Schools and jails had a lot in common, at least in Sam Winchester's mind. Both were made of concrete, were very bland, were dirty, and had a certain air of captivity about them. Yet, for the sake of being like everyone else, Sam had fought to continue his education, and it had cost his brother any chance at ever being normal.
"You wanted to see me?" Sam jumped out of his thoughts and turned to stare at the pretty girl that had sat down in front of him in a small side room of the guidance counselor's office. He looked over at Dean to see the older man eyeing her like a hungry wolf eyes a sheep.
Bad analogy, Sam thought, drawing his eyes from his brother and back to the girl. "Yeah. I'm Sam and this is Dean. We're grief counselors that are visiting to help with the recent death."
"Oh." Her face fell. "Well, Brad was my boyfriend. We did almost everything together."
"What was he doing last Thursday?" Dean asked, jumping right to the point, "uh, Mindy, is it?"
Mindy nodded. "Thursday is our walk night. We watch 'Grey's' or 'CSI' or 'The Office' or that cool show on the CW. I forget what's its called. The title's pretty generic. Starts with an S, I think."
"You and Brad?" Dean prodded, obviously getting fed up with the girl's list of Thursday night viewing, probably comparing her to a TV Guide magazine in his mind.
"Right. Well, we'd watch whatever was on, and then we'd go for a late-night walk in the park. We saw Mr. Jennings there, too, sometimes. He was the assistant principal."
"Was?" Sam asked.
"Well, he died about three weeks ago."
"And he walked through the park on Thursdays?"
Mindy shook her head. "We only saw him sometimes. I think he had to work late or something. He always rides his bike to school, and I think he short-cuts through the park. Or, he did."
Dean nodded. "Ok, so back to you and Brad. Did anything happen the last time you went through the park?"
"We saw… this guy."
"Describe him."
"I dunno," the teen shrugged, "he was really tall, and he had dark hair and light eyes. He ran into Brad, grabbed his arm, and just stared at him. It was creepy."
"Was Brad ok after that?"
"Well, he stumbled a little bit as he walked me home, and he said he was really tired. He was tired a lot."
"Anything else happen before he died?" Sam asked, marveling at the girl's composure.
"He was really pale. He walked kinda slow through the halls. He stopped showing up for football practice, and he kept falling asleep in class. Like he was totally drained."
Dean nodded. "Thanks, Mindy. You know, for someone who just lost her boyfriend, you're really holding up well."
"Yeah, well, to tell the truth, I was gonna cut him loose soon, anyway. He's not that great at football, and the quarterback's been eyeing me lately." She flashed a winning grin and whirled out of the room.
"I am so glad we didn't go to high school here," Sam mumbled as the door shut behind her.
"And I thought I was heartless," Dean muttered.
o0o0o0o0o0o
"Psychic vampire," Dean announced as he strode into the motel room, Sam trailing behind him. The brothers had spent a couple of hours running around town, tracking down anyone they could find that would talk about the deaths. All of the victims had suffered the same symptoms before dying in their sleep.
"Like, what, a mind-reading blood-sucker?" Sam questioned, raising one eyebrow in disbelief.
"No, like a creature that can drain its victims of their psychic energy."
"And you think that's what we're dealing with?" Sam asked, flinging the duffel bag off his shoulder and onto his bed.
Dean shrugged. "Makes sense, doesn't it?" He opened the bag and began digging through it, looking for their father's old journal. "I mean, the way the victims died, in their beds at night, just screams old-school vamp. The draining of energy throughout the week is a psychic vamp's MO. I'm just ow!"
Sam's head snapped over to stare in his brother's direction. "What is it?"
Dean pulled his hand slowly out of the duffel bag, revealing the long, silver knife it was curled around. A section of his hand was red and blistered, as if he'd been burnt. "Thought I told you not to put this in here."
Sam grabbed the knife from his brother's hand. "Sorry, but you rushed me with the packing, and I didn't want someone to see it in the school. I had to put it somewhere."
"How about under your pillow?"
Sam shook his head. "I still don't know why you make me keep this thing around."
"I make you keep it around so I don't wake up with your blood all over me."
"But you can control it-"
"Not in the beginning."
"So you lock yourself in the bathroom," Sam reminded him, "you come out when you're human enough to work a doorknob. I'm not in any danger."
Dean hung his head. "Better safe than sorry."
Sam walked over to the bed closest to the door, the one that he had insisted on taking after their father had started hunting Dean, and stuck the weapon under the pillow. "Happy now?"
"Ecstatic," Dean said, rummaging around the bag for the journal once more.
"You want me to bandage up that hand?"
The older man shrugged. "Naw. It'll go away eventually."
"You're forgetting what the knife was made of. That'll stick around longer than the others. I'll go get the first aid kit."
Dean pretended not to hear as he found the journal and began flipping through the pages. By the time Sam was back, the older hunter had fallen onto his bed and was busy skimming over a hastily scrawled entry.
"Does it say how to kill them?" Sam asked, pulling Dean's hand off the book and inspecting it.
"Same as regular vamps," Dean reported, flinching as his brother started cleaning the wound, "beheading."
"Great. Any ideas on how to find it."
"From what we heard today, I'm guessing it hangs around the park late at night, looking for victims. That's good news for us. The place is pretty secluded and there are a lot of trees." He grinned. "It's good for the wildlife."
"So we stake out the park and look for someone matching the description that girl gave us today. Sounds too easy."
"It is. These things feed differently. No puncture wounds because they don't need blood. It takes contact."
"What kind?"
"Physical and eye."
"Ok, so don't look at it. Anything else we should know?"
Dean nodded, flexing his injured hand as soon as Sam was finished with it. "This one's been feeding pretty slow. Usually only takes two or three attacks, but a human can be killed by one meal. We're gonna need to do this fast."
"Guess we'll head out tonight with the machetes, then, huh?"
Dean nodded again, closing the book. "Sounds easy. Five bucks says something's gonna go wrong."
Sammy rolled his eyes. "I'm not stupid. No sane person would take that bet. Something always goes wrong."
The older man grinned, staring at his hand. "Got that right."