Dean and Maria wait as Sam puts on jeans and a hoodie. When Sam returns, they head downstairs.
"I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you," Sam said, a little annoyed.
"You're not hearing us, Sammy. Dad's missing. We need you to help us find him," Dean reasoned with his brother.
"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine," Sam argued. Dean and Maria stop and turn around, stopping Sam in his tracks.
"Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with us or not?" Maria was getting irritated with Sam.
"I'm not."
"Why not?" Dean and Maria asked in unison.
"I swore I was done hunting. For good."
"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad," Dean said as they start down the stairs again.
"Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45." Sam says, making Dean and Maria stop at the door leading outside.
"Well, what was he supposed to do?" Maria asked, a slight edge to her voice.
"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark," Sam said a bit more loudly than he had meant.
"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there," Dean said even more loudly than Sam.
"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her…But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find," Sam replied a little sadly.
"We save a lot of people doing it, too," Maria said proudly.
"You think Mom would have wanted this for us? Sam asked seriously. Dean and Maria both roll their eyes before slamming the door open and climbing the short flight of stairs to the parking lot. "The weapons training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, you guys, we were raised like warriors."
"So what are you gonna do?" Dean asks as they all cross the parking lot to the '67 Impala. "You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?"
"No. Not normal. Safe."
"And that's why you ran away," Maria countered, looking away from her younger brother.
"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go, I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."
"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it," Dean said, trying to reason with Sam. Sam doesn't say anything.
"We can't do this alone," Maria says.
"Yes, you can," Sam tells her.
"Yeah, well, we don't want to," Dean says simply. Sam sighs, thinking, then looks up at his older siblings.
"What was he hunting?" Sam asks as Dean opens up the trunk of the Impala, lifting up the spare-tire compartment and revealing an arsenal of weapons. Maria props it open with a shotgun while Dean digs through the mess.
"All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" Dean mumbles to himself.
"So when Dad left, why didn't you two go with him?"
"We were working our own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans," Maria replied.
"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourselves?" Sam asked, interested.
"I'm twenty-six, dude," Dean says, as if it's obvious.
"And I'm 24. I think we're old enough to handle ourselves," Maria says as Dean pulls some papers out of a folder in the arsenal.
"All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California," Dean tells his youngest sibling.
"About a month ago, this guy," Maria says as Dean hands Sam one of the papers, "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."
Sam reads the paper Dean handed him. It is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald with the headline "Centennial Highway Disappearance" dated September 19, 2005. The picture of the man is captioned "Andrew Carey MISSING." Sam glances up at his brother and sister.
"So maybe he was kidnapped," Sam reasoned, hoping that this wasn't their kind of gig.
"Yeah. Well, here's another one in April," Dean says, handing Sam yet another printout of an article from the Jericho Herald.
"Another one in December '03, '98, '92, ten of them over the past twenty years," Maria tells Sam. Dean takes the article in Sam's hand and puts it back in the folder with the rest of the stack. "All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road."
"It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. We haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough," Dean says as he digs in a bag in the arsenal. He grabs a tape recorder. "Then I got this voicemail yesterday."
Dean presses play on the tape recorder. The recording sounds staticky and it sounded like the call was breaking up.
"Dean…something big is starting to happen…I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may…Be very careful, Dean. Watch...Maria. We're all in danger." Dean presses stop on the tape recorder.
"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam asks.
"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike isn't it?" Maria says proudly. Sam just shakes his head.
"All right. I slowed the message down and ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what we got," Dean says before pressing play again.
"I can never go home…" a woman's voice says sadly over the recording. Dean presses stop.
"Never go home," Sam says, thinking. Dean drops the recorder back in the arsenal. Maria moves the shotgun and shuts the trunk. Both Dean and Maria lean against the back of the Impala.
"You know, in almost two years we've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing," Maria says, trying to guilt her little brother into coming with them on their rescue mission. Sam looks away from his sister's pleading gaze and sighs, finally looking back at his siblings.
"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him," Sam says finally. Dean just nods and Maria smiles and hugs her baby brother. "But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here."
Sam turns to go back into the apartment, but stops and turns around when Maria speaks.
"What's first thing Monday?"
"I have this…I have an interview."
"What, a job interview?" Dean asks incredulously. "Skip it."
"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."
"Law school?" Dean and Maria chorus. They have identical smirks on their faces.
"So we got a deal or not?" Sam asks seriously. Dean and Maria say nothing.
Sam walks back into his apartment and into his and Jess's bedroom. He starts to pack a duffle bag, pulling out a large hook-shaped knife and sliding it into his bag. Jess comes into the room.
"Wait, you're taking off?" she asks, surprised. Sam looks up at her. "Is this about your dad? Is he all right?"
"Yeah. You know, just a little family drama," Sam replies going over to his dresser and turning on the lamp.
"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip," Jess says, sitting on the bed as Sam rummages in one of the drawers, putting a couple of shirts into his duffle bag.
"Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin. He's probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose along with him. I'm just going to go bring him back."
"What about the interview?" Jess asked, concerned that he might miss it.
"I'll make the interview. This is only for a couple days," Sam replies, walking around the bed, Jess getting up and following him.
"Sam, I mean, please. Just stop for a second," Jess says. Sam stops and turns to look at her. "You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," Sam laughs.
"It's just…you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them? And with Monday coming up, which is kind of a huge deal…"
"Hey. Everything is going to be okay. I will be back in time, I promise," Sam kisses her cheek and leaves.
"At least tell me where you're going."