He smiled, he could not stop smiling. Sam's face ached as he had done nothing but smile for what felt like hours. He loved the way that Dean was sat there so embarrassed because he would not stop smiling at him. He had told him to stop, he had threatened him but all to no avail. Sam just could not stop smiling.

Sam was being ridiculous and if he did not stop soon he was going to have to do something to wipe that damn smile off his brother's face. They were in public for crying out loud, sat in a diner! Dean shook his head and called him butt breath but with no venom and then just laughed rubbing a hand through his hair as he sat back and grinned in return. But they still had unfinished business and he wanted to get it over and done with so they could move on. "The only thing I can think to do is see if we can track down anyone from the Sheriff's office from those days."

"It was over fifty years ago," Sam warned.

"There's a chance." And he shrugged his shoulders then stretched his arms out on the back of the booth trying to get comfortable. How long, he wondered, until he got over these injuries and would he have time before he acquired more? "We should start with the names in those newspaper articles you found."

Sam picked up his computer and opened it up on the table as Dean was obviously not in a mood to flirt with him. "Well, I started a search night before last and the only one I could find was a Deputy Harris. He's in the Clover Nursing Home here in town. Must be at least eighty surely?"

"Let's go find out." Dean said. =======

It was easy to get past the reception desk at the Home and they did not have to come up with an elaborate cover. They just asked to see the former deputy and he said sure. It was as if the people in this place were desperate for any visitor. It made Dean eminently sad. It would never be a problem for them though. With their kind of life there was slim chance of lasting long enough to be shunted off to a dismal place like this. It smelt of old people as soon as you walked through the door.

The thick set nurse whittered away as she led them down corridor after corridor all painted the same off white, their shoes squeaking on the linoleum and Dean felt himself get increasingly disheartened, not just at the whole atmosphere but at the frank unlikelihood that anyone living in this limbo between the world outside and a coffin could be any use to them.

There was a sudden explosion of laughter from a nearby room, shocking in the apathy of the place. "Here we are," the woman said pointing them into the room. "In you go. Don't let him wear you out." She grinned as she left them.

The brothers looked at each other bewildered then entered a room that looked more like a hunting lodge. Obviously the residents had a free rein on the décor side. There were stuffed animals everywhere, mounted on the walls along side the weapons that had no doubt dispatched the poor unfortunate creatures.

To say that they both stood there stunned was an understatement. "Come in. Come in," encouraged the senior, waving an arm magnanimously. He must have been a bear of a man in his prime and was still robust now and standing to greet them. His handshake was firm and Dean could not help but smile as he was practically pushed into an overstuffed armchair and a glass shoved into his hand. Similarly Sam sniffed at his drink then looking across at his brother pulled a, 'do you believe this' expression, placing the glass down on a small table cluttered with magazines and candy wrappers.

"Mr Harris,.." Sam opened to be gruffly but affably corrected.

"Tim. Please."

"Tim. We're sorry to bother you, but.."

"Nonsense. It's nice to have you young fellas visitin'. Ain't that right Earl?" turning to the man emerging from what must be the bathroom as he was still in the process of doing up his flies then looked up startled as three pairs of eyes met him. "Don't mind him," Harris told them in a loud stage whisper, "His bladder ain't worked right in years."

Sam looked embarrassed and Dean began to feel charmed by the gruff demeanour. Poor Earl just let forth a stream of invective then shambled out of the room leaving laughter in his wake. "He's getting old you know. Eighty four and doesn't look a day over a hundred," and he knocked back a good portion of Whisky. It was ten thirty in the morning.

Dean laughed, looking at the figure that appeared to be about the same. "We wondered if you could help us. We're trying to find out about what happened to a man named Glummer. He disappeared in the fif…"

Harris' jovial buffoonery disappeared as if they had flicked a switch. Sourly he fixed Dean with a mean eye. "And why would you want to know about that Bastard?"

"We're doing research on the history of the area and his name keeps cropping up," Sam interjected.

"How? No one talks about him," continuing to stare at Dean.

"There are still disappearances going on in the same area and a couple of people have even cast the blame at his door." Sam tried for a light tone as if he thought it ridiculous, "They say his ghost still haunts the woods." He was going to continue but stopped speaking as the man was still staring at Dean as if he was the only one in the room. It was making both brothers uncomfortable.

The old man studied the elder sibling and nodding, came to a decision. "You've seen them haven't you?"

"Who?" asked Sam.

Slowly Harris swung to look at him and involuntarily Sam sat back as far away as he could without getting up. "I wasn't talking to you!" And his attention went back to Dean who was looking puzzled if not a bit apprehensive at the hostility towards Sam. "Well boy? You seen them or ain't you."

"Who?" although he had a strong inkling.

"The girl and her brother o' course. I can see it in your eyes. You've seen things. The kinda things most people only see in their nightmares." Then the old man just sat waiting.

Dean knocked back the glass of Whisky that he had been turning steadily in his hands and dropped his head, slumping forwards, elbows on knees. He had a flash of entering that room and seeing Sammy hanging there with that bastard stood so close to him, a hand on his belly. There had been fresh scratches down Sam's back, nail marks on his hips and buttocks, his pants open and hanging low off his hips. Sam had not only been abducted but Dean knew that he had been 'touched'. Sam had not spoken of it and he could not bring himself to ask. He just prayed that that was all it had been, just touched.

Dean looked up at the old man and held out his glass. He had weighed him up somewhat and as Harris poured amber liquid he said flatly, "I saw 'him' too."

The man nodded. "Thought so."

There was silence as they all mulled over their own thoughts.

Sam, disturbed by his thoughts and not wanting to dwell on them, looked from one to the other of the men sat in the quiet room with him. In some ways it was as if he was looking at the same person some fifty years apart. They both had the same knowing expression that life was more often hard, filled with pain and lose along the way but also he recognised in the old man the same determination that Dean had. The retired lawman was a fighter, and he had never lain back and let life beat him. He realised that the man had begun to speak frankly and succinctly.

"The girl and boy had been missing for near a week. We searched everywhere, starting from the route they should have taken to their Grandma's. Then we spread out. No sign. No proof but everyone kept whispering it then saying it. It was him. The big bastard that lived out near the woods. He was a loner but that wasn't why. Sheriff Gray had thought him responsible for the disappearance of a young mother the year before but couldn't prove it. She'd been seen not far from her house then never again but he had been in town that day. Didn't happen often.

"No proof but a feeling. We raided his place several times but could find nothing and after near a week we were sure that it was way too late. We all went out on one more search. Me, Sheriff Gray, Deputies Bull, Gordon and a few friends of Gray's that acted as fire men in them days. We came across Glummer, out by that old shack of his at the back of his place and he.." a gulp of whisky then fingers back to playing with the glass as he watched as the brothers watch him, "he had blood on him. On his hands. His mouth. Bull started shouting, demanding what he had done with the children. He shouldn't have been there. They were his sister's young'uns. Glummer sneered back and without a word you knew he was telling us to fuck off, excuse the language. And Bull hit him. Hit him with the butt of his riffle.

"Of course he hit back. He was a mountain of a man and Jerry went down and it all happened real fast after that." He paused, looking up at Dean and became silent with almost tears in his eyes. They all knew there was to be no happy ending and he was reluctant to continue.

"Please. We need to know what happened to him." There was a pleading in his voice as Dean moved forwards on the chair offering mute support and confidentiality.

Harris sighed and rubbed at his nose, sitting straighter. He had started so he might as well finish. This one across from him had seen, possibly done just as bad a thing. It was written there for anyone who knew what to look for or cared to. "We beat him. Beat him bad. It was as if something primeval over took us. Me as well. I'm just as guilty as the others there. We kept on beating him, who knows how long after he was dead.

"Exhaustion finally stopped us I think. It was one of the worst moments of my life as we stood there in a circle, looking at each other. Seeing the blood splattered on our clothes, on our faces. Young Burns threw up. We knew that, in that few minutes, we had become animals as bad, if not worse, than what we suspected Glummer of. And also we knew that we were never going to find that boy and girl."

The tragedy of it, Dean thought, as they had been so close, mere yards away in that awful dungeon under their feet. He put a hand out and tentively pressed the back of the silent old man's hand. He looked up at the contact, a sad resigned smile on his lips. "I just pray that they were already dead and that we didn't leave them trapped somewhere." But both Sam and Dean knew that that was exactly what they had done.

"They're at peace now," Dean told the former deputy softly making Sam want to hold him right then and there for his damned big beautiful heart.

"Damn." Harris pulled himself together, refilling all three glasses, even Sam's untouched one.

At least he had acknowledge his existence, Sam thought a bit petulantly, he wasn't invisible after all. Then chided himself. It was only because the man had so obviously found a kindred spirit in his bother, still, he could feel the green eyed monster of jealously in his belly, ridiculous though it was. He wanted this over with. He wanted to know what they had come for and to take Dean away, to keep him to himself. That quality that he had so admired but a moment ago was for him, no one else. Sam did not like to share.

Harris started speaking again drawing Sam's attention back to what it should be focused on. "I'm not too sure about that. They've been seen. I've seen them. They don't look peaceful to me." And he turned angry but who at was unclear.

"Trust me," Dean said, leaning forwards once more. "They're at peace. Sammy and me, we made sure of it."

Harris looked sideways at him trying to decide if he was taking the piss but nodded his understanding. There was no guile in the young man's face, his eyes were clear and earnest and he thought he could see that indefatigable something that made him an honest man. "So its over?" he did not need to say he believed there was something strange here, that he believed as did others that Glummer was somehow still taking people.

"No. We have to know where you buried him."

"Why?"

Dean looked uncomfortably at Sam almost asking permission to explain. "My kid brother here and me. We know how to stop him. He's still here. Still dangerous." He thought of all his bruising and had to refrain from wincing, thinking of Sam hanging from that ceiling. "But we need his remains. We have to destroy them."

"And that will destroy his….ghost?"

"Manifestation," Sam corrected unthinkingly.

"Yes," Dean quickly added, "He won't be able to hurt anyone ever again." And could not help but turn to look at his brother, his eyes so full of regret that he had allowed him to be.

"It was not your fault," Sam whispered to him but knew it was useless. Dean would always feel responsible for him, to him.

"Directly opposite the window in that shack there's a tree. He's at the base of that tree."

"Thankyou," they said in unison whilst standing.

"Don't be offended but, once you've done whatever it is you're gonna do, don't come back." He looked as if he was feeling every one of those eighty or so years.

So without another word, they left to find their way out of the maze of nursing home even more depressing now as the laughter had fled with their arrival. Dean prayed that it would return one day soon. Before it was gone forever. =====