Woman in White 2 and Blackwater Ridge
"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean? Does she know about the things you've done?" Good question.
Sam had this firm look on his face, "No, and she's never going to." Chris looked at him in disbelief.
Chris felt the shock that he never planned on telling her settle in, "Sam! You can't just not tell her your past. If she's going to be in your life she has to know what she's getting into!" It was one thing giving up the hunter lifestyle, it's quite another bringing someone who doesn't know into the family.
"She doesn't have to know." Sam insisted firmly, not budging.
Dean continued, "You can pretend all you want Sammy but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."
"And who's that?" Sam demanded. Chris could tell from the tightening muscles in in his jaw that he was getting pissed.
"You're whoever you want to be." Chris got between the brothers. "But you have to know its wrong to marry Jessica and not tell her the truth!"
"Don't try sugar coating it sweetheart, Sammy's having issues that he really is one of us!" Dean decided.
"No," Sam protested. "I'm not like you or Chris. This is not going to be my life."
"And it doesn't have to be," Chris said softly. Who was she to force someone into this life, not everybody could handle it.
"We all have a responsibility-" Dean started.
"To dad?" Sam interrupted. "And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what mom looks like. Heck, at least I have some real version when I think about her now. I'm sure you've noticed how Chris looks the most like her." Chris tugged subconsciously on her long dirty blonde hair. "But what's it really matter? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Chris isn't mom and our mom isn't coming back."
Chris flinched as Dean grabbed Sam by his shirt and shoved him hard against the bridges bar. "Stop it!" Chris shouted, staring back and forth. There was a long pause of silence before anyone made a move.
"Don't talk about either of them like that." Dean said quietly before letting the youngest Winchester go. Dean turned to Chris but froze. Seeing the look on his face caused Chris to quickly turn around, automatically reaching for the gun under her shirt in the back of her jeans. Constance stood half a mile down the bridge on the rail, her long hair loose around her face, wearing a tattered white gown. She looked at them and then jumped off the bridge.
Chris could feel her heart pounding in her chest and her sneakers hitting the gravel scattered on the bridge as she and her brothers raced to where she'd stepped over. The bar was cold, almost icy despite the warm night, against her bare hands as they looked over the rail. There wasn't anything below, not even a ripple that would have indicated her jumping. It was like she'd just vanished before actually touching the water. "Where'd she go?" Dean asked.
Sam shook his hand, "I don't know."
Chris sighed, "Well there is one thing, she's not down there anymore." Everything stopped when they were suddenly bathed in headlights. The impala had started but none of the three siblings were actually in it.
"Whose driving your car?" Sam asked confused. Dean silently pulled out the keys from his pocket.
"...Hot wired?" Chris guessed. She'd learned how to hot wire a car after stealing her foster dad's. She got two states away before they caught her because of security camera's and the license plate. Amateur rookie mistake that she never made again. The car suddenly jerked and went speeding straight at them.
Chris felt the air leave her lungs and panic strengthen in her every nerve. "Go! Go! Go!" Sam shouted, grabbing her wrist in his much bigger hand. The three siblings ran as fast as they could down the bridge but it was no use. They couldn't outrun a car. Her heart felt like it was trying to pound out of her chest.
It was a blur the next few minutes but Chris did realize after it happened that she'd done just over the rail. 'I'm gonna die' the thought was in her head. But before she could scream, she suddenly stopped. Chris cried out only because of the pain she felt in her shoulder. Sam had grabbed onto the rail and was now holding tightly onto her wrist so she wouldn't take her own swan dive.
The car came to a halting stop at the rail. "You okay, Chris?" Sam asked, readjusting his grip on her.
Chris swallowed hard but after mentally making sure she and bleeding or missing parts, she nodded. "Well I've been better but I'll live." Chris called up. Damn, she felt like her arm was going to pop out from her shoulder.
Sam gritted and teeth and used his strength to pull her up till she could grasp the rusted cold metal bar and pull herself up. Chris sighed in relief when her feet landed on another bar, no longer dangling above dangerous waters. "Wait...where's Dean?"
A different type of panic she never had before was rising inside of her as she realized her eldest brother was nowhere in sight.
"Dean! Dean!" Sam shouted below. Her eyes wandered over the waters, wondering if it was possible he'd survived or they would find his body washed up ashore later on.
There was movement on the shore below as a figure covered in mud shakily climbed out of the water before collapsing. "There he is!" Chris realized, how many other figures could be in that water. "Dean!" He wasn't moving.
Clearly exhausted, "What?" He called up, breathing hard.
"Hey, you okay!" Sam called down to him.
"I'm super," he groaned. Chris started to grin as both she and Sam laughed. It was like the knot forming in the back of her throat lessened at the knowledge that her siblings were okay.
Sam hosted himself up before turning around and giving me a hand. With my emotional state by getting used to hunting with family, she would have done fallen off.
It took several pain stricken minutes before Dean finally managed to climb up the hill back to where they originally were on the bridge. Although he first thing Dean did was check on his baby of a car, Chris was positive his eyes had glanced over her and Sam checking for any immediate injuries.
"You car aright?" Sam asked as Chris leaned back against the rail creaking. Dean slammed the hood after checking it over multiple times, leaning against it. He was covered in mud and smelled like he'd climbed out of a sewer.
"Yeah, whatever she did to it seems alright now. The Constance chick, what a bitch!" He shouted at the sky, clearly wanting Constance to hear him.
"Well she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?" Sam said. Debs threw up his arms frustrated, shaking mud from his arms. Sam screwed up his face in disgust, "Dude, you smell like a toilet."
"I say we go find a room to get princess over there cleaned up." Chris suggested..
"Bite me." Dean grumbled.
It took a little longer to find a motel on the other side of town. It wasn't the worst motel Chris ever stayed in while trying to save money to share an apartment. Dean ignored the looks from the few still milling around for being covered in mud and made our way in. Dean tossed down his credit card with the name Hector Aframian on it. He managed to get some mud off his face by using an old t-shirt that was in a dire need of washing. "One room please."
Chris stood a few feet away trying to ignore the smell while Sammy was waiting with their bags by the car.
The old guy behind the counter stared at the name on the card. "You guys have a reunion or something?" Chris and Dean looked at each other confused.
"Excuse us?"
The guy explained, "I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month." Burt Aframian...wasn't that the name dad was using?
The sun was starting to come up by the time we managed to find the room. Sammy picked the lock while Chris leaned against a pole crossing her arms and whistling innocently. Dean stood watch. Chris flinched slightly when Dean made a sound. Before she could turn, the back of her jacket collar was grabbed and she to was yanked backwards into the motel room, nearly falling on her ass.
"Whoa," Damn, dad was good. Every surface had papers taped to it. Maps, newspaper clippings, victims, and notes. It didn't seem to matter, everything on the case's information seemed to be in this room. The room was overcrowded with what other people would see and think satanic.
Dean got a disgusted look on his face from the half eaten burger having been sitting there for days. "I could have lived my entire life without smelling that and been perfectly happy." Chris said stepping back throughly disgusted as he raised it to her.
"Well either way, he hasn't been here in a few days." Dean decided, dropping the burger. Sam was busy with the salt circling the bed on the floor.
"Salt, car eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."
The bigger question is what," Chris said quietly, looking at two pictures pinned to the mirror. One was of John Winchester and two young boys sitting on the hood of the impala. She carefully pulled down the second one. It was clearly her, nearly ten years ago. She remembered sitting on that swing when she was fourteen. She went there every day after school for three months, her escape from the recent orphanage she was in. How'd he get a picture of that?
"What have you get here?" Chris jumped, resizing Sam was talking to Dean looking at FBI pictures across the wall. She put the picture in probably the safest place a girl could. Inside her bra.
"Centennial Highway Victims." Dean explained as Chris joined them. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common."
Chris sighed feeling frustrated, "Maybe whatever's doing this just has a problem against guys so attacks any single male driving that road at night."
"No, that's not it. Dad's figured it out." Sam said quietly, staring at more clippings on the wall.
Dean frowned, "What do you mean?"
Sam explained, "He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white." Chris looked at the men's pictures in a new light.
"You sly dogs." Dean grinned.
"So not only are they all men, they're all cheaters." Chris commented.
"Well now we have to find the corpse and destroy it." Dean said.
"So where do we find where she's buried?" Chris asked. It hadn't been on the Internet article.
"Well if I was dad, I'd go ask the husband, Joseph Welch." Sam said, looking at his picture on the article.
"Aright," Dean decided. "Why don't you uh, see if you can find an address. I'm gonna get cleaned up."
"Bout time," Chris muttered as Dean stepped into the bathroom doorway. She was beginning to wonder how long he'd stand there covered in mud.
"Hey," Sam stopped him. "What I said earlier about mom and dad...and what I said to you Chris, I'm sorry." Chris blinked, not looking up from the print outs on the desk, not used to any actually apologizing to her.
Dean silently held up a hand to stop him, "No chick flick moments." A smile curled on Chris' mouth, her hair shielding her face.
"Alright," Sam laughed. "...Jerk."
Dean smirked, "Bitch,"
Chris didn't think as she brushed her hair out her face with a sweep of her hand, "Dicks." All three siblings shared an identical smirk. It was like the final puzzle pieces had come together within the three Winchester siblings. Dean disappeared inside the bathroom and Chris plopped down on the bed.
Chris must have doze off at some point because she shot up in bed after something landed on her face. "Gross!" Chris threw Dean's mud covered jeans on the ground.
"Who wants something to eat?" Dean grinned, now cleaned up with cleaner clothes.
"Nothing now," Chris scowled, hurrying into the bathroom to clean her face.
"None for me." Sam muttered, looking at his phone.
"Aframian's buying." Dean sung as he left. Chris was walking out the bathroom just as Sam stood, phone to his ear.
"What about you?" Chris grabbed two of the bags. Sam hung up.
"Cops got Dean, we have to get out of here." Sam grabbed the third bag. They had to climb out the bathroom window to escape and sneak to the Impala while they were checking out the room.
"This is it?" Chris asked as they climbed out the car after the twenty minutes it took to find Joseph Welch's house.
"Well it's the address." The Winchesters walked up the drive and Sam knocked on the door. Several seconds passed before a man in his fifties or so with a beer gut appeared. "Are you Joseph Welch?" Chris asked, getting to the point.
"Yeah," Joseph nodded and agreed to take a walk around the property to answer their questions.
"Have you seen this man before?" Sam asked, showing him the picture of John with his two sons on the impala.
Joseph looked close before nodding, "Yeah, he was older but that's him."
"Really?" Chris said hopeful, maybe this wouldn't take as long as she originally thought to track him down.
Joseph sighed, handing the picture back to Sam, "He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter."
"That's right," Sam quickly agreed, sticking to that story. "We're working on a story together."
"Well I don't know what the hell kinda story you're working on." Joseph said in sorrowful disgust. "The questions he asked me,"
"And the questions were about your late wife Constance?" Chris said softly.
Joseph swallowed hard, "He asked me where she was buried.
"And where was that again?" Sam asked before the conversation could change.
Joseph scowled, "What, I gotta go through this twice?"
Chris quickly explained, "Just getting our facts straight. It's a big mess at the office fixing it if we get anything wrong."
Joseph slowly nodded at the explanation before answering, "In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge."
"And why did you move?" Sam asked.
Joseph looked at him like it was obvious, "I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died." Good point.
The three adults stopped where they stood and Sam asked a question to figure out why Constance was killing cheating men, "Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?"
"No way." Joseph said. "Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known." Chris narrowed her eyes. His wife was dead and all he could comment on was her beauty. Seemed to her that his eyes could easily sway if another pretty face passed by.
"So you had a happy marriage?" Sam continued.
It was a split second but Joseph hesitated. "...Definitely," he finally said, glancing away. Sam and Chris glanced at the other.
"Well thank you for spending your time to talk to us," Chris said. Sam and Chris headed to the impala while Joseph turned back to his house.
"Mr. Welch," Sam said before Chris could climb in. She stopped to hear what he was doing. "Did you ever hear of a woman in white?" What the hell? Was he about to tell the guy the truth, that they would only interested so they could salt and burn her bones into dust.
Joseph stopped confused, "A what?" Clearly he'd never heard of it which wasn't much of a surprise. Many people didn't unless they were avid studiers of the supernatural.
Sam cautiously stepped forward. "A woman in white, or sometimes weeping woman." His voice got stronger as he continued. "It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really. They're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different woman you understand. But they all share the same story."
Joseph shook his head dismissively as most civilians did when confronted about the supernatural, "Boy, I don't care much for nonsense."
But Sam pressed on, "See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them." Joseph slowly looked up worrisome. "And these women basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children. Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again."
Comprehension showed on Joseph's face before he got pissed, "You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!"
"How about you tell us," Chris mouth off snappily, a southern twang she'd picked up at some point when she got pissed.
Joseph swallowed hard, finally admitting it in oh so many words, "I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children." Then he got pissed again. "Now you get the hell out of here and don't come back!" His face was tight and red with anger, guilt, and grief.
Sam and Chris drove away, having gotten what they wanted. "Hey, let me see your phone for a sec," Chris decided.
"Why?" Sam asked but jumped when Chris didn't bother waiting. She just reached into his jacket pocket and pulled it out.
Chris threw her hair over her shoulder to free her ear. "I'm getting Dean a chance to escape the Feds." Then she started breathing hard like she was having a panic attack.
"Chris?" Sam asked.
"Please, I need help! I'm scared, someone's firing shots on Whiteford Road. I don't know who they are or what they want. Please hurry!" Then she screamed and hung up. Chris smirked, "That's how you empty a small town police station," tossing the phone on Sam's lap.
Sam shook his head grinning, "Remind me to never let you borrow my phone."
"Don't worry, I'll just take it."
"And you couldn't use your own?" Sam asked.
"Of course not, this way they can't track me."
"But they could track me." Sam said trying to get his point across.
"But your not a girl." Chris said. "And according to public records, Christina Winchester was given up for adoption and never made contact with her birth family so they'll be no reason to believe it was me from any other psychotic girl on the street."
Their playful argument got interrupted when Sam's phone rung. "I swear, if it's the police calling me back," he trailed off to answer. Then he grinned, "I didn't do that, you can blame our sister."
Chris took Sam's wrist and pulled the phone to her, "Your welcome," she told her older brother. Sam shook her hand off but kept the phone between them so they could both here.
"Listen, we gotta talk." Dean said from some pay phone across town.
"You bet we do." Chris said.
Sam took over explaining, "So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house so that should have been dad's next stop."
"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Chris frowned confused.
Sam didn't seem to notice and kept on, "I just can't figure out why dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet."
"Shush, hold on." Chris held up a finger.
Dean finally got in, "Well, that's what I'm trying to you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho."
"What! How do you know?" Sam said surprised.
"Forget that," Chris scoffed. "How'd the hell he learn that in a police station under arrest."
"I've got his journal." Dean said.
"What journal?" Chris frowned, not wanting to be out of the loop.
"Dad's journal on every evil thing he's come across." Sam said, turning back to the phone. "He doesn't go anywhere without that thing."
"Yeah, well he did this time." Dean said.
"Well is there anything in it that'll tell us where he is?" Chris asked.
"Just this marine crap he usually leaves behind when he wants to let us know where he's going."
"Coordinates. Where to?"
"I'm not sure yet." Dean said.
"Well we'll just figure it out when you get back." Chris said.
Sam shook his head, "I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that dad would just skip out in the middle of a job. what the hell is going on."
The seatbelt suddenly snapped tightly against her chest, her heart pounded and a look of panic got on her face as Sam dropped his phone, slamming on his breaks. They drove right threw Constance who stood in the center of the street.
The temperature suddenly dropped several degrees as Constance appeared in the backseat. As if she'd been there this whole time. "Take me home." She said in an eerie voice.
Chris swallowed hard, feeling the weight of he gun in the back of her jeans.
Sam did the same and said quietly but firmly, "No." Constance glared and all the doors locked.
"Let us out!" Chris panicked, struggling to open the doors. She didn't know Sam was scared of clowns. She didn't know Dean was scared of flying. Dean and Sam didn't know Chris was scared of being locked in and unable to get out, claustrophobic. Chris tried kicking the window open but the car suddenly started down the road. "Stop the car!"
"I'm trying!" Sam struggled to control the steering wheel. Chris looked in the review mirror and saw Constance in the back seat...flickering. Chris felt her panicking start to overgrow her calm.
They didn't stop until they reached Constance's rickety old house that looked like it would fall apart at any given moment. The car suddenly turned off.
"...Don't do this," Sam said quietly.
The seat belt suddenly flung off of Chris and the door opened. She shrieked as she was literally catapulted from the car. She scraped her hands bloody as she tried to catch herself, feeling the air leave her lungs. It was relieving to be in the air but now she couldn't breathe. Then the screams, Sam's screams as he was still trapped in the car reached her ears.
Chocking, Chris stumbled wobbly to her feet and stumbled to her car door. But it wouldn't open for her. Sam screamed again and Chris could clearly see Constance sitting on him, digging claws into his chest.
"Sam!" Chris started to panic at the thought of losing her little brother. She was older, she was supposed to protect him. Forgetting her gun, she stumbled around the car and picked up the biggest stone she could find. Chris raised it above her head, ready to break the window to get to him.
"Chris, get down!" A voice bellowed. Now when someone yells like that, you don't question it. Chris doze to the ground, a gunshot going off, covering her hair as shards of glass rained down on her. Chris' head popped up as Dean knelt down beside her. He gripped her upper elbow and jerked her to her feet.
"I'm taking you home." Sam declared from the front seat. Chris and Dean were left gaping as the car suddenly peered forward, slamming through the aged wood and into the living room. Dean and Chris didn't even look at each other, just went racing through the mess and to the car.
"Sam!" Chris called, grabbing the window and ignoring stray glass biting into her palms.
"You okay?" Dean asked reaching her side.
"I think." Sam groaned, the front of his shirt bloodstained.
"Can you move?" Dean asked.
"Yeah. Help me?" Chris reached through the window and finally got he door opened while Dean reached in and helped him stand.
Their was the sound of shattering glass as Constance angrily threw a picture down. No one could move on time for a desk to suddenly fly out of the next room and slammed the three siblings; Sam, Dean, and then Chris, pinning them against the car behind them. Chris gasped in pain as it presses hard against her hips. She struggled in vain to push it away but it refused to move.
The lights started to flicker and Constance looked up with a scared expression on her face. Everything seemed to froze except for the steady twinkle of water slowly sliding down the steps. A little boy and girl suddenly appeared holding hands. "You've come home to us mommy." The siblings said.
Constance backed away, rightfully believing she would be punished for what she did to her innocent children. The children vanished before reappearing behind her. She screamed in fear and pain as their figures started to flicker. Chris felt a thrill of satisfaction as Constance and her to children melted through the floorboards, going straight to hell.
"Finally." Chris sighed as the desk seemed to stop pushing. It was much easier to shove the desk off of them.
"So this is where she drowned her kids." Dean said, staring at the faint wet spot in the wood.
"At least she won't be killing anymore cheating men." Chris sighed.
"And that was why she could never go home. She was too scared to face her children." Sam said.
Dean smirked, "You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." Then he slapped Sammy on the chest where he was still bleeding. Sam laughed through the pain.
"At least I didn't have to bust the window, you're poor car." Chris didn't want to admit she was actually growing attached to Dean's 'baby'.
"What were you thinking anyway. Dean, you tried shooting Casper in the face, you freak."
Dean looked up from examining his car as Chris leaned against the hood, "Saved your ass. I'll tel you another thing. If you screwed up my car," he stopped to straighten up. "I'll kill you." Chris couldn't help but throw back her head and laugh. This was her and her brother's first joint hunt successfully.
Turns out the car was alright, just a headlight was busted. The three Winchester's found themselves cruising down a long street heading away from the town. Chris was holding the flashlight as Sam figured out the coordinates.
"Okay, here's where dad went. It's called Blackwater Ridge." Sam said.
Chris groaned, "Looks like nothing but wood."
"Sounds charming, how far?" Dean asked.
Sam did the calculations in his head, "About six hundred miles."
"Hey, if we shag ass we could make it there by morning." Chris' leg tensed and she slowly leaned back against the leather seats.
Sam hesitated before trying, "Dean I..."
Dean glanced at Sam and then back to the road. "You're not going." It was a statement more than a question.
"The interview's in like ten hours. I gotta be there." Sam said. Chris leaned her head against the window. She never had a family but she was starting to feel sisterly protecting urges and...she didn't want to see him go where she couldn't be sure he was safe.
"Whatever, I'll take you home." Dean was clearly disappointed but turned around to head to Stanford. Chris clicked off the flashlight and the road the rest of the way in darkness and silence.
'Highway to hell' the radio sung.
An hour of silence later, Dean pulled to a stop outside of Sam's apartment building. Sam grabbed his bag and stopped at Dean's window. Chris climbed into the front seat so all three siblings stares at the other.
"Call me if you find him?" Sam asked. Dean silently nodded.
"Sure...Sammy." Chris said quietly. She felt tears in her eyelashes and cursed herself for being a girl, so much emotional.
"And maybe I can meet up with you later?" Sam said hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, he would miss them a little to.
Dean nodded, "Yeah, alright." Sam started walking up the drive. "Sam?" Dean called after him. Sam stopped and looked at his older brother and sister sitting in that shiny black impala...the only home he mostly knew most of his life, plus one being his sister. "You know, the three of us...we made a hell of a team back there." Chris half way managed a weary smile.
"Yeah," Sam said quietly, watching as the car carrying his family, his blood, disappear around the corner.
A few minutes of silence passed, "Do you think he'll be alright?" Chris asked quietly, only looking forward.
Dean glanced at her, "He'll be fine."
"And we're just going to leave and not know when the next time we'll see him?" She looked at him helplessly.
Dean breathed out frustrated, "No, we're not." Then he made a highly illegal u-turn back to the apartments.
They made it back to the apartments in half the time it took to get away. "Dean!" Chris grabbed the door handle. Three floors up, dark smoke of a house fire wavered out a half opened window.
"That Sammy's apartment!" Dean and Chris skipped multiple steps racing up the stairs past people racing down.
Chris rammed her shoulder into the apartment door, not caring about the pain as it easily opened. It had t been locked. Black smoke was steadily building on the ceiling of the apartment.
"Jess! No!" Sam was screaming from the bedroom. Dean pulled ahead, kicking down the bedroom door with enough force it almost fell off the hinges.
"Sam!" Dean screamed. Sam was on the bed screaming his head off, his arms raised above his head in a defensive position.
"Christ," Chris gaped at Jessica pinned to the ceiling by her stomach and burning alive. Ignoring his screams, Dean yanked Sam off the bed and shoved him at me. Only by grabbing an arm and dragging him did the two managed to get him out before the apartment blew.
Several minutes later, multiple fire trucks were pulling up and rushing towards the building. Chris wrapped her arms around her stomach with her hair shielding her face as she stood beside the car. Sam was halfway hidden from others by the open trunk, loading a shotgun from the hidden arsenal.
Dean stepped up beside her, looking at Sam whose face was full of anger and grief. It was a heartbreaking sight. Sam took a deep breath and then tossed the shotgun into the trunk.
"We got work to do." Sam said, slamming the trunk closed.
Half a week later and six hundred miles away, two tents were set up in the deep Blackwater Ridge Lost Creek, Colorado woods. In one of the tents, two men in their late twenties were battling each other on their handheld game systems.
"Dude, your cheating!" The black man named Brad complained loudly.
The white man known as Gary didn't even look up from where he was playing his game. "No, you just suck." They were so into their game, they didn't even notice a slight growl like no animal or man coming from outside.
In the second tent was another white man in his late twenties with black hair. He was smiling into his video phone. "Hey Haley, day six, were still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe so don't worry, okay?" Talk to you tomorrow." Tommy sent the message to his younger sister back home.
In the first tent, Brad closed his game and started standing up. It took two seconds for Gary to realize he was leaving. "Hey, where ya goin'? My moment of victory!"
"Nature calls." And then Brad zipped up the tent behind him. As he was...busy...beside a tree, Brad cautiously looked behind him as he heard a stick crack. Believing it was nothing more than a raccoon or such passing through, he returned to what he was doing.
That was when a deep growl like nothing he'd ever heard before sounded above him. Then the most unimaginable pain he'd ever experience caused him to scream in agony as he was eaten alive.
In their separate tents, Tom and Gary looked up from want they were doing at the scream that spoke of agonizing pain and helplessness. In the first tent, "Brad?" Gary called out cautiously.
In the second tent, Tom sat up. Hearing nothing, he called out, "Gary, what's going on?"
But Gary didn't answer. He was sneaking his head out to see where Brad had gone or better yet, what had happen to cause such a scream. But there was nothing more than the inky blackness that came with camping in the deep woods away from all civilization...where nobody could hear your screams. But apparently it wasn't nothing as he supposed, a deep growl coming from above him. Gary tensed, feeling that fight or flight reflex we all seem to have, slowly looked up. His screams also pierced the night as he was forcibly dragged from his tent.
Realizing something horrible was out there, Tommy quickly turned off his lantern. His hope was that whatever was out there, wouldn't realize he was still in there. Tom's breath picked up, starting to sweat in fear and panic. Something was out there clearly circling his tent at unknown speeds. Then absolute silence.
It was when Tom finally started to breath again, something with extra sharp claws slashed open the back of his tent. Only this time, nobody would be able to hear his screams of panic.
Currently a hundred miles and a few days later, a shiny 1967 Chevy Impala could be seen driving through the streets. Driving was the eldest brother Dean. Sam was sleeping in the passenger seat. Chris was laid back reading a book she swiped from the Stanford library to keep her occupied in the back seat.
It was morning and they'd already been back on the road for a couple of hours. Chris looked up startled when Sam jerked awake. 'Poor Sammy', she thought. He hadn't been getting much sleep ever since the night his girlfriend died. He barely got a few hours in rather they were on the road or in a motel.
Sammy blinked the sleep out of his eyes. Chris ignoring Dean's loud music leaned forward. "You alright?" Her chin near his shoulder looking up at him.
Sam swallowed, looking disoriented as he nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Another nightmare?" Dean easily guessed. He'd been having nightmares every time he tried to sleep. "You wanna drive a while." Chris looked at Dean in disbelief while Sam looked on in grinning shock. He was offering someone to drive his baby?
Sam laughed, "You know, your whole like, you have never asked me that."
"You to?" Chris exclaimed. "I asked if I could drive once and he nearly crashed the car!" Sam laughed again as Dean scowled.
"Just thought you might want to, never mind."
Sam shook his head calmly down, "Look man, you're worried about me. I get it and thank you. But I'm perfectly okay."
Chris sighed, "If you say so." She muttered, leaning back again in her seat.
Sam grabbed the map from the glove box. "So where are we?"
"We are just outside of Grand Junction." Dean announced. Sam folded up the map while Chris closed her book. She tossed it aside to get rid of later.
"You know what?" Sam said. "Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."
"Sammy." Chris sighed. He'd been saying that every few hours since they left.
"Sam, we dug around her for a week. We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica-" Dean stopped.
"We gotta find dad first." Sam finished.
"Which is why we're going to Blackwater Ridge." Chris stated, spending this time to sharpen her knife.
"This thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence." Dean said firmly. "Dad will have the answers. He'll know what to do." Dean was apparently dad's little soldier.
"It's weird though." Sam looked in confusion at the map. "This Blackwater Ridge."
Dean glanced over, "What about it?" Chris glanced up.
"There's nothing there. It's just woods. Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?"
"Maybe there's a case." Chris suggested. "Or he's meeting us there."
"Maybe." Sam said quietly as they passed a sign that said welcome to Lost Creek Colorado national forest. Like all small towns, it wasn't to hard to find places. Especially since it was surrounded by woods so to the ranger station they went.
Chris was flipping through a pamphlet she snagged from the front desk. Sam was looking at the 3D map. "So blackwater ridge is pretty remote." Dean was busy looking at a picture on the wall.
"It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place." Chris glanced up before turning back to the history of the area.
"Dude," Dean interrupted. "Check out the size of this freaking bear." Chris tossed the pamphlet down and came over, that looked so much more interesting.
"And a dozen or more Grizzlies in the area. It's no nature hike, that for sure." Sam said. Chris gave a low whistle, staring at the picture of a bear that had to be six hundred pounds at least.
"You kids aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?" Chris wasn't the only one that whirled around in surprise. She resisted grabbing the knife from her knee high combat boots.
There was a few seconds of silence before Sam came up with their lie, "Oh, no sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper."
Dean faked a grin raising a fist, "Recycle, man."
Chris smiled innocently, "We just really want to do good, this paper is like over half our grade."
"Bull." The ranger said. Chris glanced to her brothers, eyes widening a bit. It wasn't often that a lie she went along with got called out, even less within a few seconds. "Your friends with that Haley girl, right?"
Another few seconds of silence passed, "Yes." Dean agreed, going along with it. Alright, story changed from students to friends with whoever Haley is, Chris thought. Dean continued, "We are, Ranger," he stopped to check the name tag. "Wilkinson."
"Well I will tell you exactly what we told her." The ranger said. "Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from blackwater until the twenty fourth so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it."
"Of course not." Chris agreed as Dean nodded.
"You tell that girl to quit worrying. I'm sure her brother's just fine." Ranger said.
"We will." Dean agreed. He couldn't help himself and smirked. "Well, that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?"
"That's putting it mildly." The ranger said. Chris smirked, that sounded like her kind of girl.
"Actually," Dean started. "You know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brothers return date." The ranger eyed their group of three suspiciously, knowing the permit had personal information on it. Dean raised his eyebrow charmingly. Chris grinned imp like, hands innocently clasped together to the center of her chest. Sam twitched his lip in a grin fashion.
Outside, Dean laughed loudly as they walked to the impala holding the permit tightly in his fist. "You planning on doing something with that permit other then congratulating yourself on getting it?" Chris asked as they reached the car.
"Other than cruising for a hook up or something?" Sam scowled.
"What do you mean?" Dean seemed confused. Chris get the cold metal of the handle as she pulled her door open.
"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why are we even talking to this girl."
Dean looked at him in disbelief. "I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?"
There was only a slight hesitation, "What?" Sam demanded as his two elder siblings stared him down.
Cautiously, Chris asked, "Sam, are you alright?"
"I'm fine already!" Sam snapped. "Let's just go." He climbed in angrily slamming his door. Chris scowled before climbing the back seat. Dean sighed and started up the car.
"Here we go." Dean said in hour later leaving the photocopy shop. He passed out our new ranger id's, poor picture quality included with fake last names.
Making it to Haley's house was harder than you would think in a small town where we had the address but what could you do. Haley Collins ended up being a woman with thick red hair and brown eyes.
Dean was closest to the door and made the introductions, "You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam, and Christina." Chris forced an innocent smile while seething at the use of her full first name. "We're Rangers with the park service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask you a few questions about your brother Tommy."
Haley hesitated, as any single woman with two muscular men and an unknown woman between them would. "Let me see some ID." She finally decided on. Cautious and not to trusting of strangers, good, Chris thought. But not good if she didn't trust enough to give them the information they needed.
Dean as the closest, pulls out his fake ranger ID. Chris tensed, relieved when Haley didn't notice. Dean had introduced himself as Dean but his fake ID had Samuel Cole on it. "Come on in." Haley opened the door, stepping aside to let them in. It was a quaint little place. Chris let her eyes quickly scan the room, habit and barely a flicker of the eye to anyone watching, searching out all possible exits or weapons that could be used. "That yours?" Haley was looking out the door at the impala.
"Yeah," Dean grinned, always happy with anything to do with his baby.
"Nice car." Haley smirked, closing the door. And that was how Chris knew Dean bonded with their possible victim's sister. Haley led the three siblings into their kitchen where the youngest, Ben Collins-age sixteen, was eating.
Sam started with they're questions, "So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?"
Haley was keeping her hands busy, rearranging the kitchen stuff again. Chris was used to it, she could remember her old friend Brooke the first time they moved in together doing something similar. "He checks in every day by cell." Haley explained. "He emails, photos, stupid little videos. We haven't heard anything in over three days."
"Well you know he's deep in the woods. There's a high possibility of no cell reception." Chris said.
Haley shook her head, "He's got a satellite phone too."
"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?" Dean suggested.
This was when Ben spoke for the first time in a snappish tone, "He wouldn't do that." Chris bristled at the time but said nothing, it was understandable with their brother missing.
Haley takes Ben's empty plate away as he looks down. "Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."
Chris' lips twitched in a somewhat grin, "I think I know how you feel." After all, the Collin family was like a mirror image of the Winchester's. Both had in some way lost both parents with three siblings looking out for each other, two boys and a girl. The difference was their lifestyles. The Collins were normal while the Winchester's were freaks.
"Can I see the pictures he sent you." Sam asked. Maybe Tommy had caught something that others wouldn't first notice. Haley nodded and opened the laptop sitting on the table. "That's Tommy." She clicked through the pictures before starting the video.
"Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe so don't worry. Talk to you tomorrow." Chris narrowed her eyes. There had been something there. She didn't know what but it had barely been a flicker her eyes just managed to catch between blinks.
"Well we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing." Dean said. Dad might be out there after all.
"Then maybe I'll see you there." Haley said. The Winchester's shared a look.
"Haley, are you sure, I heard it's dangerous out there." Chris said cautiously.
"Looks." Haley said firmly. "I can't sit around here. So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning and I'm gonna find Tommy myself." She said it so firmly that Chris couldn't argue with it. She understood it would be pointless and she would just do it anyway.
Dean repeated Chris' words. "I think I know how you feel." He would be doing the same if he lost a sibling out in those woods.
Sam was still mulling over the emails, "Hey, do you mind forwarding those to me."
At a local bar, Chris sipped her beer. She was never an avid drinker but made it sort of tradition. She would drink one during the research of a hunt. One beer wouldn't get her tipsy enough to mess up and get her information wrong.
Sam was much faster at researching them Chris. When she had finished her shower before coming to the bar, he already had everything while Chris may had needed another hour to do so. Sam explained what he found while the three siblings sat at a small round table against the wall. "So Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers mostly. But still, this past April, two homers were missing out there. They were never found." Sam flipped open John's journal. Chris stared at it. Sure, she had a jointly, but this was different. This one belonged to the dad she gave up on meeting by the time she was seventeen.
"Any before that?" Dean asked, snapping Chris front her thought.
"Yeah," Sam pulled out newspaper clippings, setting them in the center of the table as he talked. "In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack."
Chris snorted, "Someone out of all these people had to have survived it it was just a grizzly compared to something else."
"Someone did." Sam said. Chris choked on her beer. "But I'll get to him later. The point is it happens like clockwork, every twenty three years. Check this out, I got it from that guy Tommy's videos." He pulled it up on his laptop, replaying the video.
"I know I saw something that time." Chris hissed, having been paying more attention to what was going on behind Tommy.
Sam replayed it in frames to show it clearly. "That's three frames. That a fraction of a second. Whatever this thing is, it can move." A shadow just outside the tent was seen running part in the video.
Dean hit Sam's shoulder, "Told you there was something going on around here." Chris smirked into her beer at her brothers.
"Now back to what I said before." Sam turned the conversation. "In fifty nine, one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."
The kid was now in his early sixties with a cigarette hanging from his lip. "Look ranger, I don't know why you're asking me this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-"
"Grizzly?" Sam interrupted. "That's what attacked them?" Shaw seems to hesitate slowly nodded.
"The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?" Dean asked but Shaw looked away. "Or the people that went missing this year?"
Chris eased herself into the foot rest in front of Shaw's chair. She looked him dead in the eye and said, "If you could help us, there's a chance we could stop what is happening, and stop people from being hurt like you were."
Shaw looked down in his lap doubtful, "I don't see what difference it would make. Nobody would believe me, you wouldn't either."
Sam put a hand on his sister's shoulder and leaned over a bit. "Mr. Shaw, what did you see?"
Shaw hesitated before saying with wide eyes in remembrance, a frightened whisper of a voice, "Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It his to well. I heard it though. A road like...no man or animal I ever heard."
"It came at night? Got inside your tent?" Sam guessed at his nod to the first question.
"It got inside our cabin." Shaw corrected fearfully. "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break a door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that. I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming." Unlocked it? Then it couldn't be something that can go straight through you like a ghost. Why bother opening the door when you can go straight through the wall.
"It killed them." Sam said, no tact or caution as if it may possible be a touchy subject.
"Dragged them off into the night. While if left me alive-" Shaw stopped to shake his head. "Been asking myself that ever this. Did leave me this though." Shaw unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it down his shoulder to reveal three long and very thick, healed over time, scars...claws bigger than any bear could have. "There's something even in this woods. It was some sort of a demon."
Later that night; Dean, Sam, and Chris were walking back out after getting their motel room for the night, complete with two twin beds and a cot. "Well it's probably not a ghost or even a demon." Chris commented.
"Right, they would just go through the wall." Dean nodded.
"So it's probably something else, something corporeal." Sam said. Chris snorted with laughter. Just something about the word 'corporeal' it always sounded funny to her.
Dean seemed to share her sentiments, "Corporeal? Excuse me, professor." He joked.
"Shut up." Sam said with no real bite. "So. What do you think?"
"Well we know it has huge claws, and it moves faster than the eye can see apparently." Chris said, mind pulling up all creatures she knew as a possibility.
"Could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog." Those two had been the top of her mental list. "Whatever we're taking about, we're talking about a creature and its corporeal." He said in a mocking undertone. "Which means we can kill it."
In the cover of the darkness out in the parking lot, Dean popped open their arsenal with a shotgun. He started piling guns into one of the empty duffle bag they kept for things like this.
Whispering as if someone was listening in, "We cannot let that Haley girl go out there." Yeah, like they could stop her with her brother missing.
"What are we gonna tell her?" Dean scoffed."That she can go into the woods because of a big scary monster."
"Yeah." Sam said firmly. Chris shook her head, no way was someone going to sit around and wonder if they're family was alive.
Dean looked up, "Her brother's missing Sam. She's not gonna just sit this one out. Now we go with her, protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend." Dean pulled the now filled duffle out of the trunk.
"Finding dad's not enough, now we've gotta babysit too." Sam scowled, nearly clipping Chris when he slammed the trunk shut.
"It's kinda in the job description in these situations." Chris sighed, rubbing at the crease forming between her eyebrows.
"Let just go." Dean huffed, throwing the duffle at Sam and storming off to the motel.
The next morning was uneventful and much quieter than normal. Everybody seemed sullen until Dean parked the car on the trail leading into the woods. Haley was arguing with a man while Ben stood to the side, heavy packs on their backs and the man holding a shotgun over his shoulder. Compared to the single duffle bag they had, Chris had a feeling they would seem sorely underpacked. Oh well.
Haley smiled shaking her head as she saw Sam, Dean, and Chris climbing out. Sam grabbed their bag. Chris subtly rolled her ankle to feel the cold metal of the knife in her boot.
"You guys got room for two more?" Dean asked coming up to the group of hikers.
"Wait, you want to come with us?" Haley said surprised, as if they were telling the truth yesterday.
"Who are these guys?" Roy scoffed, glaring hard as the three strangers. Chris had a deep feeling in the pit of her gut that she really wouldn't like this guy.