Chapter 8: Gone Camping

November 10, 2005

Lost Creek, Colorado

The woods breathe in time with the wind. Unrestricted vegetation brushes against ankles and exposed, bruised kneecaps in an invitation to wrap around and drag any able body straight into its thickest part.

About thirty odd minutes go by in silence between people. The trees, however, creak from old age, their limbs snapping occasionally. Animals speak to each other in a language no human understands.

Ellie is beginning to tire. Her shoes suddenly seem tighter and her backpack is heavier than before. Maybe Dean stuffed something inside when she was not aware of her surroundings. She feels a deep-rooted hotness. Sweat prickles the skin underneath her heavy shirt. The young child aches and is going to need to stop soon. At least long enough for her feet to feel real again.

Wanting to cover more ground in somewhat of a timely fashion, Ellie swings forward to skip a couple steps ahead. Her hands reach up to grip the straps on her backpack to relieve some of the pressure. She is careful to stay well within eyesight and earshot of both of her brothers, remembering clearly the serious, low type of lecture she was given in the car.

Ellie's boots dig deeply into softer dirt when an unfamiliar, hard-hitting touch uses her backpack to yank her backwards. Particles scatter around her feet. She feels like the wind got knocked out of her, but it doesn't hurt as much. Her breath is conscious in her ear drums. Ellie remains still in confusion but she is also aware of the want to move away that is further out in her brain. She is thinking slowly now and trying to assess the situation.

Gurgles of movement and sound travel right over Ellie's head. There's something at her fingertips, just out of reach.

"Whatcha doing there, Roy?" asks the nearest apparition she cannot quite place yet. The tone is demanding with a tint of cool for balance, or youth. Dean. Ellie wants him. She takes calculated steps backwards until the hand on her slips. Roy is looking at her all mean-like with hard eyes and a twisted up face. It's as if he is seeing her for the first time again. She knows she is not supposed to hate anyone – besides the true evils of the world, not the outcasts and misunderstood of the monsters they hunt – but she might, really actually might, hate Roy. Ellie won't say it out loud, but she thinks he is a jerk face. Dean was right.

Roy bends down and picks up a walking stick from the trail. He jabs down and the piece of wood is broken in two by something once flat that springs up on contact, much like a crocodile. Ellie blinks at the suddenness of it all and the noise of the contraption overtaking the stick. The crocodile of the woods is a bear trap. It would have instantly snapped her ankle.

Roy smiles up at the pair of siblings, mockingly, "First rule of the wilderness, kid. You should watch where you're stepping," He stands and looks to Dean. "Then again, I'm sure your rangers told you all about that one," Roy forges ahead with a spring in his step. He is still on the path but the trees look like they want to eat him alive. Ellie almost wishes they would.

The rest of the group stalls for a moment. Dean cranes his head back, blinking up. He purses his lips and swallows down all of the words in his mouth. Ellie knows he is holding back. A bird dives by them. Someone kicks a rock and it skitters down Roy's way.

With a steady yet careful hand, Dean reaches for his sister and guides her towards the back of the line. Passing Haley and a miserable looking Ben, Ellie notices something in their eyes that she knows wasn't there when they first broke ground on the walking path. Doubt.

He stops at a sulking Sam weighted down by their duffle. "Stick back here with Sam," Dean smooths out everything Roy had ruined with his harshness. When Ellie turns to face him he catches her eyes. "Like glue."

Sticking her chin out, Ellie nods under her bangs. "Like glue."

"Good." Dean ruffles her hair. They keep moving.

Ellie stays beside Sam. She feels weird about the encounter with Roy but it is fading fast. As long as she doesn't have to be close to the man she will be okay. She tries not to look too hard at the bear trap when she toes over it.

The youngest Winchester grounds herself by taking hold of Sam's hand. His larger hand easily encompasses her own. Their duffel bag and her backpack bang against their bodies as gravity pulls them down a small hill.

Ellie bats away any bugs attempting to attach themselves to her sweat-pricked skin. Her upper body is mostly covered by her sweatshirt but her legs are not faring as well. It is unusually warm for Colorado in November; she thinks so, at least. Perhaps it is the evil energy in the woods that follows her family wherever their work leads them, heavy and foreboding. Or it could just be a heat wave, which happens from time to time. Where's the fun in that, though?

To prevent her shrinking alertness from collapse, Ellie swings the arm she has attached to Sam exaggeratedly to be longer and slower. Sam doesn't say anything about it. His arm goes dead, turning into almost a noodle.

The touch of Sam is different than Dean's. It is softer and light; used to running over pages of books and computer keyboards. Sam is hopeful and dreaming and bursting with the desire to learn more, want more. Now he feels hollow and Ellie fears that he only hopes to get away from their cracked family for another college, in another state, with another girl. His dreams are only "based-off-a-true-story" nightmares of the first time he got what he wanted.

Now that he knows the feeling, perhaps he can become conditioned to it. Reset the game. Start over. Leave again. What's another heartbreak, right?

"Do you not want to save people anymore?" Ellie asks her brother without a second thought. Of course, the idea in itself is untrue. Saving people. Hunting things. It is the family business, after all. Ellie doesn't think Sam wants anyone to die. She wonders if she could stick her finger through where they are joined at the palm and feel nothing inside him but maybe some loose dirt. This kind of life takes the family out of the business. It took Jessica.

Ever since they reunited Ellie feels like she can only make Sam exasperated, or at a loss, whether it be for words or people. He looks the same way he did when she asked in Dad's old motel room why he never picked up a phone for her in three years. Children are immune to the perplexity of adult emotions and their mouths run like streams. Sam is drowning in the flow of his little sister, and there is not much air to breathe in the tight and possibly cursed forest. He has to take two steps forward to catch up to Ellie; his arm being stretched out as she kept trekking along unbothered when he slowed to process her question.

"Of course I want to save people," Sam confirms. Ellie hops over a large tree root that managed to fight its way to the surface after quickly deciding that balancing on it like a beam would probably not be the best idea. She uses Sam to keep her steady over the unpredictable terrain. "I tried – "

His voice stops. The cursor blinking.

"You seem mad." states Ellie, matter-of-fact like, even though she is not aware of such a concept. All she can think about is how cold he feels even though there was a fire in California and it is hot today. He seems disinterested in the case and its people. Ellie likes that part of hunting more than others because everyone is so different. Sam's voice keeps going up in times it shouldn't and she dislikes that.

Ellie says because she doesn't want it to happen again, "I'm sorry about Jessica."

Sam didn't want to be in Colorado since Dad isn't and Ellie understands that, but for a different reason. He shakes his head. "No, Ellie, I'm sorry. The way I've been treating you and Dean – I shouldn't." They fall into step. Ellie's eyes scan over the figures of the four people walking along the path in front of them. Sam is right. He shouldn't. "You guys are worried, I know, but it's not your fault. Sometimes, things are just hard."

They are. Ellie agrees. The tough-love concept reminds her of Dad. She misses him an awful lot. Sam probably misses Jessica in that way, too.

She stops. Looking up at her brother, she smiles, "I hope you can be happy again, Sammy."

Ellie lets go of Sam to walk ahead by herself. "C'mon, we have to make sure there aren't anymore bear traps," She is perfectly in his line of sight this way. It isn't as glued together as Dean instructed, but Ellie thinks of it as a stretchy glue.

When she glances back Sam is staring at her as if she has all of the answers to a question he never asked.

November 10, 2005

Blackwater Ridge, Colorado

It doesn't take long for Haley and Ben to see through the Winchesters' paper thin façade, but when they do, it does make things a bit easier on their part. Ellie is glad because lying is bad and – oh – Roy doesn't know so he is at a disadvantage.

Blackwater Ridge is marked by a large rock protruding from the ground and absolute silence. Not even crickets. The whole world came to a standstill and they are stuck in the thick of it.

John does not clamber out of the woods and neither does Tommy. Roy goes up ahead even though advised not to by Ellie's brothers. Ellie sips uneasily from the water bottle Dean hands her. He nudges her to sit on a tree stump. Ellie plops her backpack in front of her to let her knees cage it in. She wonders what Roy knows so much more about for him to disregard her brothers entirely. They keep her safe. Then her fingers find one of the many rings on the tree stump while she sets the water bottle down, and her wondering switches to how old the tree could be.

Ben takes a seat near Ellie. He has earbuds in and she can kind of hear crackles of a tune and a voice if she pays hard enough attention. She smears her palms across her face and under her bangs to wipe some of the sweat away. Ellie drinks more from the water bottle because John always stressed hydration.

Dean, Sam, and Haley are hovering around. The forest is deadly quiet. Ellie becomes aware of Ben's music again.

Ben takes the earbud closest to Ellie out. "Do you want to listen?" he asks, hesitancy in his tone. His fingers roll the loose headphone around. The young girl realizes she must have been staring for him to ask. She didn't mean to. His music was just the only noise for miles.

Ellie nods. Shuffling closer, she takes the offer. Ben is older than her, a teenager at most, and Ellie has not had a chance to figure him out yet. She hasn't heard him talk before now, but in the Winchester line of work, kids either talk too much or barely at all. Ellie has been on both sides of that fence.

The song is not bad. It is rock but not as harsh as Dean's can get. Softer.

Ellie starts, carefully, "My brother listens to . . ." She searches for the terminology. Sammy said it once. "mullet rock . . .?" Her statement sounds more like a question than she intended it to. Ben chuckles. His body lifts and huffs. Ellie tilts her head. Confused. Is it supposed to be funny?

A shout bundled up in the nothingness is almost as startling enough as a gunshot. Ellie jerks her head away as a reflex. She accidentally kicks the fabric of her bag. Her eyes and heart blow up as if they are balloons; she feels like her limbs might pop from the rush. The dainty earbud pathetically swings from where she abandoned it.

The sound was calling out to Haley. They jump to their feet, snatching up any belongings in the process. Dean presses Ellie back, looking onwards, and as a warning to what comes next. Sam leads her by the arm and it's scary, but they still go.

They crash land at a campsite. What is left of one, anyways. The tents are dismantled and ripped open with supplies dripping out; they lie flopped over and bleeding out like wounded animals. Based on the haphazardly puzzle pieces scattered around, it looks like whatever tornado came from did so screaming in the contrasts of the silent forest. It was searching and hunting. Ellie thinks they might have found what they were looking for based on the spray of red on the whites of the tents.

There are no victims, but she smells them anyways; what her brain thinks they would smell like, at least. Someone states that the scene looks like a grizzly attack. The nine-year-old thinks about the picture of the giant one in the ranger station. She steps back and fades. Ellie doesn't want to do this anymore. She wants to go home. She wants the Impala and mullet rock and the open road. She wants Lucky Charms. Dean has a small baggie of them for snacks stashed in the inside pocket of Dad's coat but she wants some straight from the box. She wants good noise and John. She wants –

"I don't want to go camping anymore." Ellie think-talks. She wants not this. Almost anything but.

Dean crouches down to his sister's height. There is movement under his skin when he reaches for the shoulder straps of Ellie's backpack to hold her there. It's different than Roy. "Hey, don't look at that – look at me, okay?" Ellie already is looking at him because he is too tall to see over. She isn't really looking at him, though, so she tries that. Dean doesn't look sad or angry, or any of those things Ellie and Sam were feeling. He just looks like Dean. "Remember what I said?"

Ellie thinks. Dean says a lot of things. A decent amount are serious things that she is supposed to somehow stuff into that part of her head that remembers, but sometimes there just isn't enough room. She goes with what is most recent: "To stick like glue."

"Right. And that nothing bad is going to happen," Haley is yelling for Tommy before Sam hushes her. It is a brief distraction. "Whatever is out there – it is going to have to go through Sammy first, but, more importantly," His hands give a small squeeze to Ellie's frame. "it's going to have to go through me. And trust me, that is not a battle any drooling freak is going to win. Not if I can help it."

Ellie shows that she understands. It helps to believe. Sometimes it doesn't. It all depends on the circumstance. She believes in Dean because he never left.

Dean stands on creaky bones. He isn't old but hunting hurts. He gently guides Ellie out of the confines of her backpack and away. "Walk with me, okay?"

They walk down the quiet trail buzzing with electricity from the new campsite discovery. There are indentations in the dirt. Dean follows them – tracing with his eyes – until there isn't anything left. Ellie doesn't see any footprints. It is just crater-like disturbances. Dean calls for the missing Winchester.

When Sam breaks through the tree line he is loud and breathless. He slows when he sees them. Branches crack under his shoes while he approaches.

The three Winchesters huddle around the marks in the forest floor. "So, the bodies were dragged from the campsite," Dean declares. He points. "But here, the tracks just vanish." A noise creeps up in the back of his throat and Dean unfolds. "It's weird. I don't like it."

Ellie grabs at lumps of dirt that have not been touched by missing bodies since she is close to the ground. If the evidence is off-putting to Dean then she is even more worried. Him or Dad always know. Sam is quiet while Ellie continues to poke around in the dirt, so Dean adds, "I'll tell you what, though, it's no skinwalker or black dog."

Ellie releases the particles of earth from her fists. It is under her nails at this point and she can practically taste it, but it is nothing a motel bathroom can't fix. She looks up at her oldest brother. "What's – what's a skinwalker?" The word feels funny to say when it sloshes around in her mouth.

"It's a witch," Sam explains, simply, "Only instead of staying human most of the time, they prefer an animal form. Skinwalkers can turn into whatever animal they want to."

Ellie comprehends about half of the definition. She knows what werewolves are from seeing them in movies before. Dean claims they are different in real life and Hollywood sugar coats them, but Ellie is not so sure how different. As far as the general public is concerned, werewolves do not exist. She pictures them uglier, or something. "So like a werewolf?" She backtracks, squinting upwards. "But with all animals?"

"Kind of, yeah."

Ellie thinks for a beat. A man-bear doesn't seem correct. "What about that huge grizzly bear in that photo?" She knew it was too big to be completely real.

Dean softens. "I think that might of been one of a kind, sweetheart. And even if it was a grizzly skinwalker, I've seen their work, and this isn't it."

A shrill cry of help bursts through the gaps in the trees. The vegetation is clumped so the shadows run together to create a dark pit, but there are still cracks. Ellie copies her brothers movements, stretching her legs until she is standing at her full height. She wipes the wet dirt from the forest floor off of her exposed knees. The sweaty and itching feeling, courtesy of the environment, has not subsided.

Dean and Sam have not moved yet. It sounded like that person was in trouble. This is what they are supposed to do, what Dad said – save people. But they're not doing anything. Ellie is confused and maybe angry, but not really. She doesn't know the word for it to make sense in her brain. Should she tell Dean –

The voice makes a second appearance. Louder. More desperate and drawn out.

This time the adults break into a sprint towards it. Ellie follows suit with Ben. She feels bad for making the person wait, especially if it is Haley and Ben's missing brother behind the voice because they could get mad that they had to go a few more seconds than necessary without Tommy. It's just, no one did anything right away. Perhaps they didn't hear it as clear as she did the first time. Ellie learned from somewhere that kids hear better.

A few branches shoved aside and hard landings from jumping over logs later, everyone halts in a small clearing. Roy uses the scope on his rifle as binoculars to scan the area. Dean is carrying a small gun Ellie doesn't remember him having before. She doesn't see Tommy, or John, or anyone for that matter.

"It seemed like it was coming from around here," Haley observes, warily, "Didn't it?"

Sam spins around suddenly. His breath is stuck in his throat, eyes wide. He approaches Ellie and offers her his hand while still analyzing their surroundings. Ellie takes his hand, confused. Whenever her family becomes clingy in the midst of a hunt it is because something is wrong. Sam announces that they need to get back to camp.

The shredded campsite is a surprisingly brisk jog away, even though the original distance from it felt much longer. Upon arrival, it is obvious something had been altered in their absence. Everything that was once theirs is gone, replaced by empty air and a dying camp.

Ellie releases Sam's hand to walk over to where she had left her pack. The others filter in quickly and begin mourning what they lost. At least they have houses to go back to with all of their other things inside. Ellie lives out of her bag. It had everything she ever owned in it besides the few things she keeps in the Impala. While she toes around in the trash left behind, she remembers that her Game Boy was in her bag.

The storm swirling in Ellie's head is partially expressed through Haley's exasperation, "What the hell's going on?"

Ellie cannot be sure. She only knows that something came through and stole her belongings, just like it stole the people who were here originally.

Sam seems to have a better idea of everything. "It's smart." he answers. "It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help."

"You mean someone – " Roy steps in, correcting Ellie's brother. He cradles his rifle like a comfort. "some nut job out there just stole all our gear." Ellie remembers that Roy is the only remaining person left in their six person group to be unaware of the secrets; the monsters in the woods, the magic . . . He probably wouldn't believe it, anyway.

Ellie did find delight in Roy's lack of knowledge about the Winchesters' day job. However, now she thinks, in a very isolated way, that he could be in the same headspace as them. She really hates that thought the second it forms a bubble in her mind, though, because she does not want to have any similarities to Roy, but Dean and Sam do not know what the monster of the week is this time around. Even if Roy knew what Dean had to awkwardly fumble around to explain to Haley and Ben because they were caught in a lie, he still wouldn't really know.

Sam wants to speak with Dean, in private. Ellie knows that it is code for "grown-up talk" towards something she can't know about. She made a pact with Baby last year, stretched out in the backseat and waiting for Dean and John to return, that she would never grow up. Adults can lie, even though that is bad and she can't, and they have way too many secrets. She would explode if she had that much information in her brain and was unable to release it. Ellie has a decent track record for not leaking the real family business because her brothers have a habit of speaking for her in public scenarios when her presence makes sense, or she is alone. The interior of Baby and motel walls have heard more of her whispered truths than any actual human being.

Yet, she has no problem withholding information from Roy. People like Roy are always an exception.

Ellie stares down her brothers in hopes to catch a piece of a secret. Sam looks around again at the other frustrated siblings poking around in the trash, at Roy angrily waving his gun around, at the bloodied tents Ellie is slowly getting desensitized to. He orders them to have an exclusive family meeting away from the crime scene of the camp and Ellie is glad. He leads Dean and Ellie back to where they found the disappearing tracks.

Once Sam is certain they are alone, he speaks, "Okay. Let me see Dad's journal – "

Dean presents the requested object. He seems curious. Sam begins filtering through the pages.

Ellie has never seen beyond the leather-bound cover of John's journal. She has always wanted to, but John didn't exactly leave it lying around for a little girl to read as a bedtime story. That and the fact that he never went anywhere without it. Until now.

Dean and Sam are talking about the contents of a certain page in the journal. They are being vague about it, taking into account the presence of Ellie. Her brothers are too tall and bunched up for her to see much of anything. It doesn't even help when she stretches up on her tip-toes, arms out to balance wobbly legs. The nine-year-old begins to twist around in her spot with boredom. What's the fun in coming along if she can't even know anything?

She starts to doubt that there is actually anything in John's journal because her brothers are discussing nonsense, that's what.

Win – Windaygo? Windegoes? Wind – whatever – she has never heard of before. She doesn't say anything out loud about it because she is afraid that her brothers will then lower the volume once they figure out she is listening. Dean argues that the creatures aren't even in Colorado, or something.

Besides, Ellie cannot remember witnessing John ever write anything in it. More and more information just kept piling up in the growing, worn pages until the journal was bursting at the seams. Like the mysteries of the Colorado woods.

She knows it is wrong to doubt and Ellie doesn't believe that she does, really. She just misses John lately. But she is thankful for the Winchesters she does have, she swears so. The whole thing is just a sore subject and his goodbye in Louisiana wasn't a "goodbye forever" type.

Dean takes Ellie's full attention out of her head when he sighs and sways some, defeated. He holds up his gun and thumps it down against his thigh. It is useless, apparently. Ellie feels more on edge now.

Sam presses Dad's journal into Dean's chest. The forest floor huffs as he takes two steps towards the way they came before stopping and spinning around.

He leans into Dean, and Ellie hears it loud and clear this time, "We got to get these people to safety." Sam's tone is serious, not as serious as when Dean slammed the Impala into park outside of Sam's apartment building because Ellie is convinced that nothing could ever be more grave. He points down, and his eyes request attention, and while the younger of Ellie's brothers walks away, all the signs are there that Sam means what he says.

This case is more than a troubled, lost spirit; a woman in white. And Ellie guesses that whatever it is, it can do more to hurt people than take control of their beloved car.