Author's Notes: Yeah, yeah, I finally updated it. I won't bother apologizing for the long delay because I'm sure everyone's sick of hearing it anyway. Thanks for reading and have a great 4th of July everyone. (Well, for everyone that celebrates it anyway.) I'll stop apologizing for not responding to reviews because let's face it, I just can't seem to get my rear in gear to do it. I will say thank you right now for all of them though, each and every one is read and greatly appreciated!

I'd also like to thank BeautifulCarWreck for reading this over… it was much appreciated and I thank you again.

Chapter 11

Now that Sam had the basic gist of what he thought was going on inside room eight of the Traveler's Oasis Motel/Whispering Pines Inn, Bobby wanted nothing more than to dig that poor girl up and put her to rest right now; especially considering what she was dong to Dean. As much as he wanted to despise her for not only what she had become but for slowly killing one of the two men he'd consider it an honor to have as his own son, he really couldn't put any of the blame on her, not entirely anyway. She had obviously had the misfortune of drawing one of the short straws in life as much as Dean had drawn one when he unwittingly entered the accursed room he was quite possibly dying in right now and the unfortunate circumstances all the way around forced the two of them together, her being a victim to some nameless face back then just as much as Dean was one to her now. Judging by the pictures he had examined of the scene, she had died a lonely, horrible death and deserved to be resting in peace. Giving his head a quick shake to clear it of the piteous thoughts starting to consume it, he took one more quick look at the shivering form lying curled up under a small mound of blankets and let his mind remember exactly what it was that was causing that potentially fatal downward spiral. He had never seen Dean as sick and helpless as he was right now in the twenty plus years he had known him, and it truly frightened him.

"Hey Sam, will ya fix that clock before I get back? That constant flashing is starting to drive me crazy," Bobby asked as nicely as he could before walking out the door and Sam realized for the first time that he had been ignorant of the fact that the alarm clock on the nightstand was flashing 12:00 in bold, red numbers again. With nothing better to do at the moment but listen to the quiet in the room, Sam just took his sweet time correcting the display, the red 12:00 being changed to the proper 6:45 before being deposited back onto the nightstand where it belonged.

With nothing else to occupy his mind other than what Bobby had told him, Sam just started nervously pacing the floor like an expectant father on crack as he waited for the older man to return, occasionally chewing on his nails, rubbing his forehead, or running a hand through the tousled mess of what he called hair on his head, the frequent glances he made in his brother's direction as he passed by doing nothing but make his stomach churn and his head ache. He was sure it was the Vicodin that had pulled Dean down into the seemingly blissful slumber he appeared to be so deeply in, peaceful except for the shuddering that seemed to come and go at will. He would be shaking uncontrollably one minute, then go still the next and it was exhausting Sam just to watch him. He refused to sit though and as the minutes ticked by on the clock, he continued his patrol of the room for nearly a half hour before Bobby returned; his mind now filled with more questions than answers since all he had to do during Bobby's absence was to think..

He didn't knock upon his return, he just opened the door and let himself back in, breathing an inaudible sigh of relief to see Sam standing there watching him come back in instead of the previous alternative he had worried he'd walk into since the second he had walked out the door. Moseying up to the small table at the foot of the bed that Dean continued to sleep on, Bobby let the bags he carried drop and starting emptying them piece by piece, sliding one rather large, white container in Sam's direction and pointing to the chair in front of it indicating Sam should sit before doing the same for himself.

"Sit down and eat Sam. I got a feeling it's gonna be a long day," Bobby forcefully suggested and Sam rather mindlessly did as he was told, dropping himself hard into the cheap, plastic chair and staring at the 

cardboard container sitting on the table waiting for him to open it to reveal what was inside. He had so many questions, he wasn't really sure where to start, but he had to start somewhere. Grabbing his fork and tossing the lid to the side, he ate while he spoke now that his mind was overloaded with things to ask.

"It's your turn now Sam. What the hell has been going on in here since I talked to you on the phone yesterday? When did shit start hitting the fan in horse sized clumps because it sure didn't sound like things were this bad when I talked to you yesterday afternoon?" Bobby initiated the conversation, not even giving Sam a moment to start at the top of his own growing list.

"It was right after I talked to you the first time. I came back here from the diner and when I opened the door, I found him rolling around pretty violently on the floor like he was struggling against something that just wasn't there. He couldn't breathe again and when I finally got him to settle down and look at me it was like he… it was like he was afraid of me Bobby." There was a slight hint of hurt in his voice when he recalled that frantic look in his brother's eyes as he lay there choking on the floor and he had to clear his throat before continuing. "I think that first trip we tried making to the car took more out of him then he was letting on because when I finally got him to calm down, he could barely pick his head up off the floor. I cleaned him up and got him back on the bed and he just passed out again. That sign hitting me in the back of the head must have done me in too because I think I fell asleep right after he did until Brian came and delivered your message."

"The what that hit you where?" Bobby couldn't contain his surprise when Sam mentioned that for the first time and he quickly stood to lean over the tiny table and looked the young man square in the eyes as he forced Sam's eyelids open wide to make sure they were focused on him.

"The wind ripped a sign off its post and it hit me in the head when I started walking back. It was no big deal Bobby, really. I was only out for a couple seconds."

"No big deal? You're lucky you're not dead kid. No wonder you keep falling asleep Sam, you probably have a damn concussion. Hell, you're lucky you're both not dead by now."

"Yeah, that's what Brian said too. The guy's annoying, but he always seems to be in the right place at the right time," Sam gave credit at least where credit was due. He had been grateful that the young man had been nosily sticking around on some of the occasions he had been.

"I assume Brian's the twit in the office that I talked to earlier that has no clue what an Impala is 'cept that it's big, old and black," Bobby questioned, not sure he ever got the kids actual name. Twit worked just fine for Bobby.

"That'd be him. I called you from out in the parking lot right after he brought me your message, but Dean…he was really out of it by then and..."

"I know... I heard the kid yelling at you before you lost the call and I knew something was really wrong."

"I thought if I just got him out of the room he'd be ok, but that didn't go very well. We only made it halfway to the car that time before he doubled over again, thankfully without the screaming. He somehow dragged himself back inside. I told him I was gonna call an ambulance when I saw the blood on his lips and chin again and it took forever for him to just slow his breathing down. He practically begged me not to, said the room wouldn't let him leave. I thought he was just mumbling nonsense to get out of going to the hospital, you know, like he always does. We at least got that doctor in the other room to come over to check him out and I already told you what she said. After I hung up with you, I just sat down to wait and the next thing I knew, you were here.

"Good thing you listened to him for once 'cuz he'd probably be dead if you hadn't."



"Bobby, you didn't seem the least bit surprised when I told you about the nightmares or the choking," he started, not posing it so much as a question but surely implying it that way. "You didn't seem very surprised at anything I just told you actually. What gives?"

"I had a buddy pull the police reports from the first, third, and fourth victims Sam. The wives all gave pretty much the same story you just gave me, but since the deaths were all ruled natural causes it really didn't matter. All three men were fine when they checked in until the nightmares started, and they started relatively immediately after checking in too. Each one of the three had them for a day or two and each one of them ended up being so exhausted in the end they could barely keep their heads up until they eventually just died, well, except for the third one," Bobby pretty much answered Sam's non-question as he tossed Dean a quick look and nodded his head. "Any of this sound strikingly familiar?"

"Why the nightmares?" Sam did pose his next set of thoughts as an actual question.

"They're sort of a diversion. It's like she can sense her victim's worst fears and she uses them against them. The mind is so preoccupied with the nightmare that it has no idea what's going on outside of it until it's too late. Eventually, the victims are too weak to fight anymore and she doesn't need to the distraction as cover. Sheer exhaustion does that little trick for her. She just waits until they pass out and then goes to town. Dean's a perfect example. He was so out of it that he didn't even realize what was happening to him right before I got here. I hate to say it Sam, but I'm pretty sure when you saw her hightail it into the crapper, she wasn't just dropping by to leave a mint on his pillow," he told Sam and quickly regretted it when he saw the young man's guilty reaction to the reminder of his earlier lack of attention that had been brought up not to shame him but only to help him prove his point.

"Gee, thanks. It makes me feel a whole lot better to know that Dean's probably worse now because of me," Sam remarked, his eyes dropping from Bobby's stare down to his plate as he aimlessly picked at his food, what little appetite he may have had leaving him when he thought about that thing sucking the life out of his brother as he sat sleeping totally unawares only feet away not once but twice. Technically three times if you considered what Sam was now convinced had to have been a nightmare that very first time Dean woke up not breathing before bolting into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him. Somehow he had known there was more to it than just a concussion and now he knew he had been right.

"I didn't mean it like that Sam so quit dwelling on it. Have you already forgotten you took a head shot yourself that was hard enough to put you down for a few? What's done is done so forget it and move on," he tried to brush off the comment that he had let somewhat callously come out of his mouth before continuing, needing Sam to participate fully in the conversation with him. Sam may have a lot of questions, but Bobby had a few of his own that still needed answering too. "Do you know when his last nightmare was?"

Returning his gaze back to the man with the answers to just about everything that was now asking the questions himself, he thought for a brief moment before responding. "I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess it would be the one he had yesterday afternoon after I talked to you the first time when he damn near clawed his own throat out. God, are you telling me she was the one choking him? Those bruises in the shape of fingers on his neck, is that where they came from? They came from her?"

"If I was a bettin' man, I'd lay money on it. So, what you're telling me is that you were in this room less than a day between the time the nightmares started and the time they stopped, that right?"

"Sounds about right," Sam agreed and didn't like the look on Bobby's face when he did.

"I was afraid of that," he expressed a deep concern as he scratched his beard to help him think. "Jesus Sam, she's bleeding him faster than his body can recover and that is not good. The other victims at least had the nightmares for a little over a day, nearly two and lasted a good three before they just couldn't take it anymore. His stopped twelve hours in and I swear an atomic bomb couldn't wake him right now, Vicodin 

or not. If we weren't here she would probably be going to town on him and I'm thinking' she's been dormant so long she just doesn't know when to stop. Thank god you came back into the room when you did or she probably would have killed him right there."

"She nearly did. He wasn't breathing when I found him and if I'd come in two minutes later…" Sam visibly shivered at that unfinished thought and promptly changed its direction. "What I don't get is why she would try to choke him to death if she wants to keep feeding on him. It doesn't make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense Sam. Normal people have normal nightmares. With what's probably rolling around in that screwed up head of his she sure had plenty of material to choose from and only god knows what he was actually dreaming about…"

"I know what he was dreaming about," Sam quietly interjected, the already long look on his haggard face becoming even longer as he remembered what Dean had let slip to him from his nearly asleep state. "I asked him who was choking him and he said it was me. I was the one choking him in his dream Bobby…me. She used me against him."

"Well, that would qualify as one of his worst nightmares, now wouldn't it? You and I have both seen what happens firsthand when Dean has a nightmare of epic proportions and it isn't pretty. As hard as he tried to hide it, I know he had his fair share after your daddy died and it was probably the only way she could hold him down long enough to… well, you get the idea. You know as well as I do that the longer a spirit is restless, the more insane it becomes. Insanity doesn't do much for self control, especially when you're the undead."

"None of that explains why Dean can't leave the room. Every time we try, he drops like a rock by the time we make it to the car and he's always got blood in his mouth when we come back in," Sam stated that fact rather dumbfounded and amazingly Bobby thought he had an answer to that as well.

"Some of the legends say that a langsuir can possess its victim and feed on it from the inside which would pretty much mean that she's attached to Dean like flies on shit. The second your brother dropped blood in that bathroom sink he was pretty much screwed because it's all she needed to get her claws into him, dig them in nice and deep, and hang on for the ride. Every time you two try to leave, there's some part of her that's worked its way so deep inside him that it must start to tear him apart. Probably why he spits up blood the way he does. I just hope any internal damage she may have caused isn't helping speed things along. I think that's what may have happened to the third victim, the one that died in the ambulance. Shit just started hemorrhaging inside when he tried to escape and that was it."

"But why Dean and not me?" Sam asked next, almost as if he wanted it to be him instead.

"Dean was the one that bled in the room Sam, not you and in case you hadn't noticed, each victim goes up one year in age, almost like she's killing her boyfriend over and over again. I'd have to say she's pretty pissed off at that guy and she has every right to be. Too bad we can't find him and bleed him out in the room. Maybe she'd leave Dean alone and take her anger out on the one that deserves it."

"I'm pretty sure that's not an option at the moment, so what's the plan. How are we gonna stop her?" Sam already had a pretty good idea what Bobby's response to that would be and was hoping it would be as simple as expected.

"Well, soon as the library opens up, I'm gonna head over to it and pull her obit from the newspaper archives. I'm figuring the funeral arrangements will be detailed and I can head to the funeral home to find out where she's buried. The rest should be obvious. Once that's done, I think we need to drag that bed out back and take a torch it too. I'm sure that's not the same mattress considering how much blood had soaked into it but the bed frame looks the same and I have serious doubts about that box spring. Better to be safe than sorry, that's what I say," Bobby rambled is explanation as he eyed his watch, anxious to get 

this particular salt and burn over with quickly. "Then we try to get Dean out of here and to the nearest hospital to get checked out. I'm betting once we cut her off he'll start improving pretty quick but as I already said, better to be safe than sorry."

"Hey Bobby… what about the baby? The cops really never had any leads on it?" Sam wasn't sure why he was asking again, he just was.

"Nope. It's like the damn thing just disappeared. Cops theorized that maybe the boyfriend took it when she died and either raised it himself, abandoned it somewhere, killed it, or maybe even sold it but since they couldn't find him or the baby, they really have no idea. My theory… I say the bastard took it to make sure nobody ever found it or him. If my guess is right, he was twenty-three or twenty-four and last time I checked, the age of consent in Wisconsin is eighteen. Little Jeannie was just a little short of that milestone and Wisconsin prison inmates don't take too kindly to statutory rapists. Good motive to me to not wanna get caught, but it's all speculation and there's really no use wasting the energy trying to figure it out anyway, is there? It ain't gonna change anything happening here now, is it?"

"I don't know, I just can't shake the feeling that it may be important," Sam stated as he pondered, not really knowing why he wanted to figure out the entire mystery so badly. His head was starting to throb as it tried to process all the new information swimming around inside it, the thought of the baby still nagging at him as it floated atop everything else pooled in his mind.

"Well, spit it out or shake it 'cuz we don't have a whole lot of time for feelings. It's nearly nine now and I have no idea how long it's gonna take to get into town now that the friggin' winds have picked up again and visibility is for shit. I still gotta take the damn chains off my tires too before I set foot anywhere near the downtown area since they ain't totally legal in this state. Library opens at ten so hopefully I'll be back here no later then noon. You sure it's safe for me to leave you two here alone together without a sitter? I'm sorry Sam, but he's already too weak and she's way too aggressive for you to be falling asleep again so she can start leeching on him again. I'm afraid the next time may just be the final straw," Bobby didn't want what he had just said to sound as accusatory as it had, but he had to say it as bluntly as possible. The last thing he needed was to come back to the room to find Sam sound asleep and Dean dead.

"I swear, we'll be ok here. It's just that… every time she attacks him, he wakes up and says he hears…" Sam started to say, the light, somewhat wet sounding cough that broke out from behind him shattering his train of thought, then the hoarse voice following it as Dean tried to roll over drawing both men's undivided attention.

"Sam…"

End Notes:Thanks for reading everyone!