Title: Sasquatches and Spider Webs
Author: Ria
Disclaimer/Warnings: See Chapter One
A/N: HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL REVIEWERS! I greatly appreciate the feedback. Thank you to my new followers out there also, glad you're interested enough to tag along! I'd like to also give a shout out to Disasteriffic Kaz, it was reading her stories that inspired me to start writing again, so if you haven't read her work, I highly recommend it!
Chapter Three: It's Bugs
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The Impala rumbled down as Dean threw his baby into park, Def Leopard piercing the peaceful atmosphere of the immediate area. At about 7:00 p.m., the dusty parking lot next to the lake was nearly abandoned — the only other vehicle present was beat up station wagon sitting a few spaces away. The music died with the engine as the boys stepped out of the car and walked around to the back. Sam laid the park map out on the trunk lid.
"Okay, so the marks I've placed along certain trails are where evidence has been found for some of the missing people — mostly personal belongings like camping gear, cell phones, or various loose objects that may have been on their person when abducted. There are a few different paths we need to hit. I figure we can take these two first, while we still have some light. Then we can circle back to this trail which intersects the path George likely would have taken from the trailer. We should be sure to get over that way fairly early — scope out the area before the Sasquatches start moving that way, if they even show."
"Sam, they'll show. She said they come almost every morning."
"Right, and I saw that same woman years ago on some Monster-type documentary with the same story. The crew camped out a couple days and got nothing." Sam sighed. He clearly felt that believing anything they'd heard today was pointless, and they should be focusing on other possibilities. As it was, they were about to go tramping through the woods blind, and that was not okay with him. "Maybe we should wait until morning — get an early start, check out the Sasquatches at the Yeske's place, and survey the forest when we have more daylight time."
"Awe, whats the matter Sammy, scared of the dark?"
"You know I'm not. I just think we need to be prepared before charging into whatever is happening out there." Sam exclaimed, defending his thoughts about the situation. It had been a long, hot day, and after an irritating afternoon, he did not want to half-ass this investigation and screw up the job.
"We don't have much extra time here Sam. In case you haven't noticed geek boy, there is a pattern here, and the end of the month is approaching fast. That means one more person is about to disappear, and I'm not going to sit on my ass and wait." Dean responded, the conversation growing more heated.
"We don't know what's out there Dean — it could be anything — and that means we also don't know how to kill it. There's no way we can carry the entire contents of the trunk out into the forest."
"Then we'll take the basics and find out what works. If we fail tonight, we come back tomorrow and try again. End of story, Sam. Now lets do this." Dean threw up the trunk lid, knocking the map down into the dirt. He removed his favorite colt, machete, silver knife, and a flask of holy water from the hidden compartment and gestured for Sam to follow his actions.
Sam grabbed a sawed-off, an old hunting knife, the other small silver blade, and another flask of holy water. He also shoved a handful of salt rounds and silver bullets into his jean pockets. "Make sure you grab a bottle of regular water too; you don't want to dehydrate."
Dean nodded, slammed the trunk shut and continued, "While there's still some light, we should split up. We'll each take one of the shorter trails — each of those only had 1-2 marks — and that will give us the rest of the night to follow the longer trail back up to the Yeske's. This is where most of the recorded disappearances happened, so if we run into anything, it will probably be back that way."
"We should really stick together for this Dean, especially since we don't know…"
"Dammit Sam, shut up. We're doing this the fastest way possible. I'm not letting another tourist disappear because we wasted time," Dean growled at his brother. Sam wasn't completely surprised by the outburst, but it dashed any hopes he had of trying to talk some sense into Dean.
"Fine. You take trail 'C' and I'll grab trail 'A.' Each trail is actually longer than it looks on the map, so it will probably take a couple hours to make it to the end and back. It'll be dark by the time we make it back here, so be careful. If we want to be back at the Yeske's by 3 or 4 a.m., we should aim to be back here by midnight. We'll meet at the car before starting on trail 'B' since this is where most of the victims were taken. Is that plan okay with you, Sergeant?"
Dean smirked at the title, and even though he thought Sam was being a bitch about the situation, it helped to alleviate some of the tension. Although still unhappy with his brother's decision, Sam didn't feel like pushing the point any further. Dean's mind was made up and arguing would just lead to more of a headache than the heat was already causing.
Sam shoved his sawed-off into the back waistband of his jeans, tucking the back of his shirts over it, and headed toward their designated trail 'A.' "See you back at the car around midnight," He yelled over his shoulder, and then mumbled, "If we're not dead."
"Be careful out there." Dean called back, knowing if trouble found them it would most likely stumble on his little brother first.
Sam was almost to the opening for the trail when he heard a sharp twig snap toward his right. The area was thick with foliage. He paused a moment, listening for another sound. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Dean had also heard the noise and was now on alert, staring at the bushes near Sam.
After a tense minute or so, the normal ambience of the forest returned and Sam relaxed — probably just some of the harmless local wildlife. He took another step toward the trail when something large barreled out of the leaves with a crash, nearly taking them both to the ground. Sam maintained his balance and fell into a fighting stance, hunting knife in hand.
Dean raced over, gun in one hand, fake ID in the other. When the commotion stopped he surveyed what they were dealing with — it appeared to be human.
"What gives? Watch where you're going!" the stranger snapped at Sam while re-shouldering his black duffel and grabbing the tackle box he dropped. He came up from the crouch to full height, almost as tall as Sam but much less by way of muscle mass. He was lanky with spiky black hair and dark-rimmed, square glasses.
Dean flipped open his knockoff badge while maintaining a precautionary distance. "Take it easy there, kid. What's your rush?"
"I'm late." He barked, "and I'm pretty sure I'm older than you, kid. What are you guys doing out here anyway? Haven't been too many people around lately."
"That's why we're here. We're rangers with the Texas State Wildlife Commission, investigating the disappearances." Sam said calmly, and sheathed away his weapon.
"There's no such department. I'm an ecology grad student at UT Dallas, and I've never heard of you." The guy argued.
"New department. Now, what we're really interested in is who you are and why you're out here." Dean still had his colt in hand, and even though he had lowered it, the guy eyed it warily and lost some of the attitude.
"Name's Kelvin Marklein. I'm doing research for my thesis, an entomology project."
"What, like trees?"
"Its bugs, Dean." Sam corrected in a hushed voice.
"What kind of ranger doesn't know that?" Kelvin sneered; it was clearly a rhetorical question.
"Doesn't matter what you study. You're out here a lot?" Dean proceeded with the interrogation.
"Nearly every day."
"Ever see anything odd?" Sam cut in, "Like something unexplainable or maybe an unidentified species?"
Kelvin gave him a curious look before responding. "Nope, just the usual." He answered quickly and continued, "If you ask me, these people were just idiots, like you two — went hiking and camping without taking proper preparations."
"What would they have needed to be prepared for exactly?" Dean prodded.
"You know, basic stuff like a first aid kit, compass, water… not to mention knowing what the local wildlife is capable of — deadly bug bites, poisonous plants, carnivores. They could have fallen prey to any number of things out here and not been found; its a large area."
"Most of the missing people were locals or outdoors enthusiasts. How could they have not been prepared?" Sam countered.
Kelvin gave Sam another bizarre look and ignored his question, "Like I said guys, I'm out here nearly every day and always make it out, so they had to have screwed up in some way."
Sam shot a look over to Dean that clearly reflected his distrust of Kelvin. "Kel, you said you were from UT right?" The student nodded at Dean, "Do you happen to know Mira Watson? She went missing out here about a month ago."
"Yeah I knew her. She was in the undergrad Bio program. I TA for some of the prerequisite courses."
"Knew, as in past tense? There's no evidence that she's dead yet." Sam pointed out Kelvin's choice of words, hoping to rattle out any information he might be holding back.
"She's been missing for a month; they say its unlikely to recover a missing person alive after 72 hours. By 30 days, out here it's unlikely you'll even find a corpse — lots of scavengers." Kelvin glanced over to his dusty station wagon, "now if you'll excuse me, like I said before, I'm in a hurry."
Sam reached into his pocket for one of their generic contact cards and handed it off to Kelvin, "You hear or see anything suspicious, give me a call. I'm Sam Livgren and he's Dean Walsh. Our department is very interested in potential new species."
"Will do rangers." Kelvin almost snarled at the card before shoving it into his pocket. He took wide, rushed strides to the car and peeled away down the gravel road toward the gates.
"It just me of does that guy seem uber suspicious?" Dean commented, more thinking out loud than asking.
"He screams closet ax-murderer. Maybe we are just looking for a person. This could be less our kinda thing and more a case for the cops." Sam added. Some of the looks Kelvin had given him were really unnerving.
"Don't knock the Big Foot theory yet, Samantha. We still need to have breakfast at Tiffany's."
"Her name is Becky." Sam rolled his eyes, refusing to allow his brother any satisfaction from the horrible pun.
"Whatever… but you gotta feel a little less antsy about what might lurking in the woods after talking to psycho. He's probably behind all this. We just gotta find some proof, stop the disappearances, and we'll be back on the road in no time."
"Yeah, but is it ever that easy?" Sam asked, eyes roaming off down the trail.
Dean headed back toward his path. "We can hope. Let's just get this done."
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Thanks for reading, please review... And in chapter 4, as predicted by HeartlessBytchhakaHelenBach1 , everything goes to Hell.
