AN: Chapter 2, in which Dean hates mud and spiders, and loses his temper.

By the way, the town of Gordes and the Calvon River are fictional. I hesitated to write about some of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina when Hurricane Ida is wreaking havoc in the same region. Please know I don't write about it to make light of it or downplay it, but just to help establish locale and inject some realism into my little story.

Thanks for reading!

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We're on a road to nowhere

Come on inside

Takin' that ride to nowhere

We'll take that ride

~ Road to Nowhere, Talking Heads

"This sucks," Dean whispered. Sam didn't answer, probably because Dean had said variations on the same theme a few times already. Or a few dozen.

Like so many things (the Wild West, anyone?), a ghost town was not nearly as cool as it sounded. For one thing, the road was impassible. After all, why fix a road to nowhere? So, they'd had to hike in, carrying everything they might need. It was also night, and they hadn't had a chance to find a motel room or rest or anything, even though it had been their initial plan to scope it out during the day, because Hooch had stopped answering his phone when they were about two hours away yet. That was never a good sign, so they'd gone right in.

Worse than the dark was the mud. When Sam had called Gordes a "drowned town," Dean had assumed he meant water. No, the whole place was drowned in mud. Almost every door of the houses still standing had been forced open and a couple of feet of the cold, wet stuff layered everything. It was fine and slippery, more silt than mud. They sank into it past their ankles with every step, and it filled Dean's boots and coated their legs up to their knees. It was miserable, not to mention a ton of work. Though the night was cool, Dean was sweating freely from the effort of slogging through the heavy muck. It wasn't even helpful for footprints, because it was too wet to hold any, so they had to check every single house, garage, shed, and freaking pole barn one at a time.

Like a few other really small towns they'd been in, Gordes had been half farming community, half bedroom community, and the houses reflected the dichotomy. Some were old, two-story farmhouses, a few were modest ranch houses, and the rest were McMansions of wealthy commuters who didn't want to live in "the city."

Many of the houses, no matter the type, leaned heavily off their foundations, slowly giving into the pressure of the water and mud, coupled with the instability of the saturated ground. Anywhere there was wood, it was spotty with rot and many of the smaller buildings were nothing but piles of rubble. It was easy to see that in ten years or so, the town would be completely gone. "Put out of its misery," Dean mumbled, but too softly for Sam to hear. Something was making the back of his neck prickle, and just like that, the boredom evaporated. Dean flicked his flashlight off, and Sam immediately followed suit without a word. Whatever had triggered his brother's Hunter instinct, he trusted it unquestioningly.

Dean turned away from the small one-story house they'd been about to check, one of many that looked like it was drunk and only a stiff breeze away from collapsing entirely. He didn't think that's where the feeling of being watched was coming from. He turned his gaze farther down the mud runnel that had once been a street. The next house was maybe 50 yards away and had once been impressive. The decorative iron fence that surrounded it was mostly lying down and the front porch was only attached to the house by one corner, but all the mud and destruction couldn't disguise the three stories of Victorian architecture. By the light of the moon, Dean thought he could make out five windows across on the first story. It was fairly intact compared to its neighbors, but still looked like the stereotypical haunted house.

Sam was watching Dean for cues, so he tipped his head toward the monstrosity. It was set slightly on a hill, and as Dean struggled up toward the front, Sam headed toward the back down the side of the hill. Dean didn't see or hear anything out of place as he slogged up to the front door. Once he could see past the ruins of the porch, he was nonplussed to see that the door, one of those oversized jobs, was closed. He stretched up from the ground, since the steps were missing, and could just barely reach the fancy-schmancy knocker to try to pull the door open, but he couldn't budge it. He tried the knob instead, without any more luck. A closer look revealed that the wood of the door had swelled in the frame. Nobody had opened this door for a long time.

Dean took a few steps back, looking up at the dark windows with a frown. He still felt on edge but couldn't locate the source of the feeling. Sam's low whistle caught his attention. It simply meant that Sam wanted him to come there, not that there was necessarily trouble.

It was really hard to be stealthy when ten pounds of mud was dragging you down and you were literally sliding with it down an incline, but Dean did his best. He didn't put away the shotgun or machete he was holding at the ready. Either could take out a ghoul…and most other things, too. He hadn't forgotten the lesson that ghouls were more than capable of working together, and of plotting. Dean would be lying if he said he didn't breathe a little better once he could see the outline of his brother standing in the deep shadows thrown by the big house.

It was too dark to see more than that, but he could tell just from Sam's posture that he was alert but not alarmed. Dean moved to his brother's side, automatically leaving enough room for both of them to maneuver in case of attack and making a quick scan of the back mud pit...er, yard. What he could see of it. The part that was shadowed by the house was just too dark to see anything. But there was a sense of being watched that was stronger than in the front.

Dean tapped Sam's arm three times with his first and second fingers to signal someone is watching. Sam froze in response, but Dean was sure his eyes were darting around, just as Dean's were. They stood in silence for ten minutes, according to Dean's internal clock. He turned just his head toward Sam, wishing he could read his brother's expression. Sam didn't move, content to follow Dean's lead.

With a silent sigh, Dean shook his head once. He hadn't seen or heard anything, and very few things, even those that hunted humans, could or would stay still that long. "What did you find?" he asked, just barely a whisper.

"Unlocked door, no mud at its base."

"Like someone cleaned it away so they could get in and out," Dean realized, still talking barely audibly. Down here, there should have been a ton of mud blocking the doorway.

"One of us go in, one keep watch?" asked Sam at the same volume.

Dean didn't answer out loud. They hadn't seen anyone or anything, and there was no indication that anybody could hear them, but he wasn't willing to risk it or give away his plan out loud. Instead, he touched Sam with his elbow and tilted his head left, drew his arm back in and tilted his head right. You go to the left, I'll go to the right. Sam nodded. Dean dipped the barrel of his shotgun. Once. Twice. Thrice. Sam pushed open the door and they stepped through, guns up, and flipped their flashlights on in tandem, each stepping to the side so as to have a wall and not the door at their backs.

The lights showed a large but low-ceilinged room with something tall in the center, a few indistinct bits of furniture, and someone standing at the back of the room and to the right – and a much brighter light, obviously aimed at the two of them, switched on, instantly blinding Dean. He fired in the direction of the person he'd seen and slid along the wall trying to get back to the door. There were several thuds just outside the door behind him. Something jumping down from the windows above? Or from clinging to the walls like giant spiders?

"Don't move, or I'll shoot you." Hooch sounded different than before. He sounded tired, defeated, but there was no hesitation in his voice. If he was behind the light, he'd be able to see them perfectly. And Dean remembered very well just how good of a shot the man had been.

They thought it was a spring-heeled jack, or possibly a breeding pair. People were disappearing from a small area in Pennsylvania. The tracks that were found belonged only to the missing. They indicated the people were running, then simply disappeared.

Carried off by something that could fly was the simple answer, and there weren't a whole lot of things that could do that to an adult human. Ergo, it was probably the rare and hard-to-kill jacks. The area was right for them, too. For whatever reason, they were almost always found in northern England and the northeast of the United States, up into southeastern Canada.

Bobby had met the Winchesters there, and Caleb too. Caleb had brought along a Hunter who went by the appellation of "Hooch" which 19-year-old Dean found hilarious. Dad seemed to already know the guy, and he was accepted as a member of the team.

Jacks stayed far away from populated areas and only attacked people who were alone, so the first order of business was to hike out into the woods and find the monsters, making sure that after dark, everyone stayed in close proximity.

Dean was setting up a tent, racing the sunset, when the attack started. He'd learn later that the creatures were called ahools and originated in Indonesia and that they were the first Bobby had ever heard of in the Americas. But when the attack started, all Dean knew was that a couple dozen mastiff-sized creatures were flying at them, all claws and teeth.

Dean tackled Sam, and the talons of the ahool that had been diving for the teen actually snagged on the back of Dean's shirt. He rolled onto his back and fired, but a different ahool hit his arm and the shot went wild. Then there were clawed hands grabbing his arms and legs and he was being lifted in the air.

A gun went off four times in succession and Dean hit the ground. He found his gun and shot one bat-thing that was going for his brother again. Four more shots rang out before Dean could line up his next shot in the chaos, and he saw Caleb fall from a few feet up, ahool bodies dropping around him. Dean shot a few more cryptids that were coming toward him, and Sam shot one, and someone else kept up nearly continuous firing. Then it was like a war zone with all of the Hunters' guns firing all around him.

When it fell silent, three men and two teenagers, all scratched up but otherwise unhurt, stood surrounded by bodies of what looked like giant bats with monkey faces and six legs instead of two. Dad glanced over his boys, then the other Hunters, then turned toward Hooch, who was standing a little distance away from the rest.

"How many do you think you shot, Hooch?" Dad asked almost casually.

"Twenty-six." No hesitation.

"Damn. You sure saved our bacon!" Caleb, who was rarely impressed by anything, whistled.

Then Dad said something he never said. "We owe you."

Dean committed the moment to memory, and knew 15-year-old Sam was doing the same. If a Winchester owed you, they did not forget it.

"Hooch," said Dean, danger in his voice.

"I won't warn you again, Dean. If you don't drop your weapons right now, I'll shoot you in the kneecap, and I'll do the same thing to Sam."

Dean grit his teeth so hard his jaw ached and willed his streaming eyes to see. An unseen gun cocked, and he considered, for half a second, shooting in that direction. But if he was wrong… Dean dropped the gun and machete right at his feet for quick retrieval and heard the sound of Sam doing the same. And the sound of people coming through the door. Or, you know, giant spiders or whatever.

"Dean only, slide the weapons to the right with your foot and take four steps forward," said Hooch, from slightly closer than before.

Dean again considered disobedience, then he heard the smallest sound from Sam that made his heart stutter in his chest. It was just a tiny gasp, but it meant Sam was taken unawares and was either hurt or very surprised.

"What the hell is going on?!" Dean demanded, even as he followed the instructions.

"I'm going to take your arm to show you where to walk," was Hooch's answer, from only a few feet ahead. "I don't have my gun on me anymore, and my...boss has a wire around Sam's throat. If you attack me, all he has to do is tighten it." The implication was more than clear.

Dean let out a low growl but went along, mentally mapping where they were in the room and trying to hear how many others were with them. "Sammy?" he called, pretty desperate for a sit rep.

"I think there was something in the dark," came the response immediately from right where Sam had been standing before the light went on. The words were tight, wry, but not pained. They told him a lot more than their captors probably even realized, more than just where Sam was standing and that he was at least well enough to answer. See, when Sam and Dean had first seen the Alpha Vampire in Crowley's zoo of horrors, he'd told them, "When your kind first huddled around the fire, I was the thing in the dark."

Vampires, then. Not ghouls. (Or spiders.) Made sense that Hooch had lied about that too, so they wouldn't be expecting vamps and wouldn't have any dead man's blood with them.

Maybe they did recognize that Sam was speaking in code, given the fact that Sam immediately made that little choking noise again.

"Careful, boys," said a calm voice from the same direction as Sam's. It was a smooth, male tenor with an accent that Dean didn't recognize. "You want Sam's neck to stay intact, don't you? Once humans start bleeding, it can be very difficult for us to...control ourselves."

So they didn't care that Sam and Dean knew what they were. Of course, why would they? The Winchesters were basically disarmed, Sam apparently had a wire around his neck, and Dean was suddenly pushed forward and heard a heavy clanging, meaning he was in a fucking cage. "Hooch!" Dean yelled, putting all of his hatred and a promise of heavy retribution in the single word.

"Don't worry about your friend," advised the same voice, the one that Dean thought of as first-to-die-after-Hooch, since he not only was probably the one threatening Sam, he sounded like a prick.

Dean turned toward the voice as if he could see and didn't rub at his burning eyes. He could make out the outline of the cage bars now, and he grabbed one. Cold metal, probably iron, and utterly unyielding. There was no dirt beneath his feet, but a shuffling step proved that the floor was hard and rough. Unfinished concrete? It was beyond rare for a house in Louisiana to have any kind of basement, even a walkout like this one. Come to think of it, the house must be a lot newer than its Victorian facade indicated, since walkouts were a relatively new design. All of those thoughts went through Dean's mind in an instant.

"What do you want, you bloodsucking freaks? You have to know we have friends who will look for us. You keep us in a cage for feeding or whatever weird fetish you got going, it ain't gonna go well for you." Yeah, he'd sent a frantic prayer to Cas the second he'd realized that it was vamps, plural. He heard at least four moving around his prison like cats circling a caged bird.

The lights suddenly dimmed to a manageable level and Dean could start to see -- finally! The cage was pretty large – maybe 6 feet each direction, and the bars disappeared into the concrete floor and ceiling. The bars were 2-3 inches in diameter and not going anywhere. Hell, even vamps couldn't have broken out. Of far more interest to Dean were the figures beyond the bars. Sam stood stock-still next to the door. There was a band around his throat, so thin that Dean couldn't see it right away, and an olive-skinned man dressed way too formally for the ass-end of nowhere stood just behind him and to Dean's right. It was tucking freaking sunglasses into its pocket.

Three vamps paced around the room with the powerful, feline movements Dean had expected. Like the speaker, they looked to be around twenty years old, but that didn't mean anything about their actual ages. There was an athletically built black man with a shaved head, a petite blond that reminded Dean of Meg Masters – the original, and an Asian kid on the lanky side. They all had their extra teeth out, but Dean kept his attention on his brother and the biggest danger in the room – the vamp who didn't need to posture. Dean could feel his authority.

A quick glance around didn't show much else of interest. The mostly bare room was empty of mud, and there was an honest-to-Chuck spotlight, now off, by a rustic wooden staircase, where Hooch had been when they'd walked through the door. There was a high-back metal chair, something box like on the floor that Dean couldn't make out clearly, and nothing else.

Hooch slunk to the lead bloodsucker's side like a head-shy dog.

"You're dead, Hooch," Dean couldn't help but sneering as Sam's captor bestowed an indulgent smile on the one-time Hunter who'd dragged the Winchesters into this clusterfuck.

"Our deal is complete. You'll be free in a few minutes, Mr. Heuchner," the vampire said. Then he turned to Dean. He must have tightened or moved the hand holding the damn wire around his brother's neck, because Sam flinched slightly, though he didn't make a sound.

"Misters Winchester. There is no need to threaten Mr. Heuchner. He will be dead shortly, as promised in exchange for his cooperation." Dean took a better look at Hooch, now that he could actually see. He was Dean's height, but he stood so hunched now that he looked shorter than the vampire boss. His once-intimidating wrestler's build was now a mere shell. He was pale, emaciated, and covered in small injuries of various ages. Oh, fuck. Those were bites. How long had he been in vampire "custody" before he'd been willing to give up the Winchesters in exchange for death?

"We forgive you, Hooch," said Sam softly, not moving anything but his mouth. Dean didn't want to forgive their old friend, but of course his brother did. "Ug –" Sam's voice, even his breathing, choked off and he raised his hands toward his neck and even bent backwards slightly.

"You do not speak right now," demanded asshat-in-a-suit. "Lower your hands or I'll cut deeper."

Sam's hands went down with apparent effort. Blood welled around the wire and the three younger vamps hissed. Incensed beyond reason, Dean actually hissed back.

Head asshole laughed. Laughed. Dean was going to cut him into pieces. Slowly. With something dull. Then run him over with a lawnmower and a steam roller. And laugh while he did it.

"Ah, see, Dean, you aren't here to be food for us. You're just an animal in a cage. Neither I nor any member of my family will drink a drop of your blood – or Sam's. No, you're just a witness here."

"To what?!" Dean demanded, still staring at Sam's bleeding neck.

"Why, a murder trial, of course."

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AN: No references needed, I don't think. If I missed something, please drop it in a comment or email me, since I do not get PMs.

bagelcat1: I've said it before -- I'm just so excited to get a chance to write this for and with you! And I think self-blame is a Winchester birthright, don't you?

Christine: Heh. You're right -- not ghouls! You'd be right not to trust me, too, at least as it concerns stories.

writingtrainingwheels: No, I absolutely cannot resist flashbacks. I adored the argument about snacks that was Bobby's last memory, so I channeled it a little bit. What you said about distract the kid with a treat cracked me up. Yup, that's basically what he's doing.

muffinroo: I have a confession. The title of chapter 1 was entirely from bagelcat1. I couldn't think of one for the life of me. So. I know you like Sam angst, but there probably won't be any more in this story. *falls on the floor laughing*

Colby's girl: Sorry to inundate you with so much writing! It's what I do in every spare minute pretty much, and I love it.

Atlasina7: So glad to have you reading! And nice to know the language, etc. won't bother you. :-)

Timelady66: He just doesn't see it, does he? Dean doesn't see himself clearly, either. Thank you for the nice compliment!

supernaturalsammy67: Yippee! I love seeing your name! I'm glad you're reading and intrigued. This has a but different feel from most of my stuff, so I hope it lives up to your expectations. :-)

sfaulkenberry: I know, I couldn't let poor Sam actually be too happy. He has to blame himself for everything. You have to know that there will be plenty more pain and suffering in store for him too. I mean...it's me. Not sorry. *g*