"Dean, I'm telling you, that drill came out of nowhere," Sam argued as he adjusted the ice pack resting on his ankle. "It's not like I tripped over it because I didn't see it. I tripped over it because it just … appeared right in front of me."

"Sam, there were tools all over the place," Dean insisted. He pushed Sam's hands out of the way and adjusted the ice pack himself. "How can you be sure that you just didn't see the drill?"

"Because I know what I saw," Sam said with a roll of his eyes. "That drill was not there before I fell." After a moment of thought, his eyes widened. "Dean, Dad was fine when he came downstairs. That shadow in the attic, it was just a trick! He wanted us to get back into the house so he could hurt us!"

Dean heaved an exasperated sigh, and Sam could tell instantly that Dean wasn't convinced. Whether he simply didn't believe him or didn't want to believe him, Sam wasn't sure. But it didn't matter what Dean believed; all that mattered was what Sam knew, that the man in the house was a horrible, angry spirit who wanted everyone, including Sam and his family, out of his space.

As Dean turned on the television, the sound of a key clicking into the motel door's lock signaled John's return from an emergency run to the pharmacy and to get some more ice. All the ice they had in the room had gone into the Ziploc bags John had used to fashion the ice packs, and they were going to need more if they were going to prevent Sam's ankle from swelling up like a balloon.

After closing the door, John set the ice bucket down on the chest of drawers, then settled himself on the edge of the bed of Sam's bed. He removed the ice pack to check the injury. An angry, purple bruise was beginning to form around Sam's ankle, but the swelling had gone down a bit. "Does it still hurt?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "Not really, but it's numb."

John nodded in understanding and gently lifted Sam's leg to remove the bottom ice pack. "I'm going to wrap it now, okay?" he said, pulling an Ace bandage out of the bag from the local CVS. The bandages he'd had with him were the self-stick kind that had unfortunately lost their stickiness since the last time he'd used them. "It's going to hurt, but I'm going to be as careful as I can."

Sam nodded and squeezed his eyes shut as his father began wrapping his foot and the bottom of his calf tightly in the bandage. The combination of motion and contact was sending pain shooting up Sam's leg, and it was all he could do not to cry out. "I'm sorry, Sammy," John whispered as Sam clenched the bedspread in his fist. He finished off the wrapping by placing the two metal brackets over the exposed end of the bandage. "Is that too tight?"

Sam shook his head no, then let his breath out in relief when John rested his foot back on the pillow. Within a few seconds, the throbbing in his leg subsided to a dull ache, which was infinitely easier for him to deal with. After shifting position on the bed, he leaned back against the headboard, putting his right arm behind his head to cushion it from the hard wood. John ran his thumb across Sam's forehead as a comforting gesture before standing and crossing the room to grab the tape recorder from his duffel bag.

"Did you get anything?" Dean asked, tearing his attention from the television.

"A little, yeah," John replied as he rewound the tape. Once the rewind button clicked back up, he hit play and turned the volume up as high as it would go. A full minute and a half of dead air was followed by a deep, raspy, "Run, run, as fast as you can."

"'You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man,'" Dean muttered, unconsciously completing the rhyme.

Sam raised a confused eyebrow at his brother. "What does gingerbread have to do with anything?"

Dean blinked his eyes and frowned at Sam. "You don't know The Gingerbread Man?" Sam shook his head no, the look on his face clearly indicating that he thought his brother was insane.

Dean just gave Sam a matching stare. Like the cow jumping over the moon and the man traveling to St. Ives, Dean assumed that The Gingerbread Man was one of those stories that kids grew up just instinctively knowing. It took him a minute to remember that he had first read The Gingerbread Man with his mother, an opportunity Sam had never had. And it's not as if his father was big on nursery rhymes. "It's a kids' story about an old woman who bakes a gingerbread cookie shaped like a man, and he comes to life because he doesn't want to be eaten. He runs away, saying that rhyme to every creature he meets along the way. He eventually gets eaten by a fox because the fox tricks him."

Sam held the disbelieving gaze on his brother for a moment longer before shaking his head. "That sounds like a wonderful story to be telling little kids."

Dean snickered in amusement and lightly smacked his brother's arm before turning attention to his father. "That phrasing can't be a coincidence, can it? I mean, with all the ways he could have told you and Sam to get out, what are the odds that he'd say that and not mean the gingerbread man rhyme?"

"Most likely not a coincidence," John confirmed, nodding pensively. "Who he is and why he's using the gingerbread rhyme, I have no idea, but we're going to find out. Tomorrow I'm going to drop you boys at the historical society on my way to the house--"

"Dad, you cannot go back to that house!" Sam exclaimed, sitting up straight on the bed. "He could hurt you like he hurt the construction guy! And me!"

"Sammy, I have to make sure that he doesn't hurt anyone else," John explained, his tone even. "The company that bought the house is dead set on turning that place into an inn, even if they have to tear down the building to do it. What if it's not the house he's haunting, but the grounds? I'm not leaving this job unfinished."

"But Dad--"

"No buts, Sam. This is not up for discussion."

Sam slumped back against the headboard with a defeated pout. He knew that this was in no way the most dangerous job his father had ever worked. Hell, it wasn't even the most dangerous one Sam had been allowed to participate in. But whatever was in that house was so angry, so evil; Sam had never felt anything like it before.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Sam fidgeted on the bed and, without thinking, put pressure on his hurt foot. He winced in pain and smacked the mattress with the palm of his hand. "Dammit," he muttered as he let out a heavy breath.

"Sam," John said sternly, fixing a reprimanding stare on his son, "watch your mouth."

"Sorry, sir," Sam said, raising his eyes to meet his father's.

John nodded, acknowledging and accepting Sam's apology. "You need more medicine? I can give you the high test stuff now."

Sam mulled over his options; he didn't like how sleepy the prescription medicine made him, but his ankle was beginning to throb again and it was too soon to put the ice back on. In the end, his ankle won. "Yes, please."

John went to the sink, poured a glass of water, and handed it to Sam, along with a white tablet. The pills were left over from when Dean had fractured his wrist after falling from a tree he had been climbing at Pastor Jim's. Sam put the tablet on the back of his tongue and swallowed a large gulp of water, wrinkling his nose as he felt the pill slide down his throat. After the water was gone, he handed the glass back to his father and once again leaned back against the headboard, watching as Dean flipped channels on the television.

He soon began to feel drowsy but he wanted to watch the movie Dean finally had settled on, something about woods and a girl in a mirror. Why couldn't Dean have found the movie before Sam opted to take more medicine? In an attempt to stay awake, Sam sat up straighter on the bed.

What seemed to Sam like mere seconds later, he felt his father gently take his arm and lay him down in bed. "Stop fighting it, Sammy," he whispered, tucking the covers around his son's shoulders.

"But I want to watch the movie," Sam mumbled, his words getting lost in his pillow.

"I'll find out what it is and rent it for you later," John promised, but Sam didn't hear him. He had already dropped off to sleep.