Chapter 1. – Something Bad
- fourteen years ago -
"No, no... I don't want it... NO!" Sam's shouts could be heard throughout the dark household of the Mayfields, and Mrs Mayfield comes rushing in at the racket.
"Sam! Wake up, it's just a-" before she finishs her sentence, young Sam bolts upright in his bed, his face stained with tears and sweat.
She tells him to go back to sleep, and that 'it's all going to be alright, honey.' But, when she leaves Mr. Mayfield has the common conversation of getting Sam to see a therapist, or maybe putting him back into care.
Aliyah peeps her head out from under the covers, used to being awoken by Sam's tossing and turning in the night.
"It was only a dream, Sam." She whispers, watching as he angrily wipes the tears away from his eyes.
But it wasn't.
It was memories of something that happened that night.
That night that their mother died.
- present day -
"Sam, when I say duck, I mean duck!" Al raises her voice at her brother, attempting to punch him in the arm, but he flinches away.
"It's a little hard to do that, when a freaking witch is trying her mojo on me!" He snaps back, throwing their weapons into the trunk of their car, before slamming it shut again.
Rolling her eyes at him, they both get into the car and Sam drives away in silence. They drive to the motel in silence too – where they'll stay the night before searching for another job to go to.
All the while of course they're hunting for who – or rather, what – had killed their mom, but along the way they try and kill as many other monsters as they can.
As soon as they're back Sam wanders off inside on his own. It's dusk now, so he slumps down on his bed, not bothering to change his dirty clothes or wash away his fresh cuts. He soon finds that his eyes are closing, and it isn't long before he falls into a light sleep. Aliyah usually does the opposite of whatever her brother is doing, so she sits on her bed and opens up her laptop – Time for research.
The clock strikes six pm, and almost like clockwork Sam starts to writhe around on his mattress. "No... Leave her alone! Don't, I can't... I'm not going to... NO!" Sam's shouting grows louder, and someone thumps on the wall next door.
"Sam.. Wake up," Al jumps off of her bed, and carefully steps over to to where Sam is still in distress, having some kind of night terror. She shakes him gently at first, dodging his fists as he unconsciously lashes out at her.
"Sam Winchester!" Finally her loud tone snaps him out of his trance, and his eyes pry open.
"I'm going to shower," he mumbles, wearily standing up and walking away from her.
Sighing, Al moves back into her position of research. Not much has come up yet – there's been a few mysterious deaths in Virginia, and a couple of mutilations in the forests of Iowa. But, nothing major just yet. Absentmindedly occupied by her computer, and her thoughts of Sam's dreaming, eventually Aliyah finds herself falling into a light slumber too.
By the next morning she's already decided on a case, and since she's awake before her brother, Al decides to wake Sam up with breakfast and a information of this new case.
"Two deaths, both in locked rooms with no forced entry..." Sam comments, with a mouth full of bagel.
"Do you have to be like that?" Aliyah rolls her eyes, snatching away her laptop before he had the chance to spill any crumbs on it.
Sam flips her off, adding with this gesture his signature – what Al liked to describe as his 'bitchface', before he goes back to finishing up his food.
Pretty soon the pair are on the road again, bickering over music choices and how Sam starts snoring whilst he has a nap... Three and a half hours later and they finally arrive at their next shabby motel room. There was just enough time before dusk, to go and check out a few of the crime scenes – posing as young federal trainees. It was surprising how a cop would let you into these houses with some fake credentials and a confident attitude- fairly worrying actually.
"Alright, well the EMF is having a field day here," Sam keeps his voice low, as he scans the room where the first victim had died.
"Power lines, dumbass." Aliyah signals to the window beside her, where many wires passed by the glass.
Sam narrows his eyes at her, and his sister smiles back sarcastically. After a not very successful crime scene search, it's back to the motel room where Al starts to look into some history, and Sam then heads to the library to pick up some local books and records.
"Get food whilst your out, please and thanks!" Aliyah calls out to him, just before he closes the door.
As usual, Sam is taking his sweet time arriving back, and when he finally does stumble back into the motel room, it isn't in his usual state.
"Ew, you're gonna bleed all over my sandwich!" Al proceeds to toss a pen at her brother, whilst he just kind of stares at her in confusion – before the realisation that he's actually having a nosebleed seems to eventually dawn upon him.
Aliyah jumps down from her chair, and grabs her food from his hands, and then whilst giving it a thorough inspection, she wandered back over to the table where she's completing her research.
"Whilst you were out doing probably nothing, I found some stuff on a few people who died here, like as in bad deaths that might make a pissed off ghost," Aliyah explains, whilst Sam comes back to her side, after retrieving some tissues.
"Such as?" He asks, pulling up a chair in order to sit beside her.
"Here, Amy Whittle... She lived with her husband who incidentally disappeared the night after her murder... And the two recent victims?"
"Both men..."
"And both suspicious divorcees, I did some digging." Aliyah clicks on another tab, where she may or may not have hacked into a few police files of home disturbances and spousal dispute files. Sam begins to pour over his own research, and they both compare notes as they finish eating.
"Is it too early to assume that we can just salt and burn her, and then we're done here?" Aliyah questions hopefully, watching as Sam takes place on his bed.
"I say lets talk to her only surviving relative – a.k.a her daughter, Lana." He replies, and Aliyah slightly hesitantly agrees.
"Sam, are you sure you're okay?" Al frowns, as she's in the drivers seat next to her brother – who was currently acting out a migraine or something.
"Jesus Christ, it's just a headache! Just drive," he groans (both siblings never like to be fussed over), so she did as he suggested, ignoring his stubborn reply.
When they arrive back at the motel – after talking to the daughter and confirming what they had already thought about the story themselves – Sam goes on his laptop for more researching, as well as to try and take his mind off of the nauseous feeling growing inside of him... This idea didn't last long though, as he literally falls asleep sitting up on his bed.
Aliyah chuckles at him, deciding to find out how easy it would be to get to Ms. Whittle's grave by tomorrow at the latest. It wasn't usually this easy in a case, but this seems to be a simple vengeful spirit gig, so she isn't really complaining.
As soon as Sam wakes up – he politely declines the dinner that Aliyah had gone out of her way to buy for him... and it wasn't even like she bought him something unhealthy.
"Sam?" She mumbles, chewing on the straw from her milkshake.
"Yes?" He answers a few seconds later, propping his chin up on his hand, whilst sitting at the table in the mini kitchen area.
"Since when do you catch colds?" Aliyah questions suspiciously, as Sam jerks himself awake with a sneeze.
"I don't," he rolls his eyes, "it's just dusty in here."
"All the motels we stay at are dusty... I'd be worried if they weren't," Al admits, sighing quietly in frustration.
"Whatever," Sam yawns, and he continues to drift off whilst sitting in his chair.
Aliyah face palms herself at how unhelpful her brother was being, so she then promptly decides to go out and get some air. She chooses to sit outside on the small decking area, scanning the few run down cars that are parked outside. The only decent looking car was a newly parked black Chevy Impala.
After a few minutes of life contemplation, she leaves to go and buy some medical supplies, hoping that Sam wouldn't be dramatically worse by the time she got back. Thankfully, he was still in the same place, but on his laptop this time.
"Here, take these." Al throws a packet of Aspirin his way, which Sam catches one handed.
"Good to see your hand to eye coordination is still on form," she jokes, sitting opposite him. Sam neglects giving her a reply, not tearing his gaze away from the screen whilst he takes his pills.
"Are you watching porn?" Al scoffs, clicking her fingers in front of his face when he continues to ignore her.
"I'm researching something," he speaks quietly, and Al knows that he's most likely looking into all of the crazy theories he has about the night that their Mom had died. Choosing to ignore him for the while, she retreads back to her own bed for now.
Once again, it didn't take long for Sam to fall asleep at the table, and after an hour of listening to her elder brother snore, Al decides to go and remove the laptop from underneath his face... It wouldn't be a good combination if Sam gets some kind of laptop heat burns on his face, now would it.
After she's carefully slices the machine out from underneath his cheek, Al notices just how dangerously hot Sam's skin actually feels... I mean, could the laptop really have heated him up that much? Having an idea she quickly hurries to the front desk of their motel, requesting a thermometer with a few lies about why she needs it.
When she comes back into the room Sam on sitting up in his chair again, looking slightly confused as to his whereabouts. Without saying anything Aliyah quickly places the thermometer into his mouth, before he has time to process or ask any questions about it.
"What're you doing?" Sam mumbles, with the thermometer still between his lips.
"Checking if you have a – Jesus Christ!" Al exclaims – loudly enough to make Sam flinch in surprise – removing the old fashioned temperature measurement tool from his mouth, to reveal some worrying results.
"Why would I have a Jesus Christ?" Sam remarks sarcastically, a smirk playing upon his lips, and Al smacks the back of his head.
"Apparently, Aspirin doesn't work on you," she exhales, showing Sam the reading on the small screen; it reads 102.5, a.k.a a fever temperature.
"Awesome," he coughs, standing up from his chair.
"Well, looks like I'm going grave robbing on my lonesome tonight!" Aliyah announces, placing the thermometer in the sink to wash it.
"No way, I'm coming with you." Sam snaps sternly, walking up to his sister.
Sam is quite a lot taller than Aliyah, so if there ever was a heated argument, Sam would always without a fail stand so close to her in attempt to tower over Aliyah and make her feel 'intimidated.'
"Okay, just 'cause I'm not in the mood to argue, plus you're way too close to me for my liking right now..." She takes a few steps backwards, before abruptly carrying on her statement, "but, after tonight we're not going on a job until you're better, and if you try and protest so help me or I will handcuff you to a piece of furniture, Winchester." Aliyah steps forwards again in order to poke his chest, before she turns away from him.
"I'm fine, I fell asleep on the laptop... The laptop was hot!" Sam makes dramatic hand gestures and uses emphasis on certain words, then throwing his hands up in protest, but Aliyah wasn't listening.
"Oh my god, will you quit being so stubborn for one minute?!" She raises her voice, storming out of the door before Sam can think of some other stupid lie to tell her.
Aliyah starts walking so fast that she doesn't really look where she's going, and she also ignores the stranger that she bumps into along the way. Not looking back to apologise, she soon finds herself halfway into town.
She spends the rest of the evening in town, just sitting in a cafe kind of people watching. Okay, it may seem kind of selfish – since her brother is sitting in a motel room nearby maybe or maybe not close to dying... But, sometimes they have a complicated sibling rivalry kind of relationship, you know?
Suddenly remembering the job that her and Sam were still working, Aliyah quickly hurries back to the dingy motel, as the skies begin to grow dark.
"Nice of you to return, the car is all ready to go." Sam grumbles, as Al walks in through the door – which is thankfully still attached to its hinges, after a certain somebody slammed it pretty hard a few hours earlier.
She doesn't really bother to glance at him, so they both head out to their car separately. "Nice to see that the laptop heat is still affecting you," Aliyah mumbles sarcastically, noticing how Sam isn't wearing a jacket even though it's practically close to freezing outside.
"Nice to see that you're still acting like a sarcastic asshole," Sam smiles back, just before they reach the graveyard.
"Shut up," she counteracts, as the pair exit the car to retrieve some salt guns, salt and what was needed to light a fire.
The procedure seems to all be going pretty well... until the spirit of Amy obviously realises what's going on – and whilst Aliyah is just about done with digging the last of the dirt up, her salt gun flies out from under her arm.
"Every god damn time," Aliyah sighs loudly, quickly hoisting herself out of the grave to where Sam was now being flung against a nearby tree.
Aliyah grabs Sam's gun from the floor where he was previously standing (she had made him stop digging after he started breathing funny, although he was still 'fine').
"Sam, do it!" Al shouts as loud as she can, over the sounds of the spirit screeching almost deafeningly – as she continues to shoot at the vengeful spirit.
Sam pulls himself from the ground as fast as he can, and he swoops the matches up into his hand. "Three o'clock, Sam!" His sister calls out, so that Sam can duck and she can shoot.
Finally he pours the gasoline over the body, salts it and then strikes the match alight – dropping it into the grave. Sam sirs down on the ground for a few seconds, feeling strangely out of breath.
"You okay?" Al asks, a hint of concern carrying along with her tone, as she offers him a hand to help him up.
"Perfectly fine, thanks." Sam quite rudely declines her offer, getting himself up.
"Alright, let's go then.. Mr. Perfectly Fine." Aliyah rolls her eyes at Sam, (something she does quite a lot to her brother) withdrawing her hand, and then they both head back to the car.