Chapter 4 Bad Dreams

Dean tacked the yellowed newspaper clipping onto the wall of the motel room. He had decided a few thumbtack holes were the least of the worries for the ancient wood paneled walls. Not that the room was particularly objectionable. The Mountaineer Lodge certainly wasn't the worst place they had ever stayed, he'd give it that much. Worst Place We Ever Stayed was actually a game that he and Sam played occasionally to pass the time on long car trips. They could easily argue for an hour or more about the intricacies of what constituted a truly awful place. Were cigarette burns in the bedcovers worse than rusty stains in the sink? Was a truly abysmal motel room worse than squatting in a relatively clean abandoned house? Were roaches worse than mice? The delights of having grown up being dragged around the country by an obsessed parent were certainly endless.

"So when this happened last time…" Sam was saying. He was seated in the desk chair, the only seating in the room, with his feet propped up on the end of the bed and his laptop resting on his legs. "…Mr. and Mrs. Ogle said that thirty-three people died."

"Yeah, five people died mysteriously first, and then twenty-eight were killed by a tornado." Dean finished hanging up the newspaper clippings that the Ogles had allowed them to take. The newspaper reports were about the unexplained deaths that had happened in the small town of Norris, Tennessee, in the summer of 1986, along with stories on the devastating tornado that had torn through the town at the end of the summer. "I'm not sure I buy the tornado thing, though. That would take some serious juju, man. I mean – tornadoes happen."

"Well the Ogles seemed pretty sure that it was connected. I think they had some reason they weren't completely telling us. And, yeah, tornadoes happen, but not so much here. We're not in Kansas, Dean."

"Fine, Toto, what do you think could have caused an actual tornado? That cross you found looks witchy, but come on – we've run into some pretty gnarly witches in our day, and I don't think any of them could pull off a tornado. Demon maybe?"

Sam frowned at his laptop in concentration and didn't reply. He had been searching for additional online accounts of any of the deaths from 1986, or 1959, but wasn't having much luck. He had uploaded several pictures of the crucifix, so he decided to concentrate on it for a while and began doing a search for similar objects.

Dean pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the bed that wasn't occupied by Sam's feet. It was late. He was exhausted from driving fourteen hours and climbing creaky, wobbly ladders in the dark. And from listening to the story the Ogles had told. Nothing about it fit together in the way Dean would expect – no ten year demon-deals, no evidence of ghosts, the Ogles hadn't even mentioned the strange crucifix or the possibility of a witch. No wonder John Winchester hadn't made any headway on the case thirty years ago.

Dad's journal entry had been what turned them on to the case to begin with. Because Dean and Sam had pored over the journal for information over the years, they had occasionally run across something that John had been unable to explain. Sam had long ago set up automatic searches and notifications for several possibilities, and one of those searches had been for "Norris, TN – death – unexplained and/or mysterious." They had both been shocked when Sam had received a notification two days ago of a news story that sounded just like what their father had investigated thirty years earlier.

The journal had detailed John's investigation in Norris – how several people had died under mysterious circumstances, how the townspeople had whispered about the Bledsoe curse. Apparently, John had never been able to pinpoint what connection the Bledsoe place had to the deaths. None had occurred on the property, and nothing had been found to connect the victims to the property. His journal entry had been pretty bare bones for a week-long investigation. The only worthwhile clue had been that the same strange events had happened twenty-seven years earlier in the summer of 1959. Three people had died then. And if it had happened twice, it might happen again.

Dean was wondering vaguely where he and Sam had been while Dad was in Tennessee – he thought they might have been left with Bobby or maybe Pastor Jim – when he drifted to sleep. He was startled awake sometime later by Sam smacking him on the bottom of the foot.

"Whu..what..what?"

"Dude, you having a nightmare or something?" Sam asked. Dean just stared at him blearily. "You were starting to thrash around, man. Whatever was happening, you weren't happy about it."

Dean sat up and rubbed his eyes. He yawned loudly.

"Don't know – can't remember it. You find anything?" Dean changed the subject.

"No – nothing much. I was just getting ready to turn in too. I did find one place I think we should check out, though."

"Yeah? Where's that?" Dean asked as he made his way to the bathroom. Sam waited until he returned to his bed to answer the question. He turned his laptop screen towards Dean.

White Pine, Tennessee – the Norris Dam Ghost Town was emblazoned across the top of the screen.

"Ghost town? Are you serious?"

"Absolutely," Sam said. "I think it would be a good place to see some of the history of the area. The Bledsoe place was part of the White Pine community before everyone was moved out for the government to build Norris Dam."

"So that's the ghost town? A place that everybody got tossed out of back in 19-whenever?"

"It's a little more than that. It's the only place that people got tossed out of but was never actually flooded." Dean just gave him a blank stare. "We'll talk more in the morning when you're actually awake." Sam shut his laptop down, got into bed, and clicked off the bedside light. His breathing was soon slow and even in sleep. Dean, however, didn't return to sleep for a long time. He really couldn't remember what he had been dreaming about, he hadn't just been telling Sam that, but it had left him with a very uneasy feeling. Whatever the dream had been, it had been something bad, and he was reluctant to possibly return to it. Eventually, though, his wariness was overcome by exhaustion.

Dean trapped Ben against the wall with one forearm. His lips curled back from the fangs that had descended in front of his teeth, and Ben hollered frantically when he saw them – calling for help, calling for his mother. Lisa was there in a second, launching herself at Dean, trying desperately to put herself between him and her son, but Dean held her off easily with his other arm.

When he sank his fangs into Ben's neck, it was as though two separate beings were there inside Dean's body. One was amazed at the taste of the sweet, warm blood filling its mouth. It was better than anything it had ever tasted, and it was thrilled at the realization that it could drain all of the blood from Ben's body and then turn to Lisa for more. The other being, the part that felt like Dean, seemed bound somewhere in his own head. He fought and clawed and bellowed for it to stop, please stop, but he was powerless. And the first being seemed to take as much pleasure from defying Dean's helpless internal pleading as it did from the taste of the blood or from Ben's pain and terror. It was only a few moments before Ben's body was still, drained of life.

Dean tossed the dead boy aside and turned to Lisa then, his lips and jaws covered in deep red blood. He pulled her to him as though to embrace her, and she no longer fought him. Watching her son be shoved lifeless to the floor seemed to have robbed her of any fear or any desire to escape. She wanted to die too. But to just give her what she wanted really wasn't much fun, the first being thought. It was satisfied for the moment with Ben's blood, it could afford to take its time. The part of his mind that still felt like Dean recoiled at the plans that the other being formed. It would eventually kill Lisa, but not quickly – not until she had begged – not until it had relished her fear and pain. Not until Dean had been forced to watch it all.

Dean jerked awake. He sat straight up in bed, breathing as though he had just finished a sprint, shaking and covered in a cold sweat. He shot a furtive glance over to see if he had awakened Sam, but saw that he was still asleep. Relief washed over Dean, more than anything he did not want to have to explain this nightmare to his brother.

Lisa and Ben were the ones that had kept Dean alive during the year he believed Sam was in the cage with Lucifer. Having them to care for had kept him human. But when the world of hunting came back into his life along with Sam, Dean had been unable to deal with Lisa and Ben being in constant danger. He had chosen instead to remove himself from their lives. Thanks to some angelic manipulation from Cas, Lisa and Ben no longer had any recollection of Dean Winchester. But Dean remembered them.

He snagged Sam's laptop and carried it into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He checked the sites quickly – school attendance, debit card use, the traffic cam that provided an occasional glimpse of Lisa coming home from work or Ben leaving for his job at the movie theater. It had been eleven-year old Ben in his dream, but the kid was driving now. Sam had set the sites up for him years ago. He had never said anything, just left them open one day for Dean to find. And Dean had never acknowledged them. He knew that Sam knew how often he checked on them. There was no need to discuss it.

They were safe. Lisa's debit card records said that she had been to the grocery store that day after work. Ben had returned from his theater job around 1:00 AM according to the traffic cam. Dean's breathing finally slowed to normal again. He stood and turned on the hot water in the shower, stripping out of his shorts. He stayed in the shower for a long time, washing away the cold sweat and trying to wash the memories of the dream from his mind.


The next installment will be released Friday, July 7! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!