This story follows my last story "Rage". You don't have to read "Rage" to understand it, although it does make references to some things that happened in that story. This is another old one I never posted and also was written before they found their father. Also the last chapter refers to an incidence that happened in the episode "Nightmare".

The Cavern of Death

Dean sat at a table near the window with Sam's computer opened in front of him checking through newspaper sites from nearby cities for any stories that might be of interest to them. He was starting to get cabin fever from being stuck inside for three days. They had been forced to hold up in the motel nursing their wounds from their last hunt and keeping a low profile in case the cops were looking for Sam who had cut out on his hospital bill when it was discovered he had a fake ID. Dean glanced over at his brother who lay in bed watching TV. Dean knew he was still in a lot of pain from his gunshot wound, a wound he had inflicted. He felt a sharp pain of guilt shoot through him as he watched Sam wince in pain as he reached for a beer on the table next to him. They both knew he had been possessed when he shot Sam and wasn't responsible for the shooting but that didn't stop the guilt he felt. He, himself, was nursing a badly bruised collar bone and a slight concussion but it was Sam he was concerned about. He had a slight fever for the last two days and his face glistened with sweat as he reached for the remote control.

"You okay?" He asked Sam.

"Yeah."

He knew his brother would say he was fine no matter how bad he felt. Dean got up and walked over to their first aide kit.

"I better take a look at your wound."

"You just checked it yesterday."

"Well I want to check it again." Dean was tired and bored and wasn't in the mood to argue and Sam knew better then to get on the bad side of his brother. He knew Dean was about to lose it if they didn't get out of the motel soon. He painfully sat up in the bed and left Dean unwrap his bandage. He glanced down at his stomach and could see the skin around the stitches tinged with red. "I hope this isn't infected." Dean said as he gently rubbed antibiotic over the wound then rebandaged it.

"It'll be okay….Maybe you should take the stitches out, maybe that's why it looks sore."

"We better let them in till tomorrow. We can't afford to have it open up on you."

They both had removed stitches many times before but Dean knew Sam's injury was more then just a deep cut. He had had major surgery and should be in a hospital not in some dirty run down motel room. But they had no choice; it was either get out of town or get in trouble with the law for using fake insurance cards.

"Did you find anything interesting on the computer?"

"Well I found a town….Washburn, it's in northern New York; it looks like they have been having some mysterious disappearances. Seems like strangers have been showing up there and then vanishing, and the local cops have no idea what's going on. People passing through the town stop at motels and go out for something to eat and never come back. They just disappear, no body…nothing."

"Could be something we should look into but then again….remember that town in Texas where people were vanishing that Dad took us through when we were kids?"

Dean nodded

"Yeah it turned out it was a gang robbing these people and then dumping the bodies at the town dump….Nothing supernatural about it."

"Well we could be walking into a situation like that."

"But what if it's something more? Maybe we should go up that way and check it out just to be sure."

Sam looked down sadly and shook his head slightly.

"What's wrong with you?" Dean didn't want to hear any reason why they shouldn't go. Right now all he cared about was getting back on the road and out of the motel room.

"We know Dad is in California….it just seems we're getting further and further away from him."

"Dad told us to stay away Sam….And I for one am going to do what he told me." Dean knew all Sam wanted to do was find their dad and he understood that. But he also knew their dad had warned them about staying away and he was going to listen to him. He hoped Sam wasn't going to go storming off again looking for him by himself. He knew how dangerous that could be. "Look Sam, I thought we were all through this. You gave me the 'we got to stick together' speech back in Burketsville. That's what Dad would want."

"I know." Sam looked over at Dean. "It's just that….sometimes I don't think we'll ever find Dad." He swallowed hard as his eyes filled up. "Maybe he needs us Dean, maybe he's in trouble."

"Or maybe he knows what he's doing and by us trying to find him we could end up putting him in more danger. No….I say we wait till we hear from him and in the mean time check out any strange unexplained occurrences we can."

Sam grinned.

"You really get off on all this don't you?"

"Hell yeah." Dean grinned back. "But first we need to find a bar…..I need to make us a little money, we're just about running on empty."

Sam looked down smiling. He knew Dean loved to hustle pool.

"Then I guess after we make us some money we're off to Washburn."

"Hey Sam, its New York….Just think of all the bars...the money we could pick up along the way."

Sam knew that Dean had gotten jumped in the alley when he was in the hospital and all his money was stolen. This last week they had been living off of Sam's money, and now that was running low. He knew Dean was right; they needed to get out and make some money.

"Well let's get packing."

TBC