There's awkward silence after I navigate us out of the neighborhood and back to the highway the easier way than Dean got in. It's so odd being in the front of the Impala. After we're on the main highway which promises a two and a half hour straight drive (through probably two with the way Dean drives) he has me pull an old shoe box out from under the seat which turns out to be full of cassette tapes.

"Wow, really?" I say, looking through them.

"What do you mean 'wow, really?'"

"I mean: Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Metallica. Is this Iron Maiden? Don't you have anything from this decade?" As I continue to shuffle through the tape cases I can't find anything to counter my hypothesis.

"You're in shotgun, Sammy," he says, passing several cars at high speed.

"And?"

"That means you shut your cake hole about the music and pass me Metallica."

"Fine. Fine." I open one of the Metallica tape cases and offer it to him so he can pull the tape out and jam it in the cassette player, "You know Sammy is what you call a twelve year old kid. I'm not twel-"

He turns the music up to what might well be full volume, "I can't hear you!"

I have to cover my ears. After a few moments he turns the music back down to a less head-splitting volume and the awkward silence.

I watch out of the window at the darkness rolling by and hope that the drumming of his fingers on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the music and him occasionally singing along to choruses will keep me awake. We'd only been asleep for a couple of hours when he broke in. I'm starting to doze when Dean clears his throat and startles me.

"You're liking this college thing then?"

"Yes, Dean. I am."

He shakes his head, and looks out the driver's side window for a moment, "You always were a weirdo."

"Thanks."

"Thanks?"

"Yeah. If you think I'm weird I'm doing something right."

"Wow, Sammy. Thanks."

"You're welcome." I snap.

Silence again.

She's pleading. I can tell she's trying to reach for me but for some reason she can't. I try to get to her, but then the flames. They buffet and throw me away, so hot, scorching at my flesh.

I jerk awake. Unfamiliar. Arm bashing against glass.

"You okay there, Sammy?"

Sammy again, "It's Sam. Please. Just Sam."

"You okay?" Dean amends.

The car is bumping into a gas station which looks as though it's fallen out of a Western horror movie. That's always a good sign for pending trouble. We stop at the first gas pump and Dean turns off the car but doesn't get out of the car. He's still expecting an answer.

"Yeah. No, I just forgot where I was. I haven't slept in the car in ages and I don't think ever up front."

Dean laughs, "If you're not happy with the promotion," he cocks his head towards the back seat which has my bag in it, but also some loose clothing of his and other random things piled up back there. I see a couple of mismatched shoes, some electrical cables.

"That's okay."

"Alright. I'm gonna pay for gas and get food. You want anything?"

I shrug, "I'm good."

"Don't change your mind now, because you're out of luck. I offered."

"Whatever."

He disappears and I find my cellphone. Based on the time we can't be that far away from the town. Signal strength is down to half what it normally is at school. Jess might be up by now. I hit call.

"Hey, you!" she says, "You're there already?"

"We stopped for gas. Looks like we're gonna be out in the sticks and signals pretty shitty already so I figured I'd check in now."

"Awwww," she teases, "and here I thought you just missed me already."

"I do."

"Good save, but hey you guys haven't killed each other yet, so that's good."

"I told you it'd be fine," I say, I'm about to say there's still time though but I hear her explaining to someone that I'm off with my prodigal brother, "Who're you ratting me out too?"

"Well, since I was all by myself I took myself out to breakfast," she says with a pouty tone, "and I ran into Brady and Corey."

"Ah, Brady survived the wicked witch, then?"

I hear the thunking of the gas pump going into the tank.

"Apparently," she says, "Unless he's some sort of mind-controlled puppet man now."

"Don't joke about that."

"Hey, Brady," she says, "Tell me something only we would know. Prove you're still you."

I hear some murmuring, and then loud laughter from Corey and Jess both.

"It's still Brady," she says, "and lighten up, being around your brother's got you super paranoid."

"Sorry, I'm just tired."

"And being around your brother has you super paranoid," she says, again, "Was your family in some weird cult or something?"

"No."

"Uh-huh," she says.

"Look, Jess. We're about done here at the station and we'll be on the road again. Plan is to check around for Dad and we probably won't get into a motel until later tonight. I'll call from the motel if signal's too bad, okay?"

"Alright," she says, "I love you."

"I love you too."

"I love you too," Dean says, getting into the car.

I pull a face at him.

"No, seriously," he says, "See look, despite you saying you didn't want anything I got you breakfast." He hands over a plastic bag loaded down with things and sets an open bottle of soda into the cup holder next to him.

"That's not breakfast." I point out surveying the contents.

"Sure it is."

"Dew, Doritos and Mars bars?"

"Yeah." He puts the car in gear and starts to pull out.

"How are you still alive?" I shake my head, going through the bag, "Oh, wait there are Twinkies too."

"Those are for lunch."

I give him another look.

"Well, more like mid-morning snack. I'm sure we can find some place to eat lunch."

"How did you pay for all this anyway?"

"Are you sure you want to ask me that, Mr. Future Lawyer?"

I was right. We pass a sign that says Jericho is only 7 miles away.

"Shit, you and Dad are doing the credit card scams aga—still?"

"Are you legally obligated to report us now or something?" he asks.

"I'm not a lawyer yet, and..." I sigh, "All I've done is pass the LSATs, and you're family, Dean."

"Oh, I am, am I?"

"Don't be like that." Change the subject, "What name's on the card anyway?"

"Why do you care?"

"If it's an alias I need to know what to call you."

"Oh, right. They sent us a pair this time. We applied as Bert Aframian and his son Hector." How do they even come up with these names?

"So, you're Hector, right?"

"Funny, Sammy, funny."

"I'm just asking..."

"How about we go back to shotgun shuts his cake hole," he pushes the tape out of the cassette deck and pushes it back in again, "besides it's not our fault if they send us the cards. They're the ones who should check better."

"Right..."

I sit back in the seat and wish I'd thought to grab a book to read before we left. I'm sure there are some things in the care, but I'm really not in the mood for something along the lines of a "History of Curses" or "Signs of Witches", "West Coast Hauntings: A History". I used to know "Top Ten Haunted Houses of America" backwards and forwards that's one of the tamer ones though, light on the entrails eating.

Dean slows the car down as we're approaching a fork in the road, one way goes across a bridge over a river.

"Check it out," he says.

There are a couple of police cars stopped nearby and the officers are poking around, one in particular seems despondent. I roll the window down as Dean goes into the glove compartment and pulls out a box and starts flipping through it.

Fake . Great.

"You can stay back. It's not like you have any," he says.

"I'll come with you. No telling what trouble you're going to get yourself in to."

"I've done this by myself many times."

"Uh-huh."

He pulls out a Marshall I.D, clambers out of the car and I follow. We walk up to the police officers who are on the bridge. They don't seem to have found any signs of fingerprints, or any physical evidence, and one is asking another if his daughter, Amy, was dating the guy, Troy, they're looking for or not and he says she was and is apparently putting up fliers around town—I can see where we'll be going next.

"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean asks, all nonchalant as we walk up.

"Who are you?" the one whose daughter is not dating the victim says to Dean.

Dean flips the badge out, "Federal Marshals. We need to ask you a few questions."

"Aren't you boys a little young to be Marshals?"

"Mighty nice of you to say that," Dean remarks, "but you did have another one just like this, right?"

"Yeah, that's right," he answers, "about a mile up the road, and there was another one before that."

"And you knew the victim?" I ask him.

"A town like ours everybody knows everybody," he replies.

Dean circles the victim's car, "Any connection between the victims other than they're all men?" he asks.

"Not as far as we can tell."

"What's the theory?" I ask him, joining Dean.

"Honestly?" he asks, "We don't know. Serial murder, kidnapping ring."

"Well, that's just the kind of crack police work I'd expect from you guys-"

Oh, way to piss off the locals. I step on his foot, "Thank you for your time, officers. We'll be on our way."

As we're leaving F.B.I agents are approaching with another officer, and in another genius move Dean nods at them calling them Mulder and Scully.

"What the Hell, man?" Dean demands as we're closer to the car.

"You're 'What the Hell'ing me?"

"Yeah, jamming on my foot like that!"

"Really? You were being an asshole."

"We're all alone on this! If we're going to find Dad we got to get to the bottom of this and they don't know what's going on."

"That's not their fault. We would be just as blind if Mom hadn't—you know. Going on our normal lives. I'd be in college. You might even too, or off in the military like Dad, or who knows?"

He makes a frustrated noise.

"We might need their help later, and now you've pissed them off."

"Well, you were a suck up if we do you can talk to them," he climbs in the car, "Let's go find the girl friend."

"I figured as much."

"Kiss-ass."

"Douche bag."