John looked up and arched a burly eyebrow as Lucas Black picked up his coffee cup to refill it from the fresh pot that one of the other deputies at made. The man looked enough like his cousin that there was no doubt he was related to the Priest that he and Dean had brought into town the night before. Like the Priest he seemed to be a talkative sort, which always made it easier to finagle information out of. So far Black had been more than happy to share the case files on the murders and suicides that had hit Double Springs over the past month. "Never seen nothing like it before, although Sheriff says that there was more than a bit of crazy when there was a cave in at the mine in 89. Whole lot of violence and quite a few folks killed themselves." The deputy dropped into his seat at his desk, settling his cup down next to a picture of his family. John could see those same dark blue eyes in the man's daughters that he shared with Caleb. "My daddy died in that cave in, so wasn't payin' much attention to anyone else's sufferin' but my own."

"Do they know what caused the cave in?" John asked wondering if some demon had come out of the coal mine back then, and had returned to cause more trouble for the townsfolk.

"Gas build up," Black said with a dismissive snort. "But ain't that what they always say?" He watched as his boss the Sheriff walked into his office without casting a glance towards the FBI agent. The man seemed to be distracted by something, talking to himself as he closed his office door behind him. Moments later the blinds were pulled down, something the man usually only did if he was chewing out one of the deputies in private. "That's strange." As the words left Lucas' lips the sound of a single loud gunshot rattled the blinds against the glass windows of the sheriff's office. "Oh fuck!"

John Winchester was to the Sheriff's door in three long strides. He yanked at the doorknob, but it was locked good and tight. "Do you have a key?"

"In my desk." Lucas dug into his desk, and came up with the spare key to the office. When the sheriff was on vacation, as the senior deputy, he got to use the office. "Moana, call 911." The woman, the only other person in the office, reached for her phone with fingers shaking like they weren't part of her body.

Lucas unlocked the office door, the smell of cordite, blood and the stink of shit filled their noses as he and John stepped inside. The sheriff was in his rolling desk chair, the force of the blast from his gun and the spasms of his legs while dying had pushed the chair back against the window. Blood was splattered behind what was left of his head like crimson fireworks. The gun was still clutched in his hands on his lap. John thought he saw the fingers twitching, but with what little was left of the top of the Sheriff's head he knew that it was just the body slowing down as it stopped getting instructions from the brain.

The Deputy choked on bile, gasping for air as he rushed out of the office to the nearest desk. John heard him throwing up into a wastebasket there. He came back white faced, lips thin, and sweat beading on his brow. "God dammit, why the hell did you have to do this!" he shouted at his mentor. "We would have found out what was wrong. You didn't need to kill yourself."

John had stopped listening, as he paced around the room, he'd felt something. It was the brush of something cold and evil. Then he saw her, just a flicker out of the corner of his eye. It had been Mary. Not the Mary he'd seen last pinned to the ceiling of Sammy's room while her belly bled and fire consumed her. It had been the Mary he'd married, the beautiful girl who'd stolen his heart and soul, so that no other love could ever come close.
Double Springs wasn't big enough to have a mental hospital, just a small ward in their general hospital. He had ridden there in the passenger seat of Rachel's Jetta. He never felt safe in tiny little cars, he was too used to having over two tons of American steel between him and danger, but he never let it show. It was hard to flirt with a girl if you showed her you were a pussy about being in a little compact car. The hospital was old, built sometime in the seventies, replacing the original asbestos filled death trap that had been built on the same spot in the forties. The walls were painted a soft golden color instead of the typical jail house green or white that he was used too, and he had to admit that it made the place look a little more sunny.


The psych ward was on the top floor. They called it a ward, but it was only a small section of hallway with four rooms with doors that locked from the outside. There were no guards to keep anyone in place, just the locks on the doors. "So how many of them are here?" Dean asked as he walked besides Rachel.

"All three," she said quietly. The hospital gave her the creeps in general, and this ward was even worse. "They are the only ones who didn't kill themselves when they were done." Dean could see a haunted look in her eyes, and was going to ask her about it when the sounds of screams started coming from one of the rooms. "Oh god. I don't know if I can do this."

"What's wrong?" Dean reached over and brushed a lock of her auburn hair back behind her ear. "You're shaking like you're about to pass out. You got a problem with hospitals?"

"No, it's not that. My mother died in one of these rooms," she pointed towards room #313, where the screams were coming from. "She went crazy when I was 6 when her brother got killed in the mine accident. She tried to kill my dad and me, and then she tried to kill herself. She was supposed to be safe here until she could be moved to a real hospital, but she never made it out of here alive. She found a way to kill herself while strapped to a bed. Her heart just stopped."


Caleb could feel the change in the air as he pulled Sara's car into the driveway of his cousin's house. In the cave, he knew that the Bringer was being remade as an instrument of the First, and that soon he'd be causing no end of trouble for the folks of Double Springs. He smiled as his little girl cousins waved at him. "Cousin Caleb!" the youngest squealed, and came rushing towards him dragging a battered stuff dog behind her. "Would you push us on the swings? Please?"

"Where's your momma sweetheart?" he asked while he tried to remember the girls' names. The youngest was Lizzy he thought, and the older girl who had let him into the house last night was Carrie.

"She's makin' dinner. Are you goin' to stay for dinner?" Lizzy chirruped as he let her pull him towards the swing set. "Momma doesn't think that daddy's goin' to be home for dinner."

"I'll be here sweetheart. Carrie?" he turned towards the older girl who was brushing the hair of one of her dolls before setting her down to join a tea party. "Do you want to swing too?" They were such pretty little things, and Caleb knew that Lizzy would grow up to be a fine young lady. Carrie though, now she was going to be trouble. As she stepped up to him again, he could feel it, the nagging brush of power of one of the chosen ones. Carrie was a potential, a Slayer waiting for the calling to fight the forces of darkness. It would be a shame to have to kill her, but he didn't really have a choice. Yes, she was his family, but his first duty was to his Lady.

"I'm glad you haven't forgotten that." The First said from one of the empty swings, she was dressed in Goth finery like a potential he had killed for her in New Orleans. That silly little girl had been pretending to be a vampire, and had no idea she was born to slay them. "You will kill her for me."

"Of course," he said beneath his breath as he pulled Lizzy back on the squeaky chains and pushed. "It will be done before I leave town."