A/N: Thank you to Jen for the lovely review, and thank you also to Arw165, Cdw43, Eruthianwen Luin, Fatal Framer and Hacked It Out and Fell for following! I hope you enjoy this chapter! Any comments or criticism are welcomed and much appreciated!
Chapter Four
"You look awful."
"Thanks," Sam yawned, rubbing his sore eyes. He felt so tired his limbs didn't seem to want to cooperate with him, and he nearly punched himself in the eye. A pint of coffee was needed if he was going to function for the rest of the day.
Sam looked round at their room and decided that it looked like an explosion had gone off. Case notes were strewn all around the table that Sam was sat at, some of the papers that had fallen to the floor collecting in tiny piles. The dull brown covers of Dean's bed had been thrown back, his shirt and suit adding to the mess of sheets from when he had tossed them haphazardly from his duffel bag. Only Sam's bed sat in pristine condition, having not been touched since it had been changed. The sheets were still pulled down so tight at the sides that it looked as if a knife was needed to be able to peel back the covers. Sam yearned to jump into the bed, to lie down for a few hours and regain a small portion of the energy he had lost through his all-nighter. But he knew that was impossible with the cacophony that assaulted his ears on behalf of Lucifer.
"No seriously. Did you get any sleep at all last night?" Dean mumbled, in between brushing his teeth. A line of dribble was tracing its way down his chin, his bed hair sticking out in crazy directions.
"A couple of hours," Sam lied, opening his laptop and pushing the power button. He could hear the sound of the computer's fan lazily whirring to life. "Besides, you don't look brilliant either."
"Whatever could you mean?" Dean's speech was nearly incomprehensible between the toothbrush and his teeth, more toothpaste snaking down from the corner of his mouth. He waved a hand, gesturing at his body, a feigned expression of hurt plastered on his face. "I look a million dollars."
Dean retreated back into the bathroom. Through the open doorway, Sam could hear Dean rinsing out his mouth, humming a Metallica tune whilst he sorted out his appearance.
"Anyway, since when did you become married to that damn machine?" Dean called out, his deep voice much clearer without the toothbrush. Sam trained one of his trademark bitchfaces at the wall which his brother stood behind. "Don't give me that look Samantha, I know you too well."
"What else am I supposed to do with my time if I can't sleep, Dean?" Sam argued.
"Well, you could attempt to sleep, at the very least get some rest."
"I just figured that I may as well make some progress, do something useful."
Dean's sigh was audible all the way from the bathroom, and without being able to see, Sam knew that his brother was wiping a hand across his face in frustration and exhaustion combined.
"Did you find anything last night?" Dean asked, shuffling over to his bed and beginning to undress and change into a pair of black trousers and white shirt. He threw his discarded pyjamas onto his bed, adding to the clutter.
"I did actually." All of his effort and searching late into the night and early morning had, in return, offered Sam a handful of news articles that detailed numerous reports of people going missing in the local woods around Princeton over the past fifty or so years. Pulling up an article dated to Monday 22nd June 1959 that detailed six disappearances, Sam twisted the laptop round on the table to face Dean. Dean wandered over, readjusting the screen so that he could read the article, a black tie hung over his shoulders like a stethoscope. Sam watched as his brother's green eyes scanned across the text, processing the information.
"There's been disappearances that stretch back over the past fifty odd years, but no one seems to have paid much attention. Some of the missing cases were local, however abandoned cars have been found along that stretch of the road we passed through. I'm guessing that some travellers have gotten caught up in whatever is lurking in those woods over the years," Sam explained as Dean continued to read.
"So this one dated back to 1959 isn't the only article you found?" Dean asked, looking up from the screen.
"No, there were more. I totalled about sixty disappearances in all," Sam continued.
"You would have thought the police would recognise the similarities," Dean scoffed.
"They didn't look like the most organised operation in town," Sam shrugged.
"I bet you ten dollars it's a wendigo," Dean said.
"Maybe, but would it really nab that many victims in that short a period of time?" Sam argued. "I mean, the 'digo's know how to preserve their victims for a long time, to feed their hunger."
"I don't know a wendigo's dietary requirements, dude. Maybe this one enjoys extra fries with his burger?" Dean said, walking back over to his bed. "Anyway, we should get going and see this Fleetly guy, then we'll have more of an idea of what we're dealing with."
Sam nodded in agreement, and then proceeded to stare out the window, his thoughts drifting away from him. Silence fell among the men for a moment, as weak sunlight crept in through the dusty window, showering down on the worn wooden table. Dean checked his brother's face, noticing how the purple bruises under his eyes had worsened, if that was possible. Sam's face looked drawn, his features pinched. Dean realised that his brother needed to rest soon, otherwise he would crash. He needed Sam to focus on the case, to be alert and ready for action, and he certainly could not continue to hunt in the condition he was in. He could get either of them, or both of them killed, if he didn't have enough energy to prepare himself for the fight.
Dean broke the silence first. "Dude, honestly, go and get ready. Looking at your sorry ass is making me tired."
Sam peeled himself from the chair that he had been sat in all night, his back aching and spasming in protest. To Dean, it looked like it took Sam all his strength to stand. Trudging over to the bathroom, Sam collected his shirt and trousers, and then quietly locked the door behind him. Dean wished there was something he could do, hell even knock his brother out for a few hours, but he knew that it wouldn't do much good.
…
"This is it?" Dean asked sceptically, staring at the dilapidated building that stood before him.
"This is the address listed on his case file," Sam said, perusing the notes he held in his hands.
"It looks like no one's lived here in years," Dean commented. Surveying the building at a glance, Dean noted the dark wooden panels that hung off the side of the house at slanted angles, along with the white paint that was chipping off the panes that framed the fogged windows. The upper levels of the building seemed to meet to form triangles, merging together to make the roof, which was littered with broken mismatched tiles that imitated a patchwork quilt. The first level of the house was shrouded in shadow on account of the roof covering the front porch. The garden was as unkempt as the home itself, if you could call it a home. The lawn was a mass of green flora, dotted with dull flashes of gold from the dandelions. The bushes surrounding the edges of the yard appeared to have grown with wild abandon. No natural light seemed to reach this damned property. Welcoming was not one of the words Dean would use to describe it. Creepy, yes. A dump, most definitely. Welcoming, not so much.
"Perhaps he hightailed it out of town after he dragged himself out of the woods?" Sam suggested, folding the papers into smaller squares and stuffing them back into the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Who could blame him when he lived in this," Dean said, gesturing at the house. "Let's take a look inside anyway. There may be something useful lurking in Barbie's dream house."
The brothers made their way up the gravel pathway to the front door, the weeds that had sprouted between the stones grabbing at their feet. They walked up the porch steps, the wood slats groaning beneath the weight of their feet. Standing in front of the door, Sam rapped his knuckles against the wood, wiping cobwebs off his hand. He waited a few moments, but when he was greeted with no response, he knocked on the door again.
"Mr Fleetly, it's the FBI. Open up," Sam shouted, his voice echoing in the quietness of the area. The brothers looked at each other; Dean waited a few more seconds before attempting to open the door. The doorknob gave way under his hand, the door creaking open as the boys peered inside.
Dean entered the property first, wanting to put himself before his brother in case something jumped at them from the darkness that waited inside the building. A dank corridor stretched before him, and Dean was thankful that they were visiting the property in daylight, otherwise he would not have been able to see his own hand in front of his face. The hallway itself was dusty, a dresser pushed against the right wall littered with unopened letters and newspapers. Progressing through the first level of the house, Dean could not find any clue of a being inhabiting the place. There was no dishes left in the sink and the cushions sat in a perfect positions on the sofas in the living room.
Upstairs, Sam did not find much either. All the beds in the three bedrooms were made, the curtains all pulled to. Toothpaste was caked around the inside the bowl of the bathroom sink from when someone had not cleaned up properly. But nothing caught his attention or struck him as being suspicious. Sam was searching the last bedroom when he heard his brother call up to him.
"You find anything up there Sammy?" Dean's voice floated up from the hallway below. The bedroom he was stood in was different from the others; the covers of the bed appeared to have been hastily thrown back, a row of half-full glasses of water sat on a bedside table. However, like the rest of the rooms, dust coated most of the surfaces and the windowsill. In the corner of the room stood a steel cupboard that seemed out of place to Sam, compared to the mahogany furniture that decorated the rest of the bedrooms.
"It seems that someone left in a bit of a hurry, but apart from that, nothing of much interest," Sam shouted back. Inspecting the cupboard more closely, he saw that the door was slightly ajar and that dust had been swiped away from the lock.
"You're telling me that I dressed up in this suit for nothing?" he heard Dean complain. Opening the door, Sam saw a fabric shotgun bag. He noticed that the zip was drawn down, and pulling it out of the locker, he noted that the bag was empty. The sense that something was off swept over him.
"Come on Sam! There's nothing here!" Dean hollered up to his brother. He wondered what was taking him so long. "Sam, come on! Let's get out of this dump." Dean was about to ascend the stairs when a sharp pain blossomed at the back of his skull. A gasp of pain escaped between his lips, and he thought he heard his brother call his name before blackness enveloped him.
