Chapter Three ; Tell Me How My Heart Tastes

Bugs. Dean hated bugs – no, loathed them with every fiber of his being – ever since he and Sam ran into that Realtor who thought it would be a good idea to build an expensive suburb on cursed Indian land. Ha! What a good idea that was, putting his entire family at risk to be slaughtered before sunrise by a million bugs. A million, creepy-crawly bugs that find ways into every crevice, every pore and–

Dean shuddered as he slammed his fist down on a spider walking along the trunk of his car. He shot a satisfied smile at the remains of the little arachnid, but when he realized he had spider guts on his hand he made a weird jerking-"eww"ing-hopping dance away from the car. Wiping his hand off on his pants – then groaning because he had now transferred spider goo onto his favorite pair of faded, holes at the knees, "Damn, Marcia, that man has a fine ass" jeans – he gave his day up as a bad job and went back to filling the Impala's gas tank.

The pit stop off the highway, at a gas station the brothers had never heard of before, was made primarily because Sammy had needed to visit the little boy's room. Dean was neither a barbarian nor a man to experiment what urine would do to superb leather upholstery, so he had pulled over to this unpopular (and high priced) establishment sitting under a seasonably grey sky.

With a longing glance at the convenience store part of the gas station, Dean sighed. "What did he do now, fall into the toilet?" Squeezing as many final drops of gasoline into the tank as he could, Dean flipped the license plate back to its proper position and returned the gas nozzle to the pump. "Well, I'm not fishing him out."

It didn't take long to enter the store, hear the sleigh bells jingling above his head. Pulling his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans ("A real fine ass, Marcia, real fine"), Dean walked to the front counter and quickly scanned the building for a sign of his brother – the tall kid with nappy hair standing by the bulletin board, drooling over a lost puppy flyer.

"Pump number three," Dean stated gruffly as he turned around to face the cashier. When he saw the attending, he smiled and leaned into the counter. "Hey, there."

The platinum punk blonde (streaked with multiple colors, that fact Dean choosing to ignore) behind the cash register smiled back and shook her head. She had the word love tattooed across her throat, but other than that…. "Twenty-eight dollars, please."

Dean gave her extra. "Keep the change," he replied smoothly.

She slid the change in form of three dollar bills back across the counter. "Maybe if you had a more ecologically friendly vehicle."

Sam, still staring stupidly at that lost animal poster or whatever it really was, found it in him to laugh.

Making a mental note to throttle his brother the moment they left the building, Dean kept at it. "Oh, you say that now, but the moment you sit down in that car and feel those 390 horses vibrate under your feet…. " He smiled handsomely for good measure.

The woman – Stephanie according to her name tag – scoffed. "Those cars get abysmal gas mileage, absolutely horrible. Something like ten miles to a gallon. It's idiots like you, having to stop at gas stations three times a week, who are using up all our nonrenewable fossil fuels. You make me sick," she said slowly like she thought Dean horrendously dumb, lips curled back in a very unattractive sneer.

Dean narrowed his eyes and snatched up his money. "It's idiots like you, speaking ill of goddesses like that one sitting outside, who ruin my day. I hope you get robbed and the gunman rips that tattoo off your neck. 'Love'," he snorted. "Yeah, right. I hope you're aware that nonconformity is only conforming to nonconformity, Miss I Have a Rainbow for Hair." Sure he looked dumber than a freezer burnt rabbit, but Dean did have his moments.

"Have a very bad day, sir," Stephanie said, full of fake and irritating cheer.

It might be important to mention that Dean always destroyed those aforementioned moments, without fail.

Not bothering to fiddle with his wallet, simply shoving the three dollars in his right hip pocket, Dean huffed and began walking toward his brother. "Find a new job, hey? I hear PETA's looking for a few more research building arsonists. You'd look sexy with a Molotov cocktail in your hands, you really would – tell them Dean sent you and maybe someone'll throw one at that pretty little face of yours."

Stephanie didn't respond to that, merely slammed the cash register drawer shut and turned back to her People magazine. That's was fine by Dean; he would never be caught dead with anyone who couldn't respect the classic automobile, no matter how much they confused their face with a pin cushion.

At the bulletin board, Sam was grinning. "You really wooed her, Clark Gable."

Dean pulled at the lapels of his worn and weary brown leather jacket, trying to salvage a couple of cool points. He was scowling and, despite the fact that deep ruts would form several years faster in his forehead if he didn't stop, at the moment he didn't exactly care.

Sam pulled several wrinkled sheets of paper down from the cork board. "Clark Gable. He was a movie actor back in the golden era of motion pictures. You know: Aubrey Hepburn, Grace Kelley, Bella Lugosi."

"I know who Clark Gable is," Dean replied stiffly.

"Wrong tense. Now, you stay here and lower your blood pressure while I ask a few questions," Sam put lightly and handed Dean the aged flyers he had taken.

His blood pressure was fine, but any reason to stay away from that rude wench was a good one.

With a head roll, Dean looked down at the notices in his hand. They weren't missing persons reports, of course, because the victims of whatever it was they were now hunting were always found, but warnings rather. Requests for information regarding suspicious characters, a blown up newspaper article with main headline reading "What's Happening to Our Children?", and a pink notice written by some Arrowsic parents about the murders. He only skimmed that last one, the pink was so vibrant and the text so black it made his eyes hurt.

While Dean's self-stated beautifuly hazel eyes were watering from the hot pink notice, Sam was standing at the counter tapping a ninety-nine cent lighter against the glass of the bakery display. He was hoping his stupid brother hadn't done a horrible amount of damage.

"We're going to visit our Uncle over in Georgetown," Sam started simply. "Those papers are kind of worrying me, though. They haven't found who's doing this yet?"

Stephanie was so engrossed in her Kenny Chesney article she didn't look up. "Between you and me I think they've plain stopped looking. I mean, when this first started happening after the few year break you couldn't walk two feet without running into a cop here, but now hardly any police come by for a fill. That lets you know other counties have stopped getting involved."

Few year break? "But surely they have a suspect by now."

So long Kenny, hello Jessica Simpson's roots in desperate need of touching up. "You'd think that, but they don't. There hasn't been one lead, not one, since this whole thing began. At least that's what my grandfather says; he was a kid when people first started getting killed, you see, and was around my dad's age when the hiatus started up. Everyone's given up finding answers if you ask me."

"What's this break you keep mentioning?"

Stephanie was a skimmer, she now started flipping through the magazine for something more interesting than an unscheduled dye job. "Well, according to the stories whoever's doing this for one reason or another went away for a while. The hiatus lasted a couple years, two to three, and then people started getting killed again – but the pace has been picking up lately. So unless you think this guy could be like the Zodiac Killer, you're like my brother-in-law."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, there are a few people out there who think the Zodiac Killer's back after a break, right? But that's mainly from those whacky tabloids. Say he did come back, that would make him pretty old for a serial killer, right? He's probably riddled with arthritis. But my kid brother-in-law runs with the crack-pots. Aliens, he says. Aliens murdering us through our dreams, he says."

Sam smirked, twirling the cheap lighter across his knuckles (or at least trying to, and badly). "What side of the fence are you on?"

"Neither. I think it's just some misguided kid, bunch of copycats, trying to be cool – like those dumbasses who drive around in gas guzzling, ozone destroying emission, Cracker Jack cars."

"I heard that," Dean shouted sourly.

"Good for you, sweetcakes, I hope you didn't hurt yourself," Stephanie called back. "Look," she added to Sam, "either pay for that or put it back. If you break that glass case I'll have your ass on a plate."

&&&

George Thorogood was telling a nice dog to move it on over because a mean ol' dog was moving in. Something about his lady locking him out of the house about a half past ten so now he has to sleep with the dog, some story like that. Sam would've failed a quizzing by this radio station's DJ because he wasn't paying the least bit of attention.

Dean wouldn't stop tapping his fingers along to the song, however, and if he hadn't been talking with Sam about the case at hand the youngest of the Winchester boys would have certainly chopped those fingers right off.

"I don't see any commonalities," Sam admitted. "Maybe when we arrive at Arrowsic and start poking around I'll be able to connect the dots, but so far these papers aren't the least bit of help. Soccer players, Debate team members, goths, respectable kids working in Georgetown, the list goes on and on. At least with our exorcism we had shared traits, weakness, but here…. "

"It's early yet, Sammy. You're always trying to figure everything out before hand and you know it doesn't always work that way," Dean stated before going back to humming the chorus of the song.

"Sam," he corrected harshly. "And why are you telling me this? Both of us run around like chickens with our heads cut off collecting information before the confrontations."

Dean turned the car right, cruised slowly down a pine needle dusted road. "I'm just saying. It looks a lot to me like you're really hoping for something to pop out at you from those sheets of paper. Something the matter?"

"No." Sam turned back to the flaming pink notice.

Dean all but stopped as they closed in on a narrow bridge. "You said that awful fast."

"So? Nothing's wrong. Why do you have to get on my back?" The notice didn't help him any, back to the newspaper article.

"Don't rip the pages there, Sammy, that's all the information we have on this so far."

"I'm not incompetent, Dean."

A turn left as directed by a handy, rustic wooden sign. "I know you're not, Sammy. I never said you were."

"It's Sam!"

"As long as you're my little brother, the hell you are."

Guitar solo time, and how fitting. A white boy from Maine playing blues guitar as the Winchesters were about to dive head first into the unknown evil plaguing a small island in said state. Where were the Destroyers when you needed them? Smack the evil to pulp with their guitars and drum sticks.

Though it wasn't the reason for their silence, Sam and Dean remained quiet throughout George's guitar solo – almost as if by an unspoken rule neither of them were to interrupt a genius at work. But when the singing resumed and Dean was quite sure his brother wasn't going to be the one to break the silence, he took it upon himself.

"I know you're uneasy about this. I have a bad feeling about it, too."

Sam was one step below sounding utterly offended. "I'm not uneasy. I don't have a bad feeling."

"What kind of being would want to hurt young people, teens and twentysomethings, by driving picks into their brains? Certainly not Oprah Winfrey, I'll tell you that. Maybe give them gold encrusted ice picks, but she'd never shove it into their head – that's just not Lady O. Something really bad, naturally, and that gives me the willies, too."

"I do not have the willies."

Dean nodded, signaling his agreeing to disagree. "Whether you do or you don't, Sammy, we're here."

And here they were indeed.

The Impala was purring beside the township welcome sign, a cheery nautical design not giving the traveler the slightest inkling of the monster looming just inside the darkness. Beyond that, down the road, period housing and boats bobbing in the tide.

There wasn't much of anything else to see, and Dean had the horrible feeling that he'd be going in and out of the nearest town every time he needed something – like a bed to sleep in and a business anxious to serve him food. But in spite of those looming problems this place went beyond quaint to the point where it might have been sickening, "might have" only because Dean had seen pictures of Arrowsic Island before on the Unsolved Mysteries segment and knew what he was up against. Sammy, on the other hand, felt as though he had been struck in the back of the head with a log named Home.

The younger-but-never-looked-so Winchester boy really was overcome with the sensation of finding home, though he couldn't explain why. He had always thought his home to be somewhere in the middle of a barley field, not surrounded by water with a lighthouse that would make any photographer squeal. Space, too. The home he had imagined in his head had lots of space, stretching room, but on this island which was less than nine square miles that was only a dream. Actually, it was still doable here as long as Sam sewed his arms to his side.

"How do people on an island this small not know what's happening?"

"Better question, Dean: how can they possibly get away? They have nowhere to run to."