I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters in it, but I do own my OC.


Chapter 12: Bedtime Stories—Part 2


They had left the hospital shortly after questioning Dr. Garrison, and Chris could have sworn she heard a bullfrog croaking nearby as they walked down the street. She gave up her search for the frog when Dean laughed, cracking up after seeing Sam's sketch.

"Heheh. Boy, this is a piece of, uh, art. Really." Dean said, grinning as he showed it to Chris. "Check it out."

"Wow… how… avant-garde..." Chris said, smiling wryly as she tilted her head and squinted her eyes, trying to make it seem more human somehow… maybe if she blurred her vision enough… "Reminds me of one of Jack's drawings..."

"Who's Jack? Another one of your interesting neighbors with something like the map to the lost city of Atlantis hidden in their closet?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, he was one of the patients that I use to have group art therapy with back in the nut house." Chris said, smiling a brilliant shit-eating grin.

"Oh, well, isn't that special. Did you hear that, Sammy?" Dean asked, now sporting his own shit-eating grin.

"Yeah, like either of you could've done any better." Sam said, snatching the notepad back from Dean. "So, what did the doc have to say about Kyle's brothers?"

"Not much. They were D.O.A. at the scene. He did give us the lowdown on the coroner's report." Dean told him.

"Lemme guess, their hearts were missing." Sam said dryly.

"Nope." Chris said, sighing. "But chunks of their kidneys, lungs, and intestines were."

"That's just gross." Sam said, wrinkling his nose slightly.

"Yeah, also definitely not werewolf behavior." Dean added.

"So, what are we dealing with here? Hannibal Lecter?" Chris asked. "Because if the culprit's just a human psychopath, then we should probably leave this to the police." Although, she wouldn't mind kicking this creep's ass for what he did to Kyle's family. Yellow Eyes might have been a demon, but whether the culprit was demon or human—it didn't make losing your family to a violent killer any easier. No one should be allowed to get away with doing something like that.

"Maybe it's a demon? Attacker could have been possessed." Sam suggested.

"Why would a demon stop halfway through an attack?" Dean asked, glancing at him.

"I think that, uh.. Coulda... Yeah, I got nothin'." Sam admitted, drawing a blank.

"Me, neither." Chris added rather unhelpfully.

Dean just sighed and shook his head as they continued their walk.

–_–_–_–

It was bright and sunny, beautiful day—perfect for a couple's hike through the woods… At least, that's what this couple had thought when they first started out…

"Man, I am starving." The guy said, digging through his backpack while they walked. "Hey, where are all the Power Bars?"

"You ate them all. And we're lost." The girl told him, shaking her head.

"We're not lost! The path is…right here." The guy said, losing a little of his conviction when he realized the path was getting more and more twisted and overgrown. It certainly didn't look like part of the well marked, wide, and regularly cleared path they had started out on… not that he would at admit it out loud.

So, the couple continued to walk on, hoping they might get lucky and stumble back onto the right path or run into someone who had much better sense of direction and could point them back to civilization.

"Ow." The girl said, annoyed when one of the branches got her. Yeah, she would not be hiking again anytime soon, not without a working GPS to save them from her hubby's rotten sense of direction and inability to ask for directions. She sighed tiredly, but felt a bit of hope when they finial came upon a break in the trees.

"Look, there." The guy said, pointing at the quaint little house in the clearing. There was smoke rising out of the chimney, so someone had to be home.

"Oh, civilization." She said elatedly, sighing with relief.

"Yeah." He replied a little curtly, not amused. He felt her obvious show of relief was a little over the top. They were lost in rural New York, not the Ozarks.

"Thank God!" She said, smiling, as she followed him closer to the house the path had opened up nice and wide now, so she didn't have to worry about running into anymore branches at least. The front door opened and a cheerful little old lady stepped out, using a cane for support.

"Are you two doing okay?" She called out to them from her porch.

"Hi! Actually, we're, uh—" The guy started to say, laughing a little awkwardly, as he gave the old lady a friendly smile.

"Lost." The girl chimed in, also smiling. she raised her eyebrows slightly at he hubby when he glanced back at her. If he didn't like having to say it, he shouldn't have gotten them lost in the first place.

"Oh, it happens. The trail gets twisty and my house is the only one left up here." The old lady said pleasantly, full of understanding. "Um… I could point you in the right direction, but I'm afraid it'll take a while to get back." She noticed the man was eyeing the pie she had set out on the windowsill to cool. "You're really deep into the woods." She added, concerned for their safety, and smiled sympathetically.

"Nice work, Ken." The girl teased him, clapping him on the back.

"Would you like to come in and rest a bit?" The old lady asked, smiling kindly at them. They looked so tired and hungry standing there.

"Um, yeah." The guy said, pleasantly surprised by her kind offer. Maybe he might even be able to get a slice of that delicious looking pie… His mouth was already watering from the smell alone.

"Thanks, but we should head back." The girl refused politely. She didn't want to intrude on the nice woman, and it was getting pretty late in the day. She did not want to be hiking back along a twisty and overgrown trail at night, especially when they didn't even have flashlights on them since they had only expected to be out there for part of the afternoon. Besides, wasn't it a little strange for such a defenseless looking old lady to welcome two strangers in her home? Not that they were, but what if she and her husband had secretly been crazed axe-murderers…?

"Oh come on honey, she offered." Her husband said aloud, before lowering his voice. "She's a harmless old lady what could happen?" He asked, winking, as he stepped onto the porch and smiled at the sweet old woman as she let him into her house. She still wasn't sure this was the best idea, but the old woman smiled sweetly at her, so she pushed aside her worries and smiled as she joined her husband inside.

He was right. She was just being paranoid. This woman was just a sweet and charitable old lady who needed a cane to get around.

There was no reason to be nervous, right?

–_–_–_–

The man had gotten his wish. After welcoming them inside, the old woman had generously offered to share her freshly-baked pie with them, and invited them to sit down at her table with her while they ate. She even let him have multiple helpings!

"You sure you don't want more?" The old lady asked sweetly.

"No, thank you it's, uh, uhm…" He said, frowning slightly as his stomach growled. "I'm full."

"We should go." His wife said, concerned when she noticed how uncomfortable he looked.

"Mmhm." The old woman hummed, nodding.

"We really can't thank you enough." His wife told her, smiling, as he got up from the table. He grunted and grabbed the chair for support, but the pain was too much. His knees buckled and he hit the floor with a thud, groaning and gasping in pain.

"Ken?" She asked worriedly.

"Ju-Julie!" He managed to choke out in his pain.

What happened!? What was wrong with him!?

Julie's mind was racing as she got up to help him, but then she too felt an intense wave of pain come over her, and she groaned in pain as she fell to her knees.

"Ah! Ah-Ah! What's going on!?" She cried out in pain and confusion. What was wrong with the old lady? How could she just sit there and watch all this with that same, sweet smile on her face!?

"Julie!" Ken cried, worriedly. No—not her, too!

"Did you... drug us…?" Julie asked the old lady when her vision quickly started to blur, appalled at the sudden and horrible realization that the little old lady had to be behind it. They had been perfectly fine until they had eaten her pie…!

The old lady just continued to smile as she, too, got up from the table and took a large carving knife from the dish rack by her sink. She checked its sharpness with her thumb and smiled with satisfaction before she turned around to face them again. Julie started to whimper, afraid for herself and her husband.

"Julie, run!" Ken gasped. He at least wanted her to be able to get away, but it was no good. Neither of them could move—they were paralyzed with pain, and completely at this madwoman's mercy.

"Stop. Please, you have to stop." Julie sobbed while the old lady stalked closer, looming ominously over them. The blade of the clean knife gleamed coldly in the light of her cozy little home while the poor couple cowered in fear on the floor, completely helpless to save themselves. She couldn't believe this was really happening—she had to be dreaming, right? This had to be a nightmare—it just had to be!

"Don't worry. Everything's fine." The old lady told Ken, smiling. "You just hold still now dear." She added as she raised the knife. Her smile morphed into a wicked grin as she slashed at Ken with the knife.

SLIIIICE—SPLAT!

Julie screamed in horror when she felt her husband's warm blood splatter onto her face, cruelly reminding her that this was not a nightmare. This was really happening to them.

The old lady laughed, changing her grip on the knife, before continuing to leisurely stab poor Ken repeatedly, over and over again, while poor Julie had to watch. She never stopped screaming.

"No! Stop! Stop! Please, stop! Why are you doing this!? Nooooo!"

Meanwhile, a little girl with long black hair in a white dress, red sash and red headband had appeared just outside the window, watching. Observing. She smiled slightly as the old woman continued to stab Ken, even though he was already long dead.

"Noooo!" Julie wailed in agony and desperation.

–_–_–_–

Dean glanced around while he, Sam, and Chris, once again walked through the actually rather busy halls of the local hospital. They must get a lot of patients from the nearby town, too. But that was beside the point. They were here to talk to the latest surviving victim, Julie Watson… whom the real authorities seemed to have gotten to first, since they were now coming out of her room, headed straight in their direction. The three hunters, who were once again in their fed/detective suits, took this as their cue to oh so casually turn to face the counter at the nurse's station they were passing and pretended to find a vase of flowers they had out fascinating, angling themselves so that their faces wouldn't be clearly visible while two Sheriff's deputies passed them by and disappeared around the corner. They were a little more cautious as they continued to make their way towards Julie's room, making sure more cops weren't going to pop up and demand to see identification. Their fake badges might easily fool civilians, but that wasn't always the case with the sharper tools of authority.

"Please, please." They heard Julie pleading through the open door.

"Shh. Hey, we need to observe you while the drugs still may be in your system." Dr. Garrison told her, trying to calm her down and keep her from putting too much strain on herself. It was far too soon for her to be out of bed. She had been through a lot and really needed to let her body rest more.

"I have to go. I have things to do, arrangements I need to make!" She sobbed, understandably distressed after the terrible ordeal she had just been through.

"It can wait. Now you need to rest. Stay." The doctor told her patiently. He knew what it was like to lose a loved one, and she was clearly still in shock. Poison aside, she shouldn't be alone right now. Even being stuck in a hospital would be better than having to face planning her husband's funeral alone, so soon after his death. She needed rest in place where she could feel safe, where she knew there was security to watch over her. "Be back in a few minutes." He said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder before turning to leave. Dr. Garrison sighed when he saw who was waiting for him at the door.

"Detectives." He greeted them tiredly.

"Dr. Garrison." Dean replied, returning his greeting.

"What the hell is going on here? My whole town is going insane." Dr. Garrison asked, concerned.

"We'll let you know as soon as we do." Sam told him. Dr. Garrison sighed and shook his head as he brushed passed them and left. The three of them exchanged a brief look with each other before proceeding into the room. "Ms. Watson? Hi." Dean greeted the poor woman as they approached her bed. "We just need to ask you a few questions." He said while all three of them showed her their badges.

"Do we have to go over this again, now?" She asked, sniffling.

"We'll try to be brief." Chris said sympathetically, handing her a tissue from the box on the table near her bed.

"Ms. Watson, can you tell us how you got away?" Sam asked firmly, but gently. The poor woman was already in tears, and they didn't want to upset her even more.

Julie nodded as she accepted the tissue from Chris.

"I didn't eat as much as Ken did, so I wasn't as out of it. And, when the old woman was..." Julie explained, pausing for a moment when her voice broke, wishing she didn't have to go through this again. "… carving up Ken, I shoved her and she fell, cracked her head on the stove." She paused again, and glanced hesitantly between them before asking, "She's dead, right? I-I killed her?"

"Do you have any idea why she would do this to you?" Dean asked.

"No! One minute she was a sweet old lady and the next she was, like, a monster."

"Can you remember anything else?" Chris asked after giving her a brief moment to calm down a little.

"Um, yeah." She said, furrowing her brow slightly as she sniffed. "Did you find a little girl there, by any chance?" She asked, concerned.

"A little girl? At the house?" Sam asked, glancing at the others. They hadn't heard anything about a child being found.

"I thought I saw her outside the window." Julie continued. "S-She just disappeared. Just vanished, into thin air."

They all looked at each other. Well, maybe this was their kind of case, after all.

"It m-must've been the drugs." Julie said dismissively. Why—How could any child have just stood there so calmly and watched while a gruesome murder took place, let alone vanish into thin air?

"This disappearing girl… what'd–what did she look like?" Dean asked.

"Does it matter?" Julie asked. Wasn't it just a hallucination?

"Yes, every detail matters." Chris said, nodding encouragingly. Julie sighed.

"She had this dark, dark hair and really pale skin. She was around eight." Julie said, glancing up at them. "She was a beautiful child, it was... odd to see her in the middle of something so horrible." Sam furrowed his brow slightly as something about her description struck a chord with him.

He had a feeling he might be starting to get a handle on what was happening to the people in this town.

–_–_–_–

The Old Lady's House…

"Well, there's no sulfur anywhere, how about the EMF?" Dean asked while they poked around the crime scene, looking for any signs that might indicate something supernatural was afoot.

"Yeah, it's going nuts. Right over here by the window. There's definitely a spirit here." Sam said.

"Who stood outside the crime scene and watched?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Looks like." Sam said, double-checking the pulsating EMF that was lit up like a Christmas tree.

"What the Hell do you make of that?" Dean asked, furrowing his brow.

"Actually, I do have a theory. Uh, sorta." Sam said, kind of wondering if he was going to end up regretting this. He glanced at Chris, hoping she might be on the same train of thought as him, so she could save him the trouble by being the one to say it.

"Don't look at me." She said, raising her hands. "I've sorta got one too, but it's nuts."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Hit me." Dean said, waiting for one of them to just spit it out. Something was better than nothing at this point, right?

"Well, thinkin' about fairy tales." Sam said, giving his older brother a shit-eating grin. He might as well get it over with. Chris raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise, and Dean paused in what he was doing, glancing up his younger brother. Yeah, Sam was serious.

"Oh that's–that's nice. You think about fairy tales often?" Dean asked, wondering if this was Sam's way of coming out of the closet. Sam sighed in exasperation.

"No, Dean I'm pretty sure he's talking about the murders. I was actually thinking the same thing." Chris said, smiling apologetically at Sam. Looks like she should have just gone ahead and said it after all, but she had been hoping Sam might've been able to come up with a theory that had a little less fairy dust on it.

"Yes, thank you, Chris!" Sam said, glad he had someone to back him up on this. A guy and a girl? Hiking through the woods, an old lady tries to eat 'em? That's Hansel and Gretel. Then we got three brothers arguing over how to build houses, attacked by the Big Bad Wolf."

"Three Little Pigs." Dean said, catching on.

"Yep." Chris said, nodding in agreement.

"Actually, those guys were a little chubby. Well, wait. I thought those things ended with uh, everyone living happily ever after?" Dean pointed out

"Oh-ho-ho—No, no!" Chris jumped in, laughing sardonically, as she shook her head. "Not the originals. The Grimm brothers' stuff was kind of like the folklore of it's day—full of sex, violence, and cannibalism. These tales were originally meant for adults and told around the fire after a hard day's work… though why they found telling tales that would make most shrinks want to commit the person who thought them up wear a straight jacket relaxing, I'll never know."

"Right, and then it got sanitized over the years, turned into Disney flicks and bedtime stories." Sam said.

"Even the Grimm versions, as dark as they are, had already been cleaned up some. I guess they realized marketing them for both adults and children was more profitable." Chris added, shrugging.

"So, you think the murders are uh, what? A re-enactment? That's a little crazy." Dean said, still skeptical. How did they even know all this crap in the first place?

"Crazy as what? Every day of our lives?" Sam asked, smiling wryly.

"We've seen crazier in Florida." Chris added.

"Touché." Dean said, blinking. He had to admit, they had a point there. "How's the creepy ghost girl involved?"

"Uhm, well, she must've been here for a reason." Sam said thoughtfully.

"Wanna bet she was at the construction site too?" Chris asked.

"We gotta do research now, don't we?" Dean asked regretfully.

Chris and Sam just shrugged as they grabbed their gear and started walking out of the house. They could say no, but then they'd be lying. Dean closed his eyes in disappointment.

Damn. He really hated doing research on stuff like this…