Supernatural: Dead in the Water

A/N: Well.

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Supernatural. I just own any and all characters that I just happen create.

CHAPTER ONE: PURELY DROWNINGS?

Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin…

CARLTON RESIDENCE…

Bill Carlton was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. His son, Will Carlton was sitting on the counter eating cereal when his daughter, Sophie, entered the kitchen.

"Morning Daddy," she said, kissing him on the cheek before moving to get something out of the refrigerator.

"Morning, sweetheart," Bill responded, turning a page of the newspaper.

"All these workouts, Sophie, I don't know," said Will in a teasing manner. "Guys don't like buff girls."

Sophie rolled her eyes as she faced her brother. "Yeah," she said, "well, girls don't like guys who still live at home."

Will scoffed and jumped off the counter. "Ha, ha, ha," he dead-panned and put his bowl and spoon into the sink.

"Ha, ha," Sophie echoed and opened the door to leave.

"Be careful," Bill told her.

Sophie smiled. "I will." She went outside.

LAKE…

Sophie took off her jogging suit to reveal a white two-piece underneath, stood on the edge of the pier for a moment, and then dove into the water. There was some distorted whispering, so she resurfaced and looked around for the source. When she didn't see anyone, she continued swimming. After about a minute, there came the strange distorted whispering again, so Sophie stopped and looked around again, feeling scared. Just as she decided it was time to turn back to the shore, she was suddenly pulled down, leaving bubbles on the surface for a few seconds and then nothing.

Sophie Carlton was gone without a trace.

DINER…

Liz and Dean were seated at the counter, where she was finishing her coffee, and he was circling pictures in a newspaper, and scribbling out ads.

A waitress walked up to collect the dirty dishes. "Can I get you anything else?" she asked, and Dean looked up and smiled at the "hot blonde" who was their waitress.

Just then, Sam walked up and sat down. "Just the check, please," he requested.

"Okay," said the waitress and she walked away.

Liz snickered while Dean hung his head for a moment and then gave their younger brother an exasperated look. "You know, Sam," he said, "we are allowed to have fun once in a while." He pointed to the waitress in short shorts, who was walking into the kitchen. "That's fun." He then handed Sam the newspaper he'd been circling. "Here, take a look at this, I think I got one. Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, 18, walks into the lake, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water — nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year. None of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago," he added.

"A funeral?" Sam repeated, surprised.

"They buried an empty coffin," Dean explained. "For uh, a closure or whatever."

"A closure? What closure?" Sam asked, exasperated. "People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them."

"Something you want to say to me?" Dean asked, frowning at Sam's tone of voice.

Sam sighed. "The trail for Dad… it's getting colder every day," he confessed.

Dean rolled his eyes while Liz sighed, seeing where this was heading. "Exactly, so what are we supposed to do?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "Something, anything."

"You know what? I'm sick of this attitude," Dean snapped. "You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?"

"Because we do, Sam," Liz added, also fed up, "so grow up and stop complaining."

Sam stared at Dean and Liz, surprised by their reactions. He opened his mouth, although he wasn't sure what he was even going to say, but Dean cut him off.

"Liz and I are the ones who've been with him every single day for the past two years," he said seriously, "while you've been off to college, going to pep rallies or whatever." He stared at Sam. "We will find Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?"

Just then, the waitress walked by again, distracting Dean. "All right," Sam sighed, resigned to the situation, "Lake Manitoc. Hey!" He snapped his fingers to get his brother's attention back.

"Huh?" Dean asked, wincing when Liz clocked him up the side of his head with her hand. "Ow!"

"How far?" Sam asked, tapping the newspaper.

LAKE MANITOC…

Several hours later, Sam, Liz, and Dean drove into the small town, passing a sign that said, "Welcome to Lake Manitoc, WI." They pulled up to the cabin, got out of the car, and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, Sophie's brother answered it.

"Will Carlton?" Dean asked.

Will nodded. "Yeah that's right."

Dean pulled out a fake id and held it up. "I'm Agent Ford, this is Agent Clint, and Agent Hamill," he said, nodding to Liz and Sam. "We're with the U.S. Wildlife Service."

Will led the three Winchesters out back by the lake, where Sophie's father was sitting on a bench on the dock in the distance.

"She was about 100 yards out," Will explained, clearly still shaken by the experience of losing his sister like that. "That's where she got dragged down," he added.

"Are you sure she didn't just drown?" Dean asked.

Will nodded. "Yeah," he said. "She was a varsity swimmer, she practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as she was in her own bathtub."

"So no splashing? No signs of distress?" Sam asked.

"No, that's what I'm telling you," said Will.

"Did you see any shadows in the water?" Sam inquired, trying to figure out what they were dealing with. "Maybe some dark shape breaching the surface?"

Will shook his head. "No. Again, she was really far out there."

"You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean asked.

"Or anything unusual that didn't seem to belong?" Liz added.

"No, never. Why? What do you think's out there?" Will asked, confused by the line of questioning.

"We'll let you know as soon as we do," Dean assured them and then turned to walk back toward the car with Liz.

"What about your father?" Sam asked, causing both Dean and Liz to stop. "Can we talk to him?"

Will turned to look at his father, who was still sitting on the bench on the dock. "Look," he said after a moment, "if you don't mind, I mean… he didn't see anything and he's kind of been through a lot."

Sam nodded; it had been worth a shot. "We understand." And they went to the car.

"Now, I'm sorry, but why does the Wildlife Service care about an accidental drowning?" the local sheriff, Jake, asked of the Winchesters.

"You sure it's accidental?" Sam asked. "Will Carlton saw something grab his sister."

"Like what?" Jake asked as they walked into his office, and he motioned to a chair. "Here, sit please," he requested. "There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake. There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person, unless it was the Loch Ness monster."

"Yeah," Dean laughed, "right."

"Will Carlton was traumatized, and sometimes the mind plays tricks," Jake explained. "Still, we dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep just to be sure, and there was nothing down there."

"That's weird, though, I mean that's… that's the third missing body this year," Dean pointed out.

"A sonar sweep should've revealed the location of any of the bodies," Liz added, surprised that the bodies hadn't been found.

"I know," Jake sighed. He couldn't figure out how or why the bodies weren't showing up and it was clearly bothering him. "These are people from my town. These are people I care about."

Dean nodded, relating too well with the frustration. "I know."

"Anyway." Jake sighed again. "All this… it won't be a problem much longer."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"Well the dam, of course," Jake said, surprised that they didn't know.

"Of course… the dam," Dean stammered. "It's uh… sprung a leak."

"It's falling apart, and the feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they've opened the spillway," Jake complained. "In another six months there won't be much of a lake. There won't be much of a town either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that," he added, eying them suspiciously now.

"Exactly," Dean agreed, mentally kicking himself for not doing a full background check of the area first.

Before things could go downhill, a woman, Andrea, tapped on the door. "Sorry, am I interrupting?" she asked, peering inside. "I can come back later."

Jake stood and nodded to her. "Gentlemen, miss, this is my daughter," he said, now smiling.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Dean," sand Dean, shaking her hand.

Andrea smiled. "Andrea Bar. Hi," she said with a smile.

Dean grinned. "Hi."

"They're from the Wildlife Service about the lake," Jake informed her.

"Oh," said Andrea, and a small boy walked in from around her.

"Oh, hey there," said Dean, after being elbowed by Liz. "What's your name?"

The boy stared at him for a moment and then walked away without speaking, and Andrea followed him.

Jake sighed, watching the boy. "His name is Lucas."

Lucas and Andrea went to a table in the other room, and she was giving him some crayons out of a box.

"Is he okay?" Sam asked.

"My grandson's been through a lot," Jake explained. "We all have. Well, if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

He led the four of them out of the office and went over to where Andrea and Lucas were.

"Thanks," Dean said. "You know, now that you mentioned it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced hotel?"

"Lakefront Motel, go around the corner, it's about two blocks south," Andrea informed them.

"Two… would you mind showing us?" Dean requested, making both Liz and Sam sigh with exasperation at his flirting attempts.

Andrea laughed. "You want me to walk you two blocks?" she asked.

Dean smiled. "Not if it's any trouble."

"I'm headed that way, anyway," Andrea admitted and turned to her father. "I'll be back to pick up Lucas at three," she told him and then bent down next to her son. "We'll go to the park, okay sweetie?" she added and kissed him on the head.

Dean waved as they left, and Jake nodded at them.

"Thanks again," Sam added.

"So… cute kid," Dean ventured. Liz couldn't decide if it was a bad pick-up line or if her twin honestly thought the boy was cute. He was, of course, but with Dean, you could never be too certain.

Andrea smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"Kids are the best, huh?" Dean added, and both Sam and Liz were now stifling their laughter. Definitely pick-up lines, Liz decided.

Andrea ignored his comment, and they walked a bit farther. "There it is," she announced. "Like I said. Two blocks." And right in front of them was a building that said, "Lakefront Motel".

"Thanks," said both Sam and Liz.

Andrea smiled at them and then turned to Dean. "Must be hard with your sense of direction," she commented. "Never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line. Enjoy your stay!" and she walked away.

"Ooh, burn!" Liz teased, earning a death glare from Dean.

"'Kids are the best'?" Sam repeated, amazed. "You don't even like kids."

Dean glared at them both. "I love kids."

"Name three children that you even know," Sam requested.

Dean tried to think, Liz laughed, and Sam waved his hand in that "forget you" manner, and they walked into the motel while Dean scratched his head.

"I'm thinking!" he shouted as he followed them in.

Sam was doing some researching on the laptop while Liz was looking through a book, and Dean was deciding whether he needed to clean any of his clothes or not.

"So, there's the three drowning victims this year," said Sam, pulling up information.

"Any before that?" Dean asked, sniffing one of his shirts and making a face at the smell. 'I definitely need to do some laundry while we're in town.'

"Uh, yeah… six more spread out over the past 35 years," Sam confirmed. "Those bodies were never recovered either. If there is something out there, it's picking up its pace."

"So what, we got a lake monster on a binge?" Dean asked.

Sam wasn't so sure. "This whole lake monster thing… it just bugs me."

"Same here," Liz agreed. "If it's your typical lake monster, then there should be remains… but here we've got zip."

Dean didn't understand what they were getting at. "So what?"

"So, Loch Ness, uh Lake Champlain," Sam explained. "There are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, almost nothing. Whatever it is out there, no one's living to talk about it."

Dean pointed to the web page Sam had up, recognizing a name. "Wait, Bar, Christopher Bar," he said. "Where have I heard that name before?" he wondered.

Sam read from the web page. "Christopher Bar, the victim in May," he said and opened a link for more information. "Oh… Christopher Bar was Andrea's husband. Lucas' father. Apparently, he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned, two hours before the kid got rescued. Maybe we have an eyewitness after all."

"No wonder that kid was so freaked out," Dean remarked. "Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over."

"Yeah," Liz agreed softly.

Andrea was sitting on a bench at the park and keeping an eye on Lucas, who was kneeling in front of another bench and drawing.

Sam walked up to her with Liz and Dean. "Can we join you?" he asked politely.

Andrea looked up at him, surprised. "I'm here with my son."

"Oh… Mind if we say hi?" Dean offered and both he and Liz walked over to Lucas, leaving Sam and Andrea by the bench.

Andrea watched them go and then turned to Sam. "Tell your friend the whole "Jerry Maguire" thing's not gonna work on me," she suggested.

Sam resisted the impulse to chuckle as he sat down next to her. "I don't think that's what this is about," he stated.

Dean and Liz both wandered over to Lucas. "How's it goin'?" he asked, kneeling down in front of the bench that Lucas was coloring on and had some toy soldiers set up. Dean grabbed one of the toy soldiers. "Oh, I used to love these things," he said fondly and made gun sounds and explosions, and threw the toy soldier down after pretending it was shot. Liz chuckled. "So crayons is more your thing? That's cool. Chicks dig artists."

Liz rolled her eyes. "Of course."

Dean ignored her and look at the pile of papers Lucas had colored; the first one was a huge black swirl; the next one was a red bicycle. "Hey these are pretty good. You mind if I sit and draw with you for a while?" he asked, picking up a crayon. "I'm not so bad myself," he added as he sat on the bench and picked up a pad of paper.

"You know," he said after a moment, "I'm thinking you can hear me; you just don't wanna talk. I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad."

Lucas continued coloring. "I think I know how you feel," Dean continued. "When I was your age, Liz and I both saw something…" He trailed off and Liz bit her lip, knowing exactly what Dean was talking about. She knew Dean better than anyone, knew that, deep down, he was just as emotionally vulnerable as Sam was, as she was, but he couldn't show it. In fact, she wasn't certain he even knew how to show it anymore, so the fact that he was trying to put himself out there for Lucas…

Dean abruptly cleared his throat. "Anyway… Well, maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or uh… or believe you. I want you to know that Liz and I will. You don't even have to say anything, you could draw us a picture about what you saw that day with your dad on the lake." Lucas kept coloring and never looked up. "Okay, no problem. This is for you."

He then showed Lucas the picture he drew. "This is my family," he explained, pointing to the stick people he'd drawn. "That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother, and that's me and Liz, we're twins." Liz saw the small smile that cross his face before it was gone. "All right," he said with a small laugh, "so I'm a sucky artist. I'll see you around, Lucas." He got up, put the pad down, and both he and Liz walked back to Sam and Andrea. They didn't see it, but after a moment, Lucas put down his crayon and picked up the picture to look at it.

"Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me," Andrea told Sam as both Dean and Liz walked up. "Not since his dad's accident."

"Yeah we heard. Sorry," said Dean and Liz nodded.

"What are the doctors saying?" Sam asked.

Andrea shrugged. "That it's a kind of post-traumatic stress."

Sam nodded, thinking. "That can't be easy, for either of you."

"We moved in with my dad," Andrea explained. "He helps out a lot. It's just… when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw…"

"Kids are strong," Dean said reassuringly. "You'd be surprised what they can deal with."

'Yes, you would,' Liz thought to herself.

Andrea smiled sadly. "You know, he used to have such life," she commented. "He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there, drawing those pictures, playing with those army men… I just wish —" Just then, Lucas walked up. "Hey, sweetie."

Lucas didn't say anything, never even looked up, but he did hand Dean a drawing.

Dean was surprised, but he carefully took it from the boy's hand. "Thanks… Thanks Lucas." And Lucas walked back to the table.

CARLTON RESIDENCE…

It was nighttime now, and Bill was sitting on his chair watching TV when Will popped his head in the living room.

"Hey Dad, you should probably eat something," he said, concerned for his father's wellbeing. Bill didn't respond. "I'm gonna make some dinner, okay?"

Again, no response from his father. He sighed and went into the kitchen.

Will went down into the basement and stood at the sink, washing a knife to cut a vegetable with. Once the knife was cleaned, he began cutting the vegetable without bothering to turn the water off. Suddenly, the water turned a brownish color. Will looked over, saw this, and turned the water off. Seconds later, a bunch of black water came bubbling up through the drain and filled the sink, followed by a mysterious whispering.

Grimacing, Will pulled the sleeve of his shirt up and reached his arm down the sink to pull the drain; after feeling around a bit, he pulled the plug up, but the water still didn't drain. Will stuck his arm back in the water, feeling around for whatever was causing the clog, when it was suddenly grabbed. He was pulled face-first into the sink, where he struggled against the strange force, but he couldn't pull free, and he drowned. After a few seconds, the water receded, leaving Will dead, drowned in his own home.

AN: Eek! I just scared myself again. R&R everyone!