Act 2 - In Which There's An Adorably Ominous Development

Sam knew he wasn't really being watched. But his logical side was clashing with the feeling that yeah, he was being watched. There was no audience! This was some weird spell or hallucination or something. Except he got this feeling between his shoulder blades that he was being watched, and it was awful. His body seemed to be recalling his Lucifer hallucinations, and was dumping way too much cortisol into his system. He felt tense, on edge, and no attempt to mentally talk himself out of it was working.

Dean was right. He should just start drinking.

Coffee made him feel more alert, but didn't help the tension at all, so he tried to focus and read up on the other cases to distract himself. He had yet to find any mention of occult symbols at any of the other scenes, but that didn't mean they weren't there, it just meant that nobody noticed them.

Autumn lived in an apartment building that looked startlingly industrial, but Sam imagined a reporter for a small town paper wasn't exactly rolling in money. While Sam was going through the glove box, picking out the fake badges they'd use this time, Dean made a quick call. "Hey Cas," he said. "If you think you're up to it, things have gotten really weird here in Pine Valley, Wisconsin, and we might be able to use some angelic assistance" For some reason, this made the audience awww.

This also told Sam that the audience was getting to Dean too, because he'd been reluctant to get Cas involved in anything, afraid he was too fragile.

"Did you hear his new message?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded, slipping the phone back into his pocket. The new message on Cas's voice was "See, Dean, I learned how to do this correctly". It was funny, sure, but it was also weirdly endearing. Who knew an ancient cosmic being would have so much trouble with voice mail? "Should we tell him he hasn't actually, or just let it go?"

"Let it go. He's been through a lot."

"Haven't we all?" For some reason, this prompted laughter from the crowd.

Sam handed Dean a badge, and he glanced at it to see what name he was using before sliding it in his pocket and getting out of the car.

Sam was kind of hoping that once they started interacting with other people, this would fade away. When Dean knocked on Autumn's door, there were a few faint titters, but Sam took that as a good sign. They were getting quieter.

The door opened a crack, revealing a still engaged chain lock, and a single brown eye gazing at them warily. "Yes?"

Both he and Dean held up their bades, and Dean said, "Agents Roeser and Bloom, ma'am, FBI." The laughter of the crowd seemed louder now. Damn it! "We were hoping to talk to you about the Amy Wildebrand case."

Her single eye widened. "Since when is that a federal case?"

"Since we think it connects to a murder case in Colorado," Dean said. He was such a smooth liar it was honestly a little distressing if you thought about it. Sam tried not to.

Autumn shut the door to disengage the lock, then opened it wider. "I was thinking that that wasn't a normal crime scene," she admitted.

They stepped inside her apartment, which was relatively neat, but cluttered with books on almost every available flat surface. It reminded Sam of his room in the bunker, when he started slacking off. Once inside, Dean sneezed, and before Sam could ask if she had a cat, a small black feline came out of nowhere and rubbed up against Dean's leg. He sneezed again, which made the audience laugh. "He's allergic to cats," Sam said. More laughter.

Autumn scooped up the cat with one arm, and carried it to another room. "Oh, I'm sorry. Hermione is very friendly."

Dean rolled his eyes and mouthed "Hermione?" as the crowd laughed.

As Autumn shut the door of the room she put her cat in, her brow furrowed, and she glanced towards the far wall. "Sorry, I think one of my neighbors has their TV on too loud. The walls in this place are like paper."

The crowd laughed again. Sam heard nothing beyond them. Did that mean she was hearing the crowd too? Dean shot him a brief, alarmed glance, suggesting he was wondering the same thing.

They took a seat on her sofa, and turned down the offer of drinks as Dean tried to get his sneezing under control. The audience laughed again, and Autumn looked towards the far wall with a frown. Goddamn, she was hearing it. "So, I noticed in your article you mentioned that there were occult symbols at the crime scene," Sam said, deciding to get this over with as quickly as possible. What if she realized the laugh track wasn't coming from a neighbor's TV? What happened then? "I was wondering what kind of symbols."

"Umm, it's a little hard to explain ... I may have something that could show you, but I need you to tell me you're not going to arrest me first."

Dean, finally done with his sneezing fit, chimed in. "As long as you didn't kill Ms. Wildebrand, we're not arresting you." Laughs from the audience again. How the fuck was that funny?

Autumn nodded, and got up to get something in her coat pocket. The coat was hanging on a rack near the door. "I know we're not supposed to take photos of active crime scenes, but this was so weird I thought I should take a pic to document it properly. As it was, the editor cut my description from the finished article."

She came back with her phone. She sat back in her chair and seemed to page through some files on her cell before handing her phone to Sam. "I took five photos. I know I shouldn't have, but ... it was so weird. Can I ask what happened in Colorado?"

"We can't give away too many details, but we're looking into a cult that may be tied to a murder spree across several states." Dean said.

"A cult?" Autumn replied, buying it. People happily bought cults as being responsible for everything. Never mind that most cults were more of a risk to your wallet than anything else, The idea of murderous cults was so appealing, you could blame dozens of things on them, and almost no one would doubt you. They were a strange boon for hunters. "What's it called?"

"The Society of the Blind Eye," Dean said, so smoothly Sam knew he hadn't made it up. It was a reference to something. What?

"Ooh, creepy."

Dean continued spinning out a bit more bullshit, with background laughter, while Sam looked at the photos on Autumn's phone. The first photo was nearly indecipherable, just ominous shadows and a splash of blood, but the next showed some kind of brass bowl with ashes in it, and marks on a slab of concrete that looked both vaguely familiar and completely out of place. Sam took the time to send the good photos to his own phone. After giving Autumn her cell back, he caught Dean's eye, and gave him the slightest nod. They had what they needed.

They thanked her for her help, and claimed they'd be in touch if they had further questions. Autumn once again apologized for the noise as the crowd laughed, and they assured her it was no problem.

On the way back to the car, Dean exclaimed, "This is a big bleep-ing problem." Which elicited expected laughter from the hyperactive crowd. "What does it mean that she can hear it too?"

Sam both shook his head and shrugged. He was doing his damnedest to not start hyperventilating. Holy shit, he would have rather fought leviathans again rather than have to handle this. "I don't know. I guess it removes hallucinations from the cause box. Unless the hallucination is contagious somehow."

Dean gave him a flat stare over the roof of the Impala. It was a look of anger, but knowing Dean as he did, this was his version of panicking. He'd sublimated panic into rage since he was a kid. Dad really hammered home the message that he had to always do something. Panicking by itself was simply not allowed. "Are you saying we can spread this to other people?" The audience found that hilarious.

"Dude, I have no clue. I don't know where to start with this. We'll just have to work it like a normal case and hope we find answers before it drives us crazy."

"You mean more crazy, don't you?" Dean replied, getting in the car and slamming the door. The audience was really amused.

Sam got in, and called up the photos on his phone, handing it over for Dean to take a look. "Doesn't this look like the residue of a summoning ritual to you?"

Dean studied the photos, seemingly jumping back between the second and third ones a couple of times. "Yeah, but what's with the writing? Is that graffiti? It looks like someone trying to write Enochian with hand tremors on a storm tossed ship." The audience seemed to find Dean a laugh riot. Sam really didn't know what to make of that.

"By the way, Society of the Blind Eye? What the hell's that?"

"It's from Gravity Falls. Don't tell me you haven't seen it. It's great."

Sam sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Are you solely watching cartoons nowadays?"

"Hey, it's a modern art form," Dean said, to raucous laughter. He held up the phone. "Should we send it to Cas?"

"It's not Enochian. I think it might be an old demon language, but that's not a field I'm well versed in. I think we might need to call in an expert."

"An expert? If not Cas ..." Dean figured it out. He scowled, brows furrowing. "No."

"Look, I know the two of you aren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment, but he always takes your calls." Sam almost added a catty remark about the summer jaunt when Dean was a demon, but decided to skip it. No need to entertain the audience further.

Dean hissed a sigh through his teeth, tightening his hand on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. "Oh, come on. Cas can probably read it."

"Maybe. Maybe not. You know this is easier."

"Goddamn it," Dean said, tossing him back his phone. "Send me the third photo." He reached in his pocket to retrieve his own cell, as the invisible crowd laughed. "I'm not calling him. I'll send him a text."

Again, the urge to make a joke about a bad break up rested at the forefront of his mind, but he felt mature resisting the urge. It made Sam feel a bit more in control in this maddening state.

Sam glanced over as Dean texted the photo to Crowley, asking only, "Do you recognize this?" Sam figured that was good enough.

Once Dean put his phone back, some of his anger seemed to have abated. "So it looks like we're dealing with some weird ass demon?"

"I didn't say that," Sam replied, to more laughter. "I said it looks like some sort of summoning. But it clearly didn't go by the book, or Amy wouldn't be dead."

"Or maybe she was the chosen victim at the site," Dean said. Why did the audience laugh at that? That was in no way funny. A woman died! "We have no evidence she was a willing participant in whatever this was. I mean, she didn't die like a typical sacrifice, but it doesn't mean she wasn't one."

Amy had been almost completely desanguinated - all her blood was removed. Only a tiny portion of it was found at the scene. She didn't have a vampire bite that might explain it, she only had a single, tiny puncture wound in the back of her neck. From the records Sam was able to hack, the coroner assumed that was how she was drained of blood, but admitted it would be a bizarre way to do it, and must have taken forever. Which was a chilling detail that really wasn't necessary. "None of this makes much sense. We just have to sift through the clues until we can figure out what's going on." Again, the crowd laughed. Where was the joke? Sam knew he couldn't think about this, or it would drive him crazy long before he managed to figure out a goddamn thing.

Dean sighed and nodded. "So, next stop - Amy's house or the crime scene?"

"Let's try Amy's first. We can probably guess how much the crime scene's been disturbed." It was at a cemetery, and if there were goth kids around, it was probably covered in candle wax and perfectly useless by now.

But going to Amy's house had some obvious challenges. If other people could hear their audience, how did they excuse that? Their neighbors weren't seperated by a wall. There was no way to mistake the noise for anything else. What were they supposed to do - hope someone had a loud TV on in the house? Did they continue to pretend they heard nothing, and make the parents think they were losing their minds? There were no good options here. "On second thought, maybe we should start with the crime scene." The audience tittered.

"Yeah. I was wondering how we were gonna deal with the crowd noise following us around. God, this is a pain in the ass." The audience laughed as Sam nodded. It was. It was simply another complication in their investigation. Great.

Sam had honestly lost track of all the graveyards he had visited. A few thousand maybe? The weird thing was they all looked roughly the same. There were some differences - the wealthier ones were generally as closely groomed as golf courses, while the poorer ones always looked like they were a day away from being overrun with weeds and human garbage. This graveyard was somewhere in between, slightly overgrown from general neglect. That happened a lot in smaller towns. No one was dying - no pun intended - to look after the dead. It didn't pay super well, and was a winning combination of boring and grisly. Oftentimes, city funds were only set aside for groundskeepers, so at least it had the general appearance of being taken care of. Was this verging on an old man rant? It felt like it, and it made Sam feel very old and very tired.

There was a single mausoleum in the graveyard, a creepy old concrete slab of a thing that had turned brownish with age, and was close to a scraggly stand of trees. It was where Amy's body was found, between those two things.

Whatever blood had been splashed on the masoleum was now gone, revealing a clean patch of concrete that stood out garishly from the rest of its muddy facade. Someone had left flowers, and there were the burned down stubs of candles, but they looked more Catholic than Satanic. Dean gave it a cursory glance, and asked, "How old was she again?"

"Twenty."

He sighed. "Goddamn it." The audience laughed at this too. Why?

Dean led the way into the stand of trees, which was too small to call much of anything. He'd broken out his flashlight, but it was hardly needed. They both looked around for anything out of place or weird, but so far all Sam had found was cigarette butts, condoms, and a beer can. Stay classy, humans.

"What the f-beep is that?" Dean exclaimed, eliciting a huge laugh from the crowd. He had his flashlight aimed up in one of the bigger trees. Sam went over and took a look at what he found.

On a branch about eight feet from the ground, there was a tableau of squirrels and birds, clearly dead and clearly posed, with a stick between the two squirrels, and various birds lined up behind them, eight in all. While dead, there were no obvious signs of violence. They were simply dead, and someone took the immense amount of time to somehow line them up and keep them on the branch. "What are they doing?" Sam wondered, cocking his head to see it from a better angle. The crowd found this funny.

"Tug of war, I think," Dean replied, also to laughter. "I'm thinking if our sick f-beep monster isn't bad enough, he thinks he's funny too. God, they're the worst."

Was there a possibility this wasn't done by whatever was summoned? Considering its hidden placement, and how difficult this would be to accomplish, Sam didn't think so. If someone fancied themselves a taxidermist Banksy, it would have been somewhere more visible. "Maybe that's why we're being haunted by a laugh track. He thinks this is hilarious." The audience reacted like they thought it was.

Great. They were hunting a monster who thought they were a comedian. Maybe trickster wasn't off the suspect list after all.