Disclaimer: Don't own the boys, wish I did though! Ha!

This series takes place in the first season sometime between the episodes, "Scarecrow" and "The Benders". Therefore, the Winchester boys are still out searching for Papa Winchester (I mean John) and the thing that killed their mother. Please keep this in mind!!

Also, this particular story is also posted on Quizilla… that is mine. Just incase some people find this one and think I'm stealing.

Anyway, have fun, reviews & feedback comments are always welcome!!

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A day later; somewhere outside of Missouri.

A smokey bar filled with a couple bikers, truckers and stale sandwiches played host to a make-shift poker game. Bent cards, highly circulated and mistreated bills and even worse players occupied the small bar table in the middle of the bustling goings on of a regular trucker bad around the group of five men. The pot placed – heaping -- in the middle of the wobbly surface consisted of at least $600 and three, two dollar coupons, one for an IHOP and the other two from some unknown restaurant most of the players had never heard of. Each however, played greedily for it, eyeing it as often as they held a supposedly winning hand and from the looks of things, the men that occupied the table had been playing for some time. The number of empty beer glasses scattered around the players could attest to that much if not anything else.

"Well, gentlemen," the youngest of the players started, turning his cards face down on the table as he stood and fixed his worn brown leather jacket with a smug gesture. "I'd hate to take your money and leave, but it's getting late, the little lady wants me home, and it had to happen sometime..."

Grabbing the bills off the table and pocketing the coupons swiftly, the man was quick to head for the door, abandoning the inner workings of a drunk's haven. Pushing open the creaky bar door and quick-stepping down the front stairs, the gravel of the parking lot crunched under his feet in a satisfactory way as he made his way to his car. As the door of the bar swung closed behind him, the blaring biker music became muffled to the man's ears, now that a door separated him from the dingy establishment he counted the wad of bills happily, chuckling to himself.

"Six hundred, and five, even…" the man sighed gleefully while he approached an old, black Chevy Impala that sat parked far enough away from the dingy bar. Sloshing through a puddle, the man crunched up to the driver's side, opening the door with a squeak of the hinges and climbed into the car, closing it again with the same squeak and a slight slam before fixing his jacket again. Shoving the money unceremoniously into a pocket on the inside of his jacket, the man slowly looked over to the passenger seat, an eyebrow raised.

"How's the research coming along there, Sammy?" he questioned after a moment of looking at the person who occupied the seat, eyeing the silver laptop positioned on the passenger's lap momentarily. The white glow of the screen lit up certain parts of the passenger's face and clearly displayed how tired the man sitting aside the gambler actually was.

"I've been looking through a couple interesting things in the newspaper from this morning, but there's this article about a homicide and a suicide in Salem, Massachusetts that I keep coming back to," Sam echoed in reply, momentarily looking up at the other man, who just so happened to be his brother.

"Dude, people get depressed, kill themselves. It happens..." the man started with a shrug, "life is just crap sometimes. People deal in their own way, this isn't our thing…"

"Not like this Dean," Sam retorted, folding the screen of the laptop down and picking up a section of newspaper on the black leather bench seat in beside him. Handing the section to his brother as he spoke, Sam cleared his throat as if ready to recite a speech. "Daughter comes home for dinner with the family, goes out to the garage, and finds her dad decapitated by a piece of sheet metal. Police get there on the report of the dad and find her mom, Claire Benson, hung in the living room. They end up writing the mom off as a suicide, and with no evidence of murder, forced entry or foul play, they write off the dad as a household accident."

"Maybe they just pissed off the wrong people," Dean replied with a slight scoff, taking the paper in hand and scanning the article quickly with a ruffle. "I hear the mob still get their hits in."

"Yeah, but why only two, Dean? Why only the parents and not the daughter?" Sam interjected meaningfully, stealing back the paper swiftly, impatiently.

"Alright, fine. Let's say this is our kind of thing… pissing off the wrong people might single you out for a deadly rampage. Conjured or not." Dean muttered again, yanking the article back and flipping to the next page where the article continued. "Or it could just be a hoax, an insurance scam or something... Hell the daughter would get quite the pretty penny, even if she couldn't collect off the suicide."

"It could be a hoax," Sam repeated, contemplating the thought, handing Dean the benefit of the doubt if only for a moment, "or it could be the truth; the real deal. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing we've seen…"

There was a moment of prolonged silence in the car before anyone spoke up.

"We're putting off Delaware than, huh?" Dean questioned, folding up the paper finally and tossing it to the seat again before fishing the keys for the car from his coat pocket. Mashing the jingling keys into the ignition and turning it sharply, the engine roaring to life and began to purr afterwards, a sound that was absolute music to Dean's trained ears.

"I think we should at least check into it," Sam confirmed, glancing at his watch momentarily and blinking to clarify his perception which lack of sleep had sadly deprived him of. "From here it's what, seventeen hours?"

"We can get there in fifteen. Gee Sammy, sometimes I think you forget who you're driving with," Dean shook his head, glancing over at Sam, a smirk clearly etched into his features before he looked away to put the car in reverse. Quickly shifting the car into drive thereafter, the Impala tore out of the gravel parking lot and with a rumble of the Chevy's engine peeled onto the interstate.

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Almost a day later; the 'La Luna' motel. Salem, MA.

"The obituary in the paper says the funeral is tomorrow, we could probably slip in during the reception. Start asking around about the family, find the daughter, ask her about what she saw." Dean contemplated aloud, dropping a duffle bag filled with his belongings --which were mostly clothes, save for the few guns he had brought with him from the car and hidden -- onto a musty old lounge-like couch that sat, squished onto one of the far walls of the small room.

Sam and Dean had arrived at the hotel in less time than either of them had expected, it had only taken them thirteen and a half hours to get into Massachusetts. The last half hour was dedicated strictly to passing through Boston in order to reach the outskirts of Salem, where they located the closest motel. In most cases, the motels were always the cheapest ones, this one was no exception… walking into the room felt like stepping into a ripple in time leading all the way back to a horrible time in the 70s when orange and yellow were the 'in' colours.

The La Luna motel.

Checking in and paying the gruff, sleep deprived and unhygienic looking man at the front counter with the credit card of a one 'Darren Faulds,' the brothers wasted no time in getting to their room. Even between the driving shifts -- upon which one would sleep while the other drove -- the journey to Salem was nothing but tiring; rest on their minds as soon as they pulled into the dingy motel's parking.

"And our cover is what?" Sam questioned incredulously, doing much the same with his bag as he entered the room and shut to door behind himself. Passing a table that played host to a well out-dated, plastic covered lamp, Sam flicked it on and placed the bag which held his laptop in it, on it. The lamp was orange as was the rest of the appliances and furniture in the room, but it still worked well, as if it was new, shedding light throughout the room and dispelling the darkness that encroached from outside.

"Look Sam, all I'm saying is, we can look through Dad's journal all we want, but it's not going to help us until we get some facts. Find out what exactly is happening here." Dean reasoned, walking to the farthest bed and beginning to turn down the covers, ready to call it quits for the night without so much as another thought on his theory.

A leather bound, bulging and aged book with jumbled entries and articles collected for the better part of twenty-two years and stuck carelessly onto blank spaces of the pages comprised half of 'Dad's Journal.' The other half of the book was comprised completely of self notes and unanswered questions, naval coordinates and local legends scribbled hastily by John Winchester himself. It was and had been a help with anything and everything Dean and Sam had faced thus far: Curses, vengeful spirits, wendigos; the normal things for them, the daily life. Sam knew Dean was right, however; even if he didn't want to admit it, there was no point in searching for something they couldn't identify. It was a waste of perfectly good resources.

"We might have a bit of a hard time talking to anyone from the immediate family. Especially after the funeral," Sam pointed out, an opinion which received a somewhat acknowledged grunt from Dean who had slipped under the forest green covers already. Reaching over and placing his cell phone on the bedside table before rolling over again, Dean groaned; already his shirt lie abandoned at the bottom of the bed along with his pants, clunky boots and coat which were strewn in different locations on his side of the room.

"I'm working on it," Dean muttered after a moment of silence, shifting his head on the pillow, his brow furrowed in annoyance.

Rolling his eyes and scoffing, Sam paced over to the bed closest to where he stood, and began getting ready to turn in as well. As bad as the motel looked, the bed seemed far too comfortable to resist for much longer, his heavy eyes pushing his desire for sleep further up his list of priorities. Stifling a yawn, Sam dug the journal out of the duffle bag of clothes he carried, weighing it in his hand for a moment before glancing at the bed seriously.

"Hey, college boy, lights out." Dean grumbled from the far bed, his voice muffled, his back presented to Sam without much thought.

A few moments later, Sam had made up his mind and the leather bound journal sat beside Dean's cell on the nightstand. Settling under the forest green covers that greatly contrasted the peach carpet running throughout the entire room, Sam sighed, the bed felt good under his tired muscles, aching body. As nice as it was, the Impala was not the best sleeping quarters, especially with the engine's noise.

"You're seriously thinking about a plan?" Sam muttered; worry a slight undertone in his voice as he spoke.

"Shut up, Sam. I'm thinking." Dean growled impatiently, pulling the covers up higher on himself and readjusting the pillow under his head.

Giving a small, tired chuckle, Sam rolled away from Dean and reached up flicking off the light switch that resided on the wall within arms length of his bed.