Chapter 3: The New Job

"Curiosity is not a sin . . . but we should exercise caution with our curiosity." - The Goblet of Fire

Berwyn, Pennsylvania

"Well, here we are," Dean said, pushing open the door with a grand sweeping gesture. "Home sweet home."

The motel room in front of them was just like any other crappy motel room they had ever stayed in: cheap but made to look fancier than it actually was. The beds were covered in deep red striped quilts folded over the pillows. The carpet and the lampshades were the same shade of red and the wallpaper was a texture reminiscent of bark. A table with a few chairs were stuffed into one corner and another door led off to the bathroom on the opposite side. The only other pieces of furniture were the nighttables by each of the beds and a couch across from them.

Alex glanced around as she followed her brothers into the room. "Lovely," she commented sarcastically, her face twisting at how gaudy and tacky it was.

Sam gave her a sympathetic look as they plopped their things on the beds. "You'll get used to it."

She shook her head wistfully. "I can't believe we used to sleep in places like this," she commented as she sat on one of the beds.

"You mean you used to," Dean replied. "I never stopped."

Raising her hands in a pacifying gesture, she fell silent and studied the room again, only to stop in her tracks. "Speaking of sleeping . . . who's getting the beds?"

The brothers stopped and looked at each other. It was obvious neither of them had thought this far ahead, considering that they were giving each other 'deer in the headlights' stares. "Alright, fine. I'll take the couch," she said after a few minutes of silence on their end.

"Lix -" Dean started.

"It's fine, De," she interrupted with a careless wave. "You two get the beds, I'll take the couch."

Dean gave her the death glare for a few moments before sighing. "Fine. I'll go look for some extra blankets." Crossing the room, he went into the bathroom, searching for any place where extra sheets might be hiding.

Sam let the silence continue for a few moments after Dean left, hoping that Alex would continue the conversation. However, seeing as she elected to stay quiet, he decided that he would have to be the one to break the silence. "So, feels weird, huh? Having to stay in crappy motels again?"

"Feels like I never left," she replied. "Except, y'know, for the fact that Dad's not here and my two brothers are huge." Sam chuckled at this as she grinned at him. "So what happens now?"

Sam released a big breath. "Well, now we dig through every source we have, try and find Dad. Hopefully something turns up." He looked back up only to find her studying him carefully. "What?"

"Nothing, just . . . you're not the same little boy I used to dote over."

"Well, you're not exactly the same little girl who nearly peed herself watching horror movies," Dean called, exiting the bathroom with a pile of dark red sheets.

Sam snickered as Alex looked at her big brother with indignation. "Come on, De, that was ONE time! And besides, you weren't any better, Mister Big Shot. If I recall, Mom and Dad found YOU shivering under the blankets clinging to a baseball bat."

"But, I was smart about it. That's what counts." Dean tossed the sheets onto the couch and sat down in one of the wooden chairs. He took out the worn journal and opened it to the first page. "Alright, let's get to work. Sammy, why don't you try calling around, see if one of Dad's old contacts has seen him. I'll see if he left any clues in his journal. Lix, if you're going to be hunting with us for a while, you'd better brush up on your training." He tossed her a pistol and oil cloth, which she caught with ease. "Start by taking apart the pistol and cleaning it."

She rolled her eyes but quietly got to work as Sam started dialing some of their father's old contacts. About an hour passed as the siblings worked on their own respective projects. By the time Alex had successfully disassembled and reassembled the gun twice, Sam was finishing calling a few of their father's closest friends.

"No, Dad was in California last we heard from him. We just thought, he comes to you for 'munitions, maybe you've seen him in the last few weeks. Just call us if you hear anything . . . Thanks." Beep.

"Caleb hasn't heard from him?" Dean asked, looking back down at the journal.

"Nope," Sam answered, elbows propped up on his knees. "Neither has Jefferson or Pastor Jim. What about the journal? Any leads in there?"

"No, same as last time I looked. Nothing I can make out." Dean gave a half-hearted chuckle as he shook his head. "I love the guy, but I swear he writes like freaking Yoda."

"Y'know, maybe we should call the feds. File a missing person's."

"Oh, we've talked about this. Dad'd be pissed if we put the feds on his tail."

"I don't care anymore," Sam retorted as Dean's cell began ringing. Dean closed the journal with a thump and got up to answer it, rummaging through his luggage as he attempted to find it. "After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean . . . he should've been there, Dean. You said so yourself you tried to call him and nothing."

Alex's head shot up, her hands pausing in her task of cleaning the pistol. "Wait, you went -"

"I know," Dean interrupted distractedly. "Where the hell is my cellphone?"

Sam looked astounded at his brother's blase behavior. "Y'know, he could be dead for all we know -"

"Don't say that!" Dean shot up, his face stern. "He's not dead, he's, he's . . ."

"He's what? He's hiding? He's busy?"

"Hold on!" Alex finally shouted as she stood. Sam and Dean both stopped their arguing and looked at her, somewhat annoyed. "You both went back to Kansas?"

The boys gave each other a brief look, the tense silence between them only interrupted by the incessant ringing of the missing cell phone. "Just a job," Dean replied dismissively, returning to his hunt for his phone. "Nothing to worry about."

"Apparently there is from the way you two are arguing about it." Neither of them replied to her question. Annoyed now, she put the pistol and oil cloth down on the table and marched over to the beds. "There's something you two aren't telling me, and whatever it is, I need to know."

"Alex -" Sam began.

"Don't start, Sam! You want me to help you find Dad, you need to tell me what's going on."

The ringing suddenly stopped and the two siblings looked over to find Dean staring at an open cell phone screen. He paused and released a short breath. "I don't believe it," he murmured, half to himself.

"What?" Sam and Alex asked at the same time, then stopped and gave each other a look.

Dean sat down on the bed, still staring at the screen. "It's, uh, a text message." He paused and looked at his siblings. "It's coordinates."

There was a pause as the siblings allowed the news to sink in, then Dean was a blur of motion, striding over to the table where Sam's laptop sat. Without waiting for his brother's permission, he sat down and opened the computer, searching feverishly for the location of the coordinates that were sent. "You think it was Dad texting us?" Alex asked, remembering perfectly well what coordinates meant.

"He's given us coordinates before," Dean replied briefly.

"The man can barely work a toaster, Dean," Sam shot back incredulously.

"Who cares?" Alex answered. "He's alive, we can actually track him down without grasping at straws."

"Yeah, if there was a number on the caller ID," Sam pointed out.

"Which there wasn't," Dean agreed. "It just said 'unknown'."

"Well what about the coordinates?" Alex asked. "Maybe they can point us in the right direction?"

"That's the interesting part," Dean replied. "They point to Rockford, Illinois."

"Okay, and that's interesting how?" Sam asked.

"Well, I checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this." Dean turned the computer so his siblings could see the screen. Sam and Alex walked closer. There, in bold typeface, was a headline that read "Local Officer Murder-Suicide". The picture next to the headline showed a young officer with a thin face and a bright smile, the name "Officer Walter Kelly" printed underneath it. Dean clicked on the picture to enlarge it. "This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out. And earlier that night, Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum."

Sam, who had sat down, looked in confusion at his brother while Alex crossed her arms, staring hard at the picture. "Okay, I'm not following," Sam said, voicing what he and Alex were both thinking. "What does this have to do with us?"

"Dad earmarked the same asylum in the journal," Dean responded impatiently, flipping through the book until he came across an old newspaper clipping. The title of the article jumped out at them: 'Teenagers die in abandoned hospital fire.' "Here," Dean said. "Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths - till last week, at least - I think this is where he wants us to go." He looked rather proud of himself.

Sam, on the other hand, had a look of utter disbelief on his face as he stood and rubbed his hands over his hair in a gesture of stress. "This is a job," he said. "Dad wants us to work a job."

"Well, maybe we'll meet up with him. Maybe he's there."

"Maybe he's not. I mean, he could be sending us there, by ourselves, to hunt this thing -"

"Who cares?" Dean shut the journal and closed the laptop with a sense of finality, making Alex jump. Dean paid her no mind as he stood and walked past Sam. "He wants us there, it's good enough for me."

"This doesn't strike you as weird?" Sam asked, pressing the issue. "The texting? The coordinates?"

"Sam! Dad's tellin' us to go somewhere, we're goin'!" Dean finally cast a glance over his shoulder to Alex. "Alex, get packing. We're going to Rockford, Illinois."

Alex looked up at him. "Illinois? Now? You do realize we just got here, right?"

"Doesn't matter. We got a job, we're gonna do it. Now move your ass."

She stared him dead in the eye and then, with a look of defiance, sat down on the chair behind her and crossed her arms. "No."

Dean looked back at her in stunned disbelief. "No?"

"You heard me."

He gave a little scoffing laugh. "Look, I know it's, uh, been a little while, but here's a refresher in case you've forgotten. Around here, when Dad tells us to do something, we do it. Immediately."

"Well, in case you've forgotten, Princess, Illinois is a 12 hour drive from Berwyn. Now, I don't know about you, but I am exhausted from today. And considering that you probably drove up from freaking Kansas right before you found me - which, let me remind you, is another 17 hour drive -, you need sleep even more desperately than I do."

Dean spluttered at the use of the demeaning nickname. "We need to do this job or more people are gonna die!"

"Oh don't give me that crap. The job's not going anywhere. And neither are we until we all get some sleep."

"I don't need to bring you along, y'know. I was doin' just fine when it was me and Sam."

"Well then I guess you're just going to have to leave me behind."

Sam watched the scene before him unfold, feeling impressed as his big brother paced the room with his hands running through his hair. In the span of one day, this girl had managed to win not one but two arguments with Dean. He really needed to get some tips from her. Meanwhile, Alex continued to stare Dean down. "Well?" she asked. "Go on if you're going."

Dean remained silent and she took that as a sign (rightly) that she had won. "Well then, since we're not going anywhere tonight, I'll go get us some food. There's a burger joint down the street."

"I'll come with you," Sam volunteered. He really didn't want to be around Dean in the aftermath of that argument. Besides, someone had to remember to bring back pie.

She nodded. "We'll leave first thing in the morning, then."

The doorknob of the large yellow house began to turn as the lock clicked open. A few moments later, a woman in her late forties pushed it open and turned on the light to the house. She was an attractive woman with dark brown hair falling to her shoulders and a kind, maternal face, the type of face you would expect a mother or an aunt to have. Her dark brown eyes blinked as the light came on, adjusting to the sudden brightness of the room.

Immediately upon entering she could tell something was off. Perhaps it was something in the air. Or perhaps it was the smell of something burning and the sound of the smoke alarm blaring through the entire house. As quickly as she could (she still wasn't sure why secretaries were required to wear heels), she speed-walked to the kitchen and opened the oven, shutting it off and - after grabbing a nearby dish towel - pulling out what had once been a pie. It was charred and black as a coal. Clearly someone had left it in far longer than it should have been.

Placing it on the stove top, she scanned the area as the sense of wrong-ness assailed her again. On the stove top was the French press of black tea she had made this morning. She touched the side of it with her delicate hand. Stone cold. To the left she spied the remains of a shattered mug, the pieces in a neat little pile on the counter top. Nothing else had been moved. It was as if . . .

She paused for a moment. "Alexa?" she called out. Silence. She tried again. Still nothing. Her heels clicked on the hardwood as she made her way towards the stairs and up them, her body moving automatically towards the room right at the top. She peered inside the room. Drawers and closet doors were all opened, the contents in complete disarray. Books and papers were scattered over the desk and floor. And the bed was still as neatly made as it had been when she left for work this morning. As if it hadn't been used at all.

Taking a few moments to collect herself, she walked to the master bedroom and picked up the phone, dialling a number she knew by heart. She listened as the dial tone sounded twice followed by a click as someone picked up. "Dr. McCabe speaking." The voice was cold and professional.

"It's me, Jon," she replied.

"Elise? What's wrong?"

"Something happened today. Alexa's gone."

Rockford, Illinois

Alex crossed her arms as she walked into the old asylum, suppressing a shiver that wasn't from the cold. She had never actually worked a case before - the most she ever did with Dad was target practice, monster review, and babysitting duty. Not that she had minded at the time, of course, but it still made her feel woefully underprepared, especially given the way that her brothers naturally took charge of the situation. She had to wonder how many times they had done this before, with or without Dad. Then she promptly pushed the thought out of her head. It wouldn't help to think about that just yet.

"So apparently the cops chased the kids here, into the South Wing." Sam's voice broke through her thoughts. Turning away from the graffitied walls and piles of litter, she found herself staring at an old sign with bold red letters. The sign stood above a door much like the two they had just walked through.

"South Wing, huh? Wait a second . . ." She looked at Dean, who was muttering to himself as he flipped through Dad's journal again, stopping only when he found the newspaper clipping from before. He paused as he glanced through it quickly. "1972. Three kids broke into the South Wing. Only one survived. The way he tells it, one of his friends went nuts and started lighting up the place." Dean looked up at his siblings and Alex felt a tremor of anticipation as she realized what he was saying.

"So whatever's going on, South Wing seems like the heart of it," Sam concluded, echoing Alex's thoughts.

"Yeah but if kids are spelunking the asylum, why aren't there a ton more deaths?"

Alex thought for a moment. Dean was right, it didn't make sense. That is, until she caught sight of something hanging limply from the door handles. It was a long chain with thick iron links. She walked a little closer and examined it carefully - a padlock still held two ends of the chain together, but one of the links looked like it had been cut. "Hey, look at this," Alex said, drawing their attention to the broken chain and padlock. "This chain looks like it's been here for years. Maybe they're usually chained shut and one of the kids brought something to cut it."

Sam and Dean edged closer to the door and saw that she was right. "Could be, yeah," Dean agreed with her. "Maybe it was to keep people out. Or to keep something in."

All three shared an uncomfortable look as Sam pushed the door. It opened with a creak. As they stood there staring through the entryway, Alex realized with a jolt that they would have to go in there. Into the place where many people had died. Where supposedly people were going insane. She gulped silently as Sam and Dean led the way into the old corridors, following along quietly behind them. She didn't want to admit it, especially not to De, but she was terrified. Every time the moldy walls ended in an intersection, she half-expected a monster to jump out at her. Trying to keep her imagination at bay, she focused on Sam and Dean's banter as they examined the halls like experts.

"Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel," Dean said nonchalantly, gazing at something in his hand that emitted a buzzing sound. She thought she recognized it as an EMF meter (she remembered it from the countless hours Dad had made her spend analyzing supernatural weapons and tech), but she was more interested in the topic that Dean had brought up. The boys had refused to tell her anything about what had happened before they found her, and quite frankly, she was getting tired of it. If she had to eavesdrop to figure out what was going on, then so be it.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be a touchy subject, as Sam almost immediately shot back a "Dude, enough."

He chuckled. "No, I'm serious, you gotta be careful, alright? Ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing you got goin' on there."

"I already told you, it's not ESP, I just have . . . strange vibes sometimes, weird dreams."

"Yeah, whatever. Don't ask don't tell."

Sam sighed in frustration. "Are you getting any reading on that thing or not?"

"Nope." He then lifted his head to call back to Alex, lifting the object he was holding. "Hey Lix, pop quiz. What's this and what is it used for?"

"It's an EMF meter, right?" she answered. "Used to read electromagnetic frequencies, helpful in seeing if there are spirits around. Although why that one looks like a walkman met an untimely end is beyond me."

Dean shook his head. "Yeah, real funny. 'Course, just because nothing's coming up doesn't mean nobody's home."

"Spirits can appear during certain hours of the day," Sam agreed.

"So maybe we should try coming back later on, say, at night?" Alex asked.

"Exactly."

"Hey Sam," Dean interjected, "who do you think's a hotter psychic - Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or you?"

There was a moment of silence as the question was considered, followed by a sharp smack as Sam hit Dean's shoulder. Dean, of course, didn't seem to mind, laughing like the obnoxious big brother that he was. Alex rolled her eyes at their bickering but tried to keep her temper in check. She was under enough stress as it was and she could sense that they were, too; blowing up at them for something so small wouldn't help matters any.

That still didn't lessen her desire to whack Dean upside the head.

The trio continued on down the corridor until they reached an examination room of some sorts. Sam immediately started coughing as they entered the room. Alex nearly threw up. The entire place stank of rot and decay, and it was nothing short of suffocating. The scenery around them didn't help - torn screens, old medical equipment, a few metal chairs with restraints, dismembered body parts preserved in dusty jars, and a headless baby doll, all of them adding to the creepy, abandoned feeling. Dean whistled once, then started walking into the room. The EMF meter remained stubbornly silent. Seeing as it was of no help, he put it away in his inner jacket pocket and started looking around the room. Taking this as their cue, Sam and Alex followed suit.

"Man," Dean said at last, breaking the eerie quiet. "Electroshock, lobotomies, they did some twisted stuff to these people. Kinda like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest." He waited to see if what he said would garner any reaction from his siblings, turning away awkwardly when he received none. "So what do you think? Ghosts are possessing people?"

"Maybe," Sam finally answered, thinking through it. "Or maybe it's more like, uh, like Amityville or the Smurl haunting."

"So spirits driving them insane," Alex summarized, trying to keep up.

"Kinda like my man Jack in the Shining," Dean interjected again with another cocky grin. Alex rolled her eyes again and continued searching.

Silence prevailed again for another few moments before Sam sighed. "Dean," he said, waiting until his brother turned to face him. "When are we gonna talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" Dean asked, feigning innocence.

"About the fact that Dad's not here."

Alex remained silent, still listening as she continued to examine the room. Something that Sam had said when they found her was bugging her - that he understood her feeling that Dad had abandoned her. And he'd also mentioned how Dean had found him, as if he hadn't been with Dean and Dad all this time. Maybe Dad had left him too? Or maybe he'd left of his own accord. Either way, all she felt coming from Sam was contempt towards their father and it left a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Oh," Dean said as if realizing what his brother had meant. "Uh, let's see, never."

"I'm being serious, man."

"So am I, Sam. Look, he sent us here, he obviously wants us here. We'll just have to pick up the search later."

"It doesn't matter what he wants."

"See, that attitude right there? That is why I always get the extra cookie."

"Dad could be in trouble. We should be looking for him. We deserve some answers -" Sam paused before continuing in a softer voice - "Alex deserves some answers. I mean, this is our family we're talking about -"

"I understand that, Sam," Dean interrupted, "but he's given us an order."

"So what, we gotta always follow Dad's orders?"

"Of course we do."

Once again there was nothing but silence. Alex took a deep breath and continued to search, her eyes landing on a large rectangular shape on one of the tables. Picking it up, she turned it over and examined it. It was a sign, the words reading "CHIEF OF STAFF SANFORD ELLICOTT, M.D." Chief of Staff, huh? she thought to herself. She turned to face her brothers. "Hey," she said.

She waited until she had their full attention and waggled the sign in the air with one hand. "Y'know, instead of wasting time arguing, maybe we should check out what actually happened in the South Wing. Might get a good lead." She practically shoved the sign into Dean's chest, walking towards the exit as he and Sam examined it for themselves. By the time they had finished reading the words, she was already at the doorway, waiting impatiently for them. "Well? Come on! We're wasting daylight!"

Dean sighed as he leaned against the glass door of the building, his impatience and boredom rising steadily by the minute. Sam had gone in to talk to the therapist - Dr. James Ellicott, Sanford Ellicott's son - about the hospital ages ago. What the hell could be taking him so long?

"Patience is considered a virtue, y'know."

He glanced over to see Alex, arms crossed in front of her, studying him with a half-grin on her face. Shrugging half-heartedly, he looked away towards the parking lot in front of them. "What can I say? I'm not exactly a virtuous person."

"Mmm."

Without another word, she shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and turned away from him. He blew out a long breath and hung his head. In the months and years following the incident, he'd had dreams of hunting with Alex, having her back in his life. It had been all he wanted. Now she was here and it was just . . . strange. Something about her had changed over the past eighteen years, and not just her appearance. No, it was something deeper than that. Whatever happened during that time had affected her in ways that he wasn't even sure he fully understood.

"Hey De?"

Her voice broke the silence again and he looked up to acknowledge her. "Yeah?"

She shifted uncomfortably, her eyes dropping to the ground before jumping back up to meet his again. "Look, I'm - I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"Acting like a stubborn bitch. You and Sam were just trying to find me and I made it harder for you."

He managed to hide his look of surprise. This was new. Alex never used to apologize after being stubborn - something she picked up from him, no doubt. "Don't worry about it. You're pissed at Dad for abandoning you, nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I should take it out on you."

He gave a short chuckle. "Since when did you get so soft?"

She paused then shook her head with a soft laugh, walking over to join him up against the glass door. "Guess that's what happens when you spend enough time with a normal family."

"Ugh, normal." He spat the word like a curse. "I'll take our messed-up family over normal any day."

"You wouldn't know normal if it bit you on the leg."

They both gave a small laugh and he felt a rush of warmth. Despite the strange circumstances, it was good to have her back. She looked over at him again. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why'd you go back? To Kansas. We swore we would never go back there, ever."

He fell silent. For a moment, he considered lying. Then he immediately tossed that thought out the window. Of all the people he had lied to in his life, he couldn't lie to her. Even if he wanted to, she'd see through it instantly. Swallowing, he leaned his head back against the glass. "I didn't want to. But there were people in our old house who were gonna die if we didn't. Poltergeist hangin' out around the place."

"Does this have something to do with what you and Sam were talking about? The ESP thing?"

He shifted his weight uncomfortably, drawing out the silence. ". . . Yeah. Yeah, it does. Sam, he, uh . . . he saw them getting hurt before it happened. I didn't believe it at first. But then we found the people in his . . . weirdo dream-thing and . . ." He trailed off, not sure what else to say. Thankfully Alex fell silent again, as if sensing that he didn't want to talk anymore, which he was grateful for.

At that moment, he heard the door swing open and Sam walked through the door at a brisk pace. Grateful for the distraction, Dean pushed himself off the glass and followed after, Alex right on his heels. "Dude, you were in there forever! What the hell were you talkin' about?"

Sam glanced back but kept walking. "Just the hospital, y'know?"

"And?"

"And the South Wing? It's where they housed the real hard cases - the psychotics, the criminally insane -"

"Sounds lovely," Alex interjected, struggling to keep up with her brothers' long strides.

"Yeah, and one night in '64, they rioted. Attacked staff, attacked each other."

"So what, the patients took over the asylum?" Dean asked.

"Apparently."

"Any deaths?"

"Some patients, some staff. Guess it was pretty gory, some of the bodies were never even recovered, including our chief of staff Ellicott."

"Never recovered?" Alex asked.

"Cops scoured every inch of the place," Sam explained, "but I guess the patients must have . . . stuffed the bodies somewhere hidden."

Alex paled slightly at the thought, but Dean seemed unaffected. "That's grim," he commented.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "So they transferred all the surviving patients and shut down the hospital for good."

"Alright, so to sum it up, we got a bunch of violent deaths and a bunch of unrecovered bodies."

"Which could mean a bunch of angry spirits."

Alex looked at them like they were insane. "And we're going back there tonight? When said angry spirits will most likely be roaming the place?"

"Welcome back to the business," Dean responded with a smirk. "Alright, let's check out the hospital tonight."