Sam groaned, half-asleep, and wearily opened his eyes. For once, he'd actually been getting some rest, and now here was Dean's phone, blaring its digital little tune into the sleepy air just because he'd gotten a text message.
Sam sighed and forced himself to get up and stumble to the phone, as it didn't look like his brother was going to budge any time soon.
His bleary eyes took one look at the message and Sam was instantly alert.
"Dean," he said loudly; when his brother looked tiredly up at him, he held the phone up for him to see and continued, "it's from Dad."
Dean, too, awakened in a second. "What's it say?"
"Just coordinates again."
Dean's reply sounded almost defeated. "Oh. Right."
The two looked at each other. Both knew there would be no arguments this time, that they had to go, had to do what they could – whether or not it tore them up inside.
Doing his best to push thoughts of their father from his mind, Sam turned again to the message. "So," he asked, "any idea where 29 degrees, 25 minutes North – ?"
"Definitely, Sammy. I know that off the top of my head," Dean interrupted him with a laugh, shaking his head.
"To the library, then?" the query came.
Dean got to his feet. "To the library."
---
A little while later, the Winchester brothers could be found sitting at two of the computers in the nearest public library, absorbed in their research.
A quick Internet search had yielded the city positioned at these newest coordinates – San Antonio, Texas. Now Sam and Dean were digging into news from the area, intent on locating whatever it was that was mysterious about the place.
Finally, their persistence paid off.
"Hey, check this out." Sam turned to his brother, a news article open on the computer screen in front of him. "Apparently, a teenager – Mark Stanton – was found dead in San Antonio the other day."
Dean looked over at him. "How'd he die?"
Sam's eyes scanned the article. "M.E.'s saying he was strangled. 'According to authorities,'" he read, "'there was evidence of a struggle', but, get this, the only DNA they've found is that of the victim. There's nothing on the assailant. Like they weren't even there."
"Not there, huh? Yeah, I'd say that's worth looking into. How far are we from there?"
---
Sam and Dean arrived in San Antonio and, forged police badges in hand, went looking for answers.
The first thing they found was the crime scene; it wasn't difficult – the police tape was everywhere. From there they were able to get more information than the article had given – including directions to the Stantons'.
When they got there, Dean knocked on the door. It opened after a moment, and a young girl stood before them.
"Hello," Dean said authoritatively. "I'm Dean, this is Sam, and we're with the San Antonio police." He presented his badge as proof. "Mind if we come in?"
"Uh, sure, sure," she responded, nodding.
Soon, they were all seated in the Stantons' living room. "So, you're Kathleen, right?" asked Sam.
"Yeah. Kathy. I guess you're here to talk about Mark?" At Dean's nod, Kathy continued, "Well, I don't really know much. I didn't see what happened—"
"How about you tell us what you do know, okay? Why were you there in the first place?"
"It – it was his birthday, you know. He was turning seventeen. So, we were at his birthday party and we were playing Truth or Dare. I suggested it." She bit her lip, looking like she felt incredibly guilty about that. "So José dares Mark to go down to those old railroad tracks. I never believed the stories, not since I was little, but now—"
She swallowed, and Dean took the opportunity to voice his question: "Stories? What stories?"
"Oh," Kathy said, shrugging, "I guess I just think everyone's heard them before. It's an urban legend that goes around school. A school bus broke down on those train tracks, once, if you believe the rumors. The train came, and the bus driver didn't get the kids out of the bus in time. Lots of kids died, and now everybody says that their ghosts haunt the place, and whenever somebody stops on the tracks, they'll push the car off. So no one else dies, y'know. Then you can see the handprints on the back of the car – little kid handprints. From the ghosts." She paused suddenly, and looked up at the two young men. "I bet you think I'm crazy, but it's true. I saw it."
"You did?" Sam looked intrigued. "What did you see, exactly?"
"Well, we were on the train tracks, and all of a sudden, the car was moving. I was in the passenger seat, so I could see pretty good, and as far as I could tell, Mark wasn't doing a thing. So, we get out to look for the handprints, of course." Kathy nodded to emphasize her statement, then added, "Evidence. That's what we were looking for. We found it, too. But as we're looking at the handprints, we heard Mark, yelling – he'd stayed to turn off the car. We heard him yelling, and we thought he was joking, trying to mess with our heads. And when we finally got over there, we couldn't do anything…." She trailed off, swallowing again and turning away. "I just want to know what happened to him."
"We'll do whatever we can," Sam assured her.
He stood to leave, and Dean followed suit. "Thanks," Dean said, "you've been a big help."
"I hope so," she replied.
A/N: Sorry if I recapped the prologue too much; I tried not to, but I'm not sure it worked. Also, to anyone who's heard the ghost story before: if I have any aspects of it wrong, I'd like to know ASAP so I can rework anything I need to before the next chapter. Thanks.