They had left promptly after the 'incident' that night, Dean dragging Sam back to the hotel, throwing a few things to carry at him, and climbing into the car. At the moment, they were speeding down a highway back to Washington. Dean was still barefoot, and wearing nothing on his upper-half but an unbuttoned leather jacket, Sam reclined in the passenger's chair, his head tilted back and a tissue held over his nose, while with his right hand he was typing away at his laptop.
"Where do we go?" Dean asked demandingly.
"Hang on, I'm checking..." Sam said, remaining calm. "I pulled a bunch of old news reports for similar occurrences, you know, with the bodies being distorted and... yeah..." he trailed off, still straining to both look at the screen and tilt his head up at the same time. "Before this, the biggest outbreak, there were two others. The first one in Seattle Washington, the second a little less than a year later in a small town called Astoria in Oregon."
"Small town first." Dean said, knowing from years of experience how much easier hunting was when there weren't thousands of people around, and you had the benefit of suspicious country people, "It's closer."
Sam nodded, "I'm trying to get more information on that now. As far as I know, other than having the outbreaks of curse-related deaths, those two places have nothing to do with the tape."
"How do you know that?" Dean asked, puzzled, "That makes no sense..."
"It does, though. Even though the tapes were there, they have nothing to do with... with the images on the video."
"We're looking for places in the tape?" Dean asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Well, yeah..." Sam muttered, as if this were obvious, "If this spirit's killing people after they watch it, it's got to have some significance to her."
"Wait, spirit? Her? When did the dead chick enter into this?"
A heavy sigh escaped the younger's lips, "It's a curse, right? Curses have to be... set in place by things. And there's this... this girl that I keep seeing..." he shook his head slowly, "She wasn't in the tape for long... maybe just... just once, I think. But in my dream tonight, she was..." he trailed of.
Dean glanced at him after a moment, "Was what?"
"Was there."
A silence lapsed for a little while, before Dean piped up again.
"So where are we headed now?"
"Just keep going North..." Sam murmured, "I'm looking."
Dean sighed, "Okay, but you take much longer and we're pretty much going to have to forget Astoria. We're almost back into Washington."
"That's allright."
Not long later, after Sam had finally been able to relinquish his nose from the tissue, andhad gone back to staring at the screen properly."Oh, you've got to be kidding me..."
Dean glanced over, carefully observing his brother's face, shadowed strangely, and looking sickly pale in the washed-out white light from his laptop, "What?"
"This... this site..." he breathed, turning the screen slightly to reveal a white ring on a dark background, "It's devoted to the tape."
"Well, that's a good thing, right?" Dean asked.
"Maybe, yeah..." Sam murmured, scrolling down, "But... but it's like a freaking cult. From what I can tell so far it's just groups of kids who... who get together to watch it... they document all they see like it's some kind of trip." he shook his head.
"Keep it, Sam. Could be useful."
He sighed. "Maybe..."
More silence. The sun was coming up to their right, the golden light spilling over the grey, rainwashed land. The day was spent with Dean driving determinedly, stopping only once to refill the quickly waning gas supply. His eyes drooped constantly, but he forced himself awake... glancing over at his brother for support.
No words needed to be said... just one look at the expression of concentration on the man's face. One glance at the burn on his arm, and he was rejuvenated again, at least slightly. Sam had to research this thing, so he couldn't trade off to him to drive. He was always better at research anyway... probably why he did so well in college.
"I got it." Sam said at about 10 AM, with a triumphant grin, "You were right. That cult-site really did come in handy..." he sighed with relief.
"You know how to stop this curse for yourself?" Dean asked, the beginnings of a relieved smile starting across his lips.
"No..." Sam sighed, "...but at the very least it's a clue to this spirit's origins."
Dean gave him an odd look, and opened his mouth as if about to say something.
"But just think of what that could mean." Sam interrupted quickly, "We get rid of the spirit, that means we can stop the curse for everyone, not just me."
"Okay..." Dean muttered, "I suppose that's best after all. What'cha got?"
"It's a name. Anna Morgan..." he muttered, "And the person posted a picture of her... sure enough, same lady as in the tape, the one brushing her hair in the mirror, and diving off the cliff."
He nodded to show he was still listening, "Is that the same as our creepy-white-dress-girl?" he asked in a moment.
"Actually, I don't think so..." Sam frowned marginally, "I don't know who she is yet, but she's not even in the tape much. Might not be all that important after all."
"You're saying the kid who melted part of your arm isn't important?"
"She didn't melt it..." said Sam, glancing down at the scar quickly.
"That's not the point... with this thing you want to investigate every option."
He sighed, "I got it."
A momentary silence followed, before Dean continued, "So what've you got on this Morgan girl?"
"I'm looking that up now..." Sam murmured in a moment. "Ahm... horse breeder, something to do with a historical society..." he paused for a moment then, appeared to examine the screen more closely.
"What is it now?" Dean pressed.
"Nothing... Nothing, just..." clicketty-click-click, Sam was typing something else in... In a moment, he once again smiled, "Bingo. More images from the tape."
"Like what?"
"A lighthouse... apparently one Anna helped restore. And her horses, dead, their bodies washed up on the beach. The lighthouse is in the background."
"You saw all that?"
Sam looked up, and nodded. Dean just shook his head.
-
"Allright, I'm sorry man, but I just can't do it." said Dean.
"What?" Sam looked up, worried and confused.
"At this rate, I'm going to drive us off the road. I've gotta crash."
"I can drive for a while..." he muttered.
"No." Dean said quickly, "You need to be working on finding out about this thing."
"Dean, I've been doing that for the last eight hours..."
Dean hit the brakes hard, and with a gasp, Sam was sent forward, almost all the way into the dashboard, before he was held back by the seatbelt going taut around his body, digging in with a sharp pain at it's suddenness. He fumbled the laptop slightly, but managed to keep it from falling off his lap entirely.
"What the hell was that for!" he almost yelled as soon as they were at a complete stop, and had both sufficiently rested back.
Dean looked over to him with that sly gleam in his eyes, and grinned, "Saw a place to stop." Sam replied with a confused expression, to which Dean motioned a hand out the window.
Looking up, a weather-battered sign was visible through the low-hanging branches of the trees, reading: Shelter Mountain Inn.
---
Author's Ending Note Thingy: Fixed various geographical errors... got up the motivation to google some maps, do some math... yeah. To be honest to you all, I have no idea what I'm doing. XD I've already written everything I had planned out... all I have left planned is the end... and nothing on the way from here to there. I'm notorious for making significant changes to fics after I've already posted the chapters, so come back to this one every once in a while, guys, you may find it's changed slightly. Other than that... hope you like. This was kind of a boring one. Not to write, of course... but lots of conversation. Maybe to read. Yeah, I'm done now.
Oh, P.S. The 'cult'-site that Sam talks about finding can be seen in the extra short-film 'Rings' in the special features section of The Ring Two.
