Dean headed over to the hospital. He remembered that weekend when he found those pictures his dad had taken of rotted footprints.

Flashback

"Dean, I'll be back in two days. Don't leave this room," Dad had ordered before he left.

But sure enough I had to get bored, Dean thought angrily. He was so mad at himself. He had left the room to play video games of all things. Video games! Yeah, that was important. When he had come back to the room, there was a monster leaning over Sammy's bed--over Sammy--and Dean had frozen, not knowing what to do. His dad had trained him for a lot of things, but all his training went out of his head when he saw Sammy in danger. Luckily his father happened to get back like 10 seconds later and scared the thing off. But he had been so mad at Dean, he hadn't spoken to him for a week. And he didn't even leave to go hunting because he didn't trust Dean to leave Sammy alone with him.

SSSSSSSSS

Dean pulled up to the hospital. "It's a shtriga, just have to find it feeding and kill it," he said to himself. He remembered his father telling him the only time it was vulnerable was when it was feeding. And he found out from the victims' parents that it seems to be going after siblings. One night it would feed off the one sibling and the next night the other one.

He walked into the hospital and started asking around for Dr. Kaplan.

"Dr. Kaplan? Yes, I spoke with him earlier and sent him down to Records. I haven't seen him since," Dr. Hydecker told Dean.

"Could you point me in that same direction?" Dean asked.

"Sure," Dr. Hydecker said and directed him to the Records room.

When Dean arrived in the Records room, he found it empty except for the librarian. "Hi, have you seen Dr. Kaplan?" Dean asked.

"Who?" she asked.

"Dr. Hydecker told me he sent Dr. Kaplan down here. We're with the CDC, looking into the pneumonia cases," Dean explained.

"Oh, yes. Those are horrible. But, I'm afraid nobody has been down here today," she said.

"That's odd. Well, thanks anyway," Dean said puzzled.

He went back upstairs and found Dr. Hydecker again. "He hasn't been down to Records."

"That's odd. I sent him down there about two hours ago."

A nurse approached them. "Excuse me, Doctor. This isn't really one of your cases, because it's an adult, but we have another pneumonia victim and thought maybe we should treat all the cases together."

"Yes, that's probably best. What happened?" Dr. Hydecker asked, knowing full well what he was going to hear.

"Well, we were going to prep an empty patient room for the next patient, and when we walked in, there was an unconscious man on the floor. His breath was raspy and he has all the same symptoms as the children. They're bringing him up now."

Dean had been following this conversation and turned to look when Sam was brought up on a gurney. "Sam," he said as he ran over to him.

"Are you family?" the nurse asked him.

"Uh, no, we're colleagues," he said. He wished that they hadn't already given cover stories. It was going to make this more complicated.

"Do you know if he has any family?"

"No, his parents died when he was a kid and he was an only child," Dean said. "Can I sit with him for a while?"

"I suppose that would be OK," the nurse answered.

Dr. Hydecker and the nurse left the room to order tests and Dean sat next to Sam's bed. "Sam?" he said. "Sam, please wake up." He got no response. "I know what this thing is, and I can kill it, but I have to find it first. But don't worry. I'm going to find it."

The nurse came back in. "You'll have to leave sir. We need to run some tests."

Dean just nodded and left.

SSSSSSSSSS

The shtriga got ready for his next meal. He thought maybe he should leave but he had picked out his next two meals. He would leave after that.