Chapter 7: Where the Wild Things Are

November 9, 2005

Just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado

Sam isn't the same. That much Ellie knows.

His fingers twitch more and his back is set straighter. He is restless instead of sleep. Guarded. Angry. He smells like perspiration rather than coffee. His mouth is held tight a lot.

There was a funeral. A hunchbacked cloud of black under a dying cherry blossom tree. It didn't rain but Ellie felt like it should have that day. Sam attended clutching lilies tight to his chest because Jessica always claimed roses were lame. He wore a suit as dark as the smoke hovering over the apartment that night. Ellie watched adults cry from a distance inside of Baby with Dean, hugging the curb. Sometimes she forgets that older people can express emotion in that way. She hardly sees it.

The Winchesters spend a week in Palo Alto only to find ashes, what little of Sam's possessions that actually survived the fire, and a dead girl who hardly scraped the bottom of her twenties. Ellie notices when the setting stops being a home for her brother; skin thrumming with distrust and dark dust curled in the soles of his boots. Sam makes the call to skip town when he cannot bear to look at the faces of it anymore. He isn't leaving his siblings again. This is what Ellie wanted but she doesn't think she wanted it to happen in this way.

Sam hasn't really been sleeping. At least, when he does it is mostly sweat and teeth. Which is why Ellie is not exactly surprised when he jolts awake in the passenger seat, blinking rapidly at the volume of Metallica filling the car. Dean restored the Impala back to her former glory after the house fiasco in California. From the back seat the nine-year-old observes Dean glance over at Sam in brewing concern before accelerating forward to conceal his break in speed. The trees fly by at a faster rate.

Sam grabs at his face and rubs his eyes. Dean asks if he is alright. The answer is yes. Always yes.

Ellie feels the bass of the song through her fingernails when she places them against the window. A slash in the reflection reveals the green of pines. A somewhat eaten box of Lucky Charms sits by her feet. A cooler is at the opposite end of the bench seat acting as her road trip companion. Her bag is a presence at her left thigh. Sam clears his throat a few times, still distraught.

A car passes on the other side of the road, vacuumed up in a tight ball of sound. Ellie considers getting out her Game Boy, but the battery is almost dead, and it will not be much fun for long. She could draw, yet she shoots down that idea as well because the terrain is too uneven and her hands don't quite have it in them at the moment.

"You wanna drive for a while?" she hears Dean ask Sam to break through the wavering nightmare. Ellie moves around in her seat. Dean is very protective of the Impala and she doesn't even think he will even let her drive the car when she comes of age. The only time she can recall Sam driving Baby was after Dean got arrested.

Sam chuckles in short gasps. He does a double take. "Dean, in your whole life – I don't know, twenty-six years? – you have never once asked me that."

The youngest Winchester watches the oldest's face closely. He seems serious enough to her. This is what he does when things get shoved down in the gutter really badly. Back when John was still around he had one too many drinks after a failed hunt left three innocents dead. It wasn't a pretty sight walking through the motel room door and hovering in the four walls. Dean took Ellie out of there and he let her get two ice creams from the stand at the local park. Two! She also got to pick the music on the trip there and back. She ended up giggling like a maniac to her brother's reactions when she purposely put on songs Dean hated. If she did throw up in a plastic bag later on it did not affect her emotional state any. The stomachache was worth it all.

Dean purses his lips and shrugs. "Just thought you might want to," His eyes touchdown on a mirror to check it for a moment. "Nevermind."

"I mean – seriously?" scoffs Sam, disbelief still holding onto him. Ellie looks on as he shifts to view Dean and her both. "Look, I know you guys are worried about me and all, and I get that, and thank you . . . but I'm perfectly okay."

Ellie reaches out. Her hand clasps and then unwinds itself. She slinks back from Sam. It's a bold-faced lie and she knows it. Usually he's better at these – at least tries to sell it – but with the bad dreams, and restless eyes, and flat voice, it just isn't enough for Ellie. Her eyes mix with Dean's in the rearview when he checks in.

"Mm-hmm . . ." Dean bites down on, eyes returning to the road. He knows, too. His chin dips. The road sighs. Ellie lets her eyelids fall when the quiet comes.

Paper snaps back against itself when its spine breaks. "Alright – " gurgles Sam before chasing away the thing that seems to keep building in his throat when he choses not to use it. "Where are we?"

Ellie opens her eyes. Sam is holding the Colorado state map. It's bent weird from sleeping on the wrong side in the glove box for too long; worn thin. Routes are traced in marker and places circled here and then – random numbers added up on the side.

"We're almost in Grand Junction," Ellie answers with her eyes glued to the outside world. There's so much green, soft and pure green. Colorado has tall, tall mountains with jagged edges and snow dusting at the top. She wonders what it feels like to be at the top, if anyone down below could hear you if you screamed.

"Look at you reading your road signs," she hears Dean's praise. He knows about her reading struggles a bit and assured her it would go away with time. Every kid has trouble. Ellie hopes he is right because it hurts sometimes. Road signs aren't as bad for her because she sees them a lot. It's only painful when they go by too fast.

Ellie shrugs, keeping her gaze to the closed window. "My Nintendo is dead."

Dean chuckles. "Well, at least you're honest, kiddo."

The map hisses under the mumbles of Sam's touch. It is stressed, and frustrated, and agonized. "You know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon." He sounds as far away as the mountains to Ellie; had not even been listening to the conversation before. The child cannot help but be confused by his words. He was the one that made the final call to pack up and pull up stakes in his college town. The Jericho gloom had moved over Stanford College and Ellie was antsy to get away from it as well.

In the end, college – the apple-pie life – it returned Sam Winchester with the tag still attached. Spit him right back out. Jess' death hit Sam, hard, like any heart that snaps and spins into the empty. Ellie put up walls when it came to the topic, but she doesn't think going back would do any good. Sam might not come out as anything at all from it.

Dean reminds Sam that they overturned any stone they could for a week straight in Stanford. There was nothing besides what they already knew. The mission now is to find Dad so they can figure out just what is going on in the hunter world. Ellie misses him. She could use his voice at the moment, or a smell, smile, his truck – Words that she cannot read in the journal he left behind is not enough and his coat on Dean's skeleton only prompts what is gone.

"Dad disappearing," begins Dean. The nine-year-old can almost feel the change in temperature as it stiffens and falls directly on her. Dean is checking to see if she is tuning into this little family talk. Her shoe knocks over the cereal box on the floor mat but it is not a big deal since it is sealed shut. "And this thing showing up again after three years? It's no coincidence." Her eldest brother attempts to speak within her sounds of movement to conceal the words true meaning, yet the ugly part stays shining through. His volume returns to normal once when the hard part is over. "Dad'll have answers, he'll know what to do."

John will. Ellie knows. When it comes to hunting, precision balances on his blade and he is as thorough backwards as forwards. Everything is planned until the very end and John always plays an active role in it. She can't say the same about at-home life, though.

Sam expresses huffing confusion towards their destination – this Blackwater Ridge – because it is stranger than the average plagued-with-monsters kind of town. Vibrations of vehicles pass on the left. A smoke stained squirrel twitches on the road's shoulder. Ellie listens intently from behind her brothers.

The fact of the matter is the town is not even a town at all, it is nothing. There are no houses, or stiff people pretending to be okay, or white-picket fences. Dad's coordinates point to the source of the problem. The woods, trees so tall they're monsters themselves, the lack of substance existing in the middle of nowhere.

November 9, 2005

Lost Creek, Colorado

The ranger station of Lost Creek National Forest is a structured shred of civilization in an otherwise airy atmosphere. People roam the parking lot and some are even sprinkled within the building when the Winchesters enter. The three of them drift and seek out different points of interest in the aged-importance fragrance of the National Forest's history.

Ellie stands at a table in the middle of the room. A three dimensional map of their location balances on the surface. She touches the outline of the bumps and dips indicating a change in elevation. Her fingers climb a mountain.

Sam sides up to his sister. She easily accepts his company, happy that he is showing signs of life, but at the same time carrying some apprehension because she is unfamiliar with the symptoms that indicate pulling back inside himself. Ellie wants the real Sam for as long as possible. She wants to anchor to him forever. It's the only way she can think that things can get better.

"So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't have a lot of people, meaning that it is pretty remote," Sam explains with his voice kept in a bottle between the two of them. Ellie recognizes that this is what he used to do when she was much smaller and alone. He would always lie things out on the table and make sense of each step, describing the mechanics of it all. It made things less scary and easy to transition through. She clung to his words.

Sam places his right hand over his younger sister's to guide her through the relief map. "It's cut off by these canyons here – " They circle a protruding section. "Rough terrain, dense forest . . . abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place . . ."

His voice leaves with his touch. Ellie frowns when he sighs into the pretend forest.

They are surrounded by hurt.

"Dude!" Dean's voice is wrapped in bewilderment. He is standing on the other end of the floorboards, facing something fastened to the wall. "Check out the size of this friggin' bear,"

Ellie walks to him with Sam in tow. She squints into a picture frame to see a man who looks tiny compared to the grizzly at his feet, which takes up the rest of the image. No way.

The young girl moves back some. Her head turns to her eldest brother. "Is that real?"

Sam's presence becomes louder as he shuffles into new space. His arms are crossed.

"Don't know," Dean shrugs. "Looks real, though,"

"You kids aren't planning to go out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?"

The Winchester siblings whip around at the intrusion of the new voice. Ellie feels her heart leap but it goes back down soon enough. An older man – who she perceives as a ranger by his uniform and authoritative stance – lingers about a quarter way into their room. He cradles a coffee cup with tired eyes.

Sam stutters from Ellie's left. "Oh, no, sir." His smile is as artificial as the lightbulbs screwed into the lamps. "We're Environmental-Study Majors from CU Boulder." His hand rests on Ellie's shoulder. "I brought my little sister along because she's interested in all this stuff, too. We're just working on a paper."

Dean raises his fist to add to their cause. "Recycle, man." He chuckles but it falls flat. Ellie's eyes drift to her shoes.

"Bull," the ranger calls. Ellie goes stiff. Her eyes rise. He takes a step closer. "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?"

Haley? Who's Haley?

Ellie does not know any girls named Haley. Unless it is another one of the secrets all the adults like to keep from her. She is confused and starting to fall out of the façade her brothers had set up for her. Dean rolls with the punches, though, causing her to not completely let go. He admits that they know Haley. His delivery is a little sloppy because he has to search for the ranger's name – Wilkinson – and Ellie gets it. They do not actually know Haley and never did. Ranger Wilkinson mistook them for people they are not and they're going with it because sometimes when you want something really, really badly you lie.

And she wants any intel as to why Dad sent them to a place where people don't live.

Ranger Wilkinson paces back and forth with his coffee through the artifacts and tiny particles of Earth. His feet talk to the floor in creaks. "Well, I will tell you exactly what I told her," he talks like he knows them from around wherever. Perhaps Ellie should know him, or at least act like she does. But playing pretend just isn't as fun when no one knows that she is only kidding. It's harder to break out of it. "Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth. Today is the ninth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?"

Dean shakes his head. "No, sir."

Ellie is having trouble understanding why this Haley girl would be worried about her brother when it is not even close to his return date. Then again, Blackwater Ridge is full of dark patches and longing can leave painful bones. Ellie knows. Dad has ben MIA for weeks and Sam is not at full participation level anymore.

"You tell that girl to quit worryin'. I'm sure her brother's just fine."

Dean promises that they will. Ellie watches Ranger Wilkinson begin to fade like all of the other people they talk to briefly for information. She thinks about all of the friends she could have if her family would just stay for once.

Her oldest brother adds, "That Haley girl is quite a pistol, huh?"

Ranger Wilkinson stops and turns. He scoffs. "That is putting it mildly,"

Dean grins. His feet skid on the worn wood. Murmurs from other bodies in another room envelope the building. "Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date."

The Winchesters settle back into being someone else like a second skin.

Dean laughs out into the open air when the door clicks closed behind them. The paper glares at itself when he folds it into two and bounces it off the cuff of Dad's jacket. Ellie hops down from the porch. She walks ahead past the old trees and a man pulling out fishing poles from his pick-up.

"What – " Sam's voice sounds irritated from beyond her head. "Are you cruising for a hook-up or something?" Ellie crinkles her nose and walks faster. The terrain goes flat and hardens when she hits the parking lot. She breaks out into a jog, half surprised that Dean does not yell at her to wait up so he can make sure a car doesn't get too close, or something else she no longer needs because she is not six-years-old anymore.

Ellie's hand curls around the door handle when she reaches the Impala in a rush. She bounces on her toes and waits for her brothers to catch up so Dean can unlock the doors. She looks at someone walking through the grass and a car backing out of a spot.

Sam and Dean are deep in conversation when she gets dragged back into what she could not run far enough away from.

"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for?" questions Sam. "Let's just go find Dad – I mean, why even talk to this girl?"

He sounds too much like he did on that bridge when he spewed out all those ugly words Ellie was never supposed to hear. Something filthy crawled down his throat and is co-pilot of his bones. Death is what brought it to town. She hates this. She pulls on the handle but Baby is still locked.

Dean shrugs, mouth open and brows pulled together – trying to understand. "I don't know. Just maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk in to it . . .?"

Ellie yanks at Baby again, becoming somewhat desperate. "De – " her voice breaks in frustration. She mentally kicks herself for acting what she swears she is not.

Dean looks at her apologetically. He easily unlocks and pops open the door for her. Ellie scrambles into the car without looking at anyone. The door slams from her own doing but she is barely aware of it. Moving the cooler aside, she crawls to the opposite side of where she normally sits – now behind the driver's side instead of the other – to get as far away as possible. Her head falls on the window and her eyes go to the lifeless car beside Baby.

"What – ?" Like diving headfirst into ice water, so cold it is painful.

Dean sighs. Baby does nothing to block out the truth. "Look, man, I know that you're hurting and you're upset, but you don't have to make her feel that way, too. The kid's been through enough," Ellie keeps having to hear everything about who she is secondhand. Sam's aching is starting to become hers as well. "Besides, since when are you all 'shoot first, ask questions later', anyway?"

There is a huff. Ellie feels cold.

"Since now."

Lost Creek is a decently sized town. Rustic type buildings located in the town's center offer many options. The neighborhoods are quiet. The people act nice and unsuspecting of any danger from the wilderness that is coiled around them.

The Winchesters stay in a stuffy-old type of hotel that is more like an apartment building with how many floors it has, its crowdedness, and no elevators included. Ellie can detect the peaks of mountains from their third floor window. Her brothers depart with heavy words about what to do in case of a scenario deemed an emergency. Ellie takes the instruction with half attention because she has heard the speech before from multiple entities. She knows what being alone means and how it feels. There is no explanation this time for her presence to be along with Sam and Dean while they speak to Haley, and she finds herself okay with it. She watches cartoons and works on school assignments as the light outside dwindles.

When Ellie's brothers return all light has turned artificial and shadows have hit a growth spurt. A baby's cry blares like a muffled alarm from a few doors down and something upstairs slams shut.

The three Winchesters slink out into the night through the narrow, dim brown hallway. Ellie can see her breath out in the cold and her nose trickles to her lips. Dean takes them to a diner and they sit in a booth that is in a separate area from the open bar. It is about eight in the afternoon and the diner is in full swing. Loud rock music plays, adults are laughing with bear bottles in hand, and Ellie can hear the occasional rack break of pool table balls. The atmosphere reminds her of Dad.

There is a small bowl of peanuts in the center of the table – more so for decoration than anything, considering how long they had most likely been sitting there – which causes Dean to get fussy since Ellie is allergic. They have to get the table wiped down by an employee and Ellie rolls her eyes at the ordeal, yet she does have traces of gratitude within her soul for not having to admit that she left her EpiPen in the hotel room like she normally does, even though she is supposed to have it on her at all times.

Ellie feels warm from the amplitude of the building. She is sure that her cheeks are stained in pink. The nine-year-old sips on some water – biting the end of the straw a bit – before she wiggles out of her heavy overcoat. She leans into Dean. He smells like food and leather.

Sam sits on the other side of the red booth, quiet for the most part. He pulls out his laptop while they wait for their food, which by the amount of people among them, could take some time.

Sam begins explaining while the laptop boots up, "So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic; local campers and hikers mostly. But, still, this past April, two people went missing out there." He slides a piece of paper Dean's way. From where her head is pillowed on her brother's shoulder, Ellie is conscious of Dean's muscles sliding under skin as he reaches for the square of white splashed in bold print placed in front of him. "They were never found."

The material Sam presented is a newspaper article. Ellie examines the headline with Dean; she is a little more slower at putting it all together, but gets it, nonetheless. The documentation makes the situation all the more real. Sam gestures to the article receiving the attention. "If you take a look at that it explains that in 1982 eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said that it was an apparent grizzly bear attack."

Dean makes a noise that is caught between his teeth. He looks up. "You don't believe that?" The newspaper article is placed back on the table where it returns to its home in Sam's personal archive for cases.

Cheering erupts from the pool table. Clinking of bottles and laughing follows.

Sam's eyes gravitate towards the noise. "Maybe. But it happened again in 1959, and again, before that, in 1936." Two more papers with grueling backstories appear on the table. Sam presses his pointer finger down into them to emphasize his words. "Seems to be every twenty-three years, just like clockwork."

A pattern can go a long way in a hunter's line of work. Ellie is glad that Sam is starting to show interest and acting alive again. It could mean that he actually might want to be here, in this life, with Dean and her. Finding Dad is everything but this is a step forward.

Ellie pushes out of her relaxed position against Dean once Sam angles the laptop – which is covered in multiple stickers – their way. When Sam and Dean went to Haley's house to speak with her about her brother, she gave them the last known video of Tommy. Her worries were due to the fact that Tommy checks in every day by sending in little videos, but recently he had stopped without explanation. With their parents being gone, it is only Haley and her siblings, so they all have to look out for each other. Ellie knows all too well about crucial reliance.

Sam keys through a video of Tommy talking to the camera, the background being the interior of his tent. He has to do it a few times for Ellie to notice what is out of place. There is a shadow against the tent, as there are many in the hollowness of the night, but this one actually jumps in and out of frame. It is fast. And moving.

"That's three frames. It's a fraction of a second, but whatever this thing is, it can move." declares Sam.

Dean hits Sam playfully on the arm. Ellie smiles into her lap. "I told you something weird was going on!"

"Yeah, yeah." Sam rolls his eyes. He focuses on one particular document. "I got one more thing, though. In '59, one camper did survive the supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid around Ellie's age – he barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Dean takes it. "Does he have a name?"

November 10, 2005

Lost Creek, Colorado

There is definitely something in the woods of Blackwater Ridge. According to the witness Dean and Sam interviewed before bed, it is something of evil intent. Ellie does not know if that is entirely true. The Californian woman in white, Constance, was a lost spirit full of so much anger and grief that it ended up affecting those alive. She killed people, though, and that is supposed to be bad – evil.

What came into Ellie's house three years ago was true darkness, true evil. That thing dripped of everything ugly with black veins and yellow eyes, leaking from the ceiling until the whole house burned. It was paralyzing. Any monster she has seen since has never made her feel the same way she did that night, nor does she think she will find it in the forests of Colorado.

Which – after a long, heated discussion and the realization that leaving a child alone for days is different than hours – Ellie is granted permission to accompany her brothers this time around. They grumble about how mad Dad would be if he ever knew what was taking place, words stuffed in the Impala when they glide out of town. Ellie is lectured – without any radio – a good portion of the way to the ranger station. The young girl is given very, very specific instructions about what to do at all times, which, in her terms, could basically be summed up as: never leave our sight. Ever. Not really much new there, though.

Ellie does not see the ordeal as an ordeal. She sees it as camping. And she has never been camping. John never saw the good in it. Too many monsters, too open.

Crunching up the driveway to the station, Ellie plays with the ends of her hair sticking out from her braid. Dean jabs over his shoulder a mixture of: "Hey, I worked hard on that." along with "Now with Sammy around we can practice new hair styles on him, too."

They rumble to a stop and the engine cuts off under a canopy of trees. Jagged sunlight patches bounce off of the hood and windshield. There is a brief moment of hesitation as the car settles back into herself. Through the glass, Ellie stares at the three people they parked in front of, who are blatantly looking back: a girl, a younger boy who only appears to have a few years on Ellie, and an older man. They all carry hunching packs and seemed equipped to head straight into the backcountry. The man cradles a rifle that Ellie eyes warily when she swings out of the backseat, lugging her own bag behind her.

Car doors close carefully. She allows her brothers to step forward while she lingers back a bit. Ellie twists her bag around her to sit comfortably, kicks around at the tiny pebbles by her toes.

"You guys got room for three more?" asks Dean, approaching the strangers. Ellie was unaware that they would have company on this trip.

The only woman of the three stands before them, curly brunette hair and authoritative presence. Her hands are on her hips, but there is something in her eyes that does not look necessarily agitated, amused, maybe. They have met before, not Ellie, but her brothers did. This is how people manifest themselves when they are seeing someone for another go. This must be Haley. "Wait – you want to come with us?"

Dean produces an almost award winning smile for how unlike him it comes across. He swings a leg forward. "Sure do."

The man with the gun asks Haley who Ellie and her brothers are to them. Ellie begins walking towards the front lines so she is not as much of a shadow.

Haley pivots on her heel to twist her body back. A grin catches at the seams of her lips. "Apparently, this is all that the park service could muster up for 'search and rescue'."

He scoffs, leaning back on his heels while tapping his gun. His eyebrows raise in question, regarding the newcomers more closely. "You're rangers?"

Dean nods, answering, "That's right." Ellie stops at his side. Sam continues on ahead past them with his duffel being an annoying weight on his shoulders. Ellie watches him go.

She finds herself being pointed at. "Then why do you have a little girl with you?"

Dean slings his arm over his sister's shoulders. "This here is one of the troops from the local Girl Scouts. She's working on earning another badge." Ellie gives a hesitant thumbs up. She smiles tight-lipped.

Haley persists with the questions, looking at Dean, "And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Ellie glances down at herself. She is wearing knee-length shorts with a sweatshirt to balance everything out in the crisp weather, and boots fit for a rougher kind of terrain. She thinks her outfit is fine. Her brothers, on the other hand . . .

"Sorry, sweetheart, but I don't do shorts."

With his arm remaining strung across Ellie's form, Dean herds her down the path towards Sam, who is waiting. Her eyes are trained at her feet when they pass by the younger boy, who has remained quiet the whole time.

Shuffling around, boots kick up more pieces of the Earth. Ellie tries not to let a laugh slip at the discussion of her brother wearing shorts. It doesn't help that when she locks eyes with him he is smiling. She snorts and stumbles. Dean pinches her shoulder. Ellie shoves him off. The whole interaction is much louder than intended since everyone is watching.

"You think this is funny?" harshly challenges the man who Ellie has come to conclude she is not very fond of. He gives her a patronizing look that she hates and the smile slips right from her. "It's dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt."

Ellie turns away, feeling wrong and aggravated. Her head ducks. Dean places a hand on her back in reassurance. He sounds irritated. "Believe me, we know how dangerous it can be. We just wanna help them find their brother. That's all."

He tugs Ellie ahead of Sam, muttering through the footsteps and grass. "Don't worry about that jerk, El, he doesn't even know what's out there. You're fine."

For what it's worth, Dean's words help, but they do not know what the evil in Blackwater Ridge is, either.