This is a short chapter, I know.
Thanks for the reviews!
Dean felt a lot better after having slept through the afternoon. Sam had woken up before him and gone to get them something to eat before they headed out to the church. They still had a couple of hours to kill, as they would rather do the digging unwatched. Dean stared absentmindedly around the motel room, drumming his fingers lightly on the table. Sam cleared his throat but Dean ignored him, and continued his drumming.
When Sam did his little couch again, Dean looked round at him. He looked mildly irritable.
"Dude, do you want a glass of water?" Dean asked, knowing perfectly well what the little coughs meant.
"No; I'm fine." Sam answered and he disappeared behind a book.
Dean resumed his drumming. He was bored and he needed something to take his mind off the boredom. He cast a glance back at Sam, whose jaw was clenched tightly. Dean ignored his brother and stared around the room again, searching for something to do.
"Dean, could you possible not do that?" Sam asked, clearly trying to keep his voice calm.
"Do what?" Dean said innocently. At least now he had something to do: annoy Sam.
"That drumming." Sam explained slightly more desperate.
"What? Sure, sure." Dean smiled. Ace; Sam is annoyed.
Dean stared around the room again, humming. Sam slammed the book shot and put it down on the table.
"Dean?" He said his temper at peak.
"Yep?" Dean said, again in that innocent voice, as he looked round at Sam.
"Please, could you just be quiet." Sam said, his voice shaking slightly with anger.
Oh dear, Dean thought, I think he is beyond annoyed now.
"Of course." Dean responded, thinking that it would probably be the safest thing to do.
Two hours later they were driving along the dark streets towards the church. Sam had calmed down considerably when Dean had kept his promise to be quiet. He glanced away from the road for a minute and took a good look at Sam.
"What's wrong, Sammy?" He asked.
The question seemed to had taken Sam by surprise as he looked slightly startled for a second.
"Nothing." Sam said. Dean could easily hear the lie through the words and he wondered when he could press on the matter long enough for Sam to actually respond truthfully; maybe when they were digging up the horse's bones.
"So, any ideas what we will do if there aren't any bones under that stone?" Dean asked as they rounded the corner on the road at Spire's Ranch.
"Dean! Stop the car!" Sam shouted. Dean had barely pulled over before Sam had jumped out of the car and ran back towards the bar.
"Sam?" Dean yelled after him as he followed his brother at a run.
They ran as fast as their legs could carry them; Dean still unaware. When he caught up with Sam, his brother stood with a frantic Anna in his arms. Anna was screaming and crying, while pointing back towards the bar.
"Anna? Anna!" Sam called to her, trying to calm her down. "What happened?"
"There…there was a-a-a horse." Anna said, her voice shaking. "I was just about to draw the curtains shut, when there it was staring at me. I-I-I have never seen anything like it. I have never been so scared in my life."
Sam turned his head and looked around at Dean. They held eye contact for a while; thinking the same thing.
"Sam will stay here with you." Dean said shortly and he turned around and walked back towards the car.
"Dean!" Sam called after him. Dean turned around and looked at him. "Be careful."
Dean merely gave a nod in response and walked on.
The engine roared to life and the Impala soared on down the road. He drove around the dark forest and up towards the church. He parked the car some hundred meters from the church. He took out everything he would need and jogged as fast as he could with everything in his hands towards the church. In daylight it had looked pretty, but in the darkness it looked haunting.
The iron gates creaked open as Dean entered the church yard, and at once set to work at digging up the ground under the stone. Usually he hated doing it, and it was the same thing now, but he knew that this time there was no time to hang around. He dug faster than he had ever done, the hole becoming deeper and deeper.
He looked at his watch; he had been digging for forty minutes and still had not found anything. He sighed and continued his frantic digging. As he brought the shovel down again he heard a sound that was quite different from the sound of a shovel against soil. He knelt down and removed some of the dirt with his hands. He jumped back in shock, the hollow pit of the horse's skull appeared.
"Bingo." Dean whispered as he continued to dig, finally feeling that he could do something.
Dean leaned against the trunk of the Impala fifty minutes later, breathing heavily. This job was really one of the strangest he had ever done. He didn't now why but he had had a feeling of nausea when he had stared at the burning skeleton of the horse. His mind was taken off the phone when his phone. He took it out and was puzzled to see Sam's name across the phone.
"What's up?" Dean answered the phone.
"Did you…did you find the bones?" Sam distressed voice worried Dean.
"Yeah, yeah, it's done. What's wrong, Sammy?"
"We were too late, Dean. Anna is dead."
The line went dead. Dean dropped his phone, and instead turned his gaze to towards the church and the grave that he filled with earth when the bones had burnt. How? He shook his head to pull himself together. He hurried over to the driver's side of the Impala and drove faster than the devil towards the bar.
When he arrived he saw lights from police cars and ambulances flooding the scene. His hands shook when he saw a body bag being taken out of the building. He saw Sam standing away from the scene by the fence where the horses stood watching the scene with interest. Dean hurried towards his brother, but on arrival he saw the dazed look in his brother's eyes, he knew meant danger.
"You okay?" Dean whispered.
"She just slipped on the stairs; broke her neck." Sam said, keeping his eyes on the scene ahead of him.
"I salted and burned the damn bones, Sammy." Dean insisted. He wanted this to be over, but somehow he knew all along that maybe it had just not been enough. "When did she…?"
"Half an hour ago." Sam answered, still not looking at Dean.
"Son of a bitch." Dean cursed.
"We should have known that salting and burning would be too easy." Sam whispered.
"How, Sam?"
"This thing," Sam said, finally looking at Dean, "is powerful enough to cause death that seem normal; maybe just a freak accident. How could it be enough to simply salt and burn the bones?"
"Unless…" Dean said quietly, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Unless, what?" Sam asked, his voice suddenly more interested.
"Have this happened in other countries?" Dean asked
"Yeah, I checked and it was quite hard to track, but it seems that in some point in history, the odd 'normal' death has popped up here and there." Sam recited.
"What if it's the same ghost?" Dean asked, looking into his brother's eyes. "What if this thing is the spirit of all the horses in one ghost? What if it just haunts different places at different times in history?"
"And you call me the geek?" Sam joked, hint of a smile on his face. "Let's get back to the motel. I'll call Bobby and hear what he thinks of this."
Sam put down the phone and rubbed his eyes. Dean kept his eyes on him, waiting for him to speak.
"Bobby can't believe it's actually true." Sam said quietly. "He had no idea how to get rid of it. He suggested salting and burning, but that kind of didn't work. Well, so we think."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked.
"Maybe once you have looked at it the death happens, no matter if the beast is gone or not." Sam suggested.
Dean didn't answer, merely made a noise telling Sam that he had heard his idea. His brother was right; it could be gone. He found himself moving over to the bed, thinking that he would take a little trek the following night to see if this thing was really gone.
Action is promised to take place in the next chapter!
Please review!
Disclaimer: I don't own the show! Or the characters for that matter...