Finished with his relaxing shower, Sam turned off the water and then stepped out of the shower onto the cold tile floor of the bathroom. He looked at his wet clothes regretfully, knowing that he would have to put them back on because all of his dry clothes were still a mile down the road in the Impala. When he was dressed, Sam walked out of the bathroom and said, "Your turn, Dean." He looked around the room, and realized that Dean wasn't there. "Huh…" Sam said thoughtfully. "Wonder what's taking him so long…" he shrugged and then lied down on the bed, sighing happily. "That's better." he looked at the digital alarm clock on the bed stand, but it wasn't showing a time and seemed to be broken. Sam let his eyes close and felt himself sink deeper into the comfortable mattress.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, a loud slamming noise from the other side of the room jerked him awake. He opened his eyes and sat up quickly, and when he did he noticed that the bathroom door had closed. Sam quickly assumed that his brother had walked in, seen him asleep, and went quietly to the bathroom. "Hey Dean," Sam called to him, "What took you so long? I was starting to think that you'd ditched me for Mrs. Winters." He listened for Dean to make his trademark biting comeback, but there was only silence. After a few moments he heard the shower turn on.

Sam laid back down in bed and rolled over onto his side. He stayed in that position for several minutes and was almost asleep when he heard something else.

Sam bolted upright in bed and stared toward the bathroom door. Despite the noise of the shower's running water he could hear the sound of a man sobbing. Completely awake and concerned for his brother, Sam quietly walked over to the bathroom door.

"Dean?" he said hesitantly. The sobs continued, louder and more broken than before. "Dean, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked softly. There was still no response.

Dean…was crying? Dean? How could that be possible? Dean never cried, especially not when his little brother was around. "Dean, I'm coming in." Sam said firmly, determined to comfort him. He reached toward the doorknob and slowly opened the door.

The bathroom was clouded with hot steam. All the mirrors were fogged up and it was difficult to see anything. In addition to the shower, the sink was also overflowing with steaming hot water and the entire bathroom floor was covered with an inch of scalding water. He could just make out the silhouette of a man sitting against the wall with his head in his hands on the far side of the bathroom. "Dean?" he whispered.

At the sound of his voice the man's head jerked up and stared at him.

It wasn't Dean.

Sam gave a gasp of surprise and jumped backward. The man just stared at him. "…help me. Please." he whispered brokenly.

"Who are you and what the heck are you doing in my room?!" Sam yelled.

"I want out." the man said. "Please…please help me get out!" he broke into a new fit of sobs. "I just want out!" he screamed at the top of his voice, his head dropping back into his hands.

Sam stepped forward into the water covering the tile floor until he was right in front of the sobbing man. "Hey, it's all right." he said calmly. "It's going to be okay. Why don't you just come downstairs with me and we'll sort this whole thing out together?"

The man stopped sobbing and slowly raised his head.

Sam froze.

The man's face was completely covered with deep bloody gashes and angry purple bruises. His nose was broken and most of his teeth were missing. He stared up at Sam with bloodshot, wild blue eyes that were bleeding from the corners. As Sam watched in horror the man stood up, revealing bloody gashes all over his torso, arms, and neck.

"What happened to you?" Sam gasped. "I need to get you to a hospital!" he reached out to grab the man's arm and lead him downstairs but the man stepped back away from him and laughed. The laugh seemed to bounce off the walls of the small room and echoed in Sam's head. "Why are you laughing, this is serious!" Sam said angrily.

The man just shook his head. "You can't help me, kid." he said. "No one can. It's too late for me…just like it's too late for you."

Sam stared at him. "What?!" Suddenly, there was a deafening cracking sound from outside the bathroom. Sam jumped and whirled around, but from where he was standing he couldn't see what had made the noise. "What the hell was that?" he whispered. He turned back around to tell the man to stay there for a moment, but—he had disappeared.

Sam looked all around, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Both the shower and sink taps had turned off, the steam had all vanished without a trace, and the floor was completely dry...all in less than a second. "What…what…that's…oh wow." Sam muttered. "I'm losing my mind." he shut his eyes, only to snap them open a second later when the loud cracking sound echoed through the room for a second time.

Cautiously, Sam walked out of the bathroom and into the main room.

Meanwhile…

"The room is evil?" Dean said in disbelief, repeating Mrs. Winter's exact words, "And somehow this fact slipped your mind when you willingly gave us the key??"

"I'm sorry." Mrs. Winters whimpered, "I'm so, so sorry!"

Dean's eyes flicked upward in annoyance. He didn't have time for this, not when Sam was in trouble. "Look, I need you to stop crying and calm down right now, all right?" he said loudly. "My brother is missing and I have to find him before something bad happens, and in order to do that I need you to tell me anything and everything you know about that room! Can you do that?"

The old woman wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and nodded. "Yes."

"Good." Dean said. "Begin."

Mrs. Winters shakily took a deep breath. "My family has owned this Inn for over 200 years. It was built by my Great-Great Grandfather in the late1700's. He designed it so that the first two floors contained guest rooms and the third floor contained bedrooms to accommodate his family and their servants." she paused, remembering. "What is now Room 37 was then the master bedroom, occupied by he and his lovely wife Rebecca."

"Let me guess," Dean interrupted, "Rebecca tragically died in that room and now her spirit haunts it."

Mrs. Winters looked at him sadly. "No. Rebecca didn't die. She went insane."

"Oh great! That's even better!" Dean said sarcastically.

"She and her husband had eight children, all ranging from ages 4 to 16…they were a happy family." she paused. "One morning, while her husband was out hunting, Rebecca brought all eight of her children into that room—and killed them."

"All eight of them? By herself??" Dean asked in disbelief.

"All eight of them." she confirmed. "She stabbed them all multiple times and they slowly bled to death on the floor."

"Why didn't the servants stop her?!" Dean demanded, "They couldn't have all been deaf, surely they heard the children screaming."

"Yeah, that's exactly what her husband said when he returned home and found out what had happened." Mrs. Winters looked up at Dean. "Do you want to know what the servants' excuse was? They claimed that they could hear the children's screams and cries for help—but they couldn't get to them."

"The room was gone." Dean said, making the connection. The old woman nodded and then continued, "But no one believed them, because by the time he returned the room was back, the children were all lying dead on the floor…and Rebecca was gone."

"She was gone? What, did she run away?"

"She just disappeared. No one ever saw her again."

Dean's eyebrows shot up and he processed the information. "Damn it…this is bad."

"Oh, it gets worse." she said sadly.

"You've got to be kidding me! How could it get worse? Sam's trapped in an evil room that drives people insane and then eats them!"

"That's a crude way of putting it…" she said, "But that's not entirely accurate, I don't have any solid proof of what the room really does to people…look, we're short on time, so I'll just give you the factual statistics." she took a deep breath. "In addition to Rebecca and her children, twenty-two other people have either died or vanished without a trace in Room 37 over the years…including my little sister Elizabeth." her face darkened as she recalled the memory.

"Twenty-two people?! Oh, this is going to be one of those days, isn't it?" he sank down into an armchair that was sitting beside him and then looked up at her. "So what happened to your sister?"

The old woman signed heavily. "I was just 14 years old at the time…Elizabeth was only eight. One day in the summer it rained, and we decided to play hide and seek. She begged me to let her hide first so that she could try out a new hiding spot she had found…she was so excited…" she wiped some tears out of her eyes, "She told me that I'd never find her…and I never did." a sob escaped her, and she looked away. "I searched for ten whole minutes and was about to give up when she started screaming. I followed the sound of it to Room 37—"

"The brat hid in there..." Dean said tactlessly, "Because you were scared of it and she thought you wouldn't look for her there…"

"Let me finish." she said. "I followed her scream to where Room 37 should have been. I could hear her screams through the wall, but the door was gone—I couldn't get to her…she screamed and screamed for me to help her, but I couldn't. When the door finally did reappear later that day, Elizabeth was gone. She had vanished like all the others."

Dean stood back up and stared at her. "Shit…shit, this is so not good…" he looked at Mrs. Winters. "One more question," he said quickly, "What else was Elizabeth screaming when she was trapped in the room? Did she say anything that might clue us into what the hell Sam might be up against in there?"

Mrs. Winters looked at him and shrugged. "She wasn't making much sense…but she did keep yelling about the wall."

"The wall?"

She nodded. "Yes. She said the wall was bleeding…"

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