Rule 20: Always wear face shields when hunting man-eating plants.
Sam and Dean Winchester peered down at the remains of eighty-two year old Maureen Jones-Hayes.
The elderly woman's eyes were closed lightly, their lids a deep purple hue framed by snow-white lashes. Her thin-lipped mouth slightly upturned in a smile, crow's feet around the corners. Her parchment thin skin was pale, with blue veins visible beneath.
To the casual observer, the woman might have been sleeping but for the large chunk of flesh taken from her wattled neck, revealing muscle, veins and cartilage. Her right hand had also been mauled, missing the thumb, index and middle fingers, bits of pink gardening gloves poking out from the wounds.
"Looks like a shark got her," Dean commented with a half-smile, half-grimace.
"In the middle of Nebraska?" Sam asked sarcastically.
Turning to the local coroner, Sam spoke to her, "Were there any dogs lose in the area?"
"Not that we know," the coroner, a woman who didn't look much younger than Jones-Hays lying on the metal table between her and the hunters.
"The police searched for reports of aggressive dogs but found none from the past six months," Dr. Pinto explained.
"Coyote then?" Sam asked and the coroner nodded, "That seems more likely."
"Wait," Dean interrupted, "I didn't think coyotes killed people. I thought they were shy."
"They normally are," Dr. Pinto explained, "But if one is hurt or sick, it would be more likely to attack a human."
Dean nodded. This was shaping up to be a regular, run-of-the-mill wild animal attack for once. He was glad this wasn't going to be his and Sam's thing. They had bigger fish to fry right now.
The case was simple, open-and-shut. Old woman was out gardening in the early morning when a rabid coyote decided she'd make an easy meal.
"Is there anything else I can do for you gentlemen?" Dr. Pinto asked, looking at Sam.
"No, thank you, Doctor," he replied, "But here's our card. Feel free to call us if you find anything unusual."
The coroner took the business card from Sam, peering at him curiously, as though wondering what could be unusual about a coyote attack.
"I will," Dr. Pinto promised though she looked skeptical.
W
Dean revved the Impala's engine, ready to get back home and find out where the hell Cas, Kelly and Lucifer's baby had gone.
"Let's check out her house," Sam suggested, interrupting his brother's thoughts.
Pressing his foot on the brake, Dean stared at his brother, "Why?"
"Because I don't think this was a coyote attack," Sam replied as though it was obvious.
"You heard Dr. Pinto," Dean argued, "It was a coyote. End of story."
"Dean," Sam began, "Have you ever known a case we've look into to be something as mundane as an animal attack?"
Raising his hands, Dean counted on his fingers, "Two, actually."
Sam frowned, "Just humor me, please."
"Don't you want to know where Cas is? If he's hurt?" Dean argued.
"I do," Sam replied earnestly, "But we can't leave until we know that this is just a case of a rogue animal killing someone who at the wrong place at the wrong time."
Dean wanted to argue, he really did. He was worried about his friend but his brother was right. The last thing he wanted was to hear of another person had died because they had left town thinking the local cops could take care of a pesky coyote on their own.
"Fine," Dean grumbled, "We'll check out her house, but if there's nothing to see, we're gone."
Sam nodded, "That's fine by me."
Dean pulled out of the parking spot and headed in the direction of Maureen Jones-Hayes residence.
W
Maureen Jones-Hayes' home was a quaint ranch-style home with flourishing gardens along the front and sides.
The only sign that its resident was deceased was the yellow crime-scene tape strung across the front porch.
Dean parked the Impala behind the elderly woman's cream-coloured Volkswagen Beetle and got out, ready to prove to his brother that this was simply a case of an animal attack and nothing more.
Sam exited the Chevy directly after his sibling and surveyed the house.
"She was found lying in her front garden," Sam announced, "There."
He walked across the lawn to a patch of garden that had been crushed by Maureen's body, blood spattered on the leaves of the white roses growing there.
Crouching down, the hunter brushed some of the leaves aside, looking for tufts of beige coyote fur or paw prints.
Aware of Dean hovering over his shoulder, standing and watching the houses on either side of the victim's, Sam leaned closer to a cluster of roses and took a sniff.
"What are you doing?" Dean asked irritably and Sam turned to him.
"Something's not right here," the younger brother commented.
"What do you mean?" Dean asked.
"I can't smell the roses," Sam commented.
The older brother raised an eyebrow, "So?"
"They should have a scent," Sam told him, "With the amount rosebushes in the garden we should have been able to smell them as soon as we got out of the car."
"Oh, so you're a horticulturist now?"
Sam sighed, "I'm worried about Cas too, Dean. But if something supernatural killed this woman and we don't stop it…"
Dean waved his brother's words away, "Yeah, yeah, I get ya."
The elder hunter leaned forward and took a sniff, just to be certain, and it turned out his brother was correct, he could not smell roses but instead…
"Is that pie?" he asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
"What?" Sam asked, blinking confusedly at him, "Pie?"
"I… uh… I smell pie," Dean confessed.
Sam glowered at him, "Really Dean? Now is when you decide to think about food?"
"I'm not thinking about food!" the older brother insisted, "But I smell pie… pecan pie."
"Maybe it's coming from a neighour's house," Sam commented.
Dean straightened, "Yeah, probably."
Turning away from his sibling, Sam continued to search the area for anything unusual.
SPN
Dean tried to hide his annoyance with his sibling but it was difficult.
Watching his brother carefully push aside the thorny roses in search of any evidence that this was something more than an animal attack, Dean noticed movement from the corner of his eye.
"Sam," he said, his hand going to the gun concealed at the small of his back.
"Are you police?" the stranger, a man asked, his hands held up slightly to show he was not a threat.
"Federal agents," Dean answered, "And who are you?"
"Nigel," the man, who appeared to be in his mid-forties replied, "I just live there."
The neighbour pointed to two houses down from the one they were searching.
"You got a last name, Nigel?" Dean asked.
"Emory," the man asked. He looked as threatening as a doily. He was wearing beige corduroy trousers, dark brown dress shoes, a light blue button-up shirt and a navy blue vest. His head was balding on top, which, made him look distinctly monkish, and he wore gold-rimmed glasses.
"Did you know the victim well?" Dean asked, "Mr. Emory?"
Nigel nodded, "Maureen gave me tips for my own gardens, though they aren't as nice as hers. She loved those gardens, loved roses in particular. They were her children. She competed in the annual Green Thumb Games every year and won."
"Hm," Dean muttered, "What's that?"
"Just a town wide gardening competition. The winners don't even get any money, just a cheap trophy and bragging rights. It's mostly an excuse to socialize with other flower enthusiasts."
That piqued Dean's interest and he continued to question the neighbour, "Did Ms. Jones-Hayes' have any enemies? Anyone who was upset that she always won this competition?"
Nigel Emory shook his head, "No one could hate Maureen. She was just the sweetest lady; very humble about winning."
Before Dean could ask anything else, the neighbour caught sight of Sam, who was tearing out rose heads, his hands covered in the cuffs of his suit jacket to avoid the thorns.
"Hey! What are you doing! You can't do that!" Nigel exclaimed and stepped forward, only to be stopped with Dean's hand on his chest.
"What've you go, Sa-" Dean began before correcting himself, "-Agent McKagan?"
"This," Sam replied and pointed to a plant huddled close to the dirt, surrounded by the snowy white roses, "Is not a rose."
Dean frowned and stepped closer.
"What is that?"
The plant, looking very conspicuous, had a thick, bright green stem from which four vines emerged, each trailing deeper into the rosebushes and vanishing from sight. At the center of the quartet of vines sat a single flower folded in two with needle thin protrusions like teeth along the outer edges. Although the outsides of the petals were the same bright green as the vines, the inside of them seemed to be crimson red.
"Is that-" Dean began but Nigel spoke before he could finish.
"Dionaea muscipula."
"Venus flytrap," Sam commented, speaking the common name for the plant, "But I've never seen one so big."
"Why is that in here?" Dean asked.
The hunters both turned to Nigel as though he would have the answer.
"I don't know," he admitted, "Maybe Maureen was using it to keep away harmful insects."
Sam crouched down again and poked at the flytrap's 'mouth'. Almost instantly, the twin petals parted to reveal a gob of something red and wet.
Dean, seeing this, quickly put his hand on Nigel's shoulder and turned the man around, "Did you see anything strange this morning, Mr. Emory? We are thinking Ms. Jones-Hays' death is the result of an animal attack."
"What-" the neighbour tried to look over his shoulder at what Sam- or Agent McKagan- was doing but Dean continued to steer him further from the garden.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied, "I didn't even look outside until I heard police sirens."
Dean nodded, "That's fine. Listen, thank you for your cooperation. We'll call on you if we have anymore questions, all right?"
"Uh, Agent-" Nigel began but the hunter interrupted.
"Adler," he told the man, "Agent Adler."
"Thank you," Dean repeated and gave the man a little encouraging shove in the direction of his home, "We'll be in touch!"
Nigel Emory left the property, a perplexed expression on his face as he headed down the sidewalk. Once he was out of hearing range, Dean went to Sam's side and crouched down.
"That's not really what I think it is, is it?" he asked, gesturing to the gristly chunk of gore nestled in the Venus flytrap's petals.
Reaching out, Sam quickly plucked the piece of meat out of the plant and held it out on his palm, showing the tip of a finger, complete with its nail.
"Yup," he commented.
Dean sighed, "Why couldn't this just be an animal attack?"
SPN
Sitting in the parking lot of a local burger joint, Dean tried not to think about what they had found in Ms. Jones-Hayes' garden, even as they discussed the case.
"So do you think Maureen put the plant there herself or someone planted it?" Dean asked, taking a large bite of his chili-cheeseburger as Sam munched stolidly on his salad.
"Could be either one," his brother commented, crunching on a crouton, "But you said she always won that gardening competition so I'm more likely to say someone planted it there without her knowing."
Dean nodded, picking up his cup of soda and taking a contemplative sip.
"How do we find that out?" he asked.
"I wonder how many nurseries this town has," Sam wondered out loud.
SPN
"Well that was useless," Dean grumped as he and Sam sat down in the respective seats in the Impala.
They were in the parking lot of a tiny nursery called Flourishing Flowers and had found nothing useful after interviewing the employees. They didn't sell Venus flytraps and no one had inquired about purchasing any all season.
"There's one more," Sam told his brother, crossing off the current nursery from the short list he had made on a notepad they kept in the car's glove box.
"Great," Dean sighed sarcastically and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.
"Do you need a tissue?" Sam asked, watching as his brother then wiped his hand on the side of his dress pants.
Sniffing, Dean shook his head, "I'm fine."
Sam smiled a little. Dean seemed to have developed allergies and was barely keeping it together. While trying to interview the doe-eyed teen at the cash register, the older Winchester had experienced a sneezing attack and Sam had been forced to take over the questioning until Dean got himself under control.
Eyes bloodshot nose red and running, Dean looked- and probably felt- miserable. Luckily there weren't many nurseries and greenhouses in town. Sam had suggested stopping at a pharmacy for some antihistamines but Dean had just shook his head and insisted he'd be fine once they returned to the motel.
Turning the Impala's engine on, Dean pulled out of his parking spot and headed onto the road towards their final destination.
"You're doing the interviewing for this one," he commented, "I'm tired of trying to get out of conversations about fertilizer."
"Okay," Sam agreed.
W
Bob of 'Bob's Begonias' was more than welcoming to the two fake FBI agents.
"As you can see here," he spread his flabby arms wide, "I don't sell anything but begonias."
"Uh huh," Sam muttered, peering around at the multicoloured flowers.
"Do you enter into the Green Thumb Games yearly?" Sam asked, the sea of colour making him feel slightly nauseous.
"I sure do," Bob commented expansively.
"Have you ever won?" Dean asked.
The man's expression crumbled slightly, "Well, no, that woman, Maureen Jones-Hayes wins every year."
"And how does that make you feel?" Sam asked, suddenly more interested than he had been moments ago.
"I'm not a sore loser if that's what you mean," Bob told the brothers carefully, "But I don't think it's fair that woman can win every single year."
"Do you mind if I look around while my partner asks you a few more questions?" Dean asked, holding back the urge to sniff.
"Go ahead," Bob shrugged, "I've got nothing to hide."
The elder hunter slouched off while the younger continued grilling the nursery's proprietor.
SPN
Only wanting to get this investigation over with as quickly as possible, Dean headed into the nursery's greenhouse- a metal skeleton frame covered with plastic tarp skin- to rule out Bob as the culprit that had given the victim the deadly plant.
Walking past rows and rows of pink, yellow, white, salmon, and red begonias, Dean searched their pots carefully for any sign of the strange Venus's flytrap that had apparently killed elderly Maureen Jones-Hayes.
Sighing in resignation, Dean paused at the small cashier's stand at the back of the nursery, peering disinterestedly at the doorway behind it that seemed to lead to Bob's personal office. A small plaque on the door read 'General Manager'.
The hunter was about to head back to where his brother was interviewing Bob when, through his stuffed nose and inflamed sinuses, the distinct sugary scent of fresh baked pecan pie penetrated his olfactory senses.
Looking up, Dean frowned. Why did he smell pie again?
Confused for a moment or two, the hunter continued to stare at the door to Bob's office. Either he had a pecan pie in there or… or… he had a man-eating flytrap in there.
The revelation stunned Dean so greatly that he didn't even hear his brother and the nursery owner approach. Intending to get Sam and tell him what he had discovered- what he thought he had discovered- he turned and came face-to-face with his sibling and Bob.
"Sammy!" Dean exclaimed, startled.
Sam gave him a quizzical look, "Agent Adler."
Clearing his throat, Dean gathered his bearings, "Agent McKagan."
"Is everything all right, Agent?" Bob asked.
Dean nodded, "Yes, I was just surprised to see you two. Didn't hear you approach."
"I think we can go," Sam said, meeting his brother's eyes.
Something's wrong here, Dean told his sibling silently, his expression conveying the message to his brother in a way that Bob would not understand.
"Thank you for your time," Dean spoke up, "Please let us know if you think of anything else."
Bob nodded and watched as Dean grabbed Sam's arm, guiding him away from the nursery owner, struggling to keep from running to their car.
SPN
"What was that back there, Dean? You look like you saw a ghost," Sam asked, loosening his tie gratefully as he dropped down onto the end of his motel bed.
Dean, who strangely enough, hadn't made a move to remove his dress clothes, paced in front of his younger brother.
"I smelled it again, Sam," he told him, "Pecan pie."
"Are you sure its not just your stuffed up nose playing tricks on you?" the younger sibling asked.
"I would have thought so but… begonias don't smell, do they?"
Sam hesitated for a moment and then shook his head.
"Most don't," he confirmed.
"So what are the chances that I could smell pie over at the victim's house and at Bob's Begonias? I didn't even smell it at any of the other nurseries we visited."
Sam couldn't help the expression that crossed his face as Dean spoke and it drew his sibling's attention.
"What? Sam, what is it?" Dean asked, his tone concerned.
"I… I know what you mean about smelling pie," he muttered, fidgeting. He hadn't wanted to tell Dean at the time, but while he was going through the scentless rose bushes at the victim's house, he had caught whiff of a different, familiar and painfully nostalgic scent. It was that fragrance that had helped him locate the flytrap in the first place.
"What do you mean?" Dean asked, "Did you smell it to and not tell me?"
Seeing that his brother was becoming angry, Sam held his hands out, "No, not pie, something else."
"What? Salad?" Dean asked, half-joking.
Sam shook his head and cast his eyes downwards.
"Jessica's perfume."
Dean seemed stunned by his answer and did not speak for a long minute.
"Really?" he asked, his voice quiet.
Sam nodded.
"Sam," he continued, "Jesus, why didn't you tell me?"
"I… I thought it was just me," Sam admitted, "I didn't want you to think I was…."
"Making it up?" Dean offered, "Crazy?"
Sam nodded.
"I haven't thought about Jess… really thought about her… in years," he muttered, his throat tightening with emotion. Even after so many years, her death still hurt as much as it did the day it happened.
"Why though?" Dean asked.
"Why what?" Sam wondered, trying to shove thoughts of Jessica Moore from his mind.
"Why did I smell pie and you smell perfume?"
The younger hunter forced his mind to focus on the task at hand and think about the killer plant.
"Some Venus flytraps attract their prey by giving off an inviting scent," Sam said slowly, "Pollinating insects think they're going to get food but-"
"-They become the food instead," Dean finished.
Sam nodded.
"That's why I could smell pie," Dean continued with finality, "The plant was trying to attract me."
Sam frowned slightly, "But that doesn't make much sense, Dean. You're certainly smarter than the average bug and I'm sure Maureen was as well."
"Maybe there's something we're missing?" Dean suggested.
"Let's go back to the house," Sam stood, fixing his tie.
"Right now?" Dean asked and Sam nodded.
"We don't know if Bob just gave Maureen one of those plants or he gave them to other people," Sam told him, "We need to see this through before anyone else is killed."
SPN
Dean could think of a hundred different things he would rather be doing than going through an old dead woman's gardens in the middle of the night.
But Sam was right. Bob might be holding grudges against other people and not just a woman who happened to grow better flowers than he did.
"I can't find it," Sam told him.
"Can you smell it?" Dean asked, holding a flashlight and shining it into the rose bushes.
Sam shook his head.
"Ow!" he exclaimed and drew his hand up to his mouth, putting his thumb into his mouth.
"Be careful," Dean advised belatedly.
"I don't think it's here," Sam muttered and brushed aside a rose bloom.
"Wait…" Sam commented, "Give me more light."
Dean obliged and swore.
"Son of a bitch."
A divot, the size of a baseball had been dug into the soil where the Venus flytrap had been just hours before.
"He knows were onto him," Dean commented.
"Then we don't have much time," Sam agreed and stood, brushing dirt away from the knees of his dress pants.
Before Sam could step out of the garden, however, Dean reached out and gripped his arm.
"What are you planning to do?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"If we destroy the plants," Dean said, "Bob might get more."
Sam's face darkened, "Than we kill Bob."
Taken aback by his brother's ruthless response, Dean let go of Sam's arm.
Flicking off the flashlight, he followed his younger sibling to the Impala.
W
"Looks like no one's home," Dean commented as the pulled into the parking lot of 'Bob's Begonias'.
Sam didn't say anything but exited the car quickly and silently; Dean noticing how his hand went to the gun at the small of his back as though to ensure it was still there.
The elder Winchester followed his brother swiftly across the parking lot to the greenhouse, pulling open the door that had been left unlocked.
"Guess no one's going to steal some plants," Dean muttered to himself and flicked on his flashlight.
"Stay close, Sammy," he advised.
Sam nodded but moved rapidly down the aisles of begonias, heading straight to the office at the back of the green house.
Damn it, Dean swore silently and jogged to keep up to his sibling.
The sound of a door swinging shut distracted the hunter and Dean froze, panning his flashlight around the rows of potted multicoloured flowers.
When no other sound was forthcoming, he returned his attention to where his brother was, to find Sam gone.
"Sammy," Dean hissed, swinging the light around to try and catch sight of his brother's tall form.
"Shit," he muttered and continued on towards Bob's office.
SPN
Sam didn't realize he'd left his brother behind as he headed towards the general manager's office, intent on putting a bullet between Bob's eyes.
Passing between rows and rows of begonias, the scent of Jessica's perfume suddenly became overpowering and Sam paused, his heart aching.
So entrenched in his thoughts of his deceased girlfriend, the hunter didn't even realize that a vine was quietly sneaking towards him from underneath the tables of potted plants.
Before Sam could continue, the vine rose up to the level of his face and its tip opened and exhaled a noxious cloud of fumes.
"Huh," Sam turned his face, directly into the miasma and lost consciousness as he stood.
Hitting the hard-packed dirt floor of the nursery with a dull thud, Sam was unaware as, moments later, the same vine wrapped around his ankles and began dragging him away beneath the tables of flowers.
SPN
Dean kicked in the door to Bob's office and shone his flashlight into the gloom. The cloying scent of pecan pie was overwhelming now and the hunter actually coughed as he breathed in the sweet scent.
"Oh my God," the hunter panned his light over the huge Venus flytrap hunkered down in the center of the office, looking so much like the murderous plant from Little Shop of Horrors Dean expected it to greet him in a silky, masculine voice.
The plant, of course, said nothing, but shot a dozen vines at the hunter so quickly that Dean didn't even have time to get his gun before he hit the floor hard, tendrils wrapped tightly around his ankles and knees.
The spiked maw of the plant opened wide and Dean was horrified to see a slimy skeleton slip from between the petals, landing on the dirt floor and breaking apart. The strong vines quickly drew the hunter towards the plant's mouth but Dean was ready. With his arms still free he reached behind him and grabbed his gun. The plant may be a killer but it didn't have human intelligence.
Aiming directly into the monstrous mouth, Dean fired off three shots in quick succession.
The bullets tore right through the plant's petals, allowing clear fluid to seep through but the vines did not cease dragging him towards its mouth.
"Shit," Dean ground out and pointed his gun at one of the vines securing his ankles.
The bullet ripped the vine in two and he kicked his legs, forcing the vine wrapped around his knees to pull apart. Shooting them as well, just to be safe, Dean grinned triumphantly before he spied a bulky figure step out of the shadows.
For a second, the hunter thought it was his brother but was disturbed to see Bob standing there with a shotgun.
"That old bitch had it coming, Agent Adler," the fat nursery owner said, unsmiling, "I was the only one brave enough to put her in her place."
"Fuck you," Dean lifted his gun and shot Bob once between the eyes.
The man fell to the ground, dust clouds puffing up around his body, visible even in the darkened room and immediately the flytrap's remaining vines wrapped around his legs, dragging the corpse towards its waiting mouth.
Jumping to his feet and breathing a sigh of relief, at how easy this case had been.
"Sammy!" Dean called his brother's name and frowned when he didn't receive an answer.
"Sammy?" He called again, his heart skipping a beat as he watched the giant flytrap's mouth close around Bob's body and his gaze went to the slick bones still scattered across the ground.
"SAM!"
Taking off out of the room, Dean's heart hammered in his chest. He had to find his brother. He just had to.
That skeleton wasn't his. It wasn't. No, Sam was okay.
"SAMMY!"
Dean swung the flashlight around wildly, desperately willing his brother to appear between the rows of begonias.
Momentarily, in the glow of white from the flashlight's beam, the black of his brother's suit jacket was illuminated on the ground at the end of the row of flowers.
Dashing forward, it took only a split second for Dean to take in the sight of his unconscious brother, the basketball-sized flytrap and the blood seeping from his sibling's arm.
"Oh no you don't," Dean raised his foot and brought it down hard on the plant, smashing it into the dirt.
Clear sap and red human blood seeped out from inside the plant's mouth as Dean ground his foot against the dirt floor, the flytrap's vines falling limp as wet noodles as he did so.
Certain that the plant was dead, Dean dropped to his knees beside his brother. There was a large chunk of flesh taken out of his sibling's forearm and Dean cringed at the sight of the weeping wound but forced himself to lightly smack his brother's cheeks.
"Sammy, hey, Sammy, wake up," Dean urged, his heart pounding at how pale his brother's face was.
"Get up, Sam," he continued, "Wake up."
"Nuhhh," the younger brother groaned, his face scrunching with pain.
"Sam," Dean demanded, "Up. Now."
"J'ssss," the hunter whined and Dean's heart broke, just a little.
"C'mon Sammy," he cajoled, "C'mon and open your eyes."
Slowly, reluctantly, from pain or from the plant's fumes, the hunter opened his eyes to hazel slits.
"D'n," he whispered.
"Me," Dean replied, "Can you sit up?"
Before his brother could answer, Dean heaved his sibling into a sitting position.
"Ah!" Sam cried out in pain and held his injured arm to his chest.
"I've got you," Dean assured him, "C'mon, get up, we've gotta torch this place."
Sam groaned but did as his brother asked, allowing Dean to help him to stand.
"We'll get you checked out at a hospital, okay?" Dean told him and Sam nodded dazedly.
Taking off his suit jacket, Dean tore the sleeve off one side and wrapped it around his brother's injured arm, ignoring his sibling's protests.
Putting a comforting arm around his brother's shoulders, Dean led Sam out into the parking lot, noticing that the younger man's staggered steps grew more steady as they moved further away from the evil plants even as his breathing became fast and shallow.
While Sam waited in the passenger's seat of the Impala, Dean knelt down at the side of one of the dry, rickety tables that held Bob's begonias and fished his lighter from his pocket.
The wood caught quickly, and within minutes the table itself had collapsed from the heat, the begonias burning with a hiss, the plastic tarp behind them melting into a puddle.
Dean waited only until he was certain the interior of the nursery had caught flame before he returned to the Impala.
W
Dean stood outside his sibling's hospital room, speaking with the local police officers.
"We're sorry that your partner got attacked by that rabid coyote," one young, baby-faced cop told Dean and the hunter nodded, grimacing, "Shame it got away too. We'll be on the lookout for a while."
"Uh thank you," he muttered, "Any word on Bob?"
The older of the two townie cops, a woman with a prominent harelip scar shook her head, "We found Bob's skeletal remains at the nursery but the other body… we have no idea who it is. It's just bizarre. By the fire got to the office, it wasn't burning as hot and the body just kind of… cooked… but the coroner can't seem to get a good DNA sample from any of the tissue."
Dean nodded, distractedly, thinking more about his brother's round of anti-rabies needles he was forced to get.
"Yeah, strange," he offered.
"Oh, I thought I'd bring this along," the fresh-faced cop dug into his pocket and pulled out a photograph that had been clipped from a newspaper.
"Here's this year's Green Thumb Games," he told Dean, "It shows everyone who competed."
The hunter peered down at the photo and easily picked out Maureen Jones-Hayes standing front and center with a golden trophy in the shape of a sunflower in her arms.
"Who are those people?" Dean asked, pointing to the man and woman standing on either side of the winner in second and third place, respectively.
The cop peered at Dean with slight confusion, "That's Bob."
Dean stared down at the elderly man holding up a blue third-place ribbon.
"Agent? Agent, are you all right, you look like you've seen a ghost?" the female cop asked.
"Uh, I'm fine," Dean muttered.
"Excuse me for a moment," he continued and went into Sam's room, closing and locking the door behind him.
Maybe Bob had a son of the same name, Dean thought as he sat on the chair beside his brother's bed; yeah, that had to be it.
Dean felt slightly better for this thought and peered down at his brother. Sam was sleeping lightly, his forearm bandaged tightly, unaware of the fright his sibling had received.
Letting out a breath through his mouth slowly, Dean brushed Sam's bangs away from his face.
In another day or so, when Sam had had all his shots, they would be able to leave town and return home. Dean felt bad that he'd had to say Sam had been attacked by the same coyote responsible for Maureen Jones-Hayes death but there had been no other way to explain his injuries and the younger brother had been a good sport about it. As if he had any other choice.
W
Dean breathed a sigh of relief when they put the town in their rearview mirror. He had told Sam everything that had happened in the general manager's office at the nursery, everything but the skeleton falling out of the giant plant's mouth before it grabbed Bob. Sam was none the wiser. They had quickly surmised that Bob's grudge had been with Maureen Jones-Hayes only and hadn't needed to torch any mini monster plants.
The local cops never found out who torched Bob's Begonias.
Author's Note:
Rule comes from Jenjoremy.
Thanks to jensensgirl3, whimsicalbarwench, SpnKsl5, elliereynolds777, reannablue, Sallyannerenee, SamDeanLover28, and lisamarie2272 for reviewing.
The two cases Dean can think of where nothing supernatural is involved are "The Benders"(Season1, Episode 15) and "Family Remains" (Season 4, Episode 11).
The aliases Sam and Dean use are names of two original members of Guns N' Roses, bassist Steven McKagan and drummer Steven Adler, respectively.
Thought you guys and girls might like that little bit of mystery I added in there. Wasn't intending it originally. It just happened. Hope you liked it.
If you have an idea for a 'rule', let me know and I'll include it in the list!