Welcome to the Club

Don't miss the deadline, darling
When all your bad dreams will come true

Deadline, Blue Oyster Cult

After an afternoon of talking to all the Moms, Pops, and random town gossips he could find, Sam made his way back to the motel. He pulled the Impala around to the back of the building and noticed a familiar figure walking away from him through the clearing and almost to the trees behind the motel.

Sam ran to the room he shared with Dean and unlocked the door quickly. Dean was sitting on his bed looking at the laptop and sipping a mug of coffee.

"Dean? What's going on with Kole?"

"Oh," Dean said calmly without looking up at him. "Keep your voice down. She fell asleep earlier while we were talking. Oh, and she gave a pretty convincing argument for why that cult has nothing to do with what happened to you this morning."

"No!" Sam almost yelled, ignoring the dig from his brother. "She's not asleep, Dean. She's outside." And with that, Sam ran back out of the door.

Dean was soon off the bed and out the door as well. Sam had stopped a couple of steps into the field that was the backyard of the motel. He was looking around to try and see where Kole could have gone so quickly.

"I don't see…" Dean started to say, but stopped when he saw smoke through the trees. He began sprinting towards the woods as Sam ran back to the car.

"Kole!" Dean called out but got no answer. Somewhere behind him, he heard the Impala's trunk close and knew Sam had gone for the fire extinguisher. You don't live through an unnatural fire or two without learning to prepare yourself for the next one.

"Kole!" Dean called again as he reached the trees and headed for the now-visible fire. He could see something moving on the opposite side of the flames but couldn't tell what it was. Until Kole walked around and threw two more large chunks of wood on the fire.

As the new kindling hit the blaze, it erupted and spit glowing embers towards Kole. Dean saw some of the sparks land on her clothing and one nasty bit settle on her neck, but she didn't even flinch. Then, what was worse, Dean saw her take a step toward the flames, her foot just at the edge of the pyre.

He reached her just as she began taking a second step. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to pull her back, feeling the still-hot place on her neck where there would be a painful blister soon, but she fought against him and screamed things Dean couldn't quite make out, though he thought he might have heard the name 'Tommy'.

Sam caught up to them and began spraying the fire with the extinguisher. As he worked, he looked up and saw the battle taking place between his brother and cousin. Dean was now practically between Kole and the blaze, trying his best to push her away from it.

"Dean! You need to wake her up!"

"What?" he looked at Kole's open eyes and realized that they were blind to everything but the fire. "I thought it was dangerous to wake a sleepwalker!"

"More dangerous than letting her walk into a fire?" Sam yelled, still attempting to put out the blaze, not believing the absurdity of his brother's thinking.

And Dean understood. He grabbed Kole's arm and swung her around to face away from the flames, and slapped her hard across the face.

"Oow!" Kole's hand instinctively rose to her cheek. "What are you doing?" she asked angrily, but her expression soon changed when she saw the look on Dean's face and noticed she was no longer sitting on her motel room bed. "What's going on?"

"So, it happened to you too." She spun around and saw Sam putting out the last bit of a bonfire with a hand-held extinguisher. She suddenly felt light-headed.

"Whoa, careful now," Dean said, holding onto her so she wouldn't collapse. She looked up at him and saw that his clothing was singed in places and there was dirt and soot on his skin.

"What is going on?" she asked almost pleading.

"Do you remember anything?" Sam asked as he joined them. They walked back to the motel on either side of Kole, sneaking not-so-secret worried glances at her.

"We were talking about the cult," she said, nearly a question, to Dean. "And we were waiting for the coffee… did I fall asleep?" The boys might have noticed her blush if her face was not already ruddy from being too close to the fire, and the slap from Dean.

"Yeah," Dean said, "you fell asleep. You seemed peaceful… I didn't even hear you leave the room."

"I don't remember leaving," she said, almost to herself.

"What did you dream about?" Sam asked her point blank. The question made her stop in her tracks and stare up at him, bewildered.

"I'm starting to get it," he explained and they all began walking again. "There have been some deaths around here, but none of them have been mysterious or accidental. They've all been either homicides or suicides."

Dean and Kole watched him, waiting for a point, or at least a clue. Sam continued.

"All of the deaths seem to have involved fears or obsessions. The ways these people have died, they haven't been your typical muggings or arguments gone bad and the suicides… well, they weren't… completed… in the standard… ways." He unlocked the motel room door again and the three of them entered the dimly lit room.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked him.

"Well," Sam said softly, "would you call voluntarily walking into a fire as a means to kill yourself, typical? I mean, if we weren't there…" he stole a glance at Kole, but looked down uncomfortably.

"I'd be charcoal and no one would question why," she completed the thought, finally understanding and not at all offended by Sam's remarks.

"That's why I asked about your dream," Sam continued, looking at Kole. "This morning, I dreamt of needing to protect Dean and then attacked you when you hit him because I thought you were a threat."

"And," Kole said following the thought, "I dreamt of the fires…" she stopped herself before she said more than intended.

"And," Dean said from the corner, "just before you fell asleep, you told me that the cult dude told you that you were meant for the fire. I can see where walking into a fire might be the next logical step."

"I wouldn't say 'logical'," Kole said, "but it does help to explain a little. Why weren't you affected?" she asked him.

With both Sam and Kole's eyes on him, Dean shifted uneasily. But, Sam saved him from answering.

"He was. That's why you were so quick to fight this morning, wasn't it?" Dean looked away and Sam took the gesture to mean a reluctant 'yes'.

"OK," Sam said as he stood up, "so it's not about the cult or the motel. It's more likely the town itself." He was mumbling, talking more to himself than Dean and Kole. "Whether it's always been here or this is just a convenient break in its path…"

Sam had taken the laptop and was typing away furiously. Dean had walked behind him and was looking over Sam's shoulder. Kole was still left in the dark.

"What exactly are you guys talking about?"

"Not sure," Sam mumbled, "looking it up."

"Some sort of demon is causing this," Dean told her as if it should have been obvious. "We need to find out what we're dealing with and how we stop it."

"Well," Kole sighed, "I think I may be able to help with the first part." Sam stopped typing and both he and Dean looked at her.

"Nightmares," she began reciting from memory, as if she were lecturing them, "sometimes known as 'waking dreams', were once thought to have been the work of demons, which caused the feeling of breathlessness by sitting on the sleeper's chest. The demons, themselves, go by different names in different countries..."

Sam had started typing again and Dean looked at the screen. At the smirk on Dean's face, Kole rolled her eyes.

"They're spelled differently, so they're pronounced differently," she said, annoyed.

"Yes, Maura Nikole," Dean said, his smirk becoming a lop-sided grin as she glared at him. "I just find it amusing and a little appropriate that we may be dealing with a 'mara'."