Chapter Four ; A Pile of Stones for Your Glass House

If it meant anything at all to the strength (or sheer stupidity) of the town, the children weren't being locked away in their homes. Though it was a brisk autumn day even for Maine, kids were fishing with their makeshift fishing rods, tossing around the old pig skin, or playing a lively game of hide-and-seek by the lighthouse – poor Dean nearly ran over a little boy as he settled the car into a parking space.

Doubling Point Lighthouse, not at the number one spot on Dean's sightseeing list but, its grounds were open to the public. The lighthouse itself and the keeper's house were off limits, however, a reasoning Dean couldn't wrap his head around because how did the island expect to make any money if no one's allowed to look inside their deathly boring lighthouse? But visitors could walk around the buildings and, if they were the sort, observe the town and wax poetic about kicking a specter's ass back to the underworld (with a lovely parting gift, of course, like the loser contestants get on The Price Is Right when they get to come on down but never get to come all the way down to the stage with Bob).

Dean wanted to stay in the car where there was blessed heat, but Sam being Sam had stumbled out of the car quicker than a Jack Rabbit on a date. So here Dean was, face freezing off in the breeze from the river, walking beside his brother like some freak loner with a painfully strong fear of being alone. That, sadly, was Dean but he wouldn't ever admit to it… unless, maybe, some sicko threatened to scar up his beautiful face.

"If this place was anymore peaceful I'd be in a coma," Dean hissed, raising his shoulders so that the collar of his jacket might protect his ears. It didn't work, they were still icing over.

Sam was surveying the houses scattered about the front side of the island, marveled at how calm everything looked. If it hadn't been for radio announcements and newspaper articles he would've thought the killings were all a rouse. Surely nothing bad could ever happen in a place this beautifully passive to the world.

"How can anyone live like this?" Dean sniffed, nose beginning to run from the cold weather (or at least the cold weather he was feeling, for Sam was perfectly comfortable). "It's so cold here, so isolated! There's absolutely nothing to do. Jesus, even watching the grass grow is too fast-paced for this place."

Not a single curtain was drawn, no shutters fastened. For all the murders the people on this island still lived, continued on with their day-to-day lives. Fascinating.

"No wonder there's a big pottery market here, it's the only thing that keeps these people from hanging themselves from the boredom!"

"I don't know, Dean, I kind of like it here. Besides, it's not isolated at all – the nearest town you can throw a rock at." Sam took a deep breath in. "Smell the air, it's so pure. Your big, fancy, happening cities don't have that."

"I would," Dean started cynically, "but I'm quite fond of my lungs unfrozen, thank you."

Sam sighed. "You're impossible. Why did you even keep on this line of work if you hate small towns so much? Small towns seem to be the epicenter of the supernatural, you know that."

"There are, like, ten people here, dude. This isn't a small town – I can deal with those just fine. This, my dear brother, is a rest stop for snails trying to break out into Canada."

"You might want to make friends with the snails then, buddy, because we might be here for a while."

Dean scowled, pressed a rock down into the dirt with his left boot heel. "Don't say things like that, Sammy, it's cruel."

He must have given up on trying to pound his preferred name into Dean's head. Sammy turned around to face his brother, pointed in the general direction of a small splattering of houses. "Tell me what this place is screaming at you."

"You mean other than 'This way to the psychotic break of your dreams?'"

Sam could look very freaky when he wanted to, when he narrowed his eyes to the perfect intense gaze that only he could muster. "Enough with the joking, Dean. Just tell me what you see."

Reluctantly Dean turned in the direction Sam had indicated, shrugged his shoulders. "A quiet, welcoming island village. I don't know, Sammy, it looks just like every other picture of a sea town I've ever seen."

The tall brunette showed his concurrence by nodding. "That's what I saw, too."

Raising his eyebrows, Dean waved his hands as he waited for an explanation that never came forth. "You know, Sammy, I don't live in your head, and thank Heaven for that. So if you could just spell out your thoughts a little for me…."

Sometimes Dean was convinced that his little brother loved to hear himself talk. This was one such moment. "This town has been subject to strange killings for decades, but the citizens here still buck up and leave their doors unlocked, their blinds open, the curtains tied back, and let their kids play outside. Most places would do the complete opposite, outfit their homes better than Fort Knox and hide their family members in bunkers. Why aren't the people here doing that?"

"I suppose you're not going to let me answer that," Dean replied smugly.

Sam started pacing, maybe because he was cold or maybe for added emphasis to his words. "I think because they have something to hide. Something horrible might have happened here a long time ago, something the people here don't want anyone else to know about, something involving your mad doctor."

Dean smiled. "See, I told you Unsolved Mysteries has some good information now and again."

"Yeah, but how much of it is true and how much didn't they tell? This could be like those fruity magazines in the check-out lanes; A Tribe of Glowing People Found in Africa!, Aliens Stole My Husband's Skin, Giant Dinosaur Bats in Sky Terrorize Plane Passengers! For all we know we're dealing with something entirely different than an unstable surgeon. Maybe a very pissed off Carrietta White," Sam offered.

"Giant Dino bats?"

"Something like that, I didn't stop to read about it."

Dean snickered. "It could happen, though. For all we know next week we'll be back in a plane throwing fireballs at 'em. That would be cool, actually. We should make a dinosaur bat out of paper mache just to watch it go poof. I'll even let you throw the first raging ball of flame."

Fire was the last thing Sam Winchester ever wanted to talk about. "You're straying away from the main topic, Dean. We need to figure out where we're going to start with this case."

Dean was starting to shiver, the breeze drying out his eyes. "We can figure that out in the car, with the heat on full blast."

"Yeah, and get the IDs we're going to need. I'm thinking reporters again, give us access to files without much question," Sam explained as he walked with Dean back to the car. "We'll be spending a lot of time in town hall, in the library, and on an island this small we can't just walk up to someone and start asking questions."

"Take away all my fun, why don't you. Getting arrested for harassment is what I look forward to during our hunts."

Sam was the first one on the blacktop. His shoes slipped a little from the dew the rubber tennis shoe soles collected on the grass, but he was able to save himself from an embarrassing fall. "That's right, I forgot. I'm sure you'll love sitting in whatever tiny jail this island's set up. You can arrange plays for all your snail friends, teach them tap dance."

"Hardy Har Har," Dean sneered. He stopped midway through his stride, careful not to collide with the boy he nearly ran over some time ago. The kid must have been a quick change artist because he was wearing a different pair of pants, but then again maybe this boy was only a look-a-like. Either way, he streaked by Dean laughing and the adult watched the not quite ten-year-old run over to a small circle of girls.

Grinning, thinking the kid was a player in training which then started up a ride down memory lane, Dean forgot all about his intention of going into the heated Impala to melt his frozen gonads. He was only slightly disappointed when the boy he was so focused on ran right around the group of little ladies and to the trees, apparently to confront a giggling brunette boy hiding behind one of them. Or maybe the other boy was a blonde, Dean didn't care to check because by now he was no longer interested in the young lad in the blue windbreaker.

Sam, too, had stopped progressing toward the car and stood in the middle of the parking lot, as (if not more) obsessed with the circle of laughing girls than Dean was. That was an awkward observation, two grown men completely enthralled with a handful of little girls, but believe you me it wasn't at all sparked because they were kids or female.

The group of little women were jumping rope – or, rather, one was jumping rope, two were holding onto either end of a double rope, and the rest were enjoying their watching of the one girl maneuver between the multiple ropes. Anyhow, they were singing and that's what so captured Sam and Dean's attention. In fact, they were so enslaved to the chant that they each had to make a conscious effort just to move. Move away from the girls and to the car, all the while with their heads turned away but still listening.

The jumping rhyme was crude, something that any well-to-do or remotely caring parent would cart their child off to a therapist and CT scanners just for singing. But what luck that these kids didn't listen to the manners their parents taught them ("It's not very nice at all to sign vile songs in public"), that they were singing it now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not three minutes before Dean parked the Impala or while he was turning into a human Popsicle by the lighthouse, but now.

"Mad Doctor Meyers whips out his pliers, and 1 2 3 out come your eyes–" they said it much like eyers "–But first he strapped you down, far beneath this town, and 4 5 6 drew you up-like-a clown. He wants to eat your brain, stew it up with sugar cane, and 7 8 9 he'll then slurp up your vein. He'll poke around your skull, just like dear ol' Guhl, and 1 2 3 make a home for his sea-e gull. His wife is crazy too, together the coop they flew, and 4 5 6 snatch you from your bed – who knew? And now the end is near, as the moon it hits the pier, and 7 8 9 you scream for no one to hear."

They were giggling like the song was nothing more than a joke their teenage siblings told them, like there really wasn't an insane doctor waiting in the shadows to strap them down, far beneath this town, and poke around their skulls. Hell, maybe they were very much aware of that fact and were sending him an open invitation.

"Sometimes I think the Victorians were right," Sam muttered, "when they said children should be seen and not heard. Who knows what they're releasing with that."

Dean shut his door, no longer needing to hear what the girls were singing about. He pulled a black duffel bag from the back seat and began rummaging through it, in search of his monumental stash of fake IDs. "Nothing probably. I mean, the children here were most likely singing that schoolyard rhyme forever. If this guy comes around for the sole reason that the song's being sung, wouldn't he have popped up during his vacation?"

"Unless for three years the children were barred inside their homes, went without a single chance to sing it," Sam thought aloud.

"That's highly unlikely," Dean retorted. "Evil doesn't show up because of a song, it shows up when and where and how it wants to." He pulled out a Ziplock baggy stuffed to the gills with phony IDs. "Here we are. Reporters, right? College, New York Times, small town newspaper?"

Sam looked away from the playing children and to his brother. "The New York Times? How'd you manage something like that?"

"See these hands, Sammy?" Dean held his hands out, waved them in the air in a silly magical way. "I have the Gift."

"The Gift?"

"The Gift."

"Yeah, I guess you do. No one can be nearly killed by a vending machine quite like you can."

Dean harrumphed. "Hey, it stole my money! I wasn't about to let it keep the potato skins I paid for."

Laughing, Sam took the ID his brother handed him. "Dean, you got yourself wedged in the machine, they practically had to amputate your arm to free you. It wasn't at all a pretty sight."

"I showed that damn vending machine who was boss and you know it. Admit it, you were jealous of me."

"Jealous of you? You, the guy lying on the floor with his right arm jammed up a vending machine. Oh, yeah, I was green with envy all right."

"Whatever, Sammy. Let's just get to work, shall we? Where do you want to start?"

"Until you start calling me Sam, I'll no longer be answering to that name," he said priggishly. Getting the stolen bulletin board papers from the glove box, Sam scanned through the list of signed names on the violently pink parental notice. He read off the first name. "Gweneth Weiss. Seems as good a place to start as any."