A/N: Welcome to the end of the world! Here, have a chapter to read while you await imminent destruction.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. All rights are retained by their rightful owners.

...

No one had ever seen this girl before, and the state police were at a loss to explain her motives for the killing spree.

They found her car parked in the toy store parking lot—where they found the first victim, the store employee, beaten to death with a blunt object, apparently wooden, since they found slivers in the man's forehead.

She broke into five local homes after that, slaughtering everyone she could find. The only survivor was a teenage daughter who had been staying in the guest room and barricaded herself inside. She swore up and down that the killer was sleepwalking, that the woman had her eyes closed the entire time and walked in short, jerky movements, like she was not fully in control of her limbs. But the police didn't listen to her; she was classified as an unreliable witness and treated for shock. No one could strangle twenty people in their sleep, especially not grown men, fathers, who were bigger than the woman.

But the strangest part was that, when the sun came up, she just crumpled to the ground, dead. There was no apparent cause of death, either, and the coroner ordered such a complete autopsy that it would have been impossible to miss anything. No heart attack, no tumors, nothing. She just stopped living all of a sudden, like all the life had gone out of her.

The newspapers (or what passed as papers in a place like this—they were really more like newsletters) reported it, of course; it was the biggest news their town had ever seen. But the police wanted to keep it quiet until they learned more.

" . . . and she had a wedding present for her best friend in the back of the car. It doesn't really strike me as serial killer behavior," Sam finished. He put down the newspaper clipping and looked over at his brother.

"Yeah, that and the fact that she dropped dead as soon as the sun came up. That seems like our kind of thing," Dean said. "Turn here?"

Sam glanced at the map underneath the newspaper he was holding. He nodded. "Yeah."

Dean turned off onto the dirt road, shaking his head. How anyone could get lost and find their way to this little podunk town was beyond him. (But then, he saw that the signs pointing to the interstate had been blown over, so it was a little more understandable, but still. How do you decide it's a good idea to drive through wooded hills in the middle of the night when a few more miles down the road you could find a good gas station and clear signs back to the highway?)

"It's not something we've seen before, Dean."

"You saying it's new?" Dean's entire face lit up. He'd been so sick of dealing with demons and plots and Hell and everything else lately that it would be nice to get some real adventure in there, a good mystery monster, a grateful girl . . . . Yeah, this was already shaping up to be a good case, and they hadn't even pulled out the FBI badges.

"Not sure," Sam said.

Dean just grinned even more. If Sammy was stumped, this was definitely worth a look.

They pulled into the local police station after driving for a good ten minutes. They'd already changed into the monkey suits on the way over, and Dean felt uncomfortable as usual. But the police looked even more displeased than he did; they had probably been hoping to keep this one in the local news and keep the feds out. That was usually the reaction they got, anyway.

A deputy who looked more like he was sixteen than thirty rushed up to greet them with freckles in his smile. "What brings you way out here, sirs?" he asked. He tried very hard to keep the accent out of his voice—he talked nice and slow so Dean could understand, but it was still there, hiding.

Sam held out his badge, and Dean followed suit. "We heard about the killings in this area," Sam said.

"Look, we've got it under control," the deputy said. "I don't see how it's a case for the—"

"Let 'em in," said the sheriff. He was standing in the doorway, holding some papers, and when he saw the Winchesters, he motioned them inside even before he interrupted his deputy.

The deputy looked like he wanted to argue, but he knew his place, and he wanted to keep his job. So he just waved Sam and Dean through, though Dean definitely caught the glare he was shooting their way.

The sheriff closed the door to his office behind them, and Sam started in with "We appreciate your helpfulness in this matter, sir—"

"Can it." The sheriff gave them both a hard look, eyeing their suits and their badges. Finally, he sat down at his desk and leaned forward. He grabbed a box of cigars and lit one up—he didn't offer the boys any. "You fellas looking into the killins?"

"Yes, sir," Sam said. He was doing that earnest face he always did when he wanted to seem like he was cooperating. Dean was just trying not to knock the guy's cigar out of his mouth. It smelled awful, like it had been made right there in the backwoods—which was not really out of the realm of possibilities.

"So y'all know it's not the first time this's happened?"

"No," Sam said. He leaned forward, right into the awful smoke. (Dean had to give his brother credit; he definitely had people skills down to an art.) "We had only heard about the girl."

The sheriff snorted. "'Course you have. Shows what sense you got, a couple of kids like you, just brought in from the turnip truck."

Dean felt like he should probably be offended, but he wasn't sure.

And then the sheriff slammed some files down. "Look, fellas, I'm letting you in on this not because I like you or nothin', but because every man I ever put on this case wound up dead or missin'. You put a stop to whatever's killin' my men, and I'll overlook the fact that you ain't FBI."

Dean and Sam both leaned forward, eyes wide. Sam even tried to talk their way out of it. "Of course we—"

"Uh-huh," the sheriff said. He didn't look convinced. He just shook his head. "We ain't had visitors from outside much, but I been 'round the beltway a couple 'o times. Can't fool an old man, boys. Suit's too new, and you ain't got the stuffy procedural air." Then, he laughed. "And don't go pulling a '67 Impala into my place and say you got it at the Bureau. I been raised by a mechanic my whole life and I ain't never seen a fed drive nothin' that classic. All wrapped up in the 'lectric cars."

Dean couldn't help but grin. That was his baby. "She's my dad's car," he said.

"Uh-huh," the sheriff said again. "I saw some action in my day. So don't think you can pull the wool over my eyes."

"We wouldn't dream of it," Sam said a little too quickly.

"Look, you boys look into this and come out alive, I ain't gonna tell nobody. You two die out there, damage is done, I say."

"That's very big of you, sir," Dean said quickly; he could tell Sam was getting ready to say something else, but he was just glad to get out of there while they could. There was Agent Hendrickson to consider, not to mention the time Dean would lose with Sam if they got help up there. He scooped up the files and excused himself and his brother before the sheriff could change his mind.

They were in the Impala in a matter of minutes, and Sam was examining the badges with a frown. "I don't get it," he said. "These usually work."

"Yeah, well, figures it'd be a redneck to bust us," Dean muttered. He threw the badges in the backseat. "It's a good thing whatever this is had him too scared to turn us in."

"Yeah, let's not push our luck."

They checked into the only motel in town—and, since they didn't get many visitors, it looked and smelled like something had died in it. Something probably had, come to think of it. Dean wrinkled his nose, and Sam just shook his head. They threw their bags down, and Dean pulled out some of the takeout they'd grabbed on the way over. At least it helped the smell.

Sam unpacked his stuff, watching Dean like he might explode. He'd been like that ever since Christmas, watching Dean's every move and trying to decide if he was going to die early. Dean knew time was running out, but Sam was going to extremes.

But Sam finished hanging up his clothes, put his stuff in drawers, all the usual routine. Dean took off his shoes and sat on the bed with his food. He'd unpack when he got around to it, and besides, he was hungry. He hadn't been able to eat much on the road over because the roads were twisty and bumpy, and he'd needed both hands on the steering wheel. Sam, on the other hand, had finished off all of his dinner and even a little of Deans. (The kid could eat everything—he was like a walking garbage disposal.)

Besides, Dean didn't usually unpack until at least the second day. If he was lucky, the case would only take them the better part of a day, and then he could just leave his stuff in the trunk. No use going to all that trouble, right?

Sam sat down at the table and started looking through the old case files the sheriff had given them. His frown deepened the more he looked at them. "This is weird," he said out loud.

"What's weird?"

"All the cases seem to be the same. Someone from outside the community shows up, and during the night, they go on killing sprees. They all die the next morning, and no one knows why."

"How often?"

"As often as they get lost tourists, which isn't very much," Sam said. "Maybe every few years? Not often enough to rouse any suspicions." He looked around at the paint falling off their walls. "From the looks of things, I don't think they get visitors often enough to raise eyebrows."

"Guess it makes the locals a little wary of outsiders, though," Dean said, thinking of the kid-deputy who tried to keep them out.

"Well, can you blame them? It's not like this place has a great track record with tourists."

"True," Dean admitted. He brought his food with him to look over Sam's shoulder at the police records. He made a face at the bloody crime scene photos, then frowned when he realized what they all had in common.

"Start at the toy store first?" Sam asked. He had seen it, too: the pictures that all started in the same place. "That's where all the killers hit first."

"Sure," Dean said through a mouthful of Chinese. Then, a thought occurred to him: "What was she doing pulled in there, anyway? All the other places she hit were homes with lots of money. I figure a run-down store in a place like this doesn't have much in the cash box."

Sam nodded his agreement, and they were out of the smelly motel room as soon as Dean shoveled the last of his food into his mouth. (Now the place smelled like orange chicken, but that was a better smell than mold and death any day.)

Dean grabbed a car air freshener from the front desk of the motel on his way out the door—not for the Impala, of course, but for their room. Things like that didn't really bother him, but the place was practically curling Sam's hair, and he didn't want the people they interviewed thinking Sam was any more of a girl than they usually did.