Support my writing! I'm a published (indie) author, too! Search for C.M. Adams on Amazon and grab a book or two. One is on special :) They're called Version 2.0, Origin of Kings, and Where the Teddy Bears Have Their Picnic (which started out as a fanfiction...)

Enjoy!

PS. This story is complete. Will post a chapter a day. 5 in all!

*~.~*

One day earlier...

"You gonna eat that?" Dean asked, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. They'd gotten take-out from a Chinese place up the road from their motel, and Sam looked like he was done with his kung pow moo shu what-the-crap-ever.

Sam raised a brow as he looked up from his computer screen at him. "It's got vegetables in it," he told him.

"So what? 'm still hungry." Dean grabbed the half-empty white container from in front of his brother. Sam snorted a breathy laugh, shaking his head as he looked back down at the screen. "You find us somethin'?" Dean asked with his mouth stuffed full of noodles.

After a short, disgusted look, he replied, "Yeah, actually. Maybe."

"What is it?" he stabbed his fork back into the container to retrieve far more than a mouthful of food.

"Ever hear of the Dozier School for Boys, down in Florida?"

Sam fully expected to see Dean shake his head and keep shoveling Chinese food into his mouth past capacity. That's how it usually went. Dean would say, "Nope," and Sam would tell him what it was.

"Yeah," Dean answered instead.

Sam had a mild look of disbelief wash over his face, stunned into silence for just a moment. "You have?"

"Yeah, Sam, I have."

"How? When?" he asked, as if demanding he prove it.

"One of Dad's empty threats," he replied. "When I was a kid, like twelve, maybe. Ya know, just hitting puberty and all. Dad said I was getting an attitude and he was gonna send me to Dozier. Had no idea what it meant. He told me to go look it up. Pretty effective tactic."

"He would never have sent you there," Sam said, flatly, almost angrily as if he needed to jump to Dean's defensive all these years later, against a man who'd been long dead.

"'Course not," he shrugged, chucking the empty container into the paper bag they'd brought the food back in. "But I didn't think about that at the time."

"You were always Dad's perfect kid," Sam shook his head in disbelief. "How could he have even said that to you? Even as a joke?"

Dozier's School for Boys in Marianna, Florida had been open since 1900. It was a correctional facility of sorts for boys who had committed even the most trivial of bad behavior, like truancy. Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued. On its grounds, there is a burial site littered with white pipe-crosses.

Dean shrugged. "Wasn't a big deal, man. It was just one of his bad nights, you know?"

"Drinking," he surmised.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Anyway, so what about this place?" he changed the subject.

Sam huffed out a breath and glanced at his screen for a moment. "School got shut down a couple years ago," he told him. "Archeologists have been given funding to start excavating the graves on the grounds so they can investigate all of the deaths."

"About time they shut that place down," Dean said. "Just thinking about it gives me the creeps."

"Really?"

"Kids were murdered there, dude. How can you not be creeped out by that?"

"I didn't say I wasn't."

"Anyway, so what's happening, now, that makes it a case for us?"

"Well," Sam started, "One of the archeologist's assistants was working late on the site, alone."

"That doesn't bode well."

"They found him the next morning, when they all came out to start up again. He was in the White House, dead."

"The White House...that's the one building where they took the white kids to beat them or whatever, right?"

"Yeah."

"So he was dead. How do you know some unruly ex-employee of the school didn't come by and kill him for finding something?"

"I don't," he shrugged. "But...I find it unlikely that any of those old croons had the strength to whip the guy to death, and get out of there without leaving a single stitch of evidence behind."

"Whip? Like as in with an actual whip" Dean raised his brows as Sam nodded. "That's definitely weird, but...not sure it's our kinda thing."

"I think it's weird enough that we should at least check it out," Sam implored. "From what I've been reading about this place, about the boys that actually made it out of there and talked about their time there, some really messed up stuff happened over the years. If those kids that died, died in the violent way some people are theorizing, there could be several vengeful spirits there."

"And the excavating could've been the thing that sorta woke them up," Dean thought out loud.

"Possibly," Sam agreed. "I mean, if that's what this is."

"Guess we'll find out soon enough. 'bout a ten hour drive from here, I think. We should head out."

"If you really wanna drive through the night."

"Florida's hot, dude. We'll get in before daylight, no problem. Get some shuteye, then head out to the school at sunset."

After a moment of considering it, Sam shrugged and nodded in agreement.

*~.~*

They found a little Bed & Breakfast not even two miles from the school, as all the others seemed to be booked up with people that were in town for the same thing. Well, maybe not the same thing, exactly. But they were there for the event going on at the school. Whether they were part of the excavating, media, documentary groups, or flat-out enthusiasts, and probably, now, even some conspiracy nuts over the murder, the fact was that they were all in the regular motels, and this place was all there was left. Really, it was better. It was closer. But most travelers had that stupid sky miles crap and hotel multi-stay bonus points, pretty much forcing them to stay at certain locations. Really, Sam and Dean had lucked out with this place.

Too bad that wasn't convincing enough for Dean.

"This place smells like an old lady," he'd complained.

"Better than some of the places we've stayed," Sam snorted. "Let's just get some sleep."

So they did. At least, they tried to. Four hours into some pretty deep slumber, Dean woke up. He didn't really know why, at first. He just kinda popped his eyes open up at the ceiling and tried to remember where the hell they were.

It was a small sound to the left of him, that pulled him straight into realization. His head snapped over to the bed where Sam still slept. Sunlight crept in through where the curtains didn't quite meet flush against the wall surrounding the window, lighting up the room just enough to see that Sam was in some kind of distress.

He was up out of bed, and side-sitting onto Sam's within the time it took to take another breath. Nightmares weren't a new thing for them. Normally, he'd just keep an eye on him and make sure to let him get through it on his own; wake him if it got to be too much, which really was just a habit from when Sam was still a kid. But there was something in the way his body was twisted, the sheen layer of sweat that seemed to cover him from head to tow, and the way his chest heaved in tiny bursts of sobs silenced only by unconsciousness, that made Dean's stomach clench in empathy.

"Sam," he said quietly, as he placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Sam whimpered, like the sobs had broken through a little. "Sammy, come on, wake up," he shook him a bit.

"Sorry...I'm sorry," he said in a weak, small voice, still asleep.

"Sam, come on, man," he tried to turn him onto his back, hoping the movement would pull him from the dream. It worked, but he hadn't expected him to scramble back up against the headboard like a cornered animal, shaking like one, too. "Dude! Sammy, you're okay, man!" he was on his knees on the bed, now, hands planting firmly on Sam's shoulders, trying to get him to focus on him. "It was just a dream."

Sam's breath came labored and quick, still caught up by the feeling of fear in the dream. But he met Dean's eyes and tried to calm himself down; tried to pull himself together, away from the strangeness of his own reaction. "Dean?"

"You with me?" After a moment of consideration, Sam nodded. "Dude, what the hell were you dreaming about?"

"I..." Sam swallowed, trying to understand it, himself. "I'm not exactly sure," he told him. "Feels like it wasn't even...I mean...It was like it wasn't me; like I wasn't me in the dream. I was someone else."

"Well whoever it was, they're still shaking, dude," he sat down facing him, the sides of their thighs touching as he continued to see and now feel the tremors still going through his brother.

Sam let loose a shaky breath, wrapping his arms around himself as if he could stop them with the action. "I still feel it."

"Feel what?"

"How scared he was," he replied. "Helpless."

Dean turned himself so he was sitting back against the headboard, and threw an arm around Sam's shoulders. "Was it a vision?" he asked with trepidation.

"No. I don't think so," he shook his head, leaning into him more than he wanted to let himself. "This was different. With visions, it was always like I was just watching. But this...I could feel it; the pain, the fear..." his body shook again, and Dean held him tighter.

"It was a dream, Sammy. It's okay."

Sam shook his head, but stayed silent, still absorbing every piece of comfort Dean had to offer in the moment. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on getting control of his heart beat, taking deliberate, slow breaths.

"You won't be sleeping anymore today, will you," Dean stated, not really asking a question. "It's okay," he glanced at the red, glowing numbers on the digital clock that sat on the nightstand in between the beds. "We got a good four hours in. We can function on that."

"You can go back to bed, Dean," Sam replied, yet didn't move at all from where he was plastered into his brother's side.

"No way, dude. I'm up, now."

"Sorry..."

"Shut up, bitch," he smirked. "Not your fault your brain works overtime."

"Still...it's like being a scared little kid. It's embarrassing."

"Hey, man, sometimes I miss when you were a scrawny little kid who actually needed me for stuff," he scruffed Sam's hair.

"Jerk," he replied, but it made him smile anyway...

Tbc...