrong…something happening? Ahead, the wind whipped the trees; the flurries grew thicker.
He stumbled to a stop at the edge of the porch. "Brenna!" The girl came outside, eyes comically wide as she spotted the gun. "Don't worry," he panted. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Now, you see your mom back there?" He jerked his head toward the red of her coat. Brenna nodded. "I need you to go to her now, don't stop for anything."
With another quick nod, Brenna took off, blond hair streaming behind her. The snow between them was getting thicker, but Dean could make out the red figure hugging the girl, and the fear in his gut loosened. This thing liked its victims alone, and he fit the bill. "Come on," he muttered. "Show yourself."
He stepped away from the porch and soon regretted it. Snow blinded him; a gust of wind nearly knocked him off his feet. Small pellets of ice stung his face. Jesus, he'd never been so cold in his life. Felt like the temperature had dropped another ten degrees. He squinted against the wind, stumbled a few steps back to where the porch should have been. His seeking hand couldn't find the rail.
Aw, come on, the fucking house was right behind him. How could he have lost it in less than a minute? He staggered against a gust, clinging to the shotgun with one hand, feeling in front of him with the other.
Another gust ripped the gun from his hand, drove him to his knees. He gasped a mouthful of cold air, wiped the ice from his face, crawled in what he hoped was the direction of the house. If he didn't find shelter, he was screwed.
The wind slammed down on him like a fist to the back, right between his shoulder blades. His left arm gave. He got a faceful of snow. Struggled to get back to his knees. The wind drove him down again. Something told him he wasn't getting back up.
Son of a bitch. What a pussy way to go.
When the wind picked up, Sam started flinging dirt at a frantic pace, hoping he'd strike wood soon. He heard light footsteps behind him, heard Brenna's cry of, "What's happening, Mom?" and Karen's hushed assurance. What he didn't hear was Dean, which meant that his idiot brother was probably trying to lure the spirit away, which meant if Sam wanted to yell at Dean for this later, he'd better start digging faster.
The shovel hit wood a minute later. Sam scraped the dirt away. Two small coffins. Thank god it was only one grave. He slammed the tip of the shovel down. After a couple of tries, the wood splintered, gave. Once it was cracked, it went easier. "Throw me that bag!" Sam shouted over the wind. Karen passed down the duffel. Sam fumbled out the salt, sprinkled the bones. Squirted the lighter fluid. Threw the supplies topside and followed them up.
A Zippo was a terrible thing to waste, but in this case, the sacrifice was necessary. He clicked till it lit, dropped it down. The fluid caught with a whump.
Sam looked around. All around him, there was perfect visibility, but ahead, the old farmhouse, and presumably Dean, were hidden by a swirling wall of snow. For a moment, the wind picked up. Sam threw an arm up in front of his face; his eyes watered and stung. Then the wind howled, sucked back toward the house, and disappeared.
In the sudden silence, Sam froze, half expecting another attack. Behind him, flames crackled in the grave.
He turned to Karen and Brenna, who stood together waiting for his next move. "I think it's over," he said, surprised by the breathless quality of his own voice. "I gotta find Dean."
He sprinted for the house. Dean's footprints were entirely covered, the clearing a pristine, glistening field of white. He searched the ground as he ran, hoping he wouldn't spot a scrap of cloth or clawed, frozen hand, hoping Dean had made it to the house.
"Dean!" he yelled as he hit the porch. No answer. He ducked inside.
There, just inside the door. Dean lay in a crumpled heap, coat covered in a clinging crust of ice. Sam slid to his knees, hesitated with one hand hovering above his brother's face. Dean's skin was pale, his lips tinged with blue. Crystals of ice clumped in his eyelashes.
"Jesus. Dean." For a moment, it looked like he wasn't breathing. Then Sam saw his chest rise and fall, followed by a too-long wait for the next breath. Sam peeled off his glove, searched frantically for a pulse. His stomach dropped at the icy feel of Dean's skin, far too cold for the length of time they'd been outside. He could only hope the spirit hadn't had enough time to ramp up to full power. He waited an agonizing second – two – before he felt Dean's heart beat. Oh, god, too damn slow. Sam slid out of his jacket, draped it over Dean's chest.
Footsteps clomped on the porch. From the doorway, Karen Heitzman said, "Oh my god. I'll call 911."
Sam glanced back in time to see Karen's red coat disappear as she ran for the house. Brenna stayed behind, eyes wide. After a moment's hesitation, she pulled off her own coat, laid it atop Sam's.
Sam smiled thanks. Had to swallow a laugh – Dean would be mortified to have the faux-fur teenybopper atrocity anywhere on his person.
He barely noticed when Karen returned, telling him, "They're on the way," bearing hot packs she shoved under Dean's clothes, next to his chest. Sam remembered reading something about that in the book last night: heat next to the torso was good; heat on the extremities, bad. He also recalled that unconscious was bad, that the wrong rewarming or even the slightest wrong movement could send a victim into cardiac arrest.
And Sam really didn't want to think about that.
It wasn't till Karen touched a suede-gloved hand to his cheek that he realized tears were freezing on his face.
"Here." Karen Heitzman handed Sam a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee. "Looks like you could use it."
"Thanks." Sam took a grateful sip, indifferent to sugar, cream, or the fact that hospital coffee usually tasted like it'd been filtered through sweatsocks. The scent of Maxwell House beat the tang of medicinal disinfectant any day.
He'd been slumped in the padded vinyl chair next to Dean's bed for a couple of hours now; before that, in the hard plastic waiting room seats. Karen and Brenna had waited with him, a kindness that helped take the edge off, but now he felt drained: a bone-deep exhaustion from digging and worry, a familiar ache behind his eyes.
Karen found a second chair, dragged it next to Sam's. "How's he doing?" she asked.
Sam took a long pull from his cup. Dean looked like hell: too pale, almost fragile, hidden beneath warming blankets, wires, and tubes. The monitors assured him Dean was improving, his heart rate steady now that his temperature was back up – it had measured eighty-four degrees when they'd brought him in. After warmed oxygen, I.V. fluids, and peritoneal lavage (which, to Sam's understanding, didn't sound fun at all), Dean would be fine. As an added bonus, he was doped to the gills, which meant he wouldn't bitch about staying put, at least for the night.
"Better," Sam said finally. "He's still pretty out of it. Last time he woke up, he muttered something about snap peas and acorn squash; I'm still trying to figure that one out. The doctor wants him to stay a couple days, but I'm sure he'll make a break for it sooner."
"He does seem like the type." Karen gave a soft smile, and Sam had to wonder if she had a stubborn ass of her own in mind.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Stared down into his coffee. The people in this town had been nothing but nice, and in return, they'd get stuck with a bad credit card number and bogus insurance information. "Listen, Karen," he said, "I feel really bad about this, but, uh – it's not like we have health insurance or anything."
Karen just shook her head. "Sam, don't worry. The doctor who treated Dean is my brother-in-law. We'll get it worked out."
Sam let out a long sigh. "Talk about coincidence."
"Benefits of living in a small town." She glanced over at Dean, and Sam knew his brother would hate the scrutiny if he were awake, the weakness that reduced him to an object of pity. Karen looked back to Sam. "If you don't mind my saying so…this doesn't seem like the most desirable line of work. How did you two get into this?"
Sam went for the truth, albeit the short version. "A demon got our mom when we were just kids. Hunting kind of turned into the family business."
Karen nodded, a hard look in her eyes, firm set to her jaw. "I guess if bad things never happened to good people," she said, "there'd be no one out there to hunt these things."
They sat for a few minutes listening to beeping monitors and tinny announcements from loudspeakers in the hall. Then she stood. "I'll go wait with Brenna." She squeezed Sam's shoulder. "You let us know if you need anything."
Sam watched as she strode out of the room, shutting the door softly behind her. He drained his coffee, pitched the cup. Settled down in the chair to wait for Dean to wake, wondering if his own mother had ever been that fierce.
Sometime later, a rustle of bedsheets snapped Sam awake – he hadn't even realized he was dozing. Dean peered at him bleary-eyed. "Sammy? Wha's goin' on?" he slurred.
"Hey," Sam said. "You with me this time?"
"Dunno. Where've I been?"
"You got caught in the snow, Dean. We're at the Freeman Medical Center."
Dean frowned, licked his lips. "Blizzard?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Mmm." Dean's eyes slipped shut. Snapped open again. "You okay?"
"Yeah, Dean, I'm fine."
"They okay?"
"Yeah. They're okay, too."
"We get it?"
"Yeah, man, we got it."
" 'Kay." Then he was out again.
Sam leaned back, scrubbed both hands over his face, the flood of relief mixed with the sudden urge to nag. He filed the impulse away for later, reminded himself to work in some ribbing about that acorn squash nonsense. Couldn't help but grin.
If there was one thing Dean had learned about himself in the last couple of years, it was how far he could bend before he'd break.
Right now, he knew he needed to rest, needed to heal. He ignored Sam's bitchface and sat on the motel bed, savoring each lump and broken spring. At least this bed didn't come with I.V.s.
He propped himself against the headboard, pulled an extra pillow into his lap, held it low against his belly. The incision they'd made for the peritoneal lavage wasn't the worst pain he'd ever known, not by a long shot, but he found it felt better with a little pressure against it.
And just what crazy bastard came up with that crackerjack idea for treatment, anyway? Hey, let's cut this guy open and fill his guts with warm fluids! Sounds great. He was starting to think that doctors were sick sons-of-bitches, every last one of 'em.
Looked like Sam had given up on his day-long pout, now that he realized Dean had no intention of moving any farther than the bathroom. He'd gone nearly apoplectic when Dean had signed out of the clinic AMA. For some reason Dean found it endearing today. Nice to know every once in a while that someone cared enough to bitch you out.
Then again, maybe it was just the drugs talking.
"You hungry?" Sam asked, poking around in the mini-fridge. "Mrs. Heitzman loaded us up with more food than we could eat in a month. There's chicken and dumplings, beef stew, cornbread, cherry cobbler, blackberry pie…"
"Maybe later." Dean didn't really want to think about Karen Heitzman right now, or her dead kid, or the fact that everyone in Freeman wanted to throw him and Sam a tickertape parade or some shit. Within hours of the final blizzard, it seemed the whole town had heard the epic tale of the heroic climatologists who'd braved the signs of the impending storm and saved young Brenna's life. They'd gotten handshakes, fruit baskets, get-well cards. The mayor had written them a letter of praise; their motel room was now free of charge.
But they'd still been a week too late to save Jordan.
The motel room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, dirty laundry, and blackberry pie. Underneath that, Dean caught a hint of hospital – antiseptic and despair – and knew it was on him. He levered himself up from the bed, ignoring Sam's worried gaze. "Gotta shower," he said. Found some relatively clean clothes. Locked himself into the mildewed sanctuary of the bathroom.
Dean leaned with both hands on the sink. Maybe Sam was right to be worried. The mirror showed him a face too pale, still bruised up; bloodshot eyes. As he stripped off his clothes, he found more bruises, fading to the green of a Kansas tornado sky. Years of old scars. The small new incision just below his belly button.
He looked pretty beat up, and felt worse than he looked.
He ran the water till it was as hot as he could stand and stepped into the stream. More than a day after the storm, he still felt like he'd never get warm again. He stared ahead at spots of mold on the graying tile, let the water boil him red. Found the shriveled sliver of generic motel soap and worked up a good lather, used it on his hair as well as his skin. He was too damn tired to even think about shampoo.
In a day or two, he'd convince Sam to leave for Bobby's. It wasn't that far, and they could hole up for a while. Sam could get his research on, and Dean could sleep until he found his game face again. Looked like they'd have plenty of food for the road.
Man, he didn't want that shit, even if it was cherry cobbler. Didn't want to choke down a reminder of someone else's misfortune, someone's misplaced gratitude. Save the cobbler for somebody who picks up on the pattern a week early, a month early. Save it for somebody who can keep a little girl from having to find her sister's body – from having to learn what it's like to live without her.
Dean braced himself against the wall with one hand, ducked his head under the cooling water. He blinked, let his tears wash away. Choked back a sob, thinking of dead siblings. Thinking of the absurd but necessary kindness he sometimes encountered in this cruel and fucked-up world.
A/N #2: The book referenced in this story, The Children's Blizzard, is real, and a damn good, though incredibly sad, read. It does not mention any family named Bittner, though there are plenty of similar stories. I didn't want to use any real names from the book, out of respect for the families who suffered, but I wanted to accurately represent the ethnic background of the area. The names Bittner and Heitzman were chosen from the 1880 census of Dakota Territory. On the less accurate side, the name Torbor I stole from a player for the New York Giants – not a Giants fan (though I was quite delighted to see them beat the Patriots) – I just was working on the story while watching football, and thought it sounded good.