sorry for the long delay on this story as well as my others. life has just been crazy lately. thank you all so much for the great reviews, and i hope everyone is still enjoying the story. :)

IN TRANSIT

Chapter 10

Sam sat in the boxcar, his mind moving almost as fast as the train itself. He and his brother were separated again, and Sam knew that he had to find Dean. Because, well, bad things always seemed to happen when they were apart. It wasn't his brother's injury that had the young hunter worried most; Dean had hunted hurt before. No, it was the other passengers, people like Pete and Raven, people that seemed to have an unnatural interest in Dean. It was unnerving to say the least and it just made Sam want to get to his brother even more.

"When's the train stop again?" Sam asked Molly.

The young girl had been staring out the door since they boarded the train, her eyes never blinking as she slowly rocked in time with the locomotive. It was almost like she was in some kind of trance, her mind blocking out the here and now as her heart drifted back to what she'd lost, what was now left in her past.

"Excuse me." Sam tried again.

"It depends, the next train yard is still about seven hours away." She began, never looking away from the passing scenery.

"Yeah." Sam began, peering out the open door. "I was afraid of that."

"The train could still stop, though. It's rained a lot in recent months, a lot more rock slides than normal."

"So, the short answer is you don't know."

"I guess so." She spoke, her voice level and emotionless.

Sam knew he had to act fast. She was slipping away again, falling back into her mind, blocking out the world around her; and Sam knew he couldn't let her do that. He needed answers, needed to know what was really going on, and he had a feeling that she knew. He wanted to get this hunt over with as fast as he could, before that creature showed up again, or his brother fell off the train.

"Before, in the forest, what were you talking about?" He asked, hoping that she wasn't too far gone to be helpful. He knew he was pushing her, knew he should have been giving her time to grieve, to be alone; but he also knew that he didn't have a moment to spare. Because, sooner or later, that thing would be back.

"Nothing that matters anymore." She whispered, still staring unblinking out the car door.

"You said the older ones told stories of the train being curse."

"It's an old story, told by old people, it doesn't matter."

"That's not what you said before."

The silence stretched between them for several tense moments, the growl of the train the only sound in the stillness. "Everyone tells stories." Molly began, Sam sitting beside her at the door, trying to look into her eyes.

"What kind of stories?"

"All kinds. Anyone can tell you that riders talk, tell stories, boast. But there was one story that was barely told, and when it was, it was just in whispers. It was more of a rumor than a story."

"What was it about?"

"A man that was here a few decades ago. He was called Benjamin. He was a man that came here after war. Everyone said that he used to be normal, but he changed while he was in the service, he got lost. That's all they would ever really say about him, that he got lost. There was a girl he supposedly loved, but he abandoned her, left her standing on the hill by the train, alone, forgotten. How can you claim to love someone and then leave them? They say it was for the better, but they were wrong.

"She got lost, too. Always lost." She mumbled.

Sam knew what she meant, could feel it in his soul. Whenever someone was troubled, whenever someone was different, broken beyond repair, people referred to them as lost. He didn't know what part of them was lost, what part of them was missing, but he always knew that those defined as 'lost' never had a hope in hell of being found. They were too far gone, too lost to the darkness of their own mind and soul, too forgotten.

It was something he had seen far too often in his short life, something he understood far too well. Most hunters could be described as lost. They were drifters, lost on the winds of the world, lost to the torrents of their own tortured minds, their own twisted lives. Once you were a hunter, Sam knew, you could never go back. He had tried, but no matter how normal he pretended to be, no matter how perfect Jessica made his life, he couldn't never forget what was really out there.

It plagued his dreams, invaded his mind at every hour. He scanned every street corner, challenged every shadow, and he knew nothing would ever change that. It was apart of him, something drilled so deeply into his mind that he knew he would never be able to shake it. No, his brother was right, they were freaks, and it was something he could never run from.

"What happened to the girl?" He asked, focusing again on the task at hand. He was afraid that if he let his mind wander he would be drawn back into the nightmares the creature had created, and he wasn't sure he could handle another attack.

His heart was still pounding, body still aching with the attacks he had already suffered through. There was a pressure in his chest, a pain deep down in his soul. His lungs burned with every breath he took, and his head felt like it was going to explode at any moment. All he wanted to do was rest, but he knew that that wasn't one of his current options.

"She stayed wherever it was he had left her. She was trapped, cursed to spend all her days living a life she hated. She had been a dreamer, and Benjamin had told her he could make them all come true. Her family punished her when they learned of her plans, and so she ran away, because he had promised her he'd be there. But he lied. She had no other option but to return home, and it was there that she faded away, fell into madness.

"She drifted further and further into the darkness as she aged, studied things no person should ever know. Some even say that she became a witch, a minion of the devil himself. She was just so full of rage and sorrow, so lost, that she could never be found. No one knows what she really did, but Benjamin was cursed with terrible nightmares right until the day he died.

"People say that she cursed the train, sending out nightmares, fears, making more of the lost follow her, bringing them into the darkness she had found comfort in. She feeds off of fears, off of loneliness. And she uses those fears to kill."

"But why?"

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

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Dean paced back and forth across the small boxcar, keenly aware of Raven's dark eyes; her gaze following his every movement. He was grateful to the woman for setting his arm, he really was, but he just wanted to get the hell away from her. Something about her was off, and his instincts told him to run like hell. There was more going on then met the eye, of that he was certain, and he knew he had to get to the bottom of it. He had to find Sam, had to tell him what he had learned, and then they needed to kill the thing, and get the hell off the trains. Because, deep down Dean knew that they were up against more than just the human fly from hell.

First things first, though, he had to find his brother. He knew he wasn't in any condition to be climbing around the cars, but he also knew he didn't have an option. He needed to get to Sam, sooner rather than later. For all his complaining, he had been thankful that Sam was there on his previous attempt at car hopping. He knew Sam would never let him fall, knew that his brother would do whatever he could to keep him on the train, even if that meant taping him to the ladder. Alone, well alone things were going to be tricky.

The first time he tried it Sam had held the back on his jacket the entire time, pulling him back up onto the pipes and ladders on more the one occasion. Truthfully, Dean wasn't even sure he could hop the cars without his brother's assistance. It wasn't like that was going to stop him from trying though, oh no, it was just gonna make things that much harder. He just hoped he would still be in one piece when he actually made it to wherever Sam was.

Dean shook his head before moving towards the door, surprised to see Raven jump to her feet the moment he pulled it open.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Uh, I'm gonna go look for my brother."

"You're in no condition to climb cars."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's still not gonna stop me."

"And what do you think he would do without you?" Raven asked, her eyes narrowing. If Dean didn't know any better, he would have thought she was trying to distract him.

"What did you say?" Dean tensed, turning slowly towards he woman, his voice a deadly whisper.

"How do you think he will react if you fall beneath the train?"

Dean steadied himself. He knew it could have just been an honest question, a keen observation on the woman's part, but something was wrong, and he knew it. That was the same fear that was currently running through his little brother's mind, the same nightmare the creature had created, the nightmare that was slowly killing Sam. So how in the hell did that woman know about it?

"You're lying to me." Dean spoke after a few tense moments. She stepped back at the words, obviously caught in a lie and Dean wanted to kick himself. Why in the world had he trusted her?

"Why would you say that?"

"Because it's the truth. That thing came after Sam, showed him me falling off a train."

Dean's fears were confirmed when Raven's eyes grew wide with both shock and horror. She knew what was happening, knew what the thing was, of that Dean was certain.

"What is it?" Dean growled, advancing on the woman. "What's on the train."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Bull. You know exactly what I mean. What the hell's on the train?"

He couldn't believe what he was seeing, what was going on. She was supposed to be one of the leaders on the train, the woman Martin and Molly had turned to in their troubled times, and she had let that thing after them. And now it was after Sam. But there was more to it then, that, something else beneath the surface, and he knew that Kathy and Benjamin were at the heart of it all. They were playing with people's lives, and Dean would be damned if he was going to let them continue.

Before Raven had the chance to speak, however, the train swayed violently, sending Dean flying into a stack of boxes. The last thing he saw was Raven climbing from the car; his world falling into darkness a moment later as the large crates crashed down on top of him.