It was cold and bleak. Sam stood at the window of the dreary motel room and stared out at the drizzle mixed with fog.
The fog stared back.
Sam blinked, sure he was imagining things.
The fog had eyes. They were staring back at him.
He froze, drew in a sharp breath, and called out softly, "Dean."
Dean, sprawled on his bed, feet crossed, and newspaper in hands, grunted back.
"Dean!" Sam hissed, still not moving. "Come here!"
"Dude! I just got comfortable!" he grumbled in response, but dropped the paper, swung his legs off the bed, and sauntered over. "So what's up?"
Sam surreptitiously gestured to the view out the window. Dean stood next to him, looked out, and said, "Yeah? You can actually see through that shit?" He rubbed the back of his head. "Something out there I should be looking at?" He was looking right at the eyes.
Sam bit his lip. "You don't see them," he muttered.
Dean turned to him with a quizzical look. "'See them'? See what?"
"You really don't see them. The eyes. In the fog."
Dean swiveled to look out the window again, squinting. Then he looked back at Sam, an eyebrow tilted up. "Eyes. In the fog."
Sam sighed, closed his own eyes. "Yes, Dean. I swear. There are eyes looking back-" He opened his eyes again, looked out, and the eyes were gone. He blinked, looked again. Nothing. He shivered, and the hair on his arms stood up a bit in reaction. He faced his brother, waved a hand at the window. "They-I swear-there were eyes looking back at me. Big. Round. Kind of silvery-gray. They glowed a little."
Dean nodded his head skeptically. "Uh-huh. Sure. Maybe you ate something bad at lunch? Or you're just tired? Two days of driving. It'll wear anyone out. Why'n't you hit the sack for a while. I'll go grab us some dinner, and we can watch some pay-per-view for a while."
Sam brushed his long hair back out of his face, frowning. "Yeah. Sure. Right."
Dean grabbed the keys off the top of the TV, headed to the door. He stopped, glanced at Sam, said, "You sure you're okay?" Sam waved a reassuring hand, shook his head.
"I'm fine. Must have just been imagining things. Go on, get out of here. I'll be fine."
Dean eyed him sharply, then nodded and left.
Sam turned back to the window. No eyes. He shook himself, shrugged, and turned away to grab his duffle from the floor and drop it on his bed. He dug out a few books, piled them on the nightstand, and settled in for a good read while Dean located food for them.
***
Jody Mills had asked them to check out a problem her buddy Beau Hanes was having in Sturgis. A few people had disappeared recently under mysterious circumstances, and Hanes, the chief of the town police, had mentioned it to her. It wasn't August, so there was no motorcycle rally going on (which the boys thanked god for, though Dean was secretly wistful). So, having nothing else to do-things had been pleasantly quiet for weeks-they had driven there from the bunker, and planned on checking out Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands afterward.
Hanes was darkly handsome, black hair and mustache, sharp, deep brown eyes, trim and muscular. And puzzled.
"We always have one or two folks disappear each year between here and Deadwood-tourists who go for a hike in the forest and get turned around, stuff like that. But we've had seven go missing this week. One a day. Bad for our image, y'know? No clues, nothing. Just went out, never came back. Some newbies, some middling-level day hikers, a couple of hunters who know the woods like the back of their hands. All in the same area, though, up Vanocker Canyon Road, south of town. Search and rescue's been out daily, but the traces just fade out."
They drove up Vanocker Canyon Road, into the forest. It was another chilly, dank autumn day, and the fog left a mist on the windshield that gathered slowly until Dean had to flip the wipers on, then off, multiple times.
"Here," Sam said, pointing at the trailhead parking lot they were coming up to. "This is where they all started from." There was a crowd of cars, canine units, a few cop cars from Sturgis, a Meade County sheriff's deputy. Three men and a woman were clustered around a topo map spread out on the hood of the deputy's vehicle.
Dean pulled in, parked Baby off to the side. "Talk to the S&R folk?" he asked.
His question was answered by one of the quartet heading to them, a tall, lean, sandy-haired man. "Guess so." They climbed out of the car.
"Hey there. You folks headed out the trail?"
"Yup. Wanted to get some hiking in," Sam replied. The man took off his ball cap, scratched his head, put it back on.
"Y'all might want to be careful, there. We've got some folks missing, and we're thinking of closing the trail. Might be bear." He sounded a bit dubious.
Dean gave him a questioning look. "Bear? You've got bear sign?"
"Well, no, actually." He took off his cap again, looked out at the trail thoughtfully. "What we've got is a whole bunch of nothing. Damnedest thing. Like these folks just wandered off the trail a mile or so in and disappeared." He looked back at the boys. "Well, since it's not officially closed yet, can't keep you off it. Just keep an eye out. Y'know the standard bear talk?"
Dean nodded. "Okay, then. Can't talk you out of it?"
They both shook their heads. He folded his lips, frustrated, then shrugged. "Oh, well. Enjoy your hike. And if you see any signs, let us know on your way back out."
"Will do. Hope you find these people," Sam said.
The man threw his hands up. "I hope so, too. Dogs are frustrated, we're frustrated, and it's getting damned cold at night. If we don't find them soon..." He trailed off, sighed, and headed back to his colleagues.
Dean looked at Sam, gestured to the trailhead. "Welp. Let's go."
***
Even with the chill and the fog, it was a pleasant hike for the first mile. The walking kept them warm, and the fog had thinned out a bit so they got only a little damp. Sam loved to hike, but he preferred quiet when he went hiking. After a few attempts to kickstart a conversation, Dean shrugged and fell silent, following his brother.
They started down a steep slope into the canyon, and thicker tendrils of fog started curling around the ponderosas, drifting toward them. Sam shivered and huddled into his jacket as patches of it wafted past, spattering him with tiny droplets. Dean muttered grumpily behind him.
"Dude. I'm getting wet. Ugh. We could be back at the bunker, warm and dry right now."
Sam snorted, turned around, walked backward for a bit on the flatter stretch they were on. "You know something's going on in these woods. And a little damp never hurt anyone."
"A little damp?! Damn, this stuff is getting into every crack in my jacket. I'm gonna end up soaking. And cold. And then I'll catch a cold. And then you'll have to deal with me being sick."
Sam shuddered at the thought, but crooned, "Oh, poor baybee. C'mon." He turned back around, strode into the thicker mist.
"I just appreciate warmth, dammit! And beer. And cheeseburgers. And warmth." He paused for a moment, the trail demanding attention as it angled downwards. The fog was thicker here, the breeze slapping curtains of it into his face. Sam had pulled ahead, and the fog was so thick here that he was only a shadow. "Hey! Sam! Wait up!" Dean called.
"Yeah, yeah," Sam's voice was muffled, but his shadowy form halted.
Something caught Dean's eye, off to the side of the trail. A light? He stopped, peered out at it. The fog cleared for a moment, then another thick tendril swept past.
"Hey. Sammy. I think I spot a light, to the left. Can you see it?"
Sam shifted, looked that way.
"Maybe?" His voice wasn't quite sure.
Dean saw it again. "Kinda silvery gray-? Hunh." He stepped off the trail to get a closer look.
"Silvery-gray?" Sam's voice was more muffled, but he could hear the alarm. Dean ignored it, headed toward the light.
"Yo. Sam. C'mon, I think we might have something here!"
***
Sam thought he heard Dean, but wasn't sure. He'd definitely heard the "silvery-gray" comment, though, and it triggered an immediate response: Not good. Fog. Silvery-gray "lights". Last night's odd episode of thinking there were eyes in the fog, watching. He couldn't see Dean, could barely even see the trail. He started back to where he'd last seen Dean's form through the mist, calling out, "Dean? Dean!" There was no response.
He stopped where he thought Dean had last been, turning around, staring into the fog in all directions, beginning to panic. "DEAN!"
The fog seemed to swallow up his shouts.
Left. Dean had gone left to investigate the light. Sam swore, pulled out his phone, dialed Dean's.
"Sam," Dean answered.
"Dude. Where are you? I can't see a damned thing in this mess."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But that light...I think maybe it's one of the missing people. I headed straight out from the trail, no curves or turns. You should be able to catch up easy."
Sam looked at the wall of fog, chewed his lips, pushed back his damp hair.
"This is a really bad idea, Dean. Why don't you come back and we'll check this light out when it's clearer." No answer. "Dean?" The connection went dead. "Goddammit!" He looked at the display. No bars. No internet. No way to talk to Dean. Shit.
Left. Okay, then. He plunged between two ponderosas into the woods.
***
Every time Dean thought he was getting close to the light, it seemed to shift slightly, just a bit. After the second time, he stopped dead in his tracks, scanned the woods around him carefully with suspicious eyes. He pulled out the phone again, checked. Still no reception. He had no idea if Sam had even heard him before the call went dead. So. Was Sam coming after him?
Time to head back.
He squatted down, grabbed a small stick, tried drawing a line in the thick layer of pine needles on the forest floor. The stick snapped. He held the remaining stub out before him and snarled. "Piece of shit! Well, dammit, my arm's not gonna snap, now, is it?" The reached down, dug through the duff to the soil beneath, left a long straight line. He tried to brush his hands clean, but the soil was damp enough it had gathered in moist clumps beneath his fingernails.
Then he turned around, glanced back to be sure he was facing directly away, following the line, and started (hopefully) back. He turned every few feet to check that he was going straight. When he got fifty feet away, he squatted again, made another line in the forest debris, turned around, and squinted back the way he had come. He could just barely make out the first line. Eyeing it and the second, he was pretty sure they were in line.
A flash of brightness to his left. He turned his head, narrowed his eyes at it, working his jaw.
"Yeah, I don't think so, buddy. Whatever you are."
He lined himself up as best he could with his two guidelines, and started slowly walking again, checking obsessively. The problem was...the fog was getting thicker. And while he watched, during one check, the second line faded into gray, then disappeared entirely, obscured by the gray curtain drifting past.
"Shit. Now what?"
The light flashed again. It was closer this time. Bigger. It was big enough now that it was no longer a point, but two round shapes. Silvery-gray. Like eyes. Glowing.
He shuddered. "Sam?! Sammy!" he shouted. No answer.
But he could swear he heard a soft, high-pitched giggle.
***
Sam tried keeping landmarks in his head. The problem was, left from the trail the ground was fairly flat, so the terrain was no use. All the ponderosas around him looked the same-logging in the late 1800s had ensured that the current forest was filled with pines that were all around the same age, size, nothing particularly distinct about any of them. So they weren't any use, either. No rocks or boulders. He stopped while he could just barely see the trail.
"Shit. Dean!" he called out again. No answer, and his shout seemed like it was swallowed up by the fog.
Dean was somewhere out there. With the eyes, he would bet. Some thing out there, the thing that had stared at him through the window last night, was luring him away. Knowing Dean, it wouldn't work for long. So. Dean was either trying to get back to the trail, or he was hunkered down, waiting for Sam. He had a gun, a knife, an angel blade, but only trail mix and one day's worth of water, same as him. Sam squatted down, hands dangling between his knees, and peered with thoughtfully narrowed eyes at the white tendrils of fog weaving between the trees ahead of him.
Knife. He had a knife, too. He pursed his lips, pulled it out, looked down at it. He flipped it a few times in silence, then surged to his feet, stepped forward to the tree in front of him. He jammed the knife into the bark, dragged it to make a rectangular outline, dug it in under the bark, and peeled the chunk away. The yellow-white tree trunk beneath the bark fairly blazed in the dim, gray light. Sam grunted, nodded, then finished up with a triangle at one end to point back to the trail. Then he slowly moved forward, turning at intervals to make sure he could see the fresh blaze.
When he got to a point where it was on the verge of fading into the background, he repeated the process with another tree.
It was slow, but he was damned sure he'd be able to get back to the trail. He hoped.
***
There were now two sets of glowing eyes, one to his left, one to his right. They were very slowly getting closer. He pulled out his gun, fired at the one on the left. The shot echoed in the air, bouncing back from the twisting draperies of mist.
The lights on that side vanished. He blew out a huge gust of relief, began to turn to the other side to take that one out...
The lights appeared again, closer. And the thing-whatever it was-giggled again. This time, he could hear another giggle behind him. He whirled around.
There were now three sets of eyes. He whipped his head around, looking at each set of eyes, then began to edge carefully backwards.
Giggling. Behind him. Shit. Four of the things?! He stopped, pulled out his knife. It had a silver layer; surely these-whatever-they-weres-were susceptible to silver? He desperately hoped so.
***
A gunshot echoed through the forest.
Dean. Sam was sure of it.
He halted, tilted his head, listened. He wasn't sure, but it sounded like it came from before and to the right of where he was. He couldn't judge the distance, though. He wanted, needed, to run toward it, find Dean, help him. But running...that would mean he had to stop his careful trail of blazes.
Damn.
No, he couldn't risk it. No matter how much his entire being demanded he get to Dean now, stat!, they had to have a guide back to the official trail. He clenched his jaw, glaring at the mist ahead of him, muscles next to his nose and mouth pulsing slightly. Then he stepped up to the closest tree and took out his anger, fear, and desperation on the bark, hacking a blaze out as quickly as he could.
***
They were herding him.
They did it so subtly that it took a while to catch on. But he finally noticed a pattern-the one originally to his right and the one originally to his back actually eased backwards a bit, while the other two advanced. He was on edge, filled with adrenaline, looking this way and that, judging how close the giggling fog-things were, sweeping out with his knife. They seemed to not like the knife that much, which was good.
At this point, though, he was completely turned around. He had no idea where the trail was, though he reasoned it was away from where they were guiding him.
He knew Sam was on his way. Knew it in his bones. But even with the ever-so-tiny difference in movements, the four creatures were getting closer and closer to him. Their eyes were now the size of saucers. He was catching glimpses of mouths now. They weren't pleasant-just gashes of darkness with jagged edges, shadowed by the gray-silver glow of their eyes. Still no specific body shapes to be seen. He suspected that their bodies were part of the fog, or the fog was part of their bodies, as the thick, clammy mist was closing in on him, just as the fog-things were.
It was fucking claustrophobic. It was also fucking creepy as hell.
And how the hell were they going to kill these things?! How did you kill fog?!
Sam had better get here real damned soon, was all he could think, because he was getting tired, and the things we're moving him someplace, and none of this was reassuring.
He made sure to shout for Sam at regular intervals.
***
As Sam strode through the forest, he was thinking hard, in between hacking blazes on trees.
So. Eyes in the fog. Lights luring people off the trail. Thick fog everywhere. Fog-creatures? What would kill things that lived in, maybe exuded fog? Think, dammit, Sam, think!
There was a sound.
He stopped in his tracks, swiveling, listening again. Nothing more. He moved forward again.
Fog, mist...water. Water that happened in chilly weather. Mist would rise from hot pavement after a rain. Heat? Would heat do it?
Another sound, a call? This time, he was closer, he could tell. That direction. He shifted his body, headed that way.
Heat. How to do heat? All he had was a lighter. The woods around him were far too damp to ignite. Shit.
"Sam!"
"Dean!" he shouted hoarsely. "I'm coming!"
He corrected his direction again, gouged a rough blaze into the nearest tree, hands shaking, and began moving faster.
***
Dean stood still for a moment, leaning hands on his knees, panting. Sam! He had heard him! He was close!
Dean surged upward with a wordless growl, whirling around with knife extended. The eyes retreated as his knife approached, but he could see from the corners of his eyes that as soon as the knife was past, they pressed even closer. The eyes were the size of platters now, shining pewter platters, and he could definitely see mouths. Open mouths. Big black mouths with jagged edges that had turned out to be shiny black teeth, like obsidian. Somehow he could tell they were hungry mouths. "Goddammit, Sammy, get your oversized ass over here NOW!" he roared.
***
He definitely heard that one. He was close, very close.
He ran between two trees, and finally, there Dean was. Surrounded by...fog. Sort of in the shape of tall, skinny men. Long, thick tendrils made arms and legs. They...undulated. They were out of proportion, totally non-human. On their edges, pieces of them tore off, drifted away, floated through the air, like fog being blown about by a breeze, but the cores were always there, always reforming, circling around Dean, and getting closer as he watched.
Dean seemed to be keeping them at a distance, though, one at a time. But as one drifted back, the others crept closer. What was he using to do it? Sam peered hard, panting softly, hoping the fog-creatures wouldn't hear him, notice him. They were giggling, though-maybe that would mask any sounds he made.
His knife.
Dean was using his silver-plated knife.
Sam had one, too.
Knife plus heat? he thought. He stepped slowly, carefully closer, pulling his demon knife-silver demon knife-out of its sheath. He flicked the lighter, held the knife blade in the flame as he sidled up to the things swirling around Dean.
Then he slashed at the nearest creature with the heated blade.
It sizzled. It definitely stopped giggling; now it was making a thin, high-pitched shrieking noise that sounded, frankly, like a boiling tea kettle. The shredding at the edges increased, and the core fog body was tearing away. Then, without warning, the tea-kettle shriek stopped, and the fog-thing unraveled completely, drifting away through the air in bits and tatters.
"Dean!" he called out urgently. "Heat your blade!"
Dean glared at him with dazed eyes. "Heat it-what the fuck with?!" he panted. His face was covered with sweat-or condensation. His hair was plastered to his head.
"Lighter!" Sam gasped out, holding his knife back in the tiny flame of his own lighter.
One of the creatures had turned to him, and he was appalled at the size of the silvery-gray eyes and the gaping black mouth. It moved closer, crooning eerily. Sam's hands shook, and he hoped to hell the blade was hot enough now, because he had no time left. He stabbed forward, and the thing in front of him sizzled and popped and shrieked, then tore to bits.
Behind it, Dean had pulled out his own lighter, finally gotten it to light while still jabbing at the two remaining things to make them keep their distance. He held the lighter under the blade as he jabbed, cursing and flicking it back on every time a sudden move made it blow out. Sam prepared his knife again, and slashed at one of the remaining creatures. At the same time, Dean judged his blade hot enough, and stabbed forward at the other.
Sizzle, pop, shriek, in stereo. And then there were no more of the fog-things left.
Dean dropped to the ground, huffing deep breaths. Sam sank down beside him.
"Dude." Huff. "Just. In. Time." Huff, huff, huff. Dean dropped his knife, and fell backwards on the damp forest floor, stretching his arms and legs out. "That was. Damned close."
Sam pushed his hair away from his face. "Yeah. Sorry I took so long. Was trying to be sure we'd be able to find our way back."
Dean turned his head to look at him. "What the fuck were those things, anyway?" He had caught his breath enough to let an entire sentence out without needing to draw a gasping breath.
Sam shrugged. "No idea. We can figure it out later. When we get back to the motel."
Dean draped an arm over his eyes. "Did you see those fucking teeth?!"
"Yeah. One real good look. That was enough for me." Sam shuddered.
They were quiet for a while, caught up in thought.
"They were herding me, y'know."
Sam just looked the question. Dean flung his arm out to point. "That way, I think."
Sam turned to look, stood up. The fog was lifting, and he could already see much further than before. "Hunh. There's a hollow. I'm gonna check it out." He strode in that direction. Dean turned on his side to watch.
"Careful, dammit!" he called after his brother. He watched him tall form seem to sink beneath the forest floor, and sat up anxiously. Now he could see his head, bending down.
"Dean!" Sam called.
"Yeah? What?" he responded wearily.
"People. Six. One's real sick. And one dead body. And bones," Sam shouted.
Dean slowly got to his feet, stumbled over to look. Five stunned, dull pairs of eyes looked up, glancing from Sam to him, then back. The sixth was curled up in a ball, huge shivers rippling through his body. There were a lot of bones. He didn't want to think how many people the bones represented.
"Damn," Dean muttered, then slid down into the hollow to help Sam out with the survivors.