At the bar, Dean met some curvy blonde at a corner table, while Sam went digging for information. Drunken locals always liked to talk to anyone who was interested. They always exaggerated the local legends, too, which complicated things, but Sam was used to it. He'd work through that later.
There was a legend similar to a wendigo, some old hunter who turned crazy cannibal in the swamps. Some thought it wasn't a monster but a giant alligator. The last, the strangest, and thus the most noteworthy of the legends Sam heard that night, he heard as the bartender was putting away the bottles and turning off the lights.
He heard it from a woman who had sat at the bar all night, with blonde hair pulled back and a thick flannel jacket, drinking as well as any man there. As the crowd dwindled, he gradually sidled down the bar closer to her. At the end, she finally spoke to him, as the last man he had talked to walked out the door. She looked straight at Sam with dark brown eyes.
"They're all lyin' to you," she said.
"Really? Why?" he asked.
"Because they don't know any better. But I could tell you the real story if you wanted to hear." She tapped on her glass and the bartender poured some whiskey into it before putting the bottle away.
"It wasn't a man, like they say. Sexist bullshit. It was a woman."
"How did it happen?"
"She was always kind of a wild one, running off, gave her folks a couple of good scares when she left for days into the swamps. Some people in the town thought she had some boyfriend she was banging and didn't want anyone knowing. Some people thought she was a witch. Maybe they were right. A couple hunters spied her out in the bayou, ass naked and screaming like a wild animal into the night." She drank the whiskey. "One night as she went to bed, her ma sensed something different and followed her out when she left the house. In the middle of the woods, she pulled out a dagger and slit her arms to the elbows. Her ma said she drank the blood as it poured over her, but she wasn't weakened by it. Instead she transformed into something… not human, anymore. Her ma ran away and never saw her again, but that's when bodies started showing up, every few years, stripped of all the meat and the bones gnawed at."
"How do you know about this?"
"She was my aunt. I have my granny's diaries."
"Could I see them?" Sam asked.
"Why?"
"History buff," he said, shrugging. The woman sighed.
"Sure, no harm I guess. Too late for you tonight?"
Sam stood up and glanced around. He sighed; Dean and the blonde had disappeared.
"No, I've got time," he said. "What's your name?"
"Rachel. We gotta go to my house if you want to see them."
Sam nodded. They left the bar without another word, the door locked after them, and he drove them to her house.
The sun had started to rise as Sam got back to the motel and crawled into bed. He had been asleep for an hour or more when he started awake, hearing Dean come into the room. He sat on the edge of his own bed, running his hands through his hair, and Sam rolled over.
"Have a good night?" he asked. Dean's shoulders started to tremble.
"Hey," Sam said, pushing himself up. "What's the matter?"
Dean just shook his head. Sam reached towards him but he pulled away, letting the sobs come out loudly.
"More nightmares?" Sam asked, quieter this time. Dean could only nod his head. Sam waited until his crying had calmed for awhile before trying to talk to him again.
"We can try the dream catcher," he said.
"It won't work, Sam. It's mainstream hippie bull." It calmed his breathing to talk, and he rubbed his hands over his face.
"We're gonna try it. We'll toss some iron into it and see how it works."
Dean sighed. "Fine."
Sam got out of bed and got the dream catcher from the table. He pulled some strips of iron, wire and wire cutters out of his bag and dropped them onto the bed; Dean got up and started pacing as Sam worked on the dream catcher.
"If we make it work right we might be able to keep it away indefinitely. That would help, right?" he asked.
"Sure," Dean said, pulling a beer out of the fridge.
"You should try to get some more sleep today. It'll give us a chance to test it out."
"Ok, Sammy."
He finished twisting the wire around the catcher, and finally he tied a few bells to hang from the bottom.
"Why bells?" Dean asked.
"It's a thing for chasing away spirits. Mostly witchy, but it might help."
Dean shrugged and drained the beer bottle, tossing it into the kitchen. When he turned back around, he saw Sam watching him from the bed.
"What?"
"Nothing," Sam said. "Why don't you crash, and we'll try it out?"
Dean didn't reply and just fell onto his bed. Sam stood up and tried to wrap the string around the bed post, so that the catcher was as hidden as he could make it. He stood looking at it for a minute or so, until Dean spoke up.
"What, are you gonna sing a lullaby over me or something?"
Sam shook his head and walked into the bathroom. He took a quick shower, thinking about a quick jog outside before the heat hit, but when he came out again, he saw Dean asleep and the spirit from before, tangled and fighting against the catcher above his head.