"Can I help you sirs?"
"Uh, yeah... we just need a place to stay for a little while... probably not even the whole day." Dean glanced at Sam, "Well, maybe... but for right now I just need to catch some z's."
The man in the lobby smiled, "Well, that's what we're here for. Cash or credit?"
Dean opened up his wallet and handed over a little card, which was quickly taken and brought over into the next room.
Shifting back and forth, Dean eventually looked up at his brother. "Hey, you allright?"
Sam glanced at him from where he'd been staring out a window, "Oh yeah, just... this place gives me a weird feeling."
This was replied to with an eyeroll, making Sam frown. The man came back a moment later with Dean's credit card, "Okay, here you go, you'll be in cabin eleven."
"Thanks."
-
"I didn't expect a hike through the forest." mumbled a grumpy, tired Dean ten minutes later, speaking to an unintentionally amused Sam.
"It's a cabin, you expected them to be all neatly next to eachother? Especially out here..." he motioned to the surrounding woods, "...in the middle of nowhere." They'd been following a trail of small, oddly placed buildings as their numbers increased from one to ten, the one they'd just passed.
Dean just gave an exasperated sigh. "Finally... I think that's it." he pointed ahead at a little house-like thing, moss-covered and creaky, nestled in among the trees. Sam looked it over and frowned a little. Looked more like an abandoned shack than someplace to sleep. He hoped there wasn't as much plantlife indoors as there was covering it outside.
"Allright, first piece of furniture I see, I'm gonna collapse on..." Dean quickened his pace to a light jog as he approached it.
"Hey, wait..."
"Aw, come on now, Sammy, what is it?" Dean turned around an impatient scowl on his face.
"I think I..." Sam was moving off to one side, staring curiously at what was just beyond the end of the treeline.
"C'mon, it's like five-o-clock..." said Dean, checking his watch, "At this rate, I'll wake up refreshed the same time we left this morning. Which in case you don't remember, was 3AM!" he began to shout.
Sam was silent, moving past the building toward the treeline. The sun was setting behind a far-off hill, a silver disc behind the light cloudcover. And as he drew nearer, and finally came out into a clearing, it passed behind a lone tree standing on the hill. The blood-red leaves of the Japanese Maple acted like a filter for the light, and at that moment it seemed like red flame swept across the dewy grass.
"Ah..." Sam winced, a hand rising over his eyes as an image throbbed in his mind like a migraine, burning itself into him... a sketched tree with shadow branches, and bright flame leaves... He looked up again. "This is the spot..."
"What spot?" Dean's weary voice came from not far behind him, "What're you talking about."
"This... this tree was in the tape too..." he looked back, pointing.
"Yeah, sure. You need a nap too, now come on, you've been up as long as I have."
"But... I'm sure of it..." he muttered, looking around the clearing a little more. The light was already passing away, and as the greyness settled back in, even that gave him a feeling of familiarity. His eyes wandered over to another small cabin, numbered 12, the next in the sequence. He quirked his head to one side slightly... a couple wooden posts, looking quite out of place, were sticking out of the wet ground, and a scrap of faded yellow plastic that looked suspiciously like police tape.
"Something's here." he said decisively, chewing his lower lip slightly as he started forward.
"Come on..." Dean groaned softly, grudgingly following.
The rotted wooden steps creaked beneath Sam's feet as he climbed up them and onto the porch. A sign was posted on the door, plain paper eaten away by a leak above it, and smudged blue sharpie reading: 'Closed For Repairs'. Sam extended a hand slowly, and pushed on the door, finding it to easily swing open past a broken frame normally meant to hold it shut.
In key with the decrepit outside appearance, the inside was just as bad... quite a long time of disuse, and neglect had left a musty smell, and water-damaged walls and floorboards. Sam stopped just inside, catching sight of another, much more obvious problem with the floorboards. They weren't there.
A circular hole had been haphazardly cut into the ground. Frowning in confusion, he proceeded cautiously towards it.
"What is it?" asked Dean, a moment later poking his head in.
"Shit!"
"What?"
"It's the well!" Sam pointed wildly back at the hole in the ground, as he quickly backed away towards Dean, coming to stop on the opposite wall.
"The what, Sammy?"
"The well! The well I saw in the tape it's... it's right here!"
"Under the house?" Dean came in, confused. His footsteps thudded loudly across the hollow floor as he approached the hole, and peered in. Sam was breathing slightly heavily, and pinned up against the far wall. He looked up hopefully as his brother turned his head back toward him, "Yup, that's a well allright."
"Come on, Dean..." he stepped forward. "That's why... that's why those were in the tape, the tree was in there so we could find this here, and..." he looked down again, "But it's open..." he murmured. "In the... in the tape it was closed..."
"Yeah, they should really put a cover on that again." Dean mused, "Could be a hazard to any idiot who walks in here when there's a sign telling you not to posted on the door." he watched his brother pointedly, gesturing to the still-open front door of the cabin.
"Dean, it was really important that we found this..." he murmured.
"Why?"
"Why? So we can..." he trailed off, "...something happened here. There was police tape outside, and this hole in the floor isn't here for nothing..." he murmured.
"Allright, that's nice Sammy. Now come on, can we please get back to our cabin, that I played for soI could sleep in?" he sighed frustratedly, turning once again towards the door. Sam grudgingly obliged, looking over his shoulder at the well as he left. "I mean that's what we came here for..." Dean continued, "While I rest you can... do whatever it is that you do on your laptop. Now you need to be getting some sleep eventually too, but since this is all for a good cause... and I'm trusting that you're not just looking up porn..."
"Dean!"
He laughed, "Aw, come on... that's what I would do." he said with a grin, walking down the steps on the porch again, letting the door swing, and slam loudly shut behind him.
"What you would do..." Sam said under his breath, continuing out across the ground.
-
It didn't take long for Dean to pass out once they were inside their own rented cabin, and likewise it didn't take long to find out all they needed to know about Cabin 12 and the well. Sam had sat down on the couch, a pillow on his legs, and beneath his laptop. Dean had sat down next to him to watch him do his work for a little while, but as it turned out, he'd taken over the pillow in Sam's lap after falling asleep, and the laptop was moved to the arm of the sofa.
The wonders of google provided a very well documented incident with no more work done than simply typing in 'Shelter Mountain' in the search bar. Sam smiled triumphantly after gaining all this new knowledge, and set about working it out in his head, or on his notebook.
Body found at the bottom of the well in Cabin 12 at Shelter Mountain, a little over a year ago. his pen fervently scribbled out on a page only slightly taken up by ring drawings. Belonged to Samara Morgan, daughter of Anna Morgan. he drew a line with an arrow between the two names. Discovered by Rachael Keller, reporter doing research on the old mystery of the Morgan Ranch for the Seattle newspaper.
He nibbled at the pen cap thoughtfully, looking down at this. Mystery of the Morgan Ranch? Haven't heard of that one... he thought, eyes scanning around his messy little page. Rachael Keller... why would she be pursuing a story like that right out of the blue?
More google. God he loved that site. The mystery proved to be nothing more than strange deaths of the horses at the ranch. All descriptions said that they'd gone mad, and begun throwing themselves over cliffs. That matched up well with the morbid image of horse bodies half-buried in sand by the seashore... And then the suicide of Anna Morgan. Turned out that the tape was once again most accurate. She had, in fact, taken a dive off of a cliff. Her daughter too, this Samara, was an enigma. She was seldom mentioned, except for in one article which suggested that she'd been murdered by her own mother during one of the family's yearly vacations to Shelter Mountain. That explained why she was found there.
Sam sighed, leaning back on the couch and rubbing his eyes tiredly. He wished Dean hadn't fallen asleep with his head on the pillow in his lap, then at least he could lie down to rest... it looked like they'd need to do some more research the hard way. There were some things that even google didn't tell you.
"One last thing before bed..." he muttered, slapping the side of his face gently, and shaking his head to wake himself up. Google once more, typing in 'Rachael Keller'. "She can help..." he murmured to himself. "If she knows any more about it..." he scrolled down the page, "Where are you, Rachael?"
His eyes widened marginally. "Seattle... then Astoria..." he murmured. "Could be just a coincidence… but in this job…" he smirked a little. "No coincidence. The curse followed her."
---
Author's Ending Note Thingy: Yay for Rachael. Once again, another chapter written without much idea of where I'm gonna go with the story. Not sure how big of a character Rachael will be. I wanted to keep her a fairly small role. I don't think she'd want to get re-involved with this whole Ring-thing again. But we'll see. Yes, we shall see.
